In what’s become a procrastination-abetted tradition, we’ll take this first day of 2015 to cast one last glance back at 2014, counting down what people have been reading on Slicing Up Eyeballs over the past 12 months. This time around, it’s news about The Cure, Annik Honoré, New Order, The Replacements and more.

Just weeks after revealing “I think I will sing again” in a TV interview, R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe took to the stage Monday night in New York City as the unannounced opening act for Patti Smith at Webster Hall, performing a six-song set that included two numbers by his old band and four covers.

Mark Burgess is planning to bring ChameleonsVox — the latest incarnation of post-punk favorites The Chameleons — to North America next September and October for a tour that will find the band performing its 1983 debut album Script of the Bridge in its entirety each night.

The Church this week treated fans to a free download of a brand-new Christmas song — it is, quite succinctly, called “Xmas” — that will appear as one of three previously unreleased bonus tracks appended to the forthcoming 2LP vinyl release of the band’s new record Further/Deeper.

Since reuniting last year for a haphazard run of festival dates and one-off shows, The Replacements have recorded a covers EP and have more recently suggested they’ll record a new album together. In what could be the first step toward that, the band has posted a new piece of music on Soundcloud.

The Cure delivered a marathon 40-song set tonight at London’s Eventim Apollo that included a full performance of 1984’s The Top, the live debut of rare B-side “A Man Inside My Mouth” and the reintroduction of songs not played live in decades. The band will perform again Monday and Tuesday nights.

Having just warpped his American tour performing New Order’s third and fourth albums — 1985′s Low-Life and 1986′s Brotherhood — Peter Hook has announced he’ll return next spring for a tour of the southern U.S. during which he’ll play Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures and Closer plus a set of New Order favorites.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark will reissue its fifth album, 1984’s pop comeback Junk Culture, in February as a two-disc Deluxe Edition that will find the original album fully remastered and supplemented by a disc of the era’s B-sides, extended remixes and five previously unreleased songs and demos.

Exploring the legacy of ’80s college rock, the Slicing Up Eyeballs Music Hour airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Pacific on Strangeways Radio. If you caught this week’s episode, pop over to the Strangeways message board to leave requests for future shows.

The Cure will warm up for its three-night stand at London’s Hammersmith Apollo next week with a pair of special guest appearances on Thursday and Friday at the Brian and Robin’s Christmas Compendium of Reason benefit concert, performing “a small clutch of ‘happy hits'” both nights.

The prospects of The Smiths all gathering in the same room — forget about a live performance, just getting the four together behind a podium would have been a miracle — were dashed early Tuesday when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced next year’s inductees, a list that did not include the first-time nominees.

Earlier this fall, Athens, Ga.-based suicide prevention organization Nuçi’s Space launched a fundraising campaign to help save the steeple of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, famous in R.E.M. lore as the site of the first gig by Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe on April 5, 1980.

This week’s new releases include a pair of bonus-laden CD reissues from Trip Shakespeare, plus vinyl re-releases from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (From Her to Eternity, Firstborn is Dead, Kicking Against the Pricks, Your Funeral… My Trial), The Misfits and The Melvins.