THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE…
… with a six-part documentary on THE VELVET UNDERGROUND. The doc seems to be British, circa 1986. A nifty primer for the uninitiated, with some amusing footage from Andy Warhol's Factory and the band's first appearance in the first segment. There's also commentary from Lou Reed (who dismisses the idea of a reunion, though we know he later indulged), Sterling Morrison, Mo Tucker, Nico, Factory factotum Gerard Malanga, and more.
THE 200 GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s continues at Pitchfork.
M WARD has had his upcoming Post-War album pushed to Aug. 29th, but you can stream the whole album now via Merge Records.
RYAN ADAMS and WILLIE NELSON, together at last. No, really. Nelson is collaborating with the former Whiskeytown frontman on an album including covers of Gram Parson's “$1000 Wedding,” Christine McVie's “Songbird,” the Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter favorite “Stella Blue” and Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah.”
THE LEMONHEADS return from hiatus on Sept. 26th, but you can stream four tracks now from the band's website.
THE CUTOUT BIN: More fortuitous finds from the Hype Machine, including: Counting Crows – Friday I'm In Love; Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – Going To A Go-Go; Art Brut – Formed A Band; The Stooges – T.V. Eye (Take 5); Funkadelic – Who Says A Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!; The Jam – Pretty Green; The Walkmen – Many Rivers To Cross; John Lee Hooker – Crawlin' Kingsnake (with Keith Richards); Al Green – Take Me To The River; Talking Heads – Take Me To The River (an early Pate cover, too); Steve Miller Band – The Joker; and Grand Funk Railroad – Closer To Home / I'm Your Captain.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: Thinking about what might balance all that Velvet Underground video, I hit upon these clips of the Electric Light Orchestra playing “Rockaria!” and the Lennon-esque ballad “I Cant Get It Out Of My Head” Fountains of Wayne does a less-synthy live cover of this on Out-of-State Plates that's quite good. It's not currently onlie, but the Delgado's faithful cover of “Mr. Blue Sky” is.
THE BYRDS are releasing yet another box set on Sept. 26th, with a DVD of rare live performances to try to take more of my money. Which is as good a reason as any to revisit Roger McGuinn's signature jangle on “Mr. Tambourine Man,” acknowledge Gene Clark on Teenage Fanclub's unplugged cover of “I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better,” David Crosby's salaciousness on the long-unreleased “Triad,” and the country charm of Gram Parsons on “You're Still on My Mind.”
THE DECEMBERISTS: Stereogum has an advance copy of The Crane Wife and digs it the most.
GNARLS BARKLEY: The “Crazy” duo have had their concert riders turn up on The Smoking Gun. So, which demands a box of Magnum condoms, and which demands tube socks? Hmmm…
DAN PENN, one of the most consistent soul songwriters of the 1960's, gets an audio feature at NPR, including streaming tracks like “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” by Aretha Franklin, and a tune from his latest project the Hacienda Brothers' What’s Wrong With Right, which has gotten kind words from Hickory Wind and the Village Voice. Click on the Bros for the MySpace page, which has some tasty tracks.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE The troubled singer was actually getting some work done, with Babyshambles readying an album of covers of everyone from The Clash to Love to Ester Phillips. But Doherty has now been charged again with seven counts of possessing drugs including cocaine and diamorphine. Meanwhile, the supposedly sober supermodel is offending Muslims in NYC without even knowing it.
SNAKES on a PLANE is the big movie release this weekend, but the flick that has become an Internet cult phenom before its release was not screened for the critics, natch. After all, we expect it to be bad. Why would they risk getting good reviews? The question is whether it's bad enough to be good. So I — strictly as a service to Pate visitors — went to the advance screening last night. Had I not gone, I could not tell you about the group that showed up dressed as snakes — except for the leader, who was dressed as… well, you get it…
Folks, I'm pleased to tell you it's bad. How bad? It's thisclose to Snakes on an Airplane! The flight is too long for the kid to need a heart transplant, but about the only other things missing are Leslie Nielsen and Otto. Instead, you get Dick from High Fidelity as a herpetologist and the sportscaster from Anchorman as the co-pilot (playing much the same character, I might add, which caused members of the audience to shout “Whammy!” at appropriate moments).
I should mention that there are snakes. Lots of them, though computer-generated when required to do anything of significance… like bite people in places you would not want to be bit. Indeed, the passengers are pretty much bit everywhere you wouldn't want to get bit. Samuel L. Jackson gets to kill a lot of them, culminating in the film's fan-generated, profanity-laden catch-phrase — which you can see in this equally profanity-laden interview with Jackson on The Daily Show — and which most of the crowd shouted out along with Jackson, though none of us had seen the movie before. There are several surprises, particularly at the end, which I won't spoil, though I will tell you that the video for “Snakes on A Plane (Bring It)” runs alongside the end credits. With a budget of 35 million, this thing will have a hefty return on investment. Chuck Klosterman will be very depressed.
OTHER NEW RELEASES include the teen comedy Accepted (currently scoring 31 percent on the Tomatometer) and The Illusionist (63 percent, but 90 percent among the “cream of the crop” critics), which features Ed Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel. Little Miss Sunshine, which I saw (and liked) last weekend, expands to about 700 screens.
BRITNEY SPEARS: Hubby Spenderline is almost broke, but claims he won't hit up Brit for extra bucks. Meanwhile, the pop tart says that her second child was unplanned. At least by her, as the prenup reportedly would give Spenderline more money per child. Also, she is making Spenderline get rid of his six sharks.
HEATH LEDGER and MICHELLE WILLIAMS: The Bokeback Mountain stars who married in real life flip off the paparazzi. And if you were sporting his facial hair or her swimsuit, you would do the same.
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY has a different approach to the paparazzi. The British press criticizes her scruffy wool hat, so the following day, she has her boyfriend wear it.
MAD MEL UPDATE: Gibson cops a plea to three years probation, but will avoid jail time. He was also ordered to attend one year of AA meetings. Meanwhile, Deadspin is doing what it can to hook you up with the video or audio of Denis Leary's delicious Gibson rant from the Boston Red Sox game.
LINDSAY LOHAN: You know you have gotten a bad rep when you get banned from a Justin Timberlake concert. Ouch! And that was before these embarassing pictures surfaced.
THE OSCARS face the IRS, which will require the stars to pay tax on the lavish swag bags they receive at the event (and similar shows, I would imagine). Look for Hollywood to follow Clooney's lead in donating them or auctioning them for charity.
JESSICA ALBA has been terrorizing Vancouver for the better part of a month, WHILE in town to shoot Good Luck Chuck.
PENELOPE CRUZ had a bikini malfunction in Ibiza. Now that you mention it, cameras were there.
Send in the FEMBOTS! Popular Science looks at history and competing views of pop-culture staple: “Feminist science-fiction writer Amy Thomson, author of robot-comes-of-age novel Virtual Girl, suggests that the fembot myth is attractive to men because it deals with 'a woman you create and control.' But tech journalist Daniel Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising, argues that fictional fembots have hardly been portrayed as controllable—in fact, he claims, they’re often presented as the most dangerous robots of all, because feelings of attraction to them could leave their victims vulnerable to attack…”
WHO IS KEYSER SOZE, and what would he think of our foreign policy? Alexander Solzhenitsyn has a cameo.
THE NSA EAVESDROPPING PROGRAM was ruled unconstitutional by a federal district court judge; the gov't has obtained a stay pending appeal, natch. I haven't had a chance to read the full opinion yet, but I note that even law profs who think the program is illegal are unimpressed with its reasoning.
IRAQ in the MEDIA: The New York Times ran a front page story Thursday about the surge in the number of bomb attacks, mostly against US troops. The paper is forced to admit that “monthly U.S. military fatalities have declined slightly, reflecting improvements in armor and other defenses,” but adds that “the number of U.S. troops wounded has soared, to 518 in July from 287 in January.” A glance at the Brookings Institute's Iraq Index or the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count shows that the paper has cherry-picked the numbers that put the worst possible spin on the situation. It is equally true, but eqully misleading, to say that that last month's wounded were about one-third of the number in November 2004. It is equally true, but more accurate, to note that the numbers cited by the paper basically fall at the ends of a range existing since March 2005. The papers cherry-picking is part of a pattern I've documented for months. Iraq is in bad shape, so what does it say about the NYT that it feels compelled to abuse statistics in its news coverage? The most charitable would be that the staff suffers from innumeracy.
MIDEAST CONFLICT: France has rebuffed UN pleas to make a major contribution to a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon. I'm shocked shocked, I tell you! Yet another reason why, imho, this conflict is far from over.
PUDGE is the name chosen by an online poll for the Detroit Zoo's new Macaroni penguin chick.
SCRAPPY the DOLPHIN nearly killed himself by wearing a Speedo. Which gibes with new studies suggesting that dolphins are not as smart as we thought, though they are almost always happy.
CANADIAN GEESE just got easier to kill.
A 330-LB GROUPER died last week at the Beihai Sea World in China. It would appear that the death was due to morbid obesity.. Who'da thunk?
MYSTERY BEAST: Russian fisherman claim to have the caracass of something resembling a plesiosaur.