MARIN COURTNEY (Real Estate) drops "Northern Highway" ahead of Many Moons. 

THE MEKONS stopped by World Cafe for a chat and mini-set. 

CRAIG FINN played a mini-set at KUTX. 

CAYUCAS also played a mini-set at KUTX. 

JAMES McMURTRY? Also on KUTX. 

BATTLES drops "FF Bada" ahead of La Di Da Di. 

GARY PUCKETT & THE UNION GAP with the in-retrospect-remarkably-creepy "Young Girl."

WILCO's Jeff Twedy and Nels Cline took part in a Reddit AMA. 

YO LA TENGO: The Aquarium Drunkard interview. 

WHY DOES MUSIC GIVE US THE CHILLS? The Guardian investigates. 

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS is headed to Broadway with help from David Bowie, Tyler and Perry, Cyndi Lauper, TMBG and more. 

TOM BRADY & GISELLE BUNDCHEN reportedly have marital woes. 

AVRIL LEVIGNE & CHAD KROEGER are separating after two years of marriage. 

DANIEL CRAIG talks James Bond at Esquire UK. 

TAYLOR SWIFT is under fire because her new video glamorizes colonialism. 

ROSIE O'DONNELL & TATUM O'NEAL are not dating.

JANICE DICKINSON collapsed in the Big Brother house on live TV. 

BRYAN CRANSTON's transformation into LBJ is pretty remarkable. 

CATE BLANCHETT will star in a Lucille Ball biopic written by Aaron Sorkin.

DEAN JONES, whose boyish good looks and all-American manner made him Disney’s favourite young actor for such lighthearted films as That Darn Cat! and The Love Bug, died from complications resulting from Parkinson’s disease in Los Angeles on Tuesday. He was 84. Thought he was great in Other People’s Money.

SYRIA: Twelve migrants thought to be Syrian refugees were feared to have drowned off the coast of the Greek island of Kos on Wednesday after the boats carrying them sank. A number of bodies washed ashore on a beach in the Turkish resort town of Bodrum, probably connected to the disaster. Meanwhile, CIA and U.S. Special Operations forces have launched a secret campaign to hunt terrorism suspects in Syria as part of a targeted killing program that is run separately from the broader U.S. military offensive against the Islamic State, U.S. officials said.

SAUDI ARABIA is in advanced discussions with the U.S. government about buying two frigates based on a coastal warship that Lockheed Martin Corp is building for the U.S. Navy, and could reach agreement by the end of the year, according to sources familiar with the talks. My favorite part of the story is when the reporter notes this is happening "despite" the Iranian nuclear deal.

SHAKES THE CAT has a neurological disorder. But she doesn't let it stop her.

MOSCOW's LONELY ORANGUTAN will break your heart. 

STARFISH face a robot attack (designed to save the Great Barrier Reef). 

SEA SNAKE vs POISON FISH: Who you got? 

MERCURY REV asks: "Are You Ready?"

THUNDERB^TCH, led by Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard, advance streams a self-titled debut LP.

THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set.

UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA stops by Morning Becomes Eclectic for a session.

JOAN SHELLEY advance streams Over and Even.

EARTH WIND & FIRE: The fish, the barrel, the smoking gun.

BRITT DANIEL, WILL BUTLER, MAC McCAUGHAN, MATTHEW CAWS, MARSHAL CRENSHAWand JODY STEPHENS talked songwriting and played a bit at SXSW.

BIKINI KILL: Kathleen Hanna talks Riot Grrrl with the New York Times magazine and drops the heretofore unreleased "Ocean Song."

MATT POND PA: The State of Doubt.

KERMIT THE FROG has already moved on from Miss Piggy?

JENNIGER GARNER & BEN AFFLECK are living down the street from each other.

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH and wife Sophie Hunter named their son something fairly normal.

ANDREW GARFIELD: Playing Spider-Man was a no-win scenario.

IAN McKELLEN: Not really a Taylor Swift fan.

BOURNE AGAIN: Vincent Cassel is set to play the villain in the next installment of the Jason Bourne franchise starring Matt Damon. Alicia Vikander and Tommy Lee Jones are also on board for the project, and Julia Stiles is set to return as well.

STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII is already looking at a few good women.

IRANIAN nuclear chief Ali Akhbar Salehi announced Monday that the Islamic Republic is putting together a 15-year plan to enhance its nuclear capabilities following the signing of a landmark agreement with world powers last month.

A BABY GORILLA & A TODDLER play hide and seek.

ELITE SQUADS OF MONKEYS & FALCONS have been enlisted for China's WWII commemoration parade.

CHIMPS strike out in their nonhuman rights case. The revolution is coming.

FRANKENMOTHS may be deployed to protect cabbage patches in upstate New York.

DESTROYER dropped a video for "Times Square."

BLANK REALM advance streams Illegals In Heaven.

WOOLEN MEN advance stream Temporary Monument.

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

ESKIMEAUX played a Tiny Desk Concert.

JANIS JOPLIN with BIG BROTHER & THE HOLDING COMPANY play "Summertime" and "I Need a Man to Love" -- in one of their last performances together -- for Twofer Tuesday.

CRAIG FINN talks to SPIN about his favorite songs from Lifter Puller, the Hold Steady, and his solo career.

LLOYD COLE talks to The Guardian about swapping his guitar for a synthesiser, living in the US and being an indie darling.

JOHN GRANT tells The Observer how he found redemption in Reykjavik.

BIG PINK, the house Dylan & the Band made famous, is available for rent. It's kind of peach now.

KANYE WEST announced a 2020 Presidential bid at the MTV VMAs; the White House welcomed it. Guessing the 2016 field is less excited.

NICKY MINAJ confronted MILEY CYRUS during the MTV VMAs, and it reportedly was no act.

BILL MURRAY talks about why he changed his mind to cameo in Ghostbusters 3.

EMMY ROSSUM (Shameless) and writer/director Sam Esmail became engaged over the weekend.

HALLE BERRY & OLIVIER MARTINEZ pack on the PDA among rumors of relationship dischord.

THE ISLAMIC STATE destroyed one of the most culturally significant pieces of architecture in the world.

IRAN: President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday he opposes a parliamentary vote on the landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers because terms of the agreement would turn into legal obligations if passed by lawmakers. Just in case you thoght Iran considered the deal to be binding on them.

A BIG BLUE WHALE interrupts a TV show about them.

THE BIRDS: 100 seagulls and pigeons attacked a car in Plymouth, High Anxiety-style.

DUNG BEETLES have an advanced internal GPS system that guides them at night.

A BUTTERFLY drinks a turtle's tears.

THE EAGLES OF DEATH METAL show "Complexity."

FOALS advance streams What Went Down via Spotify.

THE ISLAND OF MISFIT TOYS streams their sophomore album, I Made You Something.

YO LA TENGO played a mini-set on CBS This Morning.

CHARLIE PARR played the Minnesota State Fair.

CHRISSIE HYNDE has been criticized for saying it can be a woman’s fault if she is raped. She's wrong on the moral and legal point regarding women dressing sexily,  OTOH, not accepting a party invite from a biker wearing ‘I Heart Rape’ and ‘On Your Knees’ badges seems like prudent practical advice.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Essential live recordings.

DESTROYER frontman Dan Bejar talks to The Guardian about rejecting the mainstream, dealing with late acclaim and the ravaged beauty of Billie Holiday.

SHANE McGOWAN of The Pogues was hospitalized after reportedly breaking his pelvis whilst dancing.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Straight Outta Compton threepeats atop the chart with 13.2MM during the August doldrums, but was almost toppled by the faith-based War Room, which placed with 11MM against a 3MM budget. Faith-based films did pretty well last year, but not so much this year untill now. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation showed with 8.3MM; it looks to finish at roughly 500MM; well below Ghost Protocol, but sufficiently profitable to continue the franchise.  No Escape debuted in the fourth slot with 8.3MM, and will have to rely on the home video market for profit.  Sinister 2 rounded out the Top 5 with 4.MM on the 56 percent dropone expects from a cheapie horror flick; it may make a slight profit, but a third installment would be a candidate for straight-to-video.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE & AMY SCHUMER danced atop Billy Joel's piano at Wrigley Field.

LINDSAY LOHAN went on a nude wedding rampage, claiming she was drugged.

OWEN WILSON talks to the Daily Beast about his new geopolitical thriller No Escape, reprising his role as male model Hansel in Zoolander 2, and his thoughts on The Donald.

THE MTV VMAs went to these people.

JUSTIN BIEBER was busted for speeding and unsafe passing on the right.

SPIKE LEE, GENA ROWLANDS & DEBBIE REYNOLDS will be honored at the Oscars' Governor's Awards this year.

IT FOLLOWS director Robert Mitchell responded to Quentin Tarantino's recent criticism of his film.

WES CRAVEN, the director of horror classics including Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, passed away Sunday at 76 after a battle with brain cancer.

OLIVER SACKS. the neurologist and acclaimed author who explored some of the brain’s strangest pathways in best-selling case histories like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, using his patients’ disorders as starting points for eloquent meditations on consciousness and the human condition, died on Sunday at his home in Manhattan. He was 82. Dr. Sacks first won widespread attention in 1973 for his book Awakenings, about a group of patients with an atypical form of encephalitis at Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx.

EGYPT: Italian energy giant Eni on Sunday announced the discovery of the "largest ever" offshore natural gas field in the Mediterranean, in Egypt's territorial waters.

CAT HOSPITAL: Reality TV is already pretty close to this.

SEA TURTLES are reclaiming the Georgia coast.

SNUGGLING A PET LION? I'll take a pass, but okay.

THIS ADORBS RED PANDA needs a name.

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

... with GRAM PARSONS! As a member of both The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, and as a solo artist, Parsons anticipated the so-called country rock of the 1970s and the alt-country movement that began around 1990. There is not a lot of GP video floating around, but "Christine's Tune" is a good place to start, though the video for "Older Guys" is great because someone made them go out to christen Judge Smails' sloop. The Hell's Angels make an unfortunate cameo in the clip of "Six Days o­n the Road" from the infamous Altamont festival in 1969. The posthumous video for "Sin City" is nice also. BONUS: Dwight Yoakum covers "Wheels" at a Parsons tribute concert. DOUBLE BONUS: Frequent duet partner Emmylou Harris covers "Return of the Grievous Angel" with alt-country icon Ryan Adams (and Buddy Miller o­n bass) at a different tribute.

THE ARCS: The Black Keys offshoot advance streams Yours, Dreamily.

LOU BARLOW advance streams Brace The Wave.

DIANE COFFEE: Shaun Fleming, former Disney voice talent and touring drummer for Foxygen, advance streams Everybody's A Good Dog.

JOAN SHELLEY advance streams Over and Even.

SUPERCHUNK drops a 2000 live cover of "Born to Run" (with Crooked Fingers and...Trail of Dead) to mark the song's 40th anniversary.

TAYLOR SWIFT hosted Beck and St. Vincent on a cover of Beck's "Dreams."  She also brought on Lisa Kudrow for "Smelly Cat." 

THE PIPETTES: "Your Kisses are Wasted On Me." Before it all went wrong. Sigh.

YO LA TENGO: Ira Kaplan lists 10 of his influences, musical and otherwise, for the New York Times magazine.

ELENI MANDELL talks to Magnet about the countrified sound of Dark Lights Up. 

LAMONT DOZIER: The legendary songwriter talks to The Guardian about the early days of Motown, Detroit in the 1960s, and how to write a hit song.

THE LEMONHEADS: Ten of the Best. 

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases are No Escape, which debuted Wednesday scoring 41 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; We Are Your Friends, which is scoring 43 percent; and War Room, which wasn't screened for critics. Estimates favor War Room to edge We Are Your Friends, despite being on many fewer screens.

BEN AFFLECK & JENNIFER GARNER lose their wedding rings. 

LUCY LIU welcomed a baby boy via surrogate on Thursday.

ROSIE O'DONNELL's daughter Chelsea — who went missing on August 11 only to return a week later — has left home again to live with her birth mother. 

JENNIFER LAWRENCE & AMY SCHUMER are writing a screenplay. 

BRADGELINA are house-hunting in London. 

DERRICK ROSE of the Chicago Bulls  is being sued by a woman who claims the NBA superstar and two of his friends drugged and gang raped her.

CHRISTOPHER GUEST is putting most of his players back together for Mascots. 

UKRAINE and pro-Russian separatists, in a gesture to shore up a tenuous ceasefire, agreed on Wednesday to strive for an end to all truce violations from next Tuesday, the OSCE and rebel representatives said. 

IRAN appears to have built an extension to part of its Parchin military site since May, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a report on Thursday, as part of its inquiry into possible military dimensions of Tehran's past nuclear activity. 

A DOG unhappy with her shoes. 

A RATTLESNAKE SELFIE is a bad idea. The More You Know. 

A HUMPBACK WHALE backflips for tourists. 

AN ELEPHANT in northern Thailand went berserk Wednesday, killing his "mahout" keeper before running off into the jungle with three terrified Chinese tourists still on his back, police said.