R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey joined Pearl Jam in Berlin last night to rip through the MC5’s classic ‘Kick Out the Jams’ at a concert that also featured the Seattle rockers debuting a new cover of Public Image Ltd.’s ‘Public Image.’

Word emerged this spring — via bandleader Colin Meloy’s Twitter feed — that R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck would be contributing to The Decemberists’ upcoming sixth album — and we’ve now got photographic evidence, thanks to a series of snapshots posted on R.E.M.’s official site today.

R.E.M. will mark the 25th anniversary of their third album, ‘Fables of the Reconstruction,’ this summer with the third installment in the band’s ongoing reissue series, a double-disc re-release featuring 14 previously unreleased demos — including one never-before-heard song.

Attention tapeheads: The ever-iconoclastic Robyn Hitchcock is releasing an ultra-limited run of his new album ‘Propellor Time’ — on which he’s backed by members of R.E.M. and The Smiths — on ‘hand-assembled’ cassette.

Thirty years ago today, R.E.M. played its first-ever concert — reportedly billed as Twisted Kites — performing to several hundred friends and Athens townsfolk at a birthday party inside St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

This week’s new releases include new albums from David Byrne & Fatboy Slim (’Here Lies Love,’ about Imelda Marcos) and Robyn Hitchcock (’Propellor Time’), plus expanded reissues from David Bowie, The Colourfield and Squeeze.

Robyn Hitchcock has just released a new video for ‘Ordinary Millionaire,’ a song co-written with The Smiths’ Johnny Marr that serves as the first single off the 3-years-in-the-making ‘Propellor Time.’

[tweetmeme]Robyn Hitchcock this spring will release the 3-years-in-the-making Propellor Time, an album recorded with current back-up band The Venus 3 — R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Young Fresh Fellows’ Scott McCaughey and ex-Ministry drummer Bill Rieflin — and featuring guest turns by the likes of The Smiths’ Johnny Marr, Nick Lowe and John Paul Jones of Led [...]

[tweetmeme]Members of R.E.M.’s fan club have begun receiving their annual Christmas single from the band, and this year’s disc features a surprise: an appearance by retired drummer Bill Berry on a cover of “Crazy Like a Fox,” a hippie protest song Lenny Kaye recorded in 1966 under the pseudonym Link Cromwell.
Although Berry has performed live [...]

In conjunction with this month’s release of its Live at the Olympia album, R.E.M. is presenting “This Is Not a Theatrical Release,” a series of limited sneak-preview screenings across the country of the “un-concert documentary” being packaged with the special 2CD/1DVD edition of its new live album.
Directed by Vincent Moon and Jeremiah (who produced the [...]

Retired drummer Bill Berry and bassman Mike Mills jumped onstage last night with Peter Buck and the rest of The Minus 5 for a near-reunion of R.E.M.’s classic lineup in Athens, Ga. — a get-together that could have spawned a full reunion, since Michael Stipe was in the audience at the 40 Watt Club, according [...]

R.E.M. this week revealed the tracklist for its 39-song, 2CD Live at the Olympia, an album — due out Oct. 26 — that was culled from five nights of “working rehearsals” in 2007 that preceded the recording of last year’s hard-rocking comeback Accelerate.
The impressively deep tracklist — don’t be looking for the hits on [...]