LESLIE FEIST talks to JAM about several topics, including her expanding fanbase: “What used to happen is I'd play a show and I'd look out and see people that I could imagine running into at my usual breakfast spots or in the two-block radius of whatever neighbourhood I lived. And now I look out and see people I would see on the bus or walking through a busy part of downtown where I would never normally go. There are people from all walks of life. And I really love that. It just makes me wonder what little foot soldier of melody found them, in what part of their lives, and their lives are completely different from mine. It makes me really curious.”
JACK WHITE and BRENDAN BENSON will be Raconteurs early next year.
THE UK MUSIC HALL OF FAME is inducting The Who, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Joy Division/ New Order next month.
ELLIOT SMITH: Twenty-two unreleased tracks — including tracks from the sessions for the singer/songwriter's final LP, From a Basement on the Hill — has leaked online. Elliot Smith B-Sides is killing music.
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE: The Toronto Star deconstructs Jon Pareles' review of the band's NYC show from The New York Times. Me-OW!
ALICE COOPER thinks it's the end of the world as we know it, claiming current world affairs match the forecast written in the book of Revelations.
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE: The band's latest, Feels, scores a 9.0 on the Pitchfork and a collective 83 at Metacritic. But the music is a little hard to describe in a blurb, so you may want to stream it for yourself.
LIZ PHAIR: Her new album gets a decent review at Slate, but it's scoring a 58 at Metacritic.
THE ARCTIC MONKEYS do not want to be called the next Libertines or Babyshambles. The band's new single “I Bet You Look Good on The Dance Floor” came out Tuesday and seems set for the Number 1 spot in the UK charts. You can watch them perform it or stream a bunch of AM tunes.
FIERY FURNACES talk to London's Guardian. So does their grandmother.
ABBA: Bjorn and Benny are going to court to dispute writer Carl-Johan Seth's claim about who wrote the script to one of their musicals.
COLDPLAY frontman Chris Martin outbid Bono at a charity gig I mentioned yesterday, paying £20,000 for a lunchbox designed by Michael Stipe. Do you think Apple will get to take it to pre-school?
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: Moss has reportedly barred Doherty from visiting her in rehab. The troubled singer's friend and former manager has denied leaking the video of now-shamed superwaif Moss tooting the white lines. And I never noticed Mick Jones in that footage, but he's apparently there also.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON believes in plastic surgery: “I don't want to be an old hag. There's no fun in that.” Being a shiny cat-person is much better. Scarlett claims to be only 20, but maybe she's really 57.
ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN and the Case of the Hollywood Franchise.
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES is still racking up ratings, but these days, Hollywood is increasingly sensitive to viewer response on the Internet.
DASHTON: Kutcher believes his marriage to Moore is like a sitcom. So do I, but that doesn't mean I'll watch 30 Year Old Grandpa. And Moore takes a clawing at Radar online.
BRITNEY SPEARS feels sad, fat and is probably insecure about her mothering skills, so going back to drinking and smoking is clearly the order of the day.
ROME, the eleven-part series alrady airing on HBO, but the BBC is preparing for a wave of controversy over its decision to broadcast it just outside the family hour. Within ten minutes of the opening credits, the first episode features an explicit sex scene. There are then three more — including a rape — in the same episode. It also has scenes of full frontal nudity, crucifixions, gruesome battles, assassinations, a beheading and a graphic animal sacrifice. It's pretty darn good, but not for tykes.
BRADGELINA UPDATE: Jolie's Beowulf co-star, Ray Winstone, says she and Pitt are getting married. Jennifer Aniston's rep has stopped commenting on Aniston's personal life after pictures of her and Vince Vaughn kissing were published in Britain's News of the World.
KIRSTEN DUNST reportedly was “drunk and obnoxious” at the premiere party for Elizabethtown. Her rep (also Aniston's rep) denies it, though Dunst herself told Jay Leno that she buys champagne at Costco and “maybe in a few months you will see me in a rehab clinic.” Hey, the movie wasn't bad, just a little disappointing.
CAMERON DIAZ says that, had she not become a model and actress, “I really think I would have gotten into some sort of science, like zoology, or you know, oceanography, or something like that.” For sure!
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Andrew Morton, the notorious unauthorized biographer, was in California last week researching an exposé on Cruise and his Scientology pals. He will be interested to learn that Cruise is helping design Holmes' wedding dress.
WILLIAM SHATNER was taken to a hospital from the set of Boston Legal Tuesday after complaining of lower back pain, but it looks… like… he's… going to be… okay.
HOMER SIMPSON is trying to get dubious high school students interested in math. Actually, the effort is being undertaken by three writers of The Simpsons who are college degree-toting mathematicians.
EVANGELINE LILLY: The Lost lovely knew she had hit the big time when a teenager stole her panties.
CULT OF THE iPod: Apple is stepping up its push to get iPod accessory makers to pay for the right to connect to the popular gadget. That's not very hiipie-groovy.
HURRICANE KATRINA evacuees hastily handed 2K in federal relief money last month have been living it up on Cape Cod, blowing cash on booze and strippers.
GLOBAL WARMING: Next week, the European Space Agency is launching a mission to help understand why Venus fell prey to runaway global warming. It was the Venusians and their SUVs, wasn't it?
THE BRITISH RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS HATRED BILL would punish anybody who publishes or says anything “likely to be heard or seen by any person in whom it is likely to stir up racial or religious hatred” by up to seven years in prison. Which seems like a much bigger threat to freedom of speech than anything proposed in the US after 9/11. Conversely, the British Home Secretary has just modified part of the Terrorism Bill which dealt with “glorifying” terrorism, so that Imams and others would be prosecuted only if their remarks are seen as as inducements to further terrorist acts.
IRAQ: US officials have seen far fewer reports of voting “irregularities” from last weekend's referendum than there were from the January elections. Saddam Hussein is finally facing trial for alleged crimes against humanity, though his attorney will seek a three-month delay. Bill Roggio looks at battles in Husaybah and Karabilah, and has a Flash presentation on the Anbar Campaign. Milblogger Warriorjason, currently on his second deployment to Iraq and serving in the Ramadi AO, disputes press reports of civilian casualties from air strikes near Ramadi.
SIX LION CUBS have been born in less than a week at the Czech circus. Everybody say, “Awwww…” And where is Elton John?
FLORIDA GATOR UPDATE: This time, a Gainesvillegator lurches out of a lake to make off with two co-eds' spicy chicken.
PAMPERED PETS? A consumer group says 465 sometimes bizarre beauty products have launched so far this year for the world's pampered pets. But is the word “pampered” or “humiliated?”
JURASSIC POND: Researchers have found tracks of a previously unknown, two-legged swimming dinosaur in northern Wyoming.