Minchella learned the business the hard way - perhaps the best way - on the pub circuit, playing professionally for the first time in 1987, two years before the golden break with Ocean Colour Scene.

As The Beatles' 'Tomorrow Never Knows' fades out over the PA, the feedback groan of Barrie Cadogan's Gibson splits the air, a white umbilical guitar lead coiling obscenely into the amp. Five minutes into the gig and the band has put a grip on a crowd who twist with delight in the dark womb of the club.

They're propping up the bar at The Blue Posts on Berwick Street in Soho, a duo enmeshed in a knockabout conversation about the politics of music.

Their Britpop rivalry was legendary, but Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn have put their musical differences aside to perform together in aid of a canc...

It has been 22 years since the release of the landmark album Road To Freedom. Jason Holmes speaks to Femi Williams (aka Femi Fem), one third of The Young Disciples, about how the record came into existence.

A love of live music pervades the club, rather than the sweaty media ambition of the mainstream, whose godheads can be identified as the millionaire prefab boy bands who some of us have learned to avoid.

It's a chance to listen to the remarkable progression from 1977 to 1982 over six increasingly impressive albums.

Before the band departed, their fists raised, Weller barked "Thanks for coming for such a great cause on such a piss poor night! Give yourselves a round of applause!" So we did.

It's tough getting through the throng of women. It's Friday night and Sam Gray's set has just ended. Sweat is pearling on his brow. He bows and steps from the stage. The four other band members lay down their instruments and grin at each other.

Mod rocker Paul Weller has joined forces with British cycling hero Bradley Wiggins to record a new radio special. Wiggins recently met up with his ...

Outside 108 Commercial Street, the scooters nose in like a shoal of robot fish. I make my way through the crowd. The sun has set and the towers around Liverpool Street loom over the roof of Spitalfields market. The guy on the door ticks my name off the list and I walk in and get handed a drink.

Across the table in a Surrey coffee shop sits no ordinary singer. The smile is luminous, the eyes soft, her voice languorous.

As Paul Weller's long-time collaborator and one of the finest and most prolific drummers Britain has ever produced, Steve White is now looking to the future. Jason Holmes journeyed to Stockport to meet him.