Here’s a fun find by our friends at Chain of Flowers: Video footage of The Cure’s Robert Smith hamming it up for what presumably is a commercial of some sort by Chilean promoters to sell tickets to the band’s concert this weekend in Santiago. The Cure is slated to play Asunción, Paraguay, tonight.

Former Miracle Legion frontman Mark Mulcahy returns this summer with Dear Mark J Mulcahy I Love You, his fifth solo album and first 2005’s In Pursuit of Your Happiness — and he’s previewing the Fire Records release with the brand-new song “She Makes the World Turn Backwards.”

As promised, reunited 2 Tone-era ska giants The Specials are returning to North America this summer for the second leg of their 2013 tour, following up their March dates at South By Southwest and in the western part of the country with at least eight concerts in Canada and on the East Coast of the United States.

Following last year’s short run of shows in Spain, The Dream Syndicate continues its reunion this year with more European concerts and a festival appearance in Massachusetts that the band is billing as its only U.S. show of 2013. But now talk has turned to whether the band will make a new album.

Eight months after first announcing plans for a new album, The Mission have convened in England to begin recording with producer David M. Allen — who has worked with The Cure, Depeche Mode, Wire and The Sisters of Mercy — and this week announced a new record deal and plans to release the album in September.

Just two weeks after canceling the remainder of his troubled U.S. tour over his ongoing “medical mishaps,” Morrissey tonight announced plans to resume touring in June and July, with seven concerts planned in Mexico — including a show in Mexico City — followed by performances in Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Chile.

With their new album ‘Delta Machine’ out this week, Depeche Mode today announced a new stop on its North American tour — Oct. 6 in Las Vegas — suggesting that the band will be filling in that conspicuous nine-date gap between its Los Angeles shows and the tour-closing gig in Phoenix.

Wire this week released their 13th studio album ‘Changes Becomes Us,’ and instead of offering the increasingly popular pre-release stream, the band is going for post-release: the full album, billed as an “exploration of unrecorded material originally written in 1979-80,” is now streaming over at Pitchfork.

With frontman Richard Butler presumably recovered from the spinal surgery that sidelined the band’s New Year’s dates, The Psychedelic Furs today announced a run of seven U.S. concerts in late May and early June — including a pair on the East Coast with The Go-Go’s.

The Stranglers — singer-bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel, drummer Jet Black and keyboard player Dave Greenfield, plus former Toy Dolls guitarist Baz Warne — this week announced a belated U.S. release for the band’s 2012 album Giants, plus initial dates in late May and June for a planned North American tour.

Simple Minds will embark next week on an extensive U.K. tour in support of the band’s forthcoming ‘Celebrate — The Greatest Hits+’ best-0f collection but fans in that country will get another chance to see the band come November, when Jim Kerr and Co. play four arena dates with special guest Ultravox.

Robyn Hitchcock will hit the road in the U.S. later this spring to support his just-released ‘Love From London’ album, playing a series of dates on the two coasts with his latter-period backup band The Venus 3 and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck serving as opening act.

The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late frontman Stuart Adamson and the recent addition of original Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes — will tour the U.S. this June in support of the forthcoming ‘The Journey,’ with at least six dates on the two coasts already confirmed.