Earlier this month in London, Danny Elfman took the concert stage for an ultra-rare live appearance celebrating his film scores for director Tim Burton that concluded with something even more rare: Elfman took the mic for his first public vocal performance since Oingo Boingo’s demise nearly 18 years ago.

It’s nearly Halloween, which, uh, means it’s time for Christmas carols, right? In that case, check out the new track from Southern California punk kings Bad Religion, which is, naturally, a cover of the Yuletide hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” off the band’s forthcoming holiday album, Christmas Songs

This summer, after Simple Minds announced the band’s first North American tour in 11 years, frontman Jim Kerr made a somewhat unusual request of his fans: He publicly urged them to buy tickets to this month’s seven concerts, saying the group was testing the waters for possible future tours.

Well, this is a tad more than just a little embarrassing. We’re not just a couple weeks behind, but, rather, nearly two months late in posting the next installment in the Auto Reverse mixtape series — so late, in fact, that we’ve gone ahead and made it a double. So download or stream all four 45-minutes of music new and vintage.

Johnny Marr will commemorate both Halloween and his 50th birthday this Thursday by opening his second U.S. tour this year in support of his new solo album The Messenger with a show at the House of Blues in Anaheim, Calif. — and we’re giving away three pairs of tickets to see the legendary co-founder of The Smiths.

This week’s new releases include box sets devoted to Tears For Fears and Waterboys albums, plus a new Morrissey concert film, a reissue of Billy Bragg’s debut, a box set collecting six Boomtown Rats albums, an audiophile CD pressing from the Pixies and live sets from The Mission and The Wedding Present.

Tonight’s edition of “Dark Wave” on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave featured music from Die Krupps, The Jesus and Mary Chain, A Split-Second, The Danse Society, Siouxsie and the Banshees, ClockDVA, Anne Clarke, Alien Sex Fiend, Killing Joke, This Heat, The Cure, PiL and much, much more.

Morrissey long has been coy about his sexuality, which is why the publication of his autobiography this past week generated a flurry of headlines about its revelation of a relationship with another man during the 1990s — reports that apparently have led the former Smiths frontman to proclaim he’s not gay, but, rather, “humasexual.”

The Stone Roses reunion hasn’t made much of a splash on these shores, with just a pair of U.S. performances from the band at Coachella. But American fans will get a closer glimpse when the documentary “The Stone Roses: Made of Stone” screens in theaters next month and the gets a DVD/Blu-ray release,

Bauhaus’ David J will treat fans this Halloween to “an exquisite new cinematic interpretation” of the band’s iconic song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” a remake called “Undead is Forever” and which will feature “signature post-classical piano” from Jill Tracy and an excerpt of Lord Byron’s vampire poem “The Giaour.”

Less than two months after reuniting onstage for the first time in more than two decades, The Replacements tonight landed a nomination to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2014, joining a list of nominees that includes Nirvana, Peter Gabriel, KISS and more, Rolling Stone reports.

The Chills this week christen their new “special ongoing partnership” with Fire Records with their first release on the label: a gorgeous live album called Somewhere Beautiful that was recorded on New Year’s Eve 2011 and is being released this week on CD, digitally and as a deluxe 3LP vinyl pressing.

Peter Murphy avoided jail time last week when he pleaded guilty to meth possession and no contest to hit-and-run driving in connection with a Southern California car crash, for which he was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to attend 45 days of Narcotics Anonymous meetings.