As the first song of Jessica Pratt’s first album begins, you could be forgiven for believing it was a private press folk album from the early ‘70s. The work of a lost canyon comrade of Linda Perhacs, perhaps, or the implausibly lovely efforts of a “Blue” disciple from some one-horse town in the mid-west.

He's worked with Brian Wilson, Joanna Newsom and The Byrds. With such impeccable credentials, you wonder what else life has to offer to a multi-talented composer, arranger, producer and singer like Van Dyke Parks. Well, now Van Dyke is set to answer your questions in Uncut as part of our regular Audience With… feature. So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask him? Why did he really turn down an invitation to join The Byrds? How did he earn the nickname "Pinocchio" from Frank Zappa?

Spiritualized frontman Jason Pierce has described music festivals as "the death of art" and says they've "gotten straighter as the years have gone on". Speaking to Drowned In Sound, the singer also hits out at other bands' egos.

Depeche Mode have announced an extra night at London's O2 Arena in May 2013. The electronic band will now play the venue on Wednesday, May 29 as well as the previously publicised May 28. These are currently the only UK dates the band have announced as part of a wider European tour next year. Depeche Mode's 34-date European tour kicks off on May 7 in Tel Aviv and features stop-offs at the Rock Werchter Festival in Belgium (July 7), BBK Festival in Spain (July 11) and Optimus Alive Festival in Portugal (July 13). A North American tour will follow later in the year.

The Rolling Stones played another secret gig in Paris on October 29. The Stones played 12 tracks at the 1,800 capacity venue le Théâtre Mogador, including "Tumbling Dice", "It's Only Rock 'N' Roll (But I Like It)" and "Honky Tonk Women". They also played new single "Doom And Gloom". Watch fan-filmed footage of them arriving at the venue below. The gig follows the band's first performance in over five years last Thursday (October 25) at the tiny 600-capacity La Trabendo venue.

Bob Dylan's high school yearbook, containing a personal message written by him to a friend, will go up for auction at Christie's in London on November 29. The yearbook, from 1958, features a photograph of the young Robert Zimmerman pictured as a high-school student at the age of 17, before he left Minnesota for New York. In the yearbook he has written: "Dear Jerry, Well the year's almost all over now huh. Remember the 'sessions' down at Collier. Keep practicing the guitar and maybe someday you'll be great! A friend, Bob Zimmerman."

Cat Power has said she may have to cancel her European tour. The singer was due to come to the UK for a one-off show later this year to headline London's Roundhouse on December 12. It would be her first UK gig in over four years. The show is part of a full European run of shows that also includes gigs in Amsterdam, Koln, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Milan, Bologna, Zurich, Paris and Brussels.

News from Oliver Gray, who runs The Railway in Winchester, where he has promoted the Uncut Sessions, as a kind of Club Uncut in exile since we quit our original home at London’s Borderline. The Uncut Sessions started a couple of years ago when Oliver booked Richmond Fontaine for two special shows. The first, on what I remember was a rather damp and windswept Saturday afternoon, saw Richmond Fontaine play their brilliant Post To Wire album in its entirety. Their second show, that evening, featured just about every other song the band had ever played, written, recorded, covered or merely just heard, possibly once, blasting out of the radio of a passing car, whistled by a waitress, hummed by a barman or otherwise brought to their passing attention in vague and possibly unremembered ways. The set went on for what people later reckoned was about four hours, although by its end the crowd had in all likelihood have lost all sense of time and the band could have carried on well into the following week without complaint from anyone there.