THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with the MOUNTAIN GOATS at the M-SHOP, which Pate fans know is a fabulous, initmate venue in the Memorial Union at ISU.  Selections include "Dance Music" and "Houseguest," though I'm partial as always to "This Year" and especially the anthemic finale of "No Children." BONUS: John Darnielle interprets Ace of Base's "I Saw the Sign" (language), while Pony Up backs the duo on a cover of Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town."  

HORSE FEATHERS played a session for Oregon Public Broadcasting.

MARSHALL CRENSHAW returns to The Bottomless Pit; the theme of the new one is outtakes from compilations and box sets, including a classic theological exchange with The Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis.

BOBBY BARE JR. plays a Tiny Desk Concert at NPR.

COLIN HAY stopped by World Cafe to talk about Men At Work and play some new tunes.

BIG AWESOME, aptly named, drops "What Grows Up Must Come Down."

HAYDEN drops "Nowhere We Cannot Go."

THE DODOS: Meric Long talks to PopMatters about Individ.

POP's NEW OLD SOUND: What goes around comes around.

TOM PETTY comments on the Sam Smith royalty kerfuffle.

A BUDDY HOLLY hologram is going on tour.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases include Project Almanac, which is currently scoring 35 percent on the ol Tomatometer; The Loft, which was not screened for critics; and Black or White, scoring 31 percent.

LINDSAY LOHAN: Prosecutors reject her reported community service and will ask for jail time.

STANLEY TUCCI & FELICITY BLUNT welcomed a son on Sunday.

GWYNETH PALTROW recommends ladies herbal steam their privates; gynecologists do not.

SEAN PENN, married and divorced twice before, he'd consider his future marriage to fiancee Charlize Theron to be his first.

ROBIN WRIGHT, once married to Sean Penn, is engaged to Ben Foster for the second time.

SUGE KNIGHT was involved in a fatal hit-and-run incident in Compton.

JORDAN said on Thursday it was still holding an Iraqi would-be suicide bomber as a deadline passed for her release set by Islamic State militants who threatened to kill a Jordanian pilot unless she was handed over by sunset.

EGYPT boycotted on Wednesday the second session of the International Contact Group on Libya in Addis Ababa, objecting to the presence of Qatar and Turkey.

SYRIA: A UN official said the organization's aid effort is having trouble delivering supplies to 40 percent of the population in need. Talks between various opposition factions and the regime began in Moscow on Jan. 25. The US State Department denied assertions it has abandoned moderate rebels. Journalists entering Kobane have said the city is "a mass of rubble and gutted buildings" after the more than four months-long battle.

IRAQ: A woman held captive by the Islamic State described the terrifying conditions for her fellow Yazidi women who were held in a make-shift prison at a banquet hall in Mosul.  Meanwhile, other survivors speak of Shi'ite militias and security force elements executing 72 Sunnis in the eastern village of Barwanah.

A RABBIT delivers the beer, just in time for the Big Game.

A WOMAN known for feeding bears may have been dead more than two weeks when her body was found Monday in the North Carolina woods.

COCKROACHES are hard to kill --exploding toilet hard to kill.

ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST ELUSIVE CATS was captured on camera, attacking a group of red colobus monkeys.