Karl 
LONDON CALLING: Although Saturday Night Live polices clips turning up on the Internet, we have its long defunct imitator, Fridays, to thank for these April 1980 high-octane performances of “London Calling” and “Train In Vain.” And it's a twofer Twofer Tuesday when you add the equally powerful takes on “The Guns of Brixton” and “The Clampdown.” Watch them now, thank me later. BONUS: You can stream The Clash and covers from Mars Needs Guitars via the Hype Machine.
NEW RELEASES: Sonic Youth, The Replacements, Regina Spektor and Alison Moorer are among those streaming in full from AOL Music this week. The Submarines have the Garden State-y Declare A New State streaming from the Booth at MySpace. Final Fantasy (a/k/a Owen Pallett, the string arranger for Arcade Fire and Hidden Cameras) gets baroque with He Poos Clouds. The Delgados get a double CD of their complete Peel Sessions for the BBC. Joan Jett has a new album and remasters. Del McCoury, a master of the high, lonesome sound of bluegrass, releases The Promised Land. And Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend gets the double-disc remaster teatment.
THE MODERN ROCK 500, courtesy of WOXY Vintage. From a glance, I would agree with a lot of the choices, though not the order.
INDIE ROCKS THE LATE SHOW: This week, David Letterman will be listening to Cat Power, Neko Case and Sonic Youth (on Tuesday Wednesday and Friday, respectively).
MEAT LOAF may not be a Bat Out Of Hell again, as Jim Steinman, who produced and wrote the music for the original, took the words right out of his mouth.
THE RACONTEURS have remade the video for “Steady, As She Goes” with Paul Ruebens (a/k/a Pee Wee Herman). And a wacky soapbox derby ensues.
COVER ME: YANP has posted a couple of fun covers, including The Boy Least Likely To's take on George Michael's “Faith” complete with bajo and glock) and M Ward's mellow, countrified, acoustic version of Pete Townshend's “Let My Love Open The Door.”
THE STROKES got Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme to join them on a cover of Marvin Gaye's “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology Song)”?
BOB SEGER has a new album due in September. What happened? Did Chevy stop the “Like A Rock” checks?
INTERNET BLOG BUZZ can lift a band from obscurity, but it may also tar them as “hype bands” in the trad media.
ALL IN THE FAMILY: London's Guardian looks at the pluses and minuses of forming a band with your siblings.
BRITNEY SPEARS gets weepy for an interview with Matt Lauer on Dateline NBC to air Thursday. Her defense to driving around with her baby on her lap? “We’re country.” It seems that Spears and Spenderline are trying to combat rumors of marital woes by going out to be photographed together, with K-Fed holding SPF. Yet the commotion around Spears' Malibu pad was enough to drive Mel Gibson out of the neighborhood.
THE McCARTNEYS: TheNews of the World's weekend piece about Heather's alleged past as a high-dollar hooker allows its sister, the Sun, to report that Sir Paul is in agony over the revelations, which the paper rehashes, along with pictures of the hookers peddling these stories. Meanwhile Page Six has an item about how Heather demanded more backstage space than Paul at Madison Square Garden in 2002.
MATT DAMON and his wife, Luciana have a baby girl named Isabella, according to People magazine.
KATE MOSS not only downed a pint with Primal Scream this past weekend (as reported here yesterday), but also blew chunks in a corner of the VIP backstage area with the band's Bobby Gillespie holding her hair back. The supposedly sober supermodel stacked that beer on top of some Jagermeister (which the NDI could have told her “blows your head off”), and some carnival rides. Maybe she just needed to unwind after her car was raided by a gang, who made off with her daughter's handbag, as well as a substantial sum of money.
JACKO could lose two of his children over allegations he is not their real father.
JOHN CLEESE: The legendary silly-walking Python has said he is retiring from writing and performing sitcoms and will concentrate instead on publishing a book on the history of comedy and teaching others how to make people laugh. Cleese also criticized modern performers who aren't aware of the “basic principles” of comedy.
DENISE & HEATHER & RICHIE & CHARLIE & DAVID: Denise Richards told Entertainment Tonight that her relationship with Richie Sambora was “the last thing I was looking for,” and that she and Sambora's wife, Heather Locklear, were never “best friends.” Meanwhile, Charlie Sheen was showing off new squeeze Brooke Wolofsky.
ALEC BALDWIN: A judge wants a psychologist to evaluate him. Who doesn't? But this particular request relates to his custody battle with ex-wife Kim Basinger.
THE FORBES CELEBRITY 100 LIST comes out Friday, but Entertainment Tonight got a sneak peek at who is on — and off — based largely on their performance last year.
THE APPROVAL MATRIX: New York magazine runs a weekly chart showing “who falls where on our taste hierarchies.” For example, the French Hotel's reggae music plots out as both “lowbrow” and despicable,” while the return of Deadwood ranks as “highbrow” and “brilliant.” That the show with the undisputed record for uses of the “F word” and the “MF word” ranks as highbrow is either questionable or a comment on our popular culture.
SUPERMAN RETURNS: The Movie Blog has two posts rounding up advance reviews of Bryan Singer's retooling of the franchise… and the reviews look good. They had better be, with a 260 million price tag. For his part, Singer is getting ever more blunt in response to his habit of inserting a homosexual subtext into his movies, saying that Superman “is probably the most heterosexual character in any movie I've ever made. I don't think he's ever been gay.” NTTAWWT.
EDU-BLOGGING: The 70th Carnival of Education is online.
IRAQ: Perhaps the most interesting tidbit coming out of the White House conference on Iraq is Pres. Bush saying he intends “to help the Iraqi government bring security to neighborhoods in Baghdad and Basra.” This may suggest — as have recent statements about Anbar province — a shift to putting Iraqi forces in the forefront of military ops in the most unstable areas. Plus, there were references to implementing the “Maliki plan,” which was outlined by the new prime minister in Friday's WaPo. The up-armoring of military Humvees may have caused more deaths from deadly rollovers than it has saved. Sadly, I suspected this might happen back in March and April of 2005. As the press was instrumental in pressuring the Administration and the military into up-armoring them in the first place, you can bet this story will quickly disappear down the memory hole. Documents seized in Iraq and Afghanistan — but only recently publicly translated — suggest links between Saddam and the Taliban not previously known. Not a smoking gun, but interesting nonetheless.
IRAN: The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency faulted Tehran forfailing to provide information crucial to understanding the nature and intent of its nuclear program. Meanwhile, Iranian security forces beat and arrested women's rights activists protesting for equal divorce and custody rights and a ban on polygamy.
THE GEICO GECKO: The New York Observer investigates how the a small lizard hit the big time. BTW, the gecko has a blog.
ROMMEL UPDATE: Australia's win over Japan in the World Cup breaks the streak of Japan's mascot dog.
DUTCH POLICE DOGS are forcing English Bobbies to learn their language.
TEN CATS in search of owners will spend the next ten days in a New York store window, their every move caught on camera for a reality TV show on which they will compete for best sleeper and mouse-catcher.
A BROWN BEAR killed in self-defense in Alaska weighed roughly 850 pounds. That's a big bear.
