Today we mark the 56th birthday of Steve Kilbey — writer, artist, solo musician and, of course, lead singer and bassist for Australian rock act The Church for the past three decades. To commemorate the occasion, we present these vintage clips of The Church playing live on Italian TV in 1988.

In honor of House of Love guitarist Terry Bickers’ 45th birthday today, we share this ‘Snub TV’ clip from 1989 that features a ripping take on fourth single ‘Destroy the Heart’ and a gentle ‘Man to Child,’ off the band’s 1988 self-titled debut, with an interview with frontman Guy Chadwick sandwiched in between.

Twenty eight years ago today, the first of what would turn out to be two multi-day US Festivals — envisioned by their organizer, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, as ‘Woodstock West’ — opened in blistering 110-degree heat at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernadino County, Calif.

Twenty years ago tonight, Robert Smith and the rest of The Cure — aided by a pair of American DJs and shadowed by MTV and the music press — set up a pirate radio station at the headquarters of Fiction Records with plans to illicitly premiere their soon-to-released remix album ‘Mixed Up’ over the London airwaves.

Elizabeth Fraser — the incomparable voice of the Cocteau Twins — turns 47 today, and to mark the occasion, we present what has to be one of the odder moments in the dreampop group’s history: a pair of TV news reports from WBNS in Columbus, Ohio, about the so-called ‘Cocteau Fever’ surrounding the band’s Sept. 19, 1985, concert in that city.

That once-angry young man, Elvis Costello, turns 59 today, and to commemorate the occasion, we cast our spotlight not on the rocker’s brilliantly prolific early period, but, rather, his late-’80s, post-Attractions comeback following a nearly three-year break: the 1989 album ‘Spike,’ a personal favorite.

College-rock fixture-to-be R.E.M. released its landmark debut EP, ‘Chronic Town,’ 28 years ago today, and to commemorate the anniversary, we present alternate versions of three of the record’s five songs: a faster version of ‘Wolves, Lower’; ‘Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)’ with different vocals and no fadeout; and ‘Shaking Through,’ featuring an organ in the mix.