If you’re one of ANBAD‘s many non-UK readers, you may not have experienced the mysterious joys of premiere surface-cleaning product Cillit Bang, and it’s bizarrely seductive Lord, Master and Prophet, the perma-yelling Barry Scott. If you’re none the wiser, initiate yourself into the strangely alluring world of Barry here - and then consider this: without the unusual SEMI-THREATENING SPEAKING-IN-CAPITAL-LETTERS tactic deployed by the quasi-benevolent Barry, Cillit Bang would just be another product on the shelves. Barry has bellowed down the opposition and now Cillit Bang sits amongst the homecare Gods.

Like any product now, music is branded …

Yesterday, in the Guardian, Alan McGee claimed that Liverpudlian band The Grants were, “The best unsigned band in the world.” Alan McGee has a habit of making big, provocative statements, and it’s reasonable to imagine that this is another of them.

I think most people are willing to put up with these near-biennial claims, seeing as he’s the guy that signed Oasis and Primal Scream, bankrolled My Bloody Valentine to the point of personal/financial breakdown and had the nerve to release Kevin Rowland‘s My Beauty.

So, are The Grants the best unsigned band in the world? …

Yesterday’s yummy, super-twee (but not in an awful ‘Tweecore’ way) band, The Bumblebees, got me thinking. Actually, they got me a-hankerin’ for some more jangly indie. This hankering intensified when I accidentally subjected myself to a video of the Ting Tings’ awful song Shut Up and Let Me Go this morning. Its ultra-hip, consciously-ironic, sunglasses-indoor idiocy made me feel all hopeless. Where’s the fun, or the the sense of reality in their super-slick, focus-group-defined sound?

So Today’s New Band was always going to sound like their music was a) heartfelt, but not sincere; b) enjoyable, but nicely throwaway; and …

Remember how we went mental over the brilliant “The Battle Is Over” by Paul Hawkins and Thee Awkward Silences a few days back? Remember how we raved about the voice of the guest singer, Candythief? Well, with a shuddering inevitability, Candythief is today’s New Band Of The Day!

There’s a couple of ‘truisms’ when it comes to discussing vocalists. The first one is to point out that sometimes you hear a voice so beautifully penetrating that it speaks to you in a different way to most others. “That sounds wonderfully mindless,” you’re thinking, but it’s true in the case …

There are no real hard and fast rules for bands appearing on A New Band A Day. We’re strong believers that there’s no merit in consistency. Some bands we feature on A New Band A Day are so new that they’ve still got the umbilical cord attached, look a bit jaundiced and have only received a hundred or so visitors on their MySpace page. The thought that our humble l’il webs(h)ite has poked a few more people their way makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And a little bit smug too, but that’s more of an ongoing personal …