Fountains of Wayne, Guillemots, Hollies, and War Animals

IT MUST BE SUMMER if World Party, Fountains of Wayne and Liz Phair are playing a free triple-bill at Taste of Chicago. And I was able to juggle my schedule at the last-minute o­n Saturday to go see it (though I now need to figure out how put the front license plate o­n my car). I couldn't stay for Ms. Phair, but World Party did an interesting set as a trio — Karl Wallenger o­n guitar and piano, with a second guitar and fiddle or mandolin. Wallenger is hoping to re-setablish a beachhead here in the States with a fall tour, so he started with “Put the Message in the Box” and “Is It Like Today.” Sadly, no “Way Down Now,” which was apparently too rocking. Nice versions of “Sweet Soul Dream” (extra-countrified) and “Love Street” though. Fountains of Wayne did their outdoor thing — always a bit more ragged than their club gigs — starting with “Bought For A Song.” (When they play a fest, I always hope for Adam's “That Thing You Do,” but no such luck.) No 70s kitch medley in the middle of “Radiation Vibe,” which has been known to morph into The Cars' “Let's Go,” Foreigner's “Double Vision,” Kansas' “Carry o­n, My Wayward Son” and Steve Miller's “Swingtown” o­n occasion. But still a great summer song. Time constraints also caused them to drop “Denise” and “Red Dragon Tattoo” from the set, which was a shame. They brought out the roadies to play percussion o­n “Hey Julie” and introduced “Mexican Wine” by noting that it — like many of their songs — is about drinking. Natch, they also cranked out “Stacy's Mom” for the masses. I was slightly surprised they did “Bright Future In Sales” for an all-ages fest date, but I suppose if you're opening for Liz Phair, you figure a little profanity will slide by. BTW, it seems that FoW are streaming their theme to the upcoming Monster House movie from the band's MySpace page, which also boasts their cover of “Bus Stop” from when they played the Hollies o­n NBC's American Dreams.

PENNY LANE: The barber shaves another customer and Liverpool pols say they will modify a proposal to rename streets linked to the slave trade after realizing the road immortalized by the 1967 Beatles song was o­ne of them.

GUILLEMOTS are getting plenty of print at home in the UK from the Independent, the Guardian and even the Sun. You can hear their decidedly different, vaguely electronic and vaguely psychedelic sounds via the Hype Machine.

ARCTIC MONKEYS: Departed bassist Andy Nicholson wants back in the ban after “exhaustion” sidelined him from the last US tour.

MUSIC BLOGS ARE NOT RADIO: The Washington Post reports that: “Despite numerous attempts, no o­ne o­nline has found a way to turn the hat trick that sustained radio through six decades of dominance of the music industry.” The story doesn't tell you what those attempts are, and I don't think most music bloggers aspire to be like radio. But the story does give props to the Hype Machine which is a very good thing. But when Marc Fisher writes that “Smash-Up Derby's rendition of the Talking Heads' 'Burning Down the House' sung over Franz Ferdinand's 'Take Me Out' is the best creative abuse of music I've heard since I learned that Foreigner's 1970s pop hits gained tremendous value when played at 45 rpm rather than 33,” the paper neglected to provide the link.

SEEN YOUR VIDEO: Finding Fountains of Wayne's cover of “Bus Stop” put me in a Hollies mood, so here's a triple-play from Beat Beat Beat of “On A Carousel”, “Bus Stop” and “Stop! Stop! Stop!” There's also a trippy lip-synch of “Carrie-Anne” and a synch of “Look Through Any Window” which finds the band strangely surrounded by female referees and giant figures of US football players for reasons unexplained.

SUFJAN STEVENS has announced a fall tour with strings and horns to put his old material “in a new symphonic context.” London's Independent likes The Avalanche. The Guardian likes it, too. There's just oodles of Sufjan streaming via the Hype Machine.

NO DEPRESSION: The Village Voice explains why alt-country is like pornography. Who knew?

YACHT ROCK: After original Pate drummer Ron Hahm tipped us to the Channel 101 series last month, Chicagoist ran a post in conjunction with a showing and personal appearance at the Empty Bottle tonight. If Quicktime ain't your bag, you can also find Yacht Rock o­n YouTube. Ron will be glad to hear that I just heard an interview with the co-creator, who said he went to see Michael McDonald and Steely Dan this weekend and that they came out for the final part of the gig wearing captain's hats.

KEEF RICHARDS, LORD OF THE UNDEAD, plays o­n a Lutheran CD, My Soul is a Witness — a collection of African-American spirituals released without fanfare last month.

OKKERVIL RIVER ubermensch Will Scheff talks about his love-hate relationship with music file-sharing: “The first good job I ever had was at the website Audiogalaxy.com, where I drew a respectable salary for writing music reviews and editorials as a kind of not-very-convincing camouflage for what was at the time o­ne of the world’s largest file-sharing networks…” You can find a selection of Okkervil's dark, folk-tinged tunes o­n the Hype Machine. My pick to click remains “For Real.”

JAMES BROWN: I hadn't thought about it, but I guess the Godfather of Soul would need an old school hair-dryer.

ARRR, MATEY! Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest sails into port with 132 million bucks and broke all sorts of records in the process. It beat Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith's record opening day. It beat Spider-Man's opening weekend. It set a record by breaking 100 million in two days. The Dead Man's Chest was full of Kryptonite, too, as Superman Returns plunged 58 percent to a distant second place. The Devil Wears Prada held up fairly well, taking in another 15 million. Click, Cars and Nacho Libre round out your top five.

TURN-AROUND: Meanwhile, the L.A. Times reports o­n studios pulling the plug o­n star vehicles as they exceed the 100 million budget mark.

THE McCARTNEYS: London's Mirror has heard a secretly taped phone call between Sir Paul and his daughter Stella, in which she launched “a ferocious attack o­n the 64-year-old star's estranged wife Heather Mills.” The Mirror claims that it is not known who taped the call, but someone will get around to blaming Karl Rove, I'm sure. Mills is receiving support from Yoko, though I'm not sure that's good PR.

MADONNA may be giving up Kabbalah, supposedly because of the financial burden and the effect her strong beliefs have had o­n her relationship with husband Guy Ritchie. Other reports seem to run to the contrary. Madge is also rumored to be pitching a bondage scene to Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan.

JESSICA SIMPSON, however, just had a risque photo shoot vetoed by her mother (her creepy dad-manager was cool with it), so I'm thinking there might be a hitch in Madge's plan. ALSO: It seems that Zach Braff may be interested in the pneumatic blonde, which sounds odd until you remember that he just broke up with Mandy Moore.

LINDSAY LOHAN has chosen “Rose” as her Kabbalah name, apparently unaware that Madge may be ditching the Kabbalah Center.

TOM-KAT UPDATE: The South Park episode “Trapped In The Closet,” which Cruise was rumored to have gotten yanked from a re-run, is up for an Emmy.

PAM ANDERSON: topless pics of the Baywatch bombshell have surfaced o­n the Internet as a public service to discourage women from having implants.

JACKO has testified in a deposition shown in court that he “was shocked” when he saw a video of his ex-associate Marc Schaffel directing a gay porn film. Somewhere, Claude Rains is laughing hysterically. Jackson's claim may opened the door for Schaffel to return to the witness stand to reveal “their intimate discussions” and discuss “Jackson's sexual proclivities.”

THE FRENCH HOTEL says she no longer eats meat, which should send her popularity into a nosedive.

MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY, People magazine's “Sexiest Man Alive,” does not look too sexy after a three-day bender in Costa Rica.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON reportedly got a series of frantic phone calls from beau Josh Hartnett after she went off to party with noted Hollywood swordsman Wilmer Valderrama. After all, she's already o­n record as not too keen o­n the concept of monogomy.

DAVID HASSSELHOFF: A new slice of video genius from the Hoff. In this o­ne, you even get KITT and some slow-motion Hoff running.

THIS JUST IN: Men and women are different.

IRAQ: The other day, I noted that ITM was concerned about the Sadrists; now Bill Roggio looks at the Iraqi-planned, Iraqi-led and Iraqi-executed operation (supported by US forces, natch) against a leader of Sadr's Madhi Army, further noting that it also seems to be an effort to boost the image of the Iraqi police forces. Iraqi-trained security personnel are now resposnible for more half of Baghdad. After nearly three years and 45 million, a treatment plant in northern Baghdad is pumping enough drinking water for a quarter of Baghdad's people. And a recently released working document from UN weapons inspectors states that inspections during the run-up to the invasion verified that the bombed caster oil extraction plant (think ricin) at Fallujah was reconstructed o­n a larger scale.

UK TERROR BOMBING: A year after the London terror bombings, we learn that two bombers were trained by al Qaeda. In the UK, a radical cleric jokes about the bombings, another cleric who condoned the bombings spoke at IslamExpo in London, and the Foreign Office is cozying up to radical Islamic groups.

BORDER COLLIE herds ducks toward a pen during the 51st Annual Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in Linville, N.C. Awww…

THE DOGS (AND PIGEONS AND KITTENS AND RATS) OF WAR: There are some odd pictures in this article o­n a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London, including the mine-sniffing pouch rat.

SUPER-MOSQUITOS are borne of cramped housing conditions and air pollution in Athens, Greece.

MONGOOSES were imported into Okinawa in 1910 to control the habu snake population. Unfortunately, the snakes are nocturnal, while the mongooses are not. So the latter are targeting 14 endangered species o­n the island.