DAVID BYRNE covers "You Can Call Me Al" and "I Know What I Know" during Paul Simon's week-long residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

AUSTIN CITY LIMITS FEST has announced its lineup, including Foo Fighters, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Beck, John Fogerty, David Byrne, The Raconteurs, Gnarls Barkley, Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band, Erykah Badu, Robert Earl Keen, Patty Griffin, Tegan & Sara, Okkervil River, Sharon Jones And The Dap Kings, Hot Chip, Vampire Weekend, Duffy, Alejandro Escovedo, Roky Erikson and many, many more...

ISLANDS have leaked two tracks from their upcoming Arm's Way album, "The Arm" and "Creeper."  Word is that another track, "In The Rushes," icorporates the band's take on The Who's "A Quick One (While He's Away)."  BONUS:  Islands has also been known to tackle The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset."

THE SPRING PREVIEW at Rolling Stone is comprehensively comprehensive, with streaming audio clips. 65 screens.

SPOON frontman Britt Daniel chatted with Pitchfork about a Spoon-related internet rumor, "Arrested Development", Har Mar Superstar vs. the White Stripes, Feist's "My Moon My Man", and why Merge's Mac McCaughan should run for office.

COLIN MELOY opens an in-store gig at Jackpot Records with "We Both Go Down Together."

THE BLAKES, known for their whiskey-tinged guitar riffs, jangly rhythms, and power-pop vocal harmonies, have drummer Bob Husak answer PopMatters' 20 Questions, which also brings you the A/V links.

OKKERVIL RIVER frontman Will Scheff talks to Scoop about pre-modern folk being pomo, as well as the free live covers EP, Golden Opportunities.

WOLF PARADE keyboardist Spence Krug tells Billboard that the upcoming album, tentatively titled Kissing the Beehive, is built with more deliberate approach, evolving out of jams.  The advance track is "Call It A Ritual."

RICK ASTLEY is giving away a gold record from the Netherlands in a contest.  He didn't say he'd never give that up.

ROB LOWE repeatedly exposed himself and inappropriately touched himself and his former nanny, she claims in a lawsuit filed Monday in a Santa Barbara, CA court.  TMZ has video, as does The Today Show, though you have to scroll down to find it.

ASHLEE SIMPSON dodged directly answering the latest pregnancy rumors on MTV's TRL.

BRITNEY SPEARS is threatening to release her video diaries, which chronicle her problems over the past six months.  -  The pop wreck is reportedly planning to release them online - or on MTV.

KATE HUDSON wants to date like a teenager, but realizes that motherhood comes first.  A role model for Jamie Lynn Spears.

HEATHER MILLS was not liked by the Miss USA pageant producers any more than the audience that booed her.

BEYONCE KNOWLES is rumored to be making her final album.  Supposedly, Beyonce plans to spend her days scouting talent for new hubby Jay-Z's upcoming label, The Carter Music Group.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT stars Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Henry Winkler reuinte as voices in AD creator Mitch Hurwitz's new animated Fox comedy "Sit Down, Shut Up."

JASON BEGHE, featured in numerous TV dramas such as "Criminal Minds," "Numb3rs" and "CSI" was a top Scientologist, or "OT 5" - similar to Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley - but he is now calling Scientology "very, very dangerous for your spiritual, psychological, mental, emotional health.."  Profanity warning.

BRIGITTE BARDOT, the revolutionary sex kitten of 1960s French cinema, went on trial in FranceTuesday, charged with "inciting racial hatred," and in view of her four previous convictions on similar charges, prosecutors sought exceptionally stiff penalties of 22K and a two month suspended sentence.  The current charge against Bardot was lodged by the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples , citing a letter Bardot wrote to French officials in 2004 to protest the ritual slaughter of sheep during the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Kabir.

TERROR in the UK: The man accused of plotting to lead a wave of suicide bomb attacks on transatlantic airliners wanted to tell the world he was acting on the wishes of Osama bin Laden, a court heard yesterday.  The Times of London has the full story and clips from a  "martyrdom video" recorded by Abdullah Ahmed Ali was played in full to the jury at Woolwich Crown Court which is trying him and seven other men on charges of plotting to commit mass murder.

IRAN:  The Financial Times details how Iranians are circumventing US and UN sanctions imposed following the regime's refusal to stop enriching uranium.  Local authorities have destroyed seven ancient synagogues in Tehran.

IRAQ: Differences have emerged between the US and Iraq on how to deal with Shiite militant Muqtada al-Sadr, with the Americans appearing more willing than the Shiite-led government to concede a legitimate political role to the anti-US cleric.  Three weeks after Iraqi troops swarmed into the southern city  to take on armed militiamen who had overrun the streets, many Basra residents say they feel safer and that their lives have improved.  The security situation in Iraq's western Anbar province is now so stable that the US Marines regiment in charge of the area is reducing from five battalions to three.

A COUGAR was gunned down following a police chase in Chicago's Roscoe Village neighborhood.  The local news goes right for criticism from the Chicago Humane Society, though experts said a tranquilizer shot could have made the wildcat more dangerous.  The director of Cook County Animal Care said Tuesday the animal may have come south from Wisconsin in search of food or a mate.  Cougars sometimes seek a mate, though they often are just looking for a good time.

CROC ATTACK VICTIM "very grateful" he was shot by his friend.

PET WHISPERER:  Nope, not that one again, this one -- who uses a psychic connection with anim­als to perform anc­ient reiki healing techniques on injured animals.

CALLIE the LABRADOR:  Is she an impostor, or did she undergo a personality change at the kennel?