ROGUE WAVE are sharing the advance track "Lake Michigan" with a bunch 'o' music blogs, including MOKB.  Heather Browne digs the whole album; her blog is where I noticed the "making of Asleep At Heaven's Gate" video.

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS' Challengers album officially drops next Tuesday, but you can stream the whole album now, via Much Music (Thx, Chromewaves!)

CASTANETS are sharing new stuff also.  Pitchfork is streaming "This is the Early Game," while GvsB has an advance remix of "Strong Animal," which you can stream via the ol' HM.

ROBYN HITCHCOCK:  Filter has the details on the box set, titled I Wanna Go Backwards, which is due October 16th.  A second box set, Bad Case of History, is due for release in early 2008.

ELVIS WEEK:  Some 50K believe they will all be received in Graceland on the eve 30th anniversary of his death.  I'll be donning the jumpsuit tommorrow, but you can check out the GracelandCam and a video overview of the week (with a look inside the mansion) at ElvisWeek.com.

THE 25 MOST INFLUENTIAL PUNK BANDS, according to Shoutmouth, with plenty 'o' embedded audio-video goodness.

JOHN VANDERSLICE concluded his tour of blog love at Chromewaves, where he dropped the live video for "Minaret."  An Aquarium Drunkard has seven solo acoustic videos taken the L.A. River basin.

AMY WINEHOUSE finally admitted she and her husband have serious drug problems after a showdown with their parents.  Apparently, overdosing on a cocktail of heroin, ecstasy, cocaine and the horse tranquilliser ketamine, motivated Winehouse to enter rehab in the US.

SPOON did a video interview and mini-set from their latest record for The Interface via the DL and Spinner.  Frontman Britt Daniel and drummer Jim Eno talked to DCist about playing festival gigs and Veronica Mars, and more.

ANATOMY of a LEAK:  Spin magazine charts how albums reach the Internet before the official release date.

TONY WILSON, a/k/a "Mr. Manchester" for launching bands like Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays, may get a posthumous tribute show... in Liverpool.  Here's a 2002 TV profile of Wilson going all the way back to the heyday of Punk (there's some language) and a new two-part retrospective from BBC's Newsnight with one of Wilson's last interviews and comments fro the worlds of music and TV.

BRADGELINA are reportedly preparing to adopt their fourth non-biological child in Ethiopia in three months.  Meanwhile, Pittwatch has pics of Chicagoans gawking like tourists as the couple leaves the Japonais restaurant.

SIR PAUL McCARTNEY & CHRISTIE BRINKLEY were spotted chatting at a James Taylor concert Saturday night, sparking otherwise unfounded rumors of a romance.

SIENNA MILLER is rumored to have spent a romantic evening with Sean Bean, who will co-star with Miller in a movie adaptation of Oscar Wilde's A Woman Of No Importance.

BRITNEY SPEARS may open the irrelevant MTV Video Music Awards show.  And when an anonymous source suddenly starts defending the pop tart to the paparazzi at X17, the unstated message is likely that she is resisting paying Fed-Ex more money to settle their child custody battle.  Her former bodyguard was served with two subpoenas by Fed-Ex's lawyer on Monday night.

THE FRENCH HOTEL:  Sources close to the ditzy heirhead tell Page Six her new grown-up attitude is nothing but a big, phony act.  Shocka!

JESSICA BIEL & JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE are planning to shack up once JT completes his world tour next month, according to the ever-reliable Life and Style Weekly.

SALMA HAYEK is planning three wedding ceremonies -- in Mexico, Paris, and L.A., according to the ever-reliable Star magazine.

KATIE COURIC:  With ratings for the CBS Evening News in the dumper, producer Rick Kaplan brought in a team of professional dancers to the office last week and got staffers to dance en masse to Michael Jackson's "Thriller."  Yes, the stunt was inspired by the viral video of Filipino prison inmates working on their version, though it could have just as easily been inspired by 13 Going On 30.

"THE WACKNESS" seems like an apt title for a movie in which 63-year-old Sir Ben Kingsley will passionately lock lips with Mary-Kate Olsen.

JAMES BLUNT:  Speaking of Mary-Kate, the cringeworthy singer songwriter was seen at a weekend party chatting up Mischa Barton before moving on to the Olsen Twins.  I guess he must have dumped supermodel Petra Nemcova for being too fat.  Is there a slang term that is the opposite of "chubby chaser?"

SHILPA SHETTY, the Bollywood beauty who got in trouble earlier this year when she and Richard Gere kissed in public at an AIDS awareness event in India, is in the running to become a Bond girl.  Is she qualified?  I report, you decide.

THE FINAL FRONTIER:  A microwave-generated plasma shield that could help aircraft evade radar or protect it from WMD attacks was granted a patent yesterday.

THE MATRIX:  Here, the part of Morpheus will be played by Dr. Nick Bostrom, philosopher and director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford.  And I suddenly have a good excuse for staying up late on the Internet.

INDIA:  Troops are on the streets in a major security crackdown ahead of Independence Day celebrations.  Traditionally marked by violent attacks by separatist militants or Maoist rebels, for this holiday, authorities are taking reports of threats issued by Al-Qaeda seriously.

PAKISTAN:  Pres. Musharraf is calling for the political mainstreaming of the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Yeesh.

IRAQ:  At least 175 people were killed and more than 200 wounded when four suicide truck bombs targeted people from the Yazidi sect, which speaks a Kurdish dialect but follows a pre-Islamic religion and has its own cultural traditions.  US troops in Baghdad rescued and are nursing 10-month-old Fatima Jbouri, who was dumped outside in the garbage on a day when the temperature hit 118 degrees after her mother and uncle were killed by gunmen.  Bill Roggio reports on Operation Lightning Hammer, which is pursuing al-Qaeda operatives who fled Baqubah at the outset of Operation Arrowhead Ripper, the AQI attempts to disrupt US supply lines response, as well as ops against the Mahdi Army and Iranian Qods forces.  In Baghdad, embedded blogger Wesley Morgan goes on a patrol of Haifa Street and the Sunni neighborhood of Saddamiya, where al Qaeda's main stronghold had been during the January fighting.  In the NYT, John S. Burns writes that Gen. Petraeus is looking to get -- and give -- unvarnished reports.  Finally, Der Spiegel has a detailed and wide-ranging must-read tour of the state of Iraq today.

LION reunites with the humans who raised him and released him into the wild in Africa.  Awww... very Born Free.  Let's go to the karaoke.

KERRY the HORSE raced to the rescue to save her owner from a raging... cow.

KANGAROO sightings have been reported along US 90, outside Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

GOAT PRANK lands three teen girls a sentence in court.  Hey, it's not like they were trying to milk it.

CAT BOTCHES SUICIDE?  Or was it foul play?