Yesterday I was accused of 'selling out' and only going to big band gigs, like MBV and Radiohead. Which is fair enough. I am all about buying in and being punk as anything. So I thought I'd reassure myself that I've still got it and am down with the kids. Here is a selection of some lower-key gigs coming up which do not involve £40 tickets in advance. Oh and apologies to the Pre/Pens gig last night I didn't make, that would've been my number 1.

- Comanechi/Mirror! Mirror! - Tonight! But not going as I have book club. I'm not even joking. (Also tonight is Pivot supporting White Denim, bad night for gigs).

- Susan George Booth - 5th July, Dublin Castle.

- Micah P Hinson - 14th July, Puregroove Records instore. Love this man.

- Fu**ed Up/Shi**y Limits/Lovvers - 14th July, Old Blue Last.

- Sexfest (Dananananaykroyd, Pre etc) - Sunday 27th July, 93 Feet East.

- Dananananaykroyd/Mae Shi - 4th August, Old Blue Last.

- Rapturefest (Mirror! Mirror!, Omerta, Tubelord etc) - 9th August, Reading.

- Throats/Lakes/'Black Heart Kings' - 19 August, Underworld.

I am back in the game.

Playlist: Cat On Form, Thursday

Planes Mistaken For Stars have consistently been one of my favourite bands since I was about 18. Since they split up last year I've been anticipating any new bands members go on to form, and while there are a few others floating about it's Git Some who sound the most promising.

Git Some features Planes's ex-guitarist and ex-bassist and make the most satisfyingly filthy, sludgey punk rock 'n' roll you could ever really need.

If all this wasn't good enough news already there are already UK tour dates announced and an album on the way. No messing around here. 14th October at the Windmill in Brixton. Start getting excited now.

Playlist: God Is An Astronaut

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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The new layout for Last.fm, still in beta, has been available to subscribers about a week now. While change is generally a bad thing when it comes to your favourite internet sites, my initial revulsion is subsiding. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. The 'it looks like Facebook' accusations are surely just down to the left hand nav and more white space?

2. The renaming of the 'Dashboard' to simply 'Home' seems to create unnecessary confusion, even if it makes more sense.

3. The 'it looks like Livejournal' accusations are just odd.

4. The fact your Home page only shows what your friends are listening to right now is annoying. The old idea of having what they've been listening to recently was much better, as often it has very little to display.

5. The activity feed on your profile page is kinda neat and while a lot of people won't like it for the 'social networking' aspect you can always change it in your privacy settings.

6. It's way easier to access your radio stations, which seem to be more accessible and a bigger deal perhaps?

7. The organisation of the charts on profile pages seems a bit odd and not so intuitive. Having 'Top Artists' above 'Top Tracks' makes more sense to me. The 'Library' section with images seems somewhat pointless.

I could go on but those are still my main thoughts. I quite like the new profile page but your Home/Dashboard whatsit needs more work.

(I still love Last.fm way too much)

Playlist: Why not have a look on my Last.fm beta profile

Start panicking now:  

1) The Notwist/Enon - 8.45pm on Thursday - The Notwist win HANDS DOWN

2) EITS/Caribou - 1am on Friday - Explosions, Caribou sounded a bit crap at ATP

3) Fuck Buttons/Cat Power - 1.15am on Saturday - Sorry Buttons, Chan wins

4) Why?/Devo - 11.55pm on Friday - Why? wins, soz

5) Six Organs of Admittance/Portishead - 9.45pm on Friday - Unless I can't get into Portishead the previous night I'm gonna see SOOA at this time.

6) Menomena/Mission of Burma - 10.30pm on Saturday - Menomena if only for 'Wet and Rustling'

7) Okkervil River/Silver Jews - 7.30pm on Sunday - Gonna leave this decision, but recent listens of OR are pushing me in their direction

See the full line-up at http://www.primaverasound.com/

Playlist: Life At These Speeds, Lykke Li, Okkervil River

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Following on from my previous post complaining about Ten in the Swear Jar providing the musical accompaniment to Skins, I remembered a video I found on Youtube a while ago of one of my favourite Carissa's Wierd songs, 'Ignorant piece of shit', soundtracking a montage of clips from popular gay cowboy romp Brokeback Mountain. It's an odd homage to be paying although it shouldn't detract from Carissa's Wierd being amazing.

Two of the Wierdos went on to form Band of Horses who, despite their slightly Wild West sounding name, could probably never soundtrack a tribute to Brokeback Mountain so bizarrely/poignantly.

PS - Ex Wierdo/Hose Mat Brooke now does the lovely Grand Archives on Sub Pop. Well, they've been around for a bit now. What a clever fella.

Playlist: M83, Envy

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Keeping the mental in experimental, Xiu Xiu are the pained experimentalists soundtracking a thousand broken indie kids' traumas. While I quite like them, I won't be seeing them when they play in London next week.

Instead I've re-stumbled upon Ten in the Swear Jar for the first time in a while, which is Jamie Stewart's band prior to Xiu Xiu. The old version of 'I Love the Valley' isn't very good at all, but other songs are a softer, and more gentle version of Xiu Xiu, and almost mesmerising.

The drugs come into all of this when I  found a video on Youtube of Ten in the Swear Jar's track 'Sita Deth'  used in over-hyped Teen nonsense Skins when one of them takes a pill. Someone should tell Stewart that at the gig next week.

Playlist: Mission of Burma, Iron & Wine with Calexico

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I got back from ATP vs Pitchfork on Monday at about half one in the afternoon and felt like I was extremely jet-lagged. I'm not quite back to normal yet, hence the delay in writing this. Here's what I got up to over the weekend:

Friday:

The weather in London was kinda miserable so my excitement was a bit subdued on the train from London Bridge. The weather in Hastings, where we had to change to reach Rye, was actually GLORIOUS.  After arriving at Pontin's, we have some time to kill before getting tickets and meeting our chalet crew so we all get a bit sunburned sitting on the grass. After settling in and having more beer we go to watch some BANDS.

I consider watching Jay Reatard as I like their name and they're a bit hyped but the Queen Vic is far too tempting. I catch ten minutes of Man Man and while their flamboyance and theatrics are sweet, the experimentalism isn't making me want to watch more. Wandering upstairs for Vampire Weekend, I'm poised to be hateful and full of bile but their Paul Simon dancealongs are sweet enough and are perfect for the sweaty afternoon. After a quick, and final, drink in the sun, I enjoy about 20 minutes of Sebadoh before getting quite bored. Lou Barlow, what a legend, and there are quite a few Sebadoh songs I really like quite a lot. But reeling out the hits for 30-somethings to dance about to as if they're 17 again, while taking about 10 minutes between songs, isn't always that much fun. Five minutes of Shit and Shine tell me I should watch some more, but having seen them quite a few times, the painful heat in the venue is pushing me outside to the pub. Drinking outside is something I can do anywhere, though, so I decide to go and watch Fuck Buttons. I tell my story about how I was going to put their album out on my label before ATP Records pinched them quite loudly so I think I've impressed people standing near me. They then play (at least the beginnings of) a set I've seen them play at least 7 times before. While it's completely spot on, the sweat box that is downstairs puts me off seeing them in their entirety for an eighth time, so it's back outside to play in the park and on the swings until the early hours.

 Saturday:

It's even hotter than yesterday so obviously every goes to the beach which is now half locals, half pale indie kids. I'm not sure which is worse. After a few hours of getting very pink we head back in time to catch a glimpse of Howlin Rain, who are no Comets on Fire, it has to be said, but Ethan Miller is pretty enchanting frontman and I like the cheesiness as much as the next person. I always think I should be a bit embarrassed by my fondness for Los Campesinos! as their OTT tweeness often distracts from the fact they're a talented bunch and write lovely songs. Despite taking a while to get their twee on, when LC! find their stride, and stop being quite so gushing, they do actually simultaneously warm my heart and make me dance a little bit. I leave the stages area for fear of catching any of Deerhunter and enjoy a healthy dinner of pasta and pesto washed down with three pints of gin and tonic. I return suitably enlivened for the perfect pairing of Les Savy Fav then Hot Chip; two of the bands I'm most excited about seeing this weekend. Sadly, for me, it's at this point my memory stops working. I remember the following: dancing to 'Patty Lee' by LSF, Tim Harrington walking around banging a drum, a dance circle for Hot Chip's 'Over and Over', meeting the man in the pink panther costume (it was his stag weekend), and that's about it. The rest of the evening will remain forever with Camber....

Sunday:

There are no words for the pain, but the beach is calling again and I'm sure Pissed Jeans aren't going to wait around for me, so somehow I get back to normal before 5pm. Their set isn't entirely taken from 'Hope for men', as much as I would've liked it to be, and while an obnoxious and slightly unnerving frontman is fun (he's actually great), they're not as relentless as I want them to be, and end up a bit mid-paced noise rock. Which isn't a bad thing to be at all. After a bit of wandering about and getting annoyed at all the band's I'm missing, I'm back inside the downstairs venue.The general consensus for No Age's performance seems to be 'disappointing'; flat, dodgy sound, and not really that into it, there's also talk of the pair being so ill they nearly didn't play. Still, a sad disappointment. At this point I realise I haven't seen that many bands today but the prospect of Of Montreal isn't that tempting so I only return for Girls Against Boys. Like Sebadoh before them, GVsB bring out all the people who saw them ten years ago and pump their fists to the hits. The thing is GVsB only really have one sound, and while this a great and perfected sound, an hour of it over and over gets uninspiring, especially with some of their dodgy lyrics. Yesterday's carnage is completely wiped from my memory as I return to the gin and settle down to watch Krautrock Allstars (or Harmonia, whatever) who fail to win me over. I can enjoy a bit of Can if, y'know, someone plays it at a party or it comes on the radio, but the Harmonia trio stand behind their equipment playing kraut/ambient electronica/whatevs and aren't the exploding end to ATP they ruddy should be. A disappointing conclusion to some incredible bands. While the live music is finished, my ATP weekend is far from over. Back to the Queen Vic then?

Roll on Primavera and the Nightmare Before Christmas, whoever is curating.

Playlist: Russian Circles, Menomena, Clikitat Ikatowi

After inventing stainless steel and “Ass Kicking Rock and Roll”®, here they go again reinventing the MP3! It’s a new year and another handful of mind-blowing rat turds are flung at the “scene.” Your iPod never sounded as crispy. Ladies and Gentleman…. I present to you the next SoCal, mall punk, stupor group; THE NIGHT MARCHERS!… apparitions of modern day street warriors that manifest in the neglected corners of subterranean, Rock ‘n Roll lore.

Way back when I was done with Friendster, and a good few years before Facebook was about, I signed up for Myspace and filled out the 'Heroes' section.

I can't remember who else exactly was in there, but John Reis definitely was. I kinda fancy Reis (/Speedo) and have for a while but he's getting on a bit now and sweats a lot. Reis is responsible for some of my favourite music ever created, most notably Drive Like Jehu, Rocket from the Crypt and Hot Snakes. Now he's back doing vocals in The Night Marchers.

I hadn't anticipated an album as much as this one for a while and it hasn't disappointed at all. They're playing a few dates in London and across the UK next month. I will be dancing at the Boston Arms on Friday 6th June.

And maybe Reis is kinda in shape now?

Playlist: The Night Marchers, Torche, Breach

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Tonight I'm going to see Cursed and I'm quite looking forward to it as I've never seen them before. Plus it's Punk Rock Book Club beforehand and also May Day so I'll be in the mood for a riot, albeit a well-read one.

Cursed are a gnarly, pissed-off and especially crusty/sludgy hardcore band, but they've always struck me as one of the few 'thinking-men's hardcore bands'. They come from credible previous bands, have a blog which makes an enjoyable read and have some great dark imagery/aesthetic which has always been associated with them. Yeah, since when has hardcore been about the aesthetic? Their music is pretty crushing as well.

On the flipside are the International Superheroes of Hardcore, who have been climbing the Last.fm hype charts and are now in second position. All it is is pop-punkers New Found Glory poking fun at the po-faced hardcore kids, with song titles like 'Madball's got our back', 'Ebay revenge' and 'Superhero sellouts'. As a NFG fan, it's kinda fun, but really, over-zealous and precious hardcore is NO JOKE KIDS, especially in the UK right now it seems. Who split up and left Your Demise in charge anyway? With lyrics which involve rhyming 'duck' with 'fuck', it's easy to get disenchanted with hardcore. Thank god for book club. And Cursed.

Playlist: Boards of Canada, Rocket From The Crypt

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