FEIST comes to play "1 2 3 4" on Sesame Street.  Four is one less than five, one more than three.

NEW RELEASES: The Hold Steady, Black Kids, BadReligion, Little Jackie, John Mellencamp and more are streaming in full this week via Spinner. Wire releases Object 47. The Del Fuegos reissue their first three albums.

THE HOLD STEADY is profiled by Joshua Ferris for New York magazine and by Michaelangelo Matos for Salon.

THROW ME THE STATUE does the three free songs thing for Daytrotter. Fab light pop for a summer's day.

GUNS N' ROSES plans to put out a new song in September - on the video game Rock Band 2. The inclusion of the song on a game suggests that the Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy" will come out this fall, after years of delays.  And we will all get our free can of Dr. Pepper.

OTTER (featuring Friend of Pate Scott Jasper) will be playing the Progressive at 118 Hayward in Ames tonight at 8:30, if you're in town....

CAT STEVENS performs energetic versions of both "The Wind" and "Moonshadow" in a single clip from 1976, just so for Twofer Tuesday.

OF MONTREAL frontman Kevin Barnes talks to YANP's Matt Jordan about the band's upcoming album.

THE MIXTAPE: Don't call it a comeback. "Nowadays, any old Casanova can whip off six CD burns in a night for six different girls. Where does that leave the nerds of the world, who once, at least, had the advantage of elite musical knowledge and a social life barren enough to put in the time and effort required to select, compile and record the tracks for a cassette tape? *** Mix tapes can also have mass appeal. The genres of mix tape are many and varied, though the most common is the courtship tape and its corollary, the break-up tape... There's the walking tape, the summer tape, the dance party tape."

THE JAMES BROWN COLLECTION: Place your bids at Christies.  BONUS: USA Today covers the rock memorabilia market.

 THE BEATLES come to the iPod... but only 100 of them.

JIMMY KIMMEL & SARAH SILVERMAN have called it quits after five years of dating, by mutual agreement. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were unavailable for comment.

WILL & JADA PINKETT SMITH apparently have an open marriage,

JENNIFER LOPEZ & MARC ANTHONY are going through nanines like cocktail peanuts. J-Lo also apparently insists on dressing her five-month-old twins in new designer gear every day.

MADONNA's estranged brother, Christopher Ciccone, characterized her husband, Guy Ritchie, as a homophobe who destroyed Ciccone's close relationship with his sister. Ciccone also said that his "controlling" star sister is beginning to "crack" under the pressure of turning 50 and is struggling to maintain her choreographed, mythological image. Video and a book excert at the link.  AdAge's Bonnie Fuller claims Madge has just proven once again that she is the No. 1 marketer in the nation, maybe even in the world.

MISS USA Crystle Stewart stumbled over her gown and toppled over at the Miss Universe pageant. It was the second year in a row that a Miss USA has fallen over at the contest. Pics and video at the link.

THE DARK KNIGHT: New York magazine film critic David Edelstein is public enemy number one after publishing the first negative review of the much-anticipated and lauded The Dark Knight. Batman fans and fellow critics are firing back, saying he just didn't "get" the film.  The New Yorker's David Denby has since delivered a negative review; I'm aware of others not yet in print.  However, it's stil scoring 88 percent at RottenTomatoes at the moment.

JESSICA SIMSPON stepped out with Tony Romo, dressed like a pr0n star.  Which is not great, but probably better than if Romo dressed that way.

HEF'S HAREM HOSTILE? Rumors are swirling about the discontent brewing in the Playboy manse between Hugh Hefner's youngest "girlfriend," Kendra Wilkinson and his other ladies, Bridget Marquardt and Holly Madison.

PERIL AT PARAMOUNT?  The studio is denying the financing crisis detailed in tomorrow's Financial Times.  The paper claims Paramount was forced to suspend plans for a 450 million dollar film financing that would have funded up to 30 films, including possible blockbusters such as the sequel to Transformers and the new version of Star Trek.

IRAN: Pres. Ahmadinejad said on state TV that he would again go to New York to attend this year's UN General Assembly session. The regime arrested two student leaders after massive protests that were held last week, on the 9th anniversary of the most widespread and violent public protests since the early years of the Iranian Revolution.

IRAQ: Prime Minister Maliki may not support a timetable for withdrawal of US troops after all.  Their national-security adviser,  Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, emphasized that the Iraqi government wants broad, general "timeline horizons," depending on the readiness of the Iraqi security forces. Iraq and the US have agreed on most points of the joint cooperation agreement.  Baghdad is going solar to improve security and relaibility. Seventy insurgents surrendered to US forces in Baiji. An Iraqi SWAT team detained two Special Groups operatives during raids in Hillah and Al Kut.

LIKE A BULL crashing a pool party.  Exactly like that, actually.

AN AFRICAN LION is loose near Colorado Springs -- or it's a big dog. Hard to tell, really.

JUMPING THE SHARK jumps the shark. BONUS: Leave the sharks, take the cannoli.

JANOSCH the CAT climbed unnoticed into an open box and was shipped 700 km in the parcel across Germany but emerged from the journey unscathed.

BISEXUAL KOALA ORGIES, and other tales from the Wid Kingdom.