“Armed only with their guitars,” Robyn Hitchcock and The Church’s Steve Kilbey are pairing up for a short run of Australian dates — just four have been announced — this April and May during which promoters promise “an unforgettable evening of whimsical lyricism and psychedelic nursery rhymes.”

The Church’s Steve Kilbey will perform with former bandmate Richard Ploog for the first time in nearly 25 years next month when the drummer — who left after 1990’s Gold Afternoon Fix — joins Kilbey and Mark Gable of The Choirboys for a “one-off special tour” called “Discover Australia: A Stumble Through Australian Pop History.”

The Church’s Steve Kilbey dropped a New Year’s surprise for fans, releasing a nearly 3-hour documentary that features performances, interviews and “general horsing around” that he filmed during the short 1991 U.S. tour by Jack Frost, his group with Grant McLennan of The Go-Betweens.

The Church has begun work on its 21st album, but the band is proceeding without founding guitarist Marty Willson-Piper, frontman Steve Kilbey announced this week in a statement that first suggests Willson-Piper simply can’t make the sessions for the new record, then implies he’s out of the band for good.

Steve Kilbey of The Church and The Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli — who have been writing new music together over the past year — made their live debut together Wednesday night with an intimate show in Los Angeles, where they performed selections from each other’s projects and premiered at least one new song,

It’s hardly a tour or anything, but Steve Kilbey of The Church and The Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli — who have been writing new music together over the past year — have now added a second performance together this fall, a show in San Francisco that comes two days after their sold-out Los Angeles gig.

After working on songs together off and on for the past few months, Steve Kilbey of The Church and The Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli will go public with their new collaboration this October when the duo plays a show in Los Angeles that will feature new music as well as “a wide selection of songs encompassing both of their careers.”

The Church next week will release “Long Distance Century Buzzes and Fades,” a 23-years-in-the-making documentary of the band’s 1990 world tour in support of Gold Afternoon Fix that frontman Steve Kilbey assembled from more than 13 hours of raw footage he filmed with a then-new Super 8 camera.

While neither side has officially announced anything, it appears that Steve Kilbey of The Church and The Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli may have begun work in Australia on the new musical project that Kilbey first hinted at last July after he jumped on stage with the reunited Whigs in Sydney to help perform “One Day.”

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 New Order, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Steve Kilbey, The Stone Roses, The Mission, Bad Religion, Killing Joke, Sex Pistols, They Might Be Giants and more.

The newly reunited Afghan Whigs this week are in the midst of playing their first-ever concerts in Australia, and, on Thursday night at a club date in Sydney, Greg Dulli and Co. paid tribute to a key early influence by bringing Steve Kilbey up on stage to help perform ‘One Day’ off The Church’s 1983 album ‘Seance.’

This week’s new releases include a new Simple Minds box set that compiles each of the band’s first five albums, plus Dinosaur Jr’s new live DVD ‘In the Hands of Fans,’ a new studio record from Sinead O’Connor, and the second album from Isidore, featuring The Chruch’s Steve Kilbey.

This week’s new CDs include ‘The Palace Guards,’ the solo debut from David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, plus ‘White Magic,’ the second album from The Church’s Steve Kilbey and Martin Kennedy of electronic group All India Radio.