Blogs

Things may be different now but, when I was an NME staffer in the 1990s, we were forever being accused of building bands up, only to take delight in knocking them down soon after.

To Café Oto, where a guy who goes by the name of Hitodama is making the sort of brutal avant-noise that a colleague is inspired to describe as “entropic deathwank”.

A while back, I read somewhere that Ben Chasny’s next Six Organs Of Admittance record would feature the heavy involvement of his old bandmates from Comets On Fire: it would be a kind of Comets reunion, was the speculation, albeit with Chasny in the driving seat rather than Ethan Miller.

Things aren’t due to kick off for a couple of hours at the Pavilion Theatre where throughout this year’s Great Escape Festival Uncut is hosting a splendid line-up. So early Thursday evening I’m at the Dome, where Australian psyche rockers POND are making enough noise to wake the long-time dead.

What better way to kick off the final night of Club Uncut at The Great Escape than with a Brooklyn bar band – or indeed, a bar solo artist, the wily R'n'B raconteur Hans Chew.

The weather has turned out glorious in Brighton on the second day of The Great Escape – but Friday's bill at Club Uncut is of a decidely darker bent.

Relentless! High end Martial Arts action flick...

May comes round again, and with it another Great Escape, one of the year's most satisfying festivals – not only because of its setting in Brighton's many beautiful venues, but because we at Uncut are again putting on our own three nights of some of the most interesting new bands around.

A couple or so weeks ago, Jack White requested that no photos to be taken at his London show: the audience should put down their phones and concentrate on the gig in a different way, was his implied suggestion.

Jerry Scheff is surely not an unfamiliar name to readers of Uncut. I’d wager a horse most of you have more than one album in your collection that feature him on bass. Among the highlights of a lengthy and illustrious CV, he can count gigs with Elvis Presley, The Doors, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Todd Rundgren, Richard Thompson, Bette Midler, Crowded House, Johnny Cash, T-Bone Burnett, Roy Orbison, Suzanne Vegas and Jimmie Dale Gilmour.