Southern California fans longing for that old Oingo Boingo Halloween experience can still get a taste of those epic late-’80s, early-’90s shows this fall when drummer John ‘Vatos’ Hernandez rounds up some former bandmates for his annual ‘Dead Man’s Party’ bash.

Crooner Bryan Ferry enlisted a star-studded cast — including Roxy Music bandmates Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay — for this fall’s ‘Olympia,’ his first album of new material in eight years and his first recorded collaboration with those ex-bandmates since 1973’s ‘For Your Pleasure.’

Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr joined composer Hans Zimmer and a 20-piece orchestra last night in Hollywood to perform the score to ‘Inception,’ the new mind-twister from “The Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan.

Squeeze took time out from their current U.S. tour to drop by “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” last night to deliver a rousing take on their 1980 single ‘Pulling Mussels (From the Shell),’ one of the 14 tracks the band has re-recorded for its forthcoming compilation ‘Spot the Difference.’

Nearly two months after scrubbing its North American summer tour, U2 today announced 16 rescheduled dates for the 360° Tour’s second stateside leg, which now will open May 21, 2011, in Denver and run through July 23, 2011, in Minneapolis.

Synth maestro Gary Numan appears in a clever new commercial for DieHard automotive batteries, playing his signature tune ‘Cars’ via, well, two dozen actual cars.

For the latest installment of the A.V. Club’s weekly web series “Undercover: 25 Bands, 25 Cover Songs, 1 Small Room,” prog-metal outfit Coheed & Cambria stripped down to an acoustic duo and performed a tender cover of The Smiths’ ‘A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours,’ which opens 1987’s ‘Strangeways, Here We Come.’

Today marks the 25th anniversary of Live Aid, the Bob Geldof-organized African famine relief concert that remains one of the cultural signposts of the ’80s. For readers of this site, the event is perhaps best remembered as the tipping point in U2’s ascent from college-rock upstarts to global superstars.

Given that today is Jim Kerr’s 51st birthday, we dedicate this installment of Vintage Video to the Simple Minds frontman. Here’s a performance of one of the band’s most rousing anthems, ‘Waterfront,’ filmed Sept. 15, 1989, at L’Arena in Verona, Italy, during the band’s ‘Street Fighting Years’ tour.

For those of you who aren’t, uh, Twihards and haven’t seen Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy grace the big screen in a very, very short cameo as a vampire named ‘The Cold One’ in ‘The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,’ here’s your chance.

The highly influential debut album from German synthpop outfit Propaganda — 1985’s ‘A Secret Wish’ — will be reissued yet again later this month, this time appearing in a 25th anniversary 2CD edition featuring six previously unreleased tracks plus the rare 20-minute cassette mix of ‘Duel.’

British agit-rocker Billy Bragg will venture across the pond this September to play a short U.S. tour following his slot at Seattle’s Bumbershoot festival over Labor Day Weekend.

R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey joined Pearl Jam in Berlin last night to rip through the MC5’s classic ‘Kick Out the Jams’ at a concert that also featured the Seattle rockers debuting a new cover of Public Image Ltd.’s ‘Public Image.’