Record-nerd mecca Amoeba Music this week posted video of skewed singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock’s eight-song, 37-minute in-store performance at the indie chain’s Hollywood megastore, as well as a 10-minute interview segment with the musician.

Bad Lieutenant, featuring New Order’s Bernard Sumner, last week issued ‘Twist of Fate,’ the second single off its 2009 debut, ‘Never Cry Another Tear’ — and now have offered up a video for one of the remixes of its first single, ‘Sink or Swim.’

The members of Jane’s Addiction this week effectively confirmed one of the worst-kept secrets in rock: namely that former Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan has replaced original member Eric Avery, who earlier this month left the band for the second time.

In this installment of Milestones, we look at Depeche Mode’s classic ‘Violator,’ released exactly 20 years ago today. The record found the band at its commercial and artistic peak, and even sparked a near-riot in Los Angeles when the band showed up for an autograph session.

The ever-quirky Beck today revealed the fourth album to be covered — and the first foray into the ’80s — by his online project Record Club: the 1987 smash ‘Kick’ by INXS, which he’ll perform track-by-track with St. Vincent, Liars and Brazilian legends Os Mutantes.

Simply awful news out of New Orleans tonight, as word emerges that Alex Chilton of the peerless power-pop act Big Star has died of an apparent heart attack just days before he was scheduled to perform with the reconstituted band at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists cover Tears for Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ in the debut of the A.V. Club’s new ‘Undercover’ series, which will feature bands covering tunes by The Smiths, The Cure, Depeche Mode, R.E.M. and more.