News this week of Thurston Moore’s new collaboration with (former?) wife Kim Gordon and Yoko Ono didn’t help answer questions about the future of Sonic Youth, nor does Matador Records’ announcement this morning — complete with debut MP3 — that Moore has started a new band called Chelsea Light Moving.

The Fixx returns next month with ‘Beautiful Friction,’ the band’s first album in nearly a decade and the first featuring the group’s classic mid-’80s — singer Cy Curnin, keyboard player Rupert Greenall, guitarist Jamie West-Oram, drummer Adam Woods and bassist Dan K. Brown — lineup since 1991’s ‘Ink.’

As announced late last week, Paul Weller is celebrating the 70th birthday of Paul McCartney with a one-day-only release of a new cover of The Beatles’ ‘Birthday.’ The song — which you can stream here — is available to buy for 24 hours via Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, with all proceeds going to War Child.

R.E.M. fans got their very first taste of guitarist Peter Buck’s debut solo album today when former Dream Syndicate frontman — and frequent Buck collaborator — Steve Wynn world-premiered the song ’10 Million BC’ during a guest DJ stint on Diane’s Kamikaze Fun Machine on New Jersey’s WFMU.

Mission of Burma are previewing their new album Unsound with a double A-side digital single that’s due out June 25, two weeks before the record arrives. We’ve already brought you a stream of one side, ‘Dust Devil,’ a Roger Miller-penned track. So here’s the flip side: Clint Conley’s ‘Second Television.’

Journalist Van Gosse, who trailed The Cure’s first U.S. tour in April 1980 on behalf of Melody Maker, has unearthed a long-lost cassette recording he made of the band’s first-ever American concert on April 4, 1980, at Emerald City in Cherry Hill, N.J. You can stream the entire concert right here.