On the heels of last week’s announcement of a new 2CD best-of, Aussie rockers Midnight Oil today began offering a free download of “Read About It” recorded live in 2009 at one of two warm-up shows the band played in Canberra prior to taking part in the Sound Relief benefit concert.

Their box set may be on hold, but Australian rockers Midnight Oil do have a new release up their sleeves: In November, the band will issue a new 2CD, 36-track best-of titled ‘Essential Oils,’ a truly career-spanning overview of the band’s catalog, sampling cuts from 1978’s self-titled debut through 2002 swan song ‘Capricornia.’

Welcome to the Week in Rock, where we round up all of the headlines posted on this site over the past week. This edition includes items about Midnight Oil, The Stone Roses, John Lydon, This Mortal Coil, The Specials, Pet Shop Boys, World Party, Mission of Burma, The Smiths and more — plus the latest Auto Reverse mixtape.

Plans for a career-spanning box set from Australian rockers Midnight Oil — which guitarist Jim Moginie last year promised ‘is going to be amazing in its depth and presentation of the band’s career, with rare recordings and so far unseen and unheard film and music’ — apparently are ‘back on hold’ as the band re-evaluates the release.

Former Violent Femmes bassist Brian Ritchie has assembled an ad-hoc supergroup featuring The Dresden Dolls, former Bad Seeds multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish to perform the Femmes’ classic 1983 self-titled debut album at the MONA FOMA Festival in Tasmania on Friday.

This week’s round-up of Slicing Up Eyeballs headlines includes posts about Midnight Oil, The Cure, Wire, Gary Numan, The Church and New Order, plus our December mixtape and the second installment of our Rhino ‘Just Can’t Get Enough — The ’80s’ Spotify playlist.