THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with THE RAMONES! Live at CBGB's circa October 1977.  Your setlist includes: “Blitzkrieg Bop”; “Sheena is a Punk Rocker”; “Beat on the Brat”; “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue”; “Rockaway Beach”; “Cretin Hop”; “Oh,Oh, I Love Her So”; and“Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World.”

CALEXICO stoppeb by WFUV's Studio A for a chat and mini-set. 

FRASER GORMAN advance streams Slow Gum. 

ECSTATIC VISION advance streams their debut album, Sonic Praise. 

KING DUDE advance streams Songs of Flesh & Blood - In The Key of Light. 

REFUSED advance streams Freedom.  

SHAFT's OLD MAN: A soul jazz soundtrack to an imaginary black 60s spy film. 

RICKED WICKY, a/k/a ROBERT POLLARD drops "Tomfoole Terrific" ahead of King Heavy Metal. 

DUNGEN returns with "Åkt Dit", ahead of Allas Sak. 

BLOOD MOON drops "All U Got". 

VERUCA SALT shares their 'Empty Bottle". 

THE CLASH AT DEMONHEAD covers Metric's "Black Sheep." I remember when Envy was Nat.

ST VINCENT: Annie Clark discusses collaborating with david Byrne and falling off stage in an hour-plus Times Talk. 

WAXAHATCHEE: Katie Crutchfield gets an in-depth profile at Pitchfork. 

BRIAN WILSON is adding US tour dates on the popularity of the Love and Mercy biopic. 

QUEEN is releasing a Bohemian Lager. 

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases are Ted 2, which is currnetly scoring 45 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; and Max, currently scoring 37 percent. 

JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT and husband Brian Hallisay have welcomed a son, their second child together.

BOBBI KRISTINA BROWN may soon become a murder case.

CAMERON DIAZ is reportedly taking a year off from making movies to “be a wife and try to have a baby” with husband of five months, Good Charlotte rocker Benji Madden. 

BEN AFFLECK destroys a PBS show. 

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER opened up to talk show host Howard Stern about his split from Maria Shriver, his love child, and his son Patrick's relationship with Miley Cyrus. 

PATRICK McNEE, who played the iconic role of John Steed in the 1960s British television series, The Avengers, has died at 93. 

CHINA is indeed the "leading suspect" in the theft of potentially damaging information about federal and military personnel form OPM. 

TURKEY, a member of NATO, is siding with iSIS over the Kurds. 

THE ISLAMIC STATE in Syria is holding a grotesque “Koran memorization contest” in which the winners will be awarded female child sex slaves.  They've also destroyed two historic tombs at Palmyra.

IRAN: The United States and other nations negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran are ready to offer high-tech reactors and other state-of-the-art equipment to Tehran if it agrees to crimp programs that can make atomic arms.

THE RUNNING OF THE SHEEP, featuring Trouble the Cat. 

A RARE AMAZONIAN FISH discovered in a US lake does not really want to castrate you. 

COWS vs SHARKS: Which kill more in the US?

SEVEN SEA TURTLES have been released back into the ocean by the Virginia Aquarium. 

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS performs Destiny's Child's "Bills, Bills, Bills" for the A.V. Club Undercover.

RYAN ADAMS drops a three-track single on Spotify.

WIN WIN advance streams Primaries.

CLASS ACTRESS: Dance music isn't really my genre, but the Movies EP is exec produced by Giorgio Moroder and sounds it.

SONGS OF THE SUMMER, 1962-2015, streaming via NPR on Spotify.

IRON & WINE and BEN BRIDWELL cover Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)".

BELLE & SEBASTIAN played "Allie" and "Suki in the Graveyard" for Seth Meyers.  The latter is one of my fave tracks from the band, tho this take is a little subdued to start.

DAVID BOWIE announced the first in a series of career-spanning box sets.

WOLF ALICE talks to The Guardian about taking years to make a debut LP.

LOW: Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker talk to Stereogum about their long, slow trip and their upcoming LP.

JENNY HVAL talks to Pitchfork about a particular form of soft rock.

KIM KARDASHIAN & KANYE WEST underwent an IVF gender-selection process this spring to predetermine baby No. 2's sex.

DIDDY is now also charged with making terrorist threats during the alleged fight with a UCLA football coach.

BOBBI KRISTINA BROWN is in hospice care and family members are now just waiting for the inevitable.

BRIAN WILLIAMS is getting a frosty welcome at MSNBC.

WILL ARNETT  has split from girlfriend Arielle Vandenberg.

SHIA LeBEOUF received 20 stitches and 13 staples to his head and finger following a bloody onset injury while filming a movie in North Dakota.

SPIDER-MAN:  Marvel and Sony have found their Peter Parker  —  The Impossible actor Tom Holland.

EGYPT reportedly intends to establish a free trade zone with the Eurasian Economic Union, comprising Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia, by the end of 2016.  Losing economic influence with Egypt would represent a major reversal of bipartisan US policy dating back to the Nixon and carter administrations.  Meanwhile, Muslim Brotherhood clerics call for the overthrow of the current government.

AFGHANISTAN: Do you think it couldn't get much worse?

SAUDI diplomats in Khartoum believed Iran shipped advanced nuclear equipment including centrifuges to Sudan in 2012, according to a document leaked last week that WikiLeaks says is a cable from the embassy.

IRAN's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled out freezing sensitive nuclear work in the country for a long time and said sanctions imposed on it should be lifted as soon it reaches a final deal with major powers, state TV reported. Also, the deal would be unlikely to improve the world’s ability to react to a sudden effort by Iran to build a bomb.  So maybe not surprising that five former members of President Obama's inner circle of Iran advisers have written an open letter expressing concern that a pending accord to stem Iran's nuclear program "may fall short of meeting the administration's own standard of a ‘good' agreement" and laying out a series of minimum requirements that Iran must agree to in coming days for them to support a final deal.

A PUG's EYE VIEW of Dodger Stadium.

MOOSE RIDE sparks an investigation in Canada.

A NOTORIOUS INVASIVE WORM has invaded the US. No word on whether it raps.

A FLUORESCENT LAMB ended up mistakenly being eaten in France.

TUESDAY was a verrry slow news day...for ths ort of items typically posted here anyway.  But there are these notable passages:

DICK VAN PATTEN, who played the paterfamilias on the 1980s TV dramedy Eight Is Enough, died on Tuesday morning. He was 86.  I can't say I was a fan of the show, but he worked a lot in the late 70s and early 80s--and in that pre-cable, pre-internet era, if you worked regularly in movies and TV, you were a much bigger celeb than you would be nowadays.  

DON FEATHERSTONE, a classically trained painter, a talented sculptor and artist who became famous for creating the pink plastic lawn flamingo — the ultimate piece of American suburban kitsch, has passed away at 79.

See y'all tomorrow!

BEIRUT parodies American Bandstand in the video for the title track to No No No.

BEST COAST performed at the recent Non-COMMvention of public-radio people in Philadelphia.

TITUS ANDRONICUS dropped a "mixtape" full of demos, live versions, and rehearsals.

TIGERS JAW streams their Studio 4 Acoustic Set.

SELF DEFENSE FAMILY advance streams Heaven Is Earth.

THE ATOM AGE drops "It's a Mess" ahead of Hot Shame.

CAT STEVENS performs energetic versions of both "The Wind" and "Moonshadow" in a single clip from 1976, just so for Twofer Tuesday.

CROCODILES talk to Drowned in Sound about their new LP.

PALMA VIOLETS' frontman Chilli Jessonshares the soundtrack of his life with NME.

CHVRCHES: Pitchfork interviews the band about the making of their next LP.

THE HORRORS are pofiled by Clashmusic. (Thx, Frank Yang.)

CHARLIE SHEEN went on a Father's Day rant against Denise Richards.

TAYLOR SWIFT whacked Apple Music over not paying labels during cutomers' trial periods; Apple Music reversed the decision.

P DIDDY was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon-- a kettlebell weight used to allegedly attack a UCLA football coach.

BRITNEY SPEARS and her boyfriend of eight months, Charlie Ebersol, have called it quits.

HUGH HEFNER is unhappy with Holly Madison's book about her time at the mansion.

JAMES HORNER,  the consummate film composer known for his heart-tugging scores for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Field of Dreams, Braveheart and Titanic, for which he won two Academy Awards, died Monday in a plane crash near Santa Barbara. He was 61.

CHINA'S hacked the personal data of an estimated 18 million current, former and prospective federal employees were affected by a cyber breach at the Office of Personnel Management - more than four times the 4.2 million the agency has publicly acknowledged.

IRANIAN officials gave their strongest hints yet that talks over the Islamic theocracy’s nuclear program may stretch beyond a self-imposed June 30 deadline. Meanwhile, with some lawmakers chanting "Death to the America," Iran's parliament voted to ban access to military sites, documents and scientists as part of a future deal with world powers over its contested nuclear program.

IRAQ: The U.S. military and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are getting closer and closer in Iraq, even sharing a base, while Iran uses those militias to expand its influence in Iraq and fight alongside the Bashar al-Assad regime in neighboring Syria.

A CAT stowed away on a glider.

FERAL CATS are taking over - and stinking up - the suburban Cincinnati village of St. Bernard.

WHALE SHARKS are not surfboards, Dude.

A GOAT BEAUTY PAGEANT is a tradition in the Lithuanian village of Ramygala.

WILCO covers Pavement's "Cut Your Hair." And the crowd goes wild.

JOY WILLIAMS is advance streaming Venus.

MATT POND PA is advance streaming The State Of Gold.

NEIL YOUNG is advance streaming The Monsanto Years.

THE VELVET TEEN is advance streaming All Is Illusory.

FOUR TET has digitally released Morning/Evening.

100 HOURS OF PROTEST MUSIC, streaming from NPR.

SPOON crashed a Spoon cover band's set in Maine.

DURAN DURAN drops "Pressure Off," ft. Janae Monáe and Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers.

MERCURY REV drops "The Queen of Swans." (on the Cocteaus' label, Bella Union)

BRANDON FLOWERS joins HUEY LEWIS & THE NEWS for a soulful rendition of "Do You Believe In Love?" that might surpass the original.

EDDIE VAN HALEN is profiled by Chuck Klosterman and it's full of odd tidbits. The opening line: "Eddie Van Halen doesn't listen to music."

THE LIBERTINES: Carl Barat and Pete Doherty talk to NME about their reunion, Thailand and more.

GREGG ALLMAN talks to The Guardian about his later brother Duane, hearing Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and starting up a new band.

THE GREATEST PROG ROCK ALBUMS, according to Rolling Stone.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Jurassic World repeats atop the chart with 102MM on a 51 percent drop.  It will break the 400MM mark domestically tomorrow, and likely 450MM by the weekend; only four other films have made that much.  It will also break a billion worldwide in that time.  Pixar's Inside Out places with 91MM, but that's some second place!  Analysts thought this would open somewhere around 60-65M; but near-unanimous good reviews and an "A" Cinemascore made this movie the biggest ever to not open at number one. Spy showed with 10.5MM on the leggy 33 percent drop one hopes to see from a comedy; it should make the extra 50MM it needs to profit on the big screen.  San Andreas takes the fourth spot wit h8.2MM on a 24 percent drop, after taking a beating from Jurassic World's debut.  The Rock will surely profit before the home market.  The debut of Dope rounds out the Top 5 with 6MM, a bit less than the 8-10MM tracking numbers.

MILEY CYRUS is dating Victoria's Secret Angel Stella Maxwell, friends say.

KIM KARDASHIAN & KANYE WEST's second child will be a boy.

PRINCE HARRY has been busy spending his time with Doctor Who star Jenna Coleman.

CHRIS PRATT wants to be objectified more.

CHARLIZE THERON iced out SEAN PENN before breaking off their relationship.

JAKE LLOYD: The boyish Anakin Skywalker turns to the dark side in a crazy car chase.

WARREN SAPP has been named a suspect in a domestic violence investigation in Las Vegas.

PHIL AUSTIN, 74, the founding member of The Firesign Theater who created and voiced the wacky detective Nick Danger, died Friday in Fox Island, Wash.

ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM is sharply increasing in influence in mosques and on the streets of France, Germany and Britain.

AFGHANISTAN: The Taliban splinters as ISIS makes inroads.

IRAN: The State Department said Iran’s support for terrorism was “undiminished” in 2014, and the U.S. remains very concerned about the activities of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its proxies in the Middle East.  The nuke deal will be awesome.

A SEA OTTER on Kiss-cam at the Oregon Zoo.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT: A militant rodent disrupted the Phillies-Cardinals game, attacked Chase Utley.

A RACCOON gets wasted in a beer distributorship.

A 150-LB TORTOISE had to be put down in California.