Charlotte Hatherley was joined by Graham Coxon at the Carling Weekend: Reading and Leeds Festivals.

A veteran of the festival as guitarist in Ash, Charlotte performed her solo set here for the first time this weekend.

And yesterday (August 25) at Reading she was joined by former Blur guitarist to play on her track ‘Stop’. The pair are planning to do the same tonight in Leeds.

Charlotte told NME.COM: “Graham’s brilliant because he just kind of ambles on, pulls a few faces, plays some amazingly crazy wacky guitar, and then ambles off. Haha! It’s so cool.”

The collaboration was also a personal triumph. She continued: “I’m quite a huge Blur fan though, I went to see them when I was 15 and he was my kind of pin up, so in that respect I thought it was really mad. Is he still on my wall now? Yes!”

Charlotte’s solo set includes singles ‘Kim Wilde’ and ‘Summer’ alongside self-penned Ash B-side ‘Taken Out’ and a cheeky cover of Kim Wilde’s own smash ‘Kids In America’.

NME

Graham Coxon made his Main Stage debut at the Carling Weekend: Reading Festival this afternoon and took the opportunity to debut a new track (August 26).

The guitarist treated fans to a sneak preview of his upcoming sixth solo album when he played ‘Standing On My Own Again’.

In a crowd pleasing set, Coxon also ran through ‘Bittersweet Bundle Of Misery’, ‘No Good Time’, ‘All Over Me’ as well as another new song ‘I Can’t Look At Your Skin Cos It’s Doing Me In’.

He then closed his sets with a riotous couple of tracks including ‘Freakin’ Out’.

NME

Listen out for Graham Coxon on BBC Radio 2 on Wednesday evening (10.30 pm). He will be chatting & playing some songs on the Mark Lamarr programme (sitting in for Mark Radcliffe) as a build up to the Reading/Leeds Festival shows the following weekend.
You can listen live at www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/radcliffe/.

Blur FC

Britpop nostalgia takes over BBC 4 on Tuesday 16 August, as they have a series of programmes entitled “Britpop Night”. It includes a repeat of “Britpop Now”, the Damon hosted show from 1995 in which he introduces performances from Pulp, Supergrass, Elastica, and Blur.

The full schedule can be seen here:
www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/listings/index.shtml?day=tuesday&service_id=4544

Blur FC

Graham Coxon is putting the finishing touches to the follow-up to 2004’s ‘Happiness In Magazines’.

The guitarist completed recording the LP in May and is now designing his own cover for the record.

“With artwork on this (album) one and the last one, I’ve done all the recording first then started drawing stuff,” he told NME.COM. “What I do is take note books to the coffee shops, drink pints of coffee and do loads of drawings. Then I scan them at home and start inking them.”

Coxon added: “At the moment I’ve been messing around with the computer images from scanned in sketches. I think the art work does reflect the theme of the album in a way. It’s all to do with symbols.”

NME