Tonight’s ‘Dark Wave’ on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave featured a number of welcome detours, lesser-played tracks from the program’s regular crop of artists, including The Church’s ‘Tantalized,’ Depeche Mode’s ‘Nothing’ and Concrete Blonde’s ‘Darkening of the Light.’

Former Joy Division bassist Peter Hook brought the U.S. leg of his somewhat controversial ‘Unknown Pleasures’ tour to a close Saturday night in Los Angeles, where he was joined onstage by Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell to perform ‘Transmission.’

Although John Lydon has delayed work on a new Public Image Ltd. album over the death of stepdaughter Ari Up, the reunited band will continue performing in 2011, with two new summer festival dates announced this week in the U.K. and Slovakia.

Members of R.E.M.’s fan club have begun receiving their annual holiday single in the mail, and, like last year’s, the 2010 installment features the return of departed drummer Bill Berry on a cover of Darlene Love’s classic ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ — as well as an instrumental mashup of three tracks off the band’s forthcoming album ‘Collapse Into Now.’

It’s indie guitar god J Mascis’ birthday today — he’s 45 — and to celebrate, here’s some high-quality video of J and the reunited Dinosaur Jr tearing through its trademark cover of The Cure’s 1987 pop hit ‘Just Like Heaven’ at a show last year.

Erasure today released the video for ‘A Little Respect (HMI Redux),’ the new version of the classic song they recorded to raise awareness about gay bullying and teen suicides that benefits the Hetrick-Martin Institute.

Today we launch the Slicing Up Eyeballs Readers Poll 2010, your chance to vote for the best new albums and best reissues, compilations, live albums and box set by veteran ’80s college rock artists or their offshoots. Voting is open through 12 p.m. EST Dec. 27.

The ongoing brouhaha over British Prime Minister David Cameron’s liking of The Smiths — something both Morrissey and Johnny Marr, in a rare show of public unity, have forbidden — spilled over onto the floor of Parliament yesterday during the always-entertaining Prime Minister’s Questions.

Sub Pop Records today offered up the first taste of Dinosaur Jr frontman J Mascis’ forthcoming record ‘Several Shades of Why’ — an acoustic collection that’s actually his first-ever studio solo album — in the form of a free download of the track ‘Not Enough.’

The Cars continue to slowly reveal their reunion via Facebook, first posting a photo of the band in the studio last summer, then proceeding with short teasers of new music, the second of which, a 56-second video clip of a new tune called ‘Sad Song,’ was posted yesterday.

Exploring the legacy of ’80s college rock, the ‘Slicing Up Eyeballs’ show airs every Tuesday at 10 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Pacific on Strangeways Radio.

The Church today announced it will bring its ‘Future Past Perfect’ tour to the United States in February and perform not one, but three albums — 1988’s ‘Starfish,’ 1992’s ‘Priest=Aura’ and last year’s ‘Untitled #23’ — in their entirety each night.

As hinted at last summer, classic goth-rock act The Mission will reunite next year for a special 25th anniversary concert in London — although it’s not yet known whether this will lead to the series of U.K. and European concerts originally envisioned by bandleader Wayne Husse