More grade-A new psych from San Francisco today, with this third album from a quintet bearing the cosmically unwieldy name of Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound.

It’d be nice to claim that I had an infallible eye for spotting a future superstar, but watching the ascent of the Gossip over the past two or three years, I’m reminded that there was a band I could’ve never have imagined becoming big. When I first saw them play in, what, 2002 maybe, I thought they were terrific. But they also seemed to be so tightly embedded in a post-riot grrl scene of fanzine elitists that, for all the strengths of Beth Ditto’s personality and pipes, they’d surely be more or less unintelligible to the mainstream.

I’m conscious that, with the Lemonheads and Sonic Youth posts last week, the blog’s slightly in danger of degenerating into something of a dewy-eyed home for alt-rock fans who were students in the late ‘80s. But unfortunately, I’m going to have to keep this going for a while longer, since the new Dinosaur Jr album represents another band of that generation sustaining their current run of form.

Banjo Or Freakout open the last of Uncut's nights at The Great Escape, perhaps the weirdest line-up of the weekend, with a pretty uncompromising set.

If last night was loosely the folk night of Club Uncut’s Great Escape bill, this is probably the ‘rock’ or ‘psych’ night.

The arrival this week of a new live album from Mark Kozelek, “Lost Verses – Live”, has prompted me to go on something of a Red House Painters/Sun Kil Moon binge (a contrast, for sure, to that concurrent Funkadelic trip; thanks, incidentally, for the recommendations – must check that Eddie Hazel solo album out).

Club Uncut is back at The Great Escape, and this year proceedings are taking place in the civilised surroundings of the Pavilion Theatre.

A couple of records today that I’ve mysteriously failed to write about over the past month or two, both excellent.

This month's Club Uncut openers, Sparrow And The Workshop, are an interesting beast - a Scottish folk trio on mainly acoustic instruments, there's a real violent attack to their sound.

It says something, though I’m not sure what, about the strange place Evan Dando occupies in the culture, that the new Lemonheads album seems to actively involve both Gibby Haynes and Kate Moss, as well as Liv Tyler and John Perry from The Only Ones.