MICHAEL STIPE covers David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" for Fallon.

UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA plays unplugged at World Cafe.

FRANKIE COSMOS advance streams Next Thing.

SMILE advance streams Rhythm Method.

MO TROPER unleashes power-pop "After The Movies."

THE DANDY WARHOLS drop “Catcher in the Rye" ahead of Distortland.

BRIAN ENO dropped "The Ship," the 21-minute title track to his upcoming LP.

TOMMY JAMES & THE SHONDELLS: "I Think We're Alone Now," at the Village Square. No, really.

AXL ROSE joining...AC/DC?

WILCO's A.M. turned 20 this week.

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY talks to Stereogum about writing shorter songs for shorter attention spans, and how Friday Night Lights changed everything.

WOLF ALICE was profiled at length Under the Radar.

IGGY AZALEA thanked D'Angelo Russell for secretly recording L.A. Lakers teammate --and Azalea fiancee-- Nick Young talking about women other than her. The Lakers' locker room has a different opinion.

KHLOE KARDASHIAN wants LAMAR ODOM to head to rehab.

SELENA GOMEZ & CHARLIE PUTH are or are not an item.

MARGOT ROBBIE punched ALEXANDER SKARSGÅRDduring a love scene for Legend of Tarzan.

MARTIN SHEEN will executive produce Hard Evidence: O.J. Is Innocent, a new true-crime docuseries that will attempt to show that Simpson is innocent.

IRAQ's state television called today the "final deadline" for Prime Minister Abadi, who said more than six weeks ago that he would replace ministers with technocrats unaffiliated with political parties.

A GORILLA attempts an attack at a zoo.

FERAL PIGS have been wandering around in a Florida neighborhood and residents are concerned for their yards and their safety.

KITTEN CUDDLERS Needed in Miami.

BEES headbutt each other to warn of danger, primarily the danger of head trauma.

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS drops a video for "Ablaze."

TEEN SUICIDE advance streams It’s The Big Joyous Celebration, Let’s Stir The Honeypot.

ANTHONY HAMILTON (and the Hamiltones) play a Tiny Desk Concert.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: New tracks from Wire, Parquet Courts, Explosions in the Sky, and more feature in the latest edition.

NEKO CASE, k.d. lang, and LAURA VEIRS reveal their “Best Kept Secret."

MARK KOZELEK, with Will Oldham and Mimi parker, covers  Waylon Jennings’ “Amanda" ahead of Mark Kozelek Sings Favorites.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN danced to "Ramrod" with hsi 90-year-old Mom at MSG. Aw.

BOB MOULD: An Essential Guide. (Thx, Frank Yang.)

THE SOUND makes The Guardian's list of Cult Heroes.

PUDDLE OF MUDD abandoned their frontman onstage.

PATTY DUKE, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for her performance as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker and starred as two cousins on her own sitcom, died Tuesday. She was 69. BTW, she was also the bomb in Valley of the Dolls.

JAMES NOBLE, the actor best known for his role as the absent-minded governor on the hit 1980s sitcom Benson, died on Monday at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut. He was 94.

ELTON JOHN denied claims that he sexually harassed his former bodyguard.

CHARLIZE THERON talks to WSJ Magazine about motherhood (for the second time), making peace with her past (relationship with Sean Penn and otherwise) and finding personal strength in fear and weakness.

DAISEY RIDLEY: Audition footage from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

BILLY DEE WILLIAMS returns as the Colt .45 spokesman.

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP, director Whit Stillman's take on Jane Austen, has a trailer online.

ISIS might have pulled off a string of terrorist attacks across Europe in recent months, but on its home turf in Iraq and Syria it has suffered one setback after another.

A WALRUS learns to vocalize, including whistling. Goo goo goo joob.

A BABY GIRAFFE debuts at the Santa Barbara Zoo.

A GOAT hanging by its horns from a power line was rescued in Greece.

YELLOWSTONE BISON are not down with the selfies.

OVER 46 MILLION SERVED. Thanks to everyone for stopping by.

THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS drop a video for "Aviation." 

THE HERMS stream Welcome All Tourists, their first LP in a decade.

M WARD stopped by Morning Becomes Eclectic for a session.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS stopped by Morning Becomes Eclectic for a session.

ISLANDS drops "Christmas Tree" and "The Joke" for twofer Tuesday.

THE BUZZCOCKS play "16 Again" and "Nothing Left" on the OGWT for Twofer Tuesday.

RYAN ADAMS interviews BOB MOULD on All Songs Considered.

XTC: The Making of Skylarking.

IGGY POP: How did he survive the Seventies?

THE CURE, ranked by Paste.

THE BATMAN LEGO MOVIE gets another teaser trailer online.

BATLEXANDER MANILTON: A Hamilton + Batman Parody.

JON LOVITZ & JESSICA LOWNDES reveal their secret May-December relationship.

SETH MYERS and his wife, Alexi Ashe, have welcomed their first child into the world.

JANICE DICKINSON was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer.

FRIENDS: How a TV Sitcom Triggered the Downfall of Western Civilization.

LIBYA: SAS forces have been deployed in Libya since the beginning of the year, according to a confidential briefing given to US congressional leaders by the king of Jordan.

GOAT RACE 2016: Cambridge vs Oxford, opposite the more famous boat race.

BRINGING YOUR DOG to work could boost creativity.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT: A mechanic discovers a family of adorable militant rodents trying to sabotage an automobile.

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD? Dunno, but he used the crosswalk this time.

OUTER SPACES drops "I Saw You" ahead of their debut LP.

SHEARWATER stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set.

LUCIUS stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set.

THE HEAVY plays a twofer from the SXSW Radio Day Stage.

THE RAVEONETTES drop "Excuses" as the latest release from their singles club.

PETER BJORN & JOHN drop "Breakin' Point," the title track for their next LP. And there's whisting for the young folks.

999: "Homicide." You better believe it.

BOB MOULD talks to the New York Times about the state of punk and learning to keep things straightforward.

KEITH RICHARDS once threatened to knife Donald Trump.

JASON ISBELL talks to the Adelaide Review. (Thx, LHB.)

ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVERS IN THE DARK: Underrated?

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Batman v Superman easily tops the chart with 170MM, the best Warner Bros.opening ever.  That suggests it will recoup its 250MM production budget and 150MM marketing costs domestically, let alone with world wide grosses. As I speculated in Friday's review, the average moviegoer seems to be liking this much more than the c ritics.  Zootopia places with 23.1MM; it's still outpacing movies like Finding Nemo and Frozen. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 shows with 18.1MM, and may also survive bad reviews against a 18MM budget, though the older crowd for this one pays more attention to reviews.  Miracles From Heaven takes the fourth slot with 9.5MM. The Divergent Series: Allegiant is close behind, rounding out the Top Five with  9.5MM on a steep 67 percent drop; this could get painful. 

HUGH JACKMAN was filmed helping to pull children from a riptide at Sydney's Bondi Beach.

GARRY SHANDLING's spokesman says doctors believe the comedian died from a heart attack.

MILEY CYRUS & ALICIA KEYS will replace Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams as coaches for season 11 of The Voice.

BEVERLY CLEARY, the author who prought us Henry Huggins, Ramona & Beazus, and Ribsy is turning 100 soon.

MARIAH CAREY canceled her Easter Sunday show in Brussels in light of the recent terrorist attacks.

PAKISTAN: A suicide bomber killed at least 65 people, mostly women and children, at a park in Lahore on Sunday in an attack claimed by a Pakistani Taliban faction which said it had targeted Christians.

SYRIAN militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter 5-year-old civil war.

HOW ISIS laid out its plans to export chaos to Europe.

THIS JUST-COMPLETED DOG FENCE needs to be taller.

BIRDS use ALLIGATORS as bodyguards.

A SUSPECTED KOMODO DRAGON was captured in NYC.

PIZZA SQUIRREL: Chicago's answer to Pizza Rat. But it's not deep-dish.

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

... with THE BYRDS!  Pretty much because I dig them as we turn into Spring (or Fall).  Let's start with a rare 1965 clip of their breakthrough smash cover of "Mr. Tambourine Man."  There are screaming girls, plus go-go dancers when they hit Shivaree for "All I Really Want to Do" and "Feel A Whole Lot Better."  Next up is a rare sync of "I Knew I'd Want You." There are even more dancers when they cover Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" for Shindig! on June 23, 1965, while I'm pretty sure that's Ed Wynn introducing "Chimes of Freedom."  You might recognize the voice introducing "Bells Of Rhymney" from poolside in August 1965 and "It Won't Be Wrong" from a corral in January 1966 on Where The Action Is.  BONUS:  Want a couple in color?  Here's "Turn, Turn, Turn!" and "Mr. Spaceman." DOUBLE BONUS: A rare 1967 sync of "Eight Miles High."

BOB MOULD advance streams Patch The Sky.

ANDREW BIRD advance streams Are You Serious.

BLEACHED advance streams Welcome The Worms.

CAR SEAT HEADREST shares “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales" ahead of Teens Of Denial.

GOTOBEDS drop “Real Maths:Too Much" ahead of Blood//Sugar//Secs//Traffic.

WILLIAM BELL, of Memphis' iconic Stax Records, returns after 40 years with "Three of Me."

SOUL ASYLUM's near-breakthru, "Someone to Shove."

JEFF TWEEDY talks to FasterLouder about forming a band with his son, his disdain for the idea of "dad-rock", that time he worked security for Billy Corgan in the '90s, and the BS of nostalgia for Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album.

THE NATIONAL's Matt Berninger revisits a magical teenage year for Loud and Quiet. (Thx, Frank Yang.)

TEN ESSENTIAL LATE NIGHT ALBUMS, according to Treble. (Thx, LHB.)

THE FLAMING LIPS: Ten of Their Best.

NOW SHOWING:  This weekend's wide realeases are Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which is currently scoring 31 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, scoring 26 percent.

BATMAN v SUPERMAN, despite the 31 percent rating, isn't a terrible movie.  It is, however, a deeply frustrating one.  Whearas Marvel built its Cinematic Universe over a series of films, DC uses this one film as a launch point (to varying degrees) for its universe.  When it succeeds, it does so with gusto: Gal Gadot is terrific as Wonder Woman and makes me eager to see her standalone movie.  When it fails, as it does in three other respects, the viewer is left with largely useless exposition (and a demonstration of the superiority of the Marvel method by comparison).  And that exposition is on top of the already overstuffed sequelitis that infuses this film, as BvS is largely a sequel to and exploration of the consequences of Man of Steel. Again, sometimes this works well, e.g., an early scene depicitng the Lois Lane/Clark Kent relationship is simply lovely, though not necessary.  In other spots there is sheer pointlessness, e.g., there are two scenes between Lane and then-General/ now SecDef Swanwick that really could have been one scene. Indeed, direcor Zack Snyder probably could have cut a half-hour of running time, including half of a number of fantasy sequences, and had a better film. Ironically, given the uproar of casting Ben Affleck as Batman, he's one of the least problematic things in the movie, combining the already dysfunctional Bruce Wayne with the security impulses of Dick Cheney fairly well. Given that Batman's arc pays off better than Superman's, it's a shame that his final scene with Gadot is more exposition that lacks drama or intrigue.  Also, I had fewer problems than many with Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, a/k/a the even more evil version of Mark Zuckerberg from The Social Network.  Of course, one can take issue with that conception of Luthor, despite Eisenberg's execution thereof -- but that's more a problem with the script, the source of most of BvS's problems. The screenplay has interesting themes and perhaps better set pieces than Man of Steel, but a plot so convoluted, occasionally nonsensical (Luthor's main plan does not bear much careful examination beyond plot contrivance) and littered with disposables that the emotional payoffs suffer.  I suspect regular movigoers will be kinder than the general critical response; it's just a shame it was so flabby.

GARRY SHANDLING, comedian, actor, writer and producer, known for It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and The Larry Sanders Show,” died Thursday following a "medical emergency." He was 66. Heil Hydra.

PAUL McCARTNEY joins the cast of Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. No, really.

BETTY WHITE is being sued by her longtime live-in domestic worker for allegedly failing to pay overtime and not allowing breaks.

EMMA STONE, JONAH HILL & CARY FUKUNAGA (True Detective) will be adapting the Norwegian dark comedy series Maniac for Netflix.

WHY IS THIS SATURDAY DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER DAYS?  Because ABC has its annual showing of The Ten Commandments, a grand spectacle featuring acting from Edward G. Robinson and Anne Baxter that is so over-the-top that Yul Brynner starts to look good by comparison.  And while Robinson's Dathan never actually spoke the line "Where's your Messiah now?" in the movie, it  -- like "Play It Again, Sam" (not spoken in Casablanca) -- has become part of a part of our culture. The line actually comes from Billy Crystal, originally a bit from the Oscars, iirc. It later turned up o­n The Simpsons, with Chief Wiggum playing Dathan to Ned Flanders' Moses.

IRAN: The Obama administration is expected to blame Iranian hackers as soon as Thursday for a coordinated campaign of cyber attacks in 2012 and 2013 on several U.S. banks and a New York dam, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters.

THE EASTER BUNNY got into a brawl at a NJ shopping mall.

A PARROT is hanging out in the London Underground. Norwegian Blue; beautiful plumage.

MUTANT MAGGOTS Could Help Wounds Heal Faster.

THE PEEPS TOURNEY OF CHAMPIONS: The annual WaPo Peeps diorama contest meets March Madness.