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.’

We’re still experiencing some technical difficulties in bringing you playlists from ‘Dark Wave’ on Sirius XM’s 1st Wave, as was the case last Sunday — but we’ve been able to pull together most of the night’s show.

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.