This week’s new releases include a lavish 3CD box set celebrating The Velvet Underground’s second album ‘White Light/White Heat,’ as well as a new EP from The Fall, a collection of radio station performances from Jellyfish and audiophile vinyl reissues from Echo & The Bunnymen and Dinosaur Jr.

Just months after surviving a secret liver transplant and declaring himself “a triumph of modern medicine, physics and chemistry,” legendary rocker Lou Reed — the leader of The Velvet Underground, who would later release classic solo albums such as Transformer, Berlin and New York — died today at age 71.

Yo La Tengo are part way through their annual run of eight Hanukkah shows at Maxwells in Hoboken, N.J., and, as usual, the events feature a variety of guests — including, on Night 3, an appearance by The Feelies, who helped close out the show by joining YLT for a 16-minute jam through The Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray.”

For the past day or so, Echo & The Bunnymen’s web folk have been uploading a stream of videos to the band’s YouTube channel, including this 1985 TV appearance that finds the band joined by Billy Bragg to play The Velvet Underground’s ‘Run Run Run.’

Simply awful news out of New Orleans tonight, as word emerges that Alex Chilton of the peerless power-pop act Big Star has died of an apparent heart attack just days before he was scheduled to perform with the reconstituted band at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.

Stadium headliners U2 did something pretty unusual last night: Bono and Co. served as a backing band for longtime friend Gavin Friday at the Irish […]

Word of a planned Sonic Youth box set emerged this week when Beck let slip that he’ll be  covering the band’s 1986 album EVOL in […]

This past weekend saw the release of “Adventureland,” a sweet and very funny coming-of-age tale set in 1987 that’s as notable for its ample cinematic […]