Smashing Pumpkins have announced three UK tour dates for later this year. The band, led by Billy Corgan, will play three shows in July including dates in Manchester, Glasgow and a huge show at London's Wembley Arena. Starting in Manchester on July 1, Smashing Pumpkins will perform in Glasgow on July 2 before returning later in the month for their London gig (July 22).

Bjork has started a Kickstarter campaign for her Biophilia Educational Program. The project is named after the singer's 2011 album and sees her looking to raise money to educate children about science and music through the apps which she launched with the album. Bjork said: "The Biophilia Educational Program is a new way to teach children about science and music. It has met with success in many cities, sparking interest from kids and educators from all over the world, from South America to East Asia to Africa."

Fleetwood Mac are to play live shows in the UK in the autumn, Mick Fleetwood has confirmed.

In this month's Audience With Sinéad O'Connor, she's asked about her traumatic appearance at the all-star bash at New York's Madison Square Garden, put on by Columbia Records to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Dylan's debut album for the label.

Jimi Hendrix was keen to work with manager Chas Chandler and get back to more structured recording shortly before he died, Eddie Kramer has told Uncut. The engineer, who looks after Hendrix’s legacy as part of the Experience Hendrix organisation, says: “Before Jimi died, in 1970, he sought Chas’ counsel. I think he wanted to put back the old team. “He’d learned from the experimentation and realised he needed Chas – but he had to come to that realisation himself.”

Nick Cave talks about his new album with The Bad Seeds, Push The Sky Away, in the new issue of Uncut, out Thursday (January 31).

Tom Waits is staring back at me from the cover of the new Uncut, which goes on sale this Thursday, January 31. It’s a picture of the young Tom that I’m looking at, long before he ended up with a face that now makes you think a tractor tyre must recently have run over it, a corrugated look he shares with his friend, Keith Richards. He is in fact startlingly young in the picture, even though it would seem he hasn’t shaved for a week and for just as long has been sleeping in the clothes he’s wearing.

Eric Clapton has announced the release of a new studio album on March 12, called Old Sock. Featuring guests including Paul McCartney, Steve Winwood, J J Cale and Jim Keltner, Old Sock is Clapton's 21st studio release and his first since 2010's self-titled album. Old Sock is produced by Eric Clapton, Doyle Bramhall II, Justin Stanley and Simon Climie and features two new original songs “Every Little Thing” and “Gotta Get Over” alongside 10 covers of songs by Leadbelly, George Gershwin, Peter Tosh and Taj Mahal, among others.

It’s been a decade since the words ‘A Walter Hill film’ have graced the screen.

In this archive feature from Uncut's May 2003 issue (Take 72), rock's greatest living soap opera tell the story of how they went to hell and back to bring the world some of the most popular, and most perfect, hard-centred easy listening music of all time. However, it nearly cost them their sanity. And their lives… Words: Nigel Williamson _________________