Our good friends at Strangeways Radio are putting together a week-in-review video series — newly rechristened Alt. Rewind — that will recap the news posted at Slicing Up Eyeballs and on the Strangeways site throughout the preceding week, hosted by Velvet Rebel. Watch it right here.

Here’s a free guitar lesson from Johnny Marr in the form of an advertisement for Fender guitars and amps. The former Smiths guitarist uses this 8-minute video to first perform then teach viewers how to play “The Headmaster Ritual,” the iconic opening track to 1985’s Meat is Murder. Watch it right here.

Dark times right now amid this global pandemic, but perhaps we can offer some diversion as we finally deliver the seventh installment of our Best of the ’80s Redux series, the sporadic Slicing Up Eyeballs poll in which our readers have now ranked the Top 100 songs of 1986. Check out the full list right here.

We’ve created a Spotify playlist to accompany our just-posted Top 100 songs of 1986 readers poll results. As you can see (and hear), the playlist opens with New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” and closes with Madonna’s “Live To Tell” — with 96 more songs in between. There are two songs that aren’t available on Spotify.

Our good friends at Strangeways Radio are putting together a new week-in-review video that will recap the news posted at Slicing Up Eyeballs and on the Strangeways site throughout the preceding week, hosted by Velvet Rebel. News about The Pretenders, Curt Smith of Tears For Fears, Peter Hook with Gorillaz and more

The Psychedelic Furs today announced they’re delaying the release of Made of Rain — the band’s first new album in 29 years — until late July due to “logistical issues” presented by the coronavirus pandemic, saying, “It’s been a long time since we’ve put out an album, and we want to make sure that we can make it available to everyone.”

Duran Duran bassist John Taylor today announced that he tested positive for the new coronavirus three weeks ago, and has since recovered from a mild case of COVID-19, an illness he described in a social media post as feeling like a “turbo-charged flu.” Read Taylor’s full statement right here.

Fire Records is delaying the release of the first new Throwing Muses album in seven years “given the situation in our industry” brought on by the coronavirus. The 10-song Sun Racket, the band’s 10th record overall, had been due out May 22 but now is scheduled to be released Sept. 4.

The House of Love’s  Guy Chadwick today played a 13-song, 48-minute solo set from his home in Sussex, England, that was broadcast “live from isolation” via Facebook, a way to reach out to fans as the band is now sidelined like so much else in this world by the coronavirus.  Watch it right here.

The Pretenders recently debuted the second track of the band’s first new album in four years, the raucous title track to Hate For Sale, while also announcing a delay in the release of the record, presumably — like so much else right now — because of the coronavirus. You can hear “Hate For Sale,” the song, right here.

Our good friends at Strangeways Radio are putting together a new week-in-review video that will recap the news posted at Slicing Up Eyeballs and on the Strangeways site throughout the preceding week, hosted by Velvet Rebel. Watch the full episode right here.

Check out the latest installment right here — this week’s episode features items on Depeche Mode, Paul Weller, Missing Persons, Bill Rieflin of Ministry and R.E.M., Cold Cave and more.
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Bill Rieflin, the thunderous drummer who made his name in Chicago’s late-’80s/early-’90s industrial scene pounding out beats for Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Pigface and more before manning the kit for R.E.M. over the last eight years of that band’s career, died on Tuesday of cancer, according to former bandmates. He was 59.