Rolling Stone reports that Johnny Marr [ tickets ], former guitarist for The Smiths, is now a member of Modest Mouse [ tickets ].

Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock told the magazine that Marr planned only to be a studio player for the forthcoming Modest Mouse album, but the guitarist found he was a perfect fit for the group..

"[Marr] made a cautious commitment to write and record with us, and then the tighter we got, he was like, 'OK, let's tour too,'" Brock said. "Then he was pretty much a member of the band--not pretty much. He's a full-blown member of the band. It's really f---in' nice."

Canadian indie-rock band Death From Above 1979--which formed in 2001 and made its biggest mark with 2004's "You're a Woman, I'm a Machine"--is splitting up.

"Over the last 3 years of touring, Sebastien [Grainger, drummer] and I had grown apart to such an extent that the only real time we spoke was just before we would play and during interviews," bassist Jessee F. Keeler wrote in a lengthy message posted at the band's website. "We both changed so much that the people we were by the end of it probably wouldn't have been friends if they were to meet for the first time again. It's a totally normal function of growing up. Like how your high school boyfriend/girlfriend that meant so much to you would probably be the last person you would date at 30, ya know? That's where we got to. It's not sad. It would be more sad if we stopped changing and growing and kept playing the same songs for 40 years like The Rolling Stones. For me that would be a nightmare."

Hoping to follow up on the success of his No. 1 album "The Greatest Songs of the Fifties," Barry Manilow [ tickets ] is set to issue "The Greatest Songs of the Sixties" on Oct. 31.

The album feature's Manilow's takes on 13 classics, including The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," Herb Alpert's "This Guy's in Love With You," The Beatles' "And I Love Her, Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night and Dean Martin's "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime."