Simon joe

Now available in stereo: LA minstrel’s junkshop hi-fi comes to life...

The new issue of Uncut, which hits shelves today (July 27), features Joe Strummer, Captain Beefheart, Bob Dylan and Animal Collective. Strummer is on the cover, and inside is the story of the late Clash legend’s secret history – the wilderness years between the end of his group and his final creative rebirth. Captain Beefheart’s whole story is told by The Magic Band, while Bob Dylan’s live show at Hop Farm is reviewed and Animal Collective talk us through their back catalogue.

Remastered, if not remade or remodelled: Roxy’s radical motherlode...

There’s a batch number of high-profile music documentaries out this year – Kevin Macdonald’s Marley and Joe Berliner’s Paul Simon films have already arrived, with the Rolling Stones, the Stone Roses and Fillmore East projects yet to come. But truffle a little deeper and you’ll find some less well-known but equally rich stories deserving attention.

The pianist, singer and songwriter Mac Rebennack, known better as Dr John, faces your questions in the latest Uncut (dated July 2012), out now – but back in October 2010 (Take 161), he took us on a fascinating journey through his most important, and interesting, releases, from Gris-Gris to Exile On Main St. "We went to a nudist camp somewhere, we made up a song called 'The Symphony Of Frogs'…" ______________________________

The new issue of Uncut, which hits shelves today, Tuesday (May 22), features Patti Smith, Alabama Shakes, Dr John, Neil Young and King Crimson.

Dylan at the Hop Farm Festival, Springsteen and Paul Simon in Hyde Park, the Great Escape Festival in Brighton, as mentioned last week, a ton of great bands at the No Direction Home and End Of The Road festivals, which have line-ups straight out of the pages of Uncut. There’s certainly no shortage of great gigs on the horizon, looming and inviting. There’s one among them, though, that I may actually be looking forward to more than anything else coming up: Dave Alvin at the London Jazz Café on April 20.

Plus there are big wins for PJ Harvey and Foals

Chances are if you’ve heard of Cornbury, you’ll know they call it “Poshstock”, an upper and middle class weekend jaunt in the bucolic Oxfordshire countryside which boasts Waitrose as a sponsor, Jamie Oliver as the chef de jour and a guest list that habitually includes Princes Charles, William and Harry, Jeremy Clarkson, Kate Moss and PM David Cameron, who showed up again this year, family in tow, bemoaning the fact that he’d missed the Blockheads.

Hall And Oates bassist was 58