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Decemberists, CMJ, Steve Earle, Python Attack   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Monday, October 15, 2007 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

THE DECEMBERISTS were on this weekend's edition of Austin City Limits.  Laura Veirs joined them for "Yankee Bayonet."  There's another clip and an interview in glorious Quicktime at the ACL site.

SPOON frontman Britt Daniel spins some songs for Harp magazine.  The band stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set you can stream now via MPR.

THE CMJ MUSIC MARATHON, which officially begins on Tuesday and runs through Saturday, has once again attracted 1,000 buzz-seeking bands to play at more than 50 locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Hoboken, NJ.  Insound has a free digital sampler of 15 of them, including Jesu, Health, British Sea Power, Georgie James, Hallelujah the Hills and younger-than-Smoosh rockers Tiny Masters of Today.  Or you can stream 237 songs from CMJ artists via iMeem.

RADIOHEAD = GREEDHEADS?  The sentiment among many fans seems to have gone from admiration for the group's willingness to let the consumer decide how much to pay for the new album to anger over the low quality of the downloads - and dismay over the band's manager's statement that the you-choose-the-price downloads were just a promotional tool for the release of the physical CD.

BEIRUT isn't exactly a "breaking band," but Rolling Stone thinks so, so they have some interview and performance video from Zach Condon.

PAUL SIMON turned 66 over the weekend.  To celebrate, here's a clip of Stevie Wonder and the Dixie Hummingbirds joining Simon on "Loves Me Like A Rock" at the concert earlier this year honoring Simon's selection as the first recipient of The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.  Wonder goofs it up, but recovers nicely.

SUFJAN STEVENS:  A profile in this month's Smithsonian magazine suggests that his "old" sound and intense, starkly personal lyrics make more sense when you know his history.  Stevens plans to speak at NYC's PENultimate Lit event Nov. 28, on the topic, "What Makes Writing Matter in the 21st Century?" The Franciscan Friars, who trace their lineage back to Francis of Assisi, chose Stevens' "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" as October's "theme for Franciscanized World Vocation."

INTERNET RADIO:  Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora -- a free service suggests artists and songs users might enjoy, based on preferences they submit -- tells The NJ Star-Ledger that he's "cautiously optimistic" Internet radio will survive a negotiation of new royalty rates.

STEVE EARLE performed a concert for World Café Live in Philadelphia on Friday.  You can stream the whole gig on demand via NPR.

PETE DOHERTY interviews SIR PAUL McCARTNEY for the Sunday London Observer.

ORLANDO BLOOM was involved in a car wreck early Friday morning.  According to LAPD sources, speed was not a factor in the accident, nor were alcohol or drugs.  However, Bloom was reportedly acting strangely shortly before the crash, and tried to walk away from the scene, leaving two women -- one injured and bleeding -- in the smashed-up car.  The paparazzi actually talked him into returning to the scene.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:  Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? took the top slot with a surprisingly strong 21.5 million -- at least surprising to Hollywood, which still hasn't figured out that Black churchgoers don't turn up in their consumer surveys, but do turn out for Tyler Perry, regardless of bad reviews. The Game Plan dropped to second, earning 11.5 million, a drop of only 31% from last weekend.  George Clooney's turn as Michael Clayton finishes third with 11 million, below analysts' predictions and tracking survey results.  Clooney's domestic popularity isn't what the media or Hollywood thinks it is; he opens big in ensemble movies, otherwise, not so much.  We Own The Night opened in fourth place, just a few thousand shy of Clooney.  The Heartbreak Kid dropped 47% from second place to round out the Top Five with 7.4 mil.  Elizabeth: The Golden Age, took in more than the original did over any of its weekends at 6.2 mil, but will probably fail to reach the 30 mil that the original grossed.  The Kingdom skidded from third to seventh, earning a mere 4.6 million, on a painful 53% drop.  Across The Universe made it to eighth place from twelfth as it expanded to wide release, earning 4 mil.  Ninth goes to Resident Evil: Extinction, which made 2.7 and looks to end up with about the same total as its predecessor.  The Seeker rounded out the Top Ten with 2.1 mil.

JESSICA SIMPSON is rumored to have gotten a hefty three-million-dollar paycheck for new Proactiv infomercials that will air close to Christmas.

O.J. SIMPSON:  A lawyer said one of the co-defendants in the O.J. Simpson armed robbery case has agreed to plead guilty to a reduced charge and testify against Simpson and four others.

THE McCARTNEYS:  Sir Paul and Heather Mills are said to be close to reaching an agreement over a divorce deal, claimed to be worth as much as £60 million, following a secret meeting at the High Court in London.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH IS STILL DEAD, but agents from the California Department of Justice served two of her doctors search warrants Friday and raided six different locations, including the physicians' offices and residences.  State Attorney General Jerry Brown said that detectives had "serious evidence" in the case, but no arrests have been made.

BRITNEY SPEARS:  I don't think this one is her fault -- A federal prison inmate alleges that the pop tart forced him at gunpoint to commit identity theft, to pay for her abortions, breast implants, cocaine and alcohol.

LINDSAY LOHAN is broke after squandering a staggering seven million dollars on her wild partying, according to the uber-reliable News of the World.

MADONNA:  The day after news leaked that Madge was close to leaving Warner Bros. Records and hitting the road with concert promoter Live Nation, Warner Music was quick to forward a report from a Bank of America subsidiary titled "For 120 Million, She's All Yours," explaining why the former material girl is no longer worth a nine-digit payday.

BRADGELINA:  After a little over a month, Maddox Jolie-Pitt had his last day at the swank Lycee Francais de New York in NYC; this is at least the fourth school change for Maddox, who has also been a student in New Orleans, Prague, and L.A.  Meanwhile, Pitt may not be getting enough action from Jolie.

JOSH HARTNETT and RHIANNA were... wait for it... caught canoodling at NYC club Pink Elephant Thursday night.

THE OFFICE:  You do not have to be a fan of the show to enjoy this fabulous highlight from last Thursday's episode.  All you need to know is that Angela recently broke off her secret relationship with co-worker Dwight.  Andy is now interested, but Angela has rebuffed him.

COUNTER-INSURGENCY:  The IHT has the transcript of Charlie Rose interviewing David Kilcullen -- an adviser to Gen. Petraeus, a reserve lieutenant colonel in the Australian army, with a doctorate in political anthropology.  I have yet to read something he's written without learning something.  The NYT has a piece on how Fort Leavenworth (which one Friend of Pate has called "a real gated community") has become a front line in the military's tension and soul-searching over Iraq.  Though most of the debate the NYT covers whether SecDef Rumsfeld or the generals bore more responsibility for decisions on troop levels, it's a bit more complicated than that.  For example, Pentagon consultant Thomas P.M. Barnett has argued that a light force was right for the initial invasion, but should have been followed on by a much larger force of "System Administrators."  There is the argument that a heavy footprint would have made Iraq resemble Vietnam or Algeria even more closely.  There is the argument that the current generation of senior officers simply didn't have the experience in addressing the unstructured problems one faces in COIN wars.  And the argument that the post-Vietnam Army, for all of its suppsed soul-searching, mistakenly assumed was that if the military trained for major combat operations, it would be able to easily handle less-violent operations like COIN.  And so on.  Also, the NYT reporting, if true, suggests that the "Shinseki myth" lives in some quarters, which is a shame.

IRAN:  Police have warned 122K people, mostly women, about flouting strict Islamic dress codes since April and nearly 7K of those attended classes on respecting the rules, a newspaper said on Thursday.  Presidents Ahmadinejad of Iran and Chavez of Venezuela are sponsoring projects to underline "the ideological kinship of the left and revolutionary Islam," even though socialism -- like liberal democracy -- is punishable by death in the Islamic theocracy.

IRAQ:  In a major reconciliatory gesture, a leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party visited Sunni Anbar province, delivering a message of unity to tribal sheiks who have staged a US-backed revolt against AQI.  The LA Times looks at Sheik Ahmed Buzaigh Abu Risha, who is taking his brother's place leading the Anbar Salvation Council.  The AP reports on Sheik Faisal Chilab's clan striking a deal with the US in the "triangle of death." A senior AQI terrorist was killed in Mosul Saturday, according to the US military.  Iraqi forces ckilled 48 suspected AQI-linked insurgents during a four-day operation in a Sunni enclave of central Baghdad.  The Iraqi army was supported by local Sunni tribal members and other armed civilians who have turned against AQI in the volatile Fadhil neighborhood.  Anthony H. Cordesman, long pessimistic on Iraq, thinks the odds still aren't good, but that the US should stay another year.  The civilian death toll in Iraq fell to its lowest level in recent memory Saturday, with only four people killed or found dead nationwide, according to reports from police, morgue officials and credible witnesses.

THE WAR and the MEDIA:  Pres. Bush announced Thursday that the Medal of Honor would be posthumously awarded to Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a Navy SEAL killed leading a recon mission deep behind enemy lines in Afghanistan in 2005.  The New York Times did not bother to report it, even though Murphy hailed from Long Island.  Neither did NPR.  Indeed, outside the AP report, few media outlets bothered.

A GIANT PYTHON attacked reptile expert Brady Barr, who was wading waist-deep in liquefied bat poop in a dark, bat-infested Indonesian cave.  Let's go to the video!

SCOOBY was best dog at the wedding of his owner, who does not appear to be named Shaggy.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT:  Militant squirrels take down the power grid at the U of Kentucky -- for the third time.  Grey squirrels have caused 10K of damage to a home in Esquimalt, Canada.

A CAT picked the winning lottery numbers for a Shenzhen resident surnamed Wang, but does not seem to be getting a cut of the winnings.

THE SECRETIVE WORLD of Chinese "Lettuce dogs."  Metro is there.

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