As promised, Midnight Oil’s much-anticipated Great Circle 2017 World Tour will open in Australia, with the band having announced what it calls a “back to basics pub gig” in Sydney on April 13 — which means the months-long tour will now begin and end in Australia’s largest city.

Belgian EBM pioneers Front 242 were announced earlier this week as headliners of Chicago’s Cold Waves festival in September — but that won’t be the group’s only U.S. show this fall. Jean-Luc De Meyer will play a total of 12 North American dates this September and October.

Former Jam frontman Paul Weller this spring will release his 13th solo album, titled A Kind Revolution, a 10-track collection he began work on immediately after completing 2015’s Saturns Pattern and which features guest appearances by Robert Wyatt and Boy George.

For this week’s installment of “120 Minutes” Rewind, we present this “120 X-Ray” segment on Sinead O’Connor that aired Jan. 28, 1990, and actually ends with host Dave Kendall introducing the world premiere of the soon-to-be-iconic video for the Prince-penned “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

The premiere of the long-in-the-works documentary about the rise and fall of Chicago’s Wax Trax! Records retail shop and record label is just over a day away, but for those who can’t make it Chicago, or just want a glimpse now, here’s a 3-minute trailer to whet your appetite. Watch the trailer here.

When news first surfaced last month that Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins have reunited as Poptone to perform the music of their collective back catalog, fans were particularly excited at the prospect of hearing Tones on Tail songs played live — as that band only toured in 1984, and hasn’t reunited like Bauhaus and Love and Rockets.

For this week’s installment of Vintage Video, we turn to the very short-lived late-night talk show “Thicke of the Night,” hosted by the late Alan Thicke, and this 1984 visit by Aussie powerhouse Midnight Oil.
The band — not exactly a well-known act in America at the time — was allowed to perform three songs.

The makers of a planned documentary about the late X-Ray Spex frontwoman Poly Styrene today launched a crowdfunding campaign to help pay for the film, and debuted a (very early) trailer for the project, which they hope will hit theaters in November 2018. Watch the trailer here.

The Cold Waves festival — billed as “a celebration of Chicago’s relationship with industrial music” — returns for a sixth year this fall with a 3-day lineup headlined by Front 242, KMFDM and Stabbing Westward, organizers announced this week. The event is slated for Sept. 29, 30 and Oct. 1 at Chicago’s Metro and Smart Bar.

American Music Club frontman Mark Eiztel stopped by Seattle’s KEXP radio station last month to perform a quartet of songs off his just-released new album Hey Mr. Ferryman and discuss his music with host Troy Nelson. On the album, Eitzel is backed largely by ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler.

The Dead Milkmen will follow up their 2014 album Pretty Music For Pretty People this fall with a brand new EP titled Welcome to the End of the World, to be released on vinyl and digital formats with 50 percent of all after-tax profits being donated to Girls Rock Philly.

Miracle Legion frontman Mark Mulcahy will release his first new album in four years next month in the form of the 11-track The Possum in the Driveway, which comes as he’s wrapping up his current reunion tour with the ’80s college-rock cult favorites. The album is due out April 28.

Long-running British post-punk act Sad Lovers & Giants next month will release a 5-disc box set that’s being billed as the first comprehensive anthology of the group’s music, covering the band’s different lineups through the 1980s and beyond across the set’s 89 tracks.