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Tegan & Sara, Hot Freaks, Black Mountain, Socks the Cat   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Monday, October 22, 2007 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

TEGAN & SARA have a new video for the title track of their current album, "The Con."

FEIST:  Her iPod Nano ad probably sold 100K copies of The Reminder.  But she had already sold about 200K copies, which is impressive in itself. 

IRON & WINE:  Sam Beam did an interview and mini-set for the World Cafe you can stream from NPR, talking about The Shepherd's Dog's status as a "headphone record," praising Tom Waits, and pointing to South Carolina as an inspiration for his lyrics.  Beam talked about the influence of his work with Calexico and more at Drowned In Sound.

THE PIPETTES talk about their long journey to North America with the L.A. Times... and that was before vias problems delayed their tour.

ART BRUT, GRIZZLY BEAR, ROSEBUDS and ST. VINCENT are among the acts that played the Hot Freaks afterparties at the last ACL Fest; you can watch 'em at the Dell Lounge.  (Thx, Chromewaves.)

JOHNNY MARR:  The fmr Smiths (and current Modest Mouse) guitarist has been appointed a visiting professor at Salford University and will be delivering a series of workshops and master classes to students on the BA Popular Music and Recording degree.

JOSE GONZALEZ covers Massive Attack's "Teardrop" in his latest video.

SPOON drummer Jim Eno joked about it last week, but frontman Britt Daniel gives the NYDN the (semi-)serious explanation for why he thinks 36 minutes is the ideal length for an album.

STARS and New Buffalo played DC's 9:30 Club the other night; you can stream either gig on demand via NPR.

BLACK MOUNTAIN, having drawn critical raves for its fusion of heavy classic rock Led Zeppelin/Sabbath riffing and druggy noir-tinged Velvet Underground balladry on the eponymous debut, is profiled for AZ Central in advance of their follow-up, In The Future, which is due in January.  One of the new tracks, "Stay Free," was on the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack.  There are also older tracks streaming at MountainSpace.

THE SHOUT OUT LOUDS stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set you can steam on demand via MPR.

GOGOL BORDELLO, which cites the Dead Kennedys, Tom Waits, and Romanian Gypsies Taraf de Haidouks as its favorite listening, is profiled in the Dallas Observer.

BRITNEY SPEARS:  No sooner does she cut a deal in her civil case with the owner of the car she hit in a parking lot last August than she reportedly ran over a photogs foot on the way out of a Beverly Hills medical building, likely trying to hide her fresh new trout pout.  Spears has regained visitation rights with her sons.  While some predict the pop tart may get parental custody of her sons back on Oct. 26, it appears Spears stood up her parenting coach, who already had told the court Spears was ignoring the advice.  It also looks like her single is tanking and there is little to no advance interest in the LP.

DAVID COPPERFIELD was linked to an FBI investigation after a  Vegas warehouse operated by Copperfield was raided by 12 agents Wednesday night.  The raid is reportedly related to a Seattle woman's claim that Copperfield raped her in the Bahamas.  He's probably wishing he hasn't been vehemently denying the long-standing rumor that he's as gay as fellow Vegas mainstays Siegfried and Roy.  NTTAWWT.

MALIBU CELEBS have been evacuated, and there are many more celebs in the Malibu area whose homes are in danger from a fire believed to have started when arcing power lines, downed by fierce Santa Ana winds, ignited dry brush around 5:00 a.m. Sunday.

ISLA FISHER & SASHA BARON COHEN celebrated the birth of their daughter in Los Angeles on Friday.

KID ROCK was arrested in Atlanta overnight in connection with a brawl at a Waffle House in DeKalb County, GA.  Sounds about right...

JENNIFER LOPEZ:  Hubby Marc Anthony may have revealed J-Lo's pregnancy with some help from Journey.

KATE MOSS:  The Daily Mail looks at how partying is ruining her looks.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:  The number one film of the weekend is 30 Days of Night, which earned 16 million, continuing the slow box office trend for horror in 2007.  Finishing second is Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?, which made 12.1 mil; it plunged 43%, but that's less of a drop than his other films have had in their second weekends.  The Game Plan made 8.1 mil, and was off only 26%.  Michael Clayton earned 7.1 mil, but fell 32%, despite adding screens.  The debut of Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone rounds out the Top Five with 6 mil.  The Comebacks opened in sixth place with 5.9 mil -- well below predictions, even for a movie unscreened for critics.  We Own the Night is in seventh place on a surprisingly large 49 % drop, making 5.5 mil.  The 3-D re-release of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas did surprisingly well, making 5.1 million on a mere 564 screens, for a healthy per-screen average of $9122.  Rendition flopped into the ninth slot with 4.2 million -- far below tracking estimates of 10 mil.  The Heartbreak Kid rounded out the Top Ten, earning another 3.9 mil on a 46% drop.

RENDITION:  Hollywood analysts groped for reasons why the film flopped in its opening frame.  The AP suggests it is the daily bad news on their TV screens, though there was bad news on TV through the 1970s, a decade noted for serious movies.  The AP also suggests 30 Days of Night was escapist fare, though horror has not performed well for about a year.  One analyst suggests audiences are resisting serious mobies right now -- though The Comebacks also flopped this weekend. Another claims there is a glut of serious movies -- though there is 30 Days, Tyler Perry, Game Plan, Comebacks, Nightmare Before Christmas and The Heartbreak Kid all in the Top Ten.  None suggested that the content of Rendition might be one reason for its failure.

GEORGE CLOONEY:  Slate's Hollwoodland column tries to explain -- or excuse -- the lackluster performance of Michael Clayton.  Reason No. 1 -- as I previously suggested -- is that Clooney is not as popular with the public as he is with Tinseltown elites.

BRADGELINA:  More folks are asking whether Pitt and Jolie are doing their four children any favors by constantly schlepping them from city to city around the world.

JERRY SEINFELD tells Parade magazine how Scientology helped his stand-up comedy (though he's not a member).

DUMBLEDORE is so gay... NTTAWWT.

JERRY HALL finally decided to spill the beans on life with ex-husband Mick Jagger - and his countless other women - in an autobiography.  Harper Collins reportedly paid a £1 million advance, but a publishing source says it is likely that Hall will make much more than that if sales are as huge as expected.

UMA THURMAN startled onlookers at the Swarovski Fashion Rocks event with an outfit which left little to the imagination.

SWISS UNREST:  The Financial Times reports:  Swiss politics on Sunday retained the capacity to surprise as reliable projections showed the ultraconservative Swiss People's party improved its already dominant position as the country's biggest political group.  Of course, this was no surprise to regular Pate visitors.

RENDITION:  Clinton-era NSC staffer Daniel Benjamin explodes Five Myths About Rendition as a tie-in to the opening of the Reese Witherspoon-Jake Gyllenhaal flick.

MIDEAST MYSTERY:  Israeli officials believed that a target their forces bombed inside Syria last month was a nuclear facility, because they had detailed photographs taken by a possible spy inside the complex, ABCNews has learned.

THE STANS:  Taliban fighters are facing overwhelming coalition firepower and abject rejection from Afghan citizens, according to Col. Thomas McGrath.  A strong majority of Afghans approve of the presence of NATO-led troops in their country and want them to remain to fight the Taliban and support reconstruction efforts, according to the latest poll, suggesting the second part is right.  Col. McGrath also believes that the Afghan armed forces should be ready to conduct large-scale operations without significant coalition assistance or planning by late spring of 2008.  But Afghanistan is "a classic glass half-empty, glass half-full story" says Peter Bergen, an Afghan specialist at the New America Foundation.  The Taliban takeover of the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, the increasing number of extremists from Europe travelling to Pakistan to train and plot attacks on the West, and the politcal instability of Pakistan suggest the military part of the equation is far from over.

IRAN:  British special forces have crossed into Iran several times in recent months as part of a secret border war against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Al-Quds special forces, defense sources disclosed.  Tehran warned on Saturday it would fire off 11K rockets at enemy bases within the space of a minute if the US launched military action against the Islamic republic.  Iran's top nuclear negotiator resigned, a move seen as a victory for hardline Pres. Ahmadinejad that could bring about an even tougher stance in ongoing talks.  Folks are debating cutting versus continuing financial support aimed at promoting democracy inside the theocracy.

IRAQ:  Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker plan shifting the US military effort to focus more on countering Shiite militias, as the relative influence of Sunni insurgent groups such as AQI has diminished drastically because of ongoing US operations.  Multinational Forces Iraq killed 49 Special Groups operatives during a major raid in Baghdad's Sadr City.  Coalition and Iraqi forces have been clashing with the Mahdi Army in the southern city of Diwaniyah.  Iraq complained to a meeting of senior security officials from neighboring states on Saturday that foreign fighters were continuing to infiltrate the country.  Senior security officials from Kuwait, Bahrain and Egypt agreed on Sunday to exchange more intelligence in a bid to help quell the insurgency.  The headquarters of Iraq's Islamic Party (led by Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi) was raided and inspected for four hours on Saturday by US forces.  The building of a local newspaper and a mouthpiece of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's movement in eastern Baghdad was set on fire by unknown perpetrators early Saturday morning.  Efforts by US-led reconstruction teams generally have failed to show significant progress, though there are bright spots in the effort to put together a functioning nation, according to the latest report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

SOCKS the CAT, after years of loyal service at the White House, was dumped on Betty Currie, Bill Clinton's personal secretary, as though the feline was Monica Lewinsky.  I'll skip the obvious punchline in favor of the topical LOL Sockz.

PETNAPPING:  A kidnapped German Shepherd has been returned to its elderly owners in Bogota, Columbia, days after a police sting operation thwarted payment of a 350K ransom.  Police in England are hunting a catnapper who has reportedly snatched seven of the pets from a street because they kill birds and use gardens as a toilet.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT:  A kamikaze squirrel fell from the sky and detonated a Bayonne woman's car Wednesday, police said.

BEAVER HUNTER is astonished by the size of his catch - one weighing a whopping 93 pounds, the second at a hefty 60 pounds.  Nice!

WILD MACAQUES attacked a New Delhi deputy mayor, who fell to his death.

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