There is no way to use both django-compress and django.contrib.staticilfes from new django 1.3. MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT hardcoded into django-compress utility functions so here is
my fork of django-compress on github with fix.
I've added two new settings COMPRESS_URL and COMPRESS_ROOT which points by default to MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT respectively for backward compatibility.
django-compress is extremely useful tool which provide possibility to organize your JavaScript and CSS files around your project. Also there is a couple of useful features like support of YUI compressor and building of bunch of JavaScript or CSS files into one.
Read more about django-compress
