ARCTIC MONKEYS: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not gets a perfect ten from NME: "Essentially this is a stripped-down, punk rock record with every touchstone of Great British Music covered: The Britishness of The Kinks, the melodic nous of The Beatles, the sneer of Sex Pistols, the wit of The Smiths, the groove of The Stone Roses, the anthems of Oasis, the clatter of The Libertines..." The album also scores five stars in the Guardian: "The spectre of Oasis lurks around Arctic Monkeys, proof that even the most promising beginnings can turn into a dreary, reactionary bore. For now, however, they look and sound unstoppable." The Observer headline is "Believe the hype." At *Sixeyes, Alan gives it an 8.5: "A still raw and very good band with an impressive debut... it's a mass media wet dream." Alan also links you to AM MP3s... You can also check out this BBC Real Audio feature o­n the lads.

CAT POWER: Chan Marshall gets a biographical piece in Newsday. Her latest The Greatest, comes out today and was featured here yesterday, so scroll o­n down.

CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN is again touring behind New Roman Times, a rock opera that could be described as progressive both musically and politically. Guitarist Greg Lisher: "If Bush had lost, it might have screwed up our concept. Since he's still in office, our record still has some life to it."

ROCK ME, AMADEUS: Alex Ross, the music critic of The New Yorker, compiles an All-time Top 40, based o­n Google hits. Guess who beats The Beatles?

SXSW 2006 The full list of acts is a "humdinger." See You in the Pit returns to blog the bands (with much suspected killing of music), starting with The Earlies, singer Allison Goldfrapp, Thunderbirds Are Now! and indie chanteuse Neko Case.

WE ARE SCIENTISTS: Keith Murray found the sudden interest of major labels at SXSW "sort of amusing because it felt like we all knew something that everybody else apparently didn't -- that we were some idiot band from Brooklyn."

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB: You can stream their set for World Cafe from NPR.

POPWORLD sounds like my kind of television show. I would like to see Britney Spears walk out and Gwen Stefani grow visibly angry when aggressively interviewed about cheese.

E-LABELS, like UMe and Cordless, get no respect. Just ask the Posies' Ken Stringfellow and Devo's Gerald Casale. The latter says of the CD: "People want objects. It's a fetish." Well, yeah... which leads to the next story.

LINER NOTES are going digital and interactive.

TIM FITE: IGN puts the 25 year old from rural Pennsylvania in a group that "tweaks the conventions of folk music," including Camper Van Beethoven, Howe Gelb, The Gourds, and Beck. He's got a few streaming at MySpace and older tracks for download at his website.

BEE GEES: The late Maurice Gibb was o­nce a gun-toting drunk, according to a new tell-all written by his daughter.

THE GOLDEN GLOBES went to these folks. If you like fashion or enjoy actresses in hot dresses, check the galleries at Yahoo, E! Online, People and The Envelope. There are tons of hi-res pics at Egotastic, who also saw Issac grope Scarlett. Speaking of E!, I caught a bit of their red carpet show during dinner and got to see co-host Isaac Mizrahi grope one of Scarlett Johanssen's Golden Globes while examining her dress. Apparently, you can get away with that if you're very, very gay. Speaking of which, it was (as expected) a big night for Brokeback Mountain, which won in four of the seven categories, including best drama, best director and best screenplay. And Philip Seymour Hoffman won for playing Truman Capote, who the movie showed to be gay. (Who knew?) The other big winners were Johnny and June Carter Cash. Joaquin Phoenix -- after asking, "Whoever thought I'd win in the Comedy or Musical category?" -- thanked Johnny, June and T-Bone Burnett. Reese Witherspoon also won, as did Walk The Line. Steve Carrell of The Office had a great acceptance speech he claimed was written by his wife, Nancy; it ignored his career and instead praised his wife, noting that she had put aside her career for his. The producers of Lost also thanked Carrell's wife, which is not o­nly funny, but an excuse to link to Evangeline Lilly standing out in an aqua dress.

TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise gave his pregnant fiancee Holmes a unique 27th birthday present -- a DVD compendium of every movie he has acted in. Next year, it will be a mirror with his face pasted into it.

FELICITY HUFFMAN had to look long and hard in sex shops for a realistic-looking flaccid penis to play a transsexual in Transamerica. Then she named it -- so she must have been playing a cheesy man. She looked much more feminine on the red carpet with hubby William H. Macy, who she thanked when picking up the Globe for best actress in a drama.

JUST ASKING: Page Six has another round of not-so-blind items.

UMA THURMAN has found a boyfriend, who she uses to take a backhanded swipe at ex-husband Ethan Hawke. She also hints there may be table-dancing in her future, so Kate Moss and Lindsay Lohan should get her o­n speed-dial.

KATE MOSS: Speaking of which, Page Six had the supposedly sober supermodel hanging out at a Malibu club at 2 a.m. with a bunch of "hard-living, dirty punk rocker types with tattoos and piercings who looked like her ex Pete Doherty."

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY tells Cosmo that "I'm o­ne of those people who goes to a club and gets very, very sweaty and makes a complete fool of herself." Just o­ne of many reasons to like her. She lost out at the Globes to Reese Witherspoon, but was a a winner in white o­n the red carpet. She even topped the E! Online fashion poll.

BRADGELINA: People magazine is rumored to have donated 400K to a charity endorsed by Jolie to get those pregnancy pics.

BATMAN RUMORS: It seems that Warner Bros. and Chris Nolan are looking at names like Johnny Depp and Rachel Weisz for the sequel to Batman Begins.

KATE BECKINSALE, realizing that she is "not doing a very good job at conquering Hollywood," may return to the UK to raise her daughter. Apparently we are playing the sympathy card to get people to go see the Underworld sequel. Still, she looked, smashing -- if a bit ruffled -- o­n the red carpet o­n the Globes.

JESSICA SIMPSON hubby Nick Lachey admits he may have been too much of a cry-baby for her.

MISCHA BARTON: The OC starlet has resolved to put down the cigarette and pick up a sandwich this year.

BRITNEY SPEARS, in a moment of lucidity, went shopping without her wedding ring.

WALTER CRONKITE thinks the US should already be out of Iraq. He said o­ne of his proudest moments came at the end of a 1968 documentary he made following a visit to Vietnam during the Tet offensive. Urged by his boss to briefly set aside his objectivity to give his view of the situation, Cronkite said the war was unwinnable and that the U.S. should exit. As the Tet Offensive was a military disaster for the Vietcong, we are left to wonder why he's so proud of misreporting it -- even assuming the war was unwinnable, Tet wasn't evidence of it.

IRAQ: The number of US troops wounded in Iraq fell by more than a quarter in 2005 from a year earlier. Rather remarkable, given the extensive operations in Anbar province this past Fall. We can hope it reflects the growing involvement of Iraqi security forces. The electoral commission is throwing out votes from 227 ballot boxes in last month's parliamentary elections because of fraud, a tiny percentage of the total vote that shouldn't greatly affect overall results.

IRAN: Faced with President Ahmadinejad's nuclear ambitions, US and UK officials think US military action and Western sanctions are unlikely. Not mentioned in the story is the possibility of a preemptive strike from Israel.

NSA SURVEILLANCE: Former Veep Al Gore accused President Bush of breaking the law by authorizing the NSA to eavesdrop o­n international telephone calls without a court warrant. Gore failed to mention the Clinton Administration's record and positions o­n warrantless searches and warrantless wiretapping. And since there is no case law finding the NSA program illegal, maybe Gore should have concluded that there was no controlling legal authority o­n the issue.

MYSTERY FISH washes up o­n the shores of Cayman Brac this past weekend.

THE DOG WHISPERER treats the personality disorders of pets of Hollywood celebrities and sports superstars, but also has to work with the celebs. As he puts it: "I rehabilitate dogs; I train people."

STINKY THE PELICAN needs a ride from Surf City to a new home in Miami.

THE MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLE threatens the logging market of British Columbia.

PARROT ATTACK helped police identify a burglary suspect in Williamsport, PA.

OKKERVIL RIVER gets an audio feature at NPR with three streaming songs from Black Sheep Boy and Black Sheep Boy Appendix.

THE ARCTIC MONKEYS have reached a truce with the Kaiser Chiefs and get praise from the Test Icicles.

ROBERT JOHNSON, DAVID BOWIE and CREAM are among those slated for Grammy Lifetime Achievement awards.

GNIKSAMKCAB: The Wall Street Journal just ran a front page story mentioning the website.

DOWNLOAD PROBE: Digital Music News has a source claiming that New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer is looking at the way major labels constructed contracts with various paid music outlets.

THE FLAMING LIPS have an advance track from At War With The Mystics available from iTunes, Rhapsody and other o­nline music services.

ROD STEWART: At 61 years old, a seven-week-old baby can be a little tiring.

LOOSE FUR, which features Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche with multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke, will release Born Again in the U.S.A. o­n March 21. BONUS: Prefix has a review of and video from Tweedy's solo show in NYC.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS has announced new tour dates for February and March.

THE SUBWAYS also have tour dates for March, including cities where Pate site members live.  You can stream a few from MySpace or download the T. Rex-influenced "Rock and Roll Queen" right now.

PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: The troubled singer has been charged with possession of cocaine and heroin, but apparently not with DUI. And he's had to take over guitar duties with Babyshambles, as their guitarist quit at the holidays.

JENNY LEWIS: CMJ has details of the Rilo Kiley singer's solo album, due January 24.

THE WHITE STRIPES: Jack has been ordered to shut up for two weeks to recuperate from an acute vocal cord injury. Meg is the new face for Marc Jacobs' fashion line.

LOHAN LOWDOWN: Li-Lo is "appalled" by her Vanity Fair interview. In a statement released Tuesday to Teen People magazine, Lohan denied having bulimia and said, "The words that I gave to the writer for Vanity Fair were misused and misconstrued, and I'm appalled with the way it was done." VF stands by its story.

MR. BLACKWELL issued his 46th annual "Worst Dressed" list, led by "over-the-hill Lolita" Britney Spears -- even before these pictures hit the Internet. Many of my other favorite targets also made the list.

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARDS: The usual mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. What can you make of awards like the "Crest Whitestrips Fans Favorite Smile?" And the Choices are...

COLIN FARRELL sex tape is out o­n the Internet.

JOHNNY DEPP has been tipped to star in the film adaptation of Sweeney Todd.

JOAQUIN PHOENIX has directed a music video.

JESSICA SIMPSON may be drunk dialing Nick Lachey, a source tells Star magazine -- so who could doubt it? Meanwhile, the couple have sold their Newlyweds house to Justin Berfield of Malcolm in the Middle.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON told Match Point co-star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers not to stare at her chest during their nude scenes. Which is sorta like asking you not to think of an elephant. Or two.

BRADGELINA: Ananova reports that Pitt phoned Jennifer Aniston to tell her that Jolie is pregnant -- a story no doubt floated by the Bradgelina camp to counter the original -- and much funnier -- rumor. ALSO: Forgot to note that Jolie filed papers to change the last names of Maddox and Zahara to Jolie-Pitt.

NATALIE PORTMAN is considering shaving her head again... and not for a movie.

LOST: Naveen Andrews, who plays Iraqi soldier Sayid o­n the hit show, has acknowledged that he fathered a child while briefly separated from longtime girlfriend Barbara Hershey. Evangeline Lilly had the pilot script rewritten to avoid a nude scene. E! has some teasers for the second half of the season.

MIKE MYERS, just separated, has his mojo workin'.

THE FRENCH HOTEL: Speaking of drunk...

RONALD REAGAN: Historian Richard Reeves wrote The Reagan Detour in 1985; his new book, President Reagan, is part of a significant shift in elite opinion about our 40th president. He is no longer viewed as "an unwitting tool of a manipulative staff," in Reeves's phrase. Reeves now thinks Pres. Bush is a puppet of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. So if you're keeping score, Reagan is no longer Reagan, Bush is Reagan, except that he's no Reagan.

IRAQ: Both Shiite and Sunni Arabs celebrated the Islamic feast of sacrifice Tuesday with calls for an end to the bloodshed that has wracked Iraq since last month's elections, though Sunnis also renewed calls for the withdrawal of US troops. Sen. Hillary Clinton slammed what she called an "unforgivable" failure by the Bush administration to provide potentially lifesaving body armor to US troops, though -- as noted here Monday -- the troops don't all see it that way. The AP ran a story headlined "Fear Keeps Mosul Residents From Informing." Absent from the story are any figures as to the past or current level of tips. We do learn from the story that terror attacks in Mosul are pushing the locals more toward the US troops. And we learn from Haider Ainja (an Iraqi-American who translates Iraqi media) that tips recently helped defuse a number of bombs and discover of number of weapons caches in Mosul.

IRAN broke U.N. seals o­n its nuclear enrichment facility Tuesday, causing the US and other countries to threaten to take the issue to the UN Security Council -- where nothing will happen without support from Russia and China that is nowhere to be seen.

NANOTECH: Nanotech booster Glenn Reynolds liked the nanotech-gone-wrong thriller, The Cunning Blood.

SQUIRRAT: A simple case of hair loss, or a mythical cross-breed of squirrels and rats? London's Sun investigates!

FLAMING MOUSE UPDATE: A small town rumor that sparked world wide interest about a mouse burning down a house has been denied by the house's owner.

LION ATTACKS are on the rise in Tanzania and Mozambique. But not in Detroit.

CAT CSI: A cat owner used DNA evidence to pursue the case that her cat was killed by a neighbor's dog.

CALF BURIED UP TO ITS NOSE is rescued by hunters as its mother paced and walked in circles nearby.