THE BEATLES CHRISTMAS RECORDS: It's come to my attention that some people have not heard the records the Fabs used to do as a present to members of their fan club. Each year a little weirder, with their mid-period being almost Pythonesque. WFMU's Beware of the Blog has MP3s, which is naughty and nice.
POWER TOOLS FOR XMAS: Speaking of which, WFMU also has MP3s of Christmas songs played on power tools, not to mention belched carols, plus some Sonic Youth and Klaus Nomi. Giving killing music a whole new holiday meaning.
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: Completing a WFMU trifecta, the blog also has video of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band from German TV in 1972, plus an ad for one of his albums.
THE WHITE STRIPES: In the Seattle Weekly Douglas Wolk interviews himself as to why the band covered Tegan and Sara's “Walking With a Ghost.”
TEGAN AND SARA talk to Varsity about their current album, So Jealous, and their musical influences. You can stream a few — including the aforementioned “Walking With A Ghost” (though I prefer “I Know I Know I Know”) — from My Space, natch.
FOO FIGHTERS will not cover Nirvana, but may cover the Spice Girls. Dave Grohl: “I can't believe that came out of my mouth.”
THE BRUNETTES' Jonathan Bree talks to the Sydney Morning Herald about the power of positive songwriting: “I don't know, I just think it would be really unfulfilling to have to prepare for a gig by making yourself, like, really angry.”
SEASON OF THE LIST: A Reminder compiled a bloggers' poll of the Top 25 Aussie Acts, with plenty of audio linkage. Carl Wilson has a Top Ten a Next Ten and 20 more. Between Thought and Expression rounds up a bunch of lists, including a few — like Blender magazine's Top 50 Albums and Top 100 Songs — that I haven't posted. NPR Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker offers his picks for the best music of the year, with audio links and links to other NPR critics' lists.
LESLIE FEIST gives a wide-ranging interview with Stylus. The whole thing is good, but she has the best description of Broken Social Scene to date: “It’s a blanket fort made of cushions from someone’s couch.” Feist has audio at her redesigned website.
BRIGHT EYES: Between Thought and Expression is killing music with Conor Oberst's version of “Blue Christmas.”
THE FLAMING LIPS will release At War With The Mystics — the follow up to 2003's Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots — on April 3.
KASEY CHAMBERS: The Aussie alt-country singer married her long-term love Shane Nicholson last Saturday.
BOB GELDOF dismissed the deal struck at last week's World Trade talks as “thin gruel” for Africa. And he's not one of Time's Persons of the Year, either.
RYAN ADAMS: An Aquarium Drunkard is killing music with a previously unreleased song that is heard in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown. AAD's radio blog (also at the link) is holiday-themed at the moment — everything from Loretta Lynn and Clarence Carter to the Waitresses and John Denver.
ELTON JOHN got civilly hitched. Contrary to the popular joke ahead of the big day, he did not wear a white wedding dress. Of course, that didn't stop London's Sun from running lookalike photos. The dead giveaway is that Elton could never get away with wearing white.
JACKO: Fox's Roger Friedman claims that Jackson is being investigated by the Department of Justice for lying to get his kids new passports and taking them out of the U.S. illegally.
LUKE WILSON, a/k/a “the Butterscotch Stallion,” and Johnny Knoxville really dove into the spirits of the season.
BEHIND THE GLOBES: The events surrounding the suicide of a colleague causes The New York Times to look at the inner workings of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which appears to be a pretty wacky crew. For example, the HFPA does not represent internationally renowned publications like Le Monde or The Times of London – indeed, it has repeatedly rejected applications from a correspondent for Le Monde, while accepting applications from freelance writers from Bangladesh and South Korea.
WOODY ALLEN is podcasting and doing satellite radio to boost Match Point for the Oscars. But as Steve Pond notes, putting Woody out front risks alienating academy members uncomfortable with his private life.
JESSICA SIMPSON: Star magazine catalogs her rumored dalliances, ensuring that Nick Lachey's PR crew gets the Christmas bonus. And she's the latest name mentioned as a possible Bond girl, now that Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron have passed on it.
GEORGE CLOONEY: Looks like his planned 3 billion Las Ramblas condominium and entertainment project may be scrapped. I suppose being questioned by the feds doesn't help, either. He also wants to be married with six children by next year. I'm not a doctor, but that seems to be biologically unlikely. It also appears that the movie hero can't take a little cold weather. Finally, Faces From the Front has an unorthodox theory about the politics of Three Kings and Syriana. (Warning: Syriana spoilers at that link.)
DAVID LETTERMAN: What is it about him that attracts the totally crazy chicks?
COUPLES: Star magazine lists the tackiest couples of the year… And Tom-Kat didn't win? Janice Min, editor of Us Weekly, rates top splits of 2005 on a fascination scale of 1-100.
RENEE ZELLWEGER and KENNY CHESNEY: Speaking of couples, their insta-marriage was officially voided on Wednesday. Since going their separate ways for good, both have found the going a bit rough.
THE PRISONER is returning for a new series of episodes?
BRADGELINA UPDATE: Jolie just about has all of her furniture moved into Pitt's pad.
JESSICA ALBA was caught buying sexy lingerie at Agent Provocateur. So I guess I'll just have to act surprised on Christmas Eve.
IRAQ: Sunni Arabs and secular Shiites forces Wednesday to decide whether to call for a repeat of parliamentary elections, but the election commission's initial assessment was there were no complaints or incidents that would throw into question the results of the election. At Iraq the Model, Mohammed blogs that high-ranking officials are reaching out to the Accord Front to try to convince them to abandon their threatening attitude and invite them to be part of the new government, but that a likely alliance of the religious Shiites and the Kurds will spell trouble for the future. Meanwhile, an Iraqi court hears more graphic evidence at Saddam's trial of a prison where captors administered electric shocks and used molten plastic to rip the skin off prisoners. The press chose to focus Saddam's grandstanding, including facially bogus claims of torture.
NSA INTELL: U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, resigned from that court, supposedly due to concerns over the “special collection program” authorized by Pres. Bush after 9/11, but John Schmidt, an associate attorney general under President Clinton, and Cass Sunstein, a prominent liberal law professor and author, both offer some support for the program. The New York Observer reports that the decision of The New York Times to move forward with the story — after sitting on it for over a year — was accelerated by the forthcoming publication of its reporter's book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.
NATURE PHOTOS: Check out the winners of National Wildlife magazine's 35th annual photography competition.
A DOUBLE-MOUTHED TROUT is discovered in a Nebraska lake. He'll need a cute name like Blinky.
GORILLAS WITH MENOPAUSE are being studied at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo. I am swelling with local pride.
PETS will not be sold on eBay. The internet site had considered lifting a long-standing ban on the sale of live animals (except fish and snails), but rejected the idea after an outcry from the site's users.
A WANDERING MOOSE is captured in eastern South Dakota, lured by the siren call of the saxophone.