Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig has given an update on the progress of the band's new LP and says that they now have "80 per cent of the songs" ready for the album. The singer, who was speaking to The Walkmen's frontman Hamilton Leithauser for Spin, said that working on the follow-up to their 2010 effort Contra had been a "long process" but hinted that they were nearing completion on the record.

The new issue of Uncut, which hits shelves today (Monday, July 2) features Neil Young, the MC5, Peter Gabriel and Phil Manzanera.

When Neil Young brings Crazy Horse to London in 1976, I'm four rows from the front of the stage at Hammersmith Odeon. It's late March, a Sunday night. I still have the tickets, somewhere, probably curled at the edges and yellow with age by now, a bit like most of us who were there at the time.

Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera talks Uncut through the most fascinating albums of his career in the new issue, out on Monday (July 2).

Neil Young sheds light on Americana, his next album and his time with Crazy Horse in the new issue of Uncut, in shops from Monday, July 2.

A new exhibition of Bruce Springsteen images will showcase a selection of rare and unseen photographs of the Boss caught in his breakthrough years. Springsteen: The Turning Point 1977 - 1979 features images taken by Lynn Goldsmith, and runs at the Proud Galleries, Chelsea, from July 12 - 29. The period covers the Darkness On The Edge Of Town album and the subsequent 1978 tour of north America, up to the first recordings of The River. Bruce Springsteen next plays in London at Hyde Park Calling on July 14.

Wayne Coyne has revealed that he wants to replace Erykah Badu with Amanda Palmer in the highly NSFW video to "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". The controversial Flaming Lips clip shows Badu and her sister naked and in a bath of what appears to be blood and semen. It appeared online earlier this month before being removed a day later. Badu claimed that she felt "violated" by its contents and insisted that Coyne should have sent the video to her for approval.

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts is to release an album with his other band, The A, B, C & D Of Boogie Woogie. The album, Live In Paris, is released next week by Eagle Records. Recorded in September 2010 at the Duc Des Lombards jazz club in Paris, the album mixes originals alongside blues and boogie woogie standards, including "(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66", which the Stones recorded for their debut album in 1964. The A, B, C & D Of Boogie Woogie features Axel Zwingenberger, Ben Waters, Charlie Watts and Dave Green.

The vanguard's first three albums are difficult, but peerless...

Sun Kil Moon’s excellent Among The Leaves is Uncut’s lead review in the new August 2012 issue, out now. In this feature from September 2010 (Take 160), Mark Kozelek looks back over the highlights of his recording career, from Red House Painters to his current wrestling-indebted incarnation. Words: Graeme Thomson –––––––––––––––––––––––––