Holly Anderson, the poet and artist whose “White Story” — which she once described as “an anthem to being disconnected” — was turned into the Mission of Burma song “Mica” on the band’s 1982 debut album Vs., died last week, according to the St. Paul, Minn., Pioneer Press.

Pat DiNizio, the lead singer and chief songwriter for The Smithereens, the New Jersey-bred college-rock mainstays who recorded “Behind the Wall of Sleep,” “Only a Memory” and “Blood and Roses,” has died, the band announced tonight on its official website. He was 62. The cause of DiNizio’s death was not revealed.

Tommy Keene, the influential singer-songwriter with a sharp ear for power-pop who emerged in the New Wave era and went on to work with admirers including R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Paul Westerberg of The Replacements, and Guided By Voices’ Robert Pollard, died in his sleep Wednesday night, He was 59.

Chuck Mosley, the early frontman who appeared on the first two albums by hard-to-pin-down Bay Area outfit Faith No More and later replaced H.R. in seminal hardcore group Bad Brains, died this week “due to the disease of addiction,” his family announced today. He was 57.

Grant Hart, the founding drummer who served as co-songwriter/singer for pioneering hardcore-punk trio Hüsker Dü, a band that laced tuneful melody with blistering power to help define the ’80s indie scene, died overnight at the age of 56, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. He had been diagnosed with cancer.

Peter Dachert, better known as Peter Principle, the bassist for the San Francisco-born, Brussels-based experimental post-punk act Tuxedomoon, died earlier this week while the group was working on new music and preparing to tour Europe, the band announced on its site.

Mick Bund, who served as bassist for indie-pop favorites Felt in the late ’80s, played with Sarah Cracknell in her pre-Saint Etienne group Prime Time and went on to front Mexico 70 in the ’90s, died suddenly last week, according to a statement from Felt mastermind Lawrence.

Chris Cornell, whose unmistakable multi-octave singing voice branded Seattle’s Soundgarden as one of the true grunge-era standouts, died last night in Detroit following a concert there by the reunited band, the Associated Press reported. Police are investigating Cornell’s death as a possible suicide. He was 52.

Lionel Augustus Martin, the Jamaican-born saxophone player better known as Saxa, who played with ska legends Prince Buster and Desmond Dekker before helping lead the second wave with The Beat, died on Wednesday at the age of 87, his former band announced.

The day after announcing the death of his longtime bandmate, The Chameleons’ frontman Mark Burgess wrote a long, heartfelt and quite honest reflection on John Lever, calling the late drummer “one of the warmest, funniest, most generous, huge-hearted men I’ve ever known.”

John Lever, the longmtime drummer for Manchester post-punk favorites The Chameleons and spin-off groups The Sun and the Moon and ChameleonsVox, died this morning following “a short period of illness,” his longtime musical collaborator Mark Burgess announced on Facebook.

Sad news today for fans of Bill Paxton, the actor known for iconic mid-’80s supporting roles in “Weird Science” and “Aliens” who went on to star in blockbusters like “Twister” and “Apollo 13.” The 61-year-old died Saturday due to complications from surgery, his family announced today.

On Feb. 20, 2009, Slicing Up Eyeballs launched onto the web not with a bang but a whimper, debuting with a simple 91-word declaration and a headline cribbed from an R.E.M. song that Google Analytics now tells me was not viewed by a single person that day.