THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with TRAFFIC!  Live in Santa Monica, circa 1972, flagged by my online pal Jay. Your setlist includes: Low Spark of High Heeled Boys; Light Up or Leave Me Alone; John Barley corn; Rainmaker; Glad; Freedom Rider; Forty Thousand Headmen; and Dear Mr. Fantasy.

COURTNEY BARNETT stopped by Morning Becomes Eclectic for a session.

THE JULIANA HATFIELD THREE stopped by KEXP for a mini-set including ‘My Sister’, ‘Spin The Bottle’ and more.

THE TWILIGHT SAD played the Triple Door of Seattle live for KEXP VIP donors.

VIET CONG plays live in the KEXP Studio.

DEATH GRIPS is streaming The Powers That B, Disc 2: Jenny Death. Not my bag, but Pate bassist Mike Kelly may dig it.

JAMES MURPHY covers Bowie's "Golden Years" for the soundtrack to Noah Baumbauch's upcoming comedy, While We're Young.

LAURA MARLING talks to The Quietus about Whitman, Jodorowsky, adventures in the desert and her new album, Short Movie. (Thx. Frank Yang.)

MADONNA talks to Pitchfork: “If you ask me a question I think is stupid then you have to take a shot of this tequila."

RAY CHARLES talked to NME as he arrived for his first UK tour back in '63.

THE SPECIALS: Ten of the Best.

NOW SHOWING:This weekend's wide releases include The Divergent Series: Insurgent, which is currently scoring 36 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; The Gunman, which is coring 17 percent; and Do You Believe?, which was not screened for critics.

BRADLEY COOPER & SUKI WATERHOUSE have called it quits after roughly two years.

EVA MENDEZ talks to Extra about her new daughter Esmeralda, her appreciation for motherhood, and the secret to keeping Ryan Gosling happy.

TRUE DETECIVE has cast adult film actresses for a colossal orgy scene.

OSCAR ISSAC is profiled by Details.

LIZA MINELLI checks into rehab.

THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON TV Spots just keep getting better.

TUNISIA said it would deploy the army to major cities and arrested nine people on Thursday after 20 foreign tourists were shot dead in an attack on a museum which Islamic State militants called "the first drop of the rain".

SYRIAN President Bashar al-Assad is brazenly challenging the latest U.S.-led effort to stop him from using chemical weapons, and the Obama administration has yet to say if it will do anything about it.

IRAN: French leaders think the U.S. president is dangerously naïve on Iran's ambitions, and that his notion of making Iran an "objective ally" in the war against ISIS, or even a partner, together with Putin's Russia, to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis, is both far-fetched and "amateurish."

AFGHANISTAN: A woman was beaten to death by a mob before her body was set on fire and dumped in a muddy river in the heart of Afghanistan's capital.

CATS: Don't cross 'em.

VAMPIRE CRABS: Two new species discovered.

IGUANAS were duct taped to a bike and offered for sale in Florida.

SHARK ATTACK: The hunt is on in Hawaii for a 10- to 12-foot tiger shark that attacked a vacationing Kansas man while snorkeling with family this week.

SPOON played "Rainy Taxi" and "“I Just Don’t Understand” on Kimmel, icymi.

FATHER JOHN MISTY plays and chats on World Cafe Live.

TWIN SHADOW stopped by Morning Becomes Eclectic for a session.

STEVE EARLE stopped by New York's legendary Electric Lady Studios for a chat and a set on WFUV including "Hey Joe."

JACKSON BROWNE stopped by World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

LEONARD COHEN drops "Never Gave Nobody Trouble" ahead of Can't Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour, a live album featuring rarities.

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

COURTNEY BARNETT gets a lengthy profile at Pitchfork.

THE BEST ALT-COUNTRY of 2015 (So Far), according to The Guardian.

WARPAINT has a raft of new material, but no album coming.

MADONNA, ranked by Stereogum.

GWYNETH PALTROW wants you to know she's  "incredibly close to the common woman."

KATIE HOLMES: Not speaking to Tom Cruise. Not dating Jamie Foxx.

JUDE LAW and his ex Catherine Harding have welcomed a baby girl.

KIM KARASHIAN may be having too much sex.

DOLCE & GABBANA told CNN they respect how all people live after the uproar over their comments about children born through in vitro fertilization.

ASHLEY JUDD wants to press charges against internet trolls.

LIBYA: Brigade 166, a coalition of "both moderate and extremist Islamists" from Misurata, has launched a campaign to drive the Islamic State from Sirte. rmy chief Khalifa Haftar pledged to retake Benghazi from Islamist forces within a month.

SYRIA's military took control of a village north of partly insurgent-held Aleppo on Wednesday, state media and a monitoring group said, giving it increased control of an area which armed groups have used as a supply route into the city.

IRAN: With less than a week to the deadline for an Iran nuclear deal, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry worked with top Iranian and European officials Wednesday to try to close gaps blocking agreement.

IRAQ: Iranian-backed militias rampaged through central Iraq in reprisal against the native Sunni population.

A COW takes her first steps with prostheic legs.

MAN'S BEST FRIEND:  It's Science.

THE FOX who thinks he's a hound.

MANATEES hit Florida in record numbers for Spring Break.

KEVIN DREW backed ANDY KIM on "Sister OK" at the Ed Sullivan Theater.

VETIVER is advance streaming Complete Strangers.

COURTNEY BARNETT advance streams Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit via iTunes radio.

THE PUNCH BROS played a Tiny Desk Concert.

THE NATIONAL played with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at the MusicNOW Festival.

DJANGO DJANGO drops “Reflections" ahead of Born Under Saturn.

THOSE DARLINS cover The Vibrators' "Sweet Sweet Heart."

ELVIS PERKINS gets a hand from Alec Ounsworth on a cover of Ounsworth's "Mexican Ritual."

THE MOODY BLUES hit the charts with "Go Now" before going psychedelic.

KIM GORDON talks to NME about her memoir, Lana Del Rey, and "extreme noise cleansing."

SETH AVETT & JESSICA LEA MAYFIELD  talk about Ellito Smith at the NY Observer. (Thx, LHB.)

VIET CONG addresses the controversy over the band's name.

GEORGE MARTIN, as profiled by The Guardian on March 13, 1969.

VIN DIESEL welcomed a third child.  Will he name it Groot?

BRUCE JENNER got a nose job in advance of his sex change.

JIMMY KIMMEL has had two penis surgeries.

ELTON JOHN was snapped with a Dolce and Gabbana bag, two days after declaring a boycott of the designers.  Maybe he just had the bag left over.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is headed to the small screen.

YEMEN: The Pentagon is unable to account for more than 500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen, amid fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda.

THE ISLAMIC STATE: A former U.S. Air Force veteran has been arrested by the FBI for allegedly trying to join ISIS, the brutal terrorist group wreaking havoc in Syria and Iraq, after watching their online propaganda videos.

IRAN has deployed advanced rockets and missiles to Iraq to help fight the Islamic State in Tikrit, a significant escalation of firepower and another sign of Iran's growing influence in Iraq.

A GOOSE goes too far imitating Steve Martin.

THOUSANDS OF SNOW GEESE migrating from Mexico to their Alaskan nesting grounds were found dead in Idaho: “Basically, they just fell out of the sky."

A RACCOON was rescued after getting its head stuck in a tree.

A DOG, Autotuned.

COURTNEY BARNETT plays "Depreston" on The Ellen Degeneres Show.

THE CRIBS advance stream For All My Sisters.

MODEST MOUSE is streaming five tracks from Strangers to Ourselves via Spotify.

MARINA & THE DIAMONDS stream Froot via Spotify.

THE NEW STRYCHNINES turned out to be most of Mudhoney, YFF Scott McCaughey, and more.

THE FEELIES: The Jonathan Demme-directed "Away" and a live take on "Deep Fascination" for Twofer Tuesday.

LEONARD COHEN defeated NICKELBACK at the Juno Awards, thereby avoiding world war on the Great White North.

GANG OF FOUR's Andy Gill has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the name of the group Viet Cong.

GLEN HANSARD talks about the late Jason Molina on Weekend Edition.

FROM THE JAMES GANG to THE ALL SAVED FREAK BAND: Dangerous Minds profiles Glenn Schwartz.

THE JUSTIN BIEBER ROAST'S 10 Meanest Jokes. NSFW language.

SHAILENE WOODLEY talks to The Observer about learning new life-skills, working on a biopic of Edward Snowden - and cleaning her teeth with clay.

KATE HUDSON & CHRIS MARTIN: It's all happening?

JESSICA LANGE is leaving American Horror Story.

PATRICK SCHWARZEEGGER  might be taking a wrecking ball to his relationship with Miley Cyrus.

COMMUNITY put a Season 6 teaser online.

YEMEN's dominant rebel Houthi group has released Prime Minister Khaled Bahah and all his cabinet ministers, after nearly two months under house arrest.

SYRIA: Secretary of State John F. Kerry’s remarks suggesting a willingness to negotiate with Bashar al-Assad to end Syria’s civil war ignited a storm of speculation over whether the United States has softened its opposition to the Syrian president.

IRAN: Executions in Iran have soared under president Rouhani, according to an Oslo-based Iranian human rights group, with an average of two now being carried out every day.

IRAQ: The operation to retake the city of Tikrit has stalled as troops suffer heavy casualties at the hands of Islamic State militants, raising concerns over whether the pro-government fighters are ready for major offensives.

AFGHANISTAN: The Obama administration is abandoning plans to cut the number of US forces in Afghanistan to 5500 by year's end, bowing to military leaders who want to keep more troops, including many into the 2016 fighting season, US officials say.

CIA cash ended up with al Qaeda.

CAT on CAT violence. Break the cycle.

LAST MAN STANDING: Naoto Matsumura continues to feed animals left in the Fukushima exclusion zone.

A STOLEN GOAT was to be part of a prom pitch.

SHELTER DOGS are trained to locate orcas, as well as the rarest gorilla species known to man.

JEFF TWEEDY & MAVIS STAPLES cover John Gogerty's "Wrote A Song For Everyone" at Newport.

LAURA MARLING advance streams Short Movie.

THE GO! TEAM advance streams The Scene Between.

JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD advance streams Wasted on the Dream.

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB advance streams Lost And Found.

SXSW: The 405 has an A-Z guide, usefule even for those not attending. (Thx, LHB.)

THE CRAMPS debut, Songs The Lord Taught Us, revisited by The Quietus.

SONNY BONO: Godfather of Punk?

DAEVID ALLEN, a founding member of the pioneering progressive and psychedelic rock bands Gong and Soft Machine, has died following a battle with cancer.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Cinderella is the queen of the chart with 70MM, a bit above projections and in the neighbohood of Maleficent (a May release) and Oz the Great and Powerful, but made at considerably less cost than either.  Run All Night places with 11MM, far below the usual Liam Leeson protects his family pic; too soon after Tak3n, or is Neeson's set of skills atrophying. This one will need foreign receipts to have a hope of profit before the home market.  Kingsman: The Secret Service shows with 6.2MM, dropping 25 percent as it moves up a notch. Still looks like it could be a franchise.  Focus drops 42 percent to the fourth slot with 5.8MM; wobbly, but possibly still profitable before the home market.  Chappie, last week's champ, plunged 57 percent to round out the Top 5 in a virtual tie with Focus. Below the fold, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel perks along and is likely already in the black.

CHRIS EVANS & LILY COLLINS are an item. Apparently, there was something in the air Oscars night.

ELTON JOHN has called for a boycott of fashion label Dolce & Gabbana following and interview with Italy's Panorama magazine, in which the designers blasted “gay adoptions” and IVF.

PAMELA ANDERSON has been granted a restraining order against her ex, Rick Salomon.

HEATHER MILLS thinks her ex, Paul McCartney is working with Kanye West because he's no longer relevant. I'm guessing Apple Corps accounts would beg to differ.

EDDIE MURPHY may join the cast of the Richard Pryor biopic.

ROBERT CARRADINE, Revenge of the Nerds star Robert Carradine was injured in a frightening car accident last week in Colorado.

TONY STARK (a/k/a Robert Downey Jr) meets Alex, a 7-year old born with a partially developed arm, and helps break in his new robotic arm that just so happens to look a lot like a piece of Iron Man’s armor.

MICHAEL DOUGLAS, who has reconnected with Judaism, finds anti-Semitism in southern Europe.

EGYPTIAN President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi says he’s been fighting to keep the forces of anarchy at bay.

IRAQ: While Iraqi government and allied forces were on the defensive Friday in Ramadi, they remained on the offensive in Tirkit -- trying to win over not only the strategic city, but the hearts and minds of its nearby residents.

KURDISH authorities in Iraq said Saturday they have evidence that the terror group ISIS used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon against peshmerga fighters, the latest alleged atrocity carried out by the extremist organization now under attack in Tikrit.

PIRANHAS feed in Brazil.  SPECTRE doess not tolerate failure.

OLAF the one-pawed cat finds a home.

THEM! Researchers have changed the size of a handful of Florida ants by chemically modifying their DNA, rather than by changing its encoded information.

THE HELMETED HORNBILL is endangered by the illegal ivory trade.