Karl 
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: The Essential Roy Orbison, a career-spanning, double-disc collection comes out today. So why not an extended version of “(Oh) Pretty Woman,” on which Roy is backed by an all-star cast, including Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, J.D. Souther, and crack session musicians like guitarist Jerry Scheff. The song is taken from Black & White Night, which was reissued as a CD last month. We can make it a Twofer Tuesday with his duet with k.d. lang on “Cryin.” And then there's a profanity-laden bonus clip from David Lynch's Blue Velvet that may have turned a lot of people onto Orbison.
NEW RELEASES: The pickins are fairly slim this week, but there are new albums from Margot and the Nuclear So and So's and Yeah Yeah Yeahs streaming in their entirety at AOL Music. Elsewhere, the Watson Twins, who backed Jenny Lewis on her solo album, release their own EP, Southern Manners. There are three Motorhead reissues, too, if you're into that.
SUDDEN DEATH: Nikki Sudden, blurbed here last Tuesday on the occasion of the deluxe reissues of his early solo work, died after a performance Saturday night at NYC's Knitting Factory. He was 49. No cause of death has been announced. Sudden had just finished work on a new solo record, The Truth Doesn't Matter. Sudden's brother, Epic Soundtracks, died of unknown causes himself in 1997.
GRACELAND, where Elvis Presley died in 1977, joined the White House, Mount Vernon and Monticello in becoming a National Historic Landmark Monday. The designation is the highest such recognition accorded by our nation to historic properties. Elvis.com may have video up by the time you read this.
“WHAT I LEARNED AT THE RECORD SHOP” is the title of an L.A. Times piece by Lynell George, a senior writer at the paper's West magazine. And yes, High Fidelity is mentioned.
SCOTT McCAUGHEY: The Young Fresh Fellow and Minus 5 frontman talks to the Philadelphia Inquirer about feeling guilty over messing up his marriage and making a living as a touring member of REM. And why does it not surprise me that McCaughey (like REM/Minus 5'er Peter Buck) once worked as a record-store clerk?
ART BRUT finally found an American record label, so Bang Bang Rock & Roll will come out May 23rd. You can hear two excellent tracks from the album via MySpace.
SONIC YOUTH has apparently finished a new album, Rather Ripped, as early copies have gone out to the media. So I expect leakage soon.
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS are getting ready for a long tour; on some early dates, they are pairing with Son Volt. After 1,000 gigs, frontman Patterson Hood talks about what he's learned from a career dictated by necessity: “It was either figure out a way to make this work or go back to working in a restaurant for the rest of my life. If I was good at working in a restaurant, it’d be one thing, but I was, like, the world’s worst line cook. I was like a Jerry Lewis movie in the kitchen, and a Steve Martin movie when I was waiting tables…”
THE RACONTEURS: Tea with Tufty is just killing music and video with downloads of the band's second-ever gig from Glasgow, Scotland. Meanwhile Jack White denies rumors of a White Stripes split.
ARCTIC MONKEYS played Washington, DC's 9:30 Club Monday night, so you can stream the gig from NPR now.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: The troubled singer is reportedly turning to Buddhism to battle his drug paddictions, but it seems unlikely to take when Doherty is walking around claiming that he takes drugs because he likes them, not to battle some inner demons. Thus, it's no surprise that the supposedly sober supermodel's mum is mightly miffed that Moss is rekindling her relationship with junkie Pete.
TOM-KAT UPDATE; Cruise's declining box office receipts mean less in the coffers of the Church of Scientology, but at least he has recruited an Aussie heir to help make up the difference.
JACKO is backo in the USA. Hide the kids.
EVA LONGORIA: The Desperate Housewife is a better shot than Jack Bauer.
JANE FONDA has had the extreme makeover, but plans to start a crusade to stop her fellow actresses from having it.
BRITNEY SPEARS and Spenderline love the little people, having hired them for entertainment twice on a recent jaunt to Vegas.
LINDSAY LOHAN has been secretly seeing Leonardo DiCaprio since New Year's Eve? Seems unlikely, given the saturation paparazzi coverage she receives.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON tops FHM magazine's “100 Sexiest Women in the World” readers poll. Angelina Jolie dropped to No. 2 on the list. Jessica Alba, who led the “Top 99 Most Desirable Women” at AskMen.com came in third, followed by Jessica Simpson, Keira Knightley (Scarlett's Vanity Fair cover partner), Halle Berry, Jenny McCarthy, Maria Sharapova, Carmen Electra and Teri Hatcher. Jessica Biel, named “the sexiest woman alive” by Esquire magazine, did not crack the Top Ten, so I'm pretty sure the ultimate title is decided by Jell-O wrestling. Call it March Madness. As for Scarlett, FHM's EIC says: “She seems to be one of those women who would be equally at ease on the red carpet as she would just hanging out with the guys.” She didn't freak over getting groped at the Golden Globes, so I'm sure a lot of guys hope she's that casual off the red carpet.
PATTI LaBELLE weeps in the wake of her Worst. Show. Ever.
KEVIN SMITH: The director of Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy discussed his intense hatred of Reese Witherspoon (for whom he voted for the Oscars) and spreads gossip about Nicole Richie during a Q & A session at the University of Pennsylvania. So don't confuse him with Silent Bob.
PINK needed therapy after her brother stole her lesbian lover. Of course, one has to question the accuracy of “lesbian” as an adjective in this story, as well as the use of the past tense.
BRADGELINA have bought a pad on the Normandy coast in France. Denzel Washington, who starred with Jolie in The Bone Collector, says she moves like liquid.
KEANU REEVES is under fire from Women Against Domestic Violence for telling Playboy magazine that it was difficult to perform a pare scene with Hilary Swank in The Gift, but “I also learned a bit of… well, that some of the ladies don't mind it… Hah, that's awful to say.”
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY celebrated her 21st birthday with a Roaring Twenties themed bash and her beau (and Pride & Prejudice co-star Rupert Friend. No sign of that rumored trout pout, thank goodness.
IRAQ: Many Marines promptly stuck their new, extra body armor in lockers or under bunks because it's too heavy and cumbersome for the work they do. Some Marines wear the plates, particularly Humvee turret gunners and those who travel on roads plagued by roadside bombs. Others — particularly those who conduct foot patrols also carrying weapons, extra ammunition, medical equipment, night vision goggles, food and water — say the extra armor is not worth it, especially when the weather becomes unbearably hot. Bill Roggio has three posts on the a strike on at Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite Madhi Army in Baghdad, which was led by Iraqi forces, as well as the political maneuvering in its wake. USA Today has a front-page story on medical innovations saving lives on the battlefield that could have benefits beyond the battlefield. Iraq's embassy in Canada lashed out at the Christian Peacemaker Teams, calling them “phoney pacifists” and “dupes” after the antiwar group responded to the rescue of three of its kidnapped activists by condemning the US-led military intervention.
BELARUS: Electoral fraud caught on video.
A TALE OF THREE AFGHANIS: The first is Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the 27-year-old former Taliban official admitted to Yale University as a special student. The second is Malalai Joya, the 27-year-old women's rights activist and member of the new Afghan Parliament, who came to Yale to denounce the decision. The third is Makai Rohbar, who acted as Joya's translator. BONUS: Columnist Richard Cohen awakens to the smell of java.
EDU-BLOGGING: Forgot the 59th Carnival of Education last week.
HEED THE KITTEN is expected to be named the smallest cat in the world, at a mere three inches tall, weighing just 1.2 pounds.
PETEY THE PIT BULL, rescued by its firefighter owner from the icy Waukegan Harbor channel waters, was first rescued by the firefighter who found the dog was afraid of traffic.
DOGS have a hard time holding their liquor. And chocolate.
PET HOARDING: Dozens of cats, dogs, birds, ferrets, and even a pig were in the basement of a house in Kansas City, MO.
DOLPHINS: Scientists can now explain just how spinner dolphins can spin around up to seven times on a single leap. Nobody knows for sure why spinner dolphins spin, though some think they are thanking us for all the fish.
