With Morrissey’s libel case against the NME slated to go to trial in a month, the music weekly today apologized to the singer, writing, ‘We wish to make clear that we do not believe that he is a racist; we didn’t think we were saying he was and we apologise to Morrissey if he or anyone else misunderstood our piece in that way.’

The original five-person lineup of Scottish indie-pop outfit Close Lobsters — immortalized on the NME’s genre-defining C86 compilation cassette — will reunite for the first time since 1989 for a very brief ‘People of Europe Rise Up Tour’ this spring and summer that so far features performances in Madrid, Glasgow and Berlin.

Our latest roundup of stuff includes a stream of the NME’s seminal C86 cassette, plus a swanky photo gallery featuring Dave Gahan, Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry and more; some live video by The Church; and a look back at The Cure circa 1991.

Gang of Four will support its first all-new studio album in more than 15 years — ‘Content,’ due out on Jan. 25 on Yep Roc Records — with a 13-date North American headlining tour in February, the band announced on Wednesday.

Bassist Eric Avery, who has now twice quit Jane’s Addiction, has decided to open up for the first time about his experience on last year’s reunion tour by submitting to a series of video interviews conducted by long-running fan site Xiola.org.

No stranger to oddball photo shoots, Brit-rock iconoclast Morrissey appears on the cover of tomorrow’s Guardian Weekend magazine with a cat perched atop his unsmiling head for a feature headlined ‘Bigmouth strikes again: Morrissey lets rip.’