To celebrate the birthday today of Black Francis, the songwriter whose lyrics gave name to this site, check out full video of the Pixies’ classic 15-song set opening for the Throwing Muses at London’s Town & Country Club on May 1, 1988

Mid-way through a short North American tour in support of the just-released Red Barked Tree, U.K. post-punk legends Wire dropped by ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’ last night for their first American television performance in a quarter century.

Since the announcement last month that MTV plans to revive its ‘120 Minutes’ franchise as both a new monthly TV show and a quick-hit web series, the music-averse network has begun populating its MTV Hive website with performances by the likes of The Cure, Pixies, The Jesus and Mary Chain and World Party.

Monday night in New York City, Patti Smith sang and read poetry at Milk Studios for the opening of ‘Illumination: Who Are Poets,’ an exhibit by rock ‘n’ roll photographer Steven Sebring — and was joined onstage by Michael Stipe for an impromptu performance of R.E.M. smash ‘Everybody Hurts.’

This week’s installment of Slicing Up Eyeballs on Strangeways Radio featured all-new music by Thurston Moore, The Feelies, Depeche Mode, Peter Murphy, Robyn Hitchcock, The Cars and Juliana Hatfield — plus favorites from Primal Scream, The Stone Roses and more.

Dinosaur Jr will embark on a short East Coast tour this June to perform the band’s third album — 1988’s nine-track ‘Bug,’ featuring the trio’s break-out single ‘Freak Scene’ — in its entirety at five concerts.

Reuniting as Dalis Car for the first time in 26 years last fall, Peter Murphy and an ailing Mick Karn were able to record four new songs before the former Japan bassist succumbed to cancer in January — music that will be released as the ‘Dalis Car 2’ EP later this year.