MENOMENA:  The video for "Evil Bee," a track from the Friend Or Foe album, has some birds in it, too.  Literally and figuratively.

BRIAN WILSON has re-teamed with Van Dyke Parks -- the lyricist behind Smile -- for a new work titled That Lucky Old Sun. You can stream "Midnight's Another Day" from Wilson's website.

RICK RUBIN is the subject of a lengthy profile in The New York Times magazine, as Columbia has brought the famed producer onboard to save the label -- and maybe the music business.

JEFF TWEEDY:  Heather Browne is streaming his 2006 Living Room concert, one of a series of charity gigs where he auctions himself for a fan-directed concert.

WOODY GUTHRIE died in 1967, but is releasing his first live album and collaborating with Lou Reed, jazz bassist Rob Wasserman, cabaret satirist Nellie McKay, the rapper Michael Franti and Son Volt's Jay Farrar.

PETE SEEGER belatedly comes out against Stalin's gulags and imagines what Woody Guthrie might have written had he been around to see the death of his old Communist dream. 

BEIRUT has released an advance track, "A Sunday Smile" from the upcoming sophomore LP, The Flying Club Cup.  Steam and download at the link.

IAN HUNTER & MICK RONSON deliver the goods on "All The Young Dudes" in Cleveland on June 18 1979.  Because Cleveland rocks (nsfw).

ROCK STARS DIE YOUNG:  A Liverpool John Moores University study of 1,050 US and European artists found they are twice as likely to die early than the rest of the population.  And if you're thinking, "What about Keith Richards?", remember that he is the Lord of the Undead.

WRINKLY ROCKERS: Mocked in Germany! (Danke, Ken King.)

LED ZEPPELIN are planning to play a huge comeback concert at the O2 arena, the UK concert hall housed in the former Millennium Dome.  The Zep already has a history with Denmark, but not Germany.

MAN MAN maven Honus Honus tells Stylus that "Modest Mouse is a gateway drug to better music" and "Unless you're independently wealthy or a masochist you're not going to make money off selling records. Bands survive now from playing."

RHORDRI MARSDEN, otoh, writes about how the Internet can make you a pop star for almost nothing.

THE MERCURY PRIZE:  Amy Winehouse ended her run of no-shows to sing "Love Is A Losing Game," but The Klaxons took home the prestigious award.

KATE MOSS enjoyed a 30-hour bender at the weekend with Jamie Hince, guitarist for the garage rock group The Kills, putting to rest rumors she is back with on-off boyfriend Pete Doherty.

HALLE BERRY is knocked up, a source close to the upcoming Lionsgate film Tulia told TMZ.  Berry later confirmed the story to Access Hollywood.

NICOLE KIDMAN has revealed for the first time that she suffered a miscarriage at 23, shortly after marrying Tom Cruise.

BILL MURRAY explains that he was just dropping off people after a party when he was stopped in downtown Stockholm driving a golf cart.  He could face drunken driving charges, though a Stockholm police official has said fines were more likely than a prison sentence.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH IS STILL DEAD, but former ANS boytoys Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern have branded a woman who claimed they're gay lovers a liar and a "loser" with a grudge against them.  The Today show has pulled the plug on the Rita Cosby interview about her book which reports those claims after Today received a threatening letter from Howard's lawyer.

THE FRENCH HOTEL, after years of intense practice, has vowed to have children by next year.

MADONNA and husband Guy Ritchie face another setback in the adoption process of Malawian tot David Banda - the welfare official overseeing the case has been replaced after "compromising" his position.

SIENNA MILLER launched a foul-mouthed, drunken tirade at photographers at her new shop, shouting: "F*** off, you f***ing ****s... See you in court, you f***ing rapists."  Video at the link.  She was there with "friend" Rhys Ifans, who was hitting the sauce heavily as well.

JERRY LEWIS called someone - or something - an "illiterate f*ggot" in the 18th hour of his Labor Day telethon.  Video at the link.  GLAAD has accepted his apology.

GWYNETH PALTROW:  OK! magazine claims that all may not be well in the nearly four-year marriage of the Oscar-winning actress and hubby Chris Martin, of the band Coldplay.  Seems pretty flimsy to me, though she is leaving the family to do a cooking show.

HEATHER MILLS McCARTNEY was slapped with a 250-dollar ticket for by a New York traffic cop for parking in a handicapped space, even after she knocked on her false leg!

TOBEY MAGUIRE married the mother of his 9-month-old daughter in a secret Hawaiian ceremony last night, according to the ever-reliable In Touch Weekly.

IF I BLOG IT:  A blog started with the express purpose of getting Kevin Costner to send a photo of himself looking at a blog about himself fulfilled its mission over the Labor Day weekend.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG  started her regular gig on The View by defending convicted former QB Michael Vick, arguing that he didn't know dogfighting was wrong due to being raised in the "Deep South."  Except that Vick was raised in Virginia -- hardly the Deep South -- and his dad urged him to quit dogfighting in 2001, in part for legal reasons.  Her claim that she had not heard anyone else talk about the culture of dogfighting also strains credulity.

TERROR in DENMARK:  Danish intelligence agents arrested eight alleged militants with links to leading al-Qaeda figures early Tuesday and said the suspects were plotting an attack involving explosives.

TERROR in GERMANY:  German authorities said Wednesday they had arrested three suspected Islamic terrorists for allegedly plotting attacks on Frankfurt airport and the nearby US military base in Ramstein.

IRAN:  Former Pres. Hashemi Rafsanjani was picked Tuesday to head a powerful clerical body.  The AP declares this "another defeat for the current president's hard-line faction," which it is.  But Rafsanjani has been implicated in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish charities office in Argentina (among other terror attacks), gives sermons about nuking Israel and blamed the US for Tehran's then-secret nuke program.  So "hard-line" and "moderate" are relative terms.  Meanwhile, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei blames the US for starting both WWI and WWII.

IRAQ:  The "surge" is having an impact in the former "Triangle of Death," with an assist from Retired Iraqi army Brig. Gen. Mustafa al-Jubouri and his group of "Concerned Local Citizens.''  The AQ-linked Islamic State of Iraq is planning its own "surge" for Ramadan, as it has in past years.  The warning came as Iraq's parliament got back to work after a month-long summer break.  Three members of Saddam's regime -- including the man known as "Chemical Ali" -- will be executed within 30 days, senior appellate Judge Munir Haddad said Tuesday.  Tribal justice can be harsher in Anbar, where the US is trying to stand up the judicial system.  Excerpts from an interview with Sheik Ali Hatem Ali Sleiman of the Anbar Salvation Council, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV and Al-Alam TV in July and August, touch on law enforcement issues, his attitude toward Maliki and the central gov't (not identical) and much more.  Some of it probably should be taken with a grain of salt, but still interesting.  Also in the fwiw bag -- the Crisis Management Initiative claims that Muqtada al-Sadr, Adnan al-Dulaimi (a leader of the largest Sunni Arab political group) and Humam Hammoudi (the Shia chairman of the Iraqi parliament's foreign affairs committee) agreed to work towards peace during talks in Finland.  You can download the text of the "agreement" in. pdf format from CMI's website.

MAXIMUS the BEAGLE crash lands on the highway outside Ottawa, Canada.

A BABY SHARK was saved by a Rockaway Beach lifeguard from a mob of angry swimmers.

THE MICROSHARK is the second rare creature brought up alive by the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii, which operates pipelines that bring up cold sea water from 3,000 feet below the ocean surface.  (The first was the octosquid.)  We're gonna need a smaller boat.

GOING TO SNAKE CITY, 'cause it's two-to-one...

CHINESE CHOCOLATES contain a wriggly surprise for South Koreans.  Still no Crunchy Frog.