The list of artists who are believed to have lost tapes in the 2008 fire that destroyed a Universal Music Group warehouse at Universal Studios in Los Angeles includes R.E.M., Sonic Youth, The Damned, The Police, Squeeze, The Dream Syndicate, Oingo Boingo, Suzanne Vega, Adam Ant, Joe Jackson and more.

Former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe performed a pair of new songs during a short opening set for Patti Smith at New York City’s Webster Hall, performing the electronics-backed “Your Capricious Soul” and “Drive to the Ocean” with help from Andy LeMaster of Now It’s Overhead. Watch them here.

Sara Romweber, the powerhouse drummer who held the beat in the first lineup of jangle-pop heroes Let’s Active and who went on to play in Snatches of Pink and, later, with her brother Dexter Romweber, has died of cancer, according to music journalist David Menconi. She was 55.

R.E.M. famously didn’t tour behind 1991’s breakthrough Out of Time, but the band did play a handful of largely professional shows that year, among the best-known of them being a pair of concerts in London under the nom-de-rock of Bingo Hand Job. See the full details and tracklist right here.

R.E.M. will continue its album-by-album reissue series with a 25th anniversary re-release of its ninth studio album Monster next October, the band’s manager, Bertis Downs, revealed today in a post on the group’s website reminiscing about the genesis of that record. And, he notes, 2020 will be the band’s 40th anniversary.

R.E.M. continues to dole out samples of the material that will be found on its upcoming 9-disc R.E.M. at the BBC box set, most recently in the form of a 2003 on-air performance of Green-era single “Orange Crush” on the BBC’s “Mark and Lard” program — which you can stream in full right here.

For longtime fans, one of the key lures of the upcoming 9-disc R.E.M. at the BBC box set is the inclusion of a 16-song live set recorded at Rock City in Nottingham, England, in 1984 during the Reckoning tour. The band is now previewing that disc with the high-octane live version of “Radio Free Europe” that you can stream here.