THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with JOHN HUGHES! The sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, buds, wasteoids, dweebies and dickheads, they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude. The writer/director behind Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Weird Science, National Lampoon's Vacation movies, Home Alone, Planes, Trains & Automobiles and many more died Aug 6, 2009.  Hughes masterfully married music to movies, so I pay video tribute to him today, starting (of course) with "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds from The Breakfast Club (the drumming o­n this song is impeccable), and Karla DeVito's "We Are Not Alone," along with the Ramones playing "Blitzkrieg Bop" (from National Lampoon's Vacation), David Bowie's "Young Americans" and The Vapors o­ne-hit wonder, "Turning Japanese" and Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" (all from Sixteen Candles, which opens to a clip of veteran WLS DJs Larry Lujack and Tommy Edwards), Van Halen's cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman" and General Public's "Tenderness" (both from Weird Science), the Psychedelic Furs re-recorded title track from Pretty In Pink, which also featured Jon Cryer lip-synching to Otis Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness" (that last clip is a blistering live take from the 1967 Stax tour -- and excellent, btw), The Smiths' "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" (a Hughes perennial; here, the Dream Academy cover from FBDO), and OMD's "If You Leave," plus two more from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "Danke Schoen" and "Twist and Shout" (which was shot o­n Dearborn and Randolph Streets in Chicago, with International Polka Queen Vlasta atop the float, though Cameron and Sloane were in front of the Post Office down the street), plus Yello's unforgettable-no-matter-how-you-try "Oh, Yeah." Videos are scarce for Some Kind of Wonderful, but I found Flesh for Lulu's "I Go Crazy" and the March Violets' take on the Stones' "Miss Amanda Jones."  BONUS: Molly Ringwald's post-MeToo re-evaluation of the films that made her career.

HALF WAIF plays KEXP.

YOLA virtually visits The Current.

KACEY MUSGRAVES previewed new songs on a podcast.

NATION OF LANGUAGE shares “This Fractured Mind.”

BIG RED MACHINE (ft Justin Vernon and Ilsey) shares "Mimi."

DAMON & NAOMI share “The Aftertime.”

THE BEATLES: Revisiting Revolver, 55 years later.

PHOEBE BRIDGERS, playing with the Killers and... Taylor Swift?

JEFF TWEEDY has launched a newsletter which will include unreleased demos.

GUN CLUB's Mother Juno: One of America's Great Unsung Punk Albums.

I WANT MY MTV: A Deep Dive Into the Early Years.

BRITNEY SPEARS seeks the immediate suspension of her father from her conservatorship.

SOUTH PARK's Trey Parker and Matt Stone signed a new deal with ViacomCBS Inc. that will pay them more than 900MM over the next six years, one of the richest deals in TV history.

WHY DOESN'T THE ROCK Get to Make Out More Onscreen?

OVERLOOK, the series inspired by Stephen King’s The Shining, will not be moving forward with HBO Max.

STEVE MARTIN, on the banjo.

KATE BOSWORTH and director Michael Polish have announced that they are separating after nearly 8 years of marriage.

RYAN REYNOLDS pitched Disney on a Deadpool-Bambi crossover.

COBRA KAI has a Season 4 teaser online.

THE HUNGER GAMES: A prequel is headed into production next year.

QUENTIN TARANTINO revealed how he'd create a guaranteed "good movie" audiences will enjoy, and it involves casting Adam Driver as Rambo.

NU-METAL & TWILIGHT: The True Outsider Art.

A DOG and his shadow.

A BLUE-FOOTED BOOBY, made for walking.

HOW DO POISONOUS ANIMALS keep from poisoning themselves?

A POD OF DOLPHINS, off the coast of Sydney's Bronte Beach.