Karl 
XTC is releasing a nine-disc box set of rarities and outtakes titled The Fuzzy Warbles Collectors Album in October. Frontman Andy Partridge told Billboard.com: “You can kind of see why I just didn't want these songs collecting dust and going unheard. We threw away better material than most bands made a career out of.” Let's celebrate with “Generals and Majors,” which was shot at the last minute after a meeting with Virgin Records mogul Richard Branson, who is seated top left at the table. The video links I posted in April are still good, too.
THE BEACH BOYS: By popular demand, Aquarium Drunkard has reposted a 1967 rehearsal session that includes a selection of BB songs and a cover of “The Letter.” You can also stream the tracks there or via the Hype Machine (where you'll also see a few versions of “Baby, Please Don't Go,” but I digress). BTW, the AD blog also has its own blog radio onsite, which is currently streaming the Stones, Sonic Youth, Television, Guided by Voices, Centro-Matic, Brendan Benson and more…
LOU REED and ANTONY (of Antony & the Johnsons) are staging a “theatrically realized” version of Reed's 1973 concept album, Berlin.
THE SUB POP SINGLES CLUB: Heather Browne is killing music with a selection of the label's monthly singles from 11/88-3/02, including Nirvana, Mudhoney's “Touch Me I'm Sick,” The Flaming Lips cover of “What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love & Understanding,” a Christmas single from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, rare Jesus & Mary Chain, J Mascis playing “Leaving on A Jet Plane” and much more. You can stream them via the Hype Machine, too.
GARY GLITTER: The NFL has effectively banned stadiums from playing Gary Glitter's “Rock and Roll Part 2” following his conviction on child molestation charges. Stereogum notes that the New England Patriots are polling fans for a replacement.
TOUCH & GO is “the only label for Shellac,” according to Steve Albini. With the label's big reunion gig just around the corner (figuratively; literally, it's near the Hideout), here's the mini-documentary, A Brief, Incomplete Story of Touch and Go Records at Twenty-Five Years Old.
THE SADIES continue to promote the cameo-studded In Concert, Vol. 1 (produced by the aforementioned Steve Albini), with a piece in PopMatters that's chock full of “behind the scenes” details and a blurb in Harp magazine, in which Travis Good says that “Having Garth Hudson there… really justified The Last Waltz vibe.” (Thanks, Chromewaves!) And there are still a bunch of Sadies tracks on the Hype Machine.
KRISTIN HERSH of Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave gushes over singer songwriter Vic Chestnutt to JB, the blogger for the Arizona Daily Star and the Tuscon Citizen.
OK GO's treadmill video, featured here and many other places on teh Internets, rated a “behind the scenes” story from Reuters, launching a discussion of the effect of YouTube and MySpace on the music biz. OK Go singer Damian Kulash discloses the treadmill video was his sister's idea.
BEIRUT frontman Zach Condon tells Boston's Edge about not liking indie rock at first. But now his Eastern-European tinged take on the genre is hot enough to put plenty of tracks on the Hype Machine.
PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: The troubled singer, in rehab pending sentencing on drug charges, got a bail exemption to play with Babyshambles at… wait for it… the Get Loaded In The Park festival. He was nice enough to give a shout out to the Priory rehab center and the Metropolitan Police. Doherty was undoubtedly riding high on word that his band signed a multi-album deal with Parlophone worth £1million over the weekend.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Following the ouster from the Paramount lot, Cruise-Wagner Productions has made a deal with a partnership of Daniel Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins; Dwight Schar, chairman of homebuilder NVR Inc.; and Mark Shapiro, president and CEO of Six Flags Inc. While the new partners declined to discuss the details of their arrangement, sources said that Cruise would be required to shoot ads in which he dances with Mr. Six. Just kidding 'bout that. But I'm not kidding that Tinseltown is laughing at the deal, as the reported two-or-three million dollar pact is a fraction of the ten million Cruise got from Paramount. Cruise-Wagner had been seeking at least 100 million in capital from hedge funds.
JESSICA SIMPSON is dating John Mayer, according to People magazine. Earlier on Tuesday, PerezHilton claimed the story world run in the US Weekly, with a non-denial denial from Simpson's rep. US should have blogged the story; now, they lost the scoop. In the meantime, enjoy the pneumatic blonde's laryngitis.
KATE HUDSON-CHRIS ROBINSON BREAK-UPDATE: The supposedly splitting couple plan to spend the Labor Day weekend at the California Speedway, watching the Sony HD 500 NASCAR race.
COLIN FARRELL has obtained an protective order barring alleged stalker Dessarae Bradford from coming within 150 yards of him for three years. The order extends to the actor's 2-year-old son, James, and the boy's mom, model Kim Bordenave. “We're working on getting a restraining order in Ireland as well,” Farrell's attorney, Jeff McFarland, told the judge.
MADONNA may still have a lot of fans, but hubby Guy Ritchie is not one of them.
PAULA ABDUL's red carpet interview at the Emmys is must-see YouTube.
BRADGELINA: Jolie supposedly annoyed Pitt's mother by drinking at five-year-old Maddox's birthday party. And her estranged father, Jon Voight, put his foot in his mouth by wishing Maddox a happy birthday, then referring to 1 1/2-year-old Zahara as “Shakira.” (To be fair, Voight wouldn't be the first guy to have Shakira on his mind.)
JESSICA ALBA cavorts with penguins on the set of Good Luck Chuck. Pic at the link.
LINDSAY LOHAN, who is supposedly trying to shine up her image, is borrowing from the Eva Longoria handbook by giving friends like supermodel Kate Moss sex toys as gifts. After all, nothing says, “classy, A-List actress” like a Deluxe Rampant Rabbit.
BRITNEY SPEARS has finally unloaded her Manhattan condo after two years on the market. She made a million more than she paid, but two million less than the asking price.
THE FRENCH HOTEL's debut album is tanking, bigtime. Pardon me while I savor the schadenfreude. Bwahahahaha!
KATIE COURIC got put on a Photoshop diet by CBS. Mediabistro has the before-and-after pics.
CNN ANCHOR Kyra Phillips and another employee were on a live microphone while talking relationships in the bathroom during a presidential speech.
JON BENET and the MEDIA: WaPo media writer Howie Kurtz asks, “Will every anchor, correspondent and producer who shamelessly hyped the John Mark Karr story now apologize for taking the country for a ride?: And answers himself: “Don't hold your breath.” At the HuffPo, Bob Geiger goes further, claiming that the press obsessed over the suspect John Mark Karr without the most basic elements of proof that freshman journalism students taking Reporting 100 are taught to look for,” adding that this “occurred at the expense of real news affecting real lives,” such as the Mideast, Iraq, and hurricane prevention. The question Geiger does not ask is whether the press has done or would do a better job on any of those stories.
HURRICANE KATRINA, for example, is getting a one-year retrospective from the media that almost never mentions that the press reported inflated body counts, unverified “rapes,” and unconfirmed sniper attacks as fact, damaging rescue efforts at the time and warping public perception of the disaster to this day. The myth that poor blacks were harder hit than whites persists (though clearly the poor have a harder time rebuilding), perpetuated by Spike Lee's new HBO “documentary.” The media has almost entirely ignored that the levee breaches resulted from massive soil failures under concrete storm walls, not from hurricane surges. And largely ignored it when the Army Corps of Engineers admitted responsibility for the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, saying the levees failed because they were built in a disjointed fashion using outdated data. And ignored video evidence that Katrina was the “final straw,” but that the levees might otherwise have collapsed without warning. And perhaps worst of all, the press has largely ignored that the City of New Orleans still has no rebuilding plan for the poor and a completely imaginary evacuation plan for the poor and sick.
IRAQ and the MEDIA: I already spent time Monday noting major media missing the story of progress against sectarian violence in Baghdad. The WaPo finally reported some of that good news, though choosing to bury it in a story focusing instead on violence outside Baghdad. The paper still hasn't checked with the Baghdad morgue to verify the declining death toll, nor do I expect it at this point. Rather, the decrease in violence over the past two months gets reported this way: “Also, a suicide bombing in Baghdad killed 15 and injured 35, capping one of the bloodiest 24 hours in Iraq in recent weeks.” The WaPo then reports that “Nine U.S. soldiers also were killed over the weekend in and around Baghdad, the U.S. military said Monday, making it one of the most lethal weekends for American troops in recent months.” Not that the WaPo ever reported the declining US casualties over the last four months. In short, much like the NYT, the WaPo focuses on whichever timeframe or location will make things look the worst.
MIDEAST CONFLICT in the MEDIA: Here, the media's use of staged and occasionally doctored photos favoring Hezbollah has been well-documented. We're also seeing more reports from Lebanon suggesting that –contrary to the media theme that Hezbollah “won” the battle — Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is coming under growing criticism from every part of the political spectrum, including the Hezbollah itself. With all due respect to the aforementioned Bob Geiger, it could be argued that the media will do less harm to its own rep and to public discourse if it sticks more to getting the Jon Benet case wrong.
INTERSPECIES ADOPTIONS: As there were stories on the subject Monday and Tuesday, it seemed like the right time to link to this gallery of interspecies adoption stories, most of which have been featured here in the past.
MIRACLE TURTLE: Yeah, Chicago is the kind of town where there's a Virgin Mary sighting on a turtle's belly. I feel very blessed.
AN ALLIGATOR turns up in a pond in Concord, NH. Fish and Game Department. Fish and Game Sgt. Bruce Bonenfant rhetorically asked, “What do you do with a 2-foot long alligator?” then answered that finding a pet store that will take it is a good idea, but releasing it into the wild is not.
A RARE TIGER had to be shot while trying to a Florida Zoo, leading to the firing of the handler who left the big cat's cage unlatched.
A HOMING PIGEON ended up 5K miles away from her British home — on a Caribbean island. Lost? I think not; the weather has to be better in the Dutch West Indies.
