Dear God.  Everything I love about rock and roll has just combined into some kind of glorious post-modern singularity.
What the hell am I talking about?  Let’s see:

Art Brut, probably the funniest/smartest band going around, also loaded with cynical English attitude and more genuine punk credibility than a thousand American bands who do nothing other than [...]

Thanks to Sam, our roving feline news correspondent and long-suffering cat owner/victim:

Bush family cat dies (possibly of shame); Bush’s nickname for cat is “Kitty”.
Cats commence takeover of worldwide news media with German putsch; weatherman demonstrates excellent comprehension of cat psychology.
Nick Cave outed as fan of cat-related artwork; meanwhile artist’s cat gives him schizophrenia and causes [...]

By Jerry Schatzberg, apparently.

As a Dylan obsessive and huge fan of the latter-day, grouchy old man Dylan, it’s good to have the occasional reminder of how straight-out fucking cool he was in the 1960s (especially so I can fire up at anyone who makes out that Dylan is for ‘old people’ – young Dylan would [...]

Another album review: link.

More music in the usual place: link.

I’ve written another album review over at Gigomaphone, this time for the new Dylan release, Tell Tale Signs: link.

I’ve written a little CD review of Heathen by David Bowie over at Karloskar’s blog, Gigomaphone: here.

This is good – just to prove it is the greatest radio station ever, NPR is streaming the new Bob Dylan Bootleg Series album, Tell Tale Signs.
There’s plenty of interesting stuff there. Highlights for me so far (apart from just having more Dylan to listen to) are “Red River Shore” and “Marchin’ to the [...]

Today is International Talk Like Bob Dylan Day. Rejoice, and listen to dubious impersonations here.
Or reflect that, nasal tones or not, no-one can really talk like Dylan:
If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

(via BoingBoing).

It’s with a mixture of fear and incredulity that I discover that Cate Blanchett is to play none other than Bob Dylan in a film about his life and times. A suitably disturbing full-sized picture is can be seen here.
The film is called ‘I’m Not There‘ and it sounds rather odd, to say the [...]

I’ve always wondered in a chicken-and-egg kind of way about whether we seek out music which reflects our mood and personality, or whether the music we listen to actually dictates our mood and personality to some degree.
In that context, this is quite an interesting study (unfortunately I can’t find the full text on-line). As well [...]

In addition to the Pixies playing the loathsome V Festival, they have since announced they are also playing in Tasmania and Western Australia.
Now a somewhat (ahem) reliable source tells me they are likely to play at Memorial Drive in Adelaide on 3 April 2007, tickets on sale through Venuetix 19 February.
This would be the coolest [...]

Hot on the heels of this comes the (alleged) news (well, a story in The Sun so the term ‘news’ is used loosely) that Led Zeppelin is looking at reforming to tour the United States.
As if that wasn’t enough, it looks certain that Rage Against the Machine are reforming for the Coachella Festival (which once [...]

In news that will interest fans of overwrought 1990s alt-rock, the Smashing Pumpkins have not only reformed but are supposedly playing a couple of shows in Germany. Will this be a triumphant return? Have the horrors of My Chemical Romance and their bretheren forever poisoned the well for the Pumpkins’ brand of I-have-a-loud-guitar-and-I-care [...]

Comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught), captured over our city last night by a friend.
When beggars die there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
Julius Caesar, Act II, scene ii
Seen a shooting star tonight
Slip away
Tomorrow will be another day
Guess it’s too late to say the things to you
That you needed to hear [...]