Tom tom club

The Black Keys have been announced as the final headliner for Latitude Festival 2014. The band join previously announced headliners Two Door Cinema Club and Damon Albarn at the top of the bill. Other acts announced today include Editors, James, Crystal Fighters, Kelis, The Afghan Whigs and Tinariwen. Mogwai, Lykke Li, War On Drugs, Temples, Parquet Courts, George Ezra, Conor Oberst and Tom Vek will also play. Latitude 2014 will take place from July 17-20 at Henham Park in Southwold, Suffolk.

The Heartbreakers’ Benmont Tench is about to release a solo album, You Should Be So Lucky, produced by the legendary Glyn Johns. In this star-studded archive piece from Uncut’s December 2011 issue (Take 175), Johns takes us through producing and engineering The Beatles, the Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and more – not a bad CV, you could say… Interview: Graeme Thomson

Damon Albarn-led cultural exchange bears fruit...

Something like two decades ago, when I was Features Editor of NME and making some pragmatic decisions involving coverage of second and third-tier Britpop bands, I had a kind of argument with Laurence Bell, the owner of the Domino label.

This week’s excuse for briskness is I have a longish review of Real Estate to write for the mag, but some good news in here: not least the appearance of a mighty stash of Fela Kuti albums on Bandcamp and some predictably weird mixtapes, compiled by John Fahey, fetching up on Soundcloud.

The new issue of Uncut went on sale at the end of last week, with a cover story by Peter Watts on The Ramones that celebrates the 40th anniversary of a band of punk misfits from Forest Hills, New York, who revolutionised rock’n’roll, the opening lines of one of whose earliest songs, “Blitzkrieg Bop”, gives its name to this month’s free CD.