One of vinyl’s more controversial corners is the postal subscription club. Sign up to one of these and, for a fee, a number of records are sent to your home. The draw is supposed to be exclusivity of content or simply trusting the taste of a faultless musical guru. Subscription is thus, to put it mildly, a mixed bag. Sites such as Wax&Stamp are typical. Their policy is to send two-per-month, one chosen by them and one by a guest selector. Most of the real success stories, though, are labels with solid reputations, such as the longstanding Fortuna Pop and Too Pure singles clubs.

The Love Affair/Steve Ellis: Time Hasn’t Changed us - The Complete CBS Recordings 1967-1971

The voice is the pinnacle of instruments, the surefire road to the heart. But the core humanity which distinguishes it can work both ways: the vulnerability displayed so powerfully in human song makes possible the expression of powerful emotions but it can also pitilessly expose the flaws in an artist’s work.

What do we do when our heroes become incapable of doing what made them our heroes in the first place? Who are we to say when an artist is too old and broken to be on stage, if that’s where they want to be?  Where is the line between thrilling avant-punk chaos and an unrehearsed shambles? When does an enthused audience willing a band to succeed, whatever the evidence to the contrary, slip into the realms of self-delusion?

I’m in a car and I’m uncomfortably hot. The reason I’m in a car is I’m on my way to a gig on the first day in 14 years that industrial action has brought London Underground to a standstill. No skeleton service, no contingency, just closed doors and solidarity. This means it’s bumper-to-bumper and I’m running late. Very late. I’m on my way to Abbey Road Studios where Studio Two has been opened up for a special performance by pianist and composer Tom Hodge and electronic producer Max Cooper.

There was a buzz at the Barbican last night, the kind that makes you feel like a child again, a ripple of electric energy that only comes with seeing the true greats. And they don’t come much greater than Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, two jazz legends with strikingly similar trajectories. Both cut their teeth playing with Miles, both helped determine the direction of jazz-rock fusion and, though they’re now in their mid 70s, both have continued to push the boundaries.

Sex Pistols: Spunk

Apart from Simon Reynolds paying tribute in Rip It Up And Start Again, his definitive history of post-punk – notably to the demented experimentalism of ATV’s second album Vibing Up The Senile Man – there has been little extended acknowledgement of these definitive Seventies originals. Frontman Mark Perry pops up regularly as a talking head on programmes about punk, but the focus is always, not unreasonably, the year-long run of his famous fanzine Sniffin’ Glue. As so often, this is not quite as things should be.

Cleopatra in her barge gliding down the nave of Southwark Cathedral? Only figuratively, in the hypnotic “Half the Fun” movement of Duke Ellington’s constantly surprising Shakespeare compendium Such Sweet Thunder. Still, it wouldn’t be that much stranger than the combination of a jazz orchestra and a chamber choir – so superlative as not to need the “youth” in their names observed – celebrating Shakespeare in his local place of worship.

Caspar Gomez stays offline at Glastonbury. This report arrived at theartsdesk two days later handwritten by fax with an accompanying preamble which said only, “This scribble has now suitably matured in the cider-oaked barrels of a pot-holed brain. I am Uncle Fuckle and I’m here to bring the pain. It began like this…”

Thursday 25^th June