Without a record deal, Beck is enjoying the freedom to make music without a tight schedule. He's producing Charlotte Gainsbourg's new album, covering classic albums with friends and releasing them for free in a project called Beck's Record Club (most recent entry: Skip Spence's Oar, a big influence on Beck's own Sea Change), and he still has time to record new solo material on a whim. His newest song is a 10-minute long epic named after and dedicated to avant-garde composer Harry Partch. Beck's new song "employs Partch's 43 tone scale, which expands conventional tonality into a broader variation of frequencies and resonances." We can guess it's a new, on-a-whim recording because Beck was invoked in a strange recent argument started by The Fiery Furnaces' Matthew Friedberger, who criticized Radiohead for releasing a song dedicated to World War I veteran Harry Patch. Friedberger got his wires crossed, thinking Patch was Partch, and later said he would "have much preferred to insult Beck [instead] but is too afraid of Scientologists." That was November 5; so Beck does has a sense of humor, and it's taken him just two weeks to reply with a song. Now it's your turn Matthew.

As a prominent figurehead of the Britpop movement, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker owes much to the city of Sheffield, England, where he spent his formative years; now he owes a little more. Almost 30 years after he first studied at the local university, Jarvis has been back for a visit, and this time he has picked up an honorary doctorate from the institution. At his graduation ceremony, he clarified “I'm called a doctor now. Don't worry, I won't open a surgery,” before adding “I guess if you are a songwriter maybe I could have some kind of musical surgery. If you had a song with a swollen chorus, or a varicose verse, or if you need a little bit of help I could try and heal your song for you." Cocker never did graduate first time round, so the honorary award in recognition of his contribution to music was particularly appreciated. He told graduating students: "The only trouble with the university of life is the graduation when you've checked out, so it's nice to actually have a graduation whilst I'm still here to enjoy it. It's a great honor to be given this, especially in my home town."

The Queen of Rockabilly Wanda Jackson has persuaded workaholic Jack White to take some time to produce her new album, she told The Oklahoman this week. “[Jack] is one of the biggest stars on the planet right now,” she said of the The White Stripes’ singer and guitarist. In recent years White has been concentrating on new bands The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, but he has produced a country record before: Loretta Lynn’s acclaimed 2004 album Van Lear Rose. “They had a super album, but he didn’t have her do anything different,” Jackson said of it. “She just did her little Loretta Lynn songs. But he told me he’s gonna stretch me some.” Jackson, who has been recording for over half-a-century since boyfriend Elvis Presley first persuaded her to enter a studio, was inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame this April. Now 72, she hasn’t released an album since 2003’s Heart Trouble.