U.K. post-punk legends Wire this week offered up the first taste of their upcoming ‘Changes Becomes Us’ in the form of opening track “Doubles & Trebles,” which is apparently a reworking of a previously unreleased song called “Ally in Exile.” The album is being build as “exploration of unrecorded material originally written in 1979-80.”

You can’t say they’re not persistent: Organizers of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival apparently continue to make offers to land a reunion of The Smiths to headline the annual festival, with Morrissey reporting this week that he has yet again turned down an offer to have the defunct indie giants top the 2013 bill.

The reunited ‘Last Splash’-era lineup of The Breeders — Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs, and Jim Macpherson — this week announced initial European dates for its upcoming tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of that album, revealing they’ll play in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

This April marks the 25th anniversary of both Mudhoney and its label, Seattle’s Sub Pop Records, and the proto-grunge act will mark the occasion with the release of its ninth studio album, ‘Vanishing Point’ — which you can preview now via a free download of first single “The Only Son of the Widow from Nain.”

Billy Bragg today announced he’ll release his first new album in five years this in March — the Joe Henry-produced ‘Tooth & Nail,’ which he compares to his ‘Mermaid Avenue records’ with Wilco — and then follow that with an extensive North American tour that’ll keep him on the road until early May.

With his music memoir “Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division” due for publication in the United States later this month, bassist Peter Hook has announced a 10-date book tour in late January and early February that will include, at half the stops, an on-stage conversation with noted journalists and authors.

It’s still another week before the release of the new album from classic college-rock combo Camper Van Beethoven, but we can now offer a free download of a second track off La Costa Perdida. Below, you can stream and/or download the song “Someday Our Love Will Sell Us Out.”