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 feared. Hey ho. When I start pootling …

Sometimes I wonder why bands even bother.

I look at my bulging inbox, filled with suggestions of new bands, and I wonder this, because it’s almost impossible to conceive how any band can be heard through the white noise of ten thousand new, hungry bands all playing their buzz-saw guitars at once.

And then a band comes along that makes me realise: “Ah – that’s why.” The thought pings into my subconscious as one band peeks stridently through the weeds like a stubborn dandelion.

Bands do it because the rewards are so great – the feeling that you and your …

Funny, the power our idols have over us. If I unceremoniously deposited a lock of my hair into your outstretched palm, you’d probably call the police, wash the offending hand in bleach and take out a restraining order.

However, if I told you that the bristly bundle belonged to a certain truculent, microphone-lobbing rock star, the excitement would be so great, you’d not know whether to update your Facebook status or Ebay listing first.

Such otherwise mundane occurrences punctuate a normal life with the dazzling white-hot glare of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and when @SkinnyGirlWho, one of the tremendous …

I’m old enough to remember actually making mixtapes and feel slightly aggrieved at the spasms of faux-nostalgia that accompany their mention now.

There’s a reason no-one’s made a mixtape for about 15 years, and I don’t recognise their creation being the winsome TDK C90-flavoured labour of love that’s bandied around now.

For anyone under the age of 18 who would like an accurate portrayal of the grim reality of the task; imagine a Spotify playlist, and then imagine spending about three hours to compile and record it, to write down the songs on a minuscule rectangle of card, and then …

You too can meet Oasis’ Liam Gallagher! But only if you buy something from his new clothing range – then you can meet the surly, set-jawed man himself, in Manchester, next week. Parka-wearing gents, form a disorderly queue.

Now, I like Liam Gallagher. He’s one of the last proper rock stars – not despicably pious like Bono, not a bit wet like Chris Martin. He was a rock star who drank, swore, hit people – often his own brother – and sneered at all before him (ie us, who paid money to watch exactly this).

But there’s a logical …

As well as watching the Worst Band Ever, last week I also finally managed to catch The Fall, the finest grumpy band in the world. Singer Mark E Smith has been puzzling, delighting and be-grumpifying audiences for decades now, armed only with a perculi-ah! singing-ah! style-ah!, an endless supply of black leather zip-up jackets and a band line-up that rotates, frequently, and at his whim alone.

Needless to say, all the worthy praise you’ve ever read about The Fall is true – defiant, odd and thrilling- and make songs that are timeless by virtue of two things: their …

…

There have been a few songs that, on the first hearing, the sudden realisation that what I was listening to was so good, so head-spinningly wonderful, so new, that I’ve stopped whatever I’m doing just to listen, in a happy music-coma. Off the top of my head, five of the songs that have lead to this are:

Temptation by New Order
Common People by Pulp
Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths
I Love You ‘Cause I Have To by Dogs Die in Hot Cars
Leg End In His Own Boots by Ned’s Atomic Dustbin

OK, the last one’s a …

What’s happening to A New Band A Day? New features and new writers? It’s almost as if more effort’s being put in all of a sudden or something. Well, a pre-Christmas frenzy has overcome us all in ANBAD Towers, that’s what. In an effort to forget that we haven’t bought a single Christmas present yet, at all, and-oh-crap-it’s-only-two-weeks-til-Christmas, we’re listening to more ace new bands than ever before. Not that that will be an acceptable excuse to our nearest and dearest on the 25th.

So before we start having spasms of anxiety, let’s cut to the chase: Today’s …

Having spent the last five nights ‘entertaining friends’, I’m now in the unenviable position of starting the week feeling exhausted. Beer, wine, tapas, dim sum and a surprising diversion to the middle-class realm of Pimms and lemonade are to blame for my malaise, and spending last night compering a Burlesque show just about finished me off, in a blizzard of nipple tassels and discarded stockings. I suppose if you’re going to have a blow-out, you may as well do it properly.

Having slowly come to the realisation that I’m getting on a bit now and can’t party quite as wholeheartedly …