My Bloody Valentine delivered a Christmas surprise to fans, announcing on Facebook this evening that the band finished mastering its 21-years-in-the-making follow-up to the 1991 classic ‘Loveless’ three days ago. Whether the record still will be released online before year’s end, as Kevin Shields pledged, remains to be seen.

Tonight’s edition of “Dark Wave” — the Sunday night “darker side of alternative” show on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave — featured Fad Gadget, Soft Cell, The Cure, New Order, The March Violets, Cocteau Twins, The Essence, Siouxsie and the Banshees and more.

Mike Scaccia — who joined Ministry during the Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste tour and went on to play with various Al Jourgensen-led projects including Revolting Cocks, 1000 Homo DJs and Lard — died early this morning after collapsing on-stage in Fort Worth, Texas, during a performance with metal band Rigor Mortis.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Joe Strummer, the legendary frontman of The Clash — an occasion we mark in this installment of Vintage Video by presenting an hour-long concert filmed in Tokyo on Jan. 28, 1982, during the final tour to feature the band’s classic lineup.

Director Gorman Bechard’s documentary about The Replacements and their rabid fans — a film dubbed, appropriately, “Color Me Obsessed” — finally landed on DVD last month, but if you haven’t had a chance to see the film yet, the full two-hour doc is streaming on YouTube for a limited time courtesy of Noisey.

The Dead Milkmen have released the second in their new series of limited-edition 7-inch singles — “Big Words Make the Baby Jesus Cry” — and you can now stream both songs off the vinyl single plus the digital-only bonus track. The 7-inch is limited to just 500 copies.

There’s been no announcement about the fate of the 27-year-old magazine, but now it’s official: As The Daily Swarm points out, Spin subscribers are receiving the current issue of Car and Driver with letters advising them that Spin “ceased publication” after that September/October issue.

Fans in the Los Angeles area will get yet another chance to see Peter Murphy in concert this year as the singer caps off 2012 with a pair of special, just-announced concerts at The Observatory in Santa Ana at which he will perform his 1989 album ‘Deep’ one night and a full set of Bauhaus material the next night.

The Psychedelic Furs this evening announced the cancellation of the band’s short run of New Year’s dates in Las Vegas and California as frontman Richard Butler recovers from spinal surgery, but added, in a note posted on the band’s official Facebook page, that the group hopes to reschedule the five concerts in the future.

As promised on last night’s Slicing Up Eyeballs Music Hour on Strangeways Radio, here’s an extended version of this year’s Christmas mix — a nearly 100-minute set featuring seasonal songs from the likes of The Fall, Al Jourgensen, Cocteau Twins, The Smithereens and more — for your streaming and/or downloading pleasure.

Robyn Hitchcock will release a brand-new studio album titled ‘Love From London’ on Yep Roc Records on March 5, a 10-song collection that the singer-songwriter says “celebrates life in a culture imperiled by economic and environmental collapse,” according to the label’s announcement of the new record.

This week’s Slicing Up Eyeballs Music Hour featured Christmas-themed music from the likes of The Smithereens, Ramones, The Primitives, Al Jourgensen, The Pretenders, R.E.M., Throwing Muses, Kate Bush, Pet Shop Boys, The Pogues, They Might Be Giants, The Fall and more.

Brooklyn’s They Might Be Giants will release their 16th studio album, ‘Nanobots,’ on March 5, and will follow its upcoming three-night hometown New Year’s stand with a 31-date U.S. tour in the spring. The two Johns recently premiered the first track off the album at Rolling Stone, and you can now download the MP3 right here.