With his new book “Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music,” author S. Alexander Reed — a University of Florida music theory professor and frontman of ThouShaltNot — has compiled what is being billed as both the “first serious study published on industrial music” and the “definitive treatment of the genre.”

When The Ocean Blue was in Seattle this past February, the band’s frontman, David Schelzel, stopped by radio station KEXP (90.3 FM) for an on-air set and interview, performing new single “Sad Night, Where Is Morning,” classic track “Drifting, Falling” and a cover of Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face.”

This week’s new releases include a limited-edition ‘Sonik Kick’ 7-inch singles box set from Paul Weller, plus the U.S. releases of recent albums by Alison Moyet (‘the minutes’) and British Electric Foundation (‘Dark’), plus an expanded reissue of Johnny Thunders’ 1983 album ‘Hurt Me.’

Touring this year in support of their long-delayed comeback record mbv, shoegaze legends My Bloody Valentine will play at least five concerts in the western U.S. this August in advance of the band’s headlining appearance at the FYF Fest in Los Angeles. It’s not yet clear whether more U.S. dates are planned.

Slicing Up Eyeballs this week featured posts about R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails, The Cure, Morrissey, The Waterboys, Johnny Marr, Killing Joke, Joy Division, The Stone Roses, U2 and more — plus the Top 100 Albums of 1983 and the opening of voting in the Best of 1984 poll.

Arturo Vega, who spent 22 years as artistic director and confidant to the Ramones, creating the punk legends’ iconic logo and many of their album covers, as well as running the RamonesWorld.com website, died today, according to Punk magazine co-founder and “Please Kill Me” author Legs McNeil.

Our Best of the ’80s feature continues this month as we hit 1984, and once again ask Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers to vote for their favorite albums of that year in our ongoing mission to rank the releases of each year of the decade throughout 2013, concluding with a poll to determine the best records of the entire decade.

Morrissey is heading back out on the road this summer — but it appears he’s scaled back his initial touring plans, announcing today that he’ll perform a dozen concerts in South America next month, but not, it would seem, the seven concerts previously announced for Mexico.

The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late frontman Stuart Adamson — has fleshed out its North American tour schedule, with at least 24 concerts now scheduled in the U.S. and Canada, beginning tonight in New Jersey and running through late July.

The Waterboys will embark on a “coast-to-coast” North American tour this fall that marks the band’s first full tour here since 2007, with bandlander Mike Scott this week promising it will be “the longest Waterboys American tour ever” as he announces initial dates along the East and West coasts of the U.S. this September and October.

First International Space Station commander Chris Hadfield recorded a cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in space, and now Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin is joining in the pop-music fun, jumping on stage this week at a Smithsonian Magazine conference to perform “She Blinded Me With Science” with Thomas Dolby.

While we’ve posted this before — more than three years ago, in fact — The Cure’s Robert Smith has yet to follow through with his announcement of a DVD release of “The Cure in Orange,” so, as it remains sadly out of print, we once again present the full 1987 concert film, thanks to the miracle of YouTube.

Trent Reznor’s resurrected Nine Inch Nails tonight announced that it will release a brand-new album titled Hesitation Marks on Sept. 3 — nearly four years to the day after Reznor “retired” the live incarnation of that band with an epic, guest-filled concert at Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theatre.