THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with THE ROLLING STONES!  Here's a selection of live, semi-live, and undead clips of less-obvious tracks from the band's heyday: "Mercy, Mercy"; "Heart of Stone," "The Last Time"; "Ruby Tuesday," "Paint It Black"; "Honky Tonk Women"; and "Dead Flowers."  I always tend to think of this period of the Stones at this time of year for biographical reasons, as these songs (and last friday's Talking Heads) tended to soundtrack the preparations for my high school's Russian banquet.

HOSPITALITY dropped by the Cutting Room Studios in NYC to play an upbeat live set for KEXP. The band gets a profile at Blurt.

VERONICA FALLS bring their underwater vintage sounds to the KEXP studio for an energetic live set.

CASS McCOMBS plays a threefer for World Cafe.

KEVIN KINNEY & ANTON FIER: Leaders of Drivin N' Cryin and The Golden Palominos go country at World Cafe.

THE BANGLES: It's getting almost impossible to find this version of their cover of "Hazy Shade of Winter," but worth it.

SLEIGH BELLS are the March/April SPIN cover story.

CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS singer and fiddler Rhiannon Giddens talks to PopMatters about string music and storytelling.

BETH JEANS HOUGHTON talks to The Independent about leaving her past and excitable pride at releasing an album.

THE TOP 25 INDIE LOVE SONGS, according to IGN.

CUTOUT BIN: From the Monkees to Earth Wind & Fire, from Billy Bragg to the Partridge Family, from Nina Simone to Big Country, plus the Beatles, ELO, Modern Lovers, Edison Lighthouse and more  -- this Friday's fortuitous finds are streaming from the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW SHOWING:This weekend's wide releases are: The Lorax, currently scoring 62 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; and Project X, scoring 23 percent.

JUSTIN BIEBER turned 18 in style with a Fisker Karma – the highly coveted, ultra-exclusive plug-in hybrid luxury sports sedan. He's reportedly buying mega-mansions for himself and his mother.

DEMI MOORE has checked out of rehab at Utah's Cirque Lodge.

BRITNEY SPEARS settled a lawsuit filed by a former bodyguard who claimed Britney was a sex-crazed maniac who came on to him and flashed him.

KATE BECKINSALE talked to Parade about her Hunger Games obsession, working with her husband on the set of Total Recall, and relating to her daughter’s difficult teen years.

JOHNNY DEPP has started work on The Lone Ranger.

CHRISTINA HENDRICKS, in leather, brandishing a weapon. Call it Gratuitous Friday.

NORTH KOREA agreed to suspend its nuclear weapons program in exchange for food aid from the US. In the past, North Korea has made similar promises.

TERROR in TURKEY: A remote-controlled bomb mounted on a motorbike exploded as it passed close to the Istanbul headquarters of Turkey's ruling AK Party, injuring 10 people. Kurdish separatist groups as well as Islamist militants have carried out similar bomb attacks in Turkey in the past.

SYRIA: The Free Syrian Army retreated from the Bab Amr neighborhood in Homs. The civilian Syrian National Council and the military Free Syrian Army set up a joint command center. A Free Syrian Army commander said Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah brigades were fighting alongside the Syrian army.

AfPAK: The US military's top transport commander says overland cargo routes through Pakistan must be reopened to NATO for the United States to complete its pullout from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

SLEEPING HUMMINGBIRD snores in Peru.

GIANT "TREE LOBSTER" BUGS rediscovered on the remote island of Bell's Pyramid.

FEMALE BONOBOS "advertise" their homosexual activity to important audiences, say scientists.

SNAKE in a rental car.