REGINA SPEKTOR shared a video for "Bleeding Heart."

MINOR VICTORIES played the Pitchfork Music Festival Paris. 

JAMES VINCENT McMORROW visited The Current for a chat and mini-set.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED celebrates songs they missed in 2016.

PRINCE: Hear the previously unreleased "Moonbeam Levels," recorded in 1982.

FATHER JAMES MISTY shares "Holy Hell."

THE WHO: "I'm A Boy."

R.E.M.: Rolling Stone runs a kind-of-making-of Out of Time for the 25th anniversary.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & DIANA ROSS received of the Presidential Medal Of Freedom.

THE POP GROUP: Mark Stewart talks to Aquarium Drunkard about putting the band back together.

INSPIRAL CARPETS drummer Craig Gill has died at the age of 44.

KANYE WEST is being treated for "exhaustion" at UCLA Medical Center after Los Angeles police responded to a disturbance call.

ADELE says she's having another baby. 

AMBER HEARD is the latest to face court action over London Fields, a film based on Martin Amis' celebrated novel, once set to make a splash at the Toronto International Film Festival only to be stuck in legal purgatory without a distributor.

GWYNETH PALTROW confesses that she was clueless about her raging sense of entitlement.

NICOLE KIDMAN remembers meeting Tom Cruise.

STAR WARS: Kathleen Kennedy talks to Variety about Rogue One and the Han Solo backstory.

HARD BOILED may be headed to the big screen with Tom Hiddleston.

A KITTEN works the hula hoop.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT: A suicide rodent attacked a Chicago alderman who has spoken out against the furry menace.

HERPES-INFECTED MONKEYS have been spotted in Florida.

A "DEAD" DEER fled the scene of a hit-and-run in Wisconsin.

THE AVETT BROTHERS share a video for "No Hard Feelings"

TEGAN & SARA played a Tiny Desk Concert.

HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER, Live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Nov. 15, 2016.

KATE BUSH premiered the entire second disc of Before The Dawn, featuring her performance of the second side of Hounds Of Love, on Tom Robinson’s BBC Radio 6 show.

THE AFGHAN WHIGS cover New Order's "Regret."

CLOUD NOTHINGS share "Internal World" ahead of Life Without Sound.

CATE LE BON  releases "Rock Pool," the title track of her upcoming EP.

R.E.M.: Michael Stipe and Mike Mills talked about the election and the anniversary of Out of Time on Facebook Live and Today NOW.

WILCO: Jeff Tweedy talks to the Independent about the future, his band, his audience, and interviews.

THE SMITHS: Johnny Marr disussed his memoirs at Salon.

A HISTORY OF BOOTLEGS, told through 25 significant examples.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE is the latest Vanity Fair cover story.

ROGUE ONE has a new TV spot online.

CARS 3 has a teaser trailer online.

KANYE WEST abruptly canceled his world tour Monday.

BLACK PANTHER picks up Angela Bassett as T'Challa's mother.

FRENCH anti-terrorism police have arrested seven people in Strasbourg and Marseille and thwarted what the interior minister called a new potential attack.

RUSSIA: President Vladimir Putin has warned that his country will move its missiles closer to Europe in response to NATO "expansion" plans.

A BABY MONKEY befriends a goat... mass hysteria!

A NEWFOUND SPIDER masquerades as a dangling, partly dried-up leaf.

COWS are being forced to eat seaweed to reduce greenhouse gases.

FANTASTIC BEASTS are born at the Taronga Zoo.

SHARON JONES, a powerhouse soul singer with a gritty voice, fast feet and indomitable energy, died Friday of pancreatic cancer. She was 60.  Here's what I wrote after I first saw her back in October 2005: "Though my weekend schedule was in flux, I was able to scurry down to the Double Door (where Barry Jive and the Uptown Five played at the end of High Fidelity) to see Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings at the last minute Saturday night. ... That band puts o­n o­ne helluva hot, sweaty, funky soul extravaganza. Indeed, the Dap-Kings did an entire power-packed set before they brought Sharon Jones out. the set included not o­nly highlights from Dap Dippin' With Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings and Naturally (an Amazon Best of 2005 (so far) pick and one of mine too), but also several new songs that were equally smokin'. It's like finding a big stack of Stax wax that somehow never got released in the late '60s or early '70's. You can see video at the Daptone records site, but it really doesn't do the band's James Brown Live at the Apollo energy level justice. Ms. Jones may be built more like Aretha, but moves like Tina Turner. Suffice it to say the Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" and Janet Jackson's "What Have You Done For Me Lately" have never sounded funkier."  This 2007 clip of Miss Jones and the band strutting and percolating thru Naturally's "How Do I Let a Good Man Down?", with a Brown-style introduction, captures what I was writing about pretty well.  Her cover of Marva Whitney's "Things Got To Get Better" also captures it pretty well.  They even sound pretty dang hot just rehearsing a James Brown medley with Lee Fields.  And while the band could bring it down for a ballad like "100 Days, 100 Nights"or go a little Motown on songs like "Retreat!" or "Stranger to My Happiness,"  I will always remember her working a crowd with mastery as in this Paris performance of "When I Come Home" where Prince stops by to solo. BONUS: Here's Sharon joining Iggy Pop on Bowie's "Tonight", and singing "Sweet Jane" with Lou Reed.

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS advance stream 5 songs from the upcoming 50 Song Memoir.

ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO stops by The Current for a chat and mini-set. On his latest album, Burn Something Beautiful, Escovedo collaborated with R.E.M. alumni Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey.

THE ARKELLS also stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set.

THE ROLLING STONES brought Mick Taylor out for "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'" at Glastonbury 2013.

SUICIDE: Pitchfork runs an uncondensed version of a 2002 interview the late Alan Vega did with author Simon Reynolds.

BRATMOBILE's Allison Wolfe shares the soundtrack of her life with Pitchfork.

ANDY SCHAUF talks to Now about the Polaris Prize, Christian pop-punk and why he doesn't leave his new neighborhood.

DWEEZIL ZAPPA talks to Magnet about his new LP and his family woes.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them domianted the chart with 75MM, but with a 180MM budget may need to make 350-400MM to break even; the additional 143MM it has grossed overseas suggests that's doable, esp since it has yet to open in China.  Doctor Strange places with 17.7MM on a 59 percent drop borne not only of the competition from Fantastic Beasts, but also the drop-off from a holiday weekend; global receipts are still on track for this one to make a decent profit in theaters.  Trolls showed close behind with 17.5MM on a 50 percent drop.  Arrival, the highly-acclaimed-including-by-me sci-fi flick, takes the fourth slot with 11.8MM on a 51 percent drop; it's just getting stararted in foreign markets.  Almost Christmas rounds out the Top Five with 7MM on a 54 percent drop, all tribute to how much oxygen the Potterverse consumed this weekend.  The Edge of Seventeen and Bleed For This, both generally well-reviewed, debuted seventh and eight, respectively.

EMILIA CLARKE (Game of Thrones) is joining the Star Wars Han Solo spinoff.

DEADPOOL 2 has a new director: John Wick‘s David Leitch.

KANYE WEST was booed at a concert on Thursday in San Jose, California, revealing that he didn't vote - but he would have cast his ballot for President-elect Donald Trump.

DWAYNE JOHNSON talked about his heavily publicized feud with Fast 8 costar Vin Diesel in a new interview with The Los Angeles Times.

MARC ANTHONY is separating from his wife of 2 years.

WEDDING CRASHERS is getting a sequel, or so Vince Vaughn told Isla Fsher.

KITTENS Make Everything Better.

GOAT YOGA: All the news that's fit to print, in the New York Times.

RIVER RAT is the hot new hambuger in Russia.

A HALF-DOZEN YAKS in British Columbia are looking for a home.

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with THE PAISLEY UNDERGROUND!  A two-part (Part 1, Part 2) feature from the Old Grey Whistle Test on L.A.'s psychedelic-flavored, West Coast scene in the mid-80s. Bands featured include the Long Ryders, Prime Movers, Thin White Rope, Pontiac Brothers and the Rain Parade with a 6 minute live version of No Easy Way Down. The Long Ryders get short shrift so I'll add in their later OGWT appearance to play "Looking For Lewis & Clark." The term "Paisley Underground" is believed to have been jokingly coined by Michael Quercio of the band The Three O'Clock, so I'll toss in the clip for "Her Head's Revolving" as a bonus. Other bands associated with the scene not featured include Green On Red -- sometimes likened to The Doors for songs like "Two Lovers" and "Change" -- and The Bangs, a/k/a The Bangles, with an early track, "The Real World." DOUBLE BONUS:  The Guardian Music Blog has a link-rich piece on the Rain Parade and other Paisley Underground bands.

GILLIAN WELCH advance streams The Official Revival Bootleg.

HIGHLY SUSPECT advance streams The Boy Who Died Wolf.

METALLICA streams the double album Hardwired… To Self-Destruct. 'Member when they sued Napster? I 'member.

THE DECEMBERISTS shared the demo for “The Crane Wife 1, 2 & 3."

THE ROLLING STONES: Mick & Keef do a little "Country Honk" acoustic.

DAVID BOWIE: Carlos Alomar excerpts part of his book.

SLEIGH BELLS: Alexis Krauss discusses the band's newest LP at the NY Observer.

THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN are releasing a new album, their first in 18 years.

THE 10 BEST LEON RUSSELL SONGS, according to Paste.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases include: Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, which is currently scoring 83 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; The Edge of Seventeen, which is scoring 94 percent; and Bleed For This, scoring 65 percent.

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM:  The continuation of the Potterverse is not as immediately compelling as J.K. Rowling's original saga.  Some of the characters are less sharply-drawn as the students of Hogwarts; indeed, I'd argue the secondary characters may be a bit more interesting than the leads.  But the differences drawn by moving the setting to America 1926 are intriguing enough to warrant the sequels already in development.  And there's a nice reveal at the end the WB kept hidden in plain sight.

KALEY CUOCO isn't afraid to talk about her plastic surgery.

CHARLIE SHEEN is addressing his ex-wife Brooke Mueller's recent ordeal with a poem.

CARRIE FISHER denies calling Harrison Ford bad in bed.

TOM HANKS spoke about the election at a Museum of Modern Art’s film benefit.

KING KONG: SKULL ISLAND hs a second trailer online.

AN ORPHAN HIPPO is befriended by AN ORPHAN RHINO.

A DEER struck a Gwynedd Mercy University cross country runner during the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional at DeSales University

A NEW SPECIES OF FROG, whose groin flashes orange to scare away predators, has been discovered in Australia.

AN OCTOPUS rode the tide to a Miami Beach garage.

MOUNT MORIAH shared a video for "How to Dance."

WARPAINT, Live at the 9:30 Club.

BAND OF HORSES stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set.

FLOCK OF DIMES stopped by Oregon Public Broadcasting for a chat and mini-set.

MICHAEL CHAPMAN shares “Sometimes You Just Drive.”

MOSE ALLISON, a pianist, singer and songwriter who straddled modern jazz and Delta blues, belonging to both styles even as he became a touchstone for everyone from The Who to The Clash and Elvis Costello, died on Tuesday at his home in Hilton Head, S.C. He was 89.

TEMPLE OF THE DOG: Chris Cornell talks about the triumphant first tour of a band that existed for two weeks in the 90s.

JOHN LENNON wrote to Paul McCartney in 1971, and it wasn't pretty.

BOB DYLAN will not travel to Sweden to receive his Nobel Prize for Literature.

CHARLIE SHEEN'S ex, Brooke Mueller, is reportedly on the run with his kids.

THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM is being awarded to a bunch of celebs...and some people like the late Grace Hopper.

BRANGELEXIT: Brad Pitt is crushed that he's only seen his kids thrice since splitting from Angelina Jolie.

ANNA KENDRICK already has memoirs.

VAL KILMER got an apology from Michael Douglas.

TAYLOR SWIFT tops the latest Forbes list of highest-paid celebs under 30.

RYAN GOSLING is confused by his internet meme.

COREY FELDMAN proposed to his longtime girlfriend Courtney Anne on last weekend.

THE GREEN HORNET is getting a more realistic reboot.

DOGS ON TRAMPOLINES, a compilation.

TWO SAINT BERNARDS adopt a baby goat.

GIANT HISSING COCKRAOCHES can grow bigger testicles to impress a mate or horns to battle rivals.

TIGERS, A COUGAR & A SKUNK were found in a Texas home.