Having just seen Seth Lakeman on the JJB/Puma Arena at V Festival, we're pleased to report the Devon folk sensation's performances have got quite daring - yes, Lakeman seems to have dropped some lemon drops, toddled off to visit the fairies in the woods and gone psychedelic.
While some recent Babyshambles performances have been like peeking into the rehearsal room of a really bad sixth form band, today they put on a surprisingly good show.
First thing this afternoon, we popped down to the Channel 4 Stage to see headliners Foo Fighters perform a secret gig. Dave Grohl arrived onstage and was immediately faced by a mass of cheers from the small crowd that had gathered to watch the 'band' 606.
Afternoon! Uncut has finally got onto the V Festival site, after a tortuous journey and a herculean struggle to grab a seat on the shuttle bus from Chelmsford station. Oh, the humanity.
I was maybe halfway through the entirely improvised new live album by Ghost, when it occurred to me that I might have been fixating on the new psych/folk/freak jams a bit much this past week or so. It was then that I turned to the new album by Beirut, as I have done for the past two or three weeks when I feel the need for tunes, of all things.
I’ve just been reading Re-Make/Re-Model, Michael Bracewell’s new book on the formative years of Roxy Music and was particularly struck by an early passage in which Bryan Ferry – thankfully not talking about fox-hunting or the Third Reich – waxes nostalgically about a music shop in Newcastle called Windows, where as a teenager he spent many astonished hours browsing through racks of records he couldn’t always afford, but liked anyway just to spend time poring over.
Around the turn of the decade, I used to go and see a Brooklyn band called Les Savy Fav every time they played London. They were a fantastic night out. The singer, Tim Harrington, occasionally behaved like a cross between Iggy Pop, Salvador Dali and Captain Birdseye.
These seem to be quite popular, so here are the fairly eclectic records we've played in the Uncut office today. Unlike last week's rundown, I think we're broadly behind all of this lot. . .