MARK KOZELEK is streaming a new self-titled LP.

SUPERCHUNK plays the World Cafe.

BEDOUINE plays a Tiny Desk Concert.

THE NATIONAL debuted a new song, "Light Years" at their Homecoming Festival.

YO LA TENGO: James McNew talks DIY through their biggest influences, old and new.

SUEDE's Brett Anderson takes NME inside their new LP.

ABBA announce that they have reunited to record two new songs, 35 years after their last single.

THE NUMBER ONES looks at Bobby Vinton's fluffy pop simper "Roses Are Red (My Love)."

ASHLEY JUDD is suing Harvey Weinstein, saying he derailed her career after she rejected his sexual advances.

R. KELLY: A group of women of color within the Time's Up movement are joining a call for the music industry to cut their ties tothe  R&B singer.

CLAIRE FOY is reportedly to receive £200,000 in back pay for her leading role in The Crown after it was revealed she was paid less than her male co-star. 

SETH ROGEN gets a little serios with Vulture... and stands by James Franco.

MEGAN FOX: Taking conspiracy theoies to TV?

LARRY HARVEY, the Man Behind Burning Man, Is Dead at 70.

PIZZA RAT is back!

A BEAR was found sleeping in a tree in Paramus, NJ.

SNOOTY DOG OWNERS privatized a public NYC dog park without the city's knowledge and have made more than 80K off the fees.

THE WORLD'S OLDEST KNOWN SPIDER dies at 43 after a quiet life underground.

NEVERTHELESS, the one-armed typist has this as I heal up:

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:  Avengers: Infinity War dethroned Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the biggest movie debut of all time, with an estimated 250MM domestic.  Even rival studios estimate it at 248MM, which was still enough for the record.  But wait, there's more.  The MCU crescendo took in another 380MM in foreign markets; the combined 630MM blows away the prior gobal record of 543MM set by The Fate of the Furious. And Infinity War has yet to open in Russia and China.  A Quiet Place places with 10.7MM on a 49 percent drop, which is impressive in light of everything you just read; 148MM to date against a 17MM budget is hella ROI.  I Feel Pretty shows with 8.1MM on a 49 percent drop, but at least creeps up on its 32MM production budget.  Rampage takes the fourth slot with 7.1MM on a 65 percent drop, taking a big hit from the MCU.  An Black Panther rounds out the Top Five with 4.4MM on an 11 percent drop, actually climbing from eighth last week.It's a fair agument that the Black Panther phenomenon teed up this week's record-shattering receipts.

 OK, I should have more tomorrow.

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

... with THE BANGLES!  There's no better way to start than with these live takes on "Hero Takes A Fall"  and Kimberley Rew's "Goin' Down To Liverpool" for Dave in 1984. It was that sort of rawk (and the hotness of Susanna Hoffs) that got Prince to give them "Manic Monday," their first mainstream hit, from the A Different Light album, which included Jules Shear's "If She Knew What She Wants," Alex Chilton's "September Gurls," and -- inevitably -- Liam Sternberg's "Walk Like An Egyptian."  Nevertheless, their fondness for the genres of the mid-60s was still evident in their take on Simon & Garfunkel's "Hazy Shade of Winter" for the Less Than Zero soundtrack, and the psych-garage-bubblegum of "In Your Room" on the Everything album, which yielded their final No.1 hit, "Eternal Flame."  The draw from the 60s is a constant I saw them in a club, on a big stage and in a club again -- the last time was at a House of Blues, where they covered the We Five's "You Were On My Mind."  Obligatory: The Susanna Hoffs solo cover of Bad Company's "Feel Like Makin' Love".

BELLY advance streams Dove.

GAZ COOMBES (Supergrass) advance streams World's Strongest Man.

SHAKEY GRAVES advance streams Can't Wake Up.

PARKER MILSAP advance streams Other Arrangements.

MOUNTAIN GOATS: John Darnielle choreographs Ace of Base's "The Sign." (Language warning) A perennial fave.

PRINCE: Anecdotes from Owen Husney's memoir Famous People Who've Met Me are excerpted at Entertainment Weekly.

LIZ PHAIR: 25 Years Out of Exile.

JANELLE MONAE gets personal.

THE NUMBER ONES ooks at David Rose's horny burlesque jazz instrumental "The Stripper."

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR is this weekend's sole wide release, scoring 87 percent on the ol' Tomatometer. Remember the last time a studio madea dozen movies just to get toone where they throw ten buckets of awesome in the audience's face?  You don't because it's never happened before now.  You may see some reviews claiming the movie is overstuffed.  And while I've criticized other films for that, I can't really do so here, where stuffing the MCU into one movie was the point of the enterprise.  And frankly, it almost seems less stuffed than Civil War, because the screenplay balances the various storylines well.  Also, the movie does an excellent job with Thanos as the ubervillain (a relie,f as Marvel does not always do its villains well).  You might also see reviews comparing Infinity War to The Empire Strikes Back -- and it may be that for a generation that never had to wait for Return of the Jedi.  The other parallel is that, as in TESB, bad things happen.  Shockingly bad things happen.  So much so that if you take younger kids, you should warn them that bad things happen, but it's not the end of the story.  As it's Marvel, there is a bonus scene after all the credits.  And more bad things happen.  And a cool thing.

STAN LEE is accused by a masseuse of inappropriate behavior.

BILL COSBY was convicted on three counts of sexual assault and faces up to 30 years in prison.

MEL BROOKS released The Producers 50 yaers ago; at 91 and a member of the elite EGOT club, he says his job is to make terrible things entertaining.

KANYE WEST is laser-focused on the release of 5 new albums, and based on a firsthand account, the people claiming he's erratic or in the middle of a meltdown are off base.

AVICII's family released a statement on the Swedish dance music star's death at 28, implying suicide.

CHARLIE ROSE is being slated to star in a show where he'll interview other high-profile men who have also been toppled by MeToo scandals.

A QUIET PLACE sequel advances at Paramount, unsurprisingly.

A GIANT MUTANT FLUORESCENT FISH is spotted in North Carolina.

SUPERSIZED FERAL GOLDFISH threaten Washington state, Lake Tahoe, Alberta, etc.

THREE CRAWFISH busted out of a Cajun restaurant in Texas.

ALMOST 10000 TURTLES were discovered in a house in Madagascar.

CALEXICO stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set.

DR DOG is streaming Critical Equation.

SUPERORGANISM played a Tiny Desk Concert.

HOP ALONG visited World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

KIM GORDON joins STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS on "Refute."

FATHER JOHN MISTY shares a bizarre and gory new video for "Mr. Tillman."

MICK JAGGER says he is writing new material ahead of the upcoming Rolling Stones tour -- and talks about his youth.

U.S. GIRLS have finally arrived.

NILE RODGERS shared a bloody video of himself breaking his nose.

BELLE & SEBASTIAN: Stuart Murdoch talks spirituality and living with weakness.

THE NUMBER ONES looks at Ray Charles' country music classic "I Can't Stop Loving You."

RUSSELL SIMMONS has one of the sexual assault suits against him dismissed.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS claims the latest Halloween will go full-tilt boogeyman.

KANYE WEST: People think he's "on the edge," as opposed to demanding attention like always.

QUENTIN TARANTINO says Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is “the closest to Pulp Fiction that I have done."

RACHEL WEISZ & RACHEL McADAMS talk about their sex scene in Disobedience.

HALLE BERRY doesn't see Catwoman as a failure, partly because she got a “sh*tload” of money for it that changed her life.

DOUBLE DARE is returning to Nickelodeon.

NXIVM: The alleged sex cult may be the subject of a TV series.

A YOUNG GIRAFFE is back with her mother after escaping into parking lot.

HORNY MONKEYS that will sleep with anything have created a new species.

THE ONLY WILD POPULATION OF ENDANGERED RED WOLVES is unsustainable and could be wiped out within years.

GOOSE vs GOLFER: Who You Got?

JON PRATT rolls out "The Smallest Things," accompanied by Naomi Engle. As Jon describes it, a sort of Beatlesque bossa nova.

PHOEBE BRIDGERS stops by The Current for a chat and mini-set.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED features tracks from Beach House, Tank And The Bangas, Welles, and more.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN and MICHAEL STIPE joined PATTI SMITH  at the Beaocn Theatre.

LEON BRIDGES shares "Beyond."

JOHNNY NASH: "I Can See Clearly Now." Because I'm hoping for a bright, sunshiney day

A NEW PRINCE LP of previously unreleased material is coming this Fall.

BEACH HOUSE talks to Pitchfork about their new album and the dark side of glamour.

THE TOP TEN ELBOW SONGS, according to Stereogum.

THE NUMBER ONES looks at Mr. Acker Bilk's cloudy jazz instrumental "Stranger On The Shore," which turned up on Mad Men more than once, iirc.

BOB DOROUGH, a jazz player, singer, conductor and arranger and the musical keystone of Schoolhouse Rock!, has died. He was 94. He wrote and/or performed "Conjunction Junction," "3 Is A Magic Number," "I'm Just a Bill," "The Shot Heard Round the World," "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here" and many others in the educational series.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR's embargo lifts to mostly good reviews (87 percent/7.6) at Rotten Tomatoes.

VENOM has dropped a trailer online that actually shows Venom.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER denies there's an ongoing Sex & the City catfight.

KANYE WEST: Those closest to him believe his mental health may be in serious jeopardy and are pointing to an outburst during a recent studio session as a major red flag.

CHANNING TATUM is having a tough time adjusting to his split with ex Jenna Dewan, sources say.

ALLISON MACK (Smallville) apparently was trying to recruit Emma Watson and other celebrities to join an alleged sex cult on Twitter.

DULE HILL and and Jazmyn Simon got hitched.

BEAR CUBS, rescued in Bulgaria.

THE WORLD'S NEWEST GREAT APE is threatened by a Chinese dam project.

GOING "CADDYSHACK" Goes Wrong. In fairness, the same could be said of Carl Spackler.

THE END OF THE WORLD is Not Nigh.