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Being a singer-songwriter is a tricky business. Which route do you take? You can always attempt to bludgeon your audience into submission with the sheer power of your one act show, or you can entrance them with the ethereal magic of your fragile performance. So far, we've seen both sides of the singer-songwriter paradox (well, as we like to call it) in just a few hours at End Of The Road Festival, first with Stephanie Dosen's disturbing, delicate folk and then with John Doe's straight-down-the-line country blues.

The Dorset countryside - lush, green and verdant. Good for dairy farming and Thomas Hardy novels, but hardly the place for one of this summer's best folk, post-rock and Americana festivals? Well, we reckon it's perfect. Everyone at End Of The Road Festival seems to be enjoying the varied acts, relaxed atmosphere and country estate setting that equals Latitude Festival in the beauty stakes. The myriad stalls selling premium local cider are, of course, just a plus. Ahem.

Apart from a few Beach Boys and Kosmische things I picked up in America in the early ‘90s, I’ve never been much of a bootleg collector; never had the time, I guess, with so much legitimately released music to get hooked on. As a consequence, my knowledge of Neil Young’s “Chrome Dreams” was limited to hazy memories from rush-reading Jimmy McDonough’s “Shakey” until news of “Chrome Dreams II” broke a few weeks ago.

Today: Led Zeppelin, Detroit, 1969

It occurred to me last night, a minute or so into “Dance Dance Dance”, that I might have been a little blasé about this latest visitation from Brian Wilson and his band. As Alexis Petridis noted in his excellent review of the first night of Wilson’s latest Festival Hall residency, there’s a vague feeling of “nostalgia fatigue” surrounding these dates. I’ve seen him do “Pet Sounds”, “Smile”, and great further swathes of his gilded back catalogue, and I haven’t seen many better gigs in the past decade. But did I really need to see him do it again?

Exclusive to Uncut.co.uk - Today: Nicky Wire tells us about Sonic Youth in Cardiff in 1988

I’m not sure how keen I am on the current trend for groups to reform, especially when, as is the case with, say, The Police and Genesis, I have actually much preferred them in their absence.

There are times when I receive a reissue of a record that I've never heard of, and begin to wonder whether some massive and elaborate hoax is being perpetrated. I had that feeling about 45 minutes ago, when I put on "Iron Curtain Innocence" by Bobb Trimble for the first time.

Recently, there seems to have been something of a Krautrock revival, comparable to that time in the early ‘90s when Stereolab, Tortoise and sundry putative post-rockers were assiduously cribbing their old Neu! albums. The appearance of a neat Harmonia live CD, that I blogged about some weeks ago, has been followed by a bunch of very nice records in much the same burbling, kosmische vein.

Occasionally, in a quiet moment, I might find myself reflecting on the demise of the Western. At a recent preview screening for 3.10 To Yuma – starring marquee names Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, no less – the attendance was barely into double figures. I wonder, then, how the brilliant The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford will fare?