JACK WHITE backs ROBERT PLANT on "The Lemon Song."

RYLEY WALKER'S Primrose Green is streaming at NPR.

SIMON JOYNER is advance streaming Grass, Branch & Bone.

COURTNEY BARNETT plays Stubb's BBQ in Austin.

SETH AVETT & JESSICA LEA MAYFIELD cover Elliott Smith at The Current.

BUILT TO SPILL shared "Never Be the Same", a new song from their forthcoming Untethered Moon LP.

BLUR drops “Lonesome Street” ahead of The Magic Whip.

MODEST MOUSE played "The Ground Walks, With Time In A Box" and "Coyotes," on CBS This Morning.

DAVID CROSBY hit a jogger with his car at approximately 50 mph Sunday evening. 

ELVIS COSTELLO is publishing his memoirs this Fall.

LAURA MARLING discusses Short Movie at Exclaim.

JIMI HENDRIX's “Foxy Lady” Revealed?

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION has a trailer online.  And Disney will refrain from referring to Star Wars: Rogue One this summer in most promotional materials aimed at the general consumer.

MILA KUNIS admiited she married Ashton Kutcher.

VIN DIESEL surprised audiences at a public screening of Furious 7 and broke down while paying tribute to the late Paul Walker.  He also named his daughter after Walker.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE says X-Men: Apocalypse will be her last turn as Mystique.

SCOTT DISICK's stint in rehab includes clubbing.

CANDICE BERGEN is happily acknowledging and embracing her weight gain.

DARREN SHARPER: The five-time Pro Bowler will spend the next two decades behind bars for drugging and raping multiple women in Louisiana.

YEMEN could be the next Syria. Houthi rebel fighters have taken control of crucial installations in Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city.

IRAN:  Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has cancer. After him are men even less likely to comply with a nuclear deal.

PONIES fend off a Wild Boar.

DOLPHINS have dark secrets. Just ask George C. Scott.

38 ROYAL PYTHONS, which included eight pregnant females, were taken from a house in St Helens.

THE SWARM: A bee attack during a baseball game in St. George forced players and spectators to flee and sent one man to the hospital.

JON PRATT: Pate's frontman plays one "Halfway to Memphis" on a 1929 Regal Parlor to guitar to open his new website.

VAN MORRISON is advance streaming Duets: Re-Working The Catalogue.

SUFJAN STEVENS is advance streaming Carrie & Lowell.

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE is advance streaming Kintsugi.

LOWER DENS is advance streaming Escape From Evil.

MICHAEL BROWN,  a keyboardist and songwriter who at 16 was a writer of the 1966 hit “Walk Away Renee” for his band the Left Banke and composed “Pretty Ballerina” for it as well, died on Thursday at his home in Englewood, N.J. He was 65. He later performed with the group Stories, which had a hit with “Brother Louie,” before becoming a solo act. The L.A. Times has rememberances from Linda Ronstadt and Andrew Sandoval. I used to torture Friend of Pate Craig O'Neill with this song on the radio, but I think he eventually came around, perhaps due to Billy Bragg.

THE 100 GREATEST BEATLES SONGS picked by musical A-Listers for NME: Part One and Part Two.

REAL ESTATE: Martin Courtney is interviewed by Jason Schwartzman. (Thx, LHB.)

TORI AMOS talks to The A.V. Club about religion, Lauren Bacall, and latrines.

"TUTTI FRUITI": The original lyrics were far more risque.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: The Divergent Series: Insurgent tops the chart with 5MM, almost exactly what the original grossed in its debut. That's a bit dodgy for a sequel, esp. one thta cost 25MM more than the first. Lionsgate will be hoping for better overseas grosses (as happened with The Hunger Games) to keep the gravy flowing.  Cinderella places with 34.5MM; that's a 49 percent drop, but not bad against Insurgent, having crossed the 100MM mark in eight days.  Run All Night shows with 5.1MM on a 54 percent drop and now looks like it will not reach profit on the big screen.  The Gunman debuts in fourth with 5MM and will need extraordinary receipts overseas to reach profit against a 40MM budget. Kingsman: The Secret Service rounds out the Top 5 with 4.6MM on a leggy 26 percent drop.

ZOE SALDANA is not joining Elton John's boycott of Dolce & Gabbana.

KOURTNEY KARDASHIAN is sticking by Scott Disick in rehab.

VERNE TROYER was taken to the hospital after suffering a seizure during a fan meet and greet in Texas.

BOBBI KRISTINA BROWN's condition is finally sinking in with her family.

JESSICA PARE (Mad Men) welcomed her first child with boyfriend John Kastner.

CHINESE state media turned to Yiddish on Saturday in the war of words over territorial disputes, criticising the United States as a "kibitzer" for what it called meddling in the South China Sea issue.

TUNISIA: A third attacker in the deadly assault on the Bardo museum is on the run, Tunisia's president said Sunday, declaring his country at war with the extremists who killed 21 people at one of North Africa's most revered cultural institutions.

NIGERIA: Around 100 bodies were found Friday in a mass grave on the edge of a town in northeast Nigeria after it was freed from Boko Haram Islamists, a Chadian army spokesman told AFP.

YEMEN: Suicide bombers attacked a pair of mosques Friday in the Yemeni capital, unleashing monstrous blasts that ripped through worshippers and killed 137 people in the deadliest assault yet targeting Shiite rebels who have taken over large parts of the rapidly fragmenting nation. At least 13 children were among the dead. About 100 U.S. Special Operations Forces have been ordered to evacuate Yemen because of a dramatic increase in sectarian violence.

IRAQ: A billboard depicting the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini now stands near the plinth where a giant statue of Saddam Hussein once stood.

TORTOISE INTERRUPTUS turns into a slow-speed chase.

THE ILI PIKA: Snapped for the first time in 30 years.

OPOSSUMS may end up saving thousands of humans from deadly snakebites each year.

AND THERE WERE CATFISH All Over The Highway.

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with TRAFFIC!  Live in Santa Monica, circa 1972, flagged by my online pal Jay. Your setlist includes: Low Spark of High Heeled Boys; Light Up or Leave Me Alone; John Barley corn; Rainmaker; Glad; Freedom Rider; Forty Thousand Headmen; and Dear Mr. Fantasy.

COURTNEY BARNETT stopped by Morning Becomes Eclectic for a session.

THE JULIANA HATFIELD THREE stopped by KEXP for a mini-set including ‘My Sister’, ‘Spin The Bottle’ and more.

THE TWILIGHT SAD played the Triple Door of Seattle live for KEXP VIP donors.

VIET CONG plays live in the KEXP Studio.

DEATH GRIPS is streaming The Powers That B, Disc 2: Jenny Death. Not my bag, but Pate bassist Mike Kelly may dig it.

JAMES MURPHY covers Bowie's "Golden Years" for the soundtrack to Noah Baumbauch's upcoming comedy, While We're Young.

LAURA MARLING talks to The Quietus about Whitman, Jodorowsky, adventures in the desert and her new album, Short Movie. (Thx. Frank Yang.)

MADONNA talks to Pitchfork: “If you ask me a question I think is stupid then you have to take a shot of this tequila."

RAY CHARLES talked to NME as he arrived for his first UK tour back in '63.

THE SPECIALS: Ten of the Best.

NOW SHOWING:This weekend's wide releases include The Divergent Series: Insurgent, which is currently scoring 36 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; The Gunman, which is coring 17 percent; and Do You Believe?, which was not screened for critics.

BRADLEY COOPER & SUKI WATERHOUSE have called it quits after roughly two years.

EVA MENDEZ talks to Extra about her new daughter Esmeralda, her appreciation for motherhood, and the secret to keeping Ryan Gosling happy.

TRUE DETECIVE has cast adult film actresses for a colossal orgy scene.

OSCAR ISSAC is profiled by Details.

LIZA MINELLI checks into rehab.

THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON TV Spots just keep getting better.

TUNISIA said it would deploy the army to major cities and arrested nine people on Thursday after 20 foreign tourists were shot dead in an attack on a museum which Islamic State militants called "the first drop of the rain".

SYRIAN President Bashar al-Assad is brazenly challenging the latest U.S.-led effort to stop him from using chemical weapons, and the Obama administration has yet to say if it will do anything about it.

IRAN: French leaders think the U.S. president is dangerously naïve on Iran's ambitions, and that his notion of making Iran an "objective ally" in the war against ISIS, or even a partner, together with Putin's Russia, to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis, is both far-fetched and "amateurish."

AFGHANISTAN: A woman was beaten to death by a mob before her body was set on fire and dumped in a muddy river in the heart of Afghanistan's capital.

CATS: Don't cross 'em.

VAMPIRE CRABS: Two new species discovered.

IGUANAS were duct taped to a bike and offered for sale in Florida.

SHARK ATTACK: The hunt is on in Hawaii for a 10- to 12-foot tiger shark that attacked a vacationing Kansas man while snorkeling with family this week.

SPOON played "Rainy Taxi" and "“I Just Don’t Understand” on Kimmel, icymi.

FATHER JOHN MISTY plays and chats on World Cafe Live.

TWIN SHADOW stopped by Morning Becomes Eclectic for a session.

STEVE EARLE stopped by New York's legendary Electric Lady Studios for a chat and a set on WFUV including "Hey Joe."

JACKSON BROWNE stopped by World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

LEONARD COHEN drops "Never Gave Nobody Trouble" ahead of Can't Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour, a live album featuring rarities.

JIMMY WEBB, one of America's master songwriters, plays "Elvis and Me" on Steve Dahl's 1991 NYE PPV event.

COURTNEY BARNETT gets a lengthy profile at Pitchfork.

THE BEST ALT-COUNTRY of 2015 (So Far), according to The Guardian.

WARPAINT has a raft of new material, but no album coming.

MADONNA, ranked by Stereogum.

GWYNETH PALTROW wants you to know she's  "incredibly close to the common woman."

KATIE HOLMES: Not speaking to Tom Cruise. Not dating Jamie Foxx.

JUDE LAW and his ex Catherine Harding have welcomed a baby girl.

KIM KARASHIAN may be having too much sex.

DOLCE & GABBANA told CNN they respect how all people live after the uproar over their comments about children born through in vitro fertilization.

ASHLEY JUDD wants to press charges against internet trolls.

LIBYA: Brigade 166, a coalition of "both moderate and extremist Islamists" from Misurata, has launched a campaign to drive the Islamic State from Sirte. rmy chief Khalifa Haftar pledged to retake Benghazi from Islamist forces within a month.

SYRIA's military took control of a village north of partly insurgent-held Aleppo on Wednesday, state media and a monitoring group said, giving it increased control of an area which armed groups have used as a supply route into the city.

IRAN: With less than a week to the deadline for an Iran nuclear deal, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry worked with top Iranian and European officials Wednesday to try to close gaps blocking agreement.

IRAQ: Iranian-backed militias rampaged through central Iraq in reprisal against the native Sunni population.

A COW takes her first steps with prostheic legs.

MAN'S BEST FRIEND:  It's Science.

THE FOX who thinks he's a hound.

MANATEES hit Florida in record numbers for Spring Break.

KEVIN DREW backed ANDY KIM on "Sister OK" at the Ed Sullivan Theater.

VETIVER is advance streaming Complete Strangers.

COURTNEY BARNETT advance streams Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit via iTunes radio.

THE PUNCH BROS played a Tiny Desk Concert.

THE NATIONAL played with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at the MusicNOW Festival.

DJANGO DJANGO drops “Reflections" ahead of Born Under Saturn.

THOSE DARLINS cover The Vibrators' "Sweet Sweet Heart."

ELVIS PERKINS gets a hand from Alec Ounsworth on a cover of Ounsworth's "Mexican Ritual."

THE MOODY BLUES hit the charts with "Go Now" before going psychedelic.

KIM GORDON talks to NME about her memoir, Lana Del Rey, and "extreme noise cleansing."

SETH AVETT & JESSICA LEA MAYFIELD  talk about Ellito Smith at the NY Observer. (Thx, LHB.)

VIET CONG addresses the controversy over the band's name.

GEORGE MARTIN, as profiled by The Guardian on March 13, 1969.

VIN DIESEL welcomed a third child.  Will he name it Groot?

BRUCE JENNER got a nose job in advance of his sex change.

JIMMY KIMMEL has had two penis surgeries.

ELTON JOHN was snapped with a Dolce and Gabbana bag, two days after declaring a boycott of the designers.  Maybe he just had the bag left over.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is headed to the small screen.

YEMEN: The Pentagon is unable to account for more than 500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen, amid fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda.

THE ISLAMIC STATE: A former U.S. Air Force veteran has been arrested by the FBI for allegedly trying to join ISIS, the brutal terrorist group wreaking havoc in Syria and Iraq, after watching their online propaganda videos.

IRAN has deployed advanced rockets and missiles to Iraq to help fight the Islamic State in Tikrit, a significant escalation of firepower and another sign of Iran's growing influence in Iraq.

A GOOSE goes too far imitating Steve Martin.

THOUSANDS OF SNOW GEESE migrating from Mexico to their Alaskan nesting grounds were found dead in Idaho: “Basically, they just fell out of the sky."

A RACCOON was rescued after getting its head stuck in a tree.

A DOG, Autotuned.