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.

Sebadoh today announced plans to release its first new album in 14 years this September, a record titled Defend Yourself that follows up last year’s comeback Secret EP and that new label Joyful Noise Recordings claims “marks a return to the self-recorded DIY ethos of early Sebadoh albums (Bakesale, Sebadoh III).”

As we noted over the weekend, the former members of R.E.M. seemed to go out of their way to avoid staging a full reunion Saturday night at Peter Buck’s wedding in Portland, Ore., as all four ex-bandmates took the stage to perform at the Wonder Ballroom at one point or another — just never all at once.