There’s a club in Manchester that I keep getting drawn too, despite myself. I’ve never actually noticed its name, such is my rush to get inside, but I call it Nerd Bar, due to the overwhelming concentration of computer science and IT students that patronise it.

The music is a complex blend of the great (the ubiquitous Smiths) and the deeply abject (decade-old Fatboy Slim songs), which is tailored to the specific needs of the nerds: good enough songs to keep the party going, and songs dreadful enough to appeal to Jamiroquai fans.

Laugh at the sweaty, strangely-haired and weirdly …

When I left university, I held a succession of woeful jobs, all of which were designed to sap the remaining hope, desire and belief in humanity from the participants. I realised I had reached my personal nadir when I was getting up at six every morning to mow lawns at sewage works.

Today’s new artist, Nic Dawson Kelly, says that he too has ‘done more crap jobs than he cares to remember’. Reading that simple sentence sent empathetic shivers down my spine, and if I was in possession of a heart, as opposed to the black, shrivelled CAULDRON OF HATRED …

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Christ, there were a lot of unread emails in my inbox. I hope any of you who kindly emailed in weren’t too distraught when you received the soulless/mindless automated email reply only seconds after your sweaty fingers clicked ‘Send’.

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There’s more to great songs than verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus, you know, but not much more. That thin line that separates a drab band and a great band is usually located not in the construction, but the execution.

Good songwriters don’t simply know how to move a dull pub-rock song to thrilling innovation – their songs would end up there whether they liked it or not. It’s in their blood. Perhaps Mat Riviere is one of this lucky few.

From his name, you’d think Mat Riviere ought to be crooning from a small, glittery stage, in a shiny suit, on a cruiseboat, in …

My theory on The Beatles runs roughly along these lines: their songs are music’s equivalent of the Bible. In my case, it means that I know all the songs, but never actually listen to them; similarly, I know all about Samson and Delilah, but the Bible-shaped space on my bookshelf is filled by 1000 Pinup Girls.

I don’t own any Beatles albums any more, not even Revolver. Last week I was sent a link to a site where one devotee had ranked every single Beatles song in order of preference. This kind of obsessive behaviour indicates that the author …

Another week, another World Darts Final. It seems like it’s all that’s on TV these days. This weekend it was the PDA – or was it the BDO – version of the world title, and yet another 4 hours of my life was summarily dispatched watching two arrows-throwing titans of the sport battle it out at the oche.

There’s something very Zen about watching the grim determination on the faces of two fat, sweating men as they throw darts as an audience of drunks cheers them on. Even more thrilling is watching this in the knowledge that they could …

It goes without saying that It’s Grim Up North this time of year. In fact, it’s been grim up here for pretty much the whole of this year, but let’s not dwell on that now, in case the uncontrollable weeping starts again. When this particularly northern grimness overwhelms one’s soul, there are only two viable musical courses of action.

Firstly, the default option of Just Cheer The Hell Up, Saddo, which is initiated by the liberal application of Gabber (thanks, Holland), or spinning a couple of BONKERS! Happy Hardcore CDs (preferably in a souped-up Vauxhall Nova), or maybe just …

If you live in the UK, you’ll have heard all about Blur re-uniting for a few huge gigs next summer. This was a bit of a surprise to everyone, seeing as Blur‘s main protagonists, Damon and Graham, apparently hate each other; that the drummer now seems to be getting on with a career of repeatedly failing to become a Labour MP; and Alex the insufferable bassist is now an insufferable cheese-maker.

All those enlivening inter-band foibles aren’t my gripe with this reunion, and neither is the awful, recession-mocking £45 ticket price. It’s the fact that, now they’re back together …

Why is it that at the exact point that you think that things are calming down, in reality – the reality that you can’t see or feel or taste until it’s poking you in the ribs and sneering – it’s the exact opposite and suddenly you have a bazillion new things on your plate? Thanks, life. Thanks also to Today’s New Band, who, usefully, provided an equally sudden calm today.

Dave Osbourn is Today’s New Band. Dave Osbourn might not even be a band, using friends and acquaintances to pad out his sound. Either way, Dave Osbourn doesn’t have …