This month’s tape features recent tracks from Paul Weller and Gang of Four, and classic cuts from The Clash, Camouflage and Simple Minds, plus British Sea Power covering The Cure, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs remaking Sonic Youth and The Shop Assistants doing The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Erasure this morning announced both ‘Total Pop!,’ a seven-date greatest-hits tour of U.K. forests next summer to coincide with the release of their next studio album, and a new version of ‘A Little Respect’ recorded to raise awareness about gay bullying and teen suicides.

With a new best-of set due sometime early next year, Simple Minds on Monday announced plans for a unique summer trek across Great Britain: the seven-date ‘Greatest Hits U.K. Forest Tour,’ which is exactly what it sounds like — a ‘series of dates in spectacular woodlands locations.’

Jim Kerr reports that Simple Minds recently hit the studio to record tracks — including a ‘New Gold Dream’-era castoff — that are earmarked for both ‘an extensive compilation’ due out in early 2011 and what eventually will become the band’s 16th studio album.

On May 26, 1984 — just three months after the release of ‘The Smiths’ — a young and occasionally smiling Morrissey appeared on the BBC TV game show ‘Pop Quiz,’ which pitted two teams of musicians against each other in a battle of musical knowledge hosted by a ridiculously attired DJ named Mike Read.

Ex-Bauhaus leader Peter Murphy took to his Facebook page today to update fans on a number of projects, including his Dalis Car reunion with Mick Karn (sessions being ‘next week’) and the pending release of his new solo album Ninth (‘shouldn’t be too long now’).

Given that today is Jim Kerr’s 51st birthday, we dedicate this installment of Vintage Video to the Simple Minds frontman. Here’s a performance of one of the band’s most rousing anthems, ‘Waterfront,’ filmed Sept. 15, 1989, at L’Arena in Verona, Italy, during the band’s ‘Street Fighting Years’ tour.

This week’s new CD releases include the new solo album from Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr, ‘Lostboy! AKA’; an eight-disc box set from The Church’s Steve Kilbey; and reissues from The Charlatans (‘Some Friendly’) and Modern English (‘Stop Start’).

With Simple Minds still active after 30 years, frontman Jim Kerr will release his first-ever solo album this May under the name Lostboy! AKA, and is set to debut his new material — and dig into Simple Minds’ back catalog — with a trio of intimate U.K. club dates this spring before embarking on a full tour.

Tweet In what’s likley to be a staple of this year’s awards season, tonight’s Critics’ Choice Movie Awards in Los Angeles featured a tribute to […]

Tweet As promised, New Wave vets Simple Minds and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are teaming up to perform Kraftwerk’s 1978 classic “Neon Lights” during […]

The rock and synth contingents of New Wave will meet on UK stages this winter when Simple Minds takes Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark out […]

Simple Minds will perform “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” nightly in memory of “The Breakfast Club” director John Hughes during the band’s upcoming European tour, […]