Enigmatic Weezer singer/songwriter Rivers Cuomo has left the cozy confines of academia at Harvard to concentrate on music full-time. The singer, who recently played a solo show in Boston with members of Chevy Heston and The Shods, is slated to join his bandmates in Portland, Ore. in November to write new songs. A new album from Matt Sharp's side band, The Rentals is slated for a January release, while bassist Pat Wilson will release the full-length debut from his band, The Special Goodness, in February... The release of King of the Jungle, Goldie's sophomore album, Saturnz Return, has been pushed back to January of 1998. Goldie will be the opening act on the Jane's Addiction's "Relapse" tour...

Pulp will release a new single, "Help the Aged," in the U.K. on Nov. 10. The band is currently recording a follow-up to 1996's Different Class in London with producer Chris Thomas (Sex Pistols). The album is slated for an April 1998 release... Cibo Matto will be entering a New York studio this month to work on the follow-up to their food-obsessed 1996 debut, Viva! La Woman. The band is producing the album with an eye toward a spring 1998 release...

Connells singer Doug MacMillan will make his feature film debut as the character Linus Tate in the mock rockumentary Bandwagon. The movie, directed by one-time Connells drummer John Schultz, focuses on the road exploits of the hapless band Circus Monkey, managed by Tate, described as "a mysterious and legendary figure on the local music scene"...Issaquah, Wash.'s Modest Mouse will release their second full-length album, The Lonesome Crowded West, on Oct. 22. The 15- track album, featuring the songs "Teeth God's Like Shoeshine," "Heart Cooks Brain," "Jesus Christ Was An Only Child" and "Long Distance Drunk," continues the band's mastery of road-weary interstellar overdrive rock, mixed with some intriguing drum loops and punk-rock outbursts...

Pop-punk jokers The Dead Milkmen are still history, but their banana- peel-smokin' legacy lives on with Death Rides a Pale Cow: Their Greatest Hits (Nov. 11), a 23-track offering of in-jokes and alternative radio staples. Included in the collection are such classics as: "Tiny Town," "Bitchin' Camaro," "Beach Party Vietnam," "The Thing That Only Eats Hippies," "Instant Club Hit (You'll Dance to Anything)," "Punk Rock Girl," "Smokin' Banana Peels," "If You Love Someone Set Them On Fire," the previously-unreleased "Labor Day" and "Milkmen Stomp," from the rare, self-released cassette, Death Rides a Pale Cow...

Owing to the quick sell-out of the first two shows (Nov. 14-15), a third Rolling Stones date at Oakland Coliseum has been added. The addition of the Nov. 18 gig means that Bay Area Pearl Jam fans will get three chances to see that band, who aren't scheduled to mount their own U.S. tour until next summer... Bauhaus Beneath The Mask (Nov. 4) is the name of a book/CD project memorializing the legendary goth band fronted by Peter Murphy. The 176-page effort, compiled by Andrew J. Brooksbank, contains dozens of clippings from articles written about the band, letters of correspondence penned by band members, ticket stubs, lists of tour dates, a discography, artwork for all their singles and albums and other minutiae. It will also feature a bonus 8-track CD entitled Bauhaus Live in the Studio 1979 that contains previously-unreleased versions of "In the Night," "A God In An Alcove," "Dark Entries," "Telegram Sam," "Nerves," "Honeymoon Groom," "Kamikaze Dive" and "Shows (Fragment)."

Yo La Tengo's Oct. 12 Cat's Cradle show will be broadcast over the Internet via RealAudio on the Matador website at 10:15 p.m: www.matador.recs.com...

(ATN's Senior Writer Gil Kaufman and Staff Writer Chris Nelson compiled this report.)

[Thurs., Oct. 9, 1997, 9 a.m. PDT]