My conversion to the joys of Radio 2 prompted several users to welcome me to the fold and even recommend particular DJs and shows. It's all rather cosy, isn't it? I think I might have to watch a cheap, exploitative documentary about obese kids to redress the balance.

Speaking of balance, by far the most popular subject of last month's mailbag was Eurovision. In a nutshell, you think it's gone beyond a joke, it's all political, and we shouldn't bother entering in future.

Oh, and with depressing inevitability, some of you took the chance to air some pretty unsavoury views on immigration. 

This about sums up the general consensus:

"The eurovision has always been more about whos whos friend than anything to do with a song competision ,but that  was ok it was fun and nobody took it to serious, but this year their was something dark about  the voting infact the whole event , it wasnt the fact no -one like the UK song that troubled me but the feeling we  the UK were not welcome or  any other country from west europe to the eastern european party.
Even Terry could not hide that the fun had gone and replaced with a clear message ,the west is not welcome."

One user came up with a possible solution:

"If GB are to stand any chance of winning ever again then we should do what Yugoslavia and Russia did and split into smaller states, i.e. England, Scotland, N.Ireland, Wales, Eire, Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Scilly Isles, Channel Isles, Lundy Island, etc. where we can all vote for our immediate neighbours and watch the others sweat as we become a Euro Song Contest superpower once again, lol."

If you needed any further proof that the whole shebang is past its sell-by date, surely this was it:

"terry wogan made it worthwhile with his rightul opinions and predictions but as a fifteen year old, my time would have been better spent revisin!!!"

Lastly, just to clear up any confusion, I didn't actually write the Eurovision blog entry. If you look again, you will see that it's signed Tom Townshend. I wouldn't ordinarily point this out, seeing as I am quite comfortable taking the credit for other people's work. However, this last piece of feedback forced my hand:

"Just wondering if you knew that the girl singing for Albania is actually 16 years old. So your comments are quite pervy. Bye."

2008 is the year several rock and pop legends reach their 50th birthday - Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna being the most high profile.

It's obvious to even the casual observer that they've all spent unusually large amounts of time and money on their appearance over the years.

The results have been less than flattering. Prince looks the best of the three. He's well groomed and trim but you've got to wonder what he looks like underneath the mountain of slap he habitually wears.

Madonna's addiction to the gym has wrought havoc on her arms in recent years, while the less said about Michael Jackson the better.

It's enough to make you wonder if it's worth the pain and sacrifice, particularly when you consider the example of another musician who has just recently reached the half century mark.

I saw Paul Weller play a superb gig at the indigo2 last week and not only was he in fine voice, he looked great too. I don't know if he works out (I doubt it) or watches what he eats (probably, up to a point) but I do know he likes a drink and a cigarette.

More importantly, he appears not to be in denial about his age. Yes, he still clearly takes an active interest in clothes and his hair obviously requires a bit of maintenance but this seems to me to be the right side of vanity.

Beyond that he appears comfortable in his own aging skin.

Paul Weller reached his 50th the Sunday before last. I wasn't there but I bet his birthday celebrations were a damn sight more fun than those of his fellow celebrity half centurions.

For the third time this year, I am cat-sitting for a friend in Brixton. I don't get anything out of it other than a week's worth of pretending I live somewhere bigger than a shoebox. This is fine by me.

Anyway, maybe I'm doing something wrong but I can't get the telly to work. Well, I can just about get a picture but it's so bad that I've decided to give up and listen to the radio instead.

I've never been a big radio listener - just never got into the habit, I suppose - so it's a bit of a voyage of discovery for me. And this is what I have discovered:

• at some point in the last few years, and without me knowing anything about it, I have become a Radio 2 target audience member
• Terry Wogan is actually quite brilliant in the mornings
• Mark Radcliffe (who I last listened to in the mid-1990s when he had the evening slot on Radio 1) has turned into the late John Peel - stuttering delivery, eccentric rambling, the works
• all of the above are strangely reassuring

I recently attended the opening night of Let It Bleed, an exhibition of photographs by a guy called Ethan Russell documenting The Rolling Stones' 1969 tour of the USA.

I'm not usually an art gallery type of guy but I was properly excited about this. You see, the thing is, whether The Stones are better than The Beatles or Led Zeppelin or whoever is  always up for debate (even in my own mind), but what this exhibition proves beyond question is that, for a few years at least, they were the coolest looking band ever to walk the face of the Earth.

What is interesting about this exhibition beyond the beautiful photographs themselves is that it captures the exact moment at which pop became rock. The '69 tour was the first time in three years that The Stones had taken their show on the road, during which time audiences had stopped screaming and started, you know, actually listening.

Technology had moved on in leaps and bounds in the meantime too, so where they had previously been at the mercy of a venue's (usually crappy) in-house sound system, they were now able to transport their own highly sophisticated set-up from city to city.

In short, in 1969 The Rolling Stones invented the modern rock tour.

Not many bands survived the transition. In fact, in terms of groups whose popularity was already established by 1966, perhaps only The Who pulled off the same evolution into a major touring band of the 1970s.

Anyway, I'm getting all rock historian here. Regardless of whether you give a monkey's about any of this stuff (and if not, thank you for still reading), Let It Bleed contains some of the most breathtakingly cool rock and roll photographs you will ever see.

Well, I think so anyway.

Let It Bleed runs until July 20 at London's Proud Gallery

17:01

Just three hours to go until 600 million people with nothing better to do on a Saturday night sit down to watch the 53rd annual Eurovision Song Contest, live from Belgrade in Serbia. We're just one of those 600 million (that does sound rather high doesn't it? Do you think they included pets in the head count?) but we're going to be sitting down and watching it too. And then we'll be writing about it here. We imagine the novelty will wear off by the end, but we'll persevere - a bit like the competition itself.

Until then, we're going to be amusing ourselves by watching obscure (and not at all funny) Bill Murray film The Man Who Knew Too Little, chiefly because it's got the divine Joanne Whalley in it (though long past her best), and possibly eating Coco Pops straight out of the box. You may do as you please. Be back here at 8pm.

Read more on Eurovision (and even download a free Andy Abraham podcast) here

19:59

And we're off! And we've begun with an apology by the BBC for stealing your money from phone votes that weren't counted, in previous years. Cuh! Who can you trust these days?

The title sequence involves blue and red paint and some singing people covered in blue and red paint, the significance of which will, no doubt, become clear.

Last year's winner, the beautiful Marija Šerifović has kicked off proceedings with what appears to be a lesbian wedding-based routine. And to think it was only a few years ago when the world was outraged by taTu having a bit of a kiss. How times change. Her dancers are dressed half as men and half as ladies, much like we would be if this were a typical Saturday night.

20:06

We can't help thinking the stage set looks like an enlarged model of a vital bodily organ - the kind used to train medical students. Maybe it's the pumping heart of Europe (and countries who pretend to be from Europe for the purposes of this competition).

Right then, only 25 songs to go. Oh.

Romania started all popera-ish and dull but has suddenly gone slightly mental with a screeching lady added. We're not sure 'slightly mental' is the affect they were after, but it's the one they've got. It's like a duet between Paul Potts and Jane MacDonald. Appalling.

20:14

Crikey, it's Andy 'bin man' Abraham representing Great Britain already. We haven't even hung our Union Jacks out (to be honest we're juggling with a vegetarian nut cutlet and some microwave mash).

Andy has an attractive lady on stage with him pretending to play guitar. Take that, feminism. Give him his due though, he's performing his ruddy heart out up there on the big bodily organ (the kidney of world peace?) Pretty much a faultless performance. What a shame everyone hates us, otherwise he might win.

20:18

Albania - we're in love. Who cares about things like singing in tune when you look like that. We bet she's got nothing on under that sailor's jacket too. Cor! We're gonna have to get the old video recorder out of the loft just to tape all the bits of her smiling and waving during the voting.

20:21

Germany have provided four women who can't sing, and go by the name of No Angels. One of them has very frightening hair.

No matter how supportive you'd want to be, if you were their parents, you'd have to say, "Sorry dear, that was complete rubbish. Don't do it again. For pity's sake, what were you thinking? If your grandma were still alive she'd weep with shame. And don't even think about coming home for Christmas," because you have to be cruel to be kind.

Armenia is going for the slightly Eastern tinged pop belter that normally does well at this thing. It's spoilt somewhat by some men crawling about on the stage (the gall bladder of hope?). Still, it took our minds off our problems for a few moments, and that's what music's for.

20:29

Aha! The first deliberately nuts entry, thanks to Bosnia & Herzegovina. No idea what all the washing line business or the brides are all about but Pokušaj is actually a brilliant track. Not that we ever want to hear it again, mind. But, you know, well done Laka.

Did the outside broadcast link woman just say: "We are all hos?" That's what it sounded like to us.

So Israel's entry, The Fire In Your Eyes is written by previous winner Dana International (little known fact - she used to be a man. I know, amazing!)

We hadn't looked at the TV while typing this and thought, from the tone of the voice, this was being sung by a lady. It isn't, it's actually quite a manly man. Isn't modern life confusing?

This is probably going to win isn't it? It's got everything going for it - strong, emotional, classy... What do you reckon? No, actually it probably isn't going to win (and I haven't just added this bit once I found out Russia did).

20:39

In an effort to repeat the success of Lordi, Finland serve up some unreconstructed 80s heavy metal. Let's hope, for their sake, the judges are all spotty fifteen year old boys wearing too much denim. Actually, we should be careful what we say. We once gave Iron Maiden a bad review and had death threats. Whereas, curiously, no one ever seems to mind when we have a go at Matchbox Twenty.

Croatia give us all that annual dilemma of figuring out whether this sort of perky, polka-ish pop is actually rubbish or if it's just that our ears aren't adjusted to the subtleties contained within. You know how, when you go on holiday, you start off thinking the favourite local band is utterly naff and by the end of the week you're their biggest fan, you've bought every album and have the singer's phone number written on your chest in biro? Oh, just us then.

The lady from Poland just got an ovation for squawking like a crow.

20:52

Iceland's brilliantly named Euroband seem to be a sexed up version of Same Difference. Actually no, that's a horrible thought. Horrible, really really horrible. Stop thinking it. Stop thinking it now.

Who is this now? It's Turkey. Have you ever wondered what happened to The Bravery? I think we've found them...

Hang on, this nut cutlet isn't gonna eat itself. Back in a bit.

21:06

We used to share a flat with a woman from Portugal. She became convinced that every song being played on the radio was a secret message just for her, and she once accused me of poisoning her food with salt. They're probably not all like that though.

You can see what Latvia were thinking, what with the popularity of Pirates Of the Caribbean. The reality is more like watching Peter Pan while suffering a panic attack. Frightening.

21:09

Is the woman from Sweden drunk? We've only ever seen that facial expression on drunk women. That's all we're saying.

Woo! Lasers. Like in the 80s.

Denmark's cheeky chappie, Simon Matthew, made the bold move of leaving his band on the stage (the stomach of global understanding?) while he stood on the lower intestine. Nice. This is rather good isn't it? That's a genuine question. I might just have easily lost all powers of judgement.

21:17

Georgia. The lady there is actually blind, in case you were wondering. We're full of facts us. For instance, did you know that this not entirely ugly lady representing Ukraine is also a UN Good Will Ambassador, a position also held by Geri Halliwell - so they don't just give it to anyone.

Best performance so far, even if the song was a bit of a racket. We're anybody's for a bit of mirror-based trickery.

21:22

France's Sébastien Tellier is proof, if proof were needed, that Britain should have got Jarvis Cocker to do our song. What a guy. We saw Sébastien play an amazing gig at The Big Chill festival a few years back where he invited the whole crowd back to his for an aftershow party, even though he was staying at the local Travelodge. Daft Punk produced that one you know. Marvelous.

21:29

Azerbaijan - amazing. That is actually what heaven and hell are like. At least, we really hope so.

21:32

Would you like to see a picture of my dinner? Bet you wish you lived at my house, eh? You could eat that sort of thing every night...

Mmm.

Greece are trying too hard! This is all like proper pop music. Great stage set, not-terrible dance routine, decent dress. Look, you're just spoiling it for everyone if you're going to make a track that sounds like one that people would actually buy.

21:35

So Ireland failed in their bid to have Dustin the Turkey terrorise the event with postmodernist comment, but Spain have succeeded where a rubber bird failed by delivering the sh**est thing they could think of, performed by the sort of man you move away from in bus queues.

Oh my goodness, the crowd are actually booing!

Time to crack open the pear cider. What are you having?

21:45

Sorry, we missed Serbia, looking for a bottle opener. Had to jam it in the door in the end. Were they any good?

We like to imagine the chat Russia's Dima Bilan had with his choreographer went something like this:

"So Diman, I see you on the floor. No one will know why you're there, but then you'll reach down and pick up a tiny candle - like the ones ladies put round the bath when they're feeling a bit weepy. You'll stand up and be joined by an ice skater but, and get this, he'll be dancing to completely different music to what's actually playing. And there'll be a fiddler, everyone likes a fiddler. And at the end of the song you'll all get down on the floor again, only this time... no candle. I'm welling up just thinking about it. More borscht?"

Right, I will fight anyone who says Norway's Maria wasn't absolutely brilliant. Because it was. Don't argue, you're wrong.

If only for the lyric: "Catch you off guard like bad crime."

Now let's find out just how many other countries disagree with our foreign policy and close ties with the United States of America, shall we? Excellent.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

22:08

The traditional mid-show entertainment. It's no Riverdance, is it? But then, what is? Oh Terry just said that too. I should switch him off and listen to Ken Bruce on Radio 2 instead. Some people see him as the poor man's Terry Wogan, I prefer to think of him as the rich man's Simon Mayo.

Been having a look through your comments. Most of you seem to think Ukraine will win. I'm ok with that. Some of you like Denmark, others thought it was either Chico or Chas & Dave. I bet they've never been mentioned in the same sentence before.

More importantly, Lauren says: "Koppaberg cider!! amazing!!"

And yes Lauren, it is. You have to be careful if you buy it from IKEA though, as they sell a non-alcoholic version too. And if you wanted that you could just have, like, a pear. Cuh!

Also, Danniella informed us: "I boiled my first lobster but I almost couldn't because it kept looking at me and I felt so sorry for it."

The word that lets you down there, Danniella, is "almost". Poor dead lobster.

Elsewhere, Mark says: "I will make a bet with anyone we don't get over 10 points."

Can someone please take him up on that offer? MSN will send the boys round if he doesn't pay up.

22:31

So it's between the Mickey Mouse Club pop of Greece, the emo rock of Turkey and the absurd ice skating Russians. Come on the Greeks! Has it come to this?

Back to the comments. Martin has asked: "Where the heck is Georgia?"

Well Martin, Georgia is bordered by four countries: Turkey, Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It became independent of the Soviet Union in 1981. The country suffers from high unemployment but its financial situation is improving thanks to major oil and gas pipelines. You don't get this from Terry bleeding Wogan!

22:44

What has happened to the beautiful lady from Albania? Do looks count for nothing in this competition? No, I suppose they don't. If they did, Jessica Garlick would've walked it back in 2002. Ah, the lovely Jessica. How I miss her.

Ukraine are doing well, so you weren't far off with your guesses.

Back when I was at junior school I always entered the running race at sports day, and always came last - because I was very small and all the other boys had far longer legs. It was never fair. Every year I did it, every year I lost. It's comforting to see that sort of futility reflected in Great Britain's Eurovision story, too. It's not the winning that counts but what you blame your loss on.

I'd feel sorry for Andy Abraham if I hadn't wanted Michelle Gayle to win.

The woman from the Czech Republic seems to have found a special strength pear cider. What is going on?

23:03

It's all getting a bit political in the comments section. Let's lighten things with a joke:

"Two fish in a tank. One turns to the other and says, "How do you drive this thing?"

I thank you.

23:06

Why have all the judges started singing? We're all secretly in love with that Swedish fella aren't we? Did he have a stammer? Adorable.

Well, Russia have won. Obviously there are those that will say they were completely rubbish and didn't deserve it. And they'd be right.

However, it's been completely lovely spending tonight in your company. I'm off to find a shop that's still open and sells dark chocolate Kit Kats.

Goodnight.

Tom Townshend

You only have to read the news to know there's an excess of anger in the world. What could possibly move someone to sufficient levels of rage to stab a complete stranger to death in broad daylight on Oxford Street?

Then again, maybe we're barking up the wrong tree by talking about anger. Maybe anger has nothing to do with it. Maybe the root of this modern phenomenon is something more akin to despair.

If you have no sense of self-worth, no respect for yourself, your environment, or any other human being, nothing to aspire to or work for, what does it leave? Nothing but the cheapest of thrills including, sadly, abusing other people for no reason other than you can get away with it.

Anyway, what prompted that little foray into moral philosophy? Oh yes, of course: I've been reading the comments on my blog again.

The worst band names battle, the introduction to which contained a comment about The Beatles not actually being that brilliant a moniker, prompted one user to write:

"that guy who did that voting for those band things, well that guy is a c**t, he says the beatles was a sh*t name I don't really think it was a sh*t I would like you to come up with a band and be bigger than Jesus. No your not going to do that so shut the f**k up you wanker. C**t!"

Thanks, as ever, for your feedback.

The blog entry about music snobbery got quite a debate going. In answer to the person who took the trouble to write, "What kind of anal f**kwit writes this stuff??????????????". Well, me, clearly. Come on, you only need to look at the top of the page.

Somebody with fewer emotional problems asked:

"What do you mean when you said that Alphabeat will outgrow their snobbery? I don't get what you mean!"

Apologies if that wasn't clear. I meant my two colleagues might one day outgrow their snobbery, not the band.

An interesting contribution to the debate came in the form of the following:

"I agree.  Each to his own.  However there are variations of quality not governed by genre.  Led Zeppelin was a better rock band then the Jackson five was a pop band.  It's all a question of aligning genre quality scales.  Led Zeppelin gets a 10 in terms of rock, and the jackson five probably gets about an eight in terms of pop.  Thats how you compare music, and im a snob when it comes to anything below and eight or a nine.  I can tolerate good quality from other genres even if i don't like the genre.  For example i generally dislike rap, but i like eminem because he gets a 9 or 10 rating."

On first reading this is an attractive way of looking at the problem. It enables you to divorce personal preference from the objective question of quality but... well, you're pretty much back to square one because how do you measure music objectively? It's like dancing about architecture, as someone once said.

In the end, there was no contest as to the best suggestion for how to look at the issue. I thought this was great:

"Music is like food - of course everyone has their favourites but, whether you're a health food freak or a junk addict, it's good to get a balanced diet! Sometimes I feel like snarfing a whole bag of sweets (a la Alphabeat's Fascination - mmm, sugary!) and sometimes I feel like really tucking into a good, filling, square meal (for me, the Mars Volta's Francis the Mute, Perhaps? Mmm satisfying!) and other times I feel like I need to detox and little and get some of the healthy stuff that I know my body will always appreciate (maybe a little Vivaldi - mmm wholesome!)"

I'm loving the culinary analogy but the real nail on head moment came with this:

"It's all good stuff, it just depends on what kinds of needs / cravings you have at the time.  I almost feel like the question of what constitutes 'good' music is a bit redundant.  Surely the question should be not so much "is the music good" but "WHAT is the music good FOR"?"

Sir or Madam, I kneel before your wisdom.

In fact, she's just the beginning. What am I talking about? Live sessions on MSN Music, that's what.

OK, let me back up and I'll explain. I've been trying for ages to persuade my superiors to let us record live sessions with up-and-coming artists.

This is a lot easier said than done for a number of reasons, not least the money involved. Anyway, I'll spare you the boring business politics stuff and cut to the chase: two days ago we recorded what I hope will be the first of many with my favourite new female singer, Beth Rowley.

I first saw Beth live towards the end of last year at an industry showcase for new artists. The fact that she had to follow Duffy and was still, to my mind at least, the highlight of the evening, says it all.

Soon after I got an advance copy of her debut album, Little Dreamer (it's finally out on May 19th), and fell in love with it. I've waxed lyrical about it in a previous blog post so, keeping it very brief this time, I'll just say that it's the best blues/gospel/soul/old-school R&B album ever recorded by a Bristolian girl who was born in Peru.

Anyway, all being well, we'll have the session live on the site very shortly, so you'll be able to see for yourself that my gushing isn't entirely down to thinking she's just about the cutest darn thing in the whole world. 

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I mentioned in a previous post that I was quite the music fascist in my younger days. Basically, I liked one type of music made during one specific era and everything else was, without question or exception, rubbish.

There was no 'live and let live' about it, no allowance for subjectivity; if your taste fell outside my strict boundaries, you were just plain wrong.

The most heinous of all crimes to someone of this opinion is 'manufactured' pop. Anything too catchy, too commercial (a favourite insult word, that), too accessible is worthless. In fact, it's worse than that, it's positively insulting to 'real' music made by 'real' musicians.

This sort of thinking isn't unusual and it's not restricted to younger music fans. Walk up to the fiftysomething AC/DC fan of your choice and tell them you think the first three Spice Girls singles are absolute corkers (they are!) and, to quote Alan Partridge, you'll be picking up your teeth with a broken arm.

I gradually shed this snobbery over the years and can now say without a flicker of embarrassment that ABC by the Jackson Five is, in its own way, the equal of anything recorded by, say, The Beatles or Led Zeppelin.

Anyway, this is all to set the scene of an interesting and unexpected little bit of unpleasantness I found myself involved in at the end of last week.

We were recording the latest MSN Entertainment podcast and I had brought along a tune called Fascination by my new favourite thing, a Danish pop group called Alphabeat, to discuss on mic with my colleagues.

Now I didn't expect movies editor Ed (who is a devoted metal guitarist in his spare time) to think it was the best thing he'd ever heard but I was a little shocked by the unbridled contempt it managed to inspire in him and the two other guys in the room.

Much of what was said was edited out but suffice to say that I only made matters worse by suggesting they might outgrow their snobbery one day (they're all in the early twenties).

On reflection it was a patronising thing to say and was only ever going to further inflame the situation but I was trying to make a serious point. I think I'd have felt the same as them 10 years ago, you see.

Anyway, what do you reckon? Have your tastes broadened over the years? Has your attitude to what constitutes good music mellowed? It would be interesting to get another view.

Not a huge amount of feedback to report on last month but the Greatest Guitarist Ever battle provoked a fair bit of debate. It was always going to really, wasn't it?

I got a number of outraged 'where is so-and-so?' emails, sometimes about guitarists who are actually in there.

This one was interesting though:

So where is Django Reinhardt?.....can anyone hold a candle to his technique? Manouche (gipsy) jazz music is becoming rediscovered, by the masses, Put the Django up, you may find an unplugged following,  who judge the 'musician and not  the 'pop package'

Well, yes, being a bedroom guitarist myself (not a euphemism), I do know about Django but I wasn't sure how many of our users would. I didn't want to be too obscure and muso about it.

Speaking of which, what does Dimebag Darrell mean to you? Ed, our movies editor, is a bit of an axe god on the quiet. He's actually studying for a Diploma In Popular Music Performance (Rock School, basically) and was naturally keen to contribute lots of his favourite players for the battle.

I frequently had to reject his suggestions on grounds of obscurity but he would not budge on Dimebag Darrell. He was so insistent that I included him just so we wouldn't fall out. I have lost all sense of perspective on this now and have no idea how well known Dimebag is to the general public, so I'd be grateful if you'd care to drop me a mail and let me know.

What else? Oh yes, Bonnie Tyler was incorrectly listed as Bonnie Taylor in a piece about British women who have topped the American charts. More worryingly, the photo originally accompanying it was of a lookalike from the Romanian version of Stars In Their Eyes. The illegal immigrant responsible has been forcibly repatriated.

The night before last I finally got around to seeing a band I've loved for 18 years - The Black Crowes. Back when I first heard them, I had very definite ideas about music, far more so than I do now. In fact, if the truth be told, I only had the one idea and that was that no music of any merit was recorded after 1975. I liked the Stones, The Faces, Hendrix, The Doors, Zeppelin, and that was about it. Everything else, particularly anything contemporary, was beneath my adolescent contempt.

The Black Crowes were the first band to make me reconsider my cultural absolutism and they did so by clearly thinking the same way I did.

When I first heard  their cover of Otis Redding's Hard To Handle and, shortly afterwards, their debut album Shake Your Moneymaker, I knew these guys were kindred spirits.

It was slap bang in the middle of grunge but this lot were completely oblivious. To borrow one of Keith Richards' favourite sayings, they were as much about the roll as the rock. They had the funk, the boogie, the snake-hipped, loose-limbed, androgynous white boy soul of my favourite bands, and in Chris Robinson they had the best front man since Rod Stewart went crap (which was 1975, incidentally).

Like me, they were essentially in denial that it wasn't still 1972 but I didn't care about that. They made me feel like I wasn't alone and that sort of thing is inordinately important when you are 15.

My blinkered attitude to music receded in tandem with my hairline and it's been a very long time since I thought like that but it was still great fun to enter Black Crowes World the other night, a place where long hair and beards are virtually compulsory for men (well, those lucky enough to be able to grow them) and 20 minute guitar jams are met with awestruck appreciation.

I hadn't been able to get a plus one, so I was there on my own. To be honest, I was perfectly happy about that. It was quite a personal thing, you know? Anyway, I arrived fairly late so finding a seat was a bit of a challenge. I eventually found a spare next to a particularly authentically dressed couple who I immediately recognised as Heavy Load Rob and his lady Karen.

Heavy Load is to nightclubs what the Black Crowes are to bands. Their playlist is like an expanded version of my teenage record collection. It's a loving homage to the rock and soul of the late 1960s / early 1970s held on the last Saturday of every month in the basement of a central London pub. If you're a fan of music from that era*, you will love Heavy Load.

Rob and his missus are the loving curators/hosts/DJs and two of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. Chancing upon them in the dark upstairs of Brixton Academy felt like rock and roll serendipity.

(* Rob steadfastly refuses to play music recorded after 1975 at Heavy Load. With the exception of one band. Yep, The Black Crowes)

It's all go in MSN Music land at the moment. Well, from a website architecture point of view anyway. Come on, stay awake at the back!

Actually, there's quite a bit more to it than that. We've just undergone a pretty major overhaul of the channel and there are a few things to let you know about.

In terms of new stuff, we're now getting our music news from the most comprehensive online source there is - NME.com.

The same publication will also be providing us with the lowdown on the latest albums in our newly revamped reviews section. We'll be featuring the week's best singles in there too.

One thing we've been lacking up to now is decent coverage of live music. This has been rectified with the addition of the gigs section, which features both reviews and previews.

Last of the new additions is the video section. Whether you're looking for an interview with your favourite star or a full-scale concert, there's bound to be something to tickle your fancy there.

We've shaken up some of the old various subsections too. Thus, the old Artist Of The Month has bitten the dust to be replaced by a section called Spotlight.

This is better for two reasons: firstly, we're not restricted to featuring just one in-depth artist profile per month, and second, we won't be banging on about the same thing for four weeks. Everyone's a winner, we're sure you will agree.

We're also ramping up our commitment to bringing you the best new music with a section called First Look. This, we promise, will be much more than barely rewritten press releases put up as a favour to someone at the record company.

What else? Well, coming very shortly will be our Unsigned section. If you're an aspiring chart-topper then we can put you in front of millions! Lay off the emails until the section is launched though please.

Last but not least, we'll be filming our very own intimate acoustic sessions with the best new and established artists. As a great man once said, watch this space.

So, that's it from us. What do you think? What do you like/dislike? Is there anything we've overlooked? Feel free to send me a message by clicking the link in the box below the advert on the right.  

As you've no doubt heard, the music industry is in decline. The rise and rise of downloading (both legal and otherwise) has taken a huge chunk out of record company profits, leading to jobs being lost, bands being dropped, and expense accounts being slashed.

If you want an idea of just how much things have changed in the last 10 years, you could do worse than read a novel called Kill Your Friends by a guy called John Niven.

Based on his own experience of being an A&R man in the pre-download Britpop era (the last boom time for the traditional music business), it's a tale of drugs, depravity, and ruthless ambition which is both highly amusing and, particularly if it bears any relation to what really went on, extremely disturbing. Comparisons with American Psycho are apt. 

Anyway, that was then. There simply isn't the money floating about to fund that sort of decadence any more and, you know, in our post-9/11 world of terrorist threats and imminent recession, that's no bad thing.

One casualty of the current financial climate is the album launch party. Back in the 1990s an obscenely expensive shindig was par for the course for any major release.

These days they are much thinner on the ground and, oh the horror, sometimes you even have to pay for your own drinks! (That was mock indignation, by the way)

Very occasionally, however, serious cash is still splashed. In the two and a half years I've been in a position to be asked, I have been invited to three such events - for The Feeling's first album, James Blunt's second, and, just the other week, Portishead's third (which, satisfyingly, is called Third).

A load of us were flown to Berlin, given an iPod with the new album preloaded on it to keep, were wined, dined, put up in a very nice hotel, and treated to an intimate performance by the band. How could that fail to generate journalistic goodwill towards the new record?

(Let's not be under any illusions, that is the whole point).

At the risk of sounding like a character from Kill Your Friends, the gig part was really badly thought out. Nicely full of food and beer, we were driven by coach to what can only be described as a draughty school hall outside the city. A makeshift bar had been set up but it closed, without prior warning, shortly after we arrived.

It then transpired that Portishead were actually recording a radio session, so it wasn't really a gig at all. Notorious perfectionists that they are, it turned into what felt like hours worth of tinkering about and aborted takes. In a school hall miles from anywhere. With no booze. And no escape. Goodwill was hard to muster by the end of it.

By contrast, Supergrass' bash for the release of their new one, Diamond Hoo Ha, was a typically scaled down 21st century affair. There were a couple of free cocktails knocking about but otherwise it was a case of watching the band's mildly amusing half-hour  mockumentary before they took the stage (minus bass player Mick who is still out of action after breaking his back last year) and tore through a grand total of four songs.

Yes, four. Two from the new record, a cover of Beat It by Michael Jackson, and old-school favourite Lenny from their very first album. That was it, good night, see you later. And do you know what? It was absolutely bloody brilliant. Sod the trip abroad, the freebie gadgets, and all the rest of it. This was four songs by a great band in a tiny venue. No contest.

This isn't to be ungrateful for the Portishead invitation, nor to suggest that I didn't have a great time (school hall aside). Nor is it to say their new album isn't any good. To be honest, I've not really listened to it since I got back. And that's kind of the point really because I almost certainly would have done by now had I not been to Berlin.

In spending all that money, their record label achieved (with me anyway, I can't speak for anyone else) the opposite of what they were hoping to.

Sometimes less really is more.

There has been a bitter rivalry between Britain and France since time began. We may be the closest of neighbours geographically but we couldn't be more different in terms of temperament.

They have that supreme Gallic confidence in their stylistic and gastronomic superiority (best exemplified by a disdainful shrug at any suggestion otherwise) while we cling to our plucky good humour, our sense of fair play, and, inevitably, not having been occupied by the Nazis.

There is, however, one area of style in which the British can claim absolute dominance - rock and roll. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, The Clash, The Smiths, The Cure (to name but a few) - quite apart from the music, these artists have / had their own sense of style which the French, for all the catwalk elegance of Chanel, Louis Vuitton and the rest, have been fascinated by but never been able to appropriate for themselves.

Regardless of what happens in the football tonight, it's one little victory that is often overlooked. Zut alors!

I know I've been banging on about this (as yet still unreleased) new Guillemots album for ages but it remains the best thing I've heard this year (Duffy and Elbow being the next closest contenders). I often get to listen to records before they come out but rarely, if ever, have I been this enthusiastic about one for so long before reviews start appearing.

Being in a position to make your own mind up about something free of external influences is an interesting and all-too unusual experience. It's harder than you might realise to know whether you genuinely like something or whether you feel like you ought to.

Anyway, reviews of Red are starting to crop up all over the place now and it's looking like a distinctly mixed bag. Now, clearly the world would be a very dull place if we all agreed about everything but I just cannot fathom how the NME have given it four out of ten.

The main thrust of Jamie Crossan's criticism is that "All those who loved Guillemots' orchestrally sweeping debut... will most likely loathe this album". And why?

Because they "have unexpectedly gone all R&B on our asses, and not in a good way." The review concludes, "If only Guillemots main man Fyfe Dangerfield hadn't woken up one bright morning believing he could be indie's Timbaland, this could have been a half-decent return".

I am often surprised at how angry some of the comments I receive about my articles can be but reading this utter nonsense reminded me what it's like to be incensed by ignorance and prejudice masquerading as music journalism.

Everything that is wrong with the NME is summed up in those two sentences.

What Crossan is actually saying is that Dangerfield's ambition should remain within the confines of classically-inflected indie introspection and he should leave "booty shakers" (as he refers to them) to black artists like Timbaland. This is completely absurd and illustrates the extent to which the NME have painted themselves into a corner in recent years.

50 years ago there was much consternation among the paper's jazz-centric writers about covering rock and roll, a genre which was very much looked down upon. Only the sheer weight of public demand forced them to reconsider.

Just over 30 years ago a similar thing happened when punk broke. NME writers of the time were almost exclusively smug baby boomers who thought their Merseybeat/ psychedelia/hard rock/singer-songwriter/glam/prog journey would continue uninterrupted and unchallenged forever.

Only a bloody editorial coup prevented the paper becoming the literary equivalent of the Cambridge Folk Festival.

If we're really at a point where Guillemots are criticised for bringing heart, soul, sex, and joy to the indie party while an unutterably dull band like Foals are lauded to the rooftops simply because they wear tight trousers and play in odd time signatures, the NME is as close to self-imposed irrelevance as its ever been.

I've been pretty excited about Shine A Light, the Martin Scorsese directed Rolling Stones concert film/documentary, since I first heard about it last year. Despite all their best work having been recorded before I was born, the Stones were the band that got me into music in the first place and started me on the rocky path that leads directly to this blog  entry.

If you'll permit the indulgence of a digression, mine wasn't a musical background. My Mum and Dad didn't listen to anything beyond the radio and I didn't have any older siblings to take direction from. Still don't, as a matter of fact.

The pop music of my adolescence was particularly hideous (Stock, Aitken, and Waterman were rampant) and I didn't have any inclination to look beyond the surface. If I had, I might have discovered that one of my future all-time favourites, The Stone Roses, were then at the peak of their powers.

But I hadn't, so I didn't. Until one day when, purely out of boredom, I was rooting around at home and found a Stones Best Of collection on vinyl. I think a friend of the family had bought it for my Dad several Christmases previously on account of him having liked them (sort of) in the 1960s.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I put the needle on the record, stuck a pair of headphones on, and my whole world changed forever. I remember being instantly transfixed by the swaggering rhythm of Brown Sugar and the languid voice you can just make out after the final chord exclaiming "Yeah!" (it would be a while before I discovered Keith Richards was responsible for both of these).

I entered a new phase of my life that day. I'm still in it, to be honest, which is possibly a tad unhealthy given that I turn 33 tomorrow but that's my problem to worry about.

So, that's the background. The Stones mean a lot to me. I know they do to Martin Scorcese too because he often uses their music to great effect in his films. In fact, Jagger has quipped that Shine A Light may well be the first Scorcese film not to feature Gimme Shelter on its soundtrack. The wag.

So what was it like? Good. Great, even. And slightly disturbing in a way that's difficult to describe. Just before I get to that, I should also point out that it was the first screening I've ever been to with a security guard at the door whose sole function was to check everyone's mobile was switched off. Not only that, he had his own reserved seat at the back, presumably to ensure nobody produced a camcorder from their trousers and started filming.

How very paranoid. How very heavy-handed. How very Stones, I thought.

I was slightly disappointed to discover that Shine A Light itself is nine parts concert film to one part documentary. In fact, it isn't really a documentary at all. There is a scattering of archive interview footage (ruthlessly excising Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, and Mick Taylor from history), most, but not all, of which I'd seen before.

Still, what there is serves as a handy reminder of just how bloody long they've been doing this, as well as how many accents Jagger has been through, that Keith did actually look young once, and that Charlie has always been loveably miserable.

The intimacy of the gig footage, shot at New York's Beacon Theatre in the autumn of 2006, is remarkable. You can see every piece of interplay between them, every wink, every little in-joke. And every mistake and every wrinkle.

It's one of the great contradictions about the Stones that they are clearly massively narcissistic yet, at the same time, surprisingly lacking in vanity.

The other thing that occurred to me was how no other English band has ever (or could ever) write American sounding songs about America, sing them in an American accent, and not sound like they were taking the piss. It's like the Stones have special dispensation.

One song in the film, a relatively obscure track called Faraway Eyes, sounds like a vicious country and western pastiche.

As Jagger raps in his best 'po boy' voice about listening to the preacher on the coloured radio station and Ronnie Wood extracts all sorts of cheesy Nashville sounds from his lap steel guitar, the effect, when combined with Scorcese's ultra-intimate cinematography, is disconcertingly surreal. It's like the gig has been transported to Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge  via a Dennis Potter play.

Anyway, I could go on and on but I've probably said enough already. In conclusion, Stones fans will love it, even if they will secretly wish it had been shot in 1969. Non-believers are more likely to think of it in the same way they do this blog post - alright but possibly a little self-indulgent and definitely too long.

The Brits is by far the biggest single music event of the year and the emails I received last month reflected that. The consensus seemed to be that the Osbournes were a bad joke (I hate to say I told you so but I saw that one coming), Amy did well despite looking a little shaky, and Macca lent some much needed dignity to the proceedings.

This was a fair summation of opinion:
"What a complete mess. The Osbournes were an embarrassment, not amusing at all and what happened to Ozzy?? The producers of this show should be ashamed to have made such a mess, and not in a good way.
Highlights for me:
Kylie- looked fab and was one of the only people acting professionally, wasn't expecting her to win though! Mark Ronson, glad he won something. - Amy Winehouse, was good to see her looking better but she ruined it with another silly comment about her husband. Alan Carr - at least he just admitted he was drunk, didn't like the Winehouse 'joke' though.
Bad points: the Rihanna/Klaxons...why????, Sharon Osbourne, Vic Reeves, Foo Fighters speech, Arctic Monkeys - the 'we're too good for awards' attitudes went out of fashion in the 90s. FEARNE COTTON - why??? there was no need for her, we could have seen all Macca's performance if we hadn't had her bits, she was the worst bit by far. Macca was a saving grace.. a true professional."

Some people saw fit to focus on one aspect in particular. One user was especially distressed by Sharon Osbourne's predatory flirting, saying:
"Get Sharon treatment as her sexist comments towards young, fit men under the delusion that they fancy her is turning into a national cringe fest, all 16-25 year old male wannabes at the next X Factor auditions....be afraid...very afraid</