JON PRATT: Pate's frontman speeds up his bluesy "A Matter of Dues" in this month's solo performance.

CHARLES BRADLEY performs "Ain't It A Sin", "In You (I Found a Love)", "Lovin' You Baby," "How Long", "The World (Is Going Up In Flames)", and "Love Bug Blues" at Stubb's during SXSW.

MARGO PRICE played "About to Find Out","Tennessee Song", "Hands of Time", "Paper Cowboy," "Hurtin (On the Bottle)", "Desperate & Depressed", "Four Years of Chances", and "This Town Gets Around" at SXSW.

HINDS perform a twofer on the SXSW Radio Day Stage.

DAVID BOWIE: A previously unreleased early demo track has surfaced.

THE TEMPTATIONS: "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)."

PRINCE will publish an unconventional memoir next year.

THOSE DARLINS talks to SPIN about splitting in two after a decade of music.

WYE OAK talks to Stereogum about their ever evolving sound.

VINYL SALES in the U.S. brought in more money than the recording industry made from advertising on the free tier of services like YouTube and Spotify last year, according to the RIAA.

MALIK TAYLOR, the wry and agile rapper known as Phife Dawg, who as a member of A Tribe Called Quest brought left-of-center hip-hop to the masses, died on Tuesday from complications of diabetes. He was 45.

KATY PERRY & ORLANDO BLOOM were caught canoodling in Malibu.

MARIA BELLO has split from her girlfriend and taken up with a decades-younger boyfriend.

DAVID LETTERMAN and his Santa Claus beard are enjoying retirement.

THE JUNGLE BOOK drops an "Intro to Shere Khan."

BRIDGET JONES's BABY dropped a trailer online.

BATMAN v SUPERMAN: The critics speak. I'll be seeing it tonight.

PEE-WEE HERMAN gave a talk at the 92Y.

KEN HOWARD,  the tall, barrel-chested actor known for starring in CBS' late '70s sports drama The White Shadow, NBC drama Crossing Jordan and, more recently, for his appearances on 30 Rock as well as for his presidency of SAG-AFTRA, died Wednesday. He was 71. (He was also charmingly rediculaous as a German legislator in The Thorn Birds.)

BELGIUM: Western intelligence officials believe there are "more than a handful" of Islamic State terrorists connected to the Brussels attacks who are still at large and plotting more attacks, a U.S. official told Yahoo News.

IRAQ: The U.S. military has established the first all-American fire base in Iraq since the start of the war against Islamic State, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.

A BABY GATOR takes its first breath.

A FREAKY WINGED FISH with glowing green eyes mystifies fishermen.

SHOOTING FROGS WITH LASERS: A cure for cancer?

THROWING A LARGE PYTHON is a sushi bar will get you arrested.

STEVE MASON (Beta Band) drops a pixilated viseo for "Alive."

CHARLES BRADLEY is advance streaming Changes.

TELEGRAM streams their debut, Operator.

PARKER MILSAP advance streams The Very Last Day.

TRASHCAN SINATRAS dropped two tracks from their forhcoming album.

HARRY NILSSON: "Everybody's Talking" on Swedish TV, circa 1969.

THE RAMONES: The New York Times recounts the making of their debut LP.

XTC: Andy Partridge talks to Salon about songwriting, painting and developing the "cruel parent gene" toward your own art.

THE JOY FORMIDABLE talks to TLOBF about their new LP, gender imbalance and the importance of independence.

PHIL COLLINS talks to The A.V. Club about his solo career, Live Aid, and The Ultimate Warrior.

MARGOT ROBBIE is developing and will star in a movie about Tonya Harding.

BATMAN v SUPERMAN: Frenemies, and a clash of visions.

THE KARDASHIANS face a 200MM lawsuit over their beauty line.

DAISY RIDLEY (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) may reboot the Tomb Raider franchise.

RICHARD BELZER is returning to Law & Order: SVU.

SARAH PALIN may become a TV courtroom judge?

BELGIAN counter-terrorism authorities are overwhelmed by the huge numbers of open investigations.  The New York Times provides ongoing coverage of the Brussels attacks.

BURMA: Aung San Suu Kyi has been nominated as a minister in Burma's government, after being barred from the presidency.

IRAQ: The U.S. military has around 5000 service members in Iraq, officials said on Monday, far more than previously reported, as the Obama administration quietly expands ground operations against the Islamic State.

A PONY, A TORTOISE and a PUPPY, eating together... mass hysteria!

A BLACK BEAR and a bear cub were spotted by residents in Fairfax County, VA.

TWO ZEBRAS got loose from a circus on Friday in Oakland and were seen running along a major East Oakland Road near the O.co Coliseum.

A 6-YEAR-OLD CAT with a taste for men's underwear is terrorising the streets of Hamilton.

...still won't die, though I plan to return tomorrow. In the meantime, note that OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN's missing ex-boyfriend has been spotted in Mexico after eleven years.

GLITTERBUST: Kim Gordon's latest drops "The Highline."

ERIC BACHMANN (Archers of Loaf, Crooked Fingers) advance streams a self-titled LP.

MARGO PRICE advance streams Midwest Farmer's Daughter.

THE THERMALS advance streams We Disappear.

BELAVE, ft fmr Magical Cloudz frontman Matthew E. Duffy, streams Indigo, Streams, Lash.

FRIGHTENED RABBIT dropped "Lump Street" before its Painting Of A Panic Attack.

THE EXCITERS: What's a bear doing in the video for "Tell Him"? I have no idea.

PAUL McCARTNEY has begun proceedings to reclaim his share of Beatles' publishing royalties in the US.

ROBYN HITCHCOCK talks to Eugene Mirman about America, comedy, Bowie, and just what it is about cover songs that make him such a master of the form.

KRISTIN WELCHEZ talks to Stereogum about her evolution from a Dum Dum Girl to the dence-oriented Kristin Kontrol.

THE GRATEFUL DEAD gets a 59-track tribute set, organized by The National and featuring a cst of dozens.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Zootopia threepeats atop the chart with 38MM, a leggy performance and one that lacks any animated competition for another month. It's the best 3rd weekend for an animated flick evah and is already closing in on 600MM worldwide.  The Divergent Series: Allegiant places with 29MM; the first two installments both opened over 50MM, so this is going to hurt.  Miracles From Heaven showed with 15MM (18MM since its Wed opening), which should be fine against a 13MM budget headed into Easter weekend.  10 Cloverfield Lane takes the fourth slot with 12.5MM; its 45MM domestic total probably puts this 15MM budgeted flick into profit before overseas grosses.  Deadpool rounds out the Top 5 with 8MM; only Batman v Superman will stop this one from beating The Passion of the Christ's 317MM R-rated record.

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE drops another trailer online, probably the best so far.

CARICE VAN HOUTEN & GUY PIERCE are expecting their first child together.

AMBER HEARD has been cast as Mera, the undersea queen and wife of Aquaman in The Justice League Part One.

MAZE RUNNER star Dylan O’Brien was hit by a car and suffered multiple injuries on the set of the franchise’s upcoming sequel The Death Cure.

JOE SANTOS, who played Lieutenant Dennis Becker on The Rockford Files, has died at 84.

LARRY DRAKE, best known for his Emmy-winning role as a developmentally disabled character on the television drama L.A. Law, was found dead on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 67.

CHINA: The United States has seen Chinese activity around a reef China seized from the Philippines nearly four years ago that could be a precursor to more land reclamation in the disputed South China Sea, the U.S. Navy chief said on Thursday.

CUBA cracked down on political dissenters as Pres Obama arrived on the island.

PARIS terror attack suspect Salah Abdeslam was captured alive Friday, a Belgian counter-terrorism source said. Belgium's state broadcaster reported that the 26-year-old Abdeslam was injured in a shootout that ended with his capture.

SYRIAN PEACE TALKS hit their first logjams, as disputes erupted over the composition of delegations to the talks and a Kurdish call to form a federal Syria with a semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north of the country.

IRAQ: The US announced on Sunday it will put more troops on the ground in Iraq after a Marine was killed in an ISIS rocket barrage and plans move forward to retake the major city of Mosul from the armed group.

A MONKEY watches a magic trick.

THIS MALE SPIDER mutilates its partner after sex so it can never mate again.

A LION  that escaped from Nairobi National Park wandered around the Kenyan capital on Friday and attacked a man, resulting in his hospitalization.

A DOG who fell off a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean and had been "presumed dead" more than a month ago has now been found alive by Navy officials on an island 80 miles off the coast of San Diego, California.

THE ST. PATRICK'S DAY WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with JOE STRUMMER and THE POGUES!  People will be getting their drink and dance on, so enjoy Joe, Shane and the band putting a Celtic spin on "London Calling" and "I Fought The Law" for St. Patrick's Day, 1988. Follow that up with the Dropkick Murphys' videos for "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" (which you may have heard in Martin Scorsese's The Departed) and "The Wild Rover."  Round it out with an Old Grey Whistle Test of my fave Pogues song, "Sally MacLennane," and a Shamrock Shake.

M WARD stopped by WFUV's Studio A for a chat and mini-set.

THE WILD FEATHERS stopped by WFUV's Studio A for a chat and mini-set.

SXSW: A Brooklyn Vegan playlist.

THE SUN DAYS drop “Get Him Off Your Mind” ahead of Album.

JOE COCKER is "Feelin' Alright," with a little help from his friend.

MARVIN GAYE's I Want You turns 40: Producer and co-writer Leon Ware talks about how one of the sexiest albums in music history came to be.

THE WRENS' Charlie Bissell has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, “a white blood cell cancer sorta thing.” According to Bissell, it’s treatable if not curable. Our best wishes to him.

MALCOLM McLAREN's son plans to burn his collection of punk memorabilia, estimated to be worth around £5m.

FRANK SINATRA JR., who followed in his famous father’s footsteps with his own music career, died Wednesday in Florida. He was 72.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases are The Divergent Series: Allegiant, which is currently scoring 18 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; and Miracles from Heaven, currently scoring 65 percent.

BEN-HUR has a trailer online. Oh dear.

DAISY RIDLEY very nicely truned down a dude's invite to his college formal.

HEATHERS looks to be headed to TV Land.

JARED FOGLE  got a surprise beatdown in federal prison from an inmate who has major issues with child molesters.

JAMIE DORNAN & AMELIA WARNER recently welcomed their second child.

SYLVIA ANDERSON,  the co-creator of Thunderbirds who was best known for voicing Lady Penelope in the classic TV show, has died aged 88.

TOP MOVIE STUNTS, compiled by the NYDN.

GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM: The US Army plans to stockpile equipment in Vietnam, Cambodia, and other Pacific countries yet unnamed that will allow US forces to deploy there more rapidly, because key supplies and gear will already be in place. The new caches will be well inside what China considers its sphere of influence.

THE ISLAMIC STATE has lost about 22 percent of its territory in Iraq and Syria in the past 15 months, according to a new study.

SYRIA: Russia's announced pull-out is more short-term political maneuvering by Putin, experts said, and it wouldn't take much to place Putin and the Russian military right back in the middle of the Syrian conflict.

LION ATTACK At The Circus.

DC BALD EAGLE CAM: Has the egg hatched yet? Take a look.

NYC RATS can be big, and because of some yucky research, we now know just how big.

RAMBO, a 125-lb gator, fights to stay in his Lakeland, Florida home.