Karl 
THE DEADBEAT CLUB: In this beautifully-shot sepiatone video, the B-52s remember their days in Athens, GA, “going down to Allen's for a 99-cent beer… and the jukebox playin' real loud — “96 Tears.” You can see ? and the Mysterians play that classic at the second link.
NEW RELEASES: Albums from Outkast, Starsailor, What Made Milwaukee Famous and Jennifer O'Connor are among those streaming in full this week from AOL. The San Francisco Bay Guardian writes that “There is much about WMMF that harkens back to a time, say, the ’80s, when gimmick wasn't enough. The age of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and Squeeze, when good melodies and witty lyrics were par for the course.” Kasabian is streaming its latest from its MySpace page. Omaha's Cursive, which draws on a wide range of influences without sounding like any of them, is doing the same with Happy Hollow. The new album from Lambchop is streaming from Merge Records. Here's a free download from Jason Molina of the “Magnolia Electric Co. Sufjan Stevens' label puts ou the debut from My Brightest Diamond, which has four tracks and two downloads up on MySpace. P.F. Sloan comes out with a star-studded comeback (there may still be a stream at the second link). There is a reunion album from Aussie punk pioneers Radio Birdman. And, as noted here over the past week or so, there is the new album from The Mountain Goats.
PRIMAL SCREAM bassist Mani talks to PopMatters about the band's return to Stones-y rawk on Riot City Blues. There's a cross-section of their recent stuff streaming via the Hype Machine.
THE GRATES, who recently made NPR's “Song of the Day” with the “manic pop energy” of “19-20-20,” offer money-saving tour tips at PopMatters. You can stream more from the band via the Hype Machine.
TOUCH & GO founder Corey Rusk is profiled in the Chicago Tribune as the label turns 25. “He's created a successful label that is not based on exploiting bands, and that makes him unique in the music business,” says Santiago Durango, a former Big Black guitarist who is now an attorney with the State Appellate Defender's office in Ottawa, IL. Santiago was also in my law school class and gave my Mom a copy of the The Rich Man's 8-Track Tape, just because he liked the idea of anyone's mom liking Big Black.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: Feargal Sharkey ends up scaling the speakers during this Undertones live take on “Teenage Kicks,” which was one of legendary UK DJ John Peel's all-time favorite songs.
KILLING THE TOP 200 SONGS OF THE 1960's: Blogs Are For Dogs has posted the entire list as MP3s.
BROTHERS AND SISTERS: At My Old Kentucky Blog, Dodge writes that this eight-piece band is “(f)or fans of CSN&Y, The Mamas & The Papas, The Byrds, Beach Boys, The Band and The Partridge Family.” Judging from “One Night” and “Without You” (not Nilsson), I would have to agree.
THEY WERE GOOD, THEN: A Last.fm user has posted a school paper on why some bands lose their status amongst fans as soon as they become notoriously popular.
CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN: Harp magazine has a blurb on the second annual Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven campout in the “spaghetti-western setting of Pioneertown, California.”
MAD MEL UPDATE: Mel Gibson has reprotedly declined (for now) the invite from Rabbi David Baron to deliver a public apology on Yom Kippur at the entertainment industry's biggest synagogue. Gibson's rep says Mel is too engrossed in rehab to bring the invite to his attention. Meanwhile, the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. is investigating the leak of Gibson's arrest report, instead of the fact that his anti-Semitic tirade was going to be covered up.
TOM HANKS told Alex Wong, frontman of the indie band the Animators, “You look like one of those pedicab drivers!” But just because he's muscular, not because he's Asian. And because Hanks is a beloved fixture in Hollywood as Mel Gibson never was.
THE McCARTNEYS: Sir Paul has reportedly offered estranged wife Heather Mills £50 million to remain silent about their marriage.
BRITNEY SPEARS made a surprise appearance at the Teen Choice Awards to introduce Spenderline's rap act. The AP claimed that K-Fed wasn't half-bad, which is true; it was all bad.
MADONNA will not be probed by German prosecutors, but she is rumored to be targeted by Russian gangsters who are threatening to kidnap her and her kids.
OSAMA BIN LADEN is obsessed with Whitney Houston, according to the terror-master's former sex slave. So much so that he would be willing to ignore his belief that music was evil, and break his color rule to make her one of his wives.
COURTNEY LOVE looked fine entering an L.A. hotspot, but coming out, not so much.
BRADGELINA: Family and friends fear that Pitt and Jolie will not be together for that much longer, according to a variety of dubious sources.
BROOKE BURKE and DAVID CHARVET are engaged and expecting.
PENELOPE CRUZ has spoken out against teen mags for promoting unhealthy role models among young girls.
HARVEY PEKAR gets a good review for his latest graphic novel, Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story, in the Buffalo News.
MORE CARTOONS CENSORED: Turner Broadcasting is scouring more than 1,500 classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including old favorites Tom and Jerry, “The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo, to edit out scenes that glamorize smoking. So I guess we will not see Fred, Barney and Wilma flacking for Winston again in the near future.
BRITISH AIR TERROR: Eleven people were charged Monday in the alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners, and investigators found bomb-making equipment and martyrdom videos, authorities said.
GERMAN TERROR PLOT: The disclosure that a botched plot to bomb two German trains last month involved a 21-year-old Lebanese man has rattled a country that has so far avoided such attacks. Prosecutors said Lebanon's military intelligence agency offered “decisive” information that led to the arrest of Youssef Mohamed E.H., as police mount a massive manhunt for a second suspect. Johannes Schmalz, head of Germany's FBI: “People thought for the longest time that Germany would be safe because we didn't send troops to Iraq. This presumption is wrong. The enemy of violent Islamists is the Western world as a whole.”
IRAQ: Although Omar at ITM argues that war conditions in Baghdad would justify barring religious pilgrimages after snipers killed 20 people and wounded 300 others in Baghdad on Sunday, even The New York Times had to note that last year, more than 950 died after rumors of a suicide bomber caused a stampede on a bridge packed with pilgrims. Moreover, pilgrimages last to Karbala in September and to Ashura in February went off without major incident. Meanwhile, Coalition forces captured two men suspected of running all death squad cell activity in three Baghdad neighborhoods.
IRAN, in an apparent violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty, has denied UN inspectors access to its underground nuke facility at Natanz, among other signs of Iranian defiance. Despite bankrolling terror groups liek Hezbollah and reportedly devoting three factories to mass-producing the sophisticated roadside bombs found in Iraq, you will not find the sort of outrage from Europe or the UN that you see, for example, when Israel responds to Hezbollah.
EAT AT HITLER'S! A new restaurant in India's financial hub, named after Adolf Hitler and promoted with posters showing the German leader and Nazi swastikas, has infuriated the country's small Jewish community. Gosh, I can't imagine why.
SWEDISH NEWS got interesting when hardcore group sex could be seen playing on one of the many video screens over the anchor's shoulder.
TODAY'S STAGED MIDEAST PHOTO comes courtesy of the BBC, in a story about dangers faced by Lebanon returnees, including a family discovering an unexploded bomb in their home: “The shell is huge, bigger than the young boy pushed forward to stand reluctantly next to it while we get our cameras out and record the scene for posterity…”
NSA EAVESDROPPING: Last week, I noted that even law profs who think the program is illegal were unimpressed with the federal district court opinion striking it down. Over the weekend The New York Times noticed the same thing. This apparently prompted Harvard's Laurence Tribe to criticize the opinion while suggesting the judge should not be criticized in the press. The U of W's Ann Althouse then takes it to Tribe.
PEEWIT the LAPWING is learning to walk again, after a compound fracture to his right knee.
A CHICKEN was the bridesmaid at a wedding in Bismarck, ND, but neither the bride nor groom had cold feet.
IF A 120-LB. DOG doesn't want a bath, don't force the issue.
A BABY ELEPHANT, as-yet unamed, made her debut at the St. Louis Zoo. Cute Dumbo-esque photo at the link.
