CYNDI LAUPER is putting together a US tour later this year to support the charity PFLAG and is expected to announce around twenty US 'True Colors' shows which will also feature ERASURE and THE B-52S.

JANET JACKSON's forthcoming new album will be titled '20 Years Old' and the first single from the album, 'Call On Me', is scheduled for a July release.

HOWARD JONES will play a four-night residency as part of this year's Edinburgh International Festival. The shows will take place at the Gilded Balloon from August 9th-12th.

REM are set to go back into the studio later this year to start work on a new studio album.

PET SHOP BOYS are rumoured to be working on a secret dance project with singer Robbie Williams. The album is expected to be released under a false name but is also said to include Williams collaborating with sometime MADONNA producer WILLIAM ORBIT.

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN singer IAN McCULLOCH has provided vocals for Liverpool Football Club's FA Cup Final anthem, a reworking of Johnny Cash's 'Ring Of Fire'.

SHEENA EASTON will see her 1989 album 'The Lover In Me' reissued on May 15th. The album will feature four bonus tracks alongside the original tracklisting.

DEACON BLUE frontman RICKY ROSS has composed the music for a new theatre production which starts in Glasgow on may 18th. The play, No Mean City, runs at the Citizen's Theatre and will be on until June 3rd.

HAPPY MONDAYS will play a one-off show at Liverpool's Academy on June 2nd.

NITZER EBB have delayed the release of their forthcoming retrospective - 'Body Of Work' - until June 2nd.

MADONNA will finally release the DVD documentary that was filmed on her last tour. 'I'm Going To Tell You A Secret' will come out as a CD/DVD package on June 20th and consists of three main threads described by Madonna as "sort of a circle around three families: the family of the people I work with, the family that I live with, and the family of man, the world that I live in,". The release will contain previously unseen footage, as well as the director's cut of 'American Life'.

DEBORAH HARRY has recorded a track 'Dirty N Deep' as a gesture of support for the recently imprisoned rapper Lil' Kim. The track is available to download for free from the official BLONDIE website.

INXS have announced a UK and European leg to their current tour starting in London on October 12th and playing shows in Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, France and Belgium.

??Tracklist:

01. Visage
02. The Steps *
03. Fade To Grey
04. The Dancer *
05. Damned Don't Cry
06. Pleasure Boys
07. Mind Of A Toy
08. Night Train
09. Can You Hear Me *
10. Casualty
11. The Horseman
12. Yesterday's Shadow
13. Love Glove
14. Wild Life
15. Beat Boy
16. Can You Hear Me - Reprise *

* = not a full track and not listed as a
track on chapter points or packaging!!

Visage was a New Romantic band that began life in 1978 in the London, England nightclub Billy's. Initially, the band was comprised of Steve Strange (a former member of the punk band Moors Murderers) and DJ Rusty Egan (formerly the drummer with The Rich Kids).

Midge Ure, who would later join Ultravox after he and Currie had met in the Visage project, and who had also been involved with The Rich Kids, was interested in working with Strange and Egan, and the trio recorded a demo which included their version of the Zager and Evans hit "In The Year 2525".

With the addition of Ultravox's Billy Currie, and three members of Magazine—bassist Barry Adamson, guitarist John McGeoch, and keyboard player Dave Formula—Visage signed to Radar Records and released "Tar" in September 1979.

The following year saw the release of their self-titled debut album. The album contained the song "Fade to Grey" which quickly became a huge club hit, and went to number one in 21 countries. When the song hit the UK Singles Chart it was the beginning of an imminent commercial breakthrough for electronic music and the whole New Romantic movement.

A Top 40 hit, "Mind of a Toy" followed (complete with a video produced by 10cc's Godley & Creme), but the 1982 release of The Anvil saw disappointing sales and Visage began to disintegrate. Their final album Beat Boy was released after Ure, Formula and Currie left the band.

A remix of "Fade to Grey" was a UK Top-40 hit during the early 1990s, and Visage performed on the "Here and Now Xmas Tour"—a revival of 1980s musicians—in 2002.

Steve Strange has relaunched the band in a new incarnation for the new millennia. Joining Steve in the band are Steven Young, Sandrine Gouriou and Rosie Harris from Seize and Ross Tregenza from The Radio Stars / Goteki. As well as reworking old material, the new band has working on new demos and remixing for the likes of Kelly Osbourne. A new remix of Fade to Grey was released by the Dutch jungle group Noisia.

2006 sees the release of a new Best Of DVD from Universal Records. Visage are currently in the studio working on new material.