THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with POWER POP! A few of these may be well-known generally, like Cheap Trick's  "Way of the World" and Nick Lowe's "Cruel to Be Kind"... and some well-known to fans of the genre, like Dwight Twilley's "I'm On Fire," Shoes "Too Late," The Records' "Starry Eyes," the Flamin' Groovies' "Shake Some Action" and the Plimsouls'  "A Million Miles Away" (seen here in a rare live slot).  Others are well-known to longtime Pate fans, like the Three O'Clock's "Her Head's Revolving" or Let's Active's "Waters Part."

BEST COAST plays WFUV Live.

MAC McCAUGHAN performs in the WNYC Soundcheck studio.

KOPECKY: The Family Band stops by World Cafe.

TRAILS & WAYS advance streams Pathology.

SLY & THE FAMILY STONE drop the previously unreleased "Color Me True" ahead of Live at the Fillmore East.

FFS: The Franz Ferdinand/Sparks collab drops "Call Girl" ahead of a self-titled debut.

BRAM TCHAIKOVSKY: "Girl Of My Dreams" and "Lady From the USA", live. Because it's Power Pop Friday, of course.

JOAN JETT:  "Everything rocks: Food rocks, clothes rock, everything rocks except rock."

FRANK BLACK talks songwriting with Paste.

THE RISE AND FALL of the Compact Disc.

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES: 15 True Crime Songs, compiled by Paste.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases include San Andreas, which is currently scoring 52 percent on the ol' Tomatometyer; and Cameron Crowe's Aloha, which is scoring a tragic 11 percent.

LINDSAY LOHAN is off prbation, after a mere eight years.

GEORGE CLOONEY vs DWAYNE "THE ROCK" JOHNSON: Who you got?

JESSICA ALBA: One of America's Richest Self-Made Women.

JUSTIN BIEBER & SELENA GOMEX, together again...on Snapchat.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS boasts Andy Serkis as the man in charge of... something.

NETFLIX now uses more bandwidth than X-rated sites.

SYRIA: The leader of al-Nusra Front — the al Qaeda-affiliate group in Syria — insisted that he is under orders from the organization's central leadership not to attack Western interests in Syria, but rather focus on toppling President Bashar al-Assad.

IRAN: France announced it would not sign any nuclear deal which did not give inspectors access to military sites.

IRAQ:  With new waves of civilians fleeing ISIS violence in Anbar there are now more internally displaced Iraqis than there were at the height of the bloody sectarian fighting that followed the American invasion.

A BADGER raids a fridge in Midhurst, West Sussex.

PIP THE PUG, 4 inches tall, may be Britain's smallest dog.

THE SWARM: A Chinese man was covered in a million bees in an attempt to set a new record.

A COW that made a daring bid for freedom when it escaped from a slaughterhouse was tracked down and shot near a McDonald's.

JENNY LEWIS drops a self-deprecating, cameo-laden video for "She's Not Me."

CHRISTOPHER OWENS advance streams a surprise release, Chrissybaby Forever.

THE MILK CARTON KIDS stopped by World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

MATT POND PA perform a mini-set from their upcoming record State Of Gold live on KEXP.

THE DARKNESS advance streams Last of Our Kind.

THE ROLLING STONES drop an alternate version of "Dead Flowers" ahead of the deluxe Sticky Fingers.

RICKIE LEE JONES talks to Ann Powers about her spiritual quest, her love of the Crescent City, and more.

THE NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL plans to pay a 50th anniversary tribute to Bob Dylan's going electric with a secret lineup of musicians billed as ’65 Revisited.

INDIE ROAD TRIP SONGS, compiled by the Phoenix New Times. (Thx, LHB.)

U2’s longtime tour manager, Dennis Sheehan, died at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Hollywood. He appeared to die of natural causes.

KIM KARDASHIAN & KANYE WEST are reportedly exploring surrogacy.

KHLOE KARDASHIAN went on a date with Rick Fox.  But Lamar Odom thinks he still has a shot.

TATUM O 'NEAL is dating women now.

ALEC BALDWIN talks to THR about fatherhood, Mission Imposssible: Rogue Nation, and Glengarry Glen Ross.

LINDSAY LOHAN may complete all of her community service by today's deadline.

TILDA SWINTON  is negotiations to portray the Ancient One in Marvel's Doctor Strange.

CHRIS PINE  is in negotiations to play Steve Trevor in Warner Bros.' Wonder Woman.

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN may get a second chance.

VENEZUELA's largest bill of 100 bolivars is now worth less than a U.S. quarter to money-changers after a plunge in the currency's black-market value.

RUSSIA's army is massing troops and hundreds of pieces of weaponry including mobile rocket launchers, tanks and artillery at a makeshift base near the border with Ukraine, a Reuters reporter saw this week. But is Ukraine the price of heading off nuclear jihadis?

IRAQ: Hundreds of civilians who escaped the Iraqi city of Ramadi after it was seized by ISIS in last week's bloody insurgency have been rounded up and arrested by Iraqi militia - because they were suspected of being terrorists in disguise.

A SHARK gets a belly rub.

A 100-YEAR-OLD-TORTOISE --one of four remaining of her species--gets a last chance to breed.

THE DEMENTOR WASP turns prey into a zombie, then eats it alive. Sucks all the joy out of the world.

CHICKENOSAURUS is halfway here. They've spared no expense.

THE RAGTIME GALS cover The Police's "Roxanne."

TORERO advance streams their self-titled debut.

COMMUNIONS advance stream their self-titled debut EP.

ALGIERS advance streams their gospel-punk debut.

VOWS advance stream Soon Enough Love.

RICHARD THOMPSON drops "All Buttoned Up" ahead of Still.

DAVID BOWIE: "Modern Love." from the Summer of 1983.

MAC McCAUGHAN shared the soundtrack of his life at Pitchfork.

HOLLY HERNDON talks to Weekend Edition about her intimate relationship with technology and how that reflects her art.

B.B. KING The Clark County coroner’s office in Nevada is investigating claims that blues legend was poisoned, but coroner John Fudenberg said there was no immediate evidence to support the allegations.

LYNN RIPLEY, a/k/a Twinkle, who scoried a Top Ten hit just after she left school in 1964 with "Terry," a mawkish ballad about a dead bike, has died of cancer aged 66.

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY and her musician husband James Righton (Klaxons) have welcomed their first child together.

JOHNNY DEPP could face 10 years in jail for smuggling his dogs into Australia. Oh sure.

TAYLOR SWIFT told  BBC Radio 1's Nick Grimshaw that her hit albums, sold-out tours, and many awards do not take quite as much work as many people think.

DAVID DUCHOVNY said the first page of The X-Files revivial script made him cry.

RACHEL McADAMS teared up at her sister's nuptuals. Life does not imitate Wedding Crashers.

POINT BREAK: The remake has a trrailer online, but why remake a perfect movie?

JONNY QUEST: Robert Rodriguez has come onboard to co-write and direct a live-action feature adaptation of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY refuses to resume negotiations with Israel without Israeli recognition of the pre-1967 borders as the basis for talks and of East Jerusalem as the future Palestinian capital, a PA spokesman said on Tuesday.

LIBYA: Gunmen tried to assassinate Libya's internationally recognized prime minister on his way to the airport in the eastern city of Tobruk on Tuesday, a spokesman for his government said.

IRAN's deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has denied committing to military site inspections under the nuclear agreement with P5+1 world leaders.

AFGHANISTAN: Heavily armed insurgents stormed a guesthouse in the diplomatic quarter of Kabul late on Tuesday night and were still battling Afghan security forces more than two hours after the assault began.

IRAQ: US Defense Secretary Ash Carter's blunt assessment that Iraqi forces lack the "will to fight" undermines a central premise of President Barack Obama's strategy for defeating the Islamic State: that Iraq's military can effectively handle ground operations so Americans don't have to.

A DOG tailed his owner to the morning train in Scotland. He used a trampoline.

FISH BRAIN SIZE matters to fish...but only the females.

SUPER-RATS could multiply to 150 million this year in the UK.

SPIDERS use music to woo partners, much like college students.

U2 busts out "In God's Country" by request...after the requester lends a hand.

DAWES advance streams All Your Favorite Bands.

WILLE NELSON & MERLE HAGGARD advance stream Django And Jimmie.

SOAK advance streams Before We Forgot How To Dream.

DAUGHN GIBSON advance streams Carnation.

THE RASPBERRIES crush "Go All The Way" and "I Wanna Be With You" for Twofer Tuesday.

DESTROYER: Dan Bejar talks to Pitchfork about postmodernism, pop, and more.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: John Flansburgh talks about writers block on their Tumblr.

B.B. KING's daughters, Karen Williams and Patty King, are accusing King’s two closest aides of poisoning him.

JOY WILLIAMS talks to The Guardian about reinventing herself after The Civil Wars.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:Tomorrowland topped the holiday weekend with ~33MM dollars...which ain't great against a 180MM budget.Nevertheless, as long as it doesn't bomb, Disney likely wrings added value out of the advertising for their parks.  Pitch Perfect 2 places with 30.8MM on a 55.5 percent drop that ain't bad, considering how front-loaded this sequel might have been.  Mad Max: Fury Road shows with 24.8MMon a 45 percent drop, which ain't bad for a violent, R-rated movie.  The Poltergeist reboot did alright in the fourth slot with 22.6MM against a reported 35MM budget, despite blah reviews and word-of-mouth.  Avengers: Age of Ultron rounds out the Top 5 with another 21.7MM to its already massive pile of moolah.  Overall, this holiday weekend fell about 30MM short of last year's take.

CHRIS PRATT pre-apologizes for any impolitc remark he makes on the press tour for Jurassic World.

TWIN PEAKS: David Lynch's return will be 18 episodes long, The Double R Diner is being restored, and Angelo Badalamenti will be creating new music for the show.

ALISON PILL married her fiance Joshua Leonard on Sunday.

MARY-KATE & ASHLEY OLSEN will not be in Netflix's Fuller House.

KATY PERRY talks to the Telegraph about moving on from Russell Brand.

KELLY RUTHERFORD won a battle in her 3 year war to get her kids back from her ex-husband.

ANNE MEARA, who was half of Stiller & Meara, one of the most successful male-female comedy teams of all time, and who went on to enjoy a long and diverse career as an actress and playwright, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 85.  She met her husband and longtime comedy partner, Jerry Stiller, as members of the Compass Players, an improvisational theater troupe that evolved into Second City.  Her son, Ben Stiller, tweeted a brief message to fans.

JOHN NASH, the Princeton mathematician profiled in “A Beautiful Mind,” has died in a car crash, along with his wife.

BLACK MASS, starring Johnny Depp as gangster Whitey Bulger, has a new trailer online.

SYRIA: Islamic State militants have seized the last Syrian government-controlled border crossing between Syria and Iraq, a Syria monitoring group says.  The United Nations says it has received reports that Syrian forces in Palmyra prevented civilians from leaving, ahead of its fall to Islamic State militants.

THE ISLAMIC STATE: A new, coundfunded journalism project reports that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad. Meanwhile fighting simmering frustration in their ranks over ISIS advances in Iraq and Syria, top U.S. special operations commanders say they are building forces for a multi-generational fight—not a war that will be won in the next few years.

A LAMB, adopted by a GOLDEN RETRIEVER.

TWO GRIZZ;Y BEARS fight over trash in Montville, New Jersey.

A COYOTE attacked a young girl in an Irvine, CA park.

A RARE SPIDER TORTOISE hatched at the Smithsonian's National Zoo.

MEMORIAL DAY has become -- in the minds of some -- a day devoted to uncovering their swimming pools and barbeques. So take a moment (preferably at 3 p.m. local time) to remember what it's really about. At least I think, that's still the deal -- the Remember.gov still seems to be down (good job, feds).  Joyce Johnson and the "Arlington Ladies" who attend every funeral in Arlington National Cemetery, to ensure no soldier is buried alone, take more than a moment.  Re-read "A Death in the Family," as powerful as it was when Christopher Hitchens wrote it in 2007.  Revisit William Wyler's footage of the last mission of the Memphis Belle, or check the Tube for Alfred Hitchcock's footage of the liberation of the Belsen concentration camp.  The Wikipedia entry for Memorial Day notes a race track connection unrelated to the Indy 500.  It's a good day -- as good as we are likely to get -- for Sgt. Barry Sadler's No. 1 smash, "Ballad of the Green Berets."  or the movie adaptation of Gen. George S. Patton's "Speech to the Third Army."  As "Greyhawk" once wrote at the Mudville Gazette, "This is Memorial Day weekend. Enjoy it. Celebrate it - the people who died to give you that right would appreciate it. But they didn't die peaceably in their beds, these dogs who fell protecting sheep from wolves."