R.E.M. tonight posted a minute-long video of the band’s recent recording sessions in Nashville, showing, in typically enigmatic fashion, Michael Stipe playing high-pitched noises off some kind of contraption while the rest of the band and assorted personnel record a round of handclaps — after which Peter Buck asks, ‘Should we double track it?’

Watch the Waterboys performing their 1988 classic ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ live in Irish radio station RTÉ 2fm’s mobile studio at the Electric Picnic Music & Arts Festival last weekend, where Mike Scott & Co. shared the bill with Roxy Music, Bad Lieutenant and Public Image Ltd., among other bands.

The release of ‘Reconnected Live’ — the 2CD, 20-track document of 2008’s Yazoo/Yaz reunion tour — is still a couple weeks off, but Mute Records has posted this four-song sampler to whet the appetites of fans of the Vince Clarke/Alison Moyet project.

The long-planned triple-bass supergroup Freebass — which already lost Andy Rourke of The Smiths earlier this summer — has imploded on the eve of the belated CD release of its debut album, with Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield of The Stone Roses unloading on Peter Hook via Twitter.

Our friends at 24 Hour Service Station are providing us with three promo CD copies of their brand-new digital-only compilation ‘Hand in Glove: The Smiths Tribute’ to give away to Slicing Up Eyeballs readers.

This afternoon, the Andy Partridge-run Ape House Records offered an update on the forthcoming double-vinyl reissue of XTC’s 1986 album ‘Skylarking,’ declaring the new corrected edition of the album ‘is about 30 percent better sounding than any previously heard.’

In honor of House of Love guitarist Terry Bickers’ 45th birthday today, we share this ‘Snub TV’ clip from 1989 that features a ripping take on fourth single ‘Destroy the Heart’ and a gentle ‘Man to Child,’ off the band’s 1988 self-titled debut, with an interview with frontman Guy Chadwick sandwiched in between.