Adam

Here's the list of nominations in the key categories for this year's Academy Awards...

I happened to be at Chalk Farm tube yesterday, waiting for a train. As a bus user, I’m always curious to see what kind of ad campaigns studios are running on the underground for their current releases. At the moment, as a right-thinking film fan, you might be in a state of near-priapic delight at the wealth of prestige movies in cinemas. There’s posters up for The Wrestler, Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, Milk and Frost/Nixon, breathlessly described with attention-grabbing quotes like “the feel-good film of the decade”, or “a contender for Best Picture”. It is, of course, January, and rather shamelessly the studios are chucking out their high-calibre movies as we pile headlong into Awards season.

Three days into a new working year, and I've put together the first office playlist of 2009. Usual rules apply, in that what we play isn't necessarily what we like - though that said, I can't spot any total stinkers among this 16.

Oodles of Cooder still not enough

The Louis Vuitton don ditches the rapping and the soul and is left with… well, not much, actually

Read Jerry Garcia Band's David Kempers FULL interview here

Tortured troubadour shows courage on nakedly emotional third LP

Part 1 of 13 of our extended transcripts: Micajah Ryan (engineer)

They should have just started a 35-date European tour as guests of The Hold Steady, who pulled all their shows earlier this week due to the hospitalisation of guitarist Tad Kubler. Instead, Philadelphia’s War On Drugs find themselves stranded in London, where they were probably considering busking as an alternative to starving on the capital’s streets before being added at the last minute to tonight’s Club Uncut bill at the Borderline.

Not much mucking about today before I get into this week’s selection. But can I quickly plug Club Uncut tonight? Now that the Hold Steady tour has been cancelled, their support band War On Drugs will be joining Ladyhawk and The Dudes on the bill.