Karl Bade THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE…
…with LOOSE FUR, which is Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche with multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke. Drag City was smart enough to post the video for “Hey Chicken” at You Tube. Glide magazine hooks you up with some guilt-free MP3s of “Hey Chicken” and “The Ruling Class” from the band's upcoming album, Born Again in the U.S.A. RELATED: Another label cool enough to embrace YouTube is Matador, which is running a contest for people to make videos for Pretty Girls Make Graves.
MUSICAL TIMEWASTER: Type in the lyrics, then Let Them Sing It For You.
JENNY LEWIS talked to NPR's All Things Considered about her album with the Watson Twins, Rabbit Fur Coat, noting again that she did not intend to write a bunch of songs about God: “I guess that's what happens when you're about to turn 30… I think being broken-hearted is not the only thing you want to sing about.” There's streaming talk and music at NPR, but better still, you can legally download 11 of the 12 album tracks from Team Love. The exception is the all-indie-star cover of the Traveling Wilburys' “Handle With Care.”
BEST BUY had a co-op deal with some indie labels that put Arcade Fire, Cat Power, Danger Doom, Antony & the Johnsons, Atmosphere, New Pornographers, and Broken Social Scene on sale for the low, low price of $7.99. Small stores and non-participating labels are fuming, with labels noting they did not know about the loss leader pricing, as they are prevented from price-point negotiations under 2002 price fixing legislation.
DEERHOOF guitarist John Dieterich talks to PopMatters about learning to play bigger venues by opening for Wilco.
GOLDEN SMOG, which is Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Soul Asylum's Dan Murphy, Big Star's Jody Stephens and the Jayhawks' Gary Louris, Marc Perlman and Kraig Johnson, have an album scheduled for July — their first release in eight years. Tweedy side projects just seemed to pop on the 'net yesterday.
THE TORONTO SCENE: The New York Times is running an in-depth feature on the whole Broken Social Scene-Feist-Metric-etc. creative collective and more, which you can read today, registration free. m3 online is killing music with downloads of Feist's “Mushaboom,” remixed by the Postal Service and her cover of Nina Simone's “Sea Lion Woman.” Fellow BSSer Jason Collett, whose Idols of Exile is generally acclaimed, will be playing SXSW and has “We All Lose one Another” available to stream and download via the SXSW site.
NICK CAVE: The rocker-turned-screenwriter was forced to rework part of his new Australian western movie, The Proposition when he realized it was not as brutal as Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.
THE UNDERTOW ORCHESTRA — David Bazan (Pedro the Lion, Headphones), Vic Chesnutt, Mark Eitzel (American Music Club), and Will Johnson (Centro-matic), plus Centro-matic's Scott Danbom on keys and violin — passed through Ames, IA the other night. Bradley's Almanac is killing music with MP3s of their gig at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Do you think they played in the room where they keep the Cezanne?
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: Is that Alan Rickman fronting the Cure on the obvious choice for Friday?
DAN BEJAR: The New York Times thinks that the New Pornographer and Destroyer walks the edge of self-sabotage, not only with his near-impentetrable lyrics, but also in his ambivalent attitude toward the NPs. Destroyer's acclaimed new release Rubies is streaming from Merge Records.
OF MONTREAL: Brooklyn Vegan points you to So Much Silence technically killing music with MP3s of the band's recent appearance on KCRW. The band has a legal download and stream of “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games” up at the SXSW site.
FIERY FURNACES: Both Stereogum and *Sixeyes have leaks from Bitter Tea, which comes out in April. Seems like the fans like these better than the album the brother-sister duo did with their grandmother.
MORRISSEY claims he was questioned by the FBI and British intelligence after speaking out against the American and British governments: “They were trying to determine if I was a threat to the government, and similarly in England. But it didn't take them very long to realise that I'm not.”
ARCTIC MONKEYS made history at the NME Awards with the hat trick of winning Best British Band, Best New Band and Best Track. NME has posted the full award list as well. You can hear their album in its entirety via AOL Music.
BAY CITY ROLLERS frontman Les McKeown may have escaped drug conspiracy charges, but not the boos of disappointed fans last weekend after he arrived 90 minutes late for the gig and forgot lyrics to the band's hit songs.
BRADGELINA: Jolie has come a long way from the J.C. Penney catalog to funding sewing classes in Sierra Leone. You know, the sort who causes Pitt to say to adoptive son Maddox that Jennifer Aniston is “nobody.” Even Lindsay Lohan admits she has a girl-crush on Jolie: “'Uh, everyone does. She's Angelina.” Exactly.
LINDSAY LOHAN, meanwhile, is shaping up to be Hollywood's biggest maneater, having already been linked to Colin Farrell, Joaquin Phoenix, Jude Law, Wilmer Valderrama, Jared Leto and a host of others, perhaps including Match Point star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. Gawker has a bit more, but before those pixels dry, there's gossip about Li-Lo and Olympic gold medalist Shaun White.
NOW SHOWING: The two biggest releases today, the animated Doogal, and Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion, don't have enough reviews to register on the Tomatometer, which suggests they aren't being shown to many critics (drw your own inference). The third wide release, Running Scared, is a crime drama that will give Paul Walker a chance to show it wasn't just the dogs that made Eight Below tops last weekend, but it scores only 34% Rotten on the Tomatometer. However, Roger Ebert sorta likes it: “Running Scared goes so far over the top, it circumnavigates the top and doubles back on itself; it's the Mobius Strip of over-the-topness. I am in awe.” And it was directed by Wayne Kramer, so maybe it's not terrible.
MADONNA is downsizing from big concert halls to more “intimate” club venues for her latest tour. There's the easy joke about Madge's generally declining album sales, but to be fair, her last tour did just fine.
JACKO: Michael Jackson’s fabled llamas are gone… but as Jacko's fortunes deteriorate, what fate awaits the rest of his menagerie?
BOY GEORGE ridicules same-sex “weddings,” insisting marriage is an outdated institution that has no place in modern or gay culture.
BRITNEY SPEARS: A Socialite's Life reports that Spenderline's mystery woman is actress-singer Sandy Lakdar. Also, some claim that Spederline “made a beeline” for Jessica Simpson at an L.A. club, though reps for each insist they're “just friends.” Meanwhile pregnancy rumors continue to swirl around the pop tart, even as she can't seem to find her wedding ring.
TERRY GILLIAM talks to the BBC about upcoming projects and how Spamalot helps his pension fund. He is also philosophical about movie piracy: “It's hard for me to worry about the studios losing money. I'm not very sympathetic to their money problems, because they certainly haven't been sympathetic to mine… If you're going to pirate, though, make sure the quality's good. Have some respect for what you're pirating!”
KATE MOSS is reportedly returning to live in Britain, which suggests the supposedly sober supermodel does not expect drug charges from Scotland Yard.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Holmes is reportedly spending hours a day “worshipping” at the Scientology Center in Hollywood, where she is allegedly told by leading Scientology members she is constantly surrounded by the “traumatised spirits of aliens.” Meanwhile, as Life & Style continues to report the pair is all-but-split, the mag's corporate sibling, In Touch Weekly, doesn’t buy it. Plus, Holmes has apparently decided college is not for her, as her dad is trying to get his deposit back from Columbia University.
DAMON WAYANS cannot trademark the “N” word.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH A NAKED WOMAN? The AP also asks whether the Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair is “arty and fun, or does it say something about sexual politics in Hollywood?” Probably both, and no moreso than the headline of the AP/CNN story.
IRAQ: The Belmont Club rounds up blog reaction from the US, Iraq and Egypt to the aftermath of the destruction the dome of the Shiite Al Askari Mosque in Samarra, concluding that “while the situation threatens to slide into civil war it's not there yet.” Since that post, Iraqi blogger Zayed posts that, So far, there has been no retaliation by any Sunni groups, which is obviously a positive development. Publius Pundit looks at the Shia bloc's exploitation of the incident, also noting that “the finger points directly at Zarqawi, who is using the attack as a last ditch effort to prevent the forming of a new government.” If Iraqis come to the same conclusion, there may be a silver lining to this tragic episode.
CARTOON JIHAD: William Bennett and Alan Dershowitz don't agree on many things, but they do agree that: “Over the past few weeks, the press has betrayed not only its duties but its responsibilities… To put it simply, radical Islamists have won a war of intimidation. They have cowed the major news media from showing these cartoons. The mainstream press has capitulated to the Islamists — their threats more than their sensibilities.”
PORTS IN A STORM: Dubai Ports World has agreed to postpone its plans to take over management of US ports “while it engages in further consultations with the Bush administration and, as appropriate, congressional leadership and relevant port authorities to address concerns over future security arrangements.” Couldn't have seen that coming a mile away.
QUANTUM COMPUTER produces an answer without actually running, which will turn up in a future movie as the reason the computer that is about to launch a nuclear strike cannot be turned off.
WILLY THE HOG and NICOLE THE BONGO are finally caught canoodling in a photo released by the Los Angeles Zoo.
FUGITIVE CROCODILE is hunted by police in Australia's biggest city.
PET HOARDING: In Florida, officials are seeking to remove nearly 100 cats and dogs from a mobile home that was caked with feces and garbage and rats the size of Nerf footballs roamed freely.
MUTANT CHICKENS WITH RAZOR-SHARP TEETH: Just in case you missed them.
FELIX THE CAT reaches into his magic bag of tricks and pulls out… a giant tarantula!
