Welcome to the Week in Rock, where we round up all of the headlines posted on this site over the past week. This week featured posts about OMD, Pylon, The Replacements, Morrissey, Wire, Mudhoney, Camper Van Beethoven, Billy Bragg, The Breeders, Electronic and more.
For this week’s “120 Minutes” Rewind — and since The Replacements are back with their first new release since 1990’s ‘All Shook Down’ — we jump back to early ’91 for this clip of bandleader Paul Westerberg talking about that album and its origins as a quasi solo project. Be sure to check out host Dave Kendall’s pun-filled intro.
U.K. post-punk legends Wire this week offered up the first taste of their upcoming ‘Changes Becomes Us’ in the form of opening track “Doubles & Trebles,” which is apparently a reworking of a previously unreleased song called “Ally in Exile.” The album is being build as “exploration of unrecorded material originally written in 1979-80.”
You can’t say they’re not persistent: Organizers of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival apparently continue to make offers to land a reunion of The Smiths to headline the annual festival, with Morrissey reporting this week that he has yet again turned down an offer to have the defunct indie giants top the 2013 bill.
The reunited ‘Last Splash’-era lineup of The Breeders — Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs, and Jim Macpherson — this week announced initial European dates for its upcoming tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of that album, revealing they’ll play in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
This April marks the 25th anniversary of both Mudhoney and its label, Seattle’s Sub Pop Records, and the proto-grunge act will mark the occasion with the release of its ninth studio album, ‘Vanishing Point’ — which you can preview now via a free download of first single “The Only Son of the Widow from Nain.”
Billy Bragg today announced he’ll release his first new album in five years this in March — the Joe Henry-produced ‘Tooth & Nail,’ which he compares to his ‘Mermaid Avenue records’ with Wilco — and then follow that with an extensive North American tour that’ll keep him on the road until early May.
Q&A: Daniel Ash on Love and Rockets’ reunion, his new band — and figuring out how to play “So Alive” 
Q&A: Chris Frantz talks Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club and new book ‘Remain in Love’ 
Q&A: Steve Wynn on The Dream Syndicate’s first new album in nearly 30 years 
Q&A: Bauhaus’ David J on his ‘accidental’ concept album ‘Not Long For This World’ 
Q&A: Peter Murphy on ‘Ninth,’ Bauhaus’ break-up, reuniting Dalis Car 
Q&A: Joey Santiago on Pixies’ ‘Doolittle’ tour, possible ‘Surfer Rosa’ shows, new album talk 
Q&A: Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon on new album, changing the world with music 
Q&A: Peter Hook talks ‘Unknown Pleasures’ tour, re-recording Joy Division 