Bob Dylan would be a curly coated retriever if he were a dog. He would have an “oily coat that traps air and insulates in water” and a good sense of smell. Pete Doherty, on the other hand, would be a Norwegian elkhound, known for his willful personality and adeptness at hunting bear. Britney Spears is a Tibetan Terrier, “an appealing, shaggy little dog, which makes a sturdy, loyal pet.” Ouch.

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Today is a very special day for an odd and incongruous assortment of rockers. Larry Mullen Jr., Johnny Marr, Vanilla Ice, Adam Horovitz and My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero all celebrate their respective birthdays today. Perhaps spending every childhood birthday battling Halloween for some attention creates the kind of psychological scars that make for a good rockstar. In any case, we are dressing our Basset hound up as an angel and taking her to the bar across the street this evening, so any of you birthday-celebrating rockers that need a party to join, come on down.

Someone’s finally stopped to think about how hellish we humans can be to those unsuspecting fruit come Halloween time, sitting out there all happy in the sun-drenched plotted rows of the pumpkin patch. This clip — a winner at Chicago Horror Film Festival — captures the untold agony in an epic pumpkin’s-eye-take on the dark carving ritual. Never again will we look at pumpkin innards the same. Nor will a six pack of Octoberfest and a carving knife ever be quite as sublime.

• When legendary UK summer rock festival Glastonbury returns next year, Bruce Springsteen will be headlining! Oh wait. No he won’t. This long-standing rumor has been put to rest. Bruce definitely will not be playing, according Emily Eavis, the festival organizer who originally was quoted as saying the Boss would headline the event. “He wasn’t even in the picture at any point, really, despite what some people have written,” she reportedly said. So who do we get instead? Possibly Razorlight and Kylie Minogue. Nice moves, Eavis.
• Everybody loves a rock star in a cartoon, and Andre 3000 has reportedly name-dropped Gwen Stefani, Big Boi and Snoop Dog as possible guest stars on his Cartoon Network show, Class of 3000.
• Yo La Tengo will apparently not be playing shows at Maxwell’s in New Jersey during the eight nights of Hanukkah this year, as they have traditionally done in the past. Indie-rock-loving Jews across the eastern seaboard mourn. [via BrooklynVegan]
• You know what you need for Christmas? Another copy of Gnarls’ St. Elsewhere featuring lots of extra stuff like videos and a flipbook. Also, the band kindly seeks the favor of your input on the “slow version” of “Crazy.” Should they release it as a holiday single type thing?

And here we were thinking that Justin Timberlake is the nattiest musician golfer around. According to Golf Digest’s Top 100 in Music, which charts the best musician golfers, Kenny G takes the Number One spot. He comes in ahead of such rock/golf luminaries as Vince Gill and No Doubt’s Adrian Young. Also included: Snoop Dogg (Number 44) and Bob Dylan, who comes in at Number 63. Dylan’s presence on this list causes us to bask in rapturous fantasies involving taking up golf (we said they were fantasies) and happening upon Dylan somewhere near the ninth hole. What does he wear when he golfs? Does he wear those geeky cleats and matching gloves? Does he do that thing where you very deliberately wrap your fingers around the grip several times before taking your swing?

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Courtney Love came by our offices yesterday for lunch on a break from promoting her new book, Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love. Love is officially clean and sober: She looks healthy, sounds healthy and eats healthy (”no carbs, please”) but she’s still the same riotous, outspoken, attention-seeking, feminist punk-rock scholar she used to be before Mel Gibson helped her get off the stuff once and for all. We asked Courtney to tell us a little bit about the last few years of her life. She told us she thought Court TV covered it all pretty well. We laughed, then we let her talk and now we’re gonna let you hear what she said.
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In honor of the Druidic/Detroit holiday known as Mischief Night, we asked you, dear readers, to submit the songs that inspire you feel like busting in windows and setting fires. You are quite a naughty bunch, aren’t you? The selections you provided were so good, we decided to reward you with a custom-made mixtape, which you can listen to here. If you get in trouble with the fuzz, don’t blame us.

• A fan is suing the Rolling Stones for $51 million in a class action lawsuit. The fan alleges that for her and the many other Stones fans that traveled to Atlantic City to see the band play on Friday, the last-minute cancellation of the show (due to Jagger’s sore throat) was extremely inconvenient and expensive. $51 million would be a lot of walking around money for you and me, but for the Stones, who will gross hundreds of millions on the tour, it’s as easy as falling out of a coconut tree.
• Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner accepted Q awards for People’s Choice and Best Album, but took a moment to lash out at British boy band godfathers Take That, who won the Icon award. ”I’m not old enough to know a lot of them, but even I know Take That were bollocks,” he reportedly spat. Picking on a boy band is like hitting a kid with glasses.
• Now that it’s Halloween, it’s time for Christmas music. Stream the entire Sufjan Stevens Christmas box set and be jolly. [via BrooklynVegan]
• According to the BBC, EMI has bought the rights to use Dean Martin’s “name, image, and likeness.” We’re not sure what this means but we’re imagining “Mambo Italiano” converted into a selection of Italian-food-peddling jingles.
• Punk’s Not Dead, an ambitious punk rock documentary set to examine the last 30 years of punk music, has updated the list of band it plans to include in the film. The list now includes everyone from Green Day, X, and The Ramones, to Black Flag, Minor Threat, and My Chemical Romance. [via PunkNews.org]

Before we debut this week’s cover image (and more of Maureen Dowd’s stunning report on America’s Anchors, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert) we’re unfurling three other choice moments from the new ROLLING STONE, which hits stands Wednesday in New York and L.A.; Friday everywhere else.
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Yeah, today’s Halloween. We’ve scarfed the hell out of some fun-sized Butterfingers, applied fake blood to our nostrils and under-eyes before work to freak out our cube-mates and rocked “The Monster Mash” so many times it’s started to make us suicidal. By gum, it’s time for a playlist to snap us out of our cliche Hallmark Halloween funk. We’re talking about the shit that makes you want to turn vampire, y’all! Seriously evil, seriously fiendish, seriously rocking. Let’s do it.

• “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” Bauhaus
• “Warlock,” Skinny Puppy
• “(Everyday Is) Halloween,” Ministry
• “Halloween,” Misfits
• “Thriller,” Michael Jackson

• Last night’s Rolling Stones show at the Beacon Theater in New York City was a rock-star-studded free-for-all. Everyone from Christina Aguilera to Jack White to Buddy Guy reportedly joined the band for a collection of guest performances.
• The concept of a Nina Simone dance remix album gives us chills but we’re going to reserve judgment on Nina Simone: Remixed and Reimagined. We have to stay positive because Billie Holiday is reportedly next.
• The Scissor Sisters are bribing fans to be more environmentally friendly. If you log onto global-cool.com, and pledge to reduce your carbon emissions, you’ll get to check out a Webcast of the band performing tomorrow night in London.
• Watch the full video for the U2/Green Day collaboration/cover “The Saints Are Coming.” We really like this song. When Bono comes in we are reminded of how cool Bono is. We do enjoy this reminder.

The writer for Weezer’s Web site tipped us off to this hysterical geek out session, which painstakingly documents the various similarities between Weezer and the Beach Boys. The comparisons range from the totally unconvincing (”both bands have had gigs at the Whiskey a Go-Go in LA”) to the really nerdy (”both bands have members who have participated in side projects whose names begin and end with the letter ‘S’”) to the legitimately odd (”Cuomo and Wilson both have physical defects on the right sides of their bodies: Brian, with his near-deafness in one ear, and Rivers with his shorter leg that required breaking and resetting.”) Do we leave this post convinced that Weezer and the Beach Boys have some sort of cosmic connection? Oh totally, I mean how many rockers do you know that have mentaly troubled bassists, alcoholic fathers,and once participated in photo shoots involving animals?

Ah, autumn. A time for raking leaves, drinking Dark & Stormies (dark rum and ginger beer — look into it), and running ourselves ragged trying to see every worthwhile show on offer during the week-long whirlwind that is the CMJ Music Marathon. Every year around this time, bands big (Medeski, Martin and Wood), medium (The Shins), small (Cold War Kids) and teensy (Annuals) descend on New York to prove their mettle, win new fans and in some cases, simply get signed to a label. Tomorrow it all begins. There are craploads of acts we’re hoping to catch, and craploads more we’ve heard buzz about. With hundreds of artists and scores of shows, it’s effin’ hard to know where to go, who to see and what to ditch. But we’re gonna cover the bases as best we can. Check back after the festival ends November 4th for the acts that rocked us for real. In the meantime, check out the bands we’re looking forward to seeing most . . . (more…)

Over the weekend, Beyonce reportedly took the stage with Jay-Z during his show in Melbourne, Australia, dressed like this picture, above. If you were Beyonce would you dress like this? We would not. But then again maybe, if you are Beyonce, you occasionally get bored with all the gold lamé hot pants and you just want to wear a giant hooded sweatshirt, cover your face with a bandanna and rock out like you’re not a well-coiffed, immaculately groomed, sex goddess diva. We’ve all been there.

Sometimes you get stoned and a wealth of genius washes over you. Novels are written. Oscar-winning screenplays are penned. Skits are developed that could vault you and your friends to a level of comic genius previously unknown to mankind. Then you sober up and find yourself hungover, wearing pieces of a childhood Halloween costume and in possession of video footage that begs immediate torching. Right. Well, “Shoes by Kelly” comes from a world where this doesn’t happen, where you can produce an entire music video/comedy skit around the phrase “Let’s get some shoes.” Are you wondering why we’re taking our time today? Because we’ve been watching this clip on repeat since 10 A.M., when it first entered our life. We are freed by the notion that someone who is not us has made potentially famous this mantra: “These shoes are three hundred fucking dollars — let’s get ‘em!”