REUINTED, AND IT FEELS SO GOOD: Crowded House are set to reform for a world tour 11 years after they spilt. Manchester indie band James are to reform after a five-year hiatus. Dinosaur, Jr. has signed with Fat Possum, which will release in the spring unveil the band's first album with its original lineup since 1989. Even Sneakers did a o­ne-off opening for Mitch Easter and the reunited dB's. And we have a full-on Van Halen Reunion Warning from Billboard. The logical clip here seemed to be Crowded House playing "Don't Dream It's Over" at their "farewell to the world" concert. But I've thrown in VH's "Dance The Night Away" and James's "Laid" for good measure.

THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN: Damon Albarn (and ex-Clash bassist Paul Simonon) mess with MPR's Steve Seel, strting with Albarn's insistence that they are an orchestra, not a band, and are not named The Good, The Bad & The Queen. Streaming audio at the link. And you can stream TGTB&TQ in full via Spinner this week.

HOOTS, HOLLERS & BARBARIC YAWPS: PopMatters attempts to categorize the shrieks and wails and uhs and hey-hey-heys that exalt the passion of performing in the midst of the performance itself. There is a scene in the director's cut of Almost Famous addressing this as well, but (sadly) it's not o­nline.

THE MILLION-DOLLAR TRIO: Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, and Ray Price plan to release a jointly recorded, two-disc, 22-song collection of newly-recorded country classics o­n March 20th. Plenty of cameos, too.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS talks about her upcoming album and comments o­n her body of work for Harp magazine. At the moment you can stream a bunch of Lucinda's body of work via the ol' Hype Machine.

THE BOY LEAST LIKELY TO play "Hugging My Grudge" o­n GMTV in the UK. You can stream more songs -- including their cover of George Michael's "Faith" -- via MySpace. The duo is now being promoted by the guy who launched the Spice Girls, which I find hilarious.

BONO is promoting "trade, not aid" by partnering with college students in Ohio o­n a T-shirt business.

OF MONTREAL frontman Keith Barnes talks to Harmonium about getting out of the indie ghetto and gives details of the current tour -- e.g., the elaborate staging, cover songs, etc. You can stream Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? in full via Spinner this week.

I'M WITH THE BAND: YesButNoYes reaches into the "Where Are They Now?" file to track down famous rock groupies of the 70's.

PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: As previously rumored, the troubled singer's band Babyshambles has signed with Parlophone records for a reported

PETE TOWNSHEND and the RACONTEURS: Stereogum has posted video of The Who's frontman leading the lads (Jack White, mostly) through "The Seeker."

NEW & IMPROVED RELEASES: 13 alt-rock albums, including The Shins, The Broken West, Dustin Kensrue, Deerhoof, Mew and more are streaming from Spinner this week, which I hope becomes a regular thing. And Kensrue does sometimes sound a bit like Paul Westerberg. You can stream the Menomena album, too.

BRIGHT EYES has announced US tour dates, plus release dates for an EP in March and an album in April. SoundMojo has "Tourist Trap" for download now, or you can stream it via the ol' HM.

THE TOP ALBUMS OF 1978, complete with MP3s, kick off a new series at The Morning News. Pate fans will be glad to see Cheap Trick and The Jam make the list.

TOUCH & GO RECORDS is starting to post videos from the label's 25th anniversary birthday bash.

THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN is reuniting for Coachella 2007. Now that's "Some Candy Talking."

CHRISSIE HYNDE of the Pretenders doesn't see herself as a role model for female rockers: "I haven't done anything for women. I just wanted to front my little rock band." But she does have criticism for those trying to sell a video by "sticking their boobs out": "Remember you're in a rock and roll band. It's not f... me; it's f... you!" Plenty more o­n more topics at the link.

ANI DI FRANCO gave birth to a 7 pound, 8 ounce little girl, Petah Lucia, at her Buffalo home early Saturday morning.

FROM THE BASEMENT: Award-winning producer Nigel Godrich is interviewed by NPR about his attempt to bring music video back to the performance.

BLOG BUZZ: Eric Harvey, who usually blogs at marathonpacks, has a perceptive piece for Stylus magazine about how the independent promotion industry is working the music blogosphere.

THE OSCARS: Babel, The Departed, The Queen, Letters From Iwo Jima, and Little Miss Sunshine are vying for Best Picture. The Envelope has the full list of nominees. The Gold Derby highlights the major snubs (United 93 would be mine.); ironically, Dreamgirls gets the most noms while snubbed for Best Pic. It's a record year for Black actors and Hispanic nominees (despite Pedro Almod

LEE HAZLEWOOD releases what he calls his last record, Cake or Death, today. I take that claim seriously, as he's dying a painful death from renal cancer. You can stream his "original" version of "These Boots Were Made For Walkin'" and the single "Baghdad Nights" via HisSpace, and "It's Nothing to Me" from the HM via Stereogum. There's also a short video for "Boots." And no Hazlewood blurb here would be complete with out the video of his duet with Nancy Sinatra o­n "Some Velvet Morning."

OTHER NEW RELEASES: The long-awaited, much-leaked Shins album is streaming in full from AOL this week. Alt-supergroup The Good, the Bad & the Queen releases its self-titled debut, which we dug here. The Sunday Times of London profiles TGTB&TQ's Damon Albarn, who describes his the album as the

DENNY DOHERTY, one-quarter of the 1960s folk-rock group the Mamas and the Papas, died Friday at 66 after a short illness. He had suffered kidney problems following surgery last month and had been put o­n dialysis. "Everybody used to think that John Phillips, who wrote the songs, was also the main voice of the group, but it wasn't - it was the angelic voice of Denny Doherty," said Larry Leblanc, Canadian editor of Billboard Magazine. "Creeque Alley" told the story of the band's formation amid the musical ferment of the folk scene. That song mentions the band's debut top 10 smash "California Dreamin'" (this is the hilarious Hullaballoo version). "Monday, Monday" hit No. 1 o­n the charts and won the band a Grammy for best contemporary group performance. Among the group's other songs were "I Saw Her Again Last Night," "Go Where You Wanna Go" (sample), plus covers of songs like "Dedicated to the One I Love." and "Dancing In The Street" (which closed the Monterey Pop Festival featured here 2 weeks ago).

WILCO: Jeff Tweedy confirms the band's next album, Sky Blue Sky, is due May 15th. Until then, we can make do with downloading or streaming the More Like The Moon EP, originally released a bonus disc to the Australian version of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

ECHO and the BUNNYMEN re-issues the best-of Songs to Learn and Sing tomorrow as The Very Best of Echo & the Bunnymen: More Songs to Learn and Sing, which -- as the title suggests, contains even more songs to learn and sing.

PORTASTATIC, the eclectic second band of Superchunk's Mac McCaughan, stopped by the World Cafe last Thursday, so you can stream an interview and acoustic set from NPR now. And it reminds me to pay more attention to Portastatic.

FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE will release a new album, Traffic and Weather, o­n April 3rd, but a new single is due in late February.

GOOD VIBRATIONS: The New York Times profiles the late theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore, including a brief history of the instrument that curiously omits the Beach Boys smash hit which was built o­n it.

THE ARCADE FIRE is playing warm-up shows in advance of the album release in March, and started Friday night at Ottawa

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE...

...with THE RAMONES o­n Don Kirshner's... Rock Concert circa May 1977. Part 1 includes: "Listen To My Heart"; "California Sun"; "Judy Is A Punk"; and "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You." Part 2 includes: "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker"; "Loudmouth"; "Beat o­n the Brat"; and "Blitzkrieg Bop." Part 3 includes: "Glad To See You Go"; "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment"; "Rockaway Beach"; and "Commando."

THE PLANET ROCK ALBUM QUIZ requires you to identify artist and title from small bits of album cover art. Not easy, though being a teenage metalhead will help.

SLIPPED DISCS: The staff at PopMatters survey the overlooked albums of 2006, with plenty of audio and video, from artists as disparate as Roseanne Cash, Cheap Trick, Mission of Burma, Jay-Z and Van Hunt.

LOVE IS A MIXTAPE: And a battlefield, but that's a whole other thing. Sometimes. Anyway, the mixtape thing is a new book by Rolling Stone contributor Rob Sheffield traces his relationship with the love of his life through stacks of revealing, worn-out cassettes. There's an excerpt at the link.

THE DECEMBERISTS' Colin Meloy tells Drowned in Sound that he misses mixtapes, but my fave part of the interview is: "Q: Who would play you in a film based upon your life? A: Samantha Morton. That would be arty."

HOLD ON TO THAT FEELIN': L.A. Weekly joins "a mixed crowd of longhaired Samoans, classic-rock dudes, hair-metal queens, lesbians and a few hoochy mamas among the club's indie regulars, all out to catch Infinity, the mustachioed, female-fronted Journey cover band..." Fortunately, through the magic of YouTube, we can enjoy(?) the original lineup's "Don't Stop Believin'."

THE MAJESTIC TWELVE: Music journo Marc Hirsh writes that "On "Break It and Breathe" The Majestic Twelve filters an entire decade's worth of what was o­nce called 'college rock,' from Devo to Husker Du to Midnight Oil, into a little more than three and a half minutes."

THE SLIP stopped by the World Cafe last week, where they talked about the value of a producer who would tell them to "sit down and shut up." You can stream the interview and mini-set via NPR.

PETE TOWNSHEND: Stylus takes a second listen to the pretentious but underrated All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes.

THE CUTOUT BIN: This Friday's fortuitous finds o­n the ol' HM include: Iggy Pop - Lust For Life; The Jam - The Modern World; The Broken West - Down in the Valley; Weezer - Susanne; David Bowie - All the Young Dudes; Frank Black - Headache; The Sonics - Strychnine; 13th Floor Elevators - It's All Over Now, Baby Blue; The Hollies - Mickey's Monkey; Sly & the Family Stone - I'm an Animal; The Rascals - People Got to Be Free; Rod Stewart - Handbags and Gladrags; The Velvet Underground - Pale Blue Eyes; Dean & Britta - You Turn My Head Around; Todd Rundgren - Hello Its Me; The Mooney Suzuki - This Broke Heart of Mine; Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper - Elvis Is Everywhere; Sid & Susie (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs) - The Warmth Of The Sun; and The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations.

LINDSAY LOHAN REHAB WATCH: Star magazine claims that her appendicitis was the turning point: "She left the hospital with several painkillers o­n her; that was her downfall -- she was using the painkillers and continuing to go out and drink." Indeed, TMZ claims that a day after having her appendix removed, Lohan was partying at Hollywood's trendy Roosevelt Hotel, lining up mulitple shots in a row behind her so almost no o­ne could see.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's new wide release is The Hitcher -- a remake of the 1986 cult classic shockingly not being screened for critics. Expanding wide is the near-universally acclaimed The Queen, which is scoring 98 percent o­n the Tomatometer.

THE SUNDANCE FILM FEST is underway. The official website has tons of features, including plenty of short films. The Internet Movie Database has mini-guide with the complete line-up of feature films, plus a blog and a photo gallery.

STEVE BUSCEMI: New York magazine profiles "The Sundance Kid," who has two movies premiering at the festival.

TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise is trying to recruit the Beckhams to the Scientology cult