Egyptian Hip Hop are an easy band to love. Or to hate, depending on your point of view. The most interesting people are divisive in this way. This interview is the story of a band who are loathed and loved for exactly the same reasons. By the end you’ll know where you stand. And they won’t care what you think.

At Manchester’s In The City Music Conference last year, a powder-puff of sneers billowed with every mention of Egyptian Hip Hop. The vitriol was curiously vocal, and this was confusing; local bands are usually praised unrealistically. It was…

Peter Hook has opened a new club in Manchester, FAC251. The opening night on Friday was summed up by friends that went as a resounding ‘Yeah – it’s OK. Nice lighting.’

Not many people, apart from some frighteningly vitriolic bloggers, could really begrudge Peter Hook another go at getting a nightclub right this time. But by trading heavily on the Factory Records days of Madchester, a broad selection of noses have been put out of joint and knives have been sharpened.

“Why do we need another monument to Manchester’s past?” they cry, “The…

Memo is a big fat LIAR. Let’s not beat around the bush. On his Myspace page, he claims, spuriously, that he was the drummer in Def Leppard, knows ex-Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, and is a tenant of Chuck Norris’.

Claims of such celebrity dalliances are not only perversely 80′s in their outlook, but mere fibs in comparison to the biggest lie he’s managed to propagate: that his output is so prodigious that next time you visit his Myspace page, the songs you loved last time may have all been replaced by new ones.

In a display of real cunning,…

I do sometimes worry that anyone browsing through the ANBAD archives (which you can do just over there, on the right) will get the impression that the new bands are merely a cover story, and that in reality the site is a sneaky subsidiary of the Scandinavian Tourist Board.

It seems that every other post blathers, semi-coherently and effusing, about the wonderful bands’ ceaseless streaming out of that part of the world. But the thing is that it’s true – our blonde northern Euro cousins are producing a glut of vibrant, clever, simple and self effacingly fabulous bands, and I’m…

>My flatmate went to see the Arctic Monkeys last week, when they played at the Enormo-dome in Manchester. He walked out of the door at 6pm and returned nine hours later, with a story that defied belief, sanity and most other parameters of human behaviour.

It involved a chance meeting with the band, before proceeding to accompany them tearing things up in a variety of places: backstage (natch), all of the city’s most exclusive bars, a couple of house parties and finally, the pièce de résistance – invading the set of the country’s biggest soap opera, and causing…

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Some bands entirely define their time, however brief their reign or their time may be. De La Soul was one such band, and Three Feet High And Rising is so 1989 the CD may as well be sold in a day-glo hi-top trainer. The logical culmination of a decade of hip-hop, sampling and E-fuelled peace ‘n’ love, the album, the band and the times are neatly encapsulated in one album.

As soon as their own brilliance put a legal stop to their sample-snaffling practices, audiences’ attention wandered. How many other De La Soul albums do

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A few years ago, a frankly bizarre incident involving avant-garde noise-troubadours Godspeed You! Black Emperor, a confused petrol station clerk, and a crack FBI team who swooped to arrest them. Why was Oklahoma’s finest called into handcuff-clicking action so swiftly? Because the clerk thought they ‘looked unusual’.

On such small sartorial details the security of the free world pivots. And if GY!BE look like terrorists, then I’m surprised that Wild Palms can pop to the cornershop for milk without being bundled into a sensory deprivation cell.

They don’t look like terrorists, you…

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My friend Martin is also a friend of The Lines, a rather good band from the unfashionable West Midlands. A disproportionate number of Britain’s bands come from the West Midlands (Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath to name two), partly, I always assume, because being in a band is a good way to get out of there.

Martin recently joined the band on a road trip to play in a festival in Austria, and got to say things like, “I’m with the band,” to girls, pester Jarvis Cocker backstage and live like a rock star.…

>So, I’m nearly home. As of Monday, the (possibly unique) ANBAD Travelogue/New Band Review Service will be replaced by the simple daily proffering of New Bands, just like in the good ol’ days. In some ways, it’s a shame – writing about bands whilst in a tent pitched on the hill overlooking Karlovac was fun, but tiring. For those who’d like to emulate this attempt, a word of advice: finding wi-fi in eastern Europe is an ‘interesting challenge’.

Conversely, getting back to the metaphorical new band roots is just what’s needed. A three-month, self-indulgent…

>Women in pop ‘n’ rock: are they as pigeonholed as in ‘normal’ life? Well, duh. Female pop stars have a choice, of course: either tempting, teen-moppets/quasi-sluts (hi, Britney) or Professionally Kooky Kate Bush-a-likes (Hi, Bat For Lashes). On rare occasions they’re allowed to be non-glam, songs-first-looks-last actual singers (hi, PJ Harvey).

Sadly, the true individuals – the Bjorks – of this world are few and far between. And when was the last time you saw women rock stars behaving with equality to their male counterparts – trashing hotel rooms and seducing teenage…