Topic: Karl

REGINA SPEKTOR played "Blue Lips" from her new album "Far" on Later with Jools Holland.

COTTON JONES did the three free songs thing for Daytrotter, two previously unreleased.

GRIZZLY BEAR is getting an in-depth feature at Drowned In Sound, including an ultimate roadtrip mix.  Don't forget their new album is streaming in full this week ia Spinner.

WOXY is streaming another leg of the Modern Rock 500, starting at 9 a.m. EDT.

PHISH announced a new album and is streaming a new song, "'Time Turns Elastic."

2 GIRLS, 1 KEYBOARD: Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor at FAO Schwartz. Tom Hanks will be so jealous.

SONIC YOUTH: Kim Gordon tells The Independent what she believes.

BON IVER: JamBase profiles Justin Vernon in the aftermath of a critically acclaimed album.

THE KILLS talk to the L.A. Times about songwriting, attitude, etc.

WEDDING SONGS: Carrie Brownstein blogs about cool wedding songs, with videos of cool -- and less cool -- selections.

MAD MEL UPDATE: Gibson's people are spinning People hard on the domestic bliss of getting divorced from his long-term wife and living with his pregnant Russian songstress galpal.

JESSICA SIMPSON visited some TV networks to pitch a reality series about society's scrutiny of women's bodies.

JOSH BROLIN was spotted getting cozy with another pretty woman other than his wife, Diane Lane, according to the ever-reliable InTouch mag.

KATHERINE HEIGL was dropped from a top-tier ensemble cast in the upcoming romantic comedy "Valentine's Day" because she demanded an astronomical salary.

RHIANNA & CHRIS BROWN are both moving on - but with opposing films, not significant others.

THE WORST BEACH MOVIES EVER, according to Slate V.

AMERICAN IDOL results may have been influenced by corporate sponsor AT&T.

TV's FUNNIEST PHRASES, according to the Paley Center and NBC.  No "What chu talkin' 'bout Willis?"  "What chu talkin' 'bout Willis?!"

ANCHORMAN 2? That is not a typo on the Teleprompter.

PAKISTAN: A terrorist assault team killed 16 policemen and seven intelligence officials in a complex suicide and conventional attack in Lahore. The Taliban reportedly took credit for the attack. The government offered rewards for the capture of 21 Swat Taliban leaders.

IRAQ's anti-corruption watchdog says arrest warrants have been issued for some 1000 allegedly corrupt officials.

CAT-O-MATIC: Let's go to the video. BONUS: Dog-O-Matic!

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: A cat with wings.

A LIVE SWAN was used as a weapon in a fight by the bank of a river in Munich. Thankfully, the swan escaped unhurt.

A WHITE TIGER was put down at a controversial New Zealand wildlife park after mauling its keeper to death.

WHEN CATERPILLARS ATTACK: No car is safe.

THE NATIONAL are rolling out new material, like "The Runaway" on Canada's Studio Q, and "Blood Buzz Ohio" live in Montreal.

CSN (and sometimes Y) have an album of demos advance streaming via NPR.

THE HARLEM SHAKES did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter at SxSW.

THE DEL LORDS albums are reissued, including the fabulous Frontier Days.

WOXY is streaming the Modern Rock 500 this week, starting at each day at 9 a.m. EST.

WILCO: Fmr member Jay Bennett's untimely death has music bloggers linking to clips of "Poor Places" and "Cars Can't Escape" from the I Am Trying to Break Your Heart doc.

GRIZZLY BEAR is profiled by the New York Times over dinner at a restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

JENNY LEWIS gets a pop quiz from the San Francisco Chronicle, in which she reveals whether she is still being stalked by Fred Savage.

JASON LYTLE looks back on Granddaddy in Part 1 of an interview with Drowned In Sound.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS is sponsoring ten Little League baseball teams.

ADRIANA LIMA, a Victoria's Secret Angel, and her husband NBA star Marko Jaric, are expecting their first child together.

MADONNA isn't going to be a happy camper when she finds out that boy toy Jesus Luz is referring to her as "just a friend."

KIEFER SUTHERLAND: Still drinking.

MIKE TYSON lost his 4-year-old daughter in a strange tradmill incident.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER could be headed back to the big screen, but without Joss Whedon.

"V" is being rebooted for television; here's the upfront trailer.

THE TOP 25 ANIMATED MOVIES, according to Moviefone.

IRAN has sent six warships to international waters, including the Gulf of Aden, to show its ability to confront any foreign threats.

AFGHANISTAN: As Afghan and US forces complete an operation that targeted a Taliban stronghold in northern Helmand province, another area is identified as a Taliban safe haven that hosts al Qaeda training camps.

PAKISTAN: The Taliban -- under pressure in fighting with the military -- said Tuesday it wants to return to a peace deal that recently collapsed. The government rejected the offer, saying the Taliban must pull out of Swat or face arrest.

IRAQ: The Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the US and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012.

DOGERCISE: Let's go to the video.

A RUNAWAY COW escaped a cattle trailer, hit the highway on hoof and took down a rail fence at a Green Bay apartment complex before being captured.

A WYOMING DOG was saved when his owner sucked the rattlesnake venom from his nose.

DUKE the HORSE could now be the biggest in the world after a growth spurt saw him shoot up to nearly 6ft 8inches.

RAMPING BACK INTO THE WEEK:

FEIST staples "Mushaboom" and "1 2 3 4" are your Twofer Tuesday.

NEW RELEASES: Grizzly Bear, Phoenix, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Nick Cave and more are streaming in full this week via Spinner.

ST. VINCENT played Washington, DC, Friday, so you can stream the gig on demand via NPR.

PETER BJORN & JOHN stopped by the World Cafe for a chat and mini-set streaming on demand via NPR.

JAY BENNETT, formerly of Wilco, died in his sleep over the weekend at age 45.  There's more from Jim DeRogatis and the New York Times.  Greg Kot also gives you a "best of."

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:  Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian takes the No.1 slot with 70 million over the holiday weekend.  That's big, but the flick will have to show legs to recoup a 150 million budget, plus print, distribution and marketing costs.  The first Night did well overseas, so it's not a big risk -- but it's not as big a reward as the studio might have hoped, either.  Terminator: Salvation placed with 53.9 million, but it has a 200 million budget, adding up to a big scare for both Warner Bros. and Christian Bale.  Star Trek shows with 29.4 million.  Trek's 32 percent drop is okay given the competition, though it did expand to 200 more screens.  The likely difference was losing IMAX screens that charge a higher ticket price.  Angels & Demons drops 40 percent from first to fourth, which is not bad a some expected.  Big foreign grosses may save this one.  Dance Flick rounds out the Top Five with 13 million, which is low for a Wayans flick, but not bad against a 25 million budget.

MAD MEL UPDATE: Gibson cops to his girlfriend's pregnancy.

KIEFER SUTHERLAND and the alleged victim of a headbutting incident have resolved their differences, clearing the way for an assault charge against the actor to be dismissed.

KEVIN BACON wuz robbed, presumably by someone within six degrees of him.

CHARLIE SHEEN & DENISE RICHARDS had dinner together with their kids, under the careful watch of UN peacekeepers.

BROOKE SHIELDS regrets losing her vigrinity at age 22.

NORTH KOREA carried out an underground test Monday of a nuclear bomb Russian officials said was comparable to those that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Expect a semi-strongly worded letter from the UN to follow.

PAKISTAN:  The army has just made its initial advance into the Taliban stronghold of Mingora, the main town in the insurgency-racked district of Swat.

IRAQ: In a legacy of the US rush to build up Iraqi security forces, almost one-quarter of the Iraqi Army currently fails to meet its own minimum qualifications for soldiers, the Iraqi government is discovering in its first real look at the composition of the Army.  High-profile attacks in Iraq have fallen nearly 60 percent in the past year, the US military said Sunday, though violence continues to plague the northern city of Mosul.

PING PONG CATS: Let's go to the faux video.

THE TASMANIAN DEVIL will be listed as endangered because of a contagious and deadly cancer, the Australian government said.

MINI-COWS help farms downsize in the current recession.

THE WORLD'S UGLIEST DOG is profiled in the Tahoe Daily Tribune.

MEMORIAL DAY has become -- in the minds of some -- a day devoted to uncovering their swimming pools and barbeques. So take a moment (preferably at 3 p.m. local time) to remember what it's really about. The Mudville Gazette is posting tributes to the fallen from a number of wars, plus items like William Wyler's footage of the last mission of the Memphis Belle, Alfred Hitchcock's footage of the liberation of the Belsen concentration camp, and Frank Capra's Oscar-winning Prelude To War.  The Wikipedia entry for Memorial Day notes a race track connection unrelated to the Indy 500.  It's a good day -- as good as we are liekly to get -- for Sgt. Barry Sadler's No. 1 smash, "Ballad of the Green Beret."  or the movie adaptation of Gen. George S. Patton's "Speech to the Third Army."  As "Greyhawk" writes at the Mudville Gazette, "This is Memorial Day weekend. Enjoy it. Celebrate it - the people who died to give you that right would appreciate it. But they didn't die peaceably in their beds, these dogs who fell protecting sheep from wolves."

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with THE YARDBIRDS!  Their breakthrough hit, "For Your Love" was a Pate staple, so let's enjoy The Most BluesWailing Band (1963-68) -- featuring rare footage and interviews with former members including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.  Tubed in five parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

GRIZZLY BEAR stopped by WNYC for an acoustic set streaming on demand via NPR.

HOLSAPPLE & STAMEY: Would you like to hear the new single and B-side (a reworking of "From a Window to a Scream") from the classic dB's duo's upcoming album? Of course you would.

PATRICK WOLF is advance streaming his new album, The Bachelor. 

DIANE BIRCH did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.

VIVA VOCE is streaming their new album at ABCNews's Amplified blog.

ELVIS COSTELLO plays "Sulphur to Sugarcane" as part of a feature at Newsweek.

THE NASHVILLE EFFECT: Music City USA sucked up all the growth in the music industry between 1970 and 2004.

"(SITTIN' ON) THE DOCK OF THE BAY" is the latest classic featured in the upgraded NPR 100.

LOS CAMESINOS! Harriet and Ollie talked to Under The Radar at Coachella about plans for their second album.

CUTOUT BIN: From Prince & the Revolution to Stephen Malkmus & the Jinks, from Marilyn Monroe to the Ramones, from CCR to New Order, plus Paul McCartney & Wings, the Lemonheads, Huey Lewis & the News, Glee and more  -- this Friday's fortuitous finds are streaming from the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW SHOWING:  This weekend's wide releases are Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, currently scoring 41 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; Terminator Salvation, currently scoring 33 percent; and Dance Flick, scoring 40 percent on a few reviews.

SEAN PENN is withdrawing his legal separation case against Robin Wright. Again. For now.

RHIANNA seems to have moved on from the abusive Chris Brown.

AMERICAN IDOL wrapped its eighth season with lowest in-season finale ratings to date, but was easily the top-rated program of the May sweep.

CONAN O' BRIEN is profiled by The New York Times as he prepares to become host of The Tonight Show.

HARRY POTTER and the HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: A new clip and poster at /Flim.

WAYNE ALLWINE, the voice of Mickey Mouse for more than 30 years, died Monday of complications from diabetes. He is survived by his wife -- the voice of Minnie Mouse.

SASHA GREY is a bit typecast in Steven Soderbergh's low-budget indie drama "The Girlfriend Experience."  In fact, Soderbergh "was very much counting on the fact that the interest in her would be greater than the interest in the movie."  She shares her five fave films with RottenTomatoes.

PAKISTAN AND INDIA have begun sharing intelligence on Islamic extremists, with the prodding of the US, in an arrangement that represents unprecedented cooperation between the two nuclear-armed South Asian nations. Washington hopes the cooperation will get a lift from last week's Indian elections.  The BBC claims the tide is turning against the Taliban; we'll see.  Pakistani security forces have killed an "important" Taliban commander during their operations in the Swat district of the restive North West Frontier Province, the military said Thursday.

BOX CAT 3: The Tunnel!

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: A boy with 43 snails on his face.

A SNAKE is not a jump-rope. For one thing, the snake wasn't long enough.

A MISSING SERVICE DOG sparks a desperate search near Denver, according to CBS4, complete with video of the dog running behind the reporter.

GOOSE-CAM: Five goslings emerged Wednesday from beneath the wings of the Canada goose, which some dubbed Patience after her eggs took longer than expected to hatch.