Turned on the TV on Sunday afternoon to see Neil Diamond singing that song about someone called Caroline.

Website after Website is rolling out the pictures of Alexa Chung and Pixie Geldof.

YAWN.

Playlist: Chris Herbert, Versoma, Oxes

So MSN Music have done their annual Summer Tunes round-up which is all well and good but who really wants the best months of the year soundtracked by Bryan Adams and Deee-Lite?

Meshuggah and the Prodigy are usually what springs to mind immediately, bringing back memories of Download 2006 carnage. Jimmy Eat World, Why? and Pulp are usually up there too though.

Obviously though this year I'm feeling most inspired by prog-avant-garde multi-instrumentalists Kayo Dot whose 'Pitcher of Summer' track off Choirs Of The Eye unfolds like a lazy late summer evening and is much more evocative than LFO.

Compare:

One morning, before the leaves began changing
I caught a piece of summer and poured it into a pitcher;
This I placed in the cellar on a shelf collecting dust .
Autumn, then winter, rose up from the sea, and my
Garden was a garden filled with unbroken snow.

With:

New Kids On The block,had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick.
And I think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer,for the summer
I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch,
I'd take her if I had one wish,
But she's been gone since that summer..
Since that summer

Whoever chose LFO did rightfully acknowledge the turd lyrics, but regardless, why does summer bring out the worst in music most of the time?

ALSO Kayo Dot have a new album out which will probably end up being one of this summer's best.

Playlist: The Breeders, Kayo Dot

Tonight I am going to see Melt Banana who will complete the Holy Trinity Of Japanese Bands I Have Seen Live This Year (them, Boris, Acid Mother's Temple. If only I'd gone to the Explosions ATP then I'd have Envy on that list too).

Melt Banana need very little introduction, and are often cited as being 'a bit nuts' and 'crazy' and 'ear-pummeling' live. My ears will probably never be quite the same after My Bloody Valentine on Friday so I'm not too worried about that.

Playlist: Crocus, Git Some

Everyone truly does love Warp records. Apart from the slight blip with Maximo Park, you'd consider it one of the most consistent and respected labels, well, ever, let alone within the electronic spectrum.

Battles was the most recent thing to really invade my radar, but two of the label's new releases keep reminding that it's still doing more than alright.

Pivot are continuing the Battles aesthetic with intricate polyrhythms and the like combined with a dancey post-punk vibe and some typical Warp style bleeps, glitches and leftfield electronica. Apparently they're playing Glastonbury but no-one's going to that so I'm hoping to catch them at Cargo supporting White Denim

Flying Lotus seems to be picking up the baton from Prefuse 73 but there's definitely more to him that. His tracks are spacey and constantly expanding into a weird halfway house between dubstep and experimental, down-tempo hip-hop.

Well done Warp. Hip hip hooray.

Pivot - In The Blood

Playlist:  Throats, Slowdive

On the subject of the My Bloody Valentine this evening, one glance around the internet shows there are a lot of people who bought too many tickets for their UK shows.

Obviously, people do often buy tickets for gigs purely to sell and make a profit. But the sheer number of tickets people are flogging is unbelievable, and most of the time for a loss.

You could start talking about the credit crunch and all that, but since when did people buy this too many tickets? A cynical look at it all would be to question the way ATP announced the gigs; starting with Manchester, selling out gigs, then announcing more and more dates. Then, releasing more tickets for existing dates. It was extremely staggered. Did people get a bit caught up in the excitement and rushed to buy tickets they thought they could at least sell? Now there are so many dates people have managed to get tickets easily.

The result is a lot of cheap tickets floating about for half price or under. Not bad if you couldn't decide whether to go or not.

Playlist: Russian Circles, Torche  

I haven't really been spending too much time looking for new bands as there are three big names which have been occupying a lot of my time this week:

1) Sigur Ros: Their new album isn't out here officially yet but it's fully streamable over at lovely lovely last.fm. It's beautifully developed; they seem to be moving away from the epic, slightly haunting soundscapes and back towards the plinky-plonky world which has a slight folk-y tinge and more standard song structures and lengths. I love this band. Still.

2) My Bloody Valentine: I'm seeing Kevin Shields and the others on Friday. When they announced this tour months ago I surprised myself by not running to order tickets, but I've since managed to get one. Now I'm so excited I can't believe I didn't. Actually, I can. Rushing to order tickets for any gig/festival which sells out in minutes annoys me.

3) Radiohead: My birthday was last week and my sister bought me tickets for their Victoria Park gig next Tuesday. Radiohead are a band I'm lazy with because it's so easy to not make any effort with them. I like them loads but if I hadn't been bought a ticket I probably would never see them. Do they play Idioteque live ever? I hope so.

Playlist: Sigur Ros, My Bloody Valentine, Pivot

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Download is an odd festival which wants to re-create the vibe of Monsters of Rock yet with 90% nu-metal/NWOAHM (ask Metal Hammer about it) it's for your Kerrang reading, embarrassing younger brother who thinks Korn are the best band ever and Avenged Sevenfold are forward-thinking.

Despite these issues I have with it, I am a fan of some of the bands which have played and Download 2006 was probably the most fun I've had at a festival, ever. This year's festival took place last weekend and I am officially gutted to have missed it, not because of missing Kiss but because Rolo Tomassi played. Despite the fact they're flying the nest from Holy Roar, seeing them play Download would've made me pretty proud.

Video clip of them playing live to follow, but here's a quick interview they did just after they played, and in anticipation of their album this is a clip stuff from their last release, the 7" for Holy Roar.

OH, and the NME wrote some nonsense about their performance but words are missing and they cocked up loads of the formatting.

Rolo Tomassi - Digital History/Beatrotter clip MP3

Playlist: My Bloody Valentine

Well, not strictly gone as I can't find any information about whether this band have actually split up or not.

Pinebender are/were a band from Chicago. I've heard their music described as 'emo-grunge' which gets kind of close, but they also seem to bring in indie rock, post-hardcore and a kinda 90's rock sound into the fold. They are a slow band, and despite this and the fact the songs are very emotionally charged, it never feels overwrought. They're heavy without being overly noisy and at times can be quite riffydown-tuned but still produce really touching and beautiful songs. They are SUCH AN ANOMALY IT'S GREAT.

I first heard of Pinebender and a load of other bands from one of the best compilations ever pretty much, from Building Records. Hidden towards the end were Pinebender, but this CD also lead to the discovery of the not too dissimilar Fin Fang Foom and probably a load more.

Anyway, I'm trying to find out what Pinebender are doing now, but there's a video of them playing a gig a year and a half ago so fingers crossed they've just been away writing a new album and it'll be out soon.

Playlist: Pinebender, Boris, Karp

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My thoughts on the cull of UK bands that has occurred this month. It's been a tough time for bands splitting up and I'm quite sad.

I Was A Cub Scout

I think this has been coming for a while. I was a massive fan and always enjoyed them live and felt like, even though there was a lot of hype and press support etc, they never really got where they wanted to be going and it always seemed a bit awkward and uncomfortable.

Cutting Pink With Knives

Totally annoyed (obviously from a label perspective) that it's ended like this. Well, not annoyed, maybe a bit sad? CPWK seriously divided opinions and while a lot of people were big fans, I always expected them to take things a bit further than they actually did. With the band members pulling in opposite directions though it comes as no surprise, but a lot of people are gonna be left with some good memories and scars from their gigs. Supersonic will be their last gig in the UK. Rubbish days.

Reuben

Bothered?

CPWK playing at Beyond Retro last year:

Playlist: Envy, Pelican, Grails

At Wuchess.com you can log-on to watch chess clans do battle on and check out exhibition matches with Rza, other Wu-Tang members and stars from across the planet.

WuChess taking the game of life to the next level.

http://www.wuchess.com/

Yep, that's right. For $48 you can take the game of life to the next level.

Playlist: Pinback, Semifinalists, Night Marchers

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More than anything else right now I'm suffering from post-festival depression. I'm not even bothered about the hangover lasting days or crap British weather, is there anything more miserable than returning home from a festival?

OH WELL. Both ATP and Primavera are over for the time being. Here are some of my Primavera/Barcelona highlights:

1. My love/hate relationship with Spirodogs

2. The beach at Sitges

3. The cocktails at Sitges

4. The dubstep prior to Public Enemy

5. Fuck Buttons new set - INCREDIBLE raving at the end

6. Smuggling €5 bottles of gin into the festival site.

7. Being surprisingly won over by Explosions in the Sky, again.

8. 2am cups of coffee.

9. Holy Fuck stage invasion.

10. The Sonics seeming very confused about where they were and talking about the weather in Britain and British people a lot.

11. Unofficial Les Savy Fav stage invasion. Made by me.

12. Air conditioned public transport.

13. How utterly happy to be there Menomena were.

14. Tapas. All of it.

15. Shellac's impeccably chosen set. Only slightly marred by the lack of banter.

16. Falling asleep to Om and not being able to decide if that's a good or bad thing.

17. Cat Power playing Metal Heart. Everything else was gash.

18. PEDALOS WITH SLIDES ON THEM.

19. Meeting a fella out of This Ain't Vegas in the crowd for Shellac.

20. The sunshine. And even the downpour on Saturday night/Sunday morning.

A generally amazing festival in probably more than 20 ways if I still wasn't overcome with exhaustion. Hats off to the Spanish for keeping a bottle of water at €1 even at the festival site and even having alcohol and not too extortionate prices. Every British festival should take heed or we'll continue flocking.

In other EQUALLY AMAZING news, ATP Nightmare Before Christmas line-up is BLOWING MY MIND. Amazing choices. I can start gushing now.

Playlist: The Notwist, Life At These Speeds, Indian Summer

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