With Squeeze, er, squeezing in some U.S. dates between and around the band’s appearances at the two-weekend Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, the group also managed to fit in an appearance on the ‘Ellen’ daytime talk show yesterday (‘I’ve loved their music for a long time,’ Ellen Degeneres says).

Dick Clark, who died Wednesday at age 82, and ‘American Bandstand’ played an important role in the ’80s, too, helping bring the burgeoning New Wave and college rock scenes to mainstream America at a time when the still-nascent MTV wasn’t universally available on American cable networks.

Having just wrapped up a run of spring U.S. dates across the northeast and midwest, The Psychedelic Furs have announced a new batch of American concerts in late spring and early fall, including two dates supporting The Go-Gos in California in late September.

Paul Weller dropped by BBC’s ‘Later… with Jools Holland’ last night to perform two tracks — ‘The Attic’ and ‘Kling I Klang’ — off his just-released new solo album ‘Sonik Kicks,’ both of which you can see via the clips posted here. Weller is due on these shores later next month to play a pair of gigs in New York City and one in Toronto.

The Jesus and Mary Chain’s brief run through Texas last month appears to be the beginning of an active 2012: In addition to today’s announcement of the band’s first-ever concert in China, the brothers Reid also will come back to the U.S. for a string of new dates in both June and September.

This week’s Slicing Up Eyeballs show on Strangeways Radio featured brand-new music from Billy Bragg, Devo, Translator and the late Joey Ramone, plus favorites new and old from David Byrne, The Beautiful South, Easterhouse, Heaven 17, Pulp, Buzzcoks, James, Echo & The Bunnymen and more.

There’s a flurry of activity coming from The English Beat — or as they’re more properly known, The Beat — as Shout! Factory this week announced plans to release both a new single-disc best-of and a 5CD box set featuring the band’s three albums and two discs of bonus material.