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.