THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

... with LLOYD COLE! His debut with the Commotions is right in the heart of Pate's heyday, so I'm partial to the early tracks, like "Perfect Skin," "Rattlesnakes," "2CV" and "Forest Fire," and even tracks from the sophomore LP, like "Brand New Friend" and "Lost Weekend." I haven't been as big a fan of his later solo work, though he does still come up with gems like "She's a Girl and I'm a Man."  BONUS: Cole's "Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken" later inspired Camera Obscura's "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken."

LUCERO did the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.

NEIL FINN played the World Cafe with material from his indie-star 7 Worlds Collide project.

BECK, WILCO, FEIST and JAMIE LIDELL are covering Skip Spence's Oar album at Beck's Record Club.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED considers songs of the decade, though The Minutemen track is originally from 1984.

NOTES ON THE NOUGHTIES: Simon Reynolds starts a new series for The Guardian, starting with indie-rock beards.

VANDAVEER tells the tale of "A Mighty Leviathan Of Old."

UNCLE TUPELO: Rocks Off pays tribute to the Anodyne LP, while the Dallas Observer looks at the post-Tupelo careers of Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar. (Thx, LHB.)

AEROSMITH: Joe Perry still thinks Steven Tyler is taking a two-year hiatus.

GLEN HANSARD (The Swell Season, The Frames) talks to The A.V. Club about his Simpsons cameo, working with producer Peter Katis (Interpol, The National, Rainer Maria), how the relationship and breakup with Markéta Irglová affected The Swell Season as a duo, and how he almost ended up as Rorschach in Watchmen.

SONIC YOUTH recommend movies to the Criterion Collection.

THE WORST ALBUM COVERS OF ALL TIME, according to Medium Fidelity.

THE CUTOUT BIN: From Led Zeppelin to the Hold Steady, from the Jackson 5 to the Stranglers, from Roy Orbison to Adrian Belew (with a track well known to Pate fans), plus the Kinks, Spoon, the Byrds, Slowdive and more -- this Friday's fortuitous finds can be jukeboxed or streamed separately via the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide release is 2012, currently scoring 32 percent on the ol' Tomatometer.  Opening near-wide is Pirate Radio, which is scoring 56 percent. Fantastic Mr. Fox opens on four screens, scoring 89 percent.

MIKE TYSON was booked for misdemeanor battery after allegedly punching a photog at LAX.

BRITNEY SPEARS had her Twitter account hacked, unless she really is a devil-worshiping Satan fanatic.

MEGAN FOX gets a lengthy profile as a canny self-promoter in... The New York Times magazine.

JESSICA ALBA gets a nsfw spanking in her upcoming movie The Killer Inside Me, just in time for Gratuitous Friday.

THE FIVE WORST MOVIES With the Best Soundtracks, according to the Houston Press.

THE BEST TV SHOWS OF THE DECADE, according to The A.V. Club.

IRAN: An opposition leader claims that the country is making sweeping changes to its security apparatus in an effort to consolidate the power of the elite Revolutionary Guard.

AFGHANISTAN: One month after US forces abandoned outposts in the Kamdesh district in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nuristan, the Taliban are operating in the open, without fear of retaliation.

DOGS WELCOME HOME THE TROOPS: Missed this on Vets Day, but still wonderful.

A GANG OF RACCOONS holds up a bus for treats. Pic at the link.

A BEETLE apparently protects itself by constructing armor made from excrement.

THE BIRD that shut down the Hadron Collider could have been sent from the future to sabotage the experiment, according to two scientists.  I'll buy that when a bird kills Sarah Connor.

PLANET OF THE APES: Genetic engineers are working on it.