VAMPIRE WEEKEND returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater to play "Cousins."

BOB DYLAN: Aquarium Drunkard has posted Yesterday (CBS Studios: Nashville/NYC Outtakes) from 1970, which includes Bobby Z's takes on "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Cupid", "All I Have to Do is Dream", and "Yesterday" (natch).

FRIGHTENED RABBIT: Two new tracks, "Nothing Like You" and "Learned Your Name," are streaming via the 'Gum.

BESNARD LAKES drop a new track, "Albatross."

ATLAS SOUND: Brandon Cox drops a previously unreleased track, "Christmas Synths." Better late than never!

JOE JACKSON: He's the Man.

THE STYLUS DECADE: Zombie Stylus rises from the grave to survey the top albums and singles from the naughts.

BANDS TO WATCH in 2010, according to NME and MOJO.

THE FLAMING LIPS: Wayne Coyne talks to Paste about the Dark Side of the Moon.

THE CASSETTE: Don't call it a comeback?

TIGER WOODS has been staying with his billionaire pal Jim Dolan, the controversy-prone CEO of Cablevision and owner of Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks.

MARIAH CAREY made a drunken mess out of herself while trying to give an acceptance speech at an awards show. Video at the link.

I WAS MARRIED TO MICHAEL JACKSON: Sounds like the title to B-grade horror flick, but it's a legal claim.

JANE KRAKOWSKI of 30 Rock is engaged.

SYLVESTER STALLONE broke his neck while filming a fight scene in his latest movie.

TWILIGHT: The script for Eclipse leaked on the Internet.

SPIDER-MAN 4: Production has been delayed for more work on the script.  The movie is now unlikely to make its May 11, 2011, release date.

JAMES BOND: Sam Mendes is in negotiations to direct the 23rd installment of the franchise, in which Bond discovers that SPECTRE is masterminded by a homophobic veteran in the suburbs. But it looks like this movie may be delayed also, due to MGM's financial problems.

NICK NOLTE: NO EXIT is a documentary featuring the actor as interviewer and subject.  Currently available on demand on several cable systems.

YEMEN: American counter-terrorism specialists and Saddam Hussein's former intelligence officers have forged an unlikely alliance in Yemen to tackle al-Qaeda.

IRAN has quietly hidden an increasingly large part of its atomic complex in networks of tunnels and bunkers across the country.

AFGHANISTAN: How a Double Agent Lured Seven CIA Operatives to Their Deaths

KOALAS steal the limelight from Tennis star Andy Roddick.

A FEMALE CANE TOAD can "pump herself up to mega-size" if she wants to dissuade a male from mating with her.

CARSHER SEAL photobombs penguins.

STRAWBERRY CRABS: Forever.

ISLANDS dropped a new video for "No You Don't" featuring Michael Cera.

ROGUE WAVE dropped "Good Morning" as an advance track from their upcoming LP. Download, or stream it in the 'Gum Mix.

THE MUSIC BLOG ZEITGEIST is posted at the Hype Machine, including streams of the Top 50 albums songs and artists.

HEADLIGHTS did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.

BRUCE HORNSBY talked and played on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday.

WILLIE MITCHELL, an architect of the legendary Memphis soul sound, has died at the age of 81.

ELVIS COSTELLO: After Tuesday's vintage clips, I had a hankering for EC's equally vintage -- but more infamous -- take on "Radio, Radio."  As James Lileks recently observed, "The secret to enjoying Elvis Costello is not to know what he's singing about, but merely to know he disapproves of it."

HOT CHIP guitarist Owen Clarke talks to Prefix about the pleasures of domesticity, predicts the eventual fate of the majority of his band's CDs, and offers one of the most anticlimactic exclusives in the history of music journalism.

THE EDGE talks to The Guardian about the past and future of the guitar, meeting Jimmy Page, U2's new album, why they might play new songs at Glastonbury, the fate of Spiderman and the Edge's previously unremarked resemblance to a Hollywood sex symbol.

CHRISTOPHER LEE: The man who played Dracula and Saruman is to tell the story of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, through the universal language of metal.

OF MONTREAL will include Solange Knowles on their upcoming LP, said to have "a Parliament-style, 70s-funk vibe."

TIGER WOODS: Someone is shopping what she says is a Tiger Woods sex tape, and Vivid Entertainment is in the market.

VINCE VAUGHN married Kyla Weber in a small private ceremony before family and friends on Saturday outside of his hometown of Chicago.

KATY PERRY and RUSSELL BRAND got engaged in Jaipur, India.

CHARLIE SHEEN went back to work like nothing has happened, while someone *cough* put out the story that his wife went to rehab for alcohol abuse while pregnant with the couple's twins.

LINDSAY LOHAN claims she was ripped off by her longtime best friend and sidekick Patrick "Pootie" Aufdenkamp.

TOM WAITS appeared on NPRs Morning Edition and spoke about his role in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

THE TOP TEN FILMS OF 2009, according to Stephen King.

YEMEN is only a year away from total economic collapse, with its coffers emptied by corruption and cronyism as the feeble Government struggles to fight wars on two fronts, a leading economic analyst said yesterday.

PAKISTAN: The Taliban burned down an entire village in the lawless tribal agency of Arakzai after villagers refused to back them against the military.

AFGHANISTAN: The suspected double agent who killed seven CIA officers in a suicide bombing was thrown into jail by Jordanian intelligence to coerce him to track down al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Mideast counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.

LADY and the TRAMP, guinea pig style.

DOLPHINS have been declared the world's second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as "non-human persons".

HORSE SLAPPING: Don't do it.

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS: "Keep Slipping Away."

NEW RELEASES: Elvis Presley joins the third week of Christmas albums, though maybe the Aol folk will update today.  Like maybe the album from Findlay Brown...

VAMPIRE WEEKEND is advance streaming their Contra album.

MOUNTAIN GOATS: Jim Darnielle played a Tiny Desk Concert for NPR.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: Broken Bells, Yeasayer and Shout Out Louds are featured in the latest installment of the long-running NPR series.

DEVO: It's not always easy to find these live takes on "Satisfaction" and "Jocko Homo" online, so up they go for Twofer Tuesday.

DEVENDRA BANHART talks to PopMatters about creative control, the biological evolution of mushrooms, and his surprising connection to Neil Young.

FEAR OF STING may cause the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to change its rules, as opposed to inducting snubbed greats.

THE PITCHFORK READERS' POLL is posted. 

IS BLOGGING KILLING MUSIC? I thought home taping already killed music.

TIGER WOODS is profiled by Vanity Fair, while the woman who first broke the news of his affair with Rachel Uchitel exclusively spoke to RadarOnline. The uber-reliable News of the World claims Elin Nordegren says she scored a 300 million Christmas gift from her philandering husband.

WARREN BEATTY is still waaaay ahead of Tiger Woods, if a new biography is to be believed.

MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY and Camila Alves welcomed a baby girl, their second child. Alright alright alright.

LINDSAY LOHAN resolves to have a drama-free New Year. Good luck with that.

MICHAEL JACKSON: An unreleased song leaks on the Internet, an alleged duet with Lenny Kravitz.

KICK-ASS: The comic-book adaptation gets a decidedly profane red-band trailer. I suspect people will love or hate this movie.

YEMEN dismissed the threat posed by Al Qaeda in their country as "exaggerated" and downplayed the possibility of cooperating closely with the US in fighting Islamic militants, even as the US and Britain temporarily closed their diplomatic outposts in Yemen because of unspecified Al Qaeda threats.

IRAN: Nearly 90 professors at Tehran University have told Iran's supreme leader that ongoing violence against protesters shows the weakness of the country's leadership, a pro-reform website reported Monday.

IRAQ and AfPAK by the numbers.

ANGEL, a golden retriever, saved a boy from a cougar. By which I mean an actual cougar. Let's go to the video.

MULLET YOUR DOG: A deceptively simple how-to video..

TOP RACEHORSE threatened by gambler.

VULTURES face extinction as gamblers seek visions of the future by smoking bird brains.

SOUNDGARDEN is reuniting after a 12 year hiatus, so let's break out "Spoonman."

DELBERT McCLINTON stopped by WFUV for a chat and mini-set streaming via NPR.

REALLY OBSCURE SOUL FROM DC gets a feature plus tracks at NPR's Morning Edition.

THE LOUDNESS WARS: Why Music Sounds Worse.

PATTI SMITH and Steven Sebring talk about their POV documentary about her journey, Patti Smith: Dream of Life on NPR's Talk of the Nation.

MASSIVE ATTACK: Robert Del Naja talks to Weekend Edition Saturday about rebuilding the band's sound as a duo.

MAGIC WANDS dropped a video for "Kiss Me Dead" from their upcoming EP.

THE WHO should not perform at the NFL Super Bowl XLIV halftime show, according to Child AbuseWatch.net.

NOTABLE JANUARY RELEASES, courtesy of Paste.

GENRE EXPLOSION: The upside and downside of musical fragmentation.

DAYTROTTER - and its iPhone app - get a shout from The New York Times.

VAN MORRISON denied that he has had a new baby, saying that a report on his official website suggesting he had was the result of a hacking.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Avatar threepeats in theaters with another 68.3 million in ticket sales, on an amazingly small 9.7 percent drop.  It broke the 350 million mark, and was the third fastest to break 300 million on Friday.  It's the biggest gross in January ever (beating Cloverfield) and the biggest third weekend ever (beating Spider-Man and The Dark Knight).  It will likely be in the all-time Top Ten a week from now.  Sherlock Holmes repeated in the second slot, with 38.4 million. The 38 percent drop is slightly trpubling, but Sherlock still has a good shot at 200 million in the US.  The Alvin and the Chipmunks squeakquel held the third slot with 36 million on a 25.1 percent drop, and broke 150 million.  The rodents may beat their first film by the end of this run.  It's Complicated came in fourth with 18.7 million on a 15.4 percent drop.  The Blind Silde held well to round out the Top Five, with 12.7 million and a 10.3 percent increase.

CHARLIE SHEEN did or did not offer to boost Brooke Mueller's pre-nup by a million.  In either event, it sounds like a small sum to a guy who makes over 800K per episode of Two and a Half Men.  Brooke reportedly wants to come back to L.A. with the kids and resume cohabiting with Charlie.

TIGER WOODS will no longer be associated with the slogan, "Reach out and touch someone."  Repets have Elin letting her hair down on New Year's Eve.

KATE HUDSON and OWEN WILSON are reportedly back in touch after her breakup with A-Rod.

SANDRA BULLOCK shined as 2009's top Hollywood star at the box office, according to US theater owners.

ELTON JOHN says he has been helping Eminen fight drug problems for more than a year.

AFGHANISTAN: On Wednesday, a suicide bombing devastated Forward Operating Base Chapman, a hub of counterterrorism and intelligence operations for the CIA. A number of the officers killed had been counterterrorism operatives since before the 9/11 attacks. The base played a critical role in the CIA's significant operations in the country, including helping with drone attacks and informant networks in Pakistan.  The suicide bomber was a regular CIA informant who had visited the same base multiple times in the past.

IRAQ: The US released the leader of an Iranian-backed Shia terror group behind the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.  Qais Qazali, the leader of the Asaib al Haq or the League of the Righteous, was set free by the US military and transferred to Iraqi custody in exchange for the release of British hostage Peter Moore, US military officers and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal.

SOLDIER BEAR: Archival film of Free Polish Forces in WWII.

DEER VS. VACUUM in Des Moines.

TARANTULAS: Another reason not to get close.

19 PYTHONS hamper firefighting at a Utah trailer park.

THE NEW YEAR'S WEEKEND STARTS HERE: 

...with THE BEAT FARMERS!  Looking for something festive to end the year, we find San Diego's finest performing at the 1988 CMA Awards and introduced by no less than classic MTV VJ Martha Quinn. Part 1 includes "Ridin'" and "Riverside." Part 2 includes "There She Goes Again" (L. Reed) "Lucille" (K. Rogers)(profanity) and "Happy Boy."  Part 3 features "Bigger Stones" and "Hollywood Hills."

VIC CHESTNUTT played a Mountain Stage set, including a previously unreleased song, streaming posthumously via NPR.

THE DAREDEVIL CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter. Very Nice.

PICTURES OF THEN stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set streaming via MPR. Some members hail from Okoboji, IA.

HOLIDAY SHORES did four free songs for Daytrotter, including a cover of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere." Reminiscent of Vampire Weekend.

MASHUPS: You can stream or download The Best of Bootie 2009 via... the NYP?

BEATLES 3000: A thousand years in the future, the legacy of John, Paul, Greg, and Scottie remains.

DICK CLARK does an e-interview with USA Today about New Year's Rockin' Eve.

THE TEN MOST OVERRATED ALBUMS of the DECADE, according to the Riverfront Times. (Thx, TV's Andy Levy.)

TEGAN and SARA talk to Straight.com about writing their Sainthood album together.

BIRTHDAY PARTY guitarist Roland S. Howard passed away early Wednesday morning after losing his battle with liver cancer. The 50-year-old had been waiting for a crucial liver transplant and had been forced to cancel recent shows due to his illness.

CUTOUT BIN: From Nancy Wilson to Iggy Pop, from the Feelies to the Ohio Players, from the Box Tops to the English Beat, plus the Replacements, the Delfonics, Joe Jackson, Telekenesis, the Seeds and more  -- this weekend's fortuitous finds are streaming from the Pate page at the ol' HM.

CHARLIE SHEEN: Brooke Mueller wants the court to modify the protective order so she can have contact with Charlie Sheen and try and save her marriage.  Of course, it might also be that she's worried about the Los Angeles County's Department of Children and Family Services investigation.  Or concerned about the tabloids' sudden interest in her criminal record, which I'm sure Sheen's people had nothing to do with.  Meanwhile, Sheen ex Denise Richards threatens to start talking more about Sheen.

TIGER WOODS underwent reconstruction surgery after being smashed in the face with a golf club by his wife?

DAVID LETTERMAN: The TV producer accused of shaking down the late night host to keep mum about his affairs is drawing on the Tiger Woods sex scandal to try to bolster his defense.

ROMAN POLANSKI the director and convicted rapist is suing photographers for £700,000 after claiming his privacy had been invaded while under house arrest in Gstaad. Considering that photogs are the main obstacle to Polanski taking it on the lam again, the Swiss gov't ought to be paying them a retainer.

NOW SHOWING: There are no new wide releases this weekend!

THE 25 HOTTEST THINGS IN MOVIES, according to Cinematical.

THE TEN BEST ANIMATED FILMS of 2009, according to Roger Ebert.

THE TOP TEN CONSERVATIVE FILMS of the DECADE, according to The Telegraph's Nile Gardiner.

THE 37 HOTTEST FEMALE STARS of 2009, according to Starpulse, just in time for Gratuitous NYE. Yes, they have the men also.

YEMEN: Security forces stormed an al-Qaeda hide-out Wednesday in a principle militant stronghold in the country's west, setting off clashes, officials said, as a security chiefvowed to fight the group's powerful local branch until it was eliminated.  Better late than never, as known terrorists wanted by the US government continue to operate in the open while the Yemeni government looks the other way.

IRAN: Iran's state media reported that leaders of the opposition had fled Tehran -- a claim denied by the son of Mahdi Karroubi. Other reports indicate that the Supreme National Security Council has ordered a complete check-up of the jet which is on standby to fly Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei and his family to Russia should the situation in Iran spiral out of control. Iranian police vowed to crush protesters with "no mercy," while supporters of Ahmadinejad's regime hosted counter-protests.

AFGHANISTAN: Corruption and incompetence in President Karzai's Government - particularly at local level - have forced a growing number of people to seek the services of the Taliban.

DRAMATIC CHIPMUNK, The Revenge!

ROAD HOGS: ...and there were pigs all over the M11.

SEA LIONS disappear from Pier 39 in San Francisco. So long, thanks for all the fish.

SNAKE saves a family after being nursed back to health.