The spoken word teamed with music connects with the listener in a different way. I don’t know why. I’m not even really sure what that difference is.

But anyone who has listened to Dead Flag Blues by Godspeed You! Black Emperor will have a remote and lonely part of their mind forever altered in testimony to the song’s agonising strength.

Matt Finney has been on ANBAD before, as part of the now-defunct Finneyerkes. He’s a musician and poet, and somehow, by sinister means unknown, met a Ukranian musical polymath called Heinali…

No ANBAD Donkey Antics this week. There just wasn’t time. Instead, here is a ‘greatest hits’ blast-from-the-past picture.

A poor show, yes – but here’s four genuinely fabulous bands to compensate, one of whom sounds a bit like The Killers. Of course, being the consummate professional, I will entirely gloss over such a glaringly glib comparison.

FIRST! Wild Party sound a bit like The Killers. This is worth getting out of the way right at the beginning, because it’ll be the observation everyone makes. A fairer assessment is that they…

Hell, I’m only just back from holiday. My hamster wheel isn’t spinning back at it’s proper speed yet. So my decision making may be impaired. Look, for example at today’s new band, Wolfy and The Bat Cubs. They’ve only had a thousand views on Myspace. Their songs have all been played less than ten times. What kind of choice is that?

Wolfy and The Bat Cubs // Forgive Me Baby

You could say that this band have been done before, many, many times. You could say that their look is a throwback. You…

OK, so it’s actually as close to the end of the week as it is to the middle. But I’ve been on holiday, so forgive me. Excitingly, the ‘web traffic’ to ANBAD has been exactly the same during the 10 days in which I have posted nothing whatsoever, so I can either take heart that my readership is loyal and wide-reaching, or turn sullen because my contributions to the site are entirely meaningless.

The ANBAD Donkey today reflects such duality of thought.

MIXTAPE:

FIRST! Symfoniorkestern - I’m featuring so many bands from the…

Last weekend, reader-turned-writer Mike clenched his fists and boldly dragged us on a quick tour of Wigan’s music scene. His assessment, like most of The View From… articles, is a dual-edged one of cautious optimism and scathing criticism. Though how a man living in the City That Donk Built can complain is beyond me, frankly.

The Suzukis are a product of Wigan too, and possibly began as a deliberate counterpoint to Donk’s strangely lovable bouncy ridiculousness.

By name alone, The Suzukis sound like they ought to be a zippy,…

I can’t even remember how I discovered today’s new band. I will tentatively claim that I received an email from a rapt fan about them, but frankly it could have been from anyone via any medium. It could have been a psychic visitation for all I know.

I’m going to blame old age for forgetting. The truth – that I’m too disorganised to really remember – is the greater of the two evils.

This forgetfulness may well signal of the Beginning Of The End, the descent into premature Middle Age that I’ve always…

It’s still holiday season, and so the ANBAD donkey is still on holiday, possibly sitting at a jauntily amusing angle by a pool somewhere, but definitely sipping some mmm… delicious Kopparberg cider as he does it.

Kopparberg is pear cider, though really there ought to be a portmanteau word – ‘pider’ – to make it easier for drunks to say. And what a nice bunch of people work for them: after tweeting a disparaging message about their annoying advert on Spotify, I received a love-bomb email asking me to contribute to the next…

It turns out there’s quite a lot of bands named after Douglas Firs. Who would have thought? In the interests of fairness, let us list them all:

• The Douglas Firs - a ‘Jam Funk’ band, influenced by – yikes! – Ben and Jerry’s favourites Phish;
• The Douglas Firs - a contemporary acoustic duo with ‘thought provoking lyrics’ who probably don’t know who Phish is (lucky them);
• The Douglas Fir – tantalisingly singular, and in possession of a song called I Think I Loathe You;
• Douglas Firs – Belgian Ryan Adams-a-likes drop the

…

I got drunk last night. I didn’t mean to, but when you go to a party sometimes you just become a victim of circumstance. The party was in a swanky 11th floor apartment, with a killer view over this moderately fair city of Manchester.

Drinking sangria and watching the sunset, I mused out loud that I’d spent a vastly disproportionate amount of my time watching the sun set, but that none of it was wasted. A chorus of voices agreed. We all sighed, pondered for a moment on life’s transience, and then got…

Another day, another new band that deserves an exclamation mark after their name. Call me a huge pedant, but a surprise doesn’t feel surprising unless there’s the relevant punctuation to ram home the shock. Such are the myriad nuances of life.

Top Surprise! recorded their new EP in their bedrooms – I imagine the drummer was shoved in the bathroom (drummers are always made to record in the bathroom) – over a two day period. This nugget of information is all the justification I need to continue to complain loudly about bands who…