Joey Santiago tells Slicing Up Eyeballs that the Pixies have discussed making a new record, but that notion remains in the ‘chit-chat phase.’ The guitarist, however, is all for it: ‘I’d like to give it a shot, just to see what we’d come out with. Certainly, we don’t have to put it out if it sucks.’

This week’s headlines on Slicing Up Eyeballs included a lot of big news about The Cure, plus items on The Mission, Erasure, Gary Numan, The Sisters of Mercy, R.E.M., Lou Reed (and Metallica) and The Jesus and Mary Chain, plus a new Bangles contest.

This week’s link round-up includes a podcast featuring vintage tape of John Peel interviewing the Pixies’ Black Francis, news of The Stone Roses’ upcoming biography, an interview with director Peter Care about the making of R.E.M.’s iconic ‘Drive’ video and a Q&A with Gary Numan about his new album ‘Dead Son Rising.’

The long-awaited This Mortal Coil anthology first announced a year ago — a 4CD box set featuring the 4AD collective’s three albums and a fourth disc of singles and rarities — finally will be released this November, while a Blu-ray disc called Tears in the Dropbox that includes all three albums in HD audio remains in the works.

In December 1988, when Dinosaur Jr entered Boston’s famed Fort Apache Studios, to record a track for ‘The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young,’ they cut not one but two songs: ‘Lotta Love,’ which would be included on the disc alongside covers by the Pixies, The Flaming Lips and Sonic Youth, and ‘I’ve Been Waiting For You.’

Before taking the Pixies back out on the road this fall for more ‘Doolittle’ dates, frontman Black Francis will embark on a short solo-acoustic tour of his own — beginning tonight — and he’ll follow that up in September with a brand-new studio album he recorded as a duo with singer-songwriter Reid Paley.