Blue bill

"Good to see you up there Stevie" yells a fan from the crowd. "Well, it's better than the alternative" snarls Steve Earle back. This is how the great Americana survivor began his sold-out show in London Monday night. Singing stories about war, drug-taking and alcoholism, Earle has the look and tone of someone who has obviously stared oblivion in the face and lived to tell the tale. Albeit in a semi-cautionary, I've-been-married-seven-times and I still have to go to AA and NA, but I've bagged two Grammys and a bit-part on The Wire kinda way.

Uncut.co.uk reveals the tracklisting

Slow-burning desert rock from Kurt Cobain’s old drugs-and-guns chum

Chan Marshall's sultry sequel to The Covers Record

A couple of records I’ve been meaning to blog about for weeks today. One is the new album by Earth, “The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull”, which further confirms Dylan Carlson’s drift away from absolute minimalist metal drone to a kind of slow, but surprisingly melodious desert rock.

Inspiral Carpets and The Fratellis also lined-up

Tonight's tribute concert to Ahmet Ertegun, starring a reunited band you might have heard of, Led Zeppelin, is just a few hours away now. Page, Plant, JPJ and Jason Bonham are playing their first two-hour long set in 27 years from 9pm at the 02 Arena and Uncut.co.uk will be reporting from inside the concert!

20th anniversary reissue of oft-maligned masterpiece

Don Siegel's timeless classic of paranoid sci-fi

For many who’ve seen Cat Power gigs over the years, calmness is not a word that immediately springs to mind when trying to describe Chan Marshall. Neither has she been, for large tracts of her confounding and exceptional career, much of a populist, exactly. Her distrait otherness might have been part of the appeal to some of us, but it would hardly work as a mainstream draw.