A couple of quick things for your delectation today. One is a clip of Black Mountain sleepily invading the mainstream by playing “Stormy High” live on the Conan O’Brien show. Look at all that beautiful hair and how they avoid looking at the cameras at all costs. Mighty impressive. Second up is a neat new band from, I believe, Austin, called White Denim. If you’ve got five minutes, take a trip over to their Myspace site and listen to “Let’s Talk About It”. It reminds me variously of Devo, The MC5, maybe some far-flung corners of “Nuggets”. Most of all, though, I’m struck by the similarities to one of my favourite neglected bands, Love As Laughter (hopefully, you heard one of their old tunes on the bar band CD that came free with the last issue of Uncut). White Denim have the same kind of rickety energy, a punchy method of reinventing classic rock’n’roll and a penchant for letting songs roll on and then deconstruct in an impressively free way. I have another great track – not, sadly, on Myspace at the moment – called “Mess Your Hair Up”, which disintegrates brilliantly until there’s little left but a few dissolute handclaps. Some good new things coming through at the moment, I think, and this is right up with Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver and No Age; I must get round to blogging about their new album, “Nouns”, soon, though the watermarked CD behaves rather moodily on our admittedly troublesome stereo. Not your problem, obviously – I’ll try and sort it out in the next few days, and also post something about Alex Turner and Miles Kane’s The Last Shadow Puppets, which I’m slowly beginning to get my head around.

I’ve just got off the phone with BBC Radio Kent who, in the preamble to this Sunday’s Academy Awards, were asking me, among other things, for my thoughts on who might win in the Best Song category. That’s something, I’m afraid, I don’t feel particularly qualified to answer, having not much on an informed opinion on the work of Gavin Hansard and The Frames (for Once), the three nominations awarded to Disney’s Enchanted, or even the Robin Williams-Jonathan Rhys Myers movie, August Rush, which I confess completely passed me by. I guess I’m on far safer ground pontificating on the big four categories – Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Film and Best Director. Thought I should point out I’m fully expecting to eat humble pie come Sunday night/Monday morning, when none of my predictions came true. That said, I’ve been bang on the money picking the heat winners on this year’s Masterchef… Anyway. Here’s what’s what. You can read the full nominations here, along with my initial thoughts. BEST ACTRESS Julie Christie for Away From Her OK, I’d really like to see Ellen Paige win for Juno – she has real freshness and spark – but Juno’s just too small a film, I think, to make the jump from nomination to win. The Academy tends to favour human tragedy, and Christie’s portrayal of an Alzheimer’s sufferer is a great example of an excellent actress handling her character’s situation with considerable elegance and sensitivity. BEST ACTOR. Daniel Day Lewis for There Will Be Blood Watching Day Lewis’ acceptance speech at the BAFTAs the other week, you were reminded that, in real life, he’s a shy, softly spoken man, a league away from the ferocious, formidable presence we see on screen. It is a massive performance, that far outweighs the other candidates. And that he’s now won 17 gongs on the road to the Oscars seems pretty conclusive proof that he’s going to win, if you ask me. BEST FILM & BEST DIRECTOR No Country For Old Men, by Joel and Ethan Coen Here’s the logic. It’s fairly typical to find Best Film going hand in hand with Best Director. Out of the Best Film nominations, only There Will Be Blood stands out as strongly as No Country For Old Men – but I think Day Lewis’ performance is so all-consuming, for want of a better phrase, that is actually overshadows the film itself. Also, I genuinely think No Country is a superb film, a convincing return to form for the Coen brothers, who’ve thankfully appeared to pull themselves out of their recent creative slump. Elswehere, I think Cate Blanchett will pick up the Best Supporting Actress for I’m Not There while Javier Bardem and his impressively baroque wig will continue their run of Best Supporting Actor awards for No Country For Old Men. Anyway, I’ll see you Monday morning, knife and fork ready for the humble pie, should it come to that.