Her forthcoming album ‘Fur And Gold’ is one of the most stunning things we’ve heard all year. Sprinkled with blood curdling songs like ‘Bat’s Mouth’ and next single ‘Trophy’, it’s strong, beautiful and utterly glorious. Filled with odds and ends of stories, imagery, wistful song and strong arrangements, it’s emo for people who have emotions, not haircuts. That doesn’t happen often. We talk to Bat For Lashes’s alter-ego Natasha Khan about flags, bridges and why she’s probably the only musician alive who will publicly admit to not liking Glastonbury.

What's the best festival you've ever been to?

“All Tomorrow’s Parties. I went five times before I played there (in May at the request of Devendra Banhart), because it just has the most eclectic range of artists, and you can just go there and not give a shit and hear all this new stuff without the corporate sponsored bollocks.”

What's the worst one?

“Glastonbury. I just can't stand it, Robbie Williams was headlining, but I'm not good in massive crowds of people. I got trashed and wandered around feeling lonely in a crowd.  The hugeness of that means that you have to search quite hard to find somewhere you'll fit, all human beings want to find somewhere they'll feel comfortable. There was just a lot of lager louts and aggressive people about.”

What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen at a festival? (Note us not asking about drugs)

“(Laughs sheepishly) I'm not allowed to talk about drugs... Well, it was a gigantic bridge that was all lit up at that moment in time, with 20 billion people all dressed up in circus clothes... it was really intense, man.”

What's the one thing you must take to a festival?

“Some kind of flag so you can find your tent.  A torch is good as well.  And some really nice friends.” 

What's the best band you've ever seen?

“I loved Explosions In The Sky, when they were all tranced out during their first album.  Tarantula A.D.'s new album is lovely.  I've seen Underworld play a fucking great set, danced danced danced - you wouldn’t think I like that sort of music, but I do. Oh, and the first time I saw Devandra play with his band it was joyous, just dancing, psychedelically.”

'Fur And Gold' is released on September 11 on Echo Records. We recommend you pre-order it, like, now, and listen to the songs on www.myspace.com/batforlashes.

They sound like The Strokes, only more fun. They're two sets of brothers, but they don't fight. They've toured with the UK's hottest bands, yet they're from America. They're geeky, but not emo. Ooh, San Francisco's Scissors For Lefty are just a big mass of contradictions aren't they? We caught up with singer Bryan Garza to find out what floats their festival boat before their weekend gigs at Reading and Leeds...

Best Festival?
“Germany was really good to us, Southside and Hurricane. Lot of fun. Back in San Fran, we played the Market Street where you get 6’5 trannies introducing you and your whole city facing. That’s cool because we get to meet new bands and share lunch. We like seeing what our audience is.”

Worst?
“If we have bad shows it’s only on your end. Our worst show was in Coventry - it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t bad! Our worst festival? So far everything’s been pretty top notch. Our first show, people were creeping backwards from us. We were playing wrong chords, srings broke on three guitars and bass. So for one song we just sat there and stared at the audience. But you need that…”

Weirdest thing you’ve ever seen?
“I kind of like that stuff. I like the little quirks that make something odd in retrospect. Let’s see…Arctic Monkeys’ lead singer (Alex Turner) wouldn’t take his shirt off because of his love handles! They winked at us. (The band or the love handles? Ed.) Fiery Furnace, they’re such a modest band they never talked to us. We played five or six shows with them and they never said a word to us.”

Festival essential?
“Of course! We have our rabbit’s foot y’know. For those festivals overseas we keep taking pictures like we’re never going to come back so we always have our camera. That’s a good one. And we always have some beers y’know.”

Best festival band?
“I’m a big, big fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The 1990s - those guys are great. I love the way he says OK every time, like “I can’t get no satisfaction, OK?” I can’t wait to run into them again. Right now I’m just looking forward to hooking up with Dirty Pretty Things again. We shared their kit and bass and it’s interesting because you get overwhelmed at a (UK) show because you don’t realise how daunting The Libertines experience is over here. I have a feeling he (Pete Doherty) will make a comeback. The other day he was in the newspaper again for something naughty. Then again, we’ve got a lot of black sheep in our family…“

Scissors For Lefty play the Carling Weekend this weekend and the Indian Summer festival in Glasgow on September 2. Read on for more about touring, siblings and why British service stations rock...

“I’ve just walked off stage,” says a slightly bewildered Bryan Garza, explaining why his voice mail’s been on for the last 20 minutes. “It was good and I can still talk so I guess I’m in good spirits!”

Our rubbish time zone knowledge aside, Bryan is as cheery as Santa. It’s a good time for San Francisco’s most amenable garage band Scissors For Lefty, who, having just racked up a 20 date in 30 days UK tour and US tours with Dirty Pretty Things, Arctic Monkeys and The White Stripes, are returning to the UK for the Carling Weekend and another enormous stretch of touring. So - bored of us yet?

“No, come on now!” says Bryan, mock-scolding Aloud like a Trisha granny. “This is like a vacation, and we get to play shows. It’s what we want to do.” Living on service station food is an unlikely favourite. “We really love petrol station fruit. They have mangoes, blueberries.”

Having thus ascertained that Scissors For Lefty have never visited a service station on the A1, what brings them back to the UK circuit?

“They’re very similar to San Fran, similar cities,” he says. “(Last time) was great. We just thought we’d be going over to five or six people walking out, so we got fantastic people. Maybe because we’re so tall and quirky!”

Ah yes, the height and the quirkiness. Along with their seven-foot bassist James, and their name – “If we pride ourselves on anything it’s being playful” – Scissors For Lefty are all about fun. They might sound like The Strokes, but the geekier, more endearing version.

“Rated A to rated X we’re PG13,” says Bryan on the band’s absolutely lack of grumpiness. “We have to get along - we’ve only got two surnames.” No, they’re not gay – although the San Fran link clues you in otherwise – they’re brothers. Bryan and Robby Garza, and Peter and James Krimmel.

“It’s quite easy to get on because you know how much you can pick on each other,” says Bryan. “There are boundaries before you have to ruffle hair. James is a normal nice guy despite being seven feet tall. Peter is the typical older brother, always jacking him over. Peter’s great company, he was like my idol growing up, listening to Kiss and noodling on the guitar - and now I’m playing guitar!”

So, exactly how the hell do you form the Osmonds garage band? “We were going to college and trying to figure out what to do with our lives like anyone else. We found a good way to distract ourselves and got along. We didn’t have any bands (growing up), maybe friends trying stuff for a weekend once. I would cherish that: we’re the band. That’s it for us.”

While geekiness might have become part and parcel of most self-respecting US emo bands (viz, Weezer, Death Cab For Cutie et al), Scissors For Lefty fall firmly in the dirty garage sound bracket. It’s all a bit English, and you can see why they tour with so many Brit bands.

“I did college radio DJing for a couple of years and all the stuff that caught my ear was Britpop and stuff,” explains Bryan. “We’re only familiar with the hits usually, not so much the albums. I’ve no idea what their impression is of us. They’re probably going, ‘Who are these guys?’”

Unlike the Brits, they’ve yet to pick up any bad habits. “We never really learned how to be irresponsible,” offers Bryan. “We all had our day jobs and it’s good for us. (Now) we get to play with bands we adore, and sit there next to Jack White or the Arctic Monkeys!”

Whatever they’ve done – and the phrase “We have no agenda” is rolled out at least four times during the interview – they’re doing it right. All the band bar Robby have quit their jobs to focus on the band. “We’re riding the credit cards! We had our jobs, good jobs too. James lives in the studio, Peter’s on wife support. I live with my brother and Robby still works 2-9am with UPS. I sold everything, even my car.”

The money-saving even extends to touring. “We’re going to try and share suitcases and we always seem to share clothes anyway. I’m not going to bring running shoes this time… We got this case of two guitars instead of one. Then you save 130 euros.”

Bless them. With widespread US approval, a growing UK fanbase and a ludicrously catchy sound the future looks bright for the band. Not that Bryan’s convinced.

“I’ll be back to McDonalds in a year,” he cackles. “Next please! How you doing?”

We present The Young Knives, complete with nice suits, spectacles and an assortment of colourful names. Examples: a band title based on misreading ‘young knaves’ and thinking the mistake sounded cooler, a bassist called House Of Lords because he’s big and decisions go through him.

After years of toiling around nowhere, slowly, thanks to fear of phones and being terrible at promoting themselves (listen to next week’s Q podcast for more on that), the band got their big break when they won the 2005 Road To V competition - won this year by Keith and Bombay Bicycle Club - which let them open the festival and play their jaunty indie to thousands.

“That was quite daunting playing V,” says singer and guitarist Henry Dartnall, hidden behind an impressive pair of plastic glasses and a tie with horses on it. “There was quite a big crowd and a big stage, but I think we always wanted to do it so we just did get on with it and then do high-fives afterwards.”

The idea of a competition for music befuddled them somewhat. “That’s not what music’s about really, it’s about whether you like it or not. So, we were a bit wary of it, and luckily we won, otherwise we’d have been even more annoyed that we’d done it.”

Despite the fact they’re now plastered all over XFM and the festival roster, it’s been important for them to not take the whole thing too seriously. “We got chosen (for Road To V) at the last minute because someone dropped out, so we weren’t even in the competition really,” says Henry. “I don’t think people should get too strung up on doing it. A lot of people think it’s like their big break. It has helped us, but if we’d have lost it we’d hopefully have carried on and done the same sort of things.”

”There’s a lot of people who took it very seriously the year that we did it actually,” adds drummer Oliver Askew with a frown. “And this year in fact…trying far too hard. Don’t think it looks very good. We didn’t try at all hard. And we won it!”

”Well, we did our best for the performance but we didn’t think ‘Oh, we’re in with a chance’ so it was a bit of a laugh,” says Henry. “It’s a chance to get on telly, a chance to play a gig and that was a good way to approach it I think.

Yeah, how about the gigs?

“It’s the first year we’ve played loads of festivals, and they’re kind of different to doing normal gigs so there’s something definitely about playing to 8000 people that I quite like.”

“Is it showing off in front of 8000 people which is really good fun?” asks Oliver, deadpan.

“Yeah, there’s more people watching me show off, therefore I get a bigger buzz.” Buzz away Young Knives, preferably in the direction of these, our five Questivals.

Best?

H “Been to or played at?”

AF: "Either."

O: “Electric Gardens was good.”

H: “Yeah, I like the little ones. Things like Truck Festival I really enjoy. And (this was) the first year they’d done this Electric Gardens festival over in Kent, and it was a great atmosphere, lovely day, everybody  really positive even before you go on, none of that standing there all cross-armed and waiting for you to impress them. They wanted everyone to be good because they wanted to get mutual enjoyment out of the day.”

Worst?

HOL: “That one in France wasn’t a barrel of laughs was it?”

H: “Oh yeah, Furia. The problem with it was it was all outside on these little grass slops which formed a natural amphitheatre, and when it rained it just became mud slides. Unless you were drunk and then you could play in the mud, but for watching music it was kind of rubbish really.”

Weirdest?

H: “I’m just thinking about the Cuban Brothers’s stage show, that’s pretty weird. I mean, sliding along the floor completely butt naked in some water that you’ve just squirted down and that’s your stage show. Wiggling your nob around in a circle and jumping around. That just surprised me a little bit. But it’s all weird and wonderful at festivals.”

Essential?

HOL: “Beer.”

O: “Bar of soap.”

H: “Plastic bags for my socks.”

O: “Good one.”

Best festival band?

H: “I don’t know, I like being surprised at festivals really. I remember one year, years and years ago we went to go and see Moloko and never heard of them. They came on when they’d done their first album and although I can’t say I’m a particularly big fan of Moloko now, at the time it was something a bit new which was really cool and quite exciting.”

O: “Cuban Brothers.”

HOL: “Cos they get naked.”

H: “Things like the Pogues and Proclaimers are really good at festivals, but some bands don’t translate particularly well because they’ve got to entertain quite a lot of people. It’s quite hard work, with an audience in a field, making sure you’re involving everybody especially when they’re all just eating burgers, drinking beer and chatting.”

Having quietly owned the 90s electro scene with One Dove, done that singing on Death In Vegas's 'Dirge', collaborated with Massive Attack and moved onto solo projects in the early 2000s with albums 'Afterglow' and 'We Are Science' and EPs like 'Strung Out' and the Felix Da Housecat favourite, 'Substance', Allison is breaking away from electro for a more guitar-y sound on new EP 'Beneath The Ivy'. She's toured with everyone from Babyshambles to Massive Attack so we grabbed her to ask about her festival past before her new album turns up this autumn.

What's the best festival you've ever been to?

"Probably... we headlined Berta in Belgium with Massive Attack.  It's bigger than Glastonbury, it's very big."

What's the worst one?

"Good question... probably Reading.  Just because everything on the stage was running really late and the guys that were doing the stage were quite grumpy.  It wasn't such a good experience, but the crowd were brilliant."

Ever seen anything really weird at a festival?

"I'm sure I have, I can't remember."

Essential?

"A friend."

That's lovely.  Everyone else says toilet paper or whatever. What's the best band you've ever seen at a festival?

"Radiohead, Bertha, they were on the night before us.  I was thinking 'FUCK!  We've gotta be there tomorrow night'."

Read on for the full story of Dot Allison's new sound and what it's like to work with, er, Pete Doherty. Beneath The Ivy is out on Universal on August 28.

Dot Allison: former biochemistry student turned blonde Scottish electro queen circa 1993 and 2002. Ring any bells? How about if we namecheck Death In Vegas? Or Massive Attack? Pete Doherty? For someone who’s been a solo artist since 1996, Dot Allison comes heavily packaged in collaborator tape. She sang on Death In Vegas’s ‘Dirge’, spent two years on tour with Massive Attack and went on both of Babyshambles’s 2004 tours (where as well as playing with the band, she ditched her electro gadgets in favour of an acoustic guitar and a cover of – coincidentally – Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’).

As the singer in ‘90s dance group One Dove, she scored big popularity points with the Q and Select readership, then still gripped by their obsession with St Etienne. Their 1996 album, ‘Muted Dove White’, met with “muted success”. As Wikipedia explains, this turned out to be a poisoned chalice: “Other critics expressed disappointment that the album’s title had been changed at the last moment from the original working title, Sound.” For Christ’s sake.

Far from churning out the nerdy, hardworking sort of music that usually accompanies such nitpicking, Allison’s ethereal voice is now being used in more singer-songwriter bent. The reason you should care about her, aside from her collaborations, is that she’s far more than the sum of her parts. In appropriate name terms, the title of her new EP, ‘Beyond The Ivy’, isn’t too far from the truth. When not attached to a bigger name, Allison has a steely quality that balances out the breathy folk of her voice; every effect on the EP was recorded manually, and as a whole it’s surprisingly strong for something that initially sounds as forceful as a really cute puppy.

It’s still a big step away from the acid chillout of her 1999 album ‘Afterglow’, or the corrosive melodies that filled her Fischerspooner-esque LP ‘We Are Science’ in 2002. In fact, the timing is just plain weird. Electro is such big news now that she could have made a mint by re-releasing the Felix Da Housecat remix of ‘Substance’. So why go down the delicate female route? “It's partially a taste thing,” she says, curled up on what may well be the world’s squashiest sofa inside the Soho House library. “My tastes for the last album were what I was DJing, and it was something I wanted to express within those parameters – but your headspace changes. I've always loved Neil Young and Gram Parsons. Even when I was in One Dove I was writing guitar tracks, but it's taken me this long to release them in that format.”

That Allison has had the luxury of time has been partly due to her ongoing collaborations with other artists, all of whom have been men. “There's just so many of them around, in music,” she says, shrugging off the idea of some great conspiracy. “I've worked with female engineers and producers, and I'd like to sing a duet with a woman at some point, but it's still a very male dominated area when it comes to producers. There's not a lot of female producers or guitarists.”

One of these not-female guitarists was Pete Doherty, with whom she’s recorded a couple of tracks in addition to touring with him. In the usual PR precautions we’ve been instructed not to ask anything about him that isn’t music-related. Is there anything left to ask? Well, yes, now we come to think of it. How do you end up working with someone bundled up in that much of a media circus, which was gaining some serious momentum even back in 2004. Two poets walk into a bar, or what?

“It's like serendipity sometimes,” Allison says. “He submitted a piece of writing for my brother's fanzine 'Put Me In An Empty Sports Bag', so Pete was contributing short stories and poems to that. Ian was in touch with his manager as a result, so there was a conversation between Pete's manager and my brother that we should get together.” Hang on, isn’t that like how Hollywood goes dating? She shakes her head. “It's kind of the poetry scene.”

How was working with Pete? The tabloid neon sign around his name flashes and she shoots a carefully blank stare that states, ‘Don’t mess'. “It's a very interesting process,” she says deliberately. “You get to learn how they work, and it’s enriching you on a songwriting level.”

Fair enough. Allison and Doherty are avid poets, with the former taking an unusual attitude towards the ubiquitous MySpace blog. If you want a bitch-fest a la Lily Allen, or a video diary, you’re out of luck. Picking a day at random, “…between each charged refrain / my every breath my every sigh / blushes with meaning / of only you / of only you” was part of what she blogged on April 13. Dot Allison posts poems. Or song lyrics. What are they? “They are what they are,” she offers. “There are no rules. Some of them start off as poems, and I might plunder parts of them.”

Does it bother her to have such personal things put up for anyone to see? “I think that it's like a gift, to just put it out,” she says. “If it brings anything to anyone, great, but at the same time they're quite opaque.” Does she still enjoy making music? She thaws for a millisecond. “Yeah, definitely, I'm making the best album I've ever made. I love it. I don't think I could have made this album 10 years ago. I think you need experience to take you where you are.”

And what about that One Dove experience? How does it feel listening to the album 10 years on? “I feel very proud. Very proud. (It’s) the kind of album that seems quite timeless. I was a biochemistry student, and I met one of the guys in One Dove, and we decided to start a band together, pressed our own single, and put it out on white label, and (producer, Andrew) Weatherall picked up on that, and offered us an album deal based on that one single, and that's how it all started.”

Hmm, chemistry versus music. Would she ever be tempted to go back? “Probably not.” She smiles in that careful way, and you see why she’s releasing singer-songwriter stuff when it’s not fashionable, why she’ll always collaborate, why she gets away with releasing an album every three years: “I've never looked back.”

The Puppini Sisters! We love 'em! When we first heard about their glam 30s style we had horrible flashbacks to a night we once went to where we were made to feel like the crap that came in someone's shoe. The world of the Puppinis is not like that at all. Mixing proper training and crystal voices with old-school 30s arrangements and the occasional (glorious) cover, these three girls are an absolute delight to watch. But even the most glamorous of ladies have to hit the festivals so let's find out the usual: the highs, lows oddities and essentials of their festival lives.

Best?

Marcella: “Glastonbury.”

Stephanie: “I haven’t been to that many festivals…”

Kate: “Mine has to be Reading. In fact I’d have to say Reading 2001. Was that the one with Slipknot? One of them landed on me! And do you remember Daphne and Celeste played before them and people were throwing water balloons full of wee, and bottles? Why put Daphne and Celeste on before Slipknot?”

M & S: “Who?”

Aloud Festivals: “They were like a really crap TATU only English.”

All: “Oh no!”

K: “And they were like, “Seriously, why are you being so horrible?” with these huge mother Slipknot fans.”

M: “That has to be someone’s idea of a joke”.

S: “That’s cruel. I miss it so much! I want to go back!”

Worst?

All: Hampton Court!

S: “Let me explain. We were doing 11 dates there. Eleven. It would have been nice. We have a glamorous look, we like to maintain that, and we had to get ready in the portaloos. The gents’ portaloos.”

K: “Urinal cakes and all.”

M: “They were very nice Portaloos…”

S: “And this is while the world’s biggest palace is staring us in the face. There’s not one room for three little ladies to just put a bit of make-up on?”

M: “It was such a haul getting there and back. And we were fed sandwiches for eleven dates which, after a while, made us very unhappy.”

K: They were horrid sandwiches.

M: “They were really nice people, the situation was just…awful.”

S: “It was just really difficuilt for us to come out to a crowd sitting on the grass with the picnics, and us coming out of the gents’ portaloos going “Hello!” and clutching our bags.”

Weirdest?

K: “Oh crumbs. Oh there’s so many surely.”

M: “Glastonbury was my first experience last year and I was part of the Ghost Train which was really weird in itself. And then all the people who were associated with that, the whole circus and cabaret thing, there were all sorts of freaky people but they were all really nice!”

Essential?

All: “Lipstick!”

K: “That’s pretty much it. Because as long as you’ve got that on, that’s pretty much your badge.”

M: “And tongs. And toilet roll!”

Best festival band?

M: “We saw Antony and the Johnsons the other day but they’re not a festival band.”

K: “No, not at all, it was the wrong setting for them completely. The sound…”

M: “…’Cause he’s a freaky guy, he’s got a freaky voice – wonderful voice – and he’s a weird-looking guy, looks odd, is odd and you need to see that.”

S: “It’s got to be more personal.”

M: “He’s wonderful. He’s a hero. Just not a festival.”

K: “I think my best experience would have to be Daphne and Celeste, seeing that!”

S: “I’d have love to see that. Oh no it’s horrible, I wouldn’t!”

Read on for the full interview. It's long. Settle in, they're lovely. Oh yes, and their tremendous album Betcha Bottom Dollar is out now. Buy it! Then go and catch them at Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival this weekend, and the Secret Garden Party on August 20.

“We had a little criticism on YouTube.”

“What’s going on?”

“No I haven’t told you yet…”

“…Reeeally?”

“Well they said that we took the point out of it and I almost replied saying yes but you’ve seen a really low-quality…”

“Can we just rewind and tell me what happened?”

Time out before our ears fall off. The three Puppini Sisters – not sisters and only one Puppini just to clear up the confusion of why they don’t look anything alike – talk like typewriters. Listening to them is like watching an old Merry Melodies cartoon: in Puppini world, conversational threads are passed so quickly that it’s hard to keep up.

Back to YouTube later. For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure of these glamorous ladies, The Puppini Sisters and their band perform close harmony classics of the sort beloved by the current strain of 30s and 50s clubs, but which never get performed live. Along with versions of ‘In The Mood’, ‘Mister Sandman’ and ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (Of Company B)’, they do covers of Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’, The Smiths’ ‘Panic’ and Kate Bush’s warbling oddity ‘Wuthering Heights’ that are quite remarkable. If Immodesty Blaise is the look of burlesque, then The Puppini Sisters are the sound: winking, appealing but devastatingly well-thought out, karaoke à trois this ain’t.

All classically trained singers – Kate Miller (blonde) Marcella Puppini (brunette) and Stephanie O’Brien (tenuously classed as redhead) formed at Trinity College of Music in Greenwich after Marcella had a brainwave while watching cult animation ‘Belleville Rendez-Vous.’

”Knowing that there was this burlesque 1940s revival we just thought it was incredible that no-one was covering this style of music - so we did,” she says and she was well-placed to know. Marcella is a performer in the Ghost Train cabaret at Glastonbury and used to pole dance at power-lesbian London club, Candy Bar. The songs really took off when the group started to do the occasional set at legendary Vauxhall cabaret night Duckie (cue a Puppini chorus of “You must go! They’re gods those people.”)

“My husband knows the guy who runs Duckie and he said that we did this amazing version of Wuthering Heights, which is their anthem,” explains Marcella. “We didn’t! We had this idea that we wanted to do covers and that was our first.” They put it together in two weeks and choreographed it to the music video for a laugh. The famously difficult crowd – “If they don’t like you, they really don’t like you” – went nuts and the Puppinis were a hit. Since then they’ve entertained all over the place, from regular gigs at East End hotspot Bistrotheque to this summer’s hippest festivals.

Back to YouTube. At Latitude, Aloud Festivals took a very wobbly video of the Puppinis doing ‘Wuthering Heights’ which was alternately praised and slated by some of the 1000-odd people who watched it.

“One guy said ‘Very clever, I can see they’re very talented, but this is a classic example of taking a great song and taking all the point out of it,”’ says Marcella, clearly pissed off.

“Isn’t it just giving it a new point?” asks Kate.

“Well, I was going to write to him. It’s a bit unfair because it really was just a snippet of us doing the moves and you can’t really tell what it sounds like….”

“…And it’s not in the context of the band.”

“Oh, that doesn’t bother me at all,” says Stephanie, completely unfazed.

This is all nonsense really. You can tell what the Puppinis sound like perfectly well, even if they do look like a bunch of oranges whirling around in a blender. You can understand why they’re annoyed though: if someone’s going to have a go at you, it would be preferable for them to do so to the whole song, well-packaged, than a clip with someone’s head continually bobbing in and out of shot.

”I mean, I think it is gimmicky,” says Kate, whose own background is in rock and jazz. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“A gimmick done by people who can do their own arrangements can sing, can play, it’s fun,” says Stephanie. The girls arrange the music themselves, which can take ages.

“That was learning our craft really, with the transcripts,” says Stephanie.

“Yeah, but now we’ve got the skills and we can transcribe and arrange the covers, and we’re going to be doing original material so everything’s a natural progression,” cuts in Marcella. “We can all play our own instruments and that’s something we obviously have in the live show but which we’d like to incorporate on the next album. We’ll still do the old stuff but it’s whatever takes our fancy at the time. We might well come across a tune that really speaks to us.

There have been some lazy comparisons with Brighton’s doo-wop trio The Pipettes (there’s 20 years between them musically but nevermind). What do they think of them? The typewriter cranks back into action.

”We were just discussing that ‘cause we get a lot of comparison to them but…”

“…We don’t see any similarity between us other than…”

“…A lot of people aren’t quite clued in with music enough to tell the difference”

“…And also they’ve seen us with them in Vogue.”

“…And Puppini, Pipettes: people go ‘Oh! They’re the same!’”

“…But we formed ourselves, we do our own arrangements, we play our own instruments and it’s a completely different style of music.”

“…But it’s really good, it’s a completely new wave of girl band that’s breaking into the fore.”

Aaaargh, stoppit now. It’s true, retro girl sounds are being increasingly noticed by the mainstream labels and after decades of boys ripping off the 60s, 70s and 80s it’s about time. The Puppini Sisters have just released their debut album ‘Betcha Bottom Dollar’ on Universal’s Classics and Jazz arm, and with fashion spreads and hip gigs coming out of their ears, they’re coasting the wave of curiosity and appreciation in red lipsticked style. Still, they’ve trained, worked and earned their contracts: behind the shiny façade and curls there’s steel in abundance, and there will have to be as nobody quite seems to know what to do with them. When we bumped into them at Fruitstock, Marcella (fully made-up) and her husband were lugging equipment around, something you don’t see buzzed-about guitar bands doing very often.

The Puppini Sisters are talented, clever, good people. Listen to their records and dance your ass off: once you dive into Puppini world, there’s really no other choice.

Betcha Bottom Dollar is out now, The Puppini Sisters play Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival on August 12 and the Secret Garden Party on August 20.

About four years ago, the whole idea retro took a big step back from the 60s and 70s to the 40s and 50s. Suddenly, you couldn’t move for burlesque dancers and underground cocktail soirees. Hell, in some parts of London you still can’t move for prim young things in gloves and bright slashes of lipstick. In the midst of all this cultural glamour, music was still chugging along scraping the barrel of the 80s, all firmly tied up in the fate of skinny men with vanity issues.

“At the beginning no-one took us seriously,” says Becki, singer in Brighton’s greatest hope, The Pipettes. “We were doing the toilet circuit which was full of the usual four blokes, two guitars and drums. Then there was us.”

Ah yes, The Pipettes. Poppier than any of the R&B sludge clogging up the charts and pening up the world of 60’s girl groups to people who probably haven’t even seen Dirty Dancing (why? WHY?), there’s choreographed dancing, harmonies, polka dots and songs about boys.

“It’s opened up new music to people that they weren’t aware of,” says Becki. “And yeah, it’s great to have stuff you’ve been doing for three years (“Year and a half!” chimes in Gwenno) getting a following.”

“It’s when you see people who are you, who know the words and dance along,” says Gwenno, the newest Pipette and a singer-songwriter in her own right. “There’s music for that now.”

With that in mind, let’s see how prim these ladies are in terms of festival experience. Hit it!

Best?

Becki: “Emmaboda in Sweden! It’s just amazing. We’re going back this year and it will be even bigger. We’ve got this new show we’re doing with more costumes, new songs and stuff and it will be really nice to show it off.”

Worst?

Becki: “Reading. The toilets! I went every years for six years and I’m just too old for it now.”

Rose: “It’s those blokes you get screaming “RAPE AND PILLAGE!” at night as well, and once the thrill of cheap pills has worn off, well… I grew out of it when I was 16!”

Band?

Rose: “Pulp at Reading!”

Becki: “Baxement Jaxx.”

Rose: “Ooh, and Scratch Perverts.”

Becki: “People seem to think you just want to listen to Coldplay and it’s frustrating have music being ignored.”

Essentials?

Gwenno: “Wet wipes, definitely.”

Rose: “Tobacco.”

Becki: “Knickers. You can turn them inside out if you're desperate.”

Weirdest?

Gwenno: “I never see anything weird at festivals! I always feel like I’m missing out.”

Rose: “Becki’s seen some weird shit though.”

Becki: “The weirdest thing I’ve ever seen was at Glastonbury 2000. I was camping backstage and there were these two grilles. You could see 50 men lined up and pissing though them. I laughed my arse off.”

You can see The Pipettes playing live at Ben & Jerry’s Summer Sundae on July 29, Get Loaded In The Park on August 26 (Cardiff) and 29 (London) and at Bestival on September 9. Their album, 'We Are The Pipettes', is out now on Memphis Industries.

Oh he is a sweetie. Very white eyeballs bizarrely - the boy must sleep like the dead.

Fresh from dancing around with OAPs and skiving office workers, and hosting the Volvic Lunchbox secret gig before the full-length Weekender takes place this weekend, XFM's lovely Alex Zane answers the festival-related words we throw at him. And some that weren't.

Best?
“The best one was probably my very first festival, Reading 1995. I was just 16 and it was phenomenal. I did the whole camping experience because now obviously people give me passes to go backstage where everything’s fresh and clean and you don’t get dirty, and the toilets don’t get pushed over by randoms without their shirts on going, (shrieks) ‘PUSH OVER THE PORTALOOS!’ It’s slightly safer, but I don’t think I’m enjoying that real festival experience that I had at Reading ’95. It was the summer where we all loved White Zombie, so we were all wandering around in White Zombie t-shirts being crazy 16-year-olds.”

Worst?
“The Heineken Music Festival in Roundhay Park. It was free and it wasn’t bad because the festival was bad – Pop Will Eat Itself were playing and I loved PWEI in that period, I still do actually – but I was about 14, and not being a proper drinker at 14 I thought ‘Wow! It’s a festival and everyone’s drinking beer, so I’ll drink beer! Wow, I can see the beer again, coming out of me!’ I was horribly drunk. A girl I fancied was there, and she quite fancied me and then I was sick. We all went back to my house round the corner and shaved a friend’s eyebrow off. He went just crazy and threw loads of cups at the wall. So overall, while the festival itself was great, the lasting memory is of me being sick and having a huge man without an eyebrow bellowing at us. He deserved it.”

Weirdest?
“It’s a film festival so I don’t know whether that counts, but I was at the Cannes film festival and there was a man standing in the middle of the street with two cats on his shoulder. I didn’t think you could train a cat, cats are too arrogant to be trained, so how he’d done it – whether it was through some telepathic link with the feline community perhaps –  these cats sat on his shoulder and pawed the air in some kind of cat dance. He hummed, it was a cross between humming and purring, and the cats kind of danced in time. It was just phenomenal.”

Essentials?
“(Mock smug) Well! Once you’re on TV, you don’t need to bring toilet paper anymore. People throw toilet paper at you, too much toilet paper. I’d say the thing to take is a hat. If it’s your own hat, that you’ve gone ‘I look good in this hat’ with, then you’re never tempted to get to a festival and go ‘Wow!’ Those jesters hats actually look quite good. I might just get one of those.’ It’s never a good look, so take a hat so that you’re never tempted to buy a hat that you’ll look back on and go, ‘I really did look like a twat.’”

Band?
“Sex?! (Um, set actually) Ooh, I’ve just remembered something at Reading ’95. I’ve never pulled at a festival – I don’t think I’ve ever pulled at a festival since – but this girl invited me back to her tent. I was 16 and just thought ‘Brilliant!’ but then she did something that made me leave the situation. This was the last day of Reading ’95, I’m covered in filth, my nails are black and she says ‘Let me show you this thing.’ And she puts her finger in my mouth and I felt physically sick and had to run away. It was like, ‘You put it in your mouth and you don’t know where it’s been! I wouldn’t put it in my mouth and you’ve put it in yours and you think it’s sexy.’”

Er, band?
“I think Primal Scream are always great at festivals. He’s just crazy! Bobbie Gillespie is just brilliant on stage.”

“I don’t think that man really symbolises any kind of music. That’s not an insult, just the way I feel.” – Paolo Nutini on James Blunt.

This year alone, hotly-tipped Scottish blues singer Paolo Nutini has notched up shows at T In The Park, O2 Wireless and the Montreux Jazz Festival and is booked solid throughout the summer. He’s about to support the Rolling Stones on tour, plays Latitude this weekend…and he’s only 19. Sickening, isn’t it? Well, not really, because the boy has the voice of a cracked 40-year-old, and songs (some written when he was just 16) that linger long after you’ve ixnayed the stereo.

In the first of our summer Questivals - yes, we took a bow when we thought that one up - we throw five fest-related words at famous people and scrape some sense out of it after. Speak to us Mr Nutini.

Best?
"T In the Park. We got to play two songs on the main stage in front of I don’t know many people, and in Scotland too which was amazing!"

Worst?
"The Middlesboro free festival. It reminded me a lot of Paisley, people turning up and going, “Oh we’re here, it’s free, now where’s my cider?” We didn’t really fit in there…"

Weird?
"A woman lying on the ground with a pair of shades on her eyes, a pair on her forehead, fagged out and loving it and a bottle of Buckfast (disgracefully strong Scots drink brewed by monks) in her hand."

Essentials?
"Ooh, I don’t know. Some cigarettes, cos you never usually get in the queue, and as much cash as I need. Wellies as well, because even if it’s not raining they make you feel invincible."

Bands?
"Kasabian were phenomenal at T In The Park, absolutely amazing. The Who – mmm, I made the mistake of watching their ‘75 live performance on DVD the night before so maybe I shot myself in the foot. Razorlight are always good, Killers at Reading were really good. Oh yeah! Jimmy Cliff. He was amazing. And Chic at Montreux, when they played ‘Good Times’ and Kid Rock who ran on going “Fuck this!” and did a Sugarhill Gang rap."

Read on for more about how a lost wallet got him the Stones gig, the magic of MySpace and why he really doesn’t want those James Blunt comparisons…

“Oh you’ll be at Latitude? Well, say hello and we’ll have a drink.”

Good grief, we can count the artists that have been that easily pleasant to us on one hand. This one’s different though, for Jools Holland favourite Paolo Nutini’s embodies the idea of working your way up. Having spent three years working variously in his dad’s chippie, as a roadie, hanging around music studios and writing songs, he’s now spending 2006 touring festivals and getting the holy grail: airplay in the States. Not bad for a 19-year-old from Paisley who only picked up a guitar three years ago.

“I’ve been doing it for years, writing poetry and stuff,” he explains down the phone line. “It’s been good finding people to pin down what I’m thinking in my head because I never claimed to be the best guitarist – I’ve only been playing for a couple of years, but hopefully I’m getting better.”

He must have done, because last week he was nabbed by the Rolling Stones to support them on tour in Austria this Friday after his agent met up with their agent at a concert.

“Mine lost his wallet, so she lent him £50 to get to Brighton,” he grins. “He gave it back along with a copy of the record, she listened to it and rang him back to say ‘I want to play it to the guys.’ Then they heard it and I got booked – turns out they choose the support acts themselves. I didn’t believe it, it was like Chinese whispers: even my agent just sort of went ‘Yeah, yeah, very good!’”

The Stones gig will be followed by appearances at Latitude Festival, V Festival, with dates throughout the UK, Germany and one in Austin, Texas along the way. The ubiquitous MySpace account has meant he’s got fans all over the world, from Canada to New Zealand. “A lot of people like being the one to tell their mates about stuff,” he says wryly. “You speak to people from Thailand, Japan, Quebec from everywhere, from Austria to Australia and you talk more and more. MySpace is definitely a good thing.”

Except when it’s not. Take the current fad for non-existent bands making profiles: this makes him the closest thing to cross we can visualise. “No shows, no music. Instead of having songs on a player they posted a note saying ‘We want you lot to come along and record our songs at shows for us,’” he says in mild disbelief. “A month later they had 900 friends and comments saying they loved the shows! What shows? Is it a hype-based machine? In which case it’s not really music…”

Fake bands aside, Nutini has his own musical life to deal with, which has meant playing in some of his favourite venues. “We did King Tuts at Glasgow which was amazing, it was a really sweaty gig and I loved it. Then Carnegie Hall – one of my favourite ever records, treasured even, is Bill Withers at Carnegie Hall. Montreux (Jazz Festival) was amazing, I got to sing with my hero Ben E King and there were all these old people that played on the original Ray Charles records. It was weird, at one point you’re standing on a stage at the end singing ‘We are Family’ with Robert Plant!”

What did they reckon to the boy with the old voice? “They were all really welcoming actually,” he says and his voice darkens somewhat. “When I go to the States I feel like there’s something I want to be a part of. In the UK, maybe I have a different outlook on the music, but there’s a different atmosphere, and people don’t get the references. Especially with people like James Blunt dominating the charts. People compare me to him and I don’t get why.  I don’t think that man really symbolises any kind of music. That’s not an insult, just the way I feel.”

Given the gathering momentum of his popularity – whatever he says, the middle-class dinner party crowd will lap him up as a post-Blunt hero – expect such outspokenness to have been beaten out of him by next year, poster boys shouldn’t court controversy. Still, he’s going places, but in his own unique way. As he says, “I didn’t want to go to New Orleans to record – I would have loved the end result, but I wouldn’t have felt like me.”

We’ll happily shout you that drink Mr Nutini. Cheers.

Paolo Nutini's debut album is out on July 17 on Atlantic Records.