Karl 
SOUL ASYLUM has a new album coming in July, but you can hear “Stand Up and Be Strong” right now, via the Hype Machine. It doesn't rock my world, but it's pretty nice. UPDATE: You can stream that song and another new one, “Oxygen,” via MySpace.
FATS DOMINO was hospitalized as a cautionary measure on Sunday, forcing him to cancel a headlining appearance at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
GO-BETWEENS frontman Grant McLennan died in his sleep at his Brisbane home Saturday. He was 48. Unsurprisingly, music bloggers are remembering McLennan; you can stream a lot of Go-Betweens tunes via the Hype Machine.
DARK SIDE OF THE MOON: Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters talks about the album that has made various Billboard charts on 1,500 weeks since 1973: “With Dark Side we had sort of achieved what we'd set out to achieve as young men going into the music business. After that we clung together out of fear more than out of hope.” Plenty more at the link.
SECRET MACHINES frontman Ben Curtis admits it's disconcerting to hear not only that David Bowie is a huge fan of your music, but also that he's dropped by your show to check you out. You can check 'em out at the band's website.
39 STAIRWAYS TO HEAVEN: That's how many covers are posted at WFMU's blog… and you can stream them via the Hype Machine.
PEARL JAM: The band talks about trying to manage success and about politics: “I’d always assumed that many of our fans were Democrats,” Eddie Vedder says. “It really surprised me when some of them told us they were Republicans. I now think there has to be a real dialogue between people of different political opinions. Otherwise, things will only get worse.”
IF YOU'RE GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO, be sure to compare lists of top Bay Area songs from the San Francisco Chronicle and iTunes. There are some Music Works faves — “Omaha,” “Roadrunner,” “We Care a Lot” and “Pride of Man” — as well as a Pate fave, “Living In the U.S.A.”
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: I was in the mood for some Otis last night and turned up Otis performing a medley of “Satisfaction,” “My Girl” and “Respect' on Ready Steady Go. The man goes from dervish dancing to crooning with Go-Go girls and back again seamlessly.
PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: The troubled singer is going to show works he painted with his own blood at a London gallery. His friends say they help prove his innocence over claims he injected a female fan with heroin while she lay unconscious at his Hackney flat. Meanwhile, former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman joins the list of those warning the troubled singer and the supposedly sober supermodel that they will soon regret their indulgent ways if they fail to quit partying.
KEITH RICHARDS apparently will not be having his head drilled, after all. Medical science underestimates the resilience of the Lord of the Undead.
VARIOUS COVERS: YANP has posted a few nice ones, including The Decemberists joining Death Cab for Cutie on “Go Your Own Way” Bishop Allen taking on “Psycho Killer” and We Are Scientists covering “Be My Baby” and “Mucho Mas” (Sigur Ros).
THE RACONTEURS score three out of five stars from the Independentfor Broken Boy Soldiers, “an occasionally pleasing series of mostly Seventies pastiches.” But if the title track sounds “elegantly exciting enough to be an outtake from Led Zep IV,” I'll be picking it up. You can hear the live version of “Broken Boy Soldiers” via the Hype Machine.
THE ESSEX GREEN score five of five stars from the Indpendent for Cannibal Sea, which is “(f)ull of uplifting guitar pop draped in luscious harmonies,” “(w)ith echoes of The Byrds, Beatles, Mamas & Papas and Monkees absorbed inside modern songcraft…” I recommend you check out “Don't Know Why You Stay” and “Snakes In The Grass” first via MySpace, but they're all pretty good…
THE MINUS 5: Scott McCaughey's touring troupe visited the World Cafe, so you can stream a few from NPR.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Mission: Impossible III won the weekend, but opened to only 48 million, when the studios probably expected over 60 million. I guess the people buying dozens of tickets at Hollywood's ArcLight Theater, located right near the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center, aren't making a dent. Hollywood players blame Cruise, and why not? Many are turned off by Cruise, calling him, “psycho, freaky, scary” and a “freakbag.”
TOM-KAT UPDATE: If you're someone who remembers Cruise dancing in Risky Business, the new video of Cruise getting jiggy on BET will spoil those memories forever. Cruise's M:I 3 co-star gape in stunned silence… until they break out in laughter. Stepford fiancee Holmes attended the M:I 3 premiere in Hollywood, while “some very good friends” looked after Princess Tom-Kitten. Doesn't sound at all like Rosemary's Baby, does it?
LINDSAY LOHAN: The bad news is that she has racked up a million dollar tab at the Chateau Marmont Hotel — but rarely stayed there. And didn't let her accountants know about it. The good news is that she wants her T & A back.
BRADGELINA: Jolie is having pregnancy cravings for peanut butter-filled Reese's Pieces. She could not find them in Namibia, so she ordered a huge box straight from the factory in Pennsylvania.
VAUGHNISTON: In an interview with David Letterman, Vaughn does the “cannot confirm or deny” routine better than most of today's CIA.
JESSICA SIMPSON is consoled by Jennifer Aniston, while it seems that her personal assistant CaCee Cobb was spotted leaving a club moments after Nick Lachey. And the pneumatic blonde has put sister Ashlee off the idea of marrying young.
COURTNEY LOVE: You can take the widow out of the strip club, but you can't take the strip club out of the widow. Slideshow at the link.
JIMI HENDRIX biopic appears to be as as dead as the legendary guitarist.
DENISE & HEATHER & RICHIE & CHARLIE… & DAVID: According to one private investigator, Sheen has spent quality time with drag queen Kayla Coxx in Las Vegas. A porn starlet's mother may file a wrongful death suit against Sheen because she thinks he drove her daughter to take her own life. Richards is so mad at Sheen that she's banned his parents, Martin and Janet Sheen, from seeing their granddaughters. David Spade covers himself on his Comedy Central show.
HASSELHOFF has settled the child custody dispute with his wife. OOGA-CHUCKA!
MICHEL GONDRY and DAVID CROSS worked together on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but for a short film, they decided to get really weird. Don't watch this while eating.
SIENNA MILLER and JUDE LAW may be trying to patch things up in Malibu.
DOUGHBOY HOSTAGE RELEASED: The Pillsbury Doughboy, kidnapped to protest the closure of a Market Basket in south New Hampshire, was spotted fishing at a near by lake and returned by an alleged Good Samaritan. During the three-week crisis, kidnappers had sent the Market Basket pictures of the doughboy posing all over the country.
IRAQ: The Mideast edition of Stars and Stripes reports on Operation Lion’s Hunt and planned and executed entirely by Iraqi security forces. Since the operation kicked off April 30, insurgent attacks in Mosul have dropped markedly. The Pentagon will delay the deployment of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division to decide whether it is needed in Iraq. If officials also cancel the deployment, the number of US troops in Iraq will decline to 130,000. At ITM, Omar visits the barbershop, where rumors and conspiracy theories abound.
IRAQ IN THE MEDIA: Less than a month ago, the Washington Post ran an article claiming that some sennior intelligence officers believed Zarqawi's role may have been overemphasized by a US military propaganda campaign. Saturday, The New York Times ran a story reporting that an effort by the military to discredit Zarqawi by showing video outtakes of him fumbling with a machine gun was questioned yesterday by retired and active American military officers. So the military will be criticized if it makes too much or too little of Zarqawi; perhaps the press would like to be briefed on Zarqawi by Goldilocks. Maybe they think that the military should refer to him as “You-Know-Who” or “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”
IRAN: Austin Bay looks at the Iranian threat to the Strait of Hormuz.
THE SULTAN'S ELEPHANT: A 39-foot-tall mechanical elephant and an oversized mannequin threatened to disrupt media coverage of Britain's government reshuffle.
THE SILENCE OF THE SQUIRRELS: A blogger in Brooklyn is awakened to hear that awful screaming…
DOLPHINS whistle their own names, suggesting they share the human ability to recognise themselves and other members of the same species as individuals with separate identities.
DOGS will soon be on a curfew in the small Norwegian town of Fjell.
BABY RED RIVER HOGS made their debut at the San Diego Zoo last week. Awwww…
IF A BLACK BEAR decides to chow down on the strawberry mousse at the local grocery store, don't take his picture with the camera phone. It's just plain rude.
