If there was a downer during the giddy, gleeful Glasgow stop of Gossip’s recent run of shows, it was only when front woman Beth Ditto introduced the band as being “not really together but we’re here”. The dance-punk trio - joined, for this short run of reunion shows, by pre-split touring members Chris Sutton on bass and Gregg Foreman on keyboards - were made to front sweaty rooms, with Ditto in particular a gleaming vision in a sleek black wig and metallic pink dress.

Sum 41 were one of those light-weight punk-ish bands in unfeasibly large pairs of shorts that washed up in the wake of Green Day’s early success in the mid-90s. They soon became the acceptable face and sound of punk, sold millions of albums and picked up armfuls of awards, and even played a role in the rehabilitation of Iggy Pop’s career, by accompanying him on 2003’s Skull Ring album.

June 2017 witnessed a musical miracle, of sorts – the resurrection to recording and brilliant songwriting of Peter Perrett, The Only Ones’ singer, songwriter, and architect of his own ghoulish entombment in a Gothic south east London pile, fielding serious addictions for decades and emerging only briefly in 1996 for his excellent Woke Up Sticky album, and the publication of Nina Antonia’s biogra

It’s been a couple of years since Peter Perrett, the former frontman and creative force behind the much loved but commercially under-performing Only Ones decided that he’d had enough of being a mere legend and got back into the musical ring. He had made a brief reappearance in the mid-1990s under the guise of The One, but that was all very fleeting, and Perrett’s infamous bad habits soon reasserted themselves until a short Only Ones’ reformation tour 10 years ago.

Here they come again – the band most adept at capturing the mood of an era in catchy, critical three-minute songs. Just at the very point we need them most, the original ska-punk popsters surface and their message is as deeply relevant as it was four decades ago. But is this a 40^th anniversary or a number one album tour? Or both?

Now going for over a dozen years, ever-busier since Live Nation took over its parent company in 2015, The Great Escape Festival is the annual multi-venue band showcase and music conference which sees Brighton swamped with music biz sorts.

Abbey Road Studios and the anarcho-punk legends Crass seem an unlikely pairing. The new, vinyl-only reissues of The Feeding of the Five Thousand (The Second Sitting), Stations of the Crass and Best Before 1984 each bear a sticker saying “Remastered by Alex Gordon at Abbey Road Studios, as close as possible to the sound of the original release. ‘as it was in the beginning’.”

Until now, Rema-Rema’s only release was a 12-inch EP released in August 1980. It had hit shops after the band fell apart at the end of the previous year. Negotiations with 4AD, a new offshoot of the Beggar’s Banquet label, were underway towards the end of 1979 but then guitarist and future Adam and the Ants-man Marco Pirroni left. They rehearsed without him but called it a day in November. Yet 4AD issued that EP, titled Wheel in the Roses.

Was that "A waltz is a beat not a march" being hollered through what sounds like a megaphone on “Three Steps to a Development”? Sometimes it’s tricky to make out what vocalist Austin is on about, as he strains to be heard above the dazzling organised noise: such perversity and archness is pure art-school. But in this instance it also places focus on the relentless forward thrust and throbbing physical heft of the music itself.

It is hard to absorb the news that Keith Flint of The Prodigy has been found dead at his home in Essex. Keith Flint! The guy with the double Mohican and panda eye-liner who terrified Middle America in the video for “Firestarter”. He was ever an integral part of The Prodigy’s unstoppable live electronic dance assault and, while it’s too early to ponder such things, it’s difficult to imagine them without him.