Karl 
ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN pick up where your precious Echo left off with this Velvet-y piece of pop goodness, “Stormy Weather” on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. If CBS's lawyers get to YouTube before you do, you can stream the audio via the Hype Machine.
YO LA TENGO have put out an advance download from their upcoming album, I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your A**. The song has the slightly more conventional title, “Beanbag Chair.”
GARY GLITTER: The disgraced ex-glam rocker not only has to do time in a Vietnamese prison on child molestation charges, but also gets a truly hideous picture of him in Speedos published in London's Sun.
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS: Beggar's has details and downloads for the duo's upcoming Get Lonely LP.
HIDDEN CAMERAS: YANP thinks their latest song, “Learning The Lie” is a kissing cousin to Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman.” He's got a point, though you have to imagine it being played by a more whimsical version of the Feelies. You can stream more via the Hype Machine.
JON AUER of The Posies and Big Star talks about his long-delayed solo album, Songs of Our Demise, with the Memphis Commercial Appeal. You can check out “Cemetery Song” via the Hype Machine. In a nice circular moment, the article points out that Auer has gone from Big Star fan to Big Star member to having original drummer Jody Stephens, now manager for Ardent Studios, say “” I couldn't take it out of the CD player for weeks.”
JOE JACKSON: Longtime Pate fans will remember the band's misadventures with Joe's “One More Time.” That's one of the tracks on the Jefitoblog's live bootleg recorded June 1st 1979. Those concerned with killing music may prefer to stream it via the Hype Machine.
THE DIXIE CHICKS seem to have fooled London's Telegraph into thinking the band is doing well. The reality is that the band's new album debuted to 200K fewer copies sold in its debut (with a 48 percent drop in week two) and ticket sales for their tour are looking like Spinal Tap. At this point, it's not what Natalie Maines said about Pres. Bush years ago; it's more about Maines aying things today like, “Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don't see why people care about patriotism.”
CAT POWER looked frisky on The Late Show with David Letterman last week. It seems that's due to her newfound sobriety. She sounds more laid back and stipped-down (but still good) in this covers medley from KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic.
DEL McCOURY, already a blugrass legend, gets some ink from Reuters for his new album, The Promised Land, which he calls a gospel album. But it's still pretty darn bluegrass also, if the stream from MySpace is any indication.
SMOOSH: The tween sisters are stil touring with eels; NOW tried to get Chloe to talk about Asya's songwriting: “One thing, though. I don't know why, but they don't seem super-happy or something. It's weird, cuz we're not sad people or anything, but… No, I don't want to say what I think the songs are about.” We also learn that while the girls are in school now, they were previously home-schooled by their parents, who are a scientist and a doctor.
PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: Just out of rehab in Portugal, but the troubled singer and Babyshambles turned up late for the Swedish Hultsfred fesitval, where Doherty showed signs of being under the influence of drugs and fell off the stage. After the show, he was arrested and paid a fine after a test showed traces of cocaine in his blood. Someone at ONTD has the pics and translated stories.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Cars won a second weekend with 31.2 million. It dropped 48 percent, which would be good for any film, except that Toy Story 2 is the only Pixar film to drop that much in week two. Nacho Libre came in second with 27 million — which exceeded studio expectations (Friday, I speculated it would do well, but I wonder about next weekend). The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift came in third with 24 million — less than half of the F and F sequel. The Keanu-Sandra reunion at The Lake House netted 13 million, keeping hope alive that it could become this year's Notebook (I doubt it).
THE CELEBRITY 100, courtesy of Forbes magazine. In a controversial choice, Tom Cruise tops the list. Perhaps even more surprising, U2 and The Stones landed in the top four with Cruise and Oprah… did they also play on her couch? Moment of irony: Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie tie for 35th.
SIR PAUL McCARTNEY: Yesterday was his birthday. So now he's 64. BTW, that first link is an alternate version. And unsurprisingly, estranged wife Heather stayed away.
COURTNEY COX got a transvestite for her birthday. Who looked like Jennifer Anisron. Sent by Jennifer Aniston, who could not attend due to her UK promo tour for The Break-Up.
NICOLE KIDMAN reportedly will pray for nine days before she weds country crooner Keith Urban. Maybe she's praying that more photos of her looking pregnant don't turn up.
BRADGELINA: Jolie tells CNN's Anderson Cooper that she was “terrified” giving birth to Shiloh in an interview to air Tuesday. Cooper's executive producer is denying reports from Jossip and Drudge that the first US interview with Jolie was part of a “package deal” with Time-Warner's purchase of the baby photos. Meanwhile, TMZ has video of paparazzi climbing trees trying to get an angle on Angie and Shiloh as they are shielded by a blanket.
JESSICA SIMPSON has denied rumors her latest song is about her divorce from Nick Lachey. That's fine… as long as the rumor about Jessica Alba, Eva Longoria, Eva Mendes and Carmen Electra roller-skating in the video is true. Meanwhile Lachey has officially been caught canoodling with ET infobabe Vanessa Minnillo.
CARMEN ELECTRA hated her breasts after getting massive implants. And she, like most of the rest of the world, has a crush on Jessica Alba. Yet another reason to hope the rumor about the two of them roller-skating in Jessica Simpson's video is true.
BRITNEY SPEARS told NBC's Matt Lauer that she doesn't care what people think, which is clearly a lie after she got all weepy durring the interview on that very topic. More plausible is her denial of the rumor that she was considering giving birth to her second child in Namibia. And when a strange-looking, unkempt woman with a facial tic tells the pop tart that she had an affair with Spenderline, is it crazy rambling, or confirmation of persistent rumors?
BEYONCE KNOWLES was ambushed by two members of People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals who won an eBay auction, benefiting VH1's Save the Music Foundation, to dine with the star. TMZ has the video.
KATEHRINE HEIGL, recently of Grey's Anatony, is engaged to musician Josh Kelley. Presumably, this is the guy she wants to leave handcuffed to her bed.
IRAQ: At ITM Omar suggests that the terrorists/insurgents have started adapting to Operation Forward Together. This is the nature of war — moves and counter-moves, so we'll see how the Coalition (and more importantly) Iraqi forces adjust their tactics. Ray Robison, a former member of the CIA-directed Iraq Survey Group, has a translation of a second document suggesting a possible secret, intelligence based, operational relationship between the Taliban and the Saddam. As I noted before, not a smoking gun, but interesting. And Jack Nicholson recorded a special Father's Day message for dads in the sandbox. Probably too much to hope he led off with “Here's Johnny…”
ISLAMIC EXTREMISM IN THE UK: A militant British Muslim imam says both Prime Minister Blair and Pres. Bush are “legitimate targets” for terrorist attacks. Meanwhile British authorities are dropping charges against cartoon jihadists carrying signs saying another 7/7 bombing was on the way. When reading stories like this, remember that polls show that perhaps 100K British Muslims may support terror attacks. A fifth have sympathy with the “feelings and motives” of the suicide bombers. Four out of ten British Muslims want sharia law introduced in “predominantly Muslim” parts of the UK. In such areas, it would be okay for a man to stab his sister to death in front of his two young daughters because she wanted to marry utside her caste. The Imam in the first story was outed by a journalist. Oddly, we see no US journos covering this beat.
CARTOON JIHAD: Speaking of which, Turkey's public television, controlled by the Islamist-rooted government, has barred the popular Walt Disney cartoon Winnie the Pooh because of Piglet.
JASPER THE WHIPPET-SPANIEL becomes the second recent case of a dog surviving after chasing another animal right off a cliff. Dogs are trying to give cats and Wiley Coyote a run for their money.
A NEARBY CALF, meanwhile, had to be rescued by lifeboat after it became stranded on a beach as the tide came in.
MR P, a lonely peacock, has devoted the past three years of his life to romancing a petrol pump.
GOATS: Virginia City, Montana has brought in 200 as weed-eaters, but they need more. They could get one from Manhattan, Montana! In Bulgaria, 70 goats were killed by lightning, but their goatherd survived.
DEER like to get into your house, but make lousy guests.
BEARS: Also not good house guests. This one ate 50 pounds of dog food, ostensibly because it was “just right.”
A MOTHER DUCK brings central Dublin, Ireland to a halt for the third year running as she marched her seven ducklings to a pond for their first swim. The duck was reportedly encouraged by delighted passersby, though I suspect we might also have heard something close, but not quite sounding like “mother duck.”
