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School of 7 Bells, Bell X-1, White Lies, Black Keys, Cats & Dogs   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS: Benjamin Curtis does a Q&A with Clash about songwriting, leaving Sectret machines, and more.  The band's latest video is for "Half Asleep."

M WARD stopped by WNYC for a chat and mini-set streaming on demand via NPR.

BELL X-1 did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter, one previously unreleased.

EL PERRO DEL MAR: Sarah Assbring is streaming a new track, "Change of Heart," at HerSpace.

YEAH YEAH YEAHS have a new track, "Zero," that's streaming at YANP.

THE BRITS went to these folks. Duffy was a big winner, but statues also went to Paul Weller, Elbow and Kings of Leon.

WHITE LIES, who have a New Order/ Echo/ Interpol/ Editors sorta vibe, have a video out for "Farewell to the Fairground."

BLACK KEYS: Dan Auerbach gets a chat + tracks from his solo LP at NPR's Day To Day.

LOW: Drowned In Sound runs a two-part, album-by-album, Tubed overview as Slowcore Week continues.

TINTED WINDOWS, comprised of Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, Taylor Hanson (!), and bassist Adam Schlesinger of Fountains Of Wayne, will debut at SxSW

THE NATIONAL: Aaron Dressner talks to Virgin Music about helming the Dark Was The Night charity comp.

TOUCH & GO is going... going....

MICKEY ROURKE's Chihuahua, Loki, one of the dogs memorably thanked by Rourke in his Golden Globe acceptance speech, has died.

TRACY MORGAN's swanky apartment caught fire Wednesday morning, causing him to lose most if not all of its contents after a lightbulb in one of his fish tanks busted.

RACHEL BILSON & HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN engaged?

FREIDA PINTO, the star of Slumdog Millionaire, has been hiding a secret husband, a close friend of the couple has claimed.

GUY RITCHIE was fuming last night after being ordered to re-shoot five weeks' worth of scenes for his Sherlock Holmes film.

CONAN O'BRIEN & STEPHEN COLBERT have a Late Night dance-off.

CLIVE OWEN, Everyman? Not if the box office for The International is any indicator.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER will play Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Expendables, which has to beat actually being Governor of California these days.  The cast now includes Mickey Rourke, Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren, Forest Whitaker, Eric Roberts and Danny Trejo (a/k/a Machete).

RAINN WILSON ("Dwight" on "The Office) has a CNN commentary about religious persecution in Iran, focusing on a 'trial' going on very soon for seven Baha'i national leaders.

PAKISTAN: American officials have privately backed Pakistan's "Sharia law for peace" deal with Taliban militants in the Swat Valley despite publicly criticising it as a "negative development." Tom Ricks makes the case for the deal; Bill Roggio argues against it.

AFGHANISTAN: Pres. Karzai is turning a new page in relations with the US, his spokesman has said.  Meanwhile, the top US commander in Afghanistan predicted that the bolstered numbers of US soldiers in Afghanistan (about 55K) will remain near those levels for up to five years.

IRAQ: Kurdistan, which was one of the most stable regions in past years, is now one of the more politically restive, as other areas have cooled down.  Ironic.

FORBIDDEN LOVE: Cats and Dogs and Rabbits and Ducks and Snakes, living together... mass hysteria.

PARK RANGER & LION seem to be getting a little too friendly.

CAT diagnoses owner with lung cancer.

THE GOAT is a housewrecker.

A GIANT RAT with one-inch-long teeth has been caught in the southern Chinese province of Fujian. Pic at the link.

4846 Reads

Primitives, More New Releases, Slowcore, Killer Chimp   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

THE PRIMITIVES co-founder Steve Dullaghan was found dead at age 45. He co-wrote their biggest hit, "Crash."

NEW RELEASES REDUX: Spinner finally updated with full album streams from M Ward, Benjy Feree, Vetiver, Abe Vigoda and more...

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: Morrissey, Coconut Records, a Sufjan Stevens remix and more are featured in the latest installment of the long-running NPR series.

LAURA GIBSON is giving a first listen to her Beasts of Seasons album via NPR.

SPINAL TAP: Derek Smalls looks back at the rockumentary for The Observer... and mentions that "Guest, McKean, and Shearer - are rumoured to be preparing acoustic shows that will include Tap songs among other, less powerful, selections."

GERRY RAFFERTY has been missing for nearly six months after mysteriously disappearing from St Thomas's Hospital in London last August?  It turns out that the singer is living in hiding in the south of England, being cared for by a friend.  You just had to know where to look.

IT'S SLOWCORE WEEK at Drowned In Sound, starting with a video-laden introduction and pieces on Galaxie 500, Slint and Codeine.

FLEET FOXES' Robin Peckhold covers Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe" under the White Antelope moniker.

PIRATE BAY TRIAL: Half of the charges levelled at the founders of the file-sharing site have been dropped. And the trial is being Twittered.

JASON ISBELL talks to the Nashville City Paper about playing more than 200 shows annually.

DAPTONE RECORDS, home of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, wuz robbed!

THE JACKO AUCTION:  The contents of Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch are on the block in April.  Photo gallery at The Guardian.

RHIANNA has declined to officially comment on Chris Brown's "apology" for beating her, but sources say she is "appalled" by Brown's statement.

JESSICA BIEL & JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE are moving to the Big Apple.

JENNIFER ANISTON & JOHN MAYER were... wait for it... caught canoodling on camera on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas.

LILY ALLEN & PEREZ HILTON had a catfight on Twitter, with the singer calling the blogger a "little parasite" and a "bitter lonely old queen."

ANNE HATHAWAY does a Q&A on her Rachel Getting Married role at the HuffPo.

WATCHMEN: /Film rounds up four new clips from around teh Internets.

JONNY QWEST news at IESB, much of it predictable, not much of it good.

IRAN: Israel is using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit nuclear weapons project, experts say.

AFGHANISTAN by the numbers, compiled by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann of the New America Foundation. The newest number, however, is 17K.  Matthew P. Dearing and Matthew C. DuPee, Research Associates with the Program for Culture & Conflict Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School, want to focus on building up Afghan civilian defense forces locally, as does a new report from the US Institute of Peace.

IRAQ is regaining its place in the region and is no longer seen as a US puppet, according to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. Meanwhile, violence nationwide in Iraq is at its lowest point in five years and its dampening, combined with restrictions on US unilateral action, has made boredom a real enemy for many American combat soldiers and Marines.

A DRUGGED-UP CELEBRITY CHIMP that appeared in a television advertisement with Morgan Fairchild and was in a show with the singer Sheryl Crow was shot dead by police after savaging a woman in Connecticut.  The woman remained listed in "extremely critical" condition on Tuesday, as police officials investigated whether illness might have changed the animal's behavior.  The owner is being harassed by PETA.

AN ALLIGATOR falls in love with a sanitation truck. Video at the link.

A MOOSE falls in lust with a buffalo statue.

AMOROUS BRUSH TURKEYS are raping chickens as their numbers rise in Brisbane and they look for a mate, according to a leading Queensland biologist.

A BEAVER has been spotted in Detroit, following a 75-year absence from the city, ecologists say.  You knew the Motor City was in bad shape, but not this bad.

3348 Reads

Fleet Foxes, New Releases, Spinto Band, Kittens   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

FLEET FOXES have released an official video for "Mykonos."

NEW RELEASES: Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 release Goodnight, Oslo.  Eleni Mandell releases Artificial Fire. Tommy Keene releases In The Late Bright. Morrissey releases Years of Refusal. Benjy Feree releases Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee. Spinner does not seem to have updated since last week, but maybe by the time you read this.

THE SPINTO BAND does the four free songs thing for Daytrotter, including a medley of "Give Me Just A Little More Time" (Chairman of the Board), "The Boys Are Back In Town" (Thin Lizzy) and "The Sweet Escape" (Gwen Stefani).

THE JOY FORMIDABLE are offering their album for download at the NME.

THE HANDSOME FAMILY answers the infamous 20 questions at PopMatters.  Audio playlist at the link.

SIMON & GARFUNKEL joined forces for a surprise reunion in NYC on Friday, performing three songs during the encore of Simon's show at the newly renovated Beacon Theater.

BACKBEAT:  Author Malcolm Gladwell recently noted that folks tend to overlook The Beatles' important formative period in Hamburg, but there is a 1994 movie about it, with a soundtrack of classics like "Money" and "Long Tall Sally" performed by an alt-star band including Dave Grohl, Thurston Moore, Greg Dulli, Dave Pirner, Mike Mills and Don Fleming.  And that's a Twofer Tuesday.

EMMY THE GREAT interviews Aidan Moffit (ex-Arab Strap), Darren Hayman (ex-Hefner), Mica Levi (Micachu) and Lightspeed Champion (about Steve Martin) for Drowned In Sound. She's a wild and crazy gal.

ONE-MAN BANDS, like Loney Dear and Phosphorescent, are surveyed by Jon Pareles for  the New York Times.

SAINT ETIENNE talks to the BBC about 20 years of musicmaking.

WILL OLDHAM talks about his Bonnie "Prince" Billy persona with... the Financial Times.

SALMA HAYEK got hitched to French businessman and baby daddy Francois-Henri Pinault on Valentine's Day, according to the French newsmagazine Le Point.

LINDSAY LOHAN & SAMANTHA RONSON reportedly had another blow-out on Valentine's Day. ALSO: Lohan admits she has lost some weight lately, but "it's not intentional."

MADONNA took Jesus to a Kabbalah meeting on Saturday.  Jesus Luz, that is.

HAYDEN PANETIERRE & MILO VENTIMIGLIA: The Heroes costars have called it quits.

KATE MOSS has denied she is pregnant but admitted to putting on enough weight to merit wearing a bra for the first time in her life.

MEL GIBSON: Stll Crazy.

WOLVERINE debuted a 60-second spot with plenty o' new footage on TV Sunday night. 

JOSS WHEDON, whose Dollhouse debuted Friday night, talks to NPR's Fresh Air about slayers. dolls and singing villains.

PAKISTAN: The government agreed to impose Islamic law and suspend a military offensive across a large swath of northwest Pakistan on Monday in concessions aimed at "pacifying" a spreading Taliban insurgency there.  Much like feeding an crocodile "pacifies" it... temporarily.

AFGHANISTAN: Kandahar police foiled a plot to blow up a provincial building in the city as US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke visited the South.  US forces killed the shadow governor of Afghanistan's northwestern province of Badghis and eight other Taliban leaders and fighters during an airstrike on a village near the border with Turkmenistan.  Gen. Petraeus says Iran is helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

IRAQ: Abu Ahmed was a longtime insurgent organizer and spiritual leader, but has become an indispensable partner in a covert war against AQI.  His transformation traces an arc followed by many of his countrymen, from all-out war against the Americans to revulsion against Al Qaeda's psychopathic ideology.

KITTENS, inspired by Kittens.

TEN PIGLETS have brought fresh hope for the future for Britain's rarest breed of pig.  Awww... some pics at the link.

POLAR BEAR plays peek-a-boo. At least he seems happy.

SO, AN ELK walks into a bar. At least, that's my theory, which is mine.

2977 Reads

Wrens, Elliot Smith, Shearwater, Cat Loves Bananas   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Monday, February 16, 2009 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

THE WRENS have a video for their new song, "Marked Up."

ELLIOT SMITH: An entire album's worth of unfinished recordings and outtakes from From A Basement On The Hill has leaked.

SHEARWATER stopped by the World Cafe for a chat and mini-set you can stream on demand via NPR.

HALEY BONAR does the four free songs thing for Daytrotter, one previously unreleased.

ANDREW BIRD gets a profile + tracks at NPR's All Things Considered.

HEARTLESS BAST^RDS were "Out at Sea" in their network TV debut from the Ed Sullivan Theater.

M WARD talks to Ann Powers at the L.A. Times about his arrangements, re-creating songs and more.  He also got profiled in The New York Times, with emphasis on his old skool leanings.

NEKO CASE is also profiled in The New York Times Magazine, with a multimedia sidebar.

PATRICK WOLF talks to Spinner about his two upcoming albums, and to BlackBook about how he got Tilda Swinton involved.  He's currently streaming a sampler.

LOS CAMPESINOS! Gareth Campesino talks to Boston Globe about the exclamation point and more...

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: The Friday the 13th remake headlines with 42.2 million (on a 19 million production budget) for the biggest weekend of the year to date.  That take was about twice the amount most predicted.  This weekend is again up more than 25 percent year-over-year.  Valentine's Day ensured enough people were into He's Just Not That Into You for it to rake in another 19.6 million.  But Taken was close behind, making 19.25 million on a mere six percent drop.  Confessions of a Shopaholic debuted in fourth with 15.4 million -- not bad considering that Isla Fisher had start-studded competition and the movie got poor reviews.  Coraline rounds out the Top Five with 15.3 million on a mere nine percent drop.  It has made back its reported 35 million production budget, and should do alright next weekend, but may run into trouble when the Joans Bros. show up in theaters two weekends hence.

JESSICA SIMPSON admits: "I've had times when my pants split right down the middle when I bent down to reach a note."

MICKEY ROURKE says he'd rather be stuck on an island with only the company of "a gorilla" than hook up with Courtney Love. Video at the link.

AMY WINEHOUSE was admitted to a hospital on Friday after collapsing while struggling with addiction on her never-ending vacation in St. Lucia.

MUSIC & LYRICS? Hugh Grant is reportedly "off again" with sometimes steady Jemima Khan, having been... caught canoodling not one but two women at an NYC club last week.  Was that before or after he was... wait for it... caught canoodling with Drew Barrymore?

KATE MOSS is pregnant with her second child, according to the uber-reliable News of the World.

WATCHMEN released a trailer for "Tales of the Black Freighter," a comic read by one of the charcters in the Watchmen graphic novel.

HEIDI KLUM is too heavy and too short to be a runway queen? Karl Lagerfeld and Claudia Schiffer dosn't know who she is?

GREY'S ANATOMY creator Shonda Rhimes says T.R. Knight and Katherine Heigl are not leaving the show.

PRESIDENTS DAY is recognized now instead of Washington's birthday, But in 1776, David McCullough notes that when Washington took command in July 1775, he thought he would be home at Mount Vernon by Christmas. McCullough catalogs Washington's blunders -- many of them nearly fatal to the Cause -- but concludes: "He was not a brilliant strategist or tactician, nor a gifted orator, not an intellectual... He had made serious mistakes in judgment. But experience had been his great teacher from boyhood... and above all, Washington never forgot what was at stake, and he never gave up." That, as much as anything, is why Washington is usually ranked among the greatest of US presidents.

OUR FRIENDS, THE SAUDIS: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia fired the head of the controversial religious police force and the country's most senior judge in a wide ranging shake-up of the cabinet and other government posts.

PAKISTAN: Two missiles fired from American drone aircraft killed more than 30 people, including Qaeda and Taliban fighters, near the Pakistani border with Afghanistan on Saturday, according to a Pakistani intelligence official and residents of the area. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Sen. Intell Cmite,  exposed a Pakistani partnership on Predator launches that the US had tried to keep quiet.

WINSTON the CAT loves bananas. Really. But SFW.

500-LB MANATEE RESCUED from a pond at a private golf club in North Palm Beach.

A DEAD GATOR turns up in a yard in Ypsilanti Township.

A SNAKE turns up in an Indian toilet. Pics at the link.

A BABY MEERKAT turned up in North Wales.  Hakuna Mutata.

3254 Reads

Romance, School of 7 Bells, Faces, Cutout Bin, Super-Cows   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Friday, February 13, 2009 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

... with a little ROMANCE! I've never been a big Valentine's Day guy, but I have always liked Paul Westerberg's "Valentine."  And Lou Rawls crooning "You'll Never Find" will always hold fond memories for me.  So it wasn't tough to add to the list John Hiatt's "Real Fine Love," The Beatles with "Thing We Said Today" (which Pate's Jon & Mike played at a fmr roomie's wedding), Billy Bragg's "Greetings To The New Brunette," The Ronettes' "Be My Baby"  and The Four Tops belting out "Baby, I Need Your Lovin'" on Shivaree, before closing with the Velvet Undergorund's "I'll Be Your Mirror," Elvis Costello's "Alison,"  The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" and Richard Thompson's solo take on "Dimming of the Day."

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set streaming on demand via MPR.

THE FACES: Captain's Dead has posted a 1974 gig from Detroit for downloading or streaming.

NICKEL EYE, the side project of Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture, does the four free songs thing for Daytrotter, occasionally sounding like TMBG+CVB.

BEACH HOUSE Victoria Legrand e-mails with Emmy the Great for Drowned In Sound.

LET'S STAY TOGETHER: The Al Green hit is the latest classic to get the upgraded NPR 100 treatment, with three decades of video links.

THE OPPOSING VIEW:  Ever Fallen In Love? Love Stinks. Love Hurts. Love Will Tear Us Apart. Only Love Can Break Your Heart. And don't forget to give me back my black t-shirt (nsfw)!

ANTI-SAPPY LOVE SONGS, courtesy of The Santa Clara (and LHB).

PETER GABRIEL is bailing on the Oscars.

GUILLEMOTS are celebrated at Creative Loafing.

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE have organized a mock-political campaign against "autotune abuse in music."

CUTOUT BIN: From Big Daddy to Sonic Youth, from 999 to Derek & the Dominos, from the Jackson 5 to The Clash, plus Lou Reed, Sppon, Eels, She & Him and more-- this Friday's fortuitous finds are streaming from the Pate page at the ol' HM.

CORALINE (3-D): Equal parts whimsical and creepy, animator Henry Selick does a masterful job with adapting Neil Gaiman's book about an unhappy girl who should be careful what she wishes for (even if a few major liberties were taken).  It remains sufficiently dark that parents may want to think twice before taking small children.  See it in 3-D if you can; there's not a lot of gratuitous thrown objects, but Selick uses the latest tech to create depth that showcases his marvelous sets (and set pieces).

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases include the coincidentally-timed remake of Friday The 13th, which is currently scoring 27 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; Confessions of a Shopaholic, which is scoring 22 percent, and The International, scoring 55 percent.

RHIANNA & CHRIS BROWN: Sources tell TMZ that the L.A. County District Attorney kicked the case back to the police for further investigation because evidence that Brown made criminal threats against Rihanna is kind of thin. However, Brown almost certainly be charged with felony domestic battery, a lesser offense but still serious.

MADONNA is reportedly furious that scandal-plagued Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez has gone back to his wife.

BRITNEY SPEARS: Fmr bf Adnan Ghalib is under investigation for felony assault with a deadly weapon with a vehicle.

JENNIFER ANISTON gets romantic advice from Jennifer Aniston. And she could use it.

THE TEN GREATEST HIT JOBS IN MOVIE HISTORY, according to New York magazine. And Tubed.

JOAQUIN PHOENIX makes his bid for the list of Letterman's most awkward moments.

THE DARK KNIGHT will not return to your cinema anytime soon.

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL & PETER SARSGAARD talk to The Scotsman about working together in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and almost wearing out the "A" key on my keyboard.

CHINA has developed a rolling lethal injection bus complete with a live video feed of the killings.

PAKISTAN: Dr. David Kilcullen, considered one of the leading thinkers on counterinsurgency, thinks US unmanned aerial attacks in Pakistan should be curtailed. Bill Roggio agrees in general, but adds caveats.

AFGHANISTAN: Three Taliban teams attacked the Justice and Education ministries and a prisons building in Kabul, killing 19 and wounding more than 50.  Afghan intelligence is investigating Pakistani links to the coordinated attack, which is a new tactic for ther Taliban.

MEET THE SUPER-COWS:  We have video and a photo gallery.

UNCONSCIOUS TIGER bites zoo's veterinarian. Tigers do it in their sleep.

A DORMOUSE sleeps on a rose.  Awww...

SEVEN of the BIGGEST BEASTS of all time, according to National Geographic.

ZOOROTICA: It's what's for Valentine's Day.

6317 Reads

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