SILVER JEWS played their final gig 300 feet underground in the Cumberland Caverns, stating with "Introduction/ We Are Real" and ending with "Smith and Jones Forever."

ANDREW BIRD and LONEY DEAR played the 9:30 Club in DC last night, you can stream the gig on demand via NPR.

HEARTLESS BAST^RDS do the four free songs thing for Daytrotter, all selections from their new album, The Mountain.

LILY ALLEN is streaming her new album before next week's release.

BOB MOULD talks about his upcoming album and autobiography with Spinner.

FLEET FOXES give Billboard a status report on the sophomore album as their debut sneaks to No. 36 on the Hot 200 chart.

THE WALKMEN have a video for "Four Provinces" that features Nepal, but not the band.

FRANZ FERDINAND: Singer Alex Kapranos and drummer Paul Thomson talk to Pitchfork about the new album, seeing legends at the Grammys, and Gary Glitter, among other things.

JAYHAWKS: Gary Louris is working on reissuing the five Jayhawks albums, a new "best of" collection and a boxed set, all stuffed with B-sides, rarities and live tracks.

BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLY gets an annotated discography at Drowned In Sound.

DUFFY is profiled down under by the Courier-Mail.

JESSICA SIMPSON's family says said her apparent "weight gain" has more to do with bad styling and an unfriendly lens.

CHRISTIAN BALE's profane on-set tirade is getting the remix treatment.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON does not understand why men have nipples.  Of course, this is why we have the Internet.

BRITNEY SPEARS will be taking the kids on tour, according to her blog.

GWYNETH PALTROW takes on rumors about her marriage and haters of her GOOP website.

ALI LOHAN has been skipping school on Long Island, in favor of hanging with big sister Li-Lo in L.A., according to the ever reliable Star.

GEORGE CLOONEY & AARON SORKIN are working on a Gitmo courtroom drama, with almost no hope that it will be even remotely as good as A Few Good Men.

ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. has another great take on his Oscar nomination in USA Today.

ANNE HATHAWAY is taking her Dad to the Oscars.

JESSICA BIEL is slated to host the Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards this Saturday in Beverly Hills. The geeks always book a hottie to host.

DITA VON TEESE talks about France, Fashion and another f-word that may not be the first to come to mind.

NORTH KOREA appears to be preparing to test-fire a ballistic missile that could be capable of striking the western US, a South Korean official and reports said Tuesday.

IRAN has successfully sent its first domestically made satellite into orbit, according to Pres. Ahmedinejad.  I was... skeptical, but NASA and others seem to confirm it.  And an orbital launcher is a de facto ICBM, which is just peachy.

THE STANS: CIA-directed airstrikes against al-Qaeda leaders and facilities in Pakistan over the past six to nine months have been so successful, according to senior US officials, that it is now possible to foresee a "complete al-Qaeda defeat" in the mountainous region along the border with Afghanistan. Except I don't see how that lasts without also defeating or accommodating the Taliban. Contrast that with the story that the Pentagon's top military officers are recommending that Pres. Obama shift strategy in Afghanistan - to focus on ensuring regional stability and eliminating Taliban and Al Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan, rather than on achieving lasting democracy and a thriving Afghan economy.  Meanwhile, the campaign against the Taliban suffered two logistical blows Tuesday as the president of Kyrgyzstan announced that he'd shut a US airbase in his country and the Taliban in Pakistan blew up a bridge, disrupting the main US supply route into Afghanistan.

A BABY MONKEY eats at the London Zoo.

HEY, IS THAT A PAIR OF PIGEONS in your pants?  Pic at the link!

A WAYWARD SNAKE halted commuter trains for hours in south Queensland.  No word yet on squirrel involvement.

CYBORG BEETLES prepare for battle!

SEA LION learns to write Chinese? Actually, it can only write "bull," which seems oddly appropos.

867-5309 is up for auction on eBay, with bids over 150K as I write this. The price of a call has gone up since the days of Tommy Tutone (who appears to have been a peeping Tommy; who knew?).

NEW RELEASES: Ben Kweller, the Brighton Port Authority, Zero Boys and more are streaming in full this week via Spinner. Heartless Bast^rds bring The Mountain. The Von Bondies return with Love Hate And Then There's You.

VON BONDIES: Jason Stollsteimer talks to the Detroit News and Exclaim about the trials and tribulations of the past five years.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: Tracks from The Decemberists, Don Auerbach and Buddy Holly are featured in the latest edition of the long-running NPR series.

DRIVE-BY TRUCKER Patterson Hood talks to the Citizen-Times about his upcoming solo LP, which he describes as power-pop.

ATLANTIC CITY: The Springsteen tune is covered by The Hold Steady for your Twofer Tuesday.

BUDDY HOLLY is featured on NPR's Morning Edition for the actual Day The Music Died. Indie rockers pay tribute at Metro Boston News.

FRUIT BATS: Eric Johnson talks to the Santa Barbara Independent about gigging with The Shins.

EMMY THE GREAT discusses her dark side with The Shields Gazette.

RONNIE SPECTOR talks to Chronogram about her multimedia show, "Beyond the Beehive."

JESSICA SIMPSON's recent weight gain made her a big target for the producer of an exercise video the pneumatic blonde once nixed. And Pres. Obama got dragged in to the story to boot.

BRITNEY SPEARS may cancel her upcoming tour if Fed-Ex's lawyers continue to block an agreement allowing her to take the kids on the road.

CHRISTIAN BALE went ballistic on the set of Terminator: Salvation a while back -- TMZ has the extremely explicit audio. Nikki Finke reports that Bale regrets that he lost his temper.

MADONNA may be back with 22-year-old Brazilian model Jesus Luz.

KATE MOSS wants to be an actress, according to the uber-reliable News of the World.

LETTERMAN'S NINE MOST HILARIOUSLY AWKWARD MOMENTS, including Harvey Pekar and Crispin Glover, via Cracked magazine.

RICK MORANIS wrote about Wall Street's financial mess for Sunday's New York Times.

ISLAMISM in the UK: Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary has warned Brit lovers that if they celebrate Valentine's Day they will rot in Hell.

IRAN: The chairman of the US House Cmite on Foreign Affairs tried to meet a top aide to Iran's supreme leader in mid-December but was rebuffed at the last minute, a snub illustrating the challenges to dialogue with Tehran pushed by Pres. Obama.

IRAQ: January 2009 marked the lowest death toll in Iraq in the past five years. Prime Minister al-Maliki and several secular parties appeared to score significant gains in Iraq's provincial elections, according to preliminary reports.  Indeed, the Anbar Awakening leaders threatened the non-secular Iraqi Islamic Party with violence if the polls are found to have been rigged.

A TRUCKER & HIS DUCK: Let's go to the video.

A LABRADOR and TIGER CUBS, living together... mass hysteria. Lisha - who lives at the Cango Wildlife Reserve in South Africa - has also been called upon to look after no less than 30 orphans, including pygmy hippos, a porcupine, cheetahs, a mongoose, serval kittens and even a barn owl.

COW struck by lightning ... and lives.  Dawn of the Steak.  Freaky pic at the link.

EXTINCT IBEX has been brought back to life for the first time after being cloned from frozen tissue.  What could go wrong? They spared no expense.

DOLPHINS are the Chef of the Sea.

ANDREW BIRD breaks down his new album track-by-track for Drowned In Sound. And Dave loved "Fitz & Dizzyspells" the other night.

FRANK BLACK has a new band with his wife.

PETER BJORN & JOHN: Bjorn talks to Paste about the forthcoming Living Thing album, including this about the song "Blue Period Picasso": "It's like a hit single from the '80s that never got to be a single. It's a really cool song... It's like an old Paul Anka song, but played by Prince."

DEREK TRUCKS, guitar prodigy and nephew of Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks, did a mini-set for the World Cafe streamable via NPR.

MATT & KIM fight Cute, fail miserably: "Onstage, Matt sings, attacks keyboards, and narrates with the wild, rapturous glee of a lottery winner; Kim kicks the sh^t out of her drum set and smiles so adorably she makes babies jealous. If this strikes you as nauseating, you're just not acquainted."

I WANNA BE SEDATED gets a beefed up feature with Ramones video links as part of the upgrading NPR 100.

METRIC: Emily Haines talks about the band's next album, which will be self-released in April.

JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE: Between his addiction and his dad Steve, which do you think he's less happy discussing?

JAY REATARD, a/k/a lo-fi Memphis garage-rocker Jay Lindsey, is profiled in the East Bay Express.  You can stream a few at HisSpace.

THE WHITE HOUSE RECORD LIBRARY: There's vintage vinyl in the basement.

JESSICA SIMPSON: Sister Ashlee is "completely disgusted" by the headlines concerning her sister's weight.  I would be also, if Jessica was a talented singer or actress.  RELATED?  The ever-reliable Star has Tony Romo cheating on Jessica in her own bed.

JOAQUIN PHOENIX may be hoaxing the public with his amazingly bad rap career.

JOHN TRAVOLTA: The extortion plot aginst him was really lame.

OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN's former partner , who was believed to have drowned at sea nearly four years ago, staged his own disappearance, according to an NBC Dateline investigation.

BART SIMPSON is making robo-calls for Scientology. Not prank calls, either.

MEGAN FOX could replace Angelina Jolie in a reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise?

HILARY DUFF will star in "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde," which thankfully is not even going to pretend to be a remake of the 1967 classic.

OSCARS ROUNDTABLE: Newsweek's annual gathering of hopefuls hosts Brad Pitt, Robert Downey, Jr., Anne Hathaway, Frank Langella, Sally Hawkins, and Mickey Rourke.  Transcript and video at the link.

THE SCREEN ACTORS GUILD fired its chief negotiator and replaced its negotiating committee -- a sign that a SAG feature-primtetime deal may be close without a strike.

GUILLERMO del TORO walks out of an interview that raises his cinematic whitewashing of Che Guevara's record as a mass murderer.

IRAN: President Ahmadinejad said the US must remove its forces from the Middle East and apologize for "the crimes they have committed against the Iranian nation." Egypt's foreign minister said Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas are conspiring to spark a regional conflict. US Rep. Pete Hoekstra says "there's no way and no chance to stop the Iranian nuclear program."

IRAQ: Early voting for the provincial elections has begun. Kurdistan leader Massoud Barazani rejected the formation of Awakening councils in the North.

A LORIS EATS: Let's go to the video.

BABY GIRAFFE born Monday morning at the San Francisco Zoo.  Awww... some pics at the link.

STREAKER the PIG will attempt to correctly choose the Super Bowl XLIII winner.

A GATOR stuck in a pipe in Cape Coral FL, is lured out with...

THE £100000 PUPPY: We can clone him.