Metropolis Records this spring will release a new live set from The Chameleons featuring seven songs recorded in May 2021.

An unexpected cover can be a real delight for music fans, and as a regular Slicing Up Eyeballs reader points out to us, this one’s really out-of-the-blue: Nickel Creek’s Chris Thile and singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz performing The Chameleons’ “Seriocity” last weekend on “Live From Here.” Watch it right here.

The day after announcing the death of his longtime bandmate, The Chameleons’ frontman Mark Burgess wrote a long, heartfelt and quite honest reflection on John Lever, calling the late drummer “one of the warmest, funniest, most generous, huge-hearted men I’ve ever known.”

John Lever, the longmtime drummer for Manchester post-punk favorites The Chameleons and spin-off groups The Sun and the Moon and ChameleonsVox, died this morning following “a short period of illness,” his longtime musical collaborator Mark Burgess announced on Facebook.

Mark Burgess will release an EP this April featuring newly recorded versions of four unfinished songs by his band The Chameleons that date back to the 1980s, then will mount a spring European tour with his current group ChameleonsVox followed by U.S. dates in September.

Mark Burgess is planning to bring ChameleonsVox — the latest incarnation of post-punk favorites The Chameleons — to North America next September and October for a tour that will find the band performing its 1983 debut album Script of the Bridge in its entirety each night.

Mark Burgess will follow up his spring European tour that found ChameleonsVox — the latest incarnation of The Chameleons — performing 1983 debut Script of the Bridge in its entirety by performing that band’s second and third albums on consecutive nights this December in Manchester.

Mark Burgess this week announced a spring tour that will find ChameleonsVox — the latest incarnation of post-punk favorites The Chameleons — performing 1983 debut album Script of the Bridge in its entirety at more than a dozen shows in the U.K. and another nine in mainland Europe.

Mark Burgess this month released long-awaited new music under the ChameleonsVox banner — the latest incarnation of post-punk favorites The Chameleons — in the form of the 4-song M+D=1(8) EP, and this morning he’s treated fans to a music video for lead-off track “Sycophants.”

Mark Burgess this week announced he’ll release a brand-new four-song EP this fall under the ChameleonsVox banner — the latest incarnation of post-punk favorites The Chameleons, also featuring long-serving drummer John Lever — later this fall to coincide with a series of dates across Europe this November and December.

This week’s new releases include brand new studio albums from Miracle Legion’s Mark Mulcahy, Julian Cope, Steve Kilbey of The Church and Primal Scream, plus an expanded reissue and new rarities compilation from The Chameleons and a live vinyl release from The Fall.

The Chameleons next week will reissue their fourth album — 2001’s post-reunion Why Call It Anything — in an expanded 2CD set paired with a live album, as well as release a brand new compilation called Dreams in Celluloid that will package demos and early studio takes with the rare Tony Fletcher EP.

For this week’s installment of Vintage Video, we travel back to London on Nov. 9, 1984, to watch Mark Burgess lead his classic post-punk act The Chameleons through a 13-song, 100-performance at the Camden Palace, focusing on material from 1983’s Script of the Bridge and its follow-up.

This week’s Slicing Up Eyeballs headlines include news about The Cure, The Stone Roses, Pixies, The Cult, The Mission, Killing Joke, Bob Mould, Meat Puppets, Budgie, Morrissey, Dinosaur Jr, Madness, Sonic Youth, Peter Gabriel and PiL — plus our latest Auto Reverse mixtape for your downloading pleasure.