Former Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson will take a break from his gigs with Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum to embark on a short solo tour this spring, playing six gigs in four days at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, next month before hitting the East Coast four a handful of shows in April.

This week’s new releases include a new Simple Minds box set that compiles each of the band’s first five albums, plus Dinosaur Jr’s new live DVD ‘In the Hands of Fans,’ a new studio record from Sinead O’Connor, and the second album from Isidore, featuring The Chruch’s Steve Kilbey.

The playlist from tonight’s edition of ‘Dark Wave’ — the weekly ‘darker side of alternative’ show on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave — featured The Smiths, Love and Rockets, The Teardrop Explodes, Peter Murphy, Modern English, Duran Duran, Echo & The Bunnymen and much more.

Our round-up of this week’s Slicing Up Eyeballs headlines includes news about The Jesus and Mary Chain, Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Kraftwerk, Simple Minds, Colourbox, Morrissey, Lloyd Cole and Paul Weller — plus the first new Public Image Ltd. song in 20 years.

The Jesus and Mary Chain’s history, both visual and lyrical, is captured in a new 114-page coffee table book featuring scores of photos, many never-before-seen, by Andrew Catlin and text by Jim Reid and his wife Julie, the band announced today on its website.

Squeeze will take advantage of their booking at the newly expanded two-weekend Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival to book a short run of California dates around the fest this April, plus at least one East Coast concert later in the month with contemporaries Dave Wakeling and The English Beat.

With the new DVD and Blu-ray ‘Bug Live at 9:30 Club: In the Hands of the Fans’ out next week, Dinosaur Jr is giving fans a little audio teaser in the form of a free MP3 download of the live track ‘Bones,’ which you can grab via the widget below in exchange for an e-mail address.