Karl 
SCOTT MORGAN, from Detroit Rock City, started playing garage-punk at age 16 and has played with played with an array of Motor City musicians, including Bob Seger, Iggy Pop, Stooges drummer Scott “Rock Action” Asheton and MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith. He's also formed a supergroup with Swedes like members of the Hellacopters called The Solution, which has a 60s soul sound nearly as dead-on as Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. You can download a selection of his stuff; I particularly recommend The Solution's “I Have To Quit You.” Teaching the Indie Kids to Dance Again has a download of The Solution's “Get on Back,” which is even better, though I won't tell you to kill music by downloading it.
MORE FROM THE INTONATION FESTIVAL: Chicagoist blogged it mercilessly. After an overall assessment, there's a post on the Wrens' set, with a picture of the audience participation moment. Another post touches on some of the bands I didn't see (but heard). Another post links you to Chicagoist's Flickr galleries for photobloggy goodness.
THE SIREN FESTIVAL, a Coney Island-based fest sponsored by the Village Voice, is photoblogged at Stereogum and Brooklyn Vegan. Stereogum also has some (shhh!) downloads of Brendan Benson and Dungen, among others.
THREE INDIE ROCKERS killed when a mentally disturbed 23 old woman drove her car into an automobile carrying Silkworm drummer Michael Dalhquist, along with friends John Glick, guitarist and singer for the band The Returnables, and Douglas Meis, guitarist for The Dials. Chicagoist has links to more info.
THE HOLD STEADY are scheduled to be on Late Night with Conan O'Brien tonight. Watch or record; you'll be glad you did.
COURTNEY LOVE has allegedly been clean and sober for a year and credits the judiciary for her turnaround.
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN sometimes pretends it's his birthday when it isn’t and believes showbiz would be a better place if actors were cats. The latter made me recall his cat-like moves in the video for Fatboy Slim's “Weapon of Choice,” which is streamable at various speeds and formats at the link.
JUDE LAW'S engaement to Sienna Miller is on the rocks after beingcaught with one of his kids' nanny. Law has issued a public apology, but is reportedly blaming Miller in private. It turns out that the nanny kept a diary — Law can be thankful it wasn't online, or she would probably be commenting on the story.
COLIN FARRELL: Page Six had details of the sextape he made with then-galpal Nicole Narain. And it's no longer a mere rumor, as Farrell is suing Narain over it.
MARCIA CROSS: Should the Desperate Housewife who has publicly rubbished rumors about her sexuality turn up at Outfest? I'm sure she was there just to promote Desperate Housewives among the show's already sizable gay audience. And her co-stars weren't there because they had prior engagements..?
HARRY POTTER, your newspaper is ready…
COMIC-CON, once a swap meet for comic book dealers but now an internationally recognized showcase of pop culture, also has become a staging ground for Hollywood, mostly because of the superhero craze that has fueled the box office. Superman Returns was big deal there this year; Quint from Ain't-It-Cool-News has more on that movie, plus Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Peter Jackson's King Kong, Tim Burton's animated The Corpse Bride, The Fountain, and V for Vendetta.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise's Risky Business co-star and former galpal Rebecca De Mornay has some dirt, but won't dish it to the press. Page Six asks, “Did Nicole Kidman become deeply immersed in Scientology before she became disenchanted and quit the quirky 'religion?'” New York magazine has a broader piece titled, “Celebrity and Its Discontents,” in which Holmes is called “the Manchurian Fiancée.” There's a Bradgelina story in there also, before returning to Cruise. And a familiar name tops an MSNBC list of celebrities whose lives and careers need an intervention.
WAR OF THE WORLDS: Although Steven Spielberg is on record as saying that his movie was infuenced by 9/11, screenwriter David Koepp has said that “it could be about how U.S. military interventionism abroad is doomed by insurgency.” Somehow, I don't think that's why the movie lags behind Independence Day at this point in its run.
HILARY SWANK AND KEVIN COSTNER will narrate the upcoming film On Native Soil: The Documentary of the 9/11 Commission Report. Kostner claims the movie is not political. RELATED: The Discovery Channel will air a re-creation of the terrorist hijacking of Flight 93 on the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
LONDON BOMBINGS AND THE MEDIA: Dilpazier Aslam, a “trainee journalist” for London's Guardian, who reported on the bombings from Leeds and wrote a column claiming that agitation against British foreign policy would build up “till it can be contained no more,” turns out to be a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical world organisation which seeks to form a global Islamic state regulated by sharia law. The Independent nicely notes that the association was caught by a blogger. The Guardian said that Aslam was employed to increase ethnic diversity within the newsroom.
IRAQ: Sunday's suicide bombing of a fuel tanker has stunned even jaded Iraqis. Shiite parliamentarian Khudayr al-Khuzai called on the government to “bring back popular militias” to protect vulnerable Shiite communities. However, the militias have not really been disbanded; it might be better to attempt to inegrate them into the Iraqi armed and police forces. Soldiers are re-enlisting at rates ahead of the Army's targets, even as overall recruiting is suffering. Arthur Chrenkoff has his usual round up of good news, covering three weeks instead of two this time.
TERRORISM: Chatham House issued a report claiming that supporting the invasion of Iraq put the U.K. more at risk from terrorist attack. “It suggests Britain, as America's closest ally, is at particular risk from terrorism,” BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall said. That will be news to the people of Spain, who suffered the prior Madrid train bombing. The Madrid attack appears to have been in the works long before 9/11;“some kind of attack would have happened even if Spain had not joined the Coalition — or if the invasion of Iraq had never occurred.” Even after Spain voted in a government pledged to withdraw tropps from Iraq, terrorists planned to continue attacking Spain, including suicide bombings. Similarly, British intelligence suggests that up to 3,000 British-born or British-based people passed through Osama Bin Laden’s training camps, which were dismantled before the invasion of Iraq. In both cases, Madrid and London, the groups claiming responsibility for the attacks refer to Afghanistan as well as Iraq. As the 9/11 Commission Report notes, Bin Laden's grievance with the U.S. may have started in reaction to specific U.S. policies, such as the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia, but it quickly became far deeper.
GITMO: GOP Congressman Frank LoBiondo apologized for suggesting that Gitmo detainees were worse than Adolf Hitler because the Nazi dictator “sort of had a political rationale about what he was doing.” At least it took him only a few minutes to realize it was a bad comparison.
IRSHAD MANJI, a lipstick lesbian, a Muslim and scourge of Islamic leaders, whom she accuses of making excuses about the terror attacks on London, is profiled by London's Times.
ISLAMIC EXTREMISM: Some of Islam’s historic sites in Mecca, possibly including a home of the Prophet Mohammad, are under threat from Saudi real estate developers and Wahhabi Muslims who view them as promoting idolatry.
DO YOU GET SCAM SPAM FROM NIGERIA? If so, you'll be glad to note that a Nigerian court has sentenced a woman to two and a half years in prison for her part in the country's biggest ever international fraud case.
EBONICS: The San Bernardino City Unified School District wants to incorporate Ebonics to improve black students' academic performance by keeping them interested in school. “Ebonics is a different language, it's not slang as many believe,” said Mary Texeira, a sociology professor at Cal State San Bernardino. “For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language… There are African Americans who do not agree with me. They say that (black students) are lazy and that they need to learn to talk.”
PODCASTING: Corporate media is moving quickly to stake out podcasting as an avenue for reaching new listeners, according to the Washington Post.
CULT OF THE iPod: Downloads from iTunes Music Store just topped 500 million. Apple reportedly wants to offer video iPods this Fall. Bill Gates is cozying up to Hollywood to prevent Apple from dominating any emerging video market.
SPYWARE: The New York Times reports that rather than take the time to remove spyware and adware, many PC owners are simply replacing their machines. Sounds like there may be some deals to be had in the refurbished computer market.
MEN MAY RULE THE REMOTE, but women rule digital video recorders, according to a survey done for the Lifetime network.
NASA BELIEVES THERE IS LIFE on MARS, because it believes the two rover spacecraft scuttling across the red planet are carrying bacteria from Earth.
LOCUSTS plague France. “There is nothing we can do for the 700 or 800 farmers affected,” said Patrice Lemoux, an agriculture official. “The locust has no known predator and the only insecticides which might make a difference are banned.”
THE DIVORCE RATE IS DECLINING in the U.S., but so is the marriage rate. Some experts are concerned about the effect of cohabitation on children.
RICHARD FEYNMAN AND HIS DOODLES are now on a postage stamp. Science News online discusses the importance of the doodles.
DUTCH POLICE AND RANGERS POWERLESS to stop a growing trend of outdoor sex orgies. Eric Droogh, director at the Veluwe National Park, said: “A national debate on wild sex parties in the countryside is essential.”
PET HOARDING is is not unusual, according to Gary Patronek, a veterinarian who teaches at Tufts University and founded the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium. Cats are the most commonly hoarded pets, Patronek said, because they are easy to acquire; they are quieter, cleaner and simpler to manage than most dogs; and they interact with humans far more than rabbits, guinea pigs and other small pets do.
DOGS: A dog used to jumping from the window of his owners' ground-floor apartment jumped from their new unit six floors up. The dog was saved when it landed on a neighbour's balcony three floors below.
ENDANGERED ROYAL TURTLE saved from Chinese soup-pot, thanks to a tiny microchip.
