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.

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE...

... with THE MINUTEMEN! San Pedro, California's greatest musical export took apart rock, jazz and funk and put the pieces back together in a jagged collage. They are caught here in an acoustic session for a cable-access show from Hollywood, circa 1985. Your setlist includes "The Meter Man," "Corona," "Themselves," "The Red And The Black" (Blue Öyster Cult), "Badges, "I Felt Like Gringo," "Time" (Richard Hell), "Green River" (Creedence Clearwater Revival), "Lost" (Meat Puppets), "Ack Ack Ack," "Ain't Talkin' Bout Love" "History Lesson Part II," "Tour Spiel" and "Little Man With A Gun In His Hand."

SAM FERMIN advance streams Belong.

DIET CIG advance streams Swear I'm Good At This.

ANNIE HARDY advance streams Rules.

THE WILD REEDS advance streams The World We Built.

TIMBER TIMBRE advance streams Sincerely, Future Pollution.

AL GREEN sings "Let's Stay Together" with Toni Childs, Carlos Santana, Tito Puente, David Sanborn, Melissa Etheridge and more.

FATHER JOHN MISTY: "I'm basically a meme at this point."

MIRACLE LEGION talks to Aquarium Drunkard about the reunion, their issues of tackling music you haven’t played in a long time, Mulcahy’s upcoming solo album, and the virtues of wanting to sound like the Gun Club.

AMBER COFFMAN explains her departure from Dirty Projectors.

JARVIS COCKER shares the soundtrack of his life with Pitchfork.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases include Boss Baby, which is currently scoring 39 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; and Ghost in the Shell, which is scoring 52 percent.

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES has a trailer online.

GAME OF THRONES: Season 7 has a trailer online.

BATGIRL is getting her own standalone movie, with filmmaker Joss Whedon nearing a deal to write, direct, and produce.

VAL KILMER jokes about his, um, enthusiastic tweets regarding Cate Blanchett.

PRINCE HARRY & MEGHAN MARKLE have found a way to make long-distance dating in the public eye work.

CHARO threatens to dance off DWTS.

A LARGE KING COBRA caught in an Indian drought drinks from a water bottle.

A DOG ON DEATH ROW was pardoned in Maine.

THE CODFATHER: New England's seafood industry is in deep trouble-thanks in no small part to one mogul's seriously shady business.

TYRANNOSAURUS REX was a sensitive lover, a new dinosaur discovery suggests.

MAVIS STAPLES covers The Band's “The Weight” with guests including Arcade Fire’s Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and his son Spencer, Eric Church, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Gregg Allmann, and a host of others.

THE FLAMING LIPS visited World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

ANDREW BIRD played the Mountain Stage.

TENNIS performed in the WNYC Soundcheck studio.

ART SCHOOL JOCKS share "Just A Gwen."

VIC CHESTNUTT's cover of R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" surfaces at Aquarium Drunkard.

JIMMY WEBB, one of America's master songwriters, plays "Elvis and Me" on Steve Dahl's 1991 NYE PPV event.

BOB DYLAN will be accepting his Nobel Prize in literature this weekend, but it's unclear whether he'll collect the 900K that usually comes with it.

BOB SEGER: From classic rock icon to endangered species.

THE 50 BEST BRITPOP ALBUMS, according to Pitchfork.

PET SHOP BOYS: Ten of Their Best.

BRANGELEXIT: Brad Pitt secretly joined Angelina Jolie and their kids in Cambodia, where she was filming a documentary.

SHERRY LANSING has war stories from Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

OSCAR ISSAC and his girlfriend Elvira Lind are expecting a baby together.

JOHNNY DEPP responds to claims of profligacy.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE & DARREN ARONOFSKY: Why they're getting serious.

MICELLE PFEIFFER, Interviewed by...Darren Aronofsky.

EMMA THOMPSON almost left Brideshead Revisited over fat-shaming of another actress.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: SALAZARS' REVENGE got some good first reax at CinemaCon.

IT: The Stephen King remake gets a trailer.

VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS, the latest from Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) has a trailer online.

FROZEN: The Original Ending.

AN ALASKAN MALAMUTE watches over a baby.

THIS TRAPPER controls DC's feral cat population.

A 30-LB TURKEY crashed through the windshield of a rental car in Indiana. With God as my witness....

A GARGANTUAN ALLIGATOR interrupted a golf tournament in South Carolina Monday.