Hard to know what to play this morning. My ears are still ringing from a massive night in the company of The Hold Steady, who played an astonishing gig in a Hoxton bar. As I left, Allan was deep in conversation with their singer, Craig Finn. I'm sure he'll be writing something on his blog about it later. In the meantime, I've found a new David Bowie comp called "The Best Of Bowie 1980/1987" in this morning's post and, perhaps out of wilful perversity, I'm playing it now. It starts OK, frontloaded with the good stuff (from "Scary Monsters") and the commercial stuff (from "Let's Dance") - not much scope for searing critical re-evaluation here. But where this curious comp gets interesting is in the second half. It's the story, effectively, of why Bowie decided to form Tin Machine. Because, rotten as Tin Machine were, at least they had a focus, a point of sorts. This, though, is a portrait of a bored dilettante. Bowie's always been a magpie, but his genius is to invest other people's ideas with a rare charisma and and an infectious enthusiasm. Here, he wanders from one track to another with a sort of disconsolate pragmatism. And, amidst the will-this-do takes from Tonight and Never Let Me Down (albums even he dislikes), Bowie's authentic mid-period voice emerges on a slew of soundtrack commissions like "When The Wind Blows" and "This Is Not America": strikingly mournful, weary of his own skin, sounding far older than he does now. This is not particularly good music by any standards, let alone those of Bowie, but it is weirdly compelling. He only really sounds remotely engaged on an austere Brecht tune ("Drowned Girl") and the ludicrous synth-gospel of "Underground" (from, lest we forget, the soundtrack to "Labyrinth"). Clearly, when you're playing the Goblin King, the logic of knocking out Pixies covers with some guys in suits suddenly becomes very, very appealing.

This is just a quick postcript to my last blog, about Joe Strummer and The 101'ers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtWZ22YljD4

I found myself last night for the first time in decades in Ladbroke Grove, an old stomping ground, not much-visited since I lived around there for a year of largely wild times that ended badly in 1977 with a recuperative fortnight in intensive care. Through the summer of 1975 and into the autumn that followed it, you would have, however, found me in this particular neighbourhood nearly every Thursday night. This was when, of course, The 101’ers had their since-legendary residency at The Elgin, as mentioned in my earlier Greatest Shows On Earth blog, and where I first interviewed Joe Strummer for what used to be Melody Maker. Since I was passing the pub, I thought I’d drop, as they say, in – curious to see what changes had been wrought on The Elgin by the passage of time on somewhere I had spent so much of it back then. Thirty two years on, and uncannily there was a greater resemblance than I would have imagined to the dusty old pub whose roof Strummer and co had blown off every week with their proto-punk R&B and high-octane, pedal to the floor rock’n’roll - and the memories of those famous nights came back in a flood. I was barely in the door when ghosts started walking out of the walls, unquiet and smiling. The famous flock wallpaper you can see in the few photographs there are of The 101’ers playing here is obviously long gone. And there are a couple of pool tables now where according to what’s left of my memory there used to be a small stage – where thanks to some convenient kink in the time-space continuum, I can see now as if it’s really happening The 101’ers in a typically manic huddle. Dudanski’s behind a battered old drum kit, The Mole’s on bass, ‘Evil’ Clive Timperley’s on lead guitar and Strummer, his leg pumping like something with a life of its own, is belting out something like “Letsagettabittarockin’”, “Keys To Your Heart”, “Silent Telephone” – or something plundered from rock’s illustrious archives like “Junco Partner”, “Shake Your Hips”, “Gloria” or “Roll Over Beethoven”, a great favourite at the time. “We usually play two and a half hour sets down here,” I remember Strummer telling me when I interviewed him at the Elgin, about a month into The 101’ers residency there. “Playing that long can kill you. Like there’s this line in ‘Roll Over Beethoven’. . .‘Early in the morning, I’m giving you my warning/Don’t you step on my blue suede shoes. . .’ And if you’re a classy Chuck Berry kind of singer, you’ve got to do the whole thing in one breath to keep the energy flowing. “Straight after that line, I usually pass out,” Joe went on. “Everything goes white. If you haven’t eaten for a few days and you haven’t had any sleep, you just keel over backwards. But I always get back on my feet for the next bit. . . ‘Hey diddle diddle, I’m playing my fiddle/I got nothing to lose. . .’ That’s such a great line, you’ve got to stay on your feet for that.” Sitting there with these memories making my head swim, wondering vaguely why there isn't at least some kind of plaque on the wall or a couple of blow-up pictures, something to commemorte a small piece of history, I can hear now a kind of staticky crackle, something distant but growing louder. It takes me a moment to realise what it is, at which point I have to smile, happy to have been here when the joint was jumping and Joe was rocking. It’s the sound of London calling from a far away time.

Faintly astonishing news the other day, when it emerged that the new Bloc Party album had entered the American charts at Number 12. I'm personally a bit underwhelmed by that record - Jacknife Lee's production is really bloated and distracting, I think - but it's interesting that arty-ish indie-rock now has serious commercial clout in the States. The North American wing of this phenomenon - The Shins, The Arcade Fire, The Decemberists etc - is something we focus on in next month's Uncut. For the British faction, the pressure will obviously be on The Arctic Monkeys when they return in April (I should be hearing their "Favourite Worst Nightmares" any day now, by the way, and will obviously report back). Maximo Park, though, clearly fancy their chances as the scene's dark horses. The Newcastle band's debut sold something like half a million copies without anyone really noticing. And the follow-up, "Our Earthly Pleasures", is a ferociously determined attempt to build on that. There's a danger here that Maximo Park might bulk up in a rather clumsy way (as The Kaiser Chiefs have done), or that they might be hit by the North-Eastern post-punk slump that did for the Futureheads' very good "News And Tributes" last year. While it may be rash to expect "Our Earthly Pleasures" to eat up the Billboard charts in hot pursuit of Bloc Party, I genuinely hope this record does OK. Initially, it seems as if they've effectively remade "Apply Some Pressure" a dozen times, at different speeds, and with a slightly grander production by Pixies veteran Gil Norton. Gradually, though, these insidious tunes reveal their own identities: romantic and thoughtful, as well as jittery and overdriven. In the press release I have, they mention Smashing Pumpkins and The Smiths, and while the former seems far-fetched, you can spot the latter in the yearning jangle of "Books From Boxes". What they remind me of, though, is Del Amitri. . . I know, but bear with me. In 1985, Del Amitri released a very odd debut album that was a John Peel favourite, all blushing poetry and awkward angles. It was a terrific little record, and one that promptly died on its arse. Dropped by their label, the band went off, developed a plodding new AOR sound, and became international stars. Hopefully, "Our Earthly Pleasures" will work out fine for Maximo Park: you can hear the notably manic first single, "Our Velocity", at their Myspace site. But if it all goes wrong, maybe they should grow some really serious sideburns. . .

If you're American, brandish an acoustic guitar and look a bit feral, chances are your publicist will flog you as a close personal chum of Devendra Banhart. It looks like a neat marketing trick: after all, Banhart's approval endows outsider credibility on an artist who might otherwise toil away as a mere singer-songwriter. The magical conversion from folksinger to acid-folkie, or freak-folkie, or whatever, is a hip and potentially lucrative one. But cynicism aside, Banhart's amazing networking skills and largely infallible taste ensures that I always fall for it. Truth be told, though, Uncut already knew about this week's "long-time friend of Devendra" before her debut album turned up in the office. Lavender Diamond is an LA group fronted by Becky Stark, who also boasts Jenny Lewis amongst her circle of intimates. Last year at the South By Southwest festival in Texas, I was so taken by the band that I ended up chasing across town to see them twice in two hours. Unlike some of Banhart's associates, Stark looks like a cross between a prom queen and a kindergarten music-and-movement teacher rather than some pagan survivalist. Her brand of folk music is shinier and sweeter, too. In fact, Lavender Diamond's debut, "Imagine Our Love", might be the poppiest album to have emerged from the whole subculture yet; closer to Karen Carpenter than Joanna Newsom, perhaps. And it's lovely. One of my favourite things last year was the "Forever Changing" box set of Elektra's golden years, though I did whinge slightly to its compiler (Mick Houghton, one of Uncut's own writers) that there was far too much Judy Collins on there. Evidently, she got to me by osmosis, since Becky Stark is definitely reminiscent of Collins - there's a similar kind of clarity and wholesomeness in the vocals - and yet I can't stop playing "Imagine Our Love". Oh yeah, a link: Lavender Diamond's Myspace. A couple of very good sings from their current EP, "The Cavalry Of Light", here. Plus a blog in which Stark claims people in Nottingham have the brightest faces she's ever seen. Which speaking as a native, is not my general experience, but I'm still touched.