In the second week of September 1979, Nick Lowe’s “Cruel to be Kind” entered the Top 40. A month later, it peaked at number 12. The commercial success was belated validation for a song with a history. In May 1978, an earlier version was the B-side of his “Little Hitler” single. Fans with long memories heard another, even earlier, “Cruel to be Kind” when his old band Brinsley Schwarz recorded it for the BBC’s John Peel Show in February 1975. It was co-written by Lowe with fellow bandmember Ian Gomm.

This Saturday, April 22, is Record Store Day, the annual celebration of independent record shops. Thus, everyone from the biggest major to the weeniest micro-label is putting out unique, limited edition vinyl runs. When Record Store Day was first inaugurated in 2008, record shops were in trouble, everyone was still in thrall to free invisible music. A decade ago the idea of music as content became king. The principle still holds but there’s been a significant comeback for vinyl.

When the Sex Pistols first played live on 6 November 1975 at St. Martin’s School of Art, they were the support act to a Fifties-influenced band called Bazooka Joe whose roadie was John “Eddie” Edwards. Of the first band on that night, he declared “everyone said ‘oh, they’re not much good are they?’ They were a bit untogether.”

Perhaps most famous as the singer in seminal Nineties art-pop band Stereolab, Laetitia Sadier has worked hard in recent years to establish herself as a solo artist in her own right through a series of well-received avant-muzak albums, including this year’s Finding Me Finding You.

"An Evening with Pink Martini" consists of two sets by the Portland, Oregon group/mini-orchestra. Of these, the first takes the prize, but only by a very short lead. During it the nine-piece, led by Thomas Lauderdale at the piano, seem to relax and really allow spontaneity to take hold, in a manner that’s both risky and thrilling, in terms of stagecraft. At one point trombonist Antonis Andreou is coaxed to sing a number in Greek that he can hardly remember, which means moments of quiet conflab with lead singer Storm Large.

As 1967 ended, The Beatles’ “Hello Goodbye” sat at the top of the British singles chart and Billboard’s Hot 100 in America. Musically trite – “blandly catchy”, declared the writer Ian MacDonald – the single’s banal lyrics pitched opposites against each other: yes, no; stop, go; goodbye, hello. Although Paul McCartney was saying little with the song, he was playing a game with inversion.

Mulatu Astatke has carved out a particular niche within music. He is a one-off purveyor of what Brian Eno called “jazz from another planet”, smoky, mysterious and playful. He’s about the only artist you could describe as both transcendent and sleazy. The sleazy bit is mainly due to the colours of the horns and vibraphone, suggesting a less than salubrious nightclub, and he himself has something of the demeanour of a lounge lizard.

The first thing that hits me as I walk into Concorde 2 is the age and energy of the audience, dominated by excitable booze-fuelled teenagers. Black Honey themselves are pretty young for a band capable of quickly selling out a 600-capacity venue, with the singer noting that “it feels like just yesterday we played here and couldn’t sell two tickets”. Their following has grown steadily over the last few years, thanks to their accessible pop singles and constant comparisons to Lana Del Rey and Lush.

One thing was very clear at Wednesday night’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, held at the Royal Albert Hall – at the moment at least, Scotland has something of a monopoly when it comes to folk music talent.

It’s a while since John Mayall last played Ronnie Scott’s, and the six shows this week didn’t begin to accommodate his many fans. The line to get in on Tuesday started a long while before show-time, and those who turned up hoping for returns will be pleased to know the British blues legend will be heading back to Britain in the autumn. Those lucky enough to possess tickets were treated to an excellent opening show, much of it drawn from his recent album Talk About That.