Killer set list As usual, Soul Asylum's home-for-the-holidays gig last weekend at First Avenue -- their only in-town gig of 2008 -- featured another heartwarming toast to late bassist Karl Mueller (with the song "Without a Trace"), a couple old nuggets they hardly ever play ("Nice Guys Don't Get Paid," "I Did My Best") plus an encore of very under-rehearsed cover songs (P-Funk's "My Automobile" and Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues"). One surprise the show did offer was a feisty new song called "Let's All Kill Each Other," which sounded like a punky epitaph on the Bush administration. Another pleasant surprise was having Tommy Stinson back on bass. That, too, could end early next year if Guns N' Roses goes on tour with Stinson in tow.
CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER
Purple tease Just when you thought the year might slip by without new music from Prince, there's word of an album he previewed last week for reps of Los Angeles radio station Indie 103, whom he "summoned" to his L.A. home. Four of the tracks were subsequently aired by -- of all people -- former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones on his show "Jonesy's Jukebox." According to Los Angeles Times critic Ann Powers, the station's music director said Prince hasn't decided how to release the music: "He actually wants nothing to do with record labels. He's meeting with people, trying to figure out what to do." The four songs -- including a guitar-heavy cut called "Colonized Mind" (sample lyric: "Did you know your record deal was another way for the man to steal") and a Hendrix-ified mashup of "Crimson & Clover" and "Wild Thing" -- were briefly posted on the Net. Then a fifth track, the funked-up "There Will Never B Another 1 Like Me," showed up on a mysterious website called Mplsound.com before that, too, went dark. But if you're quicker than Prince's lawyers, you can probably still hear them on YouTube if you search for "Jonesy's Jukebox."
TIM CAMPBELL
Kate the cut-up Kate Winslet is known for heavy roles, but when I.W. got the chance to chat her up, we wanted to hear about her guest spot on Ricky Gervais' HBO comedy "Extras" as a chain-smoking, cussing actress playing a nun. How did she and Gervais meet? Cute story. She was looking for a first-anniversary gift for her husband, director Sam Mendes. The tradition is to give something made of paper, so "I did something utterly cheesy," she said. "Ricky and I are with the same agency so I asked him to do me a hideous favor and sign a photo in character as David Brent from 'The Office.' In turn, Sam asked Mackenzie Crook, who played Gareth [on the show], to do the same for me." When the couple took Gervais to dinner as a thank you, he told them about his new series. "I said, 'Omigod, I have to be in that!' Afterward all these people came up and said, 'Who knew you were so funny?' I said, 'What do you mean?' Weirdly, this is probably the thing I've done that's closest to being me." KRISTIN TILLOTSON
A weiner winner Pianist Bill Carrothers has not one but two new CDs to celebrate at his homecoming gigs at the Artists' Quarter (9 p.m. today-Sat., $10). One is actually a 1992 trio session that languished in the can despite the star power of bandmates Gary Peacock (Keith Jarrett's bassist) and New York drummer Bill Stewart. Rescued by Germany's Pirouet Records, "Home Row" is a sparkling straightahead trio session -- or as straight-ahead as Carrothers gets, opening with an Ornette Coleman classic ("When Will the Blues Leave"). The other disc, "Play Day," has had a much better fate. Recorded this year, it sports a transcontinental cast including Wisconsin cellist Matt Turner, singer Peg Carrothers, T.C. drummer Jay Epstein, Belgian drummer Dre Pallemaerts and French clarinetist Jean-Marc Foltz, performing songs inspired by their childhoods. Are you ready for hip jazz versions of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm"and "I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Wiener"? The wiener song gets crossed with Ellington's "Mood Indigo." This is one of the rare cases where you want to know how the sausage got made.
TOM SUROWICZ
