Beggars Archive will release an expanded 2CD reissue of The Charlatans’ 1990 debut “Some Friendly” — although not the larger “Omnibus” set originally planned — to coincide with the band’s 20th anniversary performance of the full album in London and Barcelona this May.

The Pixies have licensed “Isla de Encanta,” off the band’s 1987 debut EP ‘Come On Pilgrim,’ to Visa for a (admittedly quite clever) World Cup-themed TV commercial called “Football Evolution.”

Universal Music Group is scrapping its Siouxsie and the Banshees reissue program midstream, meaning the band’s’ final four albums — 1987’s Through the Looking Glass 1988’s Peepshow, 1991’s Superstition and 1995’s The Rapture — will not receive expanded re-releases as originally planned, ex-bassist Steven Severin reports.

Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore today took to his new blog — Flowers & Cream, which he quietly launched earlier this month — to announce a pair of intriguing musical projects: a new solo album and book, plus a “trio” record with wife/bandmate Kim Gordon and Yoko Ono.

The Pet Shop Boys not only released their new Pandemonium live CD/DVD package in the UK this week — just two months after it was filmed in London — but the duo also announced the concert film’s namesake tour will play a five-date encore in England this summer.

Alan Wilder shocked Depeche Mode fans around the world tonight, joining the band onstage for the first time since 1994 to accompany Martin Gore on piano during a performance of “Somebody” during a Teenage Cancer Trust charity concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Molly Ringwald tells Vanity Fair that the late John Hughes started work on a script based on The Cure’s 1983 single “The Lovecats” — and even assembled a hypothetical soundtrack for the film — after finishing “The Breakfast Club.”