Ah, the hilarity to be found buried deep within the minutiae of legal disputes.

Yoofs should have been on ANBAD a week ago, but they promptly vanished from the internet on the day I was to write about them, and I was left hanging like a damp dishcloth over the cold tap of pop.

The reason behind their sudden departure from the internet? They had to change their name because someone else was already using it.

And what was that band-name causing such all-round grumpiness? AC Slater.

Yes, AC Slater, the character from heinous, preachy 90′s kids’ TV show Saved …

For reasons unknown, I often get asked for advice from new bands. If they knew the truth – that I’m making it up as I’m going along, and so is everyone else – then they might not have bothered.

In the end, I relented, and interviewed a load of musical movers and shakers in Manchester, which resulted in this series of Edu-tainment ‘how-to’ articles on BBC Introducing, and this puff-piece on Amazing Radio about how not to annoy bloggers.

So, yes, it turns out that there are rules to follow – or at least truisms that generally work. The information …

Time, it seems, really does change everything.

And having recently re-watched Taxi Driver, a movie that I viewed with greedy regularity as a teen, this truism was emphasised in a famously bloody manner. I used to regard Travis Bickle simply as a gun-happy nut-case – but this time he seemed a gun-happy nut-case for whom I felt vast pangs of sympathy and empathy.

This is a fairly major volte-face, but such is life’s ever-bewildering array of unexpected re-alignments. Take 80′s jangle-Indie, a genre of music that always had a foot firmly planted on the twin touchstones of miserablism and …

Whilst chatting to Matt from the ever-excellent Pigeon Post the other day, the conversation inevitably blundered over into the discussion of new bands. We both agreed that there are two horrible truths when it comes to wading through the daily submission pile: that we make our minds up within the first ten seconds, and that a snap analysis is made of the band’s members within the same time.

Evans The Death are one of the lucky few who get past the first few seconds. And my snap judgement? Nice middle class boys who’ve managed to bag a talented and attractive …

I interviewed Egyptian Hip Hop the other night,and happily, they proved to be thoughtful, intelligent and as excruciatingly talented as they were excruciatingly young.

Being facile of mind though, I spent most of the interview trying to guess exactly just how young they were – and here’s the answer: young enough to make me feel like an unhip uncle meeting nephews at a wedding and attempting to chat about ‘what music you’re into’. [Full results from this interview coming soon.]

Youth isn’t everything, I kept repeating to myself, as I sobbed all the way home. The Martial Arts aren’t young …

Some new bands would just love to be as glum and dark as Joy Division. Witness the current crop of frontmen who have suddenly developed hollow eyed stares and Ian Curtis arm twitches – the Indie equivalent of Dr. Strangelove’s alien hand.

The truth is that most bands just can’t manage it, because if there’s one thing you can’t fake, it’s existentialist miserablism. Most bands just want to have fun on stage, but few are bold enough to actually do it. Today’s New Band are, and for this we should all be thankful.

For instance: Swing Youth have a song …

There’s an inherent problem with the Tweecore musical genre, as spearheaded by tinkly Welsh poppers Los Campesinos. It’s that the word ‘Twee’ hasn’t often been used as a positively descriptive word very often.

Twee songs work for a while, and then become so sickly, so wholesome and so…. twee that you start to feel a bit uncomfortable, like when you’ve eaten too much chocolate on Christmas day. There’s not much room for variety when an artist is constrained by such narrow, wide-eyed and sugary parameters.

Today’s New Band, The Candle Thieves, couldn’t really be described as Tweecore, though they are …

Returning back to the UK has been everything I expected, for good and bad. Cold winds, rain, baked beans on toast and football violence. They just don’t do those kind of things as well in continental Europe.

Proper Indie is something else that’s done better here. Wait – that’s not musical xenophobia – there’s loads of great bands abroad, it’s just that Britain seems to lead when it comes to that brand of songs recorded in bedrooms, by bands with unusual names, made up of pasty young men.

Let’s shoehorn Today’s New Band into that category, too. In all honesty, …

Has summer come or is this just a very warm, pleasant dream? Manchester, home of the grey sky, fine drizzle and more grey sky, has been bathing in glorious sunshine for the past few days. My fair skin has celebrated by turning an appropriately fiesta-hued red, but I don’t care. Sun is such a rarity in this part of the world that I’d be happy if I turned purple (and at this rate, that might just happen).

You might not expect a song called I Wanna Kill to be a summery, shimmering blast of jangly garage rock, but it is. …

I have just got hold of a KORG DS-10 Synthesiser. If that makes me sound like a bit of a tech-muso-whizz, well, maybe that’s what I subconsciously wanted. In reality it’s a cartridge that emulates a vintage Korg synth and turns your Nintendo DS into an all-singing, all-sequencing, all-dancing noise machine. I can now pretend that I’m Steve “Silk” Hurley while I’m on the toilet.

Today’s New Band, Tijuana Panthers, don’t use synthesisers, part-novelty Nintendo/Korg ones or otherwise, as far as I can tell. They stick to making jumpy pop songs with actual instruments, made of wood, metal, blood, …