Tom tom club

Robert Plant, Tom Petty, King Crimson and Bobby Womack all feature in the new issue of Uncut, dated September 2014 (Take 208) and out tomorrow (July 29). We track Plant, on the cover, from the Welsh Marches to the nightclubs of Paris to hear about bee colonies, mountain lions, altercations with Moroccan traffic cops, Bron-Yr-Aur, Jimmy Page, and Plant's extraordinary new solo album.

A tree planted in memory of George Harrison has died after being infested by beetles. The pine in Los Angeles' Griffith Park was planted in 2004 as a tribute Harrison, who passed away in 2001 in the city. A plaque on the tree read: "In memory of a great humanitarian who touched the world as an artist, a musician and a gardener." It also featured a quote from Harrison: "For the forests to be green, each tree must be green."

Robert Plant, Tom Petty, King Crimson and Bobby Womack all feature in the new issue of Uncut, dated September 2014 (Take 208) and out tomorrow (July 29). We track Plant, on the cover, from the Welsh Marches to the nightclubs of Paris to hear about bee colonies, mountain lions, altercations with Moroccan traffic cops, Bron-Yr-Aur, Jimmy Page, and Plant's extraordinary new solo album.

A bit of a manic week, for various reasons, not least the fact that we've finished two magazines: the next issue of Uncut, which should be coming your way on July 29; and an Ultimate Music Guide dedicated to the genius of…

Bernard Sumner has confirmed details of his autobiography. Chapter And Verse (New Order, Joy Division And Me) will be published by Transworld on September 25. It had been announced in June 2013 that Sumner had signed a deal to publish his memoirs.

I've been playing the new Jeff Tweedy album, "Sukierae", a good deal these past few weeks - or, I should say, the new Tweedy album, since these quietly wired tracks are, strictly speaking, collaborations between the Wilco man and his eldest son, Spencer. I'm slowly beginning to think it might be the best studio album he's been involved with since "A Ghost Is Born".

In this month's Uncut, I reviewed the deluxe edition of The The's Soul Mining, which has been reissued as a box set with additional material. I was fortunate enough to speak to Matt Johnson for a Q&A to run with the review. In the end, we ended up talking for about an hour, so I thought I'd post the full transcript of my interview here. I hope you enjoy it. I'll endeavour to post the review itself in the next week or so; better still, you can find it in the issue on sale now... (apologies for the shameless plug...)

Sunday night I was not, I must admit, watching Kasabian on the BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury. Instead, I was… well, gripped would be the wrong word, but somehow compelled to watch every last hideous minute of the match between Greece and Costa Rica, a game that acted as kind of evil payback for all the good football karma this World Cup has accrued. Applying this logic to rock music, a friend pointed out, I probably should have been watching Kasabian, too.

"Glastonbury!" beams Debbie Harry. "Nowhere else like it!" Just past midday on Friday in the Vale of Avalon, and the world’s largest voluntary refugee camp is already on the move.

Yesterday, after I posted this list of my favourite albums of 2014, I received a few messages complaining that there were too many Youtube and Soundcloud clips embedded here, preventing the page from loading properly. Forgive the repetition, then, but I thought it worth reposting the list as three separate blogs; hopefully it’ll work better this time… Previously: The Best Albums Of 2014: Halftime Report Part One