THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with R.E.M! Live at the Capital Theater, in Passaic, NJ, on June 9, 1984.  Your set list includes: "Pale Blue Eyes";  "Second Guessing"; "Hyena"; "Letter Never Sent"; "Harborcoat"; "7 Chinese Brothers"; "Pretty Persuasion"; "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)"; "Gardening At Night"; "9-9"; "Windout"; "Old Man Kensey"; "Sitting Still"; "Driver 8"; "Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)"; "Radio Free Europe"; and "Little America."

YEASAYER is advance streaming their new album.

AMANDA PALMER stopped by the World Cafe for a chat and twofer streaming via NPR.

BLITZEN TRAPPER stopped by the World Cafe for a chat and mini-set, also via NPR.

DAWES: I missed their World Cafe session last week, but better late than never.

BIG STAR, "the unluckiest band in America," got a feature on Fresh Air.

SOUL ASYLUM: Captain's Dead has them Live at the Aragon Ballroom, on Sept. 15, 1995.

ST. VINCENT is "Laughing with a Mouth of Blood." And Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein.

SHANE MacGOWAN recruited singer Nick Cave, Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie, the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde, Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock Clash guitarist Mick Jones, Johnny Depp and singer Paloma Faith to cover "I Put a Spell on You" for Haiti relief.

DEERHOOF and XIU XIU will cover Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures at an Austrian music fest this spring.

DEAD MILKMEN frontman Joe Jack Talcum talks to the Chico News and Review about his current projects. (Thx, LHB.)

PITCHFORK FEST tix go on sale today.

JAY REATARD died January 13 due to "cocaine toxicity," and "alcohol was a contributing factor in his death."

KISS vs. MINI-KISS: Coming to a Super Bowl near you.

CUTOUT BIN: From Husker Du to Mama Cass, from Buddy Holly to Pavement, from Cheap Trick to Fairport Convention, plus Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, the Beach Boys, the Zombies, Mountain Goats and more -- this weekend's fortuitous finds are streaming from the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases are From Paris With Love, which is currently scoring 37 percent; and Dear John, which is scoring 28 percent.

TIGER WOODS is leaving sex addiction rehab by the end of this week, and his wife is picking him up.

BRITTANY MURPHY died from multiple drug intoxication, pneumonia and "iron deficiency anemia" in what the coroner has concluded was a accidental death.  L.A. County Coroner officials believe Brittany's condition was "treatable" but no one took her to the hospital in time.

CHARLIE SHEEN will be charged with felony menacing in connection with the Christmas Day incident with wife Brooke Mueller, according to law enforcement sources.

LINDSAY LOHAN, secret hoarder? Let's go to the video.

REESE WITHERSPOON: Back in the dating pool?

JENNIFER ANISTON wants to be set up with a wealthy businessman.

IRAN said on Wednesday that it had fired a rocket into space carrying living organisms - a rat, two turtles and worms.

PAKISTAN: In their joint operations against Taliban militants hiding in the tribal areas, the United States and Pakistan seem to have embraced a classic bit of battlefield advice: Don't get mad, get even.

AFGHANISTAN: Domestic political resistance is building to Pres. Karzai's two-track plan to end the war by negotiating with Taliban leaders while enticing their foot soldiers with the promise of jobs and development projects. Meanwhile, in a rare break from traditional military secrecy, the US and its allies are announcing the precise target of their first big offensive of the Afghanistan surge in an apparent bid to intimidate the Taliban.

CAT IN BED: Your moment of Zen.

GOTH KITTENS = Cruelty.

A PHEASANT is terrorizing a North Yorkshire village - trapping people in their homes and attacking people in the street.

AN AUSSIE is facing charges after his attempts to kiss a police sniffer dog led to a row in which he was pepper sprayed and arrested.

THREE CHEETAHS spare tiny antelope's life and play with him instead... Mass hysteria!

SHARKS attacked and killed a 38-year-old man near Stuart Beach in southern Florida on Wednesday. What say you, Police Chief Brody?

MUMFORD & SONS have a video for their latest single, "The Cave."

SHARON JONES & THE DAP-KINGS will give you "I Learned the Hard Way" - the title track from their upcoming LP - in exchange for an e-mail address. (You can also stream it via the ol' HM.)

AA BONDY did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.

THE PARSON REDHEADS stopped by Oregon Public Broadcasting for a session in audio and video

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: Tracks from The Magnetic Fields, Giant Drag, Heligoats and more feature in the current installment of the long-running series.

FRESH & ONLYS drop a video for "Invisible Forces."

NEW PORNOGRPAHERS: A.C. Newman spills all sorts of details about the upcoming Together LP to Paste: "The first germ of an idea was that I wanted a song that started like ‘New Day Rising' by Hüsker Dü..."

SURFER BLOOD: JP Pitts shares a few of his favorite things for Pitchfork's Guest List.

PHOENIX singer Thomas Mars chatted with Pitchfork about the surreal experience of winning a Grammy -- and his mixed feelings about it.

GREIL MARCUS: PopMatters essays "one of a handful of critics who have quite simply changed the way we think about popular culture.

MAD MEL GIBSON strikes again, swearing at his interviewer on WGN while promoting his new movie, "Edge of Darkness."

MACKENZIE PHILLIPS says her relationship with her father was non-consensual.

HEIDI MONTAG's mother looked at her like a "circus freak," just because she had 10 plastic-surgery procedures in one day. Go figure.

PAM ANDERSON: Dancing With the Stars?  She might need to.

LEIF GARRETT: Busted. Again.

IRAN: Ahmadinejad said Iran had "no problem" with a nuclear deal initially brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency.  US State Dept. spokesman P.J. Crowley noted that when Iranian diplomats met with US officials in Geneva in October, "they said yes, and then they said no."

IRAQ once again stepped back from a political crisis of its own making when an appeals court on Wednesday temporarily overruled a controversial step to disqualify hundreds of candidates in next month's election for having ties to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

DANCING OWL breaks it down.

GIANT SQUID invade California.

A MOUNTAIN LION may be prowling the west side of Houston.

A NEW JERSEY MAN has been indicted for shooting his pet parrot, allegedly because it was interfering with watching NASCAR.

FRIGHTENED RABBIT dropped the video for "Nothing Like You."

JOANNA NEWSOM dropped another advance track, "Good Intentions Paving Company," from her upcoming triple-album.

MASSIVE ATTACK is advance streaming their Heligoland album via NPR. Not my genre, but maybe yours.

THE DAREDEVIL CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set streaming via MPR.

PHANTOGRAM is advance streaming their album, Eyelid Movies, also via NPR.

WILCO played "One Wing" late, late at night on the television.

VAMPIRE WEEKEND percussionist Chris Tomson spoke to PopMatters about his general disinterest in accusations of "cultural appropriation," the band's growth as performers and songwriters, and the surprise he still feels at finding success as an accidental drummer.

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS: Stephin Merritt does a two-parter with Filter, starting with the conclusion of his "no synth" trilogy and the release of his upcoming documentary Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields.

BEACH HOUSE talks to the Associated Press about being at a turning point.

MOUNTAIN GOATS: John Darnielle talks to JamBase about the reception of The Life of the World to Come, Moon Colony Bloodbath, the Bible, writing lyrical poetry, hip hop and more.

THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED, remembered, sans Don McLean.

TIGER WOODS' marriage headed out to sea?

MADONNA is reported to have split from her ‘toy boy' Jesus Luz.

CONAN O'BRIEN is shelling out his own cash to some ex-staffers who didn't get jack from that separation deal from the Peacock,

MICHAEL JACKSON: Dr. Conrad Murray reportedly plans to surrender tomorrow morning in an L.A. courtroom in connection with the singer's death.

NICK NOLTE, rooting through trash cans. Let's go to the video.

HAITI RELIEF SONGS: Simon Cowell's all-star cover of REM's "Everybody Hurts" hit the airwaves, while another list of stars began arriving at the Jim Henson Studios to cover "We Are the World."

JOHNNY DEPP is working on a documentary about Keith Richards, Lord of the Undead.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL has just committed to star in an HBO half-hour pilot that will be based on I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, the Pamela Des Barres' memoir of bed-hopping with musicians and movie stars in the late 1960s.

IRAN: With the government's opponents planning another large demonstration on Feb. 11, the country is bracing for an escalating wave of executions. At least ten prisoners have been charged with the capital crime of moharebeh, which means waging war against God.

AFGHANISTAN: In recent months, small teams of US Army commandos, Navy Seals and Central Intelligence Agency operatives have intensified the pace of "kill-capture missions" -- hunting down just one or two insurgents at a time who are deemed too recalcitrant to be won over by any goodwill campaign.

BOTTLENOSE DOLPHINS have developed a remarkable hunting strategy in order to catch fish.

SAVAGE BEAGLES terrorize the East End of Long Island.

A PIT VIPER has become addicted to cigarettes.

FISH BAN? A Hawaiian lawmaker wants to ban the Maku'u -- which is Native Hawaiian for "exploding intestines."

First D.J.: Rise and shine, campers and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today.Second D.J.: It's cold out there every day. What is this, Miami Beach?First D.J.: Not hardly. So the big question o­n everybody's lips...Second D.J.: o­n their chapped lips...First D.J.: ...their chapped lips is, "Does Phil feel lucky?" Punxsatawney Phil! That's right, woodchuck chuckers it's...

(IN UNISON): GROUNDHOG DAY!!!

Today, Punxsutawney Phil ---  the Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary will predict whether we will have six more weeks of winter.  According to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, Phil has seen his shadow 97 times, and hasn't seen it (predicting an early spring) only 14 times.  Phil's track record is hotly disputed, though he's has had a pretty good run recently.  Nevertheless, thousands will await the sunrise and the groundhog at Gobbler's Knob in the tiny Pennsylvania hamlet that has become known as the "Weather Capital of the World," due in no small part to the movie that makes every day Groundhog Day.

This is o­ne time where the Internet really fails to capture the true excitement of a movie about a large squirrel predicting the weather. However, you can see the trailer as a refresher.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Jonah Goldberg's equally effusive movie meditation grabbed the cover of National Review: "When I set out to write this article, I thought it'd be fun to do a quirky homage to an offbeat flick, o­ne I think is brilliant as both comedy and moral philosophy. But while doing what I intended to be cursory research -- how much reporting do you need for a review of a twelve-year-old movie that plays constantly o­n cable? -- I discovered that I wasn't alone in my interest. In the years since its release the film has been taken up by Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and followers of the oppressed Chinese Falun Gong movement."

Indeed, a 2004 article mentioned by Ebert (but not linked) from London's Independent observes that the Harold Ramis comedy has been hailed by some religious leaders as the most spiritual film of all time. In addition to the examples given in that article, another can be found at the Christian Science Monitor.

As Phil Connors ultimately observed: "When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter."

Update: Phil saw his shadow, signaling six more weeks of winter.

ACCORDINGLY, we start off a new day:

...with Sonny & Cher o­n Hullabaloo and famously o­n Letterman years later, plus UB40 with Chrissie Hynde, not to mention The Cynics (from the Bonograph tribute CD), and David Bowie & Marianne Faithful. A bit more than Twofer Tuesday.

NEW RELEASES: Abums from Album Leaf, Four Tet, Martha and the Muffins, Midlake, the Soft Pack, and more are streaming this week via Spinner.

FRIGHTENED RABBIT is streaming two advance tracks from Nothing Like You via FatCat Records.

BEACH HOUSE did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.

DAVID RAWLINGS and GILLIAN WELCH played a Tiny Desk Concert at the offices of NPR.

PETER GABRIEL talks to the Times of London about Scratch My Back, his album of cover versions of songs by artists ranging from Paul Simon to Bon Iver -- and his many extra-curricular activities.  You can hear his cover on Bon Iver's "Flume" at the 'Gum.

SURFER BLOOD drops a mischievious clip for "Swim."

BLACK FRANCIS - or do you call him Frank Black? - talks to the Santa Barbara Independent about his last album, digital downloading, extra-terrestrials, and more...

YEASAYER talked to the NYT's Jon Pareles about revamping their sound for their sophomore album.

HOT CHIP is profiled in the Times of London.

NOUVELLE VAGUE: Olivier Libaux writes the Salt Lake Tribune about why melding bossa nova and new wave shouldn't work -- but does, so well.

NINE FRESH FACES are profiled in this month's Vanity Fair cover story, photoshoot and video. Yep, we're in the home stretch of awards season now.

THE OSCARS: These folks got nominated. Congrats!

THE RAZZIES nominations went to these folks.  The Gold Derby wonders whether Sandra Bullock will take home a Razzie and an Oscar.

KRISTEN BELL and DAX SHEPARD, co-starring in When in Rome, are engaged, too.

JULIA ROBERTS offers Valentine's Day advice for the ladies.

AFTER LOST, Matthew Fox says he's done with television. And Evangeline Lilly says she's done with acting.

THE WORST SUPERHERO MOVIES, according to io9.

BILL WATTERSON, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, answered some questions via e-mail from Plain Dealer reporter John Campanelli. It's believed to be the first interview with the reclusive artist since 1989.

AfPAK: Don't call it AfPak.

A JAPANESE DOG breaks into a smile for its owner. Awww...

FRIENDLIER DOGS wag their tails to the left.

A BABY GIRAFFE was born at the Memphis Zoo, complete with awww... some pic.

AN ALLIGATOR turned up in Kansas. Again.

A 12-FOOT GREEN ANACONDA was captured recently by Osceola County deputy sheriffs at the East Lake Fish Camp in northern Osceola County: "Toni, I think we know what happened to the ducks."

CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG made her network TV debut singing "Trick Pony" at the Ed Sullivan Theater. Not sure about the werewolf in the background.

TED LEO & THE PHARMACISTS played the World Cafe on Friday; you can stream the whole gig on demand.

THE XX stopped by the World Cafe for a chat and mini-set, streaming on demand.

RAIN MACHINE: Kyp Malone (TVotR) did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.

PRINCETON did three free songs for Daytrotter, including a cover of Yo La Tengo's "Sugarcube."

BROKEN BELLS, a/k/a The Shins' James Mercer and Danger Mouse, drop a video for "The High Road."

SCOTT MILLER of Game Theory and the Loud Family talks to MBV about his careers, bands he's listening to now, and more...

NEIL YOUNG was officially minted as the Recording Academy's "MusiCares Person of the Year" Friday night; the Toronto Star covers his philanthropy.

OWEN PALLETT talks to ChartAttack about his new album, how he measures himself to Neko Case, how he's crazy for Lady Gaga and how at the end of the day, all he wants are some slightly bulging biceps.

RONNIE WOOD is back in rehab. Eighth time is the charm, I hear.

THE GRAMMYS went to these folks. Yeesh. Congrats to Phoenix, though.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Avatar tops the chart for a seventh weekend with another 30 million, on a mere 14 percent drop. In all likelihood, it will pass Titatnic's record domestic total this week; its wordwide total nears two billion dollars.  Edge of Darkness, Mel Gibson's return to acting, debuted in second with 17 million. Considering his last star turn was 2002's Signs, followed by some richly-deserved bad PR, that's probably not bad, especially competing with Avatar -- but against an 80 million budget, it's not good, either.  When in Rome opened in the third slot with 12 million, which again is not bad -- if the budget was under 30 million.  Tooth Fairy held onto the fourth slot with ten million, which is a comment on the competition as much as the movie.  Rounding out the Top Five is The Book of Eli with 8.8 million, and a 73.4 million total that comes close to the production budget.  Below the fold Legion plunged 61 percent, from second to sixth -- but has recouped its production budget already.  Sherlock Holmes will likely hit 200 million next weekend.  Overall, typical end-of-January doldrums at the cineplex.

RIP TORN was arrested Friday night for allegedly breaking into a Main Street bank intoxicated, armed with a loaded revolver.

BRITTANY MURPHY: The L.A. County Coroner's Office is now trying to fill in some critical gaps in the medical history of the late actress.

MICHAEL JACKSON: The D.A. is ready to charge Dr. Conrad Murray in the singer's death, multiple law enforcement sources tell TMZ.

CHARLIZE THERON has reportedly spilt from Stuart Townsend after nine years as a couple.

ANGELINA JOLIE and... LADY GAGA? Too good to check!

BRAD PITT is a fine drinking buddy, according to Inglourious Basterds co-star Samm Levine.

THE GREEN HORNET will be scored by Danny Elfman.

THE DIRECTORS GUILD AWARDS went to these folks. Congrats to Katherine Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) for beating out her ex, James Cameron. Congrats also to Lesli Linka Glatter for an excellent episode of Mad Men, "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency."

IRAN: The US is dispatching Patriot defensive missiles to four countries - Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait - and keeping two ships in the Gulf capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Washington is also helping Saudi Arabia develop a force to protect its oil installations.

AFGHANISTAN: As if US troops and diplomats didn't have enough to worry about in trying to understand Afghan culture, a new report suggests an entire region in the country is coping with a sexual identity crisis. An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns -- though they seem to be in complete denial about it.

GEN. PETRAEUS covered Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Iran with the Times of London.  Not headlined is more good news about the upcoming election in Iraq.

EATING LIVE OCTOPUS: Let's go to the video.

PIGLET rescued with mouth-to-snout resuscitation.

CATS compete in agility competitions... when they want to.

TWO ADULT TIGERS escaped from an enclosure at the Assam State Zoo in Guwahati, India, triggering panic among nearly 10000 visitors.