The weather has turned out glorious in Brighton on the second day of The Great Escape – but Friday's bill at Club Uncut is of a decidely darker bent.

The Baltimore duo stitches a blue velvet tapestry...

Relentless! High end Martial Arts action flick...

ZZ Top have previewed new material on a commercial for American beer, Jeremiah Weed. The advert features the members of the Texan band emerging from inside a giant beer cooler and surprising customers. The advert was shot at Bubba's Country Store in Austin, Texas. The track the band perform, "I've Got To Get Paid", is the first taster from their forthcoming album, produced by Rick Rubin.

Suede have scrapped the majority of the material their aired at their comeback gigs last year - and have returned to the studio with the man who produced their first four albums. Ed Buller is now helming the album, which will be the reunited Britpop band's first in over a decade. Writing on the band's Facebook page, singer Brett Anderson said that the they had been "merrily chipping away at the huge block of raw stone that is, whisper it, the new Suede album" and posted a picture of them together. He added:

LCD Soundsystem's film, Shut Up And Play The Hits, is to be released in the UK this August. Shot on April 2, 2011, at the band's farewell show at New York's Madison Square Garden, the film has been directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace and produced by Lucas Ochoa and Thomas Benski of Pulse Films, the same team that directed and produced the Blur documentary No Distance Left To Run. Recently, former LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy revealed that he is currently writing a novel.

May comes round again, and with it another Great Escape, one of the year's most satisfying festivals – not only because of its setting in Brighton's many beautiful venues, but because we at Uncut are again putting on our own three nights of some of the most interesting new bands around.

Jimi Hendrix's estate has denied reports stating that a biographical film about the rock guitarist's life is in pre-production. Earlier this week it was reported that OutKast's Andre 3000 would be portraying Jimi Hendrix in a new Hollywood biopic, titled All Is By My Side. However, Experience Hendrix, LLC has now issued a statement saying that any such film would not be able to go ahead without their full cooperation. The statement, via Billboard, read:

Iggy Pop has spoken out about shunning major labels and releasing his latest album, Apres, online. Launching the record in Paris on Wednesday night [May 9], Iggy Pop – real name James Osterberg – explained why he released the record direct to fans rather than putting it out via a major label. Speaking about labels, he said: "What has a record company ever done for me but humiliate and torment and drag me down?"

Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry has confirmed that the band's new album is almost finished. In an interview with Rolling Stone he says the band are working on mixing the new tracks this week: "It's really close. We've started to mix. We've mixed a couple of the songs already, but I guess this week we're really kind of rolling into mix mode. We have a couple of tracks left to finish up, just to put some overdubs on, but we're kind of going from the final, final recording tracks to mixing this week."