It may not be the most wholly misunderstood album since Bob Dylan's Planet Waves, but as John pointed out in his Wild Mercury Sound blog yesterday, Wilco's new Sky Blue Sky has split their traditionally loyal critical fanbase.

First, a couple of housekeeping things. Thanks for all your comments on the Smashing Pumpkins review from last week. In response to TROY, yes, I have definitely heard the album and, yes, I guess I have bad taste according to your criteria. Sorry! If I can just point out again, though, that if I leaked my copy of "Zeitgeist", the iron fist of Warner Brothers would crush this blog instantly. So no go, guys.

Keef, comedy monkeys and Keira’s chin.

There have been a couple of comments on my last post, written in response to Jeff Tweedy’s comments about Babyshambles in the current issue of Uncut.

A small bit of history, last night, that I was honoured to witness. Wilco played at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in West London, the scene of some pretty fractious shows by Jeff Tweedy - a fact which made him both self-conscious and extremely funny when he found the courage to open his mouth.

In which Stephen Dalton files his first report from this year's Cannes Film Festival...

Uncut chills out on day three of The Great Escape festival

Uncut reports from day two of Brighton's new music festival

Uncut reports from Brighton's Great Escape opening night

Billy Corgan is not an easy man to like, but from time to time in his career he's made some pretty good records. I should make it clear from the start that I'm hardly a Smashing Pumpkins obsessive: I liked the psych-grunge of "Gish" a lot, and I was distinctly impressed by the translation of ambition into a new kind of stadium rock on "Siamese Dream".