Nothing replaces the thrill of discovering a new band all by yourself and then scampering off, dander up, to breathlessly tell your friends how just unbelievably amazing they are.

I received the email equivalent of this friendly nagging, from a reader called Alex. Alex’s email was a tumble-jumble of superlatives, all of which were rooted in sheer enthusiasm for a new band discovered in a bar.

And that excites me too, in an empathic reflex action. The cynic in me was quelled, and I felt the same thrilling surge, excited to hear The Birdman Rallies for myself. I wasn’t …

You know when you think you know someone, but you can’t swear to it? It’s a bit like when you accidentally catch a glimpse of your own reflection and momentarily think you’re looking someone completely different, but with all the social agonies of not knowing whether to head on over and say ‘hi’.

So, I’m sure I’ve seen Piran around and about in Manchester – I know his face. But I’m equally sure that this is nonsense. There are millions of people in Manchester. Stupid brain. This has become a weird exercise in non-existent stalking. Time to move on.

If …

Although ANBAD is, to all intents and purposes, Just Another Music Blog, it doesn’t really behave like one.

I mean, yes, it has all the attributes of a blog that made the format so refreshingly de jour back in 2003, yet doesn’t do all the backlinking, cross-posting promotion and inter-blog link-exchanging that blogs are supposed to do. Perhaps if it did, I’d spend more time smoking cigars on Mediterranean yachts full of Page 3 girls funded from the proceeds. Still.

So, in a belated effort, today’s post is stuffed to the gills with links and what-have-you. And here’s …

So, I’ve finally sent a slightly embarrassing and uptight email to the BBC complaining about the bizarre (and I suspect, politically motivated) decision to axe of BBC 6Music.

If, like me, you’re a listener (and can put aside the temptation to let it disappear just so Lauren Laverne’s show will vanish as well) and value the station’s admirable adherence to playing something different, why not email them too?

That idea of playing something different is key: it is why you’re reading this blog, why your idea of hell is a U2 concert, and it’s what separates us from …

Forming a rock ‘n’ roll band is one of the more deceptive and fickle actions a group of young men (and it’s almost always young men) can take. It seems so easy: get a self-confident frontman, grind our some satisfying guitar parts that allow just as much time for posing as for riffola, get sweaty – then lie back and watch as the groupies roll in.

So easy, so tempting. Except: unless your frontman is really good, and really knows how to engage a room full of arched eyebrows, you fail. Unless the ‘Us Versus The World’ schtick comes across …

I rarely consider a band’s influences. In all honesty, I doubt that good bands worry too much about them either, and instead concentrate on making their own sound.

But people are always interested, and so bands always list them: although simply put, a band that sounds a bit like the B-52‘s in all likelihood have just listened to a whole bundle of B-52‘s albums at some point.

So what of the similarly enciphered T54? A quick Google search tells us that the T54 was a Russian tank, and a quick listen to HK-T-G Rules! tells us that …

Is Manchester a city that is so proud of its musical past it still trades heavily on it, or one that has just given up trying to surpass what was produced before? That revolutionary 80′s period is still leant upon, and how: The Hacienda, now a swanky apartment block; “And on the 6^th day, God created Manchester” T-shirts are still available in your size; and Peter Hook, having spent decades learning how not to run a nightclub, proves he has a sense of humour by opening a new, Factory-themed one.

This isn’t as bad a situation as …

This post ought to have featured last week, when Manchester’s In The City New Music Conference was relevant, current and new. I wanted to see Lost Knives quite badly, but was ‘held up watching another band’.

A quick glance at the schedule would reveal that I was at the Dutch Uncles gig, but a delve into the truth would expose that I had holed up in a kebab shop and was shoving dubious spicy meat into my idiot face.

I wished I’d seen them, especially when, the next day, talk of their performance was a drizzle of positive chatter. My …

Oh yes, I’ve been to Cumbria. For the uninitiated, it’s the very northern, remote part of England; full, as I remember, of natural beauty, rain and – in Barrow-in-Furness at least – very large and intimidating men. It’s also the home of the strange and brilliant band British Sea Power, whose album The Decline Of British Sea Power is an oft-overlooked classic.

Today’s New Band, The Witch And The Robot, are from the same green, lush part of the world and are championed by, indeed, British Sea Power. This is as suitable recommendation as any, and The Witch And …

Everyone loves demo tapes. Ask any indie wannabe in any indie hang-out what they’re doing, and they’ll tell you, either excitedly or haughtily, about the demo they’re recording with such-and-such local producer you’ve never heard of, but get the feeling you ought to have.

The phrase ‘demo tapes’ itself has so much indie-cool cachet that having one is almost better than an actual album. In truth, most demo tapes are crud: the sound grim, the songs ropey, enthusiasm overtaking craft. And yet, The Pixies‘ Come On Pilgrim is a series of demos off a C90 tape. The demo world …