The Violent Femmes this summer will release Hotel Last Resort, the band’s 10th studio album and first in three years — and the first recorded by the group’s new four-piece lineup. The record is preceded by the title track, featuring Television’s Tom Verlaine, which you can stream here. Full details ahead.
We’re not entirely sure what prompted this, but Dinosaur Jr frontman J Mascis this week dropped an excellent cover of the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers classic “Don’t Do Me Like That,” which finds the guitarist eschewing the softer acoustic side he usually displays on solo material. Hear it here.
Tanya Donelly is giving away a set of 10 demos that laid the foundation of her band Belly’s 1993 debut Star in honor of the man who produced and engineered the recordings: Joe Harvard, co-founder of Boston’s famed Fort Apache Studios, who died Sunday. Stream or download the demo collection right here.
Today would have been the late Lou Reed’s 77th birthday, and, to mark the occasion, his representatives shared a “previously unheard” demo of the song “Endless Cycle,” which appeared on the 1989 album New York — which was released 30 years ago this past January. Hear it here.
Paisley Underground-era rockers The Dream Syndicate in May will release their second album since reuniting, a 10-song collection that’s preceded by the hypnotic single “Black Light” — hear it below — and will be followed by a string of concerts in the eastern U.S. Full details and tour dates here.
Robert Forster, who co-founded and led the beloved Australian indie-pop combo The Go-Betweens with the late Grant McLennan, will release Inferno — his seventh solo LP and first in four years — next month. Below, you can stream the title track, “Inferno (Brisbane in Summer).”
The Wedding Present has just released a third collection of recordings that the David Gedge-led band made for Marc Riley’s show on BBC radio, and the group is promoting the collection — titled, naturally, Marc Riley Sessions Volume 3 — with a cover of the theme for the 1967 James Bond film “You Only Live Twice.”
Fans of Marty Willson-Piper who’ve missed his contributions to The Church since his departure five years ago are in luck: the singer-songwriter/guitarist is back with a brand-new studio album with Noctorum, the duo he formed in 2003 with producer Dare Mason. Stream the full new album ‘The Afterlife’ right here.
In August 1982, Johnny Marr and Steven Patrick Morrissey went into Manchester’s Decibelle Studios to record the first two songs they’d written together, “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle” and “Suffer Little Children,” both of which would appear on The Smiths’ debut two years later. Here some of that session here.
Last month, Johnny Marr brought his old friend Matt Johnson onstage in London to perform a cover of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s 1966 single “Summer in the City” — their first time onstage together in 25 years. Turns out they also recorded a version of the song at soundcheck that night, and now have released it digitally.
Legendary 2 Tone ska act The Specials this week released its first single with original lead frontman Terry Hall since 1981’s “Ghost Town,” a lilting new song called “Vote For Me” that is the first cut to surface off the band’s forthcoming reunion album Encore. Listen to the full track right here.
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