Now that’s a mouthful of a band-name, eh, pop-pickers? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with The Parish of Little Clifton as your moniker of choice, but it sure isn’t The Ramones, is it?

Petty grievances abound on ANBAD about band names – and they should be largely ignored, of course – although I can’t help thinking that one day, someone is going to attend a The Parish of Little Clifton live performance in the mistaken belief that they’ll be  taking part in a small village’s council meeting.

In many ways, I hope this does happen, as it’ll expose …

I’m going to a music college today to talk to students about How To Promote Yourself To Music Blogs. No, I’m not sure why they didn’t ask someone more suitable either.

I was fairly certain that this talk was going to take up a lot less than its allotted time, as the advice could be boiled down to ‘make sure you have three great songs’, and then I realised I was simply kidding myself.

Because, as my regular reader will know (Hi, Dad!), if there’s one other thing that guarantees attention – on this blog at least – it’s a band name that …

Sometimes people ask me to explain exactly why writing about a new band every day is a good idea, a question that is hard to readily answer.

After chuntering some platitudes about how I believe in new artists or want to put something back, I quickly change the topic, knowing full well that the prior words aren’t totally true, but that I couldn’t think of a better thing to say.

But finally I have found a definitive item to justify what I do. It’s this video of noodling guitar oddball Steve Vai entirely unselfconsciously playing a three necked guitar…

Today, the rarest of treats: the chance to find enjoyment in the actions of Coldplay. Brace yourself.

No, I wouldn’t normally believe it either. But here it is, as plain as day, on their otherwise po-faced website – a joke! From Coldplay! Fetch the (Fair Trade) smelling salts, quick!

As far as April fools’ day jokes go, this was a good one: self-effacing, fun and – by using the classic indie no-hoper’s ‘We just do what we do and if anyone else likes it, that’s a bonus’ line of doom -  razor sharp.

Begrudging respect now earnt, perhaps …

Togetherness is good. Sharing is caring. It’s nice to be nice.

Look at the lengthy comments clustering around this opinion piece on live gigs from a few weeks ago, and wonder how much better off we’d all be if bands and audiences actually got together to chat.

Rather than eyeing each other suspiciously from opposite grimy corners of their local venue and sullenly exchanging trapezoidally mis-cut flyers as if they were at an anti-capitalist rally, what if they collaborated, shared and revealed?

Indie music has always been tribal, reaching its bowel-loosening nadir in 1995′s Oasis Vs Blur fiasco – and …

The combination of getting older and being in possession of a mind that is hard-wired to remember even the most minor musical trivia forever has it’s flaws, I can tell you.

An example of the mysteries of the human mind: when an email about Organ Morgan* popped into my inbox, the band that pinged into my head was 1999 very-minor-sensation M. Organ, who (briefly) wrote Money Mark-esque ditties on his Hammond Organ, and then disappeared without trace.

When you can’t find someone on Google, you know that either a) times are hard for that artist, or b) your …

The opinion heat-haze of In The City means that an unbiased view of a band becomes impossible. As many people will rave over an average, or downright dull band as those who froth over a good one. You quickly realise that listening to opinion at ITC is almost always a waste of time.

For example: I was told that Egyptian Hip Hop were, variously, ‘rude’, ‘piss-poor’, ‘six out of ten’ and ‘a lot of old tits’. I had to see them. And as it turned out – guess what? – they were all wrong. Well, maybe not about the ‘rude’ …

It was a public holiday over the weekend and so I camped with my girlfriend on a beach in west Wales. The sun blazed, and slowly sank over the sea, turning everything a deep, rich orange. We dozed and crisped up in the heat, had a barbecue and a bonfire, and then slept some more. It was heaven.

It’s funny how, in a world where material goods are pushed more than ever as the solution to all our problems, that a camping trip, a barbecue and a good snooze – with a combined cost of less than a couple of …

If you need any proof that the music business is as box-of-frogs, bat-shit, [insert 'zany' euphemism here] crazy as ever, just look at the case of Franz Ferdinand. A few years ago, they were all over the music press like a bad suit. Their first album sold squillions, driven by the neat, catchy singles that kept dropping off it. They could do no wrong.

Except, of course, in Rock Music World, they could. Well, not them exactly. In fact, not really them at all. They made the numbskull mistake of releasing another good album of cleverer, catchier songs. But …

Now and again, a band or artist pokes a hole through the beige dullness that is the musical space-time continuum. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve done anything particularly inventive – anyone can play a bunch of samples in a semi-random order and cause ears to prick up – but Today’s New Band innovates, teasing something new out of the limp heap that is pop music.

This wet finger in the ear of drab musical ordinariness is Alan MX, whose music is skewed, restrained, and new. Warpsicord is one of the most accurately descriptive song titles you’ll find …