WILCO & FLEET FOXES join forces to cover Bob Dylan & The Band's "I Shall Be Released" in in Spokane, WA.  Which is a place from which one might want to be released, iirc.

NEW RELEASES: Giant Sand releases proVisions--  its first album since 2004.  Birdmonster releases From the Mountain to the Sea. Brian Wilson returns with the song cycle That Lucky Old Sun.

GIANT SAND frontman Howie Gelb is interviewed by Aquarium Drunkard about the new album and his role in spawning Calexico. Plus streaming audio.

BIRDMONSTER guitarist David Klein spoke with SF Station about recording the new album, From the Mountain to the Sea, its first release with indie record company Fader.

BRIAN WILSON talks to the Canadian Press about his newest solo disc, That Lucky Old Sun -- and facing his stage fright.  He is also interviewed by the Detroit Free Press abut the album, which even hints at a possible Beach Boys reunion: "A couple of things have a Beach Boys vibe to it. But basically I just wanted to create new music that was a little more commercial than the 'Smile' album. That's what I really wanted."

THE GODFATHERS play "Birth School Work Death." and First Class plays "Beach Baby," though to hear the full version you have to visit the Cutout Bin.  It's a "you are here" Twofer Tuesday.

T-BONE BURNETT talks to the L.A. Times about working with a team of engineers on a high-fidelity audio system called Code, which Burnett thinks will affordably give listeners an experience akin to hearing studio master tapes.

RA RA RIOT check in with WNYC's Soundcheck for a chat and twofer of their string-backed, melancholy pop.

GREG DULLI of the Afghan Whigs and the Gutter Twins spoke with Spinner about working with Mark Lanegan, returning to Sub Pop (his first home), upcoming projects, celebrity in the Internet age, and why classic-rock icons Lindsey Buckingham and Don Henley are lucky they didn't earn fame today.

SILVER JEWS mastermind David Berman talks to the Montreal Mirror about touring, sobriety, blog-style rock criticism and more.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Tropic Thunder threepeats as b.o. champ with 14.3 million on the slowest movie weekend this decade. At least it now seems likely to roughly break even and profit in the DVD market, dropping a mere 12 percent thiss weekend. Babylon A.D. debuted in second with 12 million.  The Dark Knight came in third, breaking the 500 million mark in the US -- the only movie other than Titanic to reach that total (not adjusting for inflation natch). People can't get enough of the pencil trick.  The House Bunny held pretty well in fourth with 10.2 million, edging out the 10 mil debut of Traitor.  Death Race and Disaster Movie are performing poorly in the second five.  Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona snuck back into tenth place.  Hamlet 2 finished at 17, despite being well-reviewed.

JOSH HARTNETT took a mystery lady back to his hotel and their steamy shenanigans were caught on CCTV.

JAMES GANDOLFINI and fiancée Deborah Lin tied the knot Saturday in her hometown of Honolulu, Hawaii. No word on whether Uncle Junior granted favors to everyone.

JOHNNY DEPP spent the weekend rocking out for charity in Florida and discussing the rumor that he may play The Riddler in the next Batman movie.

MADONNA's world tour crew are said to be on the verge of a walkout after being treated like "second-class citizens." Hubby Guy Ritchie supposedly has nixed a second wedding ceremony because he spent too much money on her 50th birthday party.

CHRISTINA RICCI has set out on a new career as an eating disorder counsellor.

ALEC BALDWIN is still fuming over his ex-wife Kim Basinger.

MICHAEL PHELPS & CARRIE UNDERWOOD are planning a quiet first date, according to the ever-reliable National Enquirer.

HELEN MIRREN has revealed that she was date-raped when she was a student.

VLADMIR PUTIN was lauded by Russian media for supposedly saving a TV crew from a grisly death at the jaws of a Siberian tiger. Somehow, the video does not show him actually shooting the tiger.

ISLAMISM in the UK: Hardline female ‘preachers of hate' are radicalising Muslim women at one of Britain's top mosques.

IRAN: The Dutch intelligence service has pulled an agent out of an "ultra-secret operation" spying on Iran's military industry because spymasters in Netherlands believe a US air attack was imminent. A senior Iranian military commander has warned that any US or Israeli attack on the Islamic republic would start a new world war.

IRAQ: Anbar became the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces, and the first Sunni-dominated one, to pass into the control of the government. Coalition special operations teams captured three Hezbollah Brigades operatives during raids inside Baghdad. At the "make-or-break" stage of talks on the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Prime Minister al-Maliki has swept aside his negotiating team and replaced it with three of his closest aides, a reshuffle that some Iraqi officials warn risks sabotaging the agreement.

HEAVEN'S ANGELS: Bikers for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Awww...

SHRIMP BOAT turns out to be a safe harbor from Hurricane Gustav. Videos at the link.

SWEDEN'S "LOCH NESS MONSTER" supposedly captured on infrared video.  Maybe the video was shot by Bigfoot.

CAPUCHIN MONKEYS are givers.

SHARKS: Make sure they are dead before posing for the photo of your big catch. What say you, Police Chief Brody?

THE LABOR DAY WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with THE REPLACEMENTS!  Steve Foley, longtime Mpls. scenster who drummed for the band at the end of their run, died last weekend after accidentally overdosing on prescription medication. He was 49. Popdose remembers him with an essay on dying young and the final 'Mats gig at Chicago's Grant Park. Our Foley-era video includes live clips of "I Don't Know," "I Will Dare," "Achin' To Be" and "Color Me Impressed" in NYC; "Androgynous" and "Customer" from Rotterdam, Holland; and "Left of the Dial" and "Alex Chilton" in Hamburg, Germany. ALSO:  Since releasing 49:00, Paul Westerberg has released two more downloads through TuneCore.

...AND PUPPET SHOW: A collection of puppet-based music video, courtesy of Y!Music.

FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE songwriter Adam Schlesinger talks to Paste about writing Christmas songs for the Colbert report, adapting John Waters' Cry-Baby into a musical, writing music for the Jonas Brothers, producing Dashboard Confessional's upcoming album... and working on material for Ivy and FoW.

THE NINE-MINUTE ROAD TRIP: Five songs in nine minutes, carefully crafted to function as a microcosm of longer road mixes.

THE PIPETTES' new lineup has posted a vocal mix of "The Shoe That Fits" and encourages fans to remix it for a tour EP.

GORKI AGUILA, a Cuban punk rocker whose biting profanity-laced lyrics against the Castro government has previously gotten him in trouble is now in detention and expected to face trial today, according to human-rights groups in Havana.

BIRDMONSTER animates photographs in the new video for "The Iditarod" off their From The Mountain To The Sea album, out Tuesday.

BJORK is standing up for women making electronic music (including herself).

CALEXICO: John Covertino talks to Paste about the band's upcoming the album, ominous dreams, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and the great beyond.

NEW PORNOGRAPHERS frontman A.C. Newman talks to Straight about playing with Ray Davies and Gordon Gano.

INARA GEORGE & VAN DYKE PARKS talk to the Wall Street Journal about George's new album, An Invitation, complete with audio clips.

THE CUTOUT BIN: From the Beach Boys to the MC5, from The Doors to the Sid Presley Experience, from Wilson Pickett to Television, form Jim Reid to Jimmy Gilmer to the Hindu Love Gods, Shoes, Mojo Nixon and First Class -- this Friday's fortuitous finds can be jukeboxed or streamed separately via the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases are Babylon A.D., which is currently scoring XX percent on the ol' Tomatometer; Disaster Movie and College, two comedies unscreened for critics; and Traitor, which is currently scoring 50 percent on the Tomatometer.  Expanding wide is the comedy Hamlet 2, which is scoring 60 percent.

HILARY DUFF's dad may be spending up to ten days in jail, after a fight over cash for Hilary's birthday party.

OJ SIMPSON attacked by his daughter? Oh, that would be too bad.

DAVID DUCHOVNY has entered a rehabilitation center for sex addiction. Dude is married to Téa Leoni, but The Strange is Out There.

LINDSAY LOHAN is lashing out at her ex-con preacher dad, Michael, who has been openly critical of her relationship with Samantha Ronson.

JESSICA SIMPSON tells People magazine that boyfriend Tony Romo is her "perfect guy" and the "love of her life." Which I'm sure Romo does not find to be at all over the top.

THE DECADE OF THE DUDE: How "The Big Lebowski" Became a Cult Sensation has Rolling Stone offering an essay, a look behind the movie's stoner soundtrack, a guide to Lebowski on the Web and Q&As with stars Steve Buscemi and John Goodman.

THE MUPPET SHOW may return after a 27 year hiatus, with an assist from Forgetting Sarah Marshall star and writer Jason Segel.

JACKO: An expert reconstruction of what the surgically altered, onetime King of Pop would really look like at 50.

PAUL McCARTNEY will play Israel, 43 years after a ministerial committee refused to pay for the Fab Four, concluding that "The Beatles have an insufficient artistic level and cannot add to the spiritual and cultural life of the youth in Israel."

OWEN WILSON moving to Hawaii? That sounds about right.

CORALINE: Variety has a piece (and two videos from IGN) on Henry Selick's stop-motion adaptation of the Neil Gaiman book.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE: Nowhere near your local cinema, it seems.  Spike Jonze has ruun into a boatlaod of trouble on the project, though the L.A. Times is nice enough to throw us a clip of "test footage from an early 1983 Disney animation version of "Where the Wild Things Are," directed by none other than a pre-Pixar John Lasseter." BTW, I am available to reprise the role of Max, though it's been a while since grade school.

CULT of the iPHONE: Pictures of an Asian factory worker found on a new iPhone sold to a British customer have generated keen discussion on the Internet about her identity - and her fate. Dubbing the mystery worker "China's prettiest factory girl," China's Southern Metropolitan Daily on Tuesday quoted an unidentified Foxconn official as saying the woman was not fired. (via Lance.)

IRAN: Grand Ayatollah Bajat Sanjani accused Pres. Ahmadinejad of betraying the people and called on reformers to unite to defeat him in next year's elections.

IRAQ: Violence in Baghdad has been reduced by 89 percent, in comparison to the past two years. Moqtada al-Sadr has indefinitely extended a ceasefire being observed by members of his Mahdi Army militia. The Shiite holy city of Najaf is booming, due to improved security, free markets, and connectinions to the Shiite-led gov't. The US military will hand over  security duties in Anbar to the Iraqi government as early as Monday. The US military detained a senior Special Groups leader as he flew into Baghdad International Airport. An Iraqi official says that US forces have arrested Ali al-Lami, a top Shiite in charge of keeping senior supporters of Saddam Hussein out of the government.

(photo law_keven)

COWS stare unamazed as a scientific study using Google Earth reveals their sixth sense of magnetism.  ALSO: The phenomenon of the mini-cow (featured here previously) has gone global.

LUCY LOU, a border collie, is the only cnadidate for Mayor of the small northern Kentucky town of Rabbit Hash.

SNAKE HOARDING: A nearly fatal bite by a poisonous snake led to the arrest of a man Wednesday for keeping 51 deadly cobras and mambas in his Tokyo apartment without permission, police said. RELATED: Student zookeeper makes Fatal Error.

PUPPY MILL BUSTED: The owner of a West Virginia dog kennel has surrendered her approximately 1000 dogs to humane officials. Pics at the link.

SPAGHETTI CAT UPDATE: You've seen the video, now buy the apparel. (via Lance.)

HEY, IS THAT A FISH in your penis, or are you just... ewww.

INCONSOLABLE BABY ELEPHANT reunited with its mother, now that Mom has decided to stop kicking little Rose-Tu.  Video at the link.

THE FELICE BROTHERS feature their Dylan/Band/Pogues/Clash-esque vibe in the live video for "Frankie's Gun."

THE MORNING BENDERS: Chris Chu tells the San Jose Mercury News he wants to keep cranking out the tunes: "Our album came out two months ago, and now we have another album of covers for free for people. I like bands that do that."

AIMEE MANN talks to the Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot about the upside and the downside of the Internet age. "There are millions of singers and songwriters and bands, and when there is too much choice my reaction is I don't know what to listen to. So my choice is not to listen to anything."  This is like the famous "6 jam-vs.-24 jam" experiment in behavioral economics.

ZOOKEEPER does the four free songs thing for Daytrotter, three previously unreleased.

LIZ PHAIR talks with the Boston Herald about the early days of her career: "All of a sudden I was the (expletive) queen across the nation. I was not prepared for that."

BON IVER, a/k/a Justin Vernon, and Jack Ladder -- playing "Blue Tulip" and "Starry Stairs" -- are the latest "stand-ins" for Okkervil River in the video series for the upcoming Stand-Ins album.

RYAN ADAMS is writing a book, Infinity Blues. I would say not to judge a book by its cover, but there isn't much else to go on at the moment.

TV on the RADIO:  "Dancing Choose" is the latest track to leak from the upcoming Dear Science album.

NORTHERN SOUL: The Times of London surveys the still-thriving scene, including DJ Liam Quinn, who got recruited to accompany Duffy on tour.

THE POLAR PRIZE: Sweden's biggest music awards went to... Pink Floyd and Renée Fleming?

WOODY ALLEN provides Excerpts from his Spanish Diary to the NYT, but it seems like a gag: "Once again I had to help Javier with the lovemaking scenes..."

MACKENZIE PHILLIPS was  busted at LAX for allegedly possessing heroin and cocaine. The former "One Day at a Time" star has had a long history of drug abuse.

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY couldn't stop laughing while shooting the love scenes in The Duchess.

JESSICA BIEL: Baby bump, or bad photos?

TOM BRADY spent 11 million on just the land for a new L.A. mansion, which will exceed 20K sq. ft.

P DIDDY has been forced to ground his private jet because of rising fuel prices.

SAMANTHA RONSON: Is Lindsay Lohan's closest companion about to pen a tell-all tome?  Li-Lo's ex-con turned preacher dad hits the ceiling.  BONUS: Mark, Samantha, and Charlotte Ronson are channeling the Tenenbaums for Harper's Bazaar.

WES ANDERSON & JASON SCHWARTZMAN recommend CDs and DVDs while shopping on video at Borders.

KATE MOSS says she was never anorexic, just busy.

CARMEN ELECTRA can understand why socialite Kim Kardashian turns men on after wrestling with her for a scene in Disaster Movie (which I presume is aptly named).

MAD MEN: Twitter and AMC have restored accounts of fans twittering as characters from the acclaimed drama. "Don Draper" responds perfectly. 

JOHN CLEESE: The Python is blogging, Twittering and headcasting.

TERROR in the UK: A white Muslim convert is being held by detectives investigating alleged threats to kill the Prime Minister and Tony Blair. He is believed to be a friend of two other men arrested by counter-terrorism officers at Manchester Airport on August 14.

GEORGIA, GEORGIA: Globe-trotting blogger Michael J. Totten is there, setting the record straight: "Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994..."  Meanwhile, Russia's envoy to NATO, has a portrait of Stalin hanging in his office.

IRAQ: Four Multi-National Division - Baghdad districts began the transitioning more than 1000 Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi police. A university president and a top local official in Diyala province are suspected of giving weapons and government cars to AQI. The police chief of Diyala province has ordered a ban on all firearms, including AK-47 rifles to which every Iraqi household is entitled. Recently reinforced rules on detainees have made it difficult to prosecute suspects, according to Iraqi Army commanders in Baquba.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Chinese cats growing wings.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: An albino Whale Shark.

SNAKES floating into homes flooded by tropical storm Fay continue to menace homeowners, including one woman who was nearly bitten during a TV news interview.

RACCOON'S courthouse crime spree ends with capture.

LEONARD the PARROT, who has learned classical and pop music, and can imitate Daleks, has been returned to his owners after going missing for four days.

WHITE DENIM proves that an auto junkyard can be just as good as a garage as a place to "Shake Shake Shake."

NEW LED ZEPPELIN? Jason Bonham confirmed last week that he is indeed working on new material with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones...

BECK gets a segment on NPR's Morning Edition, plus two tracks from his Modern Guilt LP.

THE M's did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.

BOWERBIRDS guitarist-vocalist Phil Moore talks to Drowned In Sound about the band's uncomfortable relationship with modernity.

THE RAINMAKERS "Let My People Go-Go" from the grooveyard of forgotten favorites.

PAUL MAWHINNEY has the largest record collection in the world.  Let's go to the video.

SONIC YOUTH has officially left the Geffen label after 18 years, as Thurston Moore declines to disclose their new label.

LEON REDBONE sings a mini-set of classic Tin Pan Alley, pre-war blues and swing live on Mountain Stage.

THE DOORS & SANTANA have settled their lawsuits against the streaming-music site Wolfgang's Vault; claims by Grateful Dead Productions and the surviving members of Led Zeppelin remain pending.

KATE HUDSON is being sued for 17 offenses, including the misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud, and breach of contract and confidence... in connection with her line of hair-care products.

DR. DRE is in mourning after his son was been found dead at his home in Woodland Hills on Saturday morning.

KIRSTEN DUNST & JUSTIN LONG were... wait for it... caught canoodling in both NYC and L.A.

NICOLLETTE SHERIDAN & MICHAEL BOLTON are not engaged.

JENNA JAMESON is knocked up.

TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise's studio is being sued for 11 million by Nazi extras who spilled out of the back of a World War II troop carrier as it swung around a corner in central Berlin during the shooting of Valkyrie.

MICHAEL PHELPS & SAMANTHA RICE:  The Olympic swimmers were not lip-loccked, according to her.

ANDY DICK won't face a sexual battery charge from his arrest last month, according to the Riverside County District Attorney's office.

EIGHTIES SUPERMODELS, two decades older but mysteriously unwrinkled, are fronting major Fall fashion campaigns.  Then again, so are Wallace & Gromit.

FALL PREVIEW of movies. music, TV, etc., courtesy of New York magazine.

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY criticizes the trailer of her new film for suggesting that the period drama relates to the life of Diana, Princess of Wales. So we want to see that trailer, don't we?

SERENITY NOW? Creator Joss Whedon knocks down rumors of a sequel to the Firefly movie, though both he and Summer Glau would do one in a second.

TERROR in the UK: Britain's secret propaganda war against al-Qaeda.

IRAN has started designing a new 360-megawatt nuclear plant, according to a senior atomic official. Iran also has launched production of a mid-size submarine it says will be able to fire missiles and torpedoes.

IRAQ: During the past two weeks, Coalition and Iraqi forces captured three senior al Qaeda in Iraq leaders behind some of the deadliest violence of the past several years. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani dispelled reports of being seriously ill at a rare meeting with journalists at his home on Sunday.

KOMODO DRAGONS have turned into vicious man-eaters. The locals blame policies drafted by American-funded environmentalists for this frightening turn of events.

MONKEY LOVE is keeping the neighbors awake near the Bristol Zoo. Audio at the link.

WHALES LOSING THEIR BLUBBER? Blame (or credit) global warming.

ROBOT CAT BRAINS may be coming, courtesy of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

PAWLEE the COCKAPOO scared off three bears Sunday morning after they strayed into his owners' backyard.

DAVID VANDERVELDE stands in for Okkervil River in this clip for "Singer Songwriter" from the upcoming Okkervil River album The Stand Ins.

NEW RELEASES: Albums from The Verve and Matthew Sweet are among those streaming in full from Spinner this week.

PAUL McCARTNEY & BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN may help close Yankee Stadium.

JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP: You can download two free songs from the new Death, Love and Freedom via Vanity Fair magazine.

THE FELICE BROS. do the four free songs thing for Daytrotter, three previously unreleased.

BADFINGER: "No Matter What" and "Day After Day" make for a classic Twofer Tuesday, but I can't leave out "Baby Blue," can I?

BOB MARLEY is bringing together Serbs and Croats.

BARENAKED LADIES frontman Ed Robertson survived a plane crash in southeastern Ontario on Sunday.

ARCTIC MONKEYS' upcoming album to be produced by Josh Homme (QotSA).

VAMPIRE WEEKEND: The most punk band of 2008?

CHARLIE SHEEN and his wife, Brooke Mueller, are expecting a baby.

MADONNA & GUY RITCHIE made a last-ditch attempt to save their troubled marriage by renewing their wedding vows at a private kabbalah ceremony in London, according to the Daily Mail.

CHER to play Catwoman in a third Nolan Batman movie?

AMERICAN IDOL is adding a fourth judge: Grammy-nominated songwriter Kara DioGuardi. Paula Abdul is excited and concerned.

DANCING WITH THE STARS announces its new cast.  No Adam West, no peace!!!  Kim Kardashian has already managed to put her foot in some broken glass.

BRADGELINA are technically eligible for French child support payments, though it's highly unlikely the couple will accept the cash.  More likely -- Pitt shot Jolie and brood at the Chateau Miraval in the South of France last week for the November cover of W magazine.

BRITNEY SPEARS will not re-wreck her train at this year's MTV Video Music Awards.

JESSICA SIMPSON talks to the Sacramento Bee about emotional healing and working with Dolly Parton.

HEATH LEDGER is not enough to make US distributors jump on the quirky Terry Gilliam film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

TOM-KAT UPDATE: Merrill Lynch is looking to renegotiate its deal with Cruise's beleaguered reboot of United Arists.

LEO DiCAPRIO & KATE WINSLET are targets of a Titanic prank on the set of Revolution Road, but the duo rises to the occasion.

MAD MEN: Jon Hamm (Don Draper) reveals the secrets of manliness in a postmodern world to Best Life magazine. At the other end of the scale, there was a moment of Mozart in last Sunday's episode.

STAR TREK: Like Watchmen, Kevin Smith may have seen this one also.

THE A.Q. KHAN NUCLEAR NETWORK: The Swiss gov't has detailed files on the intriguing tale of spies, moles and the compromises that governments make in the name of national security.

A BBC news girl complains the network is failing to show viewers the Taliban's "humanity." Presenter Lyse Doucet's astonishing statement comes as an Apache gunship hero revealed the fanatics aim to capture a British soldier and skin him alive on the Internet.

GEORGIA, GEORGIA:  The Russian parliament has voted unanimously to urge the president to recognize the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

IRAN: Commerce Minister Masoud Mirkazemi has rejected recent reports that the country has imported over one million tons of wheat from the United States.

IRAQ: Prime Minister al-Maliki said Monday no security agreement with the US could be reached unless it included a "specific deadline" for the withdrawal of all American troops. Tens of thousands of Baghdad soccer fans cheered on their club in the top league's final game, the largest sports crowd the city has seen since the US-led invasion in 2003.

A CURIOUS CAT discovers more than one way to solve the problem of a half-empty glass.

THREE GIANT PANDAS have been born in southwest China, bringing the total number of new arrivals of the endangered species this year to at least 19, state media reported.

DRUG-SMUGGLING PIGEONS land behind bars in Bosnia.

CATS with a fondness for gourmet meals are threatening global fish supplies, an Australian scientist says.

THE DOG ate my USB drive, teacher.