ROBYN HITCHCOCK talks to Harp magazine about the tour documentary, Sex, Food, Death and Insects, which I have seen and enjoyed.  There are three clips on the Tube (Clips One, Two and Three).

NEW RELEASES:  The National (in advance), Hot Chip, Wilco, Dungen and more are streaming in full via Spinner this week.  Wilco got a paltry 5.2 at Pitchfork, while the Jim DeRogatis writes in the Chicago Sun-Times that he only began to appreciate some of it after a dozen listens.  But the beauty is that you can listen for yourself online.  I'm anxious to stream the Dungen.  Great Northern releases an album of summery pop-rock called Eenie Meenie.  The High Strung, currently touring with Son Volt, has a new one called Get the Guests.  Pink Martini has an international flavor on Hey Eugene!  And  Ian Hunter has a new album on YepRoc.

THE HOLD STEADY talked to the NYT magazine for a piece about sex, drugs and updating your blog.  Guitarist Tad Kubler is the band's online point man, and he's ambivalent about privacy issues, while Keyboardist Franz Nicolay, knowing his offstage comments now turn up on blogs, laments:  "You can't be the drunken guy who just got offstage anymore... You start acting like a pro athlete, saying all these banal things after you get off the field."  OK Go's lead singer, Damian Kulash is also quoted. (Thanks, Sylvia, who writes from what she calls "the" gated community.  Which is very funny to those who know her.)

THE CLASH:  Berkeley Place has the only band that matters covered, from A-Z.  You can jukebox 'em via the ol' HM, too; just scroll down to May 10th and click listen next to the track you want.

JOY DIVISION is profiled in London's Independent, as Anton Corbijn's film about the late Joy Division frontman, Control: The Ian Curtis Film, will be premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on the 27th anniversary of the singer's suicide.

TWOFER TUESDAY brings two themes from James Bond movies -- Shirley Bassey with a live take on "Goldfinger," and Chris Cornell with "You Know My Name" from the opening of Casino Royale.  The latter is evr-so-slightly spoiler-y, but you really should have seen Casino Royale already.

LILY ALLEN was freaking out about her weight on her blog the other day, but she seems to have gotten over it now.

TIM FINN, former leader of Split Enz, played for WXPN and World Cafe Live in Philadelphia on May 11, so you can stream the whole gig now from NPR on demand.

THE MAGIC NUMBERS finally have a release date -- July 17 -- for their second album in North America. Originally slated to be released in February, the album hit a few snags during the band's switch from Capitol to Astralwerks.

LES PAUL:  The 91-year-old guitar wizard enthralled a hometown crowd in Waukesha, WI, Thursday night at a concert that raised more than 100 grand for an exhibit on his life.  You can stream a pre-concert interview from WGN Radio, which finds Les Paul talking about -- among other things -- his first meetings with Django Reinhardt, Louie Armstrong, Nat "King Cole" and others.  The interviewers mention the new Les Paul documentary Chasing Sound; you can see ten minutes on the Tube.

MARILYN MANSON and his 19-year-old lolita EVAN RACHEL WOOD had real sex in the video for "Heart-Shaped Glasses?"  Manson's rep denies it, natch.  Video at the link and yes, probably NSFW.

THE FRENCH HOTEL:  Candy Spelling (widow of Aaron, mother of Tori) tells the heirhead to grow up.  Even better Patty Hearst thinks the celebutante's 45 days in jail will be cruel and unusual punishment... for the other prisoners.

BRITNEY SPEARS just wants attention, according to Avril Lavigne, who manages to be both correct and lacking a sense of irony.  A 6' x 10' painting of the famous paparazzi photo showing the pop tart showing everything was covered by a curtain for Sen. Brack Obama's recent campaign fundraiser at a Virginia art gallery.

TOM-KAT UPDATE:  The couple keeps up the charm offensive with a piece at People about Holmes ordering cupcakes, pizza and ice cream cones for the cast and crew on her new movie.

LEAH REMINI, in a semi-related piece, prepares for life after The King of Queens by assuring People that she is not trying to convert Jennifer Lopez to Scientology.

CHRISTINA RICCI helps promote the DVD release of Black Snake Moan by telling London's Mirror that she spent nearly the whole film shoot almost nude, to stay in character.

SEAN CONNERY is ripping retiring British PM Tony Blair and boosting the cause of Scottish independence.

BRADGELINA:  With all the paparazzi in Prague, Pitt is singing the praises of relative anonymity in N'awlins, and vows to return to the Crescent City.

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY wishes some of new co-star Sienna Miller's party skills would rub off on her.

GIRLS GONE WILD co-founder Joe Francis has demonstrated "significant psychiatric issues" in a Florida county jail, according to his lawyer,  But will a federal pen in Nevada be any more to his liking?

JESSICA ALBA heralds the coming of Summer in a tank top and bikini bottoms.

INSURGENCY and COUNTER-INSURGENCY:  Last week, the USA Today reported on a study commissioned by the Defense Department showing that rebels lose more often than they win and that the chances for stopping an insurgency improve after 10 years.  Regular Pate readers know that a longer study showed the same thing.  At the Small Wars Journal blog, David Kilcullen discusses whether the usual rules of counter-insurgency apply to so-called "religious insurgencies."

STRETCHING THE FORCE:  Austin Bay, a retired Army Reserve colonel, and Phillip Carter, an attorney and Army veteran, recently debated whether the US Army in dire straits, or under pressure but essentially sound.  One sign of strain may be a shoratge of senior captains, or captains closest to promotion, which is due in part to previous decisions to promote officers more quickly to meet targets for Army majors. OTOH, fast-tracking officers with expertise and experience from the battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq may help shorten the war.

IRAQ:  The US military acknowledged that three US soldiers, missing since Saturday, are probably being held hostage by an al Qaeda-affiliated group; a statement released purportedly by the Islamic State of Iraq, urged the US to give up looking for them, but that's unlikely.  A newly formed Sunni insurgent coalition accused al-Qaeda of killing 12 of its senior members in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood in a new sign of rifts between Iraq's militant groups.  Michael Yon's latest dispatch is that "The progress is very real.  But the potential for a disaster is also real."  Yon reprints the recent letter from Gen. Petraeus to the troops emphasizing that "Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we-not our enemies-occupy the moral high ground..."  This even helps in Haditha, where some of our troops stand accused of murder, but the mayor of Haditha urges the Marines to stay: "The people of Germany and Japan would not have made progress without the Americans... The people of Iraq deserve the same."

...AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:  A bunny letter-opener.

A BLOWFISH in Scottsdale, AZ, has an overbite that requires regular dentistry.  Video at the link.

A 185-LB. SEA LION waddled ashore to join schoolchildren on a walk-a-thon at the Marin Country Day School next to the shores of the San Francisco Bay.

CHARLOTTE'S WEB DOWN UNDER:  Tasmanians witnessed a rare natural phenomenon at the weekend when millions of juvenile spiders left home and covered hundreds of hectares of pasture with strands of spider web.

CHINESE PANDAS have been working overtime at the Beijing Zoo to allow a flood of holiday visitors a glimpse of the country's favourite animal.  Given widespread slave labor in the workers' paradise, it's safe to say the baers will not be paid bamboo-and-a-half.

HEAVY PETTING:  Pet massage classes are filling up with pet owners, groomers, competitors and others, instructors say.  Meanwhile, scientists explain how to pet cats, dogs and cows.