Blogs

As you might expect, Latitude is consistently full of surprises. Since arriving here, I’ve met a key-tarist (that’s a chap who plays a keyboard-guitar hybrid, no less), a guy who runs a karaoke circus, and a very friendly lady from something called the School Of Life, who’ll be offering Bibliotherapy over the weekend in the Literary Salon. Bibliotherapy, it seems, is a service whereby you’re recommended a potentially life-changing book after an interview with one of their therapists. Oh, and there was farmer Miles, too.

In terms of curious niche side projects, Neil Hannon's cricketing musical manifesto, The Duckworth Lewis Method, takes some beating. Retaining many of the elaborate and melodic elements of his day job as leader of The Divine Comedy, the group's charmingly tongue-in-cheek suite of songs was perfect mid-afternoon fare at a point in history when the Ashes series was nail-bitingly balanced at a draw.

Hello campers - since touching down a couple of hours ago, I've made it my mission to dash around the Latitude site catching as many bands as possible, giving my boots their first coat of brown since Green Man '07 in the process. Hopefully they won't see quite as much muddy action this time around.

An early and astonishing highlight of Latitude took place in the humble confines of the literary tent on Thursday night. Grace Maxwell read movingly from her book, Falling & Laughing: The Restoration Of Edwyn Collins, about her partner of 25 years and his road to recovery after suffering two strokes four years ago.

Wise heads are out in force at Latitude, as always, and we've been eavesdropping on their conversations...

A big mention first off for our coverage from the Latitude Festival, which should be kicking off any minute now. The Uncut team will be blogging pretty much non-stop for the next three days, so please keep an eye on our dedicated blog for the first reviews of Thom Yorke, Nick Cave, Spiritualized and so on.

It came as something of a surprise the other day to discover that it’s been something like eight years since Jim O’Rourke released a new solo album. In the interim, he’s not been entirely quiet, as involvement with Sonic Youth and the Loose Fur project with Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche, as well as sundry other lower-profile activities prove.

Over the next few weeks, there’s probably going to be a lot of words expended on how much the Arctic Monkeys have radically changed on this, “Humbug”, their third album. There’ll be a lot about the influence of Josh Homme, about the lack of perceived immediate hits and so on. Plenty of more parochial music fans may well see “Humbug” as a Great British band absolving their local cultural responsibilities and becoming seduced with America and the desert rock sound nurtured so assiduously by Homme over the past decade and a half.

Apologies, but not much time to file a proper blog today, as deadlines for the mag loom. One of today’s jobs is to write a review of the forthcoming DVD release of “Flight Of The Conchords”: Series Two, so here’s my favourite song from those ten episodes, “Carol Brown”, with a video by guest director, Michel Gondry. Like the best Conchords songs, this one transcends mere comedy, or neat pastiche, and sails straight into the rare territory of fundamentally excellent music. Enjoy…

The sixth Cornbury Festival rode out the recession in grand style this weekend with 20,000 or so local music fans rocking up to the picturesque Cornbury Estate near Charlbury in Oxfordshire for a bill that featured diverse headline turns from Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green, Sugababes and Scouting For Girls.