THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE...

...with THE TALKING HEADS!  Here's the expanded band -- including axeman Adrian Belew (who certainly influenced Jon Pratt's early work in Pate) -- Live in Rome, circa 1980. Your setlist: "Psycho Killer," "Stay Hungry," "Cities," "I Zimbra," "Drugs," "Take Me To The River," "Crosseyed And Painless," "Life During Wartime," "Houses In Motion," "Born Under Punches," and "The Great Curve."

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

AYE NAKO advance streams Silver Haze.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: Tracks from Elf Power, Big Thief, Walter Martin and more highlight the latest episode.

PEARL JAM covers Brandi Carlile's ""Again Today," with Carlile on backup vox.

DRUMS share "Blood Under My Belt" ahead of Abysmal Thoughts.

CHEMTRAILS share "Headless Pin Up Girl."

THE LA's: "There She Goes." Again.

SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND is getting a stereo remix and comprehensive reissues. Here's the trailer from one of the coming 50th anniversary documentaries.

FEIST is profiled by the New York Times.

PAUL WELLER: The Modfather will soon welcome his eighth child.

CAN is getting an anthology and an authorized biography.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases are Smurfs: The Lost Village, which is currently scoring 30 percent on the ol' Topmatometer; The remake of Going In Style, which is scoring 35 percent; and The Case For Christ, which was not screened for critics.

DON RICKLES, the rapid-fire insult machine who for six decades earned quite a living making fun of people of all creeds and colors and everyone from poor slobs to Frank Sinatra, has died. He was 90.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 has a new teaser trailer online.

DANIEL CRAIG has been "just about persuaded" by the prospect of a gazillion dollars to make one more James Bond movie.

CHRISTIAN BALE may star in a... Dick Cheney biopic?

MICHAEL CAINE explains why he voted for Brexit.

MICHAEL BAY threatens to make 14 more Transformers movies unless his demands are met.

VERNE TROYER: Mini-Me is headed to rehab.

HOLLYWOOD faces another possible writers' strike.

SYRIA: The United States launched a military strike on a Syrian government target in retaliation for their chemical weapons attack on civilians earlier in the week.

SHARKNADO: A cyclone in Australia dumped a bull shark shark in a muddy puddle on land.

A DOG at a Nigerian wedding party grappled with a suicide bomber until her explosives detonated, killing the animal as well.

A HORSE returning from a run to Taco Bell escaped serious injury after falling into a 5-foot-deep hole in Southern California. Who among us?

GIANT SLOTHS dug mysterious tunnels in South America.

DAWES played the Icehouse in Mpls for The Current.

THE SHINS played in Apogee Studios for Morning Becomes Eclectic.

RODNEY CROWELL performs on WNYC Soundcheck.

MELODY'S ECHO CHAMBER shares “Cross My Heart” ahead of Bon Voyage.

BETH DITTO shares "Fire" ahead of Fake Sugar. (Not a cover.)

THE NEW PRONOGRAPHERS' Carl Newman talks to Salon about the dissonance between his lyrics and music, plus more.

CRAIG FINN is profiled by the Village Voice.

PAUL WELLER: The Modfather slams the ‘insipid' state of modern guitar music (while recommending some), but has revealed that he is a fan of rap, R & B, grime and some singer-songwriters.

THE BEST MODERN MOUSE SONGS, according to Paste.

DAVID SCHWIMMER and his wife, Zoe Buckman, are taking a break.  Look out, copy center girl.

J-LO & A-ROD are talking marriage?

ALEC BALDWIN, with seven highlights from his memoir, one of which is disputed.

ANNE HATHAWAY is profiled by The Muse.

BARRY MANILOW explains why he did a terrible job of hiding his sexuality for 40 years.

KENDALL JENNER was in a controversial Pepsi ad.

SHIA LaBEOUF: Not box office gold in the UK.

SYRIA:  One of the worst chemical bombings in Syria turned a northern rebel-held area into a toxic kill zone on Tuesday, inciting international outrage over the ever-increasing government impunity shown in the country’s six-year war. Western leaders including President Trump blamed the Syrian government of President Assad and called on its patrons, Russia and Iran, to prevent a recurrence of what many described as a war crime.

A CHIMP flung poo in a grandmother's face, as chimps do.

A CATFISH falls from the sky into a Florida family's pool.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT's version of Blofeld was caught on camera.

HOW DO YOU GET a 1.5-ton Rhino on an airplane?

ABBREVIATED DAY, but here we go...

PORTUGAL THE MAN stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set.

LAURA MARLING performs for WNYC Soundcheck.

HAPPINESS advance streams Write In.

WIRE: Colin Newman and Graham Lewis look back on how they remade rock at Rolling Stone.

SON VOLT's Jay Farrar talks Notes of Blue with the Chicago Tribune.

BECK, ranked by Paste.

FIVE LESSONS from The Guardian's departing music editor.

MEL B claims estranged husband Stephen Belafonte was a monster, brutally beating her, extorting her into doing 3-ways with other women and threatening to release sex tapes.

JESSE EISENBERG and his longtime girlfriend, Anna Strout, have welcomed their first child together, a baby boy.

GET OUT is now the highest-grossing movie ever for a feature debut for a writer/director of an original screenplay.

ROMAN POLANSKI: A Los Angeles County judge has denied the latest effort by Roman Polanski to resolve his 40-year-old statutory rape case, saying that the filmmaker cannot be sentenced in absentia because he remains a fugitive from justice.

LA LA LAND, as directed by David Lynch.

16 DIRTY JOKES that probably shouldn't be in family films.

TERRY TEACHOUT's sixty-one years, sixty-eight films.

A BADGER buries an entire cow.

AN INDONESIAN PYTHON swallows a man whole.

A HEN laid an egg bigger than a baseball.

STAG PARTY: Don't come home with a bra in your antlers. The More You Know. Swoosh.

NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS share a video for "Steve McQueen," a spoken word piece featured in the documentary One More Time With Feeling.

THE NEW PRONOGRAPHERS advance stream Whiteout Conditions.

GUIDED BY VOICES advance streams August By Cake.

SPOON played at Apogee Studios for Morning Becomes Eclectic.

BONNY DOON shares "I See You" and it's very Silver Jews with a bit of Pavement.

THE SHINS cover "A Taste Of Honey" for Amazon's The Man In The High Castle soundtrack.

THE SPINNERS:For twofer Tuesday, "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love" and  "I'll Be Around."

RICHARD THOMPSON, masterful singer, songwriter and guitarist clebrated a birthday yesterday. Here he talks to The Vinyl District. (Thx, Frank Yang.)

STING talked to World Cafe about the real-life moment that inspired him to write "Roxannne," and more.

STEVE LILYWHITE has produced bands including the Rolling Stones and U2; now he's sold 500K CDs at KFCs in Indonesia. Not kidding.

POP STARS and their chatbots. Aerosmith's is classic.

ALEC BALDWIN would appreciate it if you didn't bring up that time he called his daughter a 11-year-old daughter a “rude, thoughtless little pig.”

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR has its Stan Lee cameo.

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING got a set visit from Uprox; this two-parter contains a bunch of minor spoilers.

ORLANDO BLOOM made his Pirates of the Caribbean comeback looking worse for wear in a brand new Dead Men Tell No Tales teaser. Or is it Salazar's Revenge? Hm.

KIM KARDASHIAN denied reports she was attacked in L.A.

AMERICAN IDOL will not be coming back in 2018, despite the fact that both NBC and FOX made offers to put it back on the air, because a tug of war between co-owners of the show torpedoed the deals.

DORIS DAY was surprised to learn yesterday was her 95th birthday.  Que sera sera.

PHILIP BAKER HALL, with 175 film and television credits from Boogie Nights to Seinfeld, gets a profile from the Washington Post.

A HIGH-LEVEL DEFECTOR FROM NORTH KOREA warned in a new interview that Kim Jong Un would use nuclear weapons against the U.S. or its allies to stay in power if necessary.

NEARLY EXTINCT TIGERS were found breeding in a Thai jungle.

A STONED DOG was seen leaning up against a door in the vet's after allegedly ingesting cannabis.

DOLPHINS beat up octopuses before eating them.

MONSTROUS SPIDERS AND CENTIPEDES prey on large animals.

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE returned in force, bringing "Halfway Home" To Colbert.

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

STRAND OF OAKS: Tim Showalter played a solo mini-set at The Current.

MASTADON streams Empire of Sand. Not generally my genre, but they do it well.

THE LEES OF MEMORY share a slice of classic psychedelia titled "When The Roses Bloom."

NOEL HARRISON explores "The Windmills Of Your Mind."

FATHER JOHN MISTY is profiled by Paste.

DAVID R. DYE, stepping down as host of World Cafe, lists his 25 favorite albums over the past 25 years.

SUFJAN STEVENS and his fascination with outer space.

THE 20 GREATEST MOTOWN SONGS, according to NME. Hard to believe I missed this.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: The Boss Baby tops the chart with 49MM and 108MM total worldwide, probably just good enough for a movie that cost 125MM before marketing but wasn't very well-reviewed. A good enough haul to have Beauty and the Beast place despite another 47.5MM domestic and a worldwide total of 876.3MM. The debut of Ghost in the Shell showed with 19MM, which has to be disapointing for ahaevily marketed film topped by one of Hollywood's biggest action stars.  Power Rangers drops into fourth with 14.5MM on an expected heavy skid of 64 percent.  Kong: Skull Island rounds out the Top Five with another 8.8MM on another leggy 40 percent drop, which gives hope of profiting on the big screen given its strong overseas numbers.

THE MUMMY: Universal's latest reboot has a second trailer online.

DUNKIRK has five new TV spots running.

ALEC BALDWIN opened up about his past battle with alcoholism and drug addiction in an interview on Good Morning America.

BRANGELEXT: People are saying Brad Pitt seems happier and thinner.

AMBER HEARD claims she's a victim of sexploitation via body double.

DAVID SPADE & NAYA RIVERA are dating, apparently.

GAVIN ROSSDALE has taken up with a 27-year-old model, as rock musicians do.

A-ROD gushes over J-LO.

PAMELA ANDERSON downplays rumors she's seeing Wikileaks' Julian Assange.

SINBAD won April Fool's Day.

VENEZUELA: On the instructions of President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s top court on Saturday walked back its attempt to incapacitate the country’s opposition-controlled parliament, following widespread condemnation across the Americas.

SAUDI ARABIA is still believed to be seeking nuclear weapons technology in a bid to counter the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program, which continues to operate in an advanced manner despite the landmark nuclear agreement, according to a new report by a proliferation monitoring organization.

RUSSIA: Police in Moscow detained 29 anti-corruption protesters who took to the streets on Sunday in a follow-up of last week's large-scale demonstrations in the Russian capital, according to a Reuters witness.

CATS RING BELLS for treats: Sorta like lab rats, but cuter and classier.

PABLO ESCOBAR's ESCAPED HIPPOS: Can the dangerous animals be stopped from taking over more territory?

A BLACK BEAR appears to carry his laptop out of the woods, where I would expect the wi-fi is spotty.

MANATEES will be downgraded from "endangered" to "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.