THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE…
…with SPINAL TAP. Pate used to cover “Gimme Some Money,” but few have seen color footage of the Thamesmen playing it (and that set reminds me of the Razzbar). The band's first hit as Spinal Tap, however, was “(Listen To The) Flower People,” which is presented in full here. Finally, there's Tap playing “Stonehenge” live in Japan, where they don't have the problem with the undersized replica.
XTC: Andy Partridge talks to Paste magazine about the nervous breakdown that transformed the band into a studio outfit, songwriting and more… You can get a dose of the band via the Hype Machine.
PITCHFORK PREVIEW: The Pitchfork Music Festival is next weekend, so Rewritable Content is streaming tunes from bands playing the fest.
THE TOP 100 MUSIC VIDEOS OF ALL TIME reaches the final coundown at Stylus.
TAPES 'N' TAPES: The current buzz band from MN talks about preferring to make albums as a piece of music, the benefits of being an opening act (as they will be at the Pitchfork Fest), and how how music blogs and Pitchfork were instrumental in their sudden semi-success. You can hear four cuts from The Loon via MySpace.
THE LOST NILSSON DOCUMENTARY: Harry Nilsson and producer Richard Perry filmed the recording of Son of Schmilsson for a documentary called Did Somebody Drop His Mouse? Nilsson ultimately torpedoed the project. Insofar as the existing film has a structure at all, it is built around the recording session for “I'd Rather Be Dead,” which features a busload of pensioners and which someone has posted onYouTube.
WEEKEND CUTOUT BIN: More fortuitous finds from the Hype Machine include: Elvis Costello – “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes”; The Jesus & Mary Chain – “Some Candy Talking”; The Raveonettes – “That Great Love Sound”; The Art of Noise with Duane Eddy – “Peter Gunn Theme”; Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons – “Walk Like a Man”; Roy Orbison – “Pretty Woman”; Badfinger – “Without You”; Junior Walker And The All-Stars – “What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)”; Led Zeppelin – “Georgia on My Mind”; Ike & Tina Turner – “Whole Lotta Love”; Sly and the Family Stone – “Hot Fun In The Summertime”; and Everclear – “A.M. Radio.”
99 YEARS: The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals quotes Cash, Dylan and Springsteen in a case involving the federal sentencing guidelines.
LEONARD COHEN: The soundtrack to the tribute documentary, I'm Your Man, featuring U2, Nick Cave, Beth Orton, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Teddy Thompson and more, is streaming at VH1 in advance of next week's release. You may have to turn off your pop-up blocker to get the site's media player.
HAMMER OF THE GODS will hook you up with a whole lotta Zeppelin bootlegs.
A LIST OF THE TOP TEN ROCK INSULT SONGS that ignores Bob Dylan!? What was AskMen thinking? It's not like “Ballad Of A thin Man” or “Positively 4th Street” are obscure songs…
IT'S FUN to stay in the J-A-I-L. You can hang out with all the boys. Cue the music!
NOW SHOWING: This week's wide releases are the Kevin Smith sequel Clerks II (currently scoring 67 percent on the Tomatometer), the Spielberg-Zemeckis animated project Monster House (66 percent), the looked-good-on-paper My Super Ex-Girlfriend (45 percent, but a near-fresh 58 percent with “cream of the crop” critics), and the M. Night Shyamalan fairy-tale thriller Lady In the Water (26 percent and only 17 percent with the “cream of the crop” — what was Paul Giamatti thinking?).
CLERKS II was a movie everyone close to Kevin Smith thought he shouldn't make, at least until they saw a script.
CHRISTIE BRINKLEY BREAK-UPDATE: The media frenzy continues unabated, with the NYDN quoting the mother of the teen in the middle of the Christie Brinkley-Peter Cook breakup as calling Cook a “predator” and the NYP reporting on the 15 million dollar “love shack” Cook allegedly used to get down and dirty with his 19-year-old employee.
BRADGELINA: Maddox Jolie-Pitt was voted the cutest celebrity child in a poll by Life and Style magazine. The top ten are at the link.
LINDSAY LOHAN had her BlackBerry invaded by someone who sent her friends “disgusting and very mean messages.” The French Hotel's rep denied any involvement.
GEORGE CLOONEY has broken up with director-producer Steven Soderbergh and partnered up with Good Night and Good Luck's Grant Heslov. The man clearly has commitment issues.
JESSICA BIEL: That charity lunch date with Esquire magazine's Sexiest Woman Alive went for 30K to someone named… wait for it… “John.”
JUDE LAW and SIENNA MILLER may still be an item, but Law reportedly flew halfway across the world to confront Miller about claims she's been cheating on him with co-star James Franco. Miller says there's nothing between her Franco, though she told Law that Franco has written poems for her.
DAKOTA FANNING: The 12-year-old star's next role apparently calls for her character to be raped in one explicit scene and to appear naked or clad only in “underpants” in several other horrifying moments. But she finds solace in the music of Elvis Presley, so we should not find it totally creepy.
PAM ANDERSON, XTINA AGUILERA and the FRENCH HOTEL are all inflatable dolls. But you suspected as much, didn't you?
PAM ANDERSON may be in trouble with her PETA friends if they find out she's a partner in a restaurant that serves lobster and foie gras…
MADONNA is reportedly back on track with husband Guy Ritchie and considering adopting a child, according to Guy's father. And why not? All the A-Listers are adopting these days.
THE BIG LEBOWSKI: The F—ing Short Version. There's some profanity involved. BONUS: Kenny Rogers & The First Edition – “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).”
JIHAD IN SWITZERLAND: No, really. It's making the Alpine nation reassess its historical policy of political neutrality. Actually, Switzerland has been less than neutral before, but they might pick the right side this time.
IRAQ: Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani called for an end to sectarian violence, as Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said insurgents were streaming into the capital for “an all-out assault against the Baghdad area.” Iraqi and coalition soldiers surrounded and entered two cities just west of Kirkuk, searching for suspected al Qaeda terrorists at the request of local Sunni Arab leaders. Stars and Stripes reported on the results of a poll of military readers in Iraq, though the self-selecting sample may skew the results. In LOndon's Observer Music Monthly, reporter Jason Burke writes — with some measure of humor — about his Iraq soundtrack.
MIDEAST CONFLICT: The Counterterrorism Blog notes that most of Europe hasn't designated Hezbollah is a terror group, due in part to France's resistance to cutting off its own ties with Hezbollah (even though France designates Hezbollah's Security Chief as a terrorist). Meanwhile, Germany and France are especially worried about possible attacks from Hezbollah. Go figure. Meanwhile, the conflict continues to make strange bedfellows. A leading Saudi Sheik pronounced a fatwa against Hezbollah (which makes sense coming from a Wahhabi). But Slate's Jacob Weisberg and HBO's Bill Maher are defending the Bush Administration, which will get them disinvited to any number of cocktail parties, and probably a lot of anti-Semitic e-mails.
AWWW… A KITTY AND A MONKEY! You can see more pics and learn about their friendship through Cityrag.
A STOLEN BOLIVIAN SQUIRREL MONKEY has been found alive, playing with children on a housing estate in South London.
DROP the chihuahuas!
A SNIFFER DOG is employed by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust to find bumblebee nests in the Outer Hebrides and halt the insects’ steady slide towards UK extinction.
DOGS are digging their meat-flavored designer water.
THE GOD GATOR: A four-foot-long alligator in Wisconsin has white markings against a backdrop of black scales that form the letters G-O-D. Those who have seen the gator liken its markings to images resembling the Virgin Mary that have appeared on everything from a grilled cheese sandwich to a viaduct under the Kennedy Expressway. Rev. Philip Wilde, a nearby pastor, said he views the markings as a coincidence of nature.