THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE…
…with THE JAM. Original Pate drummer Ron Hahm pointed me to an absolute trove on YouTube, including the band's final TV appearance on The Tube from late 1982. It even kicks off with “Ghosts” which popped up in the Pate setlist early on. The band also does a ripping cover of Curtis Mayfield's “Move On Up.” If you prefer the band's earlier output, there's this hour-plus show from German TV's Rockpalast circa 1980. That set includes “Little Boy Soldiers,” another tune that made the early Pate setlist.
FRIDAY TIMEWASTER: Road Blocks. Go from Point “A” to Point “B.” What could be easier?
WHO'S LEFT: Pete Townshend should know better than to blog a story featuring a sex act between two teenagers, as he's still on the Sex Offenders' Register in the UK.
ELVIS PERKINS: Stereogum names the band led by the son of Anthony Perkins an “Artist to Watch.” The band has a pair streaming from MySpace, but there's plenty more on the Hype Machine, as the band has posted a bunch of MP3s on the official website.
CHUCK BERRY: With the DVD of Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll coming out next week (after being long out-of-print on home video), director Taylor Hackford and others get the chance to tell you what a complete pain Berry was to work with.
WEEKEND CUTOUT BIN: Another helping of fortuitous finds from the Hype Machine. Elvis Costello – “Radio, Radio”; The Skatalites – “Guns of Navarone”; Patti Smith – “Because The Night”; Gram Parsons (with Emmylou Harris) – “A Song For You”; Richard Thompson – “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” (live at KBCO); Broken Social Scene – “Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl”; The Minus 5 (featuring Robyn Hitchcock) – “Your Day Will Come” (Alternate Version); The Pipettes – “Why Did You Stay”; Teenage Fanclub – “The Concept”; Pearl Jam – “Kick Out The Jams” (with the explicit intro).
WOLFMOTHER: The Late Show with David Letterman is streaming an exclusive performance of “Woman” from the heavy rock band's self-titled disc.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: Speaking of Letterman, I thought I'd better post this clip of Sonic Youth playing “Incinerate” while it's still on YouTube. If you haven't heard Rather Ripped, you might be surprised at how normal and near-pop it is.
DAVID LOWERY, of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, talks to the Charleston Post and Courier about using Andy Kaufman-esque tactics against Cracker's ex-label and trying to write records the way Thomas Pynchon writes novels or Federico Fellini made movies. You can stream Cracker from the Hype Machine and Camper Van Beethoven from MySpace.
CULTURE CLUB: To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the only thing worse than reforming Culture Club would be reforming Culture Club without Boy George. Granted, there's a bench warrant out for the Boy's arrest, but it just ain't the Archies without the Jughead beat.
JOSE GONZALEZ: The New Zealand Herald calls the folk-rocker a man of contradictions, but he tells NOW that the comparisons to Nick Drake were a bit premature: “It wasn't until after I started playing shows that I began listening to Nick Drake. People would ask me after every gig if I liked Nick Drake, because I sounded so much like him. So I decided to check out his albums. At first I thought, 'This guy doesn't sound anything like me,' but the more I listened the more I enjoyed what I heard. Now I'd say he's an influence, too.” You can stream his appearance last week on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic in multiple formats, including video.
WEEZER: Rivers Cuomo got married in Hawaii recently.
RADIOHEAD: In The New Yorker, critic Sasha Frere-Jones, who has not been a fan of the band, has reconsidered.
THE SOPRANOS: Today may be D-Day for HBO to give a final counter-offer to six of the show's cast members who remain unsigned for the final episodes of the series. Lorraine Bracco may have the vineyard to fall back on, but James Gandolfini is reportedly hosting a sit-down this weekend with hardcore holdouts Steven Van Zandt and Tony Sirico.
NOW SHOWING: This week's wide releases are the Adam Sandler-controlled Click (21 percent Rotten on the Tomatometer, but probably critic-proof) and the Tyrese vehicle Waist Deep (43 percent Rotten overall, but 55 percent with the “cream of the crop” critics). The world waits for Wednesday, when Superman Returns (early reviews have it at 92 percent Fresh overall and 100 percent from the “cream”).
SUPER-HYPE: Speaking of which, the PR for Superman Returns ranges as far as Page Six running a blurb on the science of Superman and IGN compiling a list of the Top Ten Superman Songs.
KATE BOSWORTH, a/k/a Lois Lane, seems to be on the Skeletor diet, with an NYC eating-disorder specialist pointing to her “emaciated chest” and “collarbone standing out” as signs the five-foot-seven star is too thin. This looks like a job for… Burger King!
CLICK may not be getting good reviews, but it did inspire MTV to compile a list of Ten All-Time Favorite Movie Gadgets.
BRADGELINA: The fallout from her CNN interview continues as The New York Times lauds her while savaging Anderson Cooper. TMZ has reported that a paparazzo was arrested in Malibu Thursday after allegedly jumping the fence at a daycare center that Maddox was attending. And the ever-reliable National Enquirer claims that tension between the new parents exploded recently over frustration about not being able to spend time alone.
CHER is also becoming an activist, promoting effective helmets for U.S. soldiers (primarily Marines) and donating more than 130K to the group Operation Helmet, which pays about 100 bucks to modify the inside of soldiers' helmets to make them better able to absorb shock from a bomb blast. And she talked to Anderson Cooper about it, too. She has also appeared on and called into shows on C-SPAN on this and related issues.
BRITNEY SPEARS has gone brunette and may have fired the baby's “manny” at the behest of Spenderline, who is busy giving pennies to charity.
CAMERON DIAZ dumped by Justin Timberlake? That rumor is rampant, though I think I heard it denied on TV.
DENISE & HEATHER & RICHIE & CHARLIE & DAVID: Charlie Sheen has reportedly gotten a vist from his new squeeze's parents. And he apparently made a good impression… or her parents are being diplomatic.
THE FAMILY GUY creator Seth MacFarlane slayed ’em at Harvard's pre-graduation “Class Day.” Our site admin Lance pointed me to the video of Stewie addressing the seniors.
KING TUTANKHAMUN has returned to the Windy City, so on a Friday I couldn't resist the video and the audio.
OZZIE GUILLEN: The Chicago White Sox manager has been fined and ordered to undergo sensitivity training for his use of a derogatory term aimed at Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti. Guillen said to reporters when referring to Mariotti before Tuesday's game, “What a piece of [expletive] he is, [expletive] fag.” Sensitivity training may teach Guillen not to slur gays by lumping them in with hacks like Eddie Munster.
IRAQ: At ITM, Omar reports that attacks in Baghdad dropped 19 percent in the first week of Operation Forward Together, and that the new gov't is turning its attention to confronting the partisian militias. Contrary to media reports, Japan denies it is planning to pull out of Iraq. Apparently, there was a misinterpretation of stories about future handovers to Iraqi forces by Britain and other countries. The Times of London claims that the new gov't will soon announce a sweeping plan for national reconciliation that will offer Iraqi resistance groups inclusion in the political process and an amnesty for their prisoners if they renounce violence and lay down their arms. London's Independent has one of those rare pieces noting that the Kurdish region is largely peaceful, and cities are beginning to thrive.
IRAN: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says that Iran's foreign minister told him Tehran was seriously considering the Western offer for ending the dispute of Iran's nuke program. Iranian Pres. Ahmadinejad derided foes of Iran's nuclear work as mentally disturbed.
NORTH KOREA: Former Pres. Clinton's Defense Secretary and Assistant Defense Secretary argue that the US should launch a pre-emptive strike on the North Korean ICBM before it can be test launched. The pre-emptive, unilateral, cowboy warmongers in the Bush Admin. have dismissed the idea. Of course, this would be a much less serious issue if the 1994 “Agreed Framework” had not been a sham.
BABOONS are stealing flags so they can root for England in the World Cup.
FIVE RARE MONKEYS, including a sick mother and her weeks-old baby, have been stolen from a British zoo.
BAMBI, the New York tabby, is the only contestant from the Meow Mix House that has not been adopted. Mandy Stadtmiller, who wrote the article for the New York Post, must feel like Victoria Corningstone.
MAIL CARRIERS in Philadelphia, PA may be used to barking dogs, but not a hissing four-foot alligator.
THE TASMANIAN DEVIL — a species currently endangered by a rampant facial tumor disease — is getting help from Warner Bros.