Metropolis Records this spring will release a new live set from The Chameleons featuring seven songs recorded in May 2021.

An unexpected cover can be a real delight for music fans, and as a regular Slicing Up Eyeballs reader points out to us, this one’s really out-of-the-blue: Nickel Creek’s Chris Thile and singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz performing The Chameleons’ “Seriocity” last weekend on “Live From Here.” Watch it right here.

The day after announcing the death of his longtime bandmate, The Chameleons’ frontman Mark Burgess wrote a long, heartfelt and quite honest reflection on John Lever, calling the late drummer “one of the warmest, funniest, most generous, huge-hearted men I’ve ever known.”

John Lever, the longmtime drummer for Manchester post-punk favorites The Chameleons and spin-off groups The Sun and the Moon and ChameleonsVox, died this morning following “a short period of illness,” his longtime musical collaborator Mark Burgess announced on Facebook.

Mark Burgess will release an EP this April featuring newly recorded versions of four unfinished songs by his band The Chameleons that date back to the 1980s, then will mount a spring European tour with his current group ChameleonsVox followed by U.S. dates in September.

Mark Burgess is planning to bring ChameleonsVox — the latest incarnation of post-punk favorites The Chameleons — to North America next September and October for a tour that will find the band performing its 1983 debut album Script of the Bridge in its entirety each night.

Mark Burgess will follow up his spring European tour that found ChameleonsVox — the latest incarnation of The Chameleons — performing 1983 debut Script of the Bridge in its entirety by performing that band’s second and third albums on consecutive nights this December in Manchester.