THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE...

...with THE TALKING HEADS!  Here's the expanded band -- including axeman Adrian Belew (who certainly influenced Jon Pratt's early work in Pate) -- in Rome, circa 1980.  Your setlist: "Psycho Killer," "Stay Hungry," "Cities," "I Zimbra," "Drugs," "Take Me To The River," "Crosseyed And Painless," "Life During Wartime," "Houses In Motion," and "Born Under Punches."

BEACH HOUSE: You can listen to "Zebra" and "The Arrangement" in advance of the EP for band's Record Store Day (which is tomorrow).

THE PLIMSOULS: The power-pop combo fronted by Peter Case gets a retrospective plus tracks from Fresh Air.

PORT O'BRIEN stopped by the World Cafe for a chat and mini-set streaming via NPR.

QUASI stopped by The Current for a chat and mini-set streaming via MPR.

THE MORNING BENDERS make "Promises" and I wonder if the kids are alright.

NEW PR0NOGRAPHERS frontman Carl Newman talks to Pitchfork about Kiss, Belle and Sebastian, and more.

THE POSIES tals to Seattle Weekly about their career and upcoming LP. (Thx, LHB.)

ANDREW W.K.: My song "My Destiny" was deemed so frightening it earned me a juvenile restraining order. So what happened when the girl who inspired it got in touch?

THE 12 WORST BAND NAMES, according to True/Slant.

THE CUTOUT BIN: From Sharon Jones to Gloria Jones, from the Replacements to Cher, from Carole King to King Curtis, from Pavement to Love, plus Guadalcanal Diary, Mott the Hoople, Wilco, and more -- is streaming from the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases include the superhero action-comedy Kick-Ass, which is currently scoring 75 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; and Death At a Funeral, which is scoring 40 percent.

KICK-ASS would be the term for Matthew Vaughn's movie adaptation of the comic series by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.  Ostensibly the story of a teenager who sets out to become a super-hero, the film is a dark, ultra-violent and occasionally funny deconstruction of the superhero mythos. The advance buzz was correct in noting that while Aaron Johnson is fine in the title role, big chunks of the movie are stolen by Nicolas Cage (Big Daddy) and especially Chloe Moretz, who knocks it out of the park as the 11-year-old assassin, Hit-Girl. I generally don't refer to other reviews, but I do want to comment on the one-star review from Roger Ebert. Savaging an R-rated movie because he is afraid that six-year-olds may see it is entirely unfair, as is invoking kids "shooting one another every day in America."  Every youth murder is tragic, but all of them to date occurred before the release of this movie.  If any movies helped push the culture toward youth violence, they were probably movies Ebert favorably reviewed (Scarface, The Matrix, Pulp Fiction, and Sin City, to name but a few. Indeed, he was much less bothered with the 12-year-old heroine in The Professional -- set in a world more "realistic" than that of Kick-Ass). This sort of rank hypocrisy from the dean of American movie critics would be easier to take if he had bothered to apologize for years of dismissing the concerns of people who think Hollywood's glamorization of sex and violence coarsens our culture.  Instead, he now whines about where we are on the slippery slope he spent decades greasing.

CHARLIE SHEEN shaved his head?

KATE HUDSON reportedly had some work done.

MELISSA & TAMMY ETHERIDGE have ended their nearly nine-year relationship.

TIGER WOODS: Alleged mistress Jaimee Grubbs was busted in West Hollywood for driving with a suspended license.

AFGHANISTAN: The top leader of the dangerous Haqqani Network operating in eastern Afghanistan said that al Qaeda fighters are welcome to fight alongside the Taliban, and that his forces control 90 percent of the areas under his command. Elsewhere, CIA vet Robert Baer has chilling new details about the attack on the CIA base in Khost and a plea to save the dying art of espionage.

IRAQ: Officials said security forces averted a plot by al Qaeda in Iraq to fly airplanes into buildings, possibly including the Shia Imam Ali shrine in Najaf.

PYGMY SLOW LORIS BABIES: Let's go to the video.

THE IMMORTAL JELLYFISH achieves everlasting life through the process of transdifferentiation.

THE RABBIT WHISPERER can put stressed-out bunnies in a trance.

THE T. REX OF LEECHES was first discovered three years ago in the nostril of a 9-year-old girl.

A POLAR BEAR takes on the paparazzi in Antarctica.