It’s SoCal punk icon Mike Ness’ birthday today — he’s 49 — so to mark the occasion, here’s some vintage Social Distortion footage that captures most of the band’s March 22, 1986, concert at The Ritz in New York City.

Ending ever-increasing fan speculation, the surviving members of The Cars today announced their first tour in nearly a quarter century, a short North American trek that will see the reunited band hitting theaters and large clubs in 10 cities this May.

This French TV report from sometime in 1987 features footage and interviews with both The Cure and Depeche Mode in the studio, as they work on their breakout albums ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’ and ‘Music For the Masses,’ respectively.

Over the past two weeks, Duran Duran has performed on ‘The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,’ ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show,’ ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ and ‘Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.’ Watch all of those performances right here.

Robyn Hitchcock is set to release a new album called ‘Tromsø, Kaptein’ — possibly as early as next week — on the Norwegian label Hype City Recordings, and the label has made one of the tracks, ‘Light Blue Afternoon,’ available for streaming.

Reunited synthpoppers Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark wrapped up their first U.S. tour in 20 years on Tuesday in Hollywood, and ex-KROQ/current 1st Wave DJ Richard Blade offers up this quick backstage tour at the Music Box.

A month before ‘In a Special Place: The Piano Demos for This Is The Sea’ is released in the U.K., Mike Scott sat down at EMI headquarters for this 12-minute interview about the making of The Waterboys’ classic 1985 album and the forthcoming demos collection.

With Jane’s Addiction in South America for this weekend’s inaugural Lollapalooza Chile, frontman Perry Farrell took to the airwaves to debut ‘End to the Lies,’ a track off the band’s forthcoming album ‘The Great Escape Artist.’

Last night in Liverpool, Mick Jones brought his post-Clash outfit Big Audio Dynamite out of retirement for the original lineup’s first concert in 22 years, the opening night of a nine-date U.K. tour that will be followed by a pair of U.S. gigs and a slot at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in California next month.

Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon recently agreed to answer some questions from Slicing Up Eyeballs via e-mail. He discussed finishing ‘Let’s Change the World With Music,’ offered his thoughts on songwriting and whether he cares about pleasing his audience, and speculated as to whether the world can, in fact, be changed with music.

With their first new album in 20 years — the 13-track ‘Here Before’ — due out in less than two weeks, reunited college-rock heroes The Feelies are previewing a second track from the much-anticipated disc: ‘Way Down.’ Hear it here.

‘Let’s Change the World With Music ‘— the first new album in eight years from U.K. sophistipop act Prefab Sprout — recently received a belated U.S. release via Tompkins Square Records, and to mark the occasion, the label is providing us with 10 CDs to give away to lucky Slicing Up Eyeballs readers.

Peretz Bernstein, aka Perry Farrell, turns 52 today, and to celebrate, how about some heavily bootlegged video from a Jane’s Addiction performance at the University of California at Santa Barbara in the spring of 1989?