Just days before he’s set to release a new album recorded with his version of legendary 2 Tone-era ska act The Beat, frontman Ranking Roger on Monday revealed that, after suffering a stroke last summer, he was diagnosed with two brain tumors and lung cancer. Roger disclosed his medical issues via a nearly 9-minute video.

Record Rack: A round-up of the week’s new albums, expanded reissues and/or box sets, appearing each Monday on Slicing Up Eyeballs. All releases due out this Friday unless noted. This week’s releases include titles from Johnny Marr, Peter Buck, The English Beat, The Sisters of Mercy and King Blank.

Nearly four years after launching a campaign to fund the project, Dave Wakeling’s oft-touring incarnation of The English Beat is preparing to release a brand-new studio album — the first from Wakeling under the Beat imprint since 1982’s Special Beat Service. The album is now available for pre-order.

Lionel Augustus Martin, the Jamaican-born saxophone player better known as Saxa, who played with ska legends Prince Buster and Desmond Dekker before helping lead the second wave with The Beat, died on Wednesday at the age of 87, his former band announced.

The Retro Futura package tour returns this summer for a 24-date U.S. run in July and August with a bill headlined by synthpop legend Howard Jones that also features The English Beat, Men Without Hats, Modern English and Katrina of Katrina and the Waves — plus appearances by Paul Young and Bow Wow Wow’s Annabella Lwin.

Take a trip back to the 1983 installment of the US Festival — a four-day event over Memorial Day Weekend that year that drew an alleged 670,000 music fans into the middle of nowhere in California — with this 90-minute collection of footage from the fest’s “New Wave Day,” featuring performances by The Clash, INXS, Oingo Boingo, The English Beat and more.

After years of touring under the English Beat banner, frontman Dave Wakeling now is turning his attention to recording brand-new music, launching a PledgeMusic campaign to help crowdfund a new record that would be the Beat’s first since 1982’s Special Beat Service.

Parents of young children or fans of cartoons in general may want to tune in to this afternoon’s installment of “Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated” on the Cartoon Network: Today’s episode, “Dance of the Undead,” celebrates 2 Tone-era ska music and features two songs recorded just for the show by Dave Wakeling.

This week’s new releases include brand-new albums from Pet Shop Boys, David Byrne and St. Vincent and Tom Tom Club, plus reissues from The Stone Roses and Aztec Camera, a live CD/DVD of The English Beat’s US Festival performances, and best-ofs from Duran Duran and Propaganda.

As we wait for the release of the delayed “US Generation” documentary — not to mention next week’s English Beat CD/DVD combo Live at the US Festival — it’s worth marking today’s 30th anniversary of the first of two giant multi-day US Festivals, envisioned by their organizer, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, as “Woodstock West.”

This week’s new releases include a new 5CD box set and single-disc best-of from The English Beat, a new album from Mission of Burma (‘Unsound’), a single from Ride’s Mark Gardener and Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins, a new Bananarama CD/DVD best-of and the U.S. release of Duran Duran’s ‘A Diamond in the Mind.’

Beacon Audio recently launched a new video interview series and one of their latest installments features Dave Wakeling of The English Beat, who, in this five-minute clip, discusses the longevity of the Beat, how he learned to play guitar completely wrong (he’s right-handed, but plays as a lefty) and his favorite part of a concert.

Welcome to the Week in Rock, where we round up all of the headlines posted on this site over the past week. This edition includes items about Dinosaur Jr, XTC, The English Beat, The Dream Syndicate, The Cure, Peter Murphy, The Stone Roses, The Replacements, Dead Can Dance, Elvis Costello and more.