Dead Can Dance’s Brendan Perry today unveiled a 20-date solo tour of Europe this spring in support of his forthcoming album Ark — his release first in 11 years — and said his previously announced co-headlining tour with Peter Murphy will open in mid-April in South America.

Southern California punk legends Bad Religion are celebrating their 30th anniversary this year, and will kick off the festivities with a springtime run of 12 West Coast club dates before hitting the studio to record their 15th studio album for release this fall.

It’s not much, but this 30-second promo for the Gorillaz’s forthcoming Plastic Beach is kind of exciting: It offers an all-too-fleeting glimpse of The Clash’s Mick Jones and Paul Simonon recording together for the first time since 1982’s Combat Rock.

Esteemed UK publishing house Faber & Faber has posted “An Open Letter to Morrissey” on its blog, imploring the former Smiths singer to not only complete his long-discussed autobiography but let the company publish it — noting that, “History demands it; destiny commands it.”

Today we launch MBV Watch 2010, a new — and, alas, most likely permanent — feature solely dedicated to tracking release dates for the long-gestating reissues of My Bloody Valentine’s two albums: 1988’s Isn’t Anything and 1991’s Loveless.

Rough night for the handful of ’80s college-rock vets nominated for Grammy Awards this year: Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, U2, Elvis Costello, David Byrne and Brian Eno, and Ministry all were shut out tonight for trophies in their respective categories, losing, in most cases, to more current acts.

Brit DJ/producer Tim Simenon’s alter ego Bomb the Bass returns in the coming weeks with both a brand-new album — Back to Light, only the act’s second full-length in the last 15 years — and an expanded reissue of its game-changing 1988 debut Into the Dragon.

Norwegian pop giants a-ha will bring their worldwide 2010 farewell tour to the United States for three concerts in New York and Los Angeles in May — a short trek that marks just the second time the trio will have performed on American soil since 1986.

Music fans up north have been treated this month to a new documentary series on Bravo! Canada called “Innovators in Music” that profiles artists from different disciplines, including, next month, legendary noise-rockers Sonic Youth.

Revered as an iconic singles band, New Order delivered, with its fifth album “Technique,” what now holds up — alongside 1985’s “Low-Life” — as its strongest front-to-back effort. The album was released on this date in 1989.

Today, Trent Reznor dug a few gems out of his archives, posting high-def videos of four June 23, 2006, radio performances he taped in Boston with Peter Murphy during Nine Inch Nails’ 2006 With Teeth tour.

Dinosaur Jr guitar slinger J Mascis has teamed up with two members of Cobra Verde and one of his Witch bandmates for a new project: Sweet Apple, which delivers its 12-track debut album, Love & Desperation, on April 20, and is expected to tour later this year.

Last year’s six-string doc “It Might Get Loud” was a must-see for fans of U2’s The Edge, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin or The White Stripes’ Jack White — or anyone, really, who appreciates loud rock guitar. The film’s out on DVD now, and here’s one of the deleted scenes that appears as bonus on the disc: It’s four minutes’ worth of The Edge soundchecking solo, running through concert staples “Until the End of the World,” “Pride (In the Name of Love”) and “Bad” alone on guitar, with just the aid of his foot-triggered console of effects.