Morrissey’s 2012 touring plans already include trips to South America and Japan, but won’t extend to New Zealand after all, as the former Smiths frontman this week announced that ‘projected dates in New Zealand have once again been scrapped due to poor offers from local promoters.’

Erasure has set a March 12 release date for the third single off last year’s ‘Tomorrow’s Word’: ‘Fill Us With Fire,’ which will be released in the U.K. as an eight-track CD single and elsewhere as a digital download package. The single features ‘Shot to the Heart,’ previously available as an iTunes bonus track.

Reclusive Liverpudlian one-album wonders The La’s will headline the the inaugural New York Sound City music, media and technology conference next month, marking Lee Mavers and Co.’s first concert in New York City in two decades.

For fans of Depeche Mode’s 1989 concert documentary ‘101,’ here’s a real treat: An eight-minute promo reel of director D.A. Pennebaker’s footage, labeled ‘film in progress,’ has surfaced, and it includes scenes not included in the final cut. Check out DM on the ‘Music For the Masses’ tour in the video, posted here.

British communications agency ditto is celebrating The Normal’s ‘Warm Leatherette’ — the first release by Mute Records, and ‘the record that started everything’ — by commissioning this ‘re imagining’ of Daniel Miller’s classic 1978 track, with Really O’Reilly providing new production and ‘electro-lady’ Georgie piping in with vocals.

Still more than a month before the arrival of his new solo album ‘Between the Times and the Tides,’ Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo has released a video for the record’s first single, ‘Off the Wall.’ The clip, seen above, features live footage of Ranaldo performing in Brooklyn mixed in with other footage shot by Ranaldo himself.

Gary Numan today announced the release of a retrospective DVD entitled ‘Machine Music: The Best of Gary Numan’ that will collect his music videos and some TV appearances from throughout his career — and which will be accompanied by a 12-date tour of the U.K. and Ireland late this spring.

Mute Records will mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Frank Tovey — aka electronic artist Fad Gadget, the first act the label signed — by helping stage FG.Ft, a month-long tribute in New York City that will include a group art exhibition, live music performances and a screening of the documentary ‘Fad Gadget by Frank Tovey.’

Tonight’s episode of Slicing Up Eyeballs on Strangeways Radio featured new and previously unreleased music from Wire, OMD, The Godfathers, Vince Clarke and Martin Gore, and The Cult, plus favorites by Galaxie 500, Duran Duran, The Jam, Paul Westerberg, The Other Two and The Jazz Butcher.

Long rumored to be making a return to the live arena following last year’s extensive reissue campaign, The Jesus and Mary Chain is set to play its first concerts in four years next month with a short run of U.S. dates that includes stops at the 35 Denton festival in Denton, Texas, and South By Southwest.

The original lineup of Killing Joke — Jaz Coleman, Kevin ‘Geordie’ Walker, Martin ‘Youth’ Glover and Paul Ferguson — this morning announced the release of the legendary postpunk band’s 15th studio album, the aptly titled ‘2012,’ which will be released April 2 — and is preceded by the track ‘Rapture,’ which you can stream here.

With the Pet Shop Boys’ brand-new double-disc B-sides compilation ‘Format’ out in the U.K. this week, EMI Music has put together this nine-minute interview reel with Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe discussing their method of writing B-sides, their format of choice and which song is most personal to them.

As the reunited Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark gets to work on its upcoming album, the group is treating fans to a glimpse at the making of their 2010 comeback ‘History of Modern’ in the form of a download of a demo version of ‘Green,’ which is available for free in exchange for an e-mail address.