One of my favourite labels at the moment is probably RVNG INTL, thanks mostly to the Blues Control & Laraaji album I fixated on at the end of last year, and to the forthcoming collaboration between Sun Araw, M Geddes Gengras and The Congos.
Tom Petty has announced a short UK and Ireland tour for June.
The singer, along with his band The Heartbreakers, will play gigs in Dublin, Cork and London in June. All three shows precede his headline slot at the Isle Of Wight Festival.
Petty will first play Dublin's O2 Arena on June 7, then Cork's 'Live At The Marquee' event on June 8 and finally London's Royal Albert Hall on June 20.
Martin Scorsese was a special guest last night at the Critics' Choice Awards in Hollywood last night, where he picked up the Best Documentary Feature prize for his George Harrison documentary, Living In The Material World and was further honoured with the Critics' Choice Music And Film Award.
Thinking about it now, it seems as if many of our favourite film makers decided to take 2011 off. Aside from the Coens' True Grit at the start of the year and Martin Scorsese's foray into children's movies at its close, you could be forgiven for wondering where had all the directors we'd so assiduously championed since Uncut began, in 1997, disappeared off to.