THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with THE HOLLIES!  Circa 1969, post Graham Nash, promoting The Hollies Sing Dylan. Selections include "Carrie Anne" (w/strings instead of steel drums), "Just Like A Woman," a medley of "Just One Look," "Bus Stop," "On A Carousel" and "Sorry, Suzanne," "Quit Your Lowdown," "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," "Help Me Brother," "Stop Stop Stop," a cover of "A Taste of Honey," Peter, Paul & Mary's "Stewball," "The Mighty Quinn," and "Blowin' in the Wind."

NEW ORDER Stream the Power, Corruption & Lies tribute LP. (Thx, LHB.)

SALLIE FORD & THE SOUND OUTSIDE visit World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

TINARIWEN plays a Tiny Desk Concert at the offices of NPR.

DINOSAUR, JR.: Lou Barlow shares an EP from Deep Wound, his pre-Dino band with J Mascis.

ZEITGEIST 2011 is posted at the ol' HM.

LANA DEL REY: "National Anthem" and  "This Is What Makes Us Girls" have leaked online.

THE YOUNG FRESH FELLOWS THEME: T.G.I.F.

CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG talks to Pitchfork about conjuring the ego, the differences between performing for a camera and an audience, and what her late father would think if he could see one of her shows.

LAURIE ANDERSON is interviewed by The Believer, and vice versa.

THE 50 GREATEST GUITAR SOLOS, according to NME, plus selections from a range of musicians.

FOO FIGHTERS' Dave Grohl is collaborating with members of... Ratt?  (For those keeping score, that's this week's second Ratt reference.)

CUTOUT BIN: From Marshall Crenshaw to OMD, from Mason Williams to Devo, from Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings to Devo, plus The Jam, Jefferson Airplane, Guided by Voices, Merrilee Rush and more -- this Friday's fortuitous finds are streaming from the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide release is The Devil Inside, which -- shocka -- was not screened in advance for critics.

DREW BARRYMORE is engaged to Chanel heir Will Kopelman.

MARC ANTHONY moves on from Jennifer Lopez with a 24-year-old Venezuelan model.

KATY PERRY & RUSSELL BRAND: The moving vans show up at their L.A. home.  And here's unfounded, yet entertaining rumors about their split.

KERI RUSSELL gave birth to a daughter on Dec. 27.

ARNOLD & MARIA: Not reconciling.

THE KARDASHIANS: Available soon in stores?

ALBERT BROOKS talks to ComingSoon about Drive, Judd Apatow, his novel and more...

STAR TREK: Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, The Hobbit) has been cast in a lead role in the next JJ Abrams voyage.

WHY, DAVID FINCHER? He explains.

THE 25 GREATEST HORROR FILMS You've Never Seen, according to Den of Geek. (How did they know?)

IRAN is mounting an aggressive campaign to fuel anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan and convince Afghan leaders that a robust, long-term security partnership with Washington would be counterproductive, Afghan officials and analysts say.

IRAQ: Attacks against Shia pilgrims before the Arbaeen holiday have killed over 60 civilians, the deadliest being a suicide attack against a security checkpoint that killed 44 and wounded dozens more in Nasiriya. The government's support for an Iranian-backed, militant militia, which only just swore off violence, has opened new sectarian fault lines in Iraq's political crisis while potentially empowering Iran at a moment of rising military and economic tensions between Tehran and Washington.

AFGHANISTAN: Pres. Karzai said he welcomed the Taliban's announcement that they planned to openly pursue negotiations with the US by setting up an office in Qatar... but he's not wild about the idea.

PIG & PUG, playing together...Mass hysteria!

DON'T HASSLE THE HOFF: UK scientists have found prodigious numbers of a new crab species on the Southern Ocean floor that they have dubbed "The Hoff" because of its hairy chest.

A GIANT TUNA fetches almost 750K at auction.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT: A militant rodent gets it on with a T-Rex. Bang a gong.

GUIDED BY VOICES brings "The Unsinkable Fats Domino" to the Ed Sullivan Theater, where Greg Demos takes a spill.

THE FLAMING LIPS and the Plastic Ono Band EP.

TRAILER TRASH TRACYS are advance streaming Ester.

BUDDY HOLLY: The Apartment Demos.

FRANKIE ROSE drops a solo single, "Know Me."

D'ANGELO has a psych-soul version of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun."

FEIST tackles the Guns N' Roses epic, "November Rain." And a piñata.

ARCTIC MONKEYS talk about their initial whirlwind of success and musical evolution at the Sydney Morning Herald.

THIN LIZZY: A treasure trove of tapes stashed away by frontman Phil Lynott will be released as a boxed set later this year. Shortly before he passed away in 1986, Lynott gave 150 tapes to a third party for safekeeping. The cache of up to 700 songs has finally been released to record company Universal Music.

PINK FLOYD: Dave Gilmour has denied the band are reforming their classic line-up to play at this summer's Olympic Games in London.

THE TOP 10 POSTUMOUS ALBUMS, according to Exclaim.

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE & JESSICA BIEL have finally decided to get married.

SINEAD O'CONNOR has reconciled with her husband of 18 days.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL officially filed to divorce Ben Gibbard. Want a look at her finances?

THE KARDASHIANS want their own tabloid, perhaps to compete with reports that Kim is a homewrecker, according to Kanye West's ex-gf.

TAYLOR SWIFT & AMANDA SEYFRIED have been offered roles in the movie version of Les Miserables.

NICK CANNON is fighting to recover from a mild kidney failure, according to wife Mariah Carey.

ADELE rings in the year with a new boyfriend.

ROONEY MARA continues to sabotage her own career.

ISRAELI & PALESTINIAN negotiators met in Jordan for the first time in more than a year. The Palestinian president threatened to take "new measures" against Israel if the meeting failed to bring about a resumption of peace talks.

EGYPTIANS headed for the polls in the third and final round of parliamentary elections. The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood party is expected to extend its lead.  The US is making overtures to the MB.

SYRIA: Killings continue in spite the government's withdrawal of heavy weapons.

IRAN warned US aircraft carriers not to return to the Persian Gulf after the USS Stennis exited the gulf. France said it was convinced Iran was developing nuclear weapons and called for stricter economic sanctions.

CHEETAH PURRING: Let's go to the video.

SPIDER-WORM: US researchers have created silkworms that are genetically modified to spin much stronger silk.

FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: A tiny fly turns bees into suicidal zombies.

THE LOST WORLD, discovered under Antarctica.

IRON & WINE: "Godless Brother in Love" dropped in October, but is getting unexpected blog love now.

THE CIVIL WARS play a session at Laundro-Matinee, including a cover of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean."

YO LA TENGO: NYC Taper has not one, but two of the band's Hanukkah shows at Maxwell's. (Thx, Chromewaves.)

DUM DUM GIRLS play Morning Becomes Eclectic in this turn-of-year encore link.

PEARL JAM: The previously unreleased demo, "Chinese," thanks to Cameron Crowe.

CURSIVE drops "The Sun and Moon" in advance of I Am Gemini.

SAD BABY WOLF, a Shins side project, drops "8th Level."

R.E.M. covers ABBA's "Does Your Mother Know?", circa 1984.

THUNDERCLAP NEWMAN: Because there's "Something In The Air." And you know that it's right.

THE PITCHFORK READERS' POLL: Best Albums, along with the Underrated and Overrated (many of the latter are also Best Albums).

KATHLEEN EDWARDS talks to Salon about her upcoming Voyageur and her music evolution while staying at her parents' tranquil farmhouse about four hours from Toronto.

CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN: Ithsmus alerts me to a fabulous post by David Lowery about hitmaking and "Take the Skinheads Bowling" I missed in July.

MUSIC SALES were up by a whopping one percent in 2011, according to preliminary figures.

THE DRUMS frontman Jonathan Pierce chats to FasterLouder about inner-band tensions, getting away from that ‘surf band' tag, and dropping the song that helped them hit the big time. (Thx, LHB.)

BREAKOUT ARTISTS of 2012, according to PopMatters.

BRADGELINA: Jolie bought Pitt a waterfall; he plans to build a house over it with the Frank Lloyd Wright stuff. The pair visited  Lloyd Wright's 1939 masterpiece Fallingwater, which was built in Pennsylvania on a similar piece of land, in 2006 (when the above pic was taken).

LINDSAY LOHAN is ramping up security after asome random dude turned up on her doorstep.

DEMI MOORE & ADAM BRODY will play Gloria Steinem and Harry Reems in the Linda Lovelace biopic.

EWAN McGREGOR chatted with GQ about Haywire, fatherhood, fantasies, and the other three movies he's in this year.

DAVID TENNANT tied the knot with fiancée Georgia Moffett; they met on the set of Doctor Who.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK's opening sequence, recreated with old movie footage.

ROGER EBERT's theories about declining box office receipts.

MOROCCO has a new, Islamist-led government.

IRAN test fired "long-range" shore-to-sea and surface-to-surface missiles.

AFGHANISTAN: A delegation of the Hezb-i-Islami of Afghanistan (HIA) led by former jihadi leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, held "beneficial" talks with Afghan government officials, an HIA member said on Tuesday.

IRAQ:  Looking to step back from the brink, Iraq's fractious political blocs are working on short-term solutions to cool a crisis that threatened a slide back into sectarian strife, but fundamental differences may be left to smolder.

A DOG eats in her chair.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Thousands of dead herring on a beach in Norway.

HYBRID SHARKS discovered Down Under.

PIG RACING: A high-stakes world, some of it in bridal wear.

MATTHEW SWEET does a session at Laundro-Matinee and talks to Spinner about the 20th anniversary of "Girlfriend." Get off my lawn.

CULTS play World Cafe Live in Philadelphia for this turn-of-year encore link. 

MAYER HAWTHORNE plays a mini-set at World Cafe in this turn-of-year encore link.

THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART play a mini-set at The Current in this turn-of-year encore link.

GILLIAN WELCH & DAVE RAWLINGS play a mini-set at World Cafe in this turn-of-year encore link.

THE WHO: "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" (with some great Moon moments) and Pate fave "The Kids Are Alright" are your first Twofer 2012.

CEE-LO GREEN altered a lyric to "Imagine" on New Years Eve. Lennon fans were outrageously outraged.

THE PITCHFORK GUIDE to Winter 2012.

CLOUD CULT: Craig Minowa talks to Glide about touring, classical influences and environmentalism.

MORRISSEY turns up on Google Earth.

KATY PERRY & RUSSELL BRAND were infatuated with each other when they tied the knot, but the honeymoon ended very quickly.  Both Perry and Brand have been seen around since their split.

LeBRON JAMES got engaged at a New Year's Eve dinner and party at the Shelborne hotel in South Beach.

ARETHA FRANKLIN and William "Willie" Wilkerson are engaged.

RICKY MARTIN plans to marry his boyfriend this month.

ELTON JOHN would like Justin Timberlake to play him in his biopic. JT has played John previously.

LINDSAY LOHAN: Police were called to her Venice Beach pad -- by her for a change.

MARTIN SCORSESE is considering 3-D for his next two projects.

THE OSCAR BALLOT is confusing voters.

ROBERT ANDERSON, movie sword master from Errol Flynn through Darth Vader, has died at 89.

IRAN's currency value has fallen more than 10 percent in less than a week to record lows, after a US move to tighten financial sanctions against the Islamic theocracy.

PAKISTAN: By year's end, it became clear that 2011 was a year in which Pakistan transformed from being an key ally in the war on terror, to being the front line in the war on terror.

AFGHANISTAN: More than 380 insurgents, including 19 commanders, reconciled with the government in Badghis province.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES: A bonobo ape is cooking in Des Moines.

THE BIRDS: Snow geese numbers are increasing exponentially.

WAR HORSES: Winston Churchill intervened to secure the safe return of tens of thousands of them stranded in Europe after the First World War.

KILLER WHALE vs SHARKS: Who you got?

ZOOEY DESCHANEL & JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: Better late than never, I bring you the stars of (500) Days of Summer covering Nancy Wilson's "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?", posted by Zooey with her comments on the Tube.

RYAN ADAMS has an interview plus tracks with Weekend Edition, including a cover of Ratt's "Round And Round."

THE LITTLE WILLIES advance stream For The Good Times.

YUCK, live at Stubbs BBQ in this turn-of-year encore link.

GIRLS play a mini-set at The Current in this turn-of-year encore link.

DESTROYER covers New Order's "Leave Me Alone"... and plays KEXP for what may or may not be a turn-of-year encore link.

SEAN BONNIWELL, singer for the Music Machine on garage-rock nuggets like "Talk Talk," has died after battling lung cancer. He was 71.

OF MONTREAL: Kevin Barnes talks to DIY about the more challenging and personal Paralytic Stalks album. (Thx, Chromewaves.)

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS co-founders Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley talk to the Washingtonian about touring, their relationship, and future plans. (Thx, LHB.)

LOOKING AHEAD in 2012, from The Guardian, 130 BPM, and World Cafe.

TEENAGE FANCLUB: The Quietus celebrates the 20th anniversary of Bandwagonesque. Get off my lawn.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:  Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol repeats atop the chart with 31.3 million and 134 million total, matching MI3's entire domestic run. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows places with 22 million, a healthy showing, but running about 20 percent behind its predecessor.  Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked shows with 18.3 million on a 45 percent boost over last weekend; its 94.6 million total still lags the Squeakquel, which took in 165.4 million over the same number of days.  War Horse, which sagged during the after its Christmas opening, regained momentum on the weekend, surging 125 percent and making another 16.9 million.  The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo rounds out the Top 5 with 16.3 million on a 28 percent boost that confirms the silliness of trying to open this picture at Christmas.  Below the fold, We Bought a Zoo and The Adventures of Tintin showed some post-Christmas legs.

THE ARTIST: This black-and-white silent movie is not on many screens, but will likely be the focus of much Oscar buzz -- and deservedly so.  It may be a conceptual piece about the transition from silent movies to talkies (making nods to predecessors like A Star Is Born and Singin' In The Rain), but it's by turns funny, sad and charming -- and a delight to experience with a crowd in a theater.  A joint production involving French television and the Weinstein Company, Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo lead, with support from James Cromwell, John Goodman, Penelope Ann Miller, and a dog named Uggie (who is surely destined for megastardom).  Here's the trailer.

KATY PERRY wanted RUSSELL BRAND to file the court papers in their divorce because she didn't want to upset her religious parents. Brand is set to make up to £20million for 14 months of marriage, as the couple did not have a prenup.

RYAN GOSLING & EVA MENDES rang in the new year together.

MINKA KELLY & DEREK JETER secretly reconciling in Paris?

REBECCA GAYHEART & ERIC DANE have welcomed their second child, a girl.

WILL & JADA PINKETT SMITH: More trouble in paradise, according to the ever-reliable Enquirer.

MOVIE TICKET SALES in the US were estimated to come in at under 1.3 billion, which would be the smallest figure since 1995.  Revenue aso dropped, despite higher ticket prices, 3-D and IMAX.

IRAN: The commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps backed away from recent threats to close Strait of Hormuz. Iran postponed long-range missile tests and signaled it was ready to reopen talks on its nuclear program. The US imposed further sanctions on financial institutions that deal with Iran. Iranian scientists have produced the nation's first nuclear fuel rod, a feat of engineering the West has doubted Tehran capable of, the country's nuclear agency said Sunday.

IRAQIS are again segregating themselves along sectarian lines, prompted by a political crisis pulling at the explosive Sunni-Shiite divide just weeks after the American withdrawal left Iraq to chart its own future.

AFGHANISTAN: For the first time in years, US military deaths there declined in 2011.

A LION CUB works on his roar.

A TWO-YEAR-OLD narrowly cheated death after his mother discovered him being squeezed by a large scrub python in the family's back garden.

"INTELLIGENT" SLIME able to navigate its way out of a maze. Beware.

A GRASSHOPPER SHORTAGE has folks hopping in Uganda.