Urgh – I’m still recovering from my kinda-holiday, but now have to face up to the reality that normal service must resume.

As last month was interrupted somewhat by a week or so off, there were fewer bands to choose from in the round-up – and yet, the standard of brilliant bands was as high as ever. Go figure.

ANBAD Radio Show // August 2010

So here’s the show, complete with gob-smackingly excellent bands from August – share and enjoy.

YUCK // The Shondes // Wolfy and The Bat Cubs // Young Mammals

FYFI: ANBAD is on holiday for a week and a bit. That’s why the vaguely holiday-themed tag is dangling up there at the top of the page.

But because I a) am obsessive-compulsive; b) am outrageously kind and c) love the sound of my own idiot voice, here’s a special bonus ANBAD Radio Show, covering the ‘lost’ best-of shows from the months when I was moving flat and didn’t even have time to sob quietly in a corner, let alone record a radio show.

ANBAD Bonus Radio Show!

So clickaroo, listen, enjoy…

I’m not going to lie. I’m not the most organised person in the world. But even I feel awful that the reason that this following piece showcasing the dubious and multifarious delights of the northern English town of Wigan was that I simply plain forgot about it. Awful, awful, awful.

Still, Mike has written a snigger-worthy and idiosyncratic view of his hometown of Wigan – a place that has a number of unusual spots in the annals of pop history.

Mention Wigan to anyone, and if their first reaction isn’t “Where?”, it…

In July, when the World Cup finished, a huge, endless void opened up in your writer’s life; a void that could no longer be filled with hilarious slo-mo HD replays of England footballers shrugging their shoulders and visibly counting down the minutes until they could get back to crashing Bentleys full of strippers into lamposts.

Perturbed, that void was filled with tons of blisteringly good new bands. And, in celebration, here’s an all-new ANBAD radio show featuring the best five from July. GOAL!

ANBAD Radio Show // Last Month In Review: July’s…

James was in a band called Juno, who, being a great new band once, were featured on ANBAD.

Then, just before their name would have been a perfect tie-in with the movie of the same name, they split up. To get over the trauma, James writes an article painting a rosy picture of the music scene in one of the UK’s traditionally most exciting musical cities...

Glasgow as a city speaks pretty loudly for Scotland, and it seems that a few bands seem to speak for the city but with…

Islet are a new band. That much is obvious. Less obvious is the route they took before emergence, which is suddenly, strangely radical. And they don’t even know they’re doing it.

I know you’re out there
I know you’re gone
You can’t say that’s fair
Can’t you be wrong?

-Dinosaur Jr., Out There, 1993

Islet are a band who have done it differently without even trying, and the story is not so much a breath of fresh air as a huge, Mistral-sized gust…

Wow, that was a two month gap wasn’t it? Stupid me. I can blame a few things for the absence of ANBAD vocal stylings, and indeed, if you listen to the show below, such excuses will be lamely put to you.

But despite such jabbering it’s very much worth a listen, because there are some brilliant bands from last month, plus HOT CHAT in between.

Like a great new band iPod, set to shuffle, with interfering chinwagging in-between. Good times. Get clicking!

ANBAD RADIO SHOW // The Best Bands From June 2010

Links…

***BONUS THURSDAY POST***

My friend Hagop – crazy name, crazy guy – is setting up a website to help people who are starting new bands. He’s one of those ultra-hyper people who has boundless energy and a zillion interesting stories to tell – he was in a band who played to tens of thousands, he worked with Hot Chip, yadda yadda.

Funnily enough, his fatal flaw is to believe that I have something of use to tell the rest of the world, and so he interviewed me. We talked excitedly, and at peculiar…

A New Band A Day celebrates creativity, daring and cunning.

Rock, however, doesn’t do a lot of cunning, and even less creativity.

What it does do is a lot of is stupid, as demonstrated by the truly dreadful decisions made when bands start to cover other band’s songs.

Evidence? Take Duran Duran, surely one of the more feeble bands to ever attain worldwide adoration – and consider: would you ever recommend to Le Bon and co that covering Public Enemy‘s 911 Is A Joke was a good idea?

No, neither…

Dutch Uncles, like Egyptian Hip Hop, are another exciting new Manchester-based band that has chosen a name which guarantees career-long facile questions: whether any band member is Dutch, or is an uncle, or indeed has an uncle from the Netherlands. Maybe it’s why Wu Lyf keep such a low profile.

Either way, these universally strange monikers do highlight the skewed thinking and deliberately obtuse nature of Manchester’s newest crop of bands. Hiding complex musical arrangements behind breathless pop songs and charity shop shirts, Dutch Uncles are more obtuse than…