Crowded House this week marked the 33rd anniversary of their classic single “Don’t Dream It’s Over” reaching No. 2 on the U.S. charts by recording a new socially-distanced version of the song “between continents.” You can see the whole multi-part performance right here.
The announcement that Danny Elfman would perform a career-spanning set at Coachella had fans buzzing about what Oingo Boingo material he might resurrect, a question still hanging in the air with the Southern California music festival pushed to October over coronavirus concerns. Watch it here.
Here’s a free guitar lesson from Johnny Marr in the form of an advertisement for Fender guitars and amps. The former Smiths guitarist uses this 8-minute video to first perform then teach viewers how to play “The Headmaster Ritual,” the iconic opening track to 1985’s Meat is Murder. Watch it right here.
The House of Love’s Guy Chadwick today played a 13-song, 48-minute solo set from his home in Sussex, England, that was broadcast “live from isolation” via Facebook, a way to reach out to fans as the band is now sidelined like so much else in this world by the coronavirus. Watch it right here.
David Byrne returned to “Saturday Night Live” last night for his third appearance in four decades, performing the Talking Heads classic “Once in a Lifetime” and the far more obscure cut “Toe Jam,” which he recorded in 2008 with Fatboy Slim’s The Brighton Port Authority project. Watch those clips and more right here.
Alice Bag, co-founder of the iconic first-generation Los Angeles punk act The Bags, this spring will release her third solo album, a collection called Sister Dynamite that is being described as a return to the “full-throttle punk” that her late-’70s band perfected. Full tour dates and a music video right here.
Clan of Xymox has debuted a video for its suitably dark new single “She” — released this month ahead of a planned 2020 studio album — and will return to the U.S. in March for another round of concerts in California and across the southern reaches of the country. Full dates and details right here.
Musician and activist Amanda Palmer has just released a rush-recorded, eight-song charity album in response to the devastating Australian bushfires, and you can hear its lead-off single — a cover of Midnight Oil’s “Beds Are Burning” with vocals by Missy Higgins — right here. Full details and such.
Dream-pop favorites The Ocean Blue this week shared a gorgeous music video for the equally gorgeous song “Love Doesn’t Make It Easy On Us,” off their 2019 album Kings and Queens/Knaves and Thieves, as the band prepares to play a run of sporadic tour dates through May. Full details right here.
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.
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