When Glastonbury takes a year off, smaller festivals have a chance to mark out for themselves as much of the massive void left behind as possible.

The Stone Roses generated £23m for the Manchester economy by reuniting for a three-day musical extravaganza in their hometown, experts have estimated.

Solicitor known as Mr Loophole makes passionate defence of Stone Roses frontman

King Lear is a daunting prospect for any actor – so too for an audience. Uncompromising, dark and sprawling.

If Radiohead's The King of Limbs wasn't quite abstruse enough for you, then this could be just what you're waiting for: 19 remixes of its eight tracks by dubstep and avant-rock producers – the best-known being Caribou, Four Tet and Modeselektor – most of whom seem to adopt the inscrutable manner of "Feral", whichever track they're remixing.

The Stone Roses are set to reunite.

Former Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown was told he was "free to go" by a court today after prosecutors dropped a driving charge against him.

Chart veteran Paul Weller is to receive a top honorary prize at this year's NME Awards, the annual Godlike Genius title, it was announced today.

There are no silver bells, cockle shells or pretty maids but Mary's garden grows enchantingly in this new musical version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel. Mary, nimbly portrayed by Jayne Wisener, is certainly a contrary little girl. She's as rudely dismissive of her ayah in India as she is of the maid Martha Sowerby whom she encounters when, suddenly orphaned, she's shipped to England.

The chirps, buzzes, choral harmonies and fuzzy bass-lines of the Los Angeles synth-pop duo the Bird & the Bee's cover of Rihanna's floor-filler "Don't Stop the Music" epitomise the soundtrack at Cover to Cover, a new club night in London's Shoreditch. The idea behind the night, held in the Queen of Hoxton on Curtain Road, is piled on zeal for great cover versions. We're not talking Mike Flowers on "Wonderwall", more Ian Brown murmuring through "Thriller" or "Billy Jean", or the Bronx – a hardcore outfit from Brooklyn – bouncing along to Prince's "I Would Die for You".

"There's an easy mastery of things previously introduced. The string beds, the mariachi horns, the deep mystical groove, they're all elements which have appeared in isolation on separate outings, but here are brought together in spectacular fashion." - musicomh.com