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British Indie, R Hitchcock, Black Lips, Cutout Bin, Dogs & Gators   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Friday, October 12, 2007 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

... with THE SEVEN AGES of ROCK: BRITISH INDIE!  This documentary from the BBC traces a Manchester-centric line from the first appearance of The Smiths of the UK's venerable Top of the Pops through the biggest days for Oasis, and on to the Libertines and the Arctic Monkeys.  That's a little sad, as it excludes stuff like the Stiff label, and mentions the Hacienda nightclub w/o recognizing the club exists due to Factory Records.  I would have liked a bit more about the literally riotous early days of the Jesus & Mary Chain, too... but they didn't ask me.  Nevertheless, the JAMC, the Stone Roses, Blur and Suede get decent time; Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets and more have cameos.  Tubed in segments:  Part 1- Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9.  There's the more-than-occasional f-bomb lobbed in the interviews as well.

ALL THE BEATLES LPs, compressed into one hour, is streaming from WFMU's blog.  (Thanks, Ken King!)

JOY DIVISION:  Someone from the US distributor for the Ian Curtis biopic Control asked whether Joy Division could play the NYC premiere,  Bassist Peter Hook took it pretty well. The movie, which moves outside NYC on the 26th, is currently scoring 90 percent on the ol' Tomatometer.  Director Anton Corbijn -- who famously photographed Joy Div back in the day -- has been doing the PR thing with Entertainment Weekly, Salon, the Seattle Times, and so on.  BONUS: An hour-long documentary, Heart & Soul: The Story Of Ian Curtis And The Making Of 'Control', is streaming from Xfm Manchester.  (Thanks, Terry Nielsen!)

ROBYN HITCHCOCK:  You can stream his entire box set, which comes out at the end of the month, via YepRoc.  Doesn't include his major label stuff, but still hours of twisted listening pleasure.  (Thanks, Chromewaves!)

JENS LEKMAN talks to Drowned In Sound about a variety of things, including letting his friends decide which songs went on his new album, Night Falls Over Kortedala, which is streaming in full via Spinner through the weekend.

THE BLACK LIPS rocked "O Katrina" like a hurricane for the big redhead on the Peacock the other night.

RADIOHEAD:  The (almost) freely downloadable In Rainbows LP continues to reverberate through the mediasphere.  Guitarist Johnny Greenwood talked to Gothamist on launch day.  Fortune magazine reported on downloading the album.  Business Week looked at "The Big Record Labels' Not-So-Big Future."  Last 100 looked at five alternative models for the industry.  A writer for the Michigan Daily observes: "Though probably not the demise for the record industry, what the Radiohead digital release may signal is the tipping point for death of the local indie-music store..."

OKKERVIL RIVER did a studio session for the World Cafe you can stream from NPR.  The band also serves as the springboard for a Village Voice essay on how "indie" became part of the Indusrty of Cool:  "The inevitable irony, of course, is that this all winds up being sublimated self-loathing..."

IMPERIAL TEEN stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set you can stream on demand via MPR.

THE CUTOUT BIN:  This Friday's fortuitous finds from the ol' HM are: Bill Murray - Star Wars Theme; The Mountain Goats - Cubs In Five; Joe Dassin - Les Champs Elysees; The Decemberists - The Sporting Life; The Beach Boys - Sloop John B; Billy Bragg - A Lover Sings; The English Beat - Tears of a Clown (Smokey); Elvis Costello - (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea; The Bravery - It's All I Can Do (The Cars); A Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran; Devo - Girl U Want; The Bangles - If She Knew What She Wants (Jules Shear); Big Star - September Gurls; The National - Pretty in Pink (P-Furs); Lily Allen - Don't Get Me Wrong (Pretenders); The Pretenders - Not A Second Time (Beatles); Damone - Just What I Needed (The Cars); Luna - Sweet Child O' Mine (GnR); Jens Lekman - A Postcard For Nina; The Zombies - She's Not There; The Pipettes - Dirty Mind; Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Tell Me; Otis Redding - I Can't Turn You Loose; Wilson Pickett - Land of 1000 Dances; Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road (Acoustic Version, 914 Studios, 1974); Robyn Hitchcock - Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus; Bright Eyes - Four Winds; Ringo Starr - It Don't Come Easy; Pearl Jam - I Can't Help Falling in Love; and Elvis Presley - Are You Lonesome Tonight?

MICHAEL CLAYTON, which stars George Clooney as the "fixer" for a large NYC law firm is so good that I really didn't care that I knew the outcome in advance and could have guessed it had I not known it.  Which is to say the picture is well-written and better-acted.  It is more subtle than a plot synopsis would suggest, and all the better for it.  Even the somewhat foreseeable ending is somewhat redeemed by a particularly catchy line.  Clooney does well enough (though he remains more star than actor), but it's the supporting performances of Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton that make the picture.  Indeed, actors stepped up to the plate across the board, even in the smaller roles taken by the likes of Danny O'Keefe and Sydney Pollack.  And always good to see Ken Howard, even if the White Shadow is looking kinda puffy these days.

NOW SHOWING:  In addition to Michael Clayton, which is currently scoring 89 percent on the ol' Tomatometer, this weekend's wide releases are:  We Own The Night, which is scoring 50 percent; Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married, which was not screened for critics (shocka!); Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which is scoring 25 percent; and The Final Season, which is scoring 19 percent.

JOAQUIN PHOENIX, promoting We Own the Night and the upcoming Reservation Road, hung up on an interview with TimeOut NY, but he was highly quotable before that: "I've been acting since I was eight, and I never looked at entertainment magazines, never watched entertainment shows. I don't think one should be comfortable standing on a stage with people applauding and laughing at every stupid thing you say."  That's just the tip of the 'berg, too. 

BRITNEY SPEARS gets one-night-a-week visitation rights with her sons, but the visits must be supervised by a court-appointed monitor (as opposed to mama Lynne, as Spears sought).  This followed a hearing in which Court Commissioner Scott M. Gordon reminded the pop tart that she has "substance abuse issues and emotional issues... (which) could have devastating effects on the children."  This is what happens when you ignore court orders and act like a diva to the decision-maker.  But Spears seems stuck in denial, still trotting around town without panties on the day she is trying to regain parental rights.

JUDE LAW has been cleared of assaulting a paparazzi photographer, according to People magazine.

THE McCARTNEYS:  Sir Paul and Heather Mills last night ended eight hours of mediation without reaching a deal on what could be the costliest divorce on record.  The Daily Mail claims the sticking points are a privacy clause preventing 39-year-old Mills from discussing the marriage and her annual income from the ex-Beatle's £825million fortune.

MADONNA is close to leaving her long-time Warner Bros. Records label for a wide-ranging 120-million-dollar deal with concert promotion firm Live Nation.  Regular Pate visitors knew this in July.

ORLANDO BLOOM... and Jessica Simpson!?  (Cue Vader.)  What happened to Jennifer Aniston?

BRADGELINA:  Contrary to prior speculation, Jolie and dad Jon Voight remain estranged.  Not to mention just plain ol' strange.

DAVID HASSELHOFF will likely not lose custody of his daughters just because he fell off the wagon with sufficient velocity to land in the hospital, his lawyer Melvin Goldsman tells People magazine.

LARS and the REAL GIRL:  How do you market a wholesome, old-fashioned film about a churchgoer who falls in love with his sex doll? Grass-roots screenings with religious groups, maybe?  Star Ryan Gosling talks to Entertainment Weekly about the movie which he compares to Harvey.  And here's the trailer.

RAMZI YOUSEF, the mastermind of the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, claims he converted from Islam to Christianity.  Of course, if you're stuck in a Supermax prison, you're probably not worried about some jihadi trying to kill for your apostasy, either.

INDONESIA:  Convicted Bali nightclub bombers feasted on kebabs with Indonesia's anti-terrorism chief at an evening party held at his house.  The party, which brought together more than 20 Muslim hardliners and former terrorists who have shown "regret" for their actions, was the latest "soft" strategy in Indonesia's anti-terror campaign to try and turn former militants into informers, or advocates of religious moderation.  Unfortunately, at least one of the quoted bombers doesn't sound very reformed yet.

IRAN:  Watch Hashemi Rasfanjani -- often described as a "moderate" and a "reformer" in the Western media -- tell his audience that the Holocaust was at least partially the fault of the Jews, who were a "pain in the neck" to the Nazis and other European countries.

IRAQ:  Six main Iraqi insurgent groups announced the formation of a "political council" in a new attempt to assert the leadership of the groups, which have moved to distance themselves from another coalition of insurgent factions led by AQI.  The Marines want to take the lead in Afghanistan, in anticipation of drawdowns in Iraq's Anbar province.  SecDef Gates yesterday played down the discussion.  Michael J. Totten has posted video of a walking tour of Ramadi with Army Capt. Phil Messer taken in August.  In a number of Shiite neighborhoods across Baghdad, residents are beginning to turn away from the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia they once saw as their only protector against Sunni militants.

IRAQ II:  Over 37 terrorists were killed, 25 suspects detained, and several weapons caches were discovered during military operations conducted by the Multi-National Forces in Diyala province, an MNF statement said.  Iraqi authorities said Wednesday that they had arrested the killer of a policeman who was murdered earlier in Kirkuk.  Thirteen suspected insurgents, including three members of AQI responsible for the assassination of a Sunni Arab preacher, were killed within hours by a US airstrike, the US military said on Thursday.  A recent raid in the town of Sinjar near the Syrian border yielded "literally terabytes of electronic files," including 800 names of al Qaeda terrorists - 143 of those either "en route or already delivered" to Iraq.  The intel included the terrorists' names, passport numbers, home addresses and their transit routes.

SUPER GROOM 2007:  A day after blurbing the Cat Championships in NYC, how can I overlook pooches preened and painted with non-toxic temporary food dyes in Vegas?  Yep, that's the Teenage Mutant Ninja Poodle.  More pics at the link.

CATS & DOGS: Thumper the black Lab saved his owner from a house fire, which fire officials believe was caused by Princess, the family cat.

DOG SPAYED as the veternary clinic goes up in flames.

TREE LIZARD UPDATE:  A nearly four-foot-long monitor lizard, suspected of killing small pets in an Orange County community, was finally caught Thursday.   Pics and video at the link.

KILLER GATOR snuffs it in Savannah, GA.  The nearly eight-foot alligator was responsible for the death of an 83-year-old Canadian woman -- said to be the first fatal gator attack in Georgia in more than 25 years.

GATOR THIEF sentenced and married on the same day, by the same judge, in Chambersberg, PA.  Franklin County Judge John R. Walker said: "By God, he got a life sentence."

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