Welcome to the Week in Rock, where we round up all of the headlines posted on this site over the past week. This week featured posts about R.E.M., Depeche Mode, Sparks, New Order, Midnight Oil, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Daniel Ash, The House of Love, Peter Murphy and more.
Seems Morrissey’s health issues aren’t behind him, after all: Six dates into his rescheduled North American tour, the former Smiths frontman this afternoon announced that tonight’s concert at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco “will not take place” due to the singer’s “ongoing medical condition.”
Today we unveil the results of Part 1 of our year-long Best of the ’80s feature, an ambitious, year-by-year poll of Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers to determine just what were the best albums of each year of the 1980s — and then, when that’s all said and done at the end of 2013, we’ll run a monster best-of-the-decade poll.
Sparks — aka brothers Ron and Russell Mael — this month will release their first-ever live album, a 2CD set called Two Hands One Mouth recorded on their European tour last year that found the duo performing for the first time without a full band or computers — a show they’re bringing to Los Angeles and San Francisco this spring.
For this week’s “120 Minutes” Rewind, we bring in someone not normally associated with “120 Minutes”: Original MTV VJ Martha Quinn, who is seen in this clip interviewing Michael Aston of Gene Loves Jezebel for the alt-music program during its very early incarnation in 1986.
Depeche Mode’s visit to Austin, Texas, next week for the South By Southwest Music Festival won’t just be all-talk: The band today announced that, in addition to its Q&A session about upcoming album ‘Delta Machine,’ it will perform its first-ever showcase at the annual music festival on Friday, March 15.
As we’ve noted already today, it’s the 30th anniversary of the release of New Order’s iconic 12-inch single “Blue Monday” — and to mark the occasion, John Digweed and Nick Muir have produced a new mix of the classic track, dubbed “FAC 73 – 13 Mix.” You can stream it below or over at Peter Hook’s Hacienda website.
Q&A: Daniel Ash on Love and Rockets’ reunion, his new band — and figuring out how to play “So Alive” 
Q&A: Chris Frantz talks Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club and new book ‘Remain in Love’ 
Q&A: Steve Wynn on The Dream Syndicate’s first new album in nearly 30 years 
Q&A: Bauhaus’ David J on his ‘accidental’ concept album ‘Not Long For This World’ 
Q&A: Peter Murphy on ‘Ninth,’ Bauhaus’ break-up, reuniting Dalis Car 
Q&A: Joey Santiago on Pixies’ ‘Doolittle’ tour, possible ‘Surfer Rosa’ shows, new album talk 
Q&A: Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon on new album, changing the world with music 
Q&A: Peter Hook talks ‘Unknown Pleasures’ tour, re-recording Joy Division 