THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with a head start on ST. PATRICK'S DAY!  Around here, that means bringing on The Pogues with a vintage live set from 1985 and this later set from Japan, which includes a Celtic cover of Steve Earle's "Johnny Come Lately" and their own "Yeah Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" -- not particularly Celtic, but fabulous.  Kristy MacColl joins the band on her dad's "Dirty Old Town."  Joe Strummer joins the band for a Celtic spin on "London Calling" and "I Fought The Law" on St. Patrick's Day, 1988.  Round it out with their appearnce for "Sally Maclennane" from the OGWT.  Follow it up with the Dropkick Murphys' videos for "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" and "The Wild Rover."  BONUS:  Pogues pics and review from their recent Chicago stand.

SxSW:  Last night's sets from Yo La Tengo and My Morning Jacket should be streaming on demand from NPR today.  Sets from Jens Lekman (Sweden's answer to Burt Bacharach or Harry Nilsson), bluesy folkster A.A Bondy, the achingly pastoral Bon Iver, and the worldbeat influenced Vampire Weekend are already available on demand.

THE HEAVY did an interview and mini-set for WNYC in location Austin.  They tend to be described as like Marvin Gaye fronting the Stooges, or Curtis Mayfield fronting Led Zeppelin.  Recommended, despite less than ideal mic placement (there's also a click-thru to HeavySpace).

R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe is interviewed by indiepixie down in Austin. (Thx, LHB.)

TIFT MERRITT talks to the Austin American-Statesman about her plans for SxSW, Emmylou Harris and her iTunes podcast.

THE BEATLES sound pretty tight belting out "You Can't Do That" in Austrailia on their 1964 world tour.

BROOKLYN:  The New York Times surveys the ever-burgeoning indie scene in the borough.

LIGHTSPEED CHAMPION perform a mini-set on video as an acoustic duo in a park in Austin.

BOB MOULD talks to Express Milwaukee about his new album and revisiting songs he hadn't played live for years: "‘Celebrated Summer' will always work for me," he notes. "It's something of a timeless story."

THE CUTOUT BIN:  From the Josie & the Pussycats to Sonic Youth, from Boston to Teenage Fanclub, from Leonard Cohen to The Feelies to John Mellencamp covering The Hombres and The Stooges covering Madonna (with profanity), this Friday's fortuitous finds can be jukeboxed or streamed individually on the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW SHOWING:  This weekend's wide releases are the CGI version of Horton Hears A Who, which is currently scoring 77 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; the martial arts flick Never Back Down, currently scoring 28 percent, and the bioterror pic Doomsday, which was not screened for critics.

BRITNEY SPEARS has had at least one tattoo removed.  The uber-reliable Daily Star claims that the pop wreck was offered four million bucks to perform "Slave 4 U"  to a group of rich sheikhs in Dubai -- which I don't believe, but find too funny not to share.

NICOLE KIDMAN is so "over-Botoxed" that her "batface" is giving the cosmetic medicine industry a bad name, Dr Martin Braun told a conference of medical experts in Queensland, Australia.

BRADGELINA have made an offer on an 850-year-old stone house in Eygalieres, in the France's Provence region.

REVEALED: Bizarre diet secrets of the stars!

KATE BOSWORTH will drink you under the table, according to her 21 co-star Josh Gad.

KIM KARDASHIAN gets whacked by Barbara Walters on The View: "So, why are you famous?"

STEVE-O!  The "Jackass" star has been hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and has also been charged by the L.A. County District Attorney with felony possession of cocaine.  Star magazine claims he is on suicide watch.

JENNA FISHER answers 20 quesions for Playboy magazine, but you can read five or six answers at a SFW link.

PETRA NEMCOVA:  The tsunami-surviving supermodel is talking down rumors of a romance with Sean Penn in an article about her latest lingerie shoot.  And there are pictures at the link, because it is Gratuitous Friday.

THE 12 GREATEST OPENING CREDITS in Movie History, according to Nerve.com's Screengrab blog.  With embedded video.

NORTH KOREA:  The United States and North Korea made progress Thursday in overcoming obstacles that have stalled a major nuclear disarmament deal but remained short of a breakthrough, the chief US negotiator said.

IRAN:  Zahra Eshraghi, a granddaughter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, argues that religious hard-liners have hijacked the revolution, which she says was meant to bring freedom to Iran.  Despite her gloom, Eshraghi predicts the hard-liners will fail in the long term. "In this era of communications and flow of information, the young generation won't accept that few hard-liners decide their fate," she said.

IRAQ:  Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus said.  A close aide to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's ordered his Mahdi Army militiamen to observe a ceasefire after they clashed with Iraqi and US soldiers in the southern city of Kut.  US officers say talk of a decisive battle in Mosul is misguided, adding it will be a protracted struggle in which US soldiers juggle an array of complicated tasks related to counterterrorism, economics, and politics.  Arab lawmakers urged Middle East states to resume diplomatic links with Iraq, after the largest gathering of Arab officials in the country since before the first Gulf War in 1991.

AND NOW a word from a sponsor.

SUPER-SHEEP:  German police are trying to trace the owner of a sheep which outran police patrol cars and beat up a police dog.

A MACEDONIAN BEAR was of convicted of theft and damage for stealing honey from a beekeeper, with a fine of 140000 denars.  The bear did not attend court to plead its case and there was no information on the whereabouts of the bear.

PET HOARDING:  About 800 small dogs, including Chihuahuas, terriers and Pomeranians, were seized from a triple-wide mobile home outside Tuscon, AZ, whose occupants were overwhelmed trying to care for the animals.  Awww...some pics at the link.

BUNNY-NAPPING:  Is there anything lower?

MOM pries her daughter from the jaws of a killer crocodile in south Sumatra, Indonesia.