Meat Puppets returns this spring with their 14th studio album — the 12-track Rat Farm, which Curt Kirkwood dubs “real blown-up folk music” — and will support the release with a spring U.S. tour that will include as-yet-unannounced appearances at the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas.

Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes next week will release a 7-inch single via Jack White’s Third Man Records, the label announced today, unveiling the three-song record that features two originals and a cover of Adrenalin OD’s “Paul’s Not Home” off the 1982 New York Thrash compilation.

The Specials have begun announcing dates for the first leg of this year’s North American tour, confirming shows via their Twitter account in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco on either side of the band’s planned performances at the South By Southwest festival in March.

The Specials finally are making good on a promise to tour the U.S., today announcing they’ll play two dates at the South By Southwest festival in March as part of the first leg of a larger North American visit — but the shows will not feature co-vocalist Neville Staple, who is leaving the band due to “ill health.”

Karl Wallinger apparently is making good on his promise in March 2011 to mount “a whole tour of the U.S.A.” — albeit more than a year behind schedule — with this week’s announcement that World Party will tour America this September, with initial dates in Nashville, Tenn., and New York City already unveiled.

The Jesus and Mary Chain’s touring schedule now includes shows in early August, as the Osheaga Music Festival this morning announced the group will play there, and the band itself posted new dates in Buffalo, N.Y., Toronto and Washington, D.C. on its website — and then removed them.