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.

Six previously unreleased Morrissey tracks finally will see the light of day this fall when EMI releases a 20th anniversary reissue of the ex-Smith’s iconic early-career singles compilation ‘Bona Drag.’

Short-lived British postpunk act The Pop Group — which somehow melded punk, dub, noise and funk — will reunite this September after nearly 30 years apart, with four concerts scheduled in the U.K. and Italy and a new album reportedly in the works.

Reactivated U.K. post-punk greats Wire — who are eying a January release for their as-yet-unnamed 12th album — have announced the launch of their ‘Legal Bootleg Series,’ a download-only concert series that kicks off with choice gigs recorded in 1978, 1988 and 2000.

This week’s new releases include expanded reissues from R.E.M. (‘Fables of the Reconstruction’), Concrete Blonde (‘Bloodletting’), The Teardrop Explodes (‘Kilimanjaro’) and That Petrol Emotion (‘Babble’), plus a new compilation from My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult (‘Sinister Whisperz’) and the belated U.S. release of Crowded House’s new album ‘Intriguer.’

The penultimate album by The Replacements — 1989’s ‘Don’t Tell a Soul’ — is set to be reissued on 180-gram audiophile vinyl by Original Recordings Group on Aug. 17 — the first time the long out-of-print album has appeared on vinyl since its original release.

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.

Morrissey fan site True To You today posted this 21-year-old photo of Moz (smiling, no less) and Rick Astley backstage at BBC’s ‘Top of the Pops,’ where the two appeared following the February 1989 release of their ‘The Last of the Famous International Playboys’ and ‘Hold Me In Your Arms’ singles, respectively.

Social Distortion’s summer tour isn’t even underway yet and the L.A. rockers already are looking forward to fall, today announcing a 25-date U.S. tour in October and November with cowpunk act Lucero in support of the band’s forthcoming seventh album.

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.’