Five months after announcing he’d fallen ill again and that “this time the cancer is lethal,” The Pogues guitarist Philip Chevron, who joined the band after the release of its first album, today lost his battle with cancer, the group revealed via Facebook, saying he “passed away peacefully this morning.”

After nearly 30 years, a full-blown reunion of the Paisley Underground will take place this December in California as four of the scene’s key acts — headliners The Bangles, plus the newly reunited The Three O’Clock, The Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade — team up for at least two concerts in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

It’s the first full week of October, which means it’s time for our year-long Best of the ’80s poll to continue on to 1988 as we once again ask Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers to help rank the releases of each year of the decade throughout 2013 — concluding with a poll to determine the best records of the entire 1980s.

The new lineup of the Pixies — with Kim Shattuck of The Muffs taking the place of the departed original bassist Kim Deal — will follow up this fall’s European tour with a 33-city North American trek that will keep the band on the road through much of January and February 2014, the group announced this morning.

This week’s new releases include brand new studio albums from Prefab Sprout, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo with his new band The Dust, and Steve Nieve of Elvis Costello & The Attractions, plus reissues and best-of sets from The Stranglers, Madness, Pop Will Eat Itself and Propaganda.

Tonight’s edition of “Dark Wave” on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave featured music from Tones on Tail, The Church, KMFDM, Skeletal Family, The Wolfgang Press, This Mortal Coil, Bauhaus, Tubeway Army, Skinny Puppy, The Cult, Front 242, Swans, Love and Rockets and much, much more.

There was much consternation last month when This Charming Charlie, the Tumblr that so brilliantly mashes up panels from old “Peanuts” comic strips with The Smiths lyrics, announced it had received demands from Universal Music Publishing Group that it take down posts over unauthorized use of the band’s lyrics.