REAL ESTATE stopped by Morning Becomes Eclectic for a session.

KATE TEMPEST stops by World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED features new tracks from The Mountain Goats, Shakey Graves, Orgone, The War on Drugs, and more.

BLONDIE shares "Fragments."

BIG THIEF shares a B-side, "Breathe In My Lungs."

FILTHY FRIENDS (Sleater-Kinney‘s Corin Tucker, R.E.M.‘s Peter Buck, Buck's Minus 5 bandmate Scott McCaughey, R.E.M. contributor Bill Rieflin, and Fastbacks member/MInus 5 contributor Kurt Bloch) share "Any Kind of Crowd" b/w a cover of Roxy Music's "Editions of You."

THE NO ONES (Buck and McCaughey joining I Was A King’s Frode Strømstad and Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen) jangle thru “Lisebet’s Gone (Sweet Street).”

BNQT (ft members of Travis, Band of Horses, Franz Ferdinand, and Grandaddy) shares “Mind Of A Man.”

RADIOHEAD did NOT cover "Gasolina."

ARETHA FRANKLIN and DIONNE WARWICK are having a beef.

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS' John Darnielle talks about growing up Goth.

DREAMING THE BEATLES: An excerpt from Rob Sheffield's new book.

JASON MOLINA excerpts his book, tracing his path from undergrad raconteur to Will Oldham’s pen pal.

STAR WARS: EPISODE IX and INDIANA JONES 5 get release dates.

JEFF GOLDBLUM will be in Jurassic World 2.

ZOE SALDANA probably let slip the title of the fourth Avengers movie. I don't think it tells you anything hardcore fans couldn't guess.

BRIE LARSON is covered by Vanity Fair.

EMMA WATSON, Interviewed by Jessica Chastain.

MADONNA isn’t too excited about a planned feature movie that will follow her early years as an aspiring material girl in gritty 1980s New York.

KURT RUSSELL responds to the upcoming re-make of the classic Escape From New York. And talks GotG Vol 2.

THE BACHELOR star Chris Soules was arrested on Monday following a fatal accident.

THIS DOG didn't recognize his owner -- who lost 50 lbs in the hospital -- until he passed the smell test.

A VALUABLE GIANT RABBIT died on a United Airlines flight.

A DOG underwent gender reassignment in a rare operation after vets discovered she was a hermaphrodite.

THE WORLD's LAST MALE NORTHERN WHITE RHINO has turned to Tinder for help.

ANDY SCHAUF stopped by World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

JOHN MELLENCAMP & CARLENE CARTER advance stream Sad Clowns & Hillbillies.

LASER BACKGROUND streams the trippy Dark Nuclear Bogs.

MAZES share a "West Coast Revolution."

ROY ORBISON provides vintage performances of "Running Scared" and "Oh, Pretty Woman" for Twofer Tuesday.

THE NEW PRONOGRAPHERS: carl Newman talks to Diffuser about his process, lengthy tours, artistic longevity and how Dan Bejar's absence changed - and didn't change - the sound.

BANANARAMA RETURNS: Can Siobhan, Keren and Sara recapture their glory days?

FATHER JOHN MISTY songs, ranked by Paste.

PRINCE, ranked by Stereogum.

JOANIE LOVES CHACHI, except when Chachi blames her death on dtink and drugs instead of stage 4 cancer.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2: A bunch of "top critics" weigh in with "Good, but not as good as the original" verdicts.

ELTON JOHN canceled multiple shows due to a rare illness that has dogged him for several months.

KENNY G subjected Delta passengers to an impromptu performance, but was not dragged from the aircraft.

ELON MUSK and AMBER HEARD seem to be an item.

GREY'S ANATOMY star Jesse Williams and his wife, Aryn Drake-Lee, are divorcing.

MEL B doubles down on claims the couple’s former nanny and husband Stephan Belafonte began having an affair after they had begun to have threesome trysts with their child’s caretaker.  The fmr nanny has filed a defamation suit over the allegations.

FAYE DUNAWAY feels bad about the 2017 Oscars mix-up, which wasn't really her fault.

WILD BOARS killed three Islamic State terrorists in Kirkuk.

A NEW SPECIES OF ANT, named after Radiohead.

MAN BITES DOG, allegedly.

DOGS ARE DOGGOS: An Internet Language Built Around Love For The Puppers. They're good dogs, bront.

ROBYN HITCHCOCK nad RAY DAVIES are among those with new albums streaming on Spotify.

LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT streams a self-titled sophomore LP.

WILSEN is streaming  I Go Missing In My Sleep.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN made a surprise cameo at  at the Asbury Park Music And Film Festival.

PHOENIX debuted new songs in Antwerp.

BLONDIE shares a new non-album B-side, "The Breaks."

PRINCE: Five albums from the vault that should be released ASAP, according to Variety.

BRITISH SEA POWER is profiled Under The Radar.

ST VINCENT: Annie Clark shares the soundtrack of her life at Entertainment Weekly.

IGGY POP talks to Rolling Stone about singing jazz and turning 70.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: The Fate of the Furious repeats atop the chart with 38.7MM, even with a 61 percent drop on a slow weekend.  That drop is marginally better than the last couple of installments of the franchise, though holidays and the death of Paul Walker may have accounted for those larger drops. Yuge overseas grosses bring the worldwide total to over 900MM is just 2 weekends.  The Boss Baby places again with 12.8MM on a leggy 20 percent drop.  Beauty and the Beast again shows with 10MM on a 27 percent drop.  The debut of Born in China takes the fourth slot with 5.1MM.  The Going In Style remake rounds out the Top Five with 5MM on a slight bounce that could make the difference between profit and loss in theaters.  All the rest of the new releases opened below the fold.  I have to say this old article in The New Yorker has me interested in The Lost City of Z.

ERIN MORAN, best known for her role as Joanie Cunningham on the sitcoms Happy Days and its spinoff Joanie Loves Chachi, has died. She was 56.

THE FAST & FURIOUS FRANCHISE may get a spinoff with Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, and Charlize Theron.

CHRIS PRATT tells Men's Fitness "the voice of the average, blue-collar American isn't necessarily represented in Hollywood."

KURT RUSSELL & GOLDIE HAWN were caught in the act by police on their first date.

BILL MURRAY is releasing a chamber music LP. Because of course he is.

JAMES  BOND is the target of a five-studio bidding war.

DEADPOOL 2 is scheduled for June 1, 2018. 

THE AVATAR SEQUELS have a new release schedule. Again.

FRANCE (or do you say Fronce): Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will fight for the French presidency after the country's two main parties crashed out of the first round for the first time since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

SAUDI ARABIA was elected to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

A DRUNK MONKEY crashes a boat party, drinks the vodka, and escapes underwater.

WHEN PYTHON HUNTING IN FLORIDA, it helps to dance like a monkey. And bring a sledgehammer.

A BABY POLAR BEAR in Columbus is the next likely target of a naming contest.

RED-EYED MUTANT WASPS have been brought into the world by a team of scientists. What could go wrong?

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with PRINCE! Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mark the first anniversary of Life After Prince. Regular readers here may have noticed that unresolved questions remain in the ivestigation of his death from opiod overdose.  I cannot pretend to have been a rabid fan of his work, but liked quite a bit of it and respected his enormous talent.  Indeed, for Generation X, it would be hard not to; he bestrode the radio landscape during the 1980s and 1990s in a way only rivaled by Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, and Madonna.  Accordingly, I'll focus on this period. For a deep dive into Prince's career through this period, check out this epic tweetstorm from Jeff Blehar.  As Jeff notes, Prince was diligent in keeping his music off the internet, minus a few items like this terrific 1982 concert at the Capitol Theater, which includes the bracing "Controversy."  Although Prince's estate has cut deals with major streaming services, the best place to go for his videos may still be...Portugal. Accordingly, we can revisit a cross-section of tracks like "When You Were Mine," "Let's Pretend We're Married," "Little Red Corvette," "Let's Go Crazy," a joyful, rocking take on "Take Me With U," "I Would Die 4 U/Baby I'm A Star," "Raspberry Beret," "Kiss," "Sign O' the Times," "If I Was Your Girlfriend," and "I Could Never Take the Place of Ur Man."  That last may be my fave Prince track, if only because he could've written it for The Replacements. I don't think he did, tho in his heyday, Prince handed hits like "Manic Monday" to The Bangles, "Nothing Compares 2 U" to Sinead O'Connor, "I Feel For You" to Chaka Khan, "Stand Back" to Stevie Nicks, "Sugar Walls" to Sheena Easton, and "The Glamorous Life" to Shiela E (who also played in Prince's band and -according to her - was his fiancee for a while). The beautiful ones we always seem to lose.  BONUS: "Partyman," because of course.  DOUBLE BONUS: Prince's guitar gently weeps...and steals the show.

WILLIE NELSON advance streams God's Problem Child.

COTILLION streams The Afternoons.

COLIN STETSON advance streams All This I Do For Glory.

PETER BRADLEY ADAMS streams A Face Like Mine.

OKKERVIL RIVER shares a cover of a gospel song composed by Washington Phillips called “Denomination Blues.”

AFGHAN WHIGS shared "Arabian Heights" from their forthcoming album In Spades.

CUBA GOODING, SR, the father of an Oscar-winning actor and a chart-topping R&B singer with the Main Ingredient, was found dead in his car in Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon, according to multiple law enforcement sources. He would have turned 73 next Thursday on April 27. "Everybody Plays the Fool," sometimes.

WIRE: Colin Newman and Graham Lewis gave Drowned In Sound a track-by-track tour of Silver/Lead.

THURSTON MOORE does an hour-long podcast with The Quietus.

LANA DEL REY, interviewed by Courtney Love.

U2: Ten of Their Best.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases include Unforgettable, which is currently scoring 32 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; The Promise which is currently scoring 40 percent; Born In China, scoring 78 percent; and Free Fire, scoring 69 percent.  The Lost City of Z also opens on 750 screens, scoring 88 percent.

THE MUMMY reboot has an international trailer online.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: SALAZAR'S REVENGE dropped a new international trailer with a second of Keira Knightley.

SPIDER-MAN will feature in the fourth Avengers movie, Marvel's boss has confirmed.

RHONDA ROUSEY is engaged to her UFC fighter boyfriend, Travis Browne.

CLINT EASTWOOD will direct a movie adapatation of The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, a Train, and Three American Heroes.

VENEZUELA: At least three people were killed in Venezuela when clashes broke out during anti-government protests described by opposition leaders as the "mother of all marches." General Motors said Wednesday it has been forced to stop operating in Venezuela after one of its plants was illegally seized by local authorities.

SYRIA: International chemical weapons inspectors have found "incontrovertible" evidence that Sarin gas, or a similar substance, was used in a chemical attack in Syria earlier this month that killed 89 people.

THOUSANDS OF SPIDERS blanketed an entire field with a web.

NAKED MOLE-RATS can survive periods of oxygen deprivation, so they've got that going for them, which is nice.

CRAYFISH who live in groups get drunk more easily than loners.

AN ALLIGATOR snarls traffic along Veterans Expressway.

CAR SEAT HEADREST played their new single version of "Unforgiving Girl" on Conan.

THE NEW PRONOGRAPHERS play a stripped-down mini-set at The Current.

CLOSE TALKER advance streams Lens.

TARA JANE O'NEIL advance streams a self-ittled LP.

WOODS share "Hit That Drum" ahead of Love Is Love.

BLONDIE drops a video for "Long Time," the song they co-wrote with Dev Hynes.

PRINCE's estate and Paisley Park are looking to block the release of an EP with 6 previously unreleased songs.

FEIST talks to Stereogum about writing to her future self, Broken Social Scene's return, and her new album, Pleasure.

JAWBREAKER is reuniting for Chicago's Riot Fest.

LAURA NYRO is essayed at The Guardian, 20 years after her death.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2 announced its soundtrack, including a Hasselfoff original.

BRANGELEXIT: Brad Pitt is dating a bit.

THE KARDASHIANS are upset over Caitlyn Jenner's new memoir.

RICHARD SIMMONS is speaking out to fans for the first time since he stepped out of the spotlight three years ago.

SERENA WILLIAMS is five months pregnant.

CAPTAIN MARVEL will be directed by Mississippi Grind helmers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.

JULIA ROBERTS is People's 2017 World's Most Beautiful Woman.

RICHARD GERE's political stands are actually brave insofar as they cost him job opportunities.

AARON HERNANDEZ, former NFL star and convicted murderer, was found hanged in his jail cell.

MARK ZUCKERBERG has been experimenting with mind-reading technology for several months. What could go wrong?

FRANCE: Two men were arrested in southern France on Tuesday on suspicion of preparing an attack to disrupt campaigning before the first round of the country's presidential elections on Sunday, the authorities said.

A RUSSIAN government think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters' faith in the American electoral system, three current and four former U.S. officials told Reuters.

IRAQ: Many say that as Iraqi forces close in on the remaining ISIS-held neighborhoods, ISIS has become increasingly brutal toward the civilians they are using as human shields.

GEESE: Don't cross 'em.

DINGOES win a contest for the Most Interesting Genome.

AN EEL is not a good cure for constipation. The More You Know. Swoosh.

FROG SNOT, otoh, may be a cure for the flu?