THE PIPETTES talk about girl groups, popularity, their new label and recording their debut album with Wears The Trousers. And it's another excuse for me to urge you to listen to a few or watch the video for “Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me” at their MySpace page.
THE NEW YORK DOLLS: David Johansen tells Pitchfork how the band was reunited by Morrissey.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND and CAPTAIN BEEFHEART are the latest two subjects of the in-depth documentary series, Under Review: An Independent Critical Analysis, out on DVD this week.
NICK CAVE talks to Suicide Girls about writing songs, novels and screenplays: “I'm really interested in language and how it's used. With films I watch them indiscriminately. I go to the DVD shop, get four DVDs, go home and sit there. I don't have to use my brain. I can just get sucked into a story which is the great thing about films. You just turn it on and you get swallowed in whether you like it or not. Now I have an enormous library of really bad, mediocre and great films in my head. They all have some influence. I often watch a film and think, 'Why didn't they do that? That would have been much more interesting.'”
SPIN magazine is turning into Us Weekly under its new management.
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS: Mike Cooley, one of the band's three guitarist-songwriters, talks to PopMatters about the comparisons to Skynyrd and Neil Young and covering Jim Carroll. At Chromewaves, Frank is killing music with DBT's cover of “Like A Rolling Stone.”
TRESPASSERS WILLIAM, which has moved from L.A. to Seattle, makes floaty indie pop in the ballpark of Mazzy Star or the Sundays. You can hear some new and old tracks via MySpace.
JOHN DEE GRAHAM: The former True Believer and Austin fixture maks NPR's Song of the Day with the rockin' “Something Wonderful.”
ISLANDS: There's now more video of the band taking to the streets at the end of their NYC gig on YouTube.
GNARLS BARKLEY are doing interviews with Pitchfork and PopMatters, which you should check out — even if it's just to see their amusing, movie-themed promo photos. But if you listen to the should-be-feel-good-hit-of-the-summer, “Crazy,” you might be interested in the story behind this collaboration. I've mentioned the song twice this week, so you can tell it's my current earworm. PLUS: Check out Ray LaMontagne's acoustic cover of “Crazy.”
OF MONTREAL has a new track — “a cloud crashes” — to stream or download from the band’s MySpace page, though it may be a cover.
DIRTY PRETTY THINGS frontman Carl Barat says the Libertines made him a little older and wiser. Barat was speaking at the launch of Dirty Pretty Things' debut single, “Bang Bang You’re Dead,” in London.
BRITNEY SPEARS — as you may have heard, is pregnant with the second spawn of Spenderline. BTW, their fight before his Vegas gig may have been K-Fed banning Britney from attending, for fear of being upstaged.
TOBEY MAGUIRE is getting hitched. And why not? How do you get pub in Hollywood these days without getting married, pregnant or divorced? Certainly not by making movies.
KEVIN COSTNER has been revealed as the celebrity accused of performing a sex act while being given a massage at a famous golf hotel.
AL PACINO will be overacting in Ocean's Thirteen, according to Variety. HOO-AH!
UNITED 93: Depending on who's talking, the 9/11 drama was either a big draw or a musn't-see at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere last night. Studio execs are nervous about the film, but USA Today reports: “When the film ended, sobs filled the otherwise-silent theater.”
KELSEY GRAMMER wants to run for President: Hello, America… I'm listening.
DENISE and CHARLIE and RICHIE and HEATHER: I guess we won't be seeing Denise Richards and Heather Locklear making out again soon. Having been caught canoodling, Richards' and Sambora's people claim it's a case of friends reaching out for each other, while a Locklear source claims “Denise called Richie and initiated everything.” We Love Celebs wonders whether Richards is the woman in the suggestive e-mail sent to Sambora that was the last straw for Locklear. Meanwhile, we discover that Sheen left profane and bigoted voicemail for Richards — calling her “Dick Face” isn't the worst of it, but may be the funniest. Richards fears Sheen may have had a hand in the death of porn star and alleged hooker Chloe Jones. OTOH, Sheen is convinced Richards timed her attack sabotage his new children's clothing line — a theory considerably less wacky than his theories about 9/11.
LOST star Michelle Rodriguez pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and chose jail over community service.
PHIL SPECTOR: The much-delayed murder trial of the “wall of sound” music producer was postponed again — this time all the way back to January.
JACK KEROUAC: The On the Road author talks to Steve Allen and William Buckley, does some dramatic reading and dies in a short film on YouTube.
VIGGO MORTENSEN and DAVID CRONENBERG: The star and director of A History of Violence will be reteaming for another thriller, Eastern Promises.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise makes like wacko Jacko in Rome for the premiere of Mission: Impossible III, for which Yahoo has a new, exclusive clip.
BRADGELINA has largely kept the press at bay in Namibia, but that's changing a bit. Jolie told OK! magazine that she is afraid of marriage and starting a family. The couple has been featured in Hello magazine. And Jolie has done an exclusive interview with NBC's Ann Curry, which will air on the Today show Thursday, and on Dateline NBC Sunday.
IRAQ: At ITM, Omar reports that Muqtada al-Sadr thinks soccer is a Jewish conspiracy. He has the video, too. At the Counterterrorism Blog, Walid Phares and Evan Kohlmann analyze Zarqawi's latest video. StrategyPage looks at how US troops built the “battlefield Internet” to exchange info on tactics and techniques that could help keep them alive in combat. At Slate,Daniel Gross notes that Halliburton isn't making much money on its Iraq-based contracts. And Staff Sgt. Martin Richburg saved an Internet cafe full of people from a bomb in Al Kisik — one of many stories that never seem to make the network news or the major newspapers.
IRAN threatens to hide and speed up its nuke program and to transfer the experience, knowledge and technology of its scientists.
STUCK IN LODI: A federal jury has convicted a 23-year-old man of supporting terrorists by attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan three years ago. But a separate jury hearing a case against the man's father deadlocked, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial.
GITMO: The International Committee of the Red Cross reports that detention conditions at Guantanamo have “improved considerably.” ICRC Pres. Jakob Kellenberger also called it “extremely regrettable” that intense media focus on Gitmo seemed to distract from troubled sites in places like Chechnya and Burma, where the ICRC has suspended prison visits over disagreements with local authorities.
DACHSHUND SURVIVES POISONOUS SNAKE BITE that left the pet with a fang embedded in its head. Video at the link.
FRANKIE THE BULLDOG was trained for six months to recreate the always-circulating video of the skateboarding dog.
SKYLAR THE GOLDEN DOODLE burned down his owner's house trying to reheat a piece of pizza.
A JUMPING FISH put a 31-year-old woman in the hospital, way down along the Suwannee River.
A NINE-FOOT GATOR plans to sell the golf balls knocked into his lake at a city-owned golf course, so divers need to stay out.