After teasing fans with a couple 30-second clips from its forthcoming ‘Tour of the Universe: Live in Barcelona’ DVD and Blu-ray, Depeche Mode today offered up something a bit more substantial: a nearly 6-minute electronic press kit for the film, featuring performance footage, backstage clips and interviews with Dave Gahan, Martin Gore and Andy Fletcher.

German-born punk pioneer Ari Up — the frontwoman of The Slits who learned guitar from Joe Strummer and was John Lydon’s stepdaughter — died today at age 48 following ‘a serious illness,’ Lydon and her mother, Nora Foster, announced via Public Image Ltd.’s website.

With a deluxe reissue due out and U.K. tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of ‘Penthouse and Pavement’ set to being next month, Heaven 17 last night appeared on the BBC2 program ‘Later Live… with Jools Holland’ — although the synthpop group opted to perform its later hit ‘Temptation,’ the U.K. No. 2 single off its sophomore album ‘The Luxury Gap.’

Los Angeles punk icons Social Distortion today announced that their seventh album — ‘Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes’ — will be released Jan. 18 on Epitaph Records and preceded by the release of first single “Machine Gun Blues” via iTunes on Nov. 9.

With his North American tour now underway, former Depeche Mode member Alan Wilder today offered up a free Recoil multimedia EP — ‘Want: The Architect Mixes’ — that fans can download from Mute Records in exchange for a name and e-mail address.

Bassist Eric Avery, who has now twice quit Jane’s Addiction, has decided to open up for the first time about his experience on last year’s reunion tour by submitting to a series of video interviews conducted by long-running fan site Xiola.org.