THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with THE GO-GO's!  They made history as the first all-female band that both wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to top the Billboard album charts. Kind of a hard band to place seasonally. Their debut, Beauty and the Beat, which yielded hits like "Our Lips Are Sealed" and "We Got the Beat," as well as great album cuts like "This Town," "Lust to Love," "Tonite" and "How Much More," came out in late Summer 1981, iirc, and "Lips" was climbing the charts that Fall, so I mentally place the band in this time of year. And it's still warm enough that the title track to the too-quick sophomore album, "Vacation," -- or their cover of thee Capitols' "Cool Jerk" -- doesn't sound too out of place. "Get Up and Go" was also a single from that LP, but it didn't make the Top 40.  The band would chart twice more -- in 1984, with "Head Over Heels" and "Turn to You" (say, that's Rob Lowe, isn't it?) -- before splitting and the near-inevitable reunion tours.

INTERPOL stopped by Morning Becomes Eclectic for a chat and mini-set.

THE VASELINES are advance streaming Sex With an X.

THE AMERICANA MUSIC AWARDS, featuring performances from The Avett Brothers, Rosanne Cash, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris and more, should be streaming on demand.

GRINDERMAN (ft Nick Cave)  is advance streaming their second album.

MASON JENNINGS and his wife Amy stopped by the MPR booth at the Minnesota State Fair to perform a few songs for the Local Show.

SUFJAN STEVENS dropped "Too Much" as a second advance track from The Age of Adz.

100 MP3 LPs for 5 BUCKS EACH at Amazon.

GLADYS KNIGHT is backed on "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Jack Black, Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr., through the magic of CGI, to promote Tropic Thunder back in 2008.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL talks to The A.V. Club about her collaborative process with M. Ward, the challenges of writing songs on unrequited love while being happily married (to Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard), and playing a virginal bride and a less-virginal lesbian, respectively, in David Gordon Green's Your Highness and Jesse Peretz's My Idiot Brother.

TODD RUNDGREN: Indiana University Wells Professor.

10 GIANTS OF SOUTHERN ROCK GUITAR, according to Gibson.

MICHAEL AZERRAD, author of the terrific Our Band Could Be Your Life, talks to The Vine about his approach to music criticism, where independent music is at right now, and whether Kurt Cobain thought his prior book, Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, was any good. (Thx, LHB.)

CUTOUT BIN: From Nick Lowe to ELO, from Tower of Power to the Sex Pistols, from Alex Chilton to Prince, from the Seeds to Squeeze, plus Baby Huey, Foo Fighters, Electric Six, Violent Femmes and more -- this Friday's fortuitous finds are streaming from the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's sole wide debut is... Resident Evil: Afterlife (in 3-D), which is currently scoring xx percent on the ol' Tomatometer, because -- and I know this will shock you -- the movie was not shown to critics.  The same is true of The Virginity Hit, which may or may not be in wide release, depending on which source you consult.

BRITNEY SPEARS releases an official response to the lawsuit filed by a former bodyguard. RadarOnline has video of the bodyguard.

MADONNA's daughter Lourdes starts high school. In related news, I'm old.

LINDSAY LOHAN is currently in talks to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

JAMES FRANCO isn't a gay man, he just plays one -- frequently. NTTAWWT.

JULIA ROBERTS had work done? The ever-reliable Star thinks so...

LOU REED vs SUSAN BOYLE? This one's just weird.

9/11: The first five minutes of CNN coverage. I came out of the shower, saw the second plane hit on NBC, and knew had had to contact my boss, whose daughter lived in NYC. There is still a lot of crazy stuff going on around the country and the world as a result, so consider taking a moment to watch and remember.

IRAN: The non-alignment movement published a statement in support of the Iranian nuclear program.

AFGHANISTAN: The legitimacy of Afghanistan's parliamentary elections is severely threatened by insurgent attacks on candidates and the lack of security provided by the government, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

100 CATS visit IKEA.

ALIEN KILLER SHRIMP invades the UK.

PYTHON WRESTLING at McDonald's. I'm loving it.

BABY SQUIRREL adoped by cat learns to purr... Mass hysteria!