THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

... with POWER POP (REDUX)! For whatever reason, I have considered Summer the ideal season for gems like Badfinger's "No Matter What" (which Pate covered on occasion) and "Baby Blue", and even Todd Rundgren's "I Saw the Light" and Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me."  Ditto for more obscure tracks like The Rubinoos "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" (see also their vintage cover of "Please Please Me"), Off Broadway's "Stay In Time" and "Full Moon Turn My Head Around," and Pezband's "Baby It's Cold Outside" and "Close Your Eyes."

DEERHOOF advance streams The Magic.

OH PEP! advance streams Stadium Cake.

LAKE RUTH advance streams Actual Entity.

MARISA ANDERSON advance streams Into the Light.

PETER GABRIEL shares "I'm Amazing," his first new song in almost two years.

FREE: "All Right Now." Wouldn't be Summer without it.

PATTI SMITH talks to The Guardian about life as an outsider, New York's scuzzy past and why she loves Peter Pan.

LED ZEPPELIN guitarist Jimmy Page took the stand in a copyright lawsuit, defending himself against allegations he ripped off the famous opening guitar chords from the band’s epic hit “Stairway to Heaven.” 

THE SMITHS' The Queen is Dead turns 30 and is the subject of a Pitchfork mini-doc.

PETER BJORN & JOHN talk to Paste about the making of Breakin’ Point.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases are: Finding Dory, which is currently scoring 95 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; and Central Intelligence, scoring 58 percent.

JOHNNY DEPP's camp claims he Amber Heard both want to end their war and settle everything connected with their relationship, so Johnny's lawyers are requesting the courtroom battle set for Friday be postponed (Depp got a continuance; he gets one as a matter of right). Amber Heard's camp denies a settlement is in the works.

KIM KARDASHIAN WEST is GQ's cover story. (NSFW)

ASHTON KUTCHER & MILA KUNIS are expecting their second child.

JENNIFER ANISTON denied pregnancy rumors.

AMY SCHUMER is profiled in Vogue.

ANN MORGAN GUILBERT, beloved as the next-door neighbor Millie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, has died of cancer.

SYRIA: More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration's policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country's five-year-old civil war.

AFGHANISTAN: The Taliban's warm-weather offensive has shown the insurgents to be bolder and better organized, holding more territory now than at any time since 2001.

A RUNAWAY OSTRICH disrupted traffic in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday afternoon, as it dashed down the capital's Federal Highway, causing a stir among motorists and social media users alike. 

SQUIRREL vs DOG: Who You Got?

SNAP, CRACKLE, and... BAT?

BALD EAGLE vs GOOSE: Who You Got?

NICO YARYAN dropped a video for “You Belong To Me."

BAND OF HORSES visited Morning Becomes Eclectic for a session.

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

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: Tracks from The Tallest Man on Earth, Charles Bradley, Lisa Hannigan, and more feature in the latest episode.

MOON BROS shares the title track to "These Stars."

THE FIVE AMERICANS: "I See The Light."

LED ZEPPELIN: The "Stairway To Heaven" lawsuit may be headed for a mistrial.  In 2014, The Guardian had Jimmy Page and others explain the song's magic.

BOB GELDOF and Nigel Farage faced off in a Brexit boat battle. And there was music.

THE BEST of 2016 (So Far), according to Stereogum.

LINCOLN "CHIPS" MOMAN - the producer, musician and songwriter who recorded the Box Tops, Bobby Womack, Mark Lindsay, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett, and Petula Clark, helped Elvis Presley engineer a musical comeback in the late 1960s, then moved to Nashville to record Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and other top country performers, as well as co-writing some of the best loved soul songs of all time – died on Monday in LaGrange, Georgia. He was 79.

AMBER HEARD and two of her friends are ready to publicly testify about Johnny Depp's alleged abuse in an L.A. court showdown on Friday.

TAYLOR SWIFT & TOM HIDDLESTON were caught canoodling in Rhode Island.

KIM KARDASHIAN talks about shedding baby weight.

JENNIFER ANISTON doesn't talk about possibly adding baby weight.

CHARLIE SHEEN delivers an update on his HIV treatment.

NETFLIX: Too successful for its own good?

BEYA: Socially awkward, or just waiting for the ball?

AN ALLIGATOR dragged a toddler into a lagoon at a Disney hotel in Orlando.

A BEAR was spotted outside an Arby’s restaurant in Leesburg, VA. That bear has it figured out.

PUPPY BREATH: Why is it so sweet?

PETER BJORN & JOHN dropped a video for "Breakin' Point." And yes, there's some whistling for the young folks.

JASON ISBELL played a full set at Mountain Jam.

SAM BEAM & JESCA HOOP stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set.

DISCLOSURE streams the Moog For Love EP.

PAWS drops “Impermanent" ahead of No Grace.

BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE: "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet."  Because it's summer. Plus, cowbell.

LED ZEPPELIN went on trial for copright infringement regarding their seminal "Stairway to Heaven"; the L.A. Times explains.

BLEACHED watched The Bachelor, then talked to Noisey.

FATHER JOHN MISTY live-tweeted a Tinder date.

HENRY McCULLOUGH a rock guitarist who performed with Wings and Jimi Hendrix, has died, aged 72. He was also in Joe Cocker's Grease Band, wwhere he wrote "Let It Be Gone." (Thx, Jay.)

AMBER HEARD is dropping her request for temporary spousal support from Johnny Depp - because she says it's distracting from the “real issue of domestic violence."

KEVIN HART got taken for 500K when burglars broke into his house.

DONALD GLOVER has joined Spider-Man: Homecoming.

LEONARDO DiCAPRIO is...wait for it...dating a model.

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM will return for Season 9 on HBO, the premium cabler announced Tuesday.

MARGARET VINCI HELDT, the Chicago beautician who invented the beehive hairdo in 1960, died Friday at 98.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA: A Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan is being hailed as a hero for helping scores of people escape from an Orlando nightclub targeted by a terrorist.

CHINA has proposed the construction of a network of ship and subsurface sensors that could significantly erode the undersea warfare advantage held by US and Russian submarines and contribute greatly to future Chinese ability to control the South China Sea.

A BEAR kisses (or tastes) a sunbather.

FOX ON THE BED: You scream and everybody comes a running.

AN 11 -FT GATOR CORPSE clogs a storm drain in (where else) Florida.

EIGHT DOLPHINS will leave the National Aquarium in favor of an ocean sanctuary.

ROB ZOMBIE shares a video for "The Life And Times Of A Teenage Rock God."

WHITE DENIM stopped by World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE also  stopped by World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

WEAVES advance stream their self-titled debut.

DUNGEN covers Aphex Twin and Wil Malone for Aquarium Drunkard's Lagniappe Sessions.

THE CARS relesaed "Candy-O" this week in 1979. Add "The Dangerous Type" for Twofer Tuesday.

PRIMAL SCREAM frontman Bobby Gillespie talks to Under The Radar about the band's twelfth album, Chaosmosis.

BAND OF HORSES frontman Ben Bridwell talks to Rolling Stone about moving past writer's block and "teenage dorkazoid stories" to craft tthe new Why Are You OK.

THE QUEEN IS DEAD, reconsidered 30 years later by The Quietus.

THE BEST of 2016 (So Far), according to Drowned In Sound.

JOHNNY DEPP will likely assert his fifth amendment privilege Friday at a hearing on the protective order sought by wife Amber Heard.

BILL MURRAY will (probably) appear at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Oct. 23, when he is presented with its annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

NICOLE KIDMAN  is reteaming with her Portrait Of A Lady director, Jane Campion, for the second season of thriller Top Of The Lake. She's also celebrating 10 years of marriage to Keith Urban.

ROADIES, the upcoming Showtime series from Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous), put the debut episode online early for free.

JANET WALDO, the prolific voice actress best known for her role as The Jetsons’  eldest daughter Judy, has died. Waldo was 96.

MICHU MESZAROS, an actor who brought the titular alien in ’80s sitcom Alf to life, has died. He was 76.

VENEZUELA: The recent wave of lootings and food riots in crisis-hit Venezuela has left three people dead in the last week, authorities and a rights group said.

A CROCODILE was caught strolling around Coral Gables, FL.

A KANGAROO and a PIG get it on, as a goose watches...mass hysteria!

A SPIDER was removed from an English IT worker's eardrum.

A COW, rescued from a tree with a saw and a chainsaw. The crowsstare, unamazed.

KURT VILE stopped by CBS This Morning for a chat and mini-set.

MARGARET GLASPY advance streams Emotions And Math.

CRATERS advance stream the Kids Can Tell EP.

SLANT advance streams Going By.

ALI BELETIC advance streams Legends Of These Lands Lost.

STONE ROSES share a "Beautiful Thing."

THE NASHVILLE TEENS, with a stompin' cover of "Tobacco Road."

PAUL McCARTNEY talks songwriting on the All Songs +1 podcast.

ROD STEWART has been awarded a knighthood in a list of honours to mark Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthday announced by Buckingham Palace Friday.

WYE OAK's Jenn Wasner talks to the Village Voice about the duo's new surpsise LP, Tween.

A BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SHOW makes you feel like the best version of yourself.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:  The Conjuring 2 tops the chart with 40.4MM, which means it should make a profit in theatres if it comes anywhere close to the original's global sales, despite doubling the original's budget to 40MM. Warcraft places with 24.4MM, which looks like a bomb against a 160MM budget... but it's taken in a massive 261.8MM in overseas markets already, so maybe not.  Now You See Me 2 shows with 23MM against a reported 90MM budget, placing it in the ranks of so many underperforming sequels this year. You know, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, which skidded 58 percent to take 14.8MM in the fouth slot. And X-Men: Apocalypse, which rounds out the Top Five with 10MM on a 56 percent drop; although I thought it was alright, it may end up the second-lowest grossing installment of the series (First Class, which is ironically one of the better installments).

CHRISTINA GRIMME, who starred in NBC's “The Voice,” died early Saturday after a gunman shot her following a performance in Florida.

AMBER HEARD wants restraint, not money, from Johnny Depp ... so say people connected to the actress.

JUSTIN BIEBER's recent erratic behavior reportedly has some worried that he is headed toward a breakdown.

BOBBY BROWN claims he kicked Janet Jackson out of a hotel room after sex.

STAR WARS & STAR TREK...and economics.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA: A gunman who opened fire at a gay nightclub in Florida early Sunday, shooting over 100 people, had called 911 moments before to pledge allegiance to the leader of ISIS.

IRAQ: Two suicide attacks in and around Baghdad on Thursday killed at least 31 people and wounded dozens, officials said.

AFGHANISTAN: The Defense Department on Thursday canceled an announcement to reveal changes in the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan to increase the ability to attack Taliban targets, several officials familiar with the effort told CNN.

SYRIA: The U.S. military bombed a Syrian rebel unit it had trained and equipped in a friendly-fire incident in late May.

KANGAROOS, man, whaddaya gonna do?

SNAKE in an Arkansas dashboard.

A FISH...trapped in a jellyfish.

THE SNEEZING GALAPAGOS LIZARDS are the only lizards in the world to adapt to a marine lifestyle. But you're really more interested in the sneezing, yes?