Apart from all the music at last year's Latitude Festival -- and the comedy, the cabaret the poetry, and the gentle rummage through the Sunday papers in the Literary Arena -- I was naturally inclined towards the doings in the Film Arena. Inevitably, considering the bespoke nature of Latitude, I'd have been surprised to stumble across screenings of Pearl Harbour or Fantastic Four. Instead, I discovered the Halloween Film Club, in the throes of a fantastic multi-media event, screening short films soundtracked by DJs and powerful visuals. I'm delighted to learn, then, that the Halloween Film Club will be back at Latitude this year, fronting their Fucked-Up Love series of short films. On the other end of the scale, Latitude have managed to secure the involvement of BAFTA, who'll be putting on a screening of Hitchcock's 1926 film, The Lodger, accompanied by a live orchestra. There's also the TooLoose Cinema Soundsystem, who'll be playing their DJ set to Wong Kar Wai's magnificent Days Of Being Wild. One of the events that's raised the most eyebrows round these parts is Phil Collins' (no, not that one) Dünya Dinlemiyor -- his Turner Prize nominated video installation featured the good people of Istanbul performing karaoke versions of The Smiths back catalogue. You can't really go wrong, can you, particularly when the pear cider kicks in. St Etienne's Turntable Cafe will also be in evidence, dedicating a special programme to the Watch With Mother strand of BBC Childrens' TV programming, featuring vintage episodes of Bod and Fingerbobs. There's also Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait -- Douglas Gordon's fantastic study of French footballing hero Zidane over the course of one match, featuring a memorable score from Mogwai. And much more besides, as they say, including a Q+A with The Alcohol Years' Carol Morley, more shorts from Future Cinema and Bird's Eye View, a strand featuring films by emergent women film makers. Anyway, a lot to choose from, I think you'll agree. John and I will be blogging from Latitude, from July 12 - 15. See you then...

A bit of a round-up today, since I've spent the past week or so reporting on gigs and messing about with the minutiae of putting a mag out. There is, amazingly, a new Karen Dalton album I'm very excited about, though I've only heard two tracks as yet. The love for those two Dalton albums must have sent tapehounds scurrying to find anything else she recorded in her lifetime. "Cotton Eyed Joe (The Loop Tapes) - Live In Boulder 1962" does not look immediately that promising, being a live set recorded some seven years before her debut album. I can't speak for the quality of the rest of this 2CD set (the cynic in me is a bit suspicious that the record label are only sending out two-track samplers). But these are fantastic: even so young, Dalton's voice is beautifully dilapidated on Ray Charles' "It's Alright" and Fred Neil's "Red Are The Flowers". It's an important document, I think, because it proves that when Dalton turned up in Greenwich Village, she must have been one of the innovators rather than the camp followers. When I hear the whole thing, I'll write more. Second up is a record by a New Yorker called Mike Wexler that I think I've alluded to once or twice in the past few months. "Sun Wheel" is a lovely and elaborate chamber psych-folk thing, that occasionally spirals off into trips reminiscent of the Canterbury psych scene, but which foregrounds Wexler's eerie, needly falsetto. If Devendra Banhart seems a bit too cutesy for you these days, the slightly damaged otherworldliness of Wexler is well worth checking out. I found his Myspace here. Let me know what you think. Finally, a welcome return from the great David Yow, whose self-destructive Iggyisms and foul jokes made The Jesus Lizard one of my favourite live bands in the '90s. Yow now appears to have joined a band called Qui, lending his enduringly unpleasant voice to some workouts that occasionally resemble Van Halen if they'd signed to the Amphetamine Reptile label. Again, the jury's out 'til I've heard more, though "Freeze" on Qui's Myspace sounds fairly promising. It's good to have him back, anyway.

OK, it’s more of an open air gig than an actual festival. And yes, we’re all cynical about any event where you can only buy one kind of beer but always see at least ten of its logos in every field of vision. But with great sets by the likes of Queens of the Stone Age plus The White Stripes’ only UK appearance this year, the Wireless festival in Hyde Park can’t be dismissed that easily. So I headed to its final day, with the Kaiser Chiefs topping the bill. Inside the arena there were few British festival staples to be found (man dressed as a giant turd, Howard Marks wandering around looking lost, troupe of girls in fairy wings), but there were a few nods to the festy spirit. How wacky. One way to get a good view Jokers On the main stage it was Wakefield trio The Cribs’ mid afternoon slot that provided the first lapel-grabbing moment of the day. Their punches of ramshackle scuzz-pop were a treat, and though the crowd warmed to their fiercely indie set-up, singer Ryan’s mid-set assertion that “global warming isn’t as important an issue as the commercialisation of indie music” might be taking things a bit far. Although he would have enjoyed the moment an hour or so later, when the mosh-pit tore apart one of the Sony-sponsored bean bags dotting the site in a burst of polystyrene confetti. The Cribs After, such was the popularity of new baggie heroes The Twang, whose album I like a lot more than the new Happy Mondays one, I couldn’t get into the XFM tent to see them. But it turned out to be a blessing, as I caught Editors’ main stage set instead. [youtube]3WE0mUeTzTY[/youtube] Editors A sweep of cool had draped across the site as singer/guitarist Tom Smith struck the first notes. It was fitting, as their set was chillingly impressive, the band seeming to grow a foot with each song. I was a bit surprised – their new album hasn’t particularly grabbed me, and I’ve always seen them as a bit sub-Interpol. But today Editors to be made of stern stuff, the likes of ‘The End Has A Start’ and ‘All Sparks’ sounding more suited to massive settings like this than even the £6 hot dogs. It was the best performance of the day. No wonder Smith went to such lengths to scrub up for it – as the close-up camera often showed, this is a man handy with an eyebrow plucker. Editors: Plucking good And the Kaisers? Textbook. Every song laced with a three-pronged hook you could catch a great white with, Ricky Wilson asking the crowd to sing along between each number, and a guest “Nanananana” from a member of Polysics, who played earlier, to add a touch of variety. [youtube]v03tNd6YpU[/youtube] Kaiser Chiefs They’ll do the same at Glastonbury next weekend, playing at the sharp end of the main stage bill. Maybe Editors will next year. And maybe they’ll get some carrier bags like this beauty. SO, DID YOU GO TO WIRELESS? WHAT DID YOU THINK? AND DOES TOM SMITH HAVE THE BEST EYEBROWS IN ROCK? LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW This review is by Jamie Fullerton, so disregard what it says below.

I was thinking last night about the first time I saw The White Stripes. It was spring 2001, and I was in LA to interview Queens Of The Stone Age. The night before I met up with Josh Homme, I went to the Troubadour to see this duo who were just starting to be talked about a lot by some of the smarter music business people back home. They were amazing, of course, and I came back home and wrote a review for NME saying something like they were the best band in the world. They had such charisma, such presence, such virtuosity, such wonderful tunes. But I found it hard to imagine that such a compact, wild band could ever be huge. Surely Jack and Meg White would get lost when they were put on a big festival stage, for instance. Well, I got that wrong. Tonight The White Stripes sound huge. We are at Wireless, the festival in Hyde Park where pushy men try and flog you credit cards rather than drugs. The bill today is largely packed with great screes of corporate indie tosh, although apparently The Only Ones were pretty good (I think Farah is going to write something about this later on the Festivals blog). Things improve, though, when the Queens arrive. Initially, the set is pretty similar to the 100 Club gig I reviewed here a few weeks ago. But "Sick Sick Sick" now sounds even better, a great example of the way Josh Homme (who I turned on to The White Stripes, if I can show off for a second; he went to see them the night after me on that LA trip, since I raved about them so much in our interview) and his latest accomplices have mastered a sort of precision derangement. The most entertaining of these is the new bassist, who's like an excitable puppy alongside such road-hardened pros (the new keyboard guy, incidentally, is Dean Fertita, who played alongside Jack White in The Raconteurs). There's a strange moment in "Feel Good Hit Of The Summer", when he's called upon to give the bloodcurdling "COCAINE!" shout, and he does this exuberant, shrill impression of Nick Oliveri. All good, though, especially, as ever, "Song For The Dead". Homme's steely purpose is quite a contrast to the spur-of-the-moment ragings of Jack White. But tonight, he seems comparatively businesslike. Last time I saw the Stripes play was at Alexandra Palace on the "Get Behind Me Satan" tour, on a night when Jack was in a foul mood about something NME had written. It was a slashing, tempestuous set that threatened to spiral out of control, even when he was playing the marimba. Tonight, though, he's commanding and, though clearly inspired, relatively businesslike. The epic shredding of "Death Letter"/"Motherless Children" is stunning, but he no longer ends it on his back by the drum riser. A summer of hard touring has evidently inspired him to conserve his energy a little. But he's far from restrained in this fabulous, surprisingly hit-packed set. No matter how many times I see The White Stripes, they still have a freshness, as if I somehow forget how good they are. It's a grand spectacle tonight: giant screens replay the action through a red and white filter, playing out those little face-offs between Jack and the eternally serene Meg on a massive scale. There are only three songs from "Icky Thump" - the broiling "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" and "I'm A Martyr For My Love For You", plus an incendiary version of the title track. At this point, Jack is playing guitar and synth simultaneously, and it's hard to tell which sounds are coming out of which instrument. That big riff is pure Jimmy Page, as I said in my review here. But that free splutter is very Hendrix tonight. And whilst this might be a fractionally more controlled Stripes, the melodramatic highs can still be strikingly torrid: "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" is staggering here, especially. On the way home, I go past Marble Arch, and it's draped in red and white Stripes livery, a big daft bit of showing off which is actually rather impressive. And you know what? They deserve nothing less. Oh yeah, our friends at NME have a setlist and some other news about the show here. Enjoy!

... Or: Where's this year's Great American Indie flick? After the treatment meted out to Spiderman 3 and Pirates Of The Caribbean 3, you could be forgiven for thinking that, of late, my blog has become something of a both-barrel assault on the woeful ineptitudes of this year's crop of Hollywood blockbusters. Truth is, I'm waiting to find some indie jewel that I can switch you onto, write about with the kind of warmth and enthusiasm that characterises John's excellent introductions to new music over on his Wild Mercury Sound blog. This Is England and The Lives Of Others have both proved to be fine non-Hollywood movies that've made an impact on me, but 2007 has been conspicuously bereft -- so far at least -- of a film with the charm or originality or just plan weirdness of a Little Miss Sunshine, Brick and Shortbus. Over the last couple of weeks, I've seen three indies for which I had significantly high hopes. They'll all be reviewed fully in UNCUT nearer their release dates, but I wanted to take a break from covering the relentless churn of sub-standard blockbusters, change gear for a while. Sherrybaby, which opens on July 27, stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as an ex-junkie, just out jail, who wants desperately to reconnect with her daughter and get on with her life. Inevitably, the path to salvation is not an easy one. The film itself is slight, but Gyllenhaal's raw, unshowy performance proves that, as ever, she's one of her generation's finest actors. There's a New Zealand movie, Eagle Vs Shark (August 17), which firmly locates itself in the tradition of Napleon Dynamite -- a film I must admit to being completely underwhelmed by when I first saw it at Sundance a few years back, and an opinion that hasn't changed with subsequent viewings. It's about a pair socially-inept misfits who fall in love. It feels self-consciously quirky, but there's a certain oddball charm working in its favour, and there's enough laughs to buoy it along. Last night, I saw Hallam Foe (August 31), Jamie Bell's first British film since Billy Elliot. Bell's post-Billy CV is characterised by frequently brave choices, running from Dear Wendy to Undertow, and this rather strange story of a teenager traumatised by his mother's death who takes to spying on family and neighbours is another decidedly offbeat career move. I've got a few issues with the third act, where he falls in love with a girl (Sophia Myles) who looks exactly like his late mother -- but despite my qualms this is a pretty uncompromising movie, topped off by a fine soundtrack from the estimable chaps at Domino records. So, what films are you looking forward to seeing later this year? I'm certainly excited about The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford and The Bourne Ultimatum, but what about you? As ever, let me know.