Okay…. sad story time.

There are two dates in the year which are particularly upsetting yet remind me of some of the best times of my life and certainly two of the people who changed my musical awareness for the better.

Without Andrew Foster (Foz) who died in his 20s of heart-related illness and Caroline Fletcher (Caz) who drowned in her first pot-holing experience, I simply would not have the taste in music I do or the ability to play guitar at the very simple and basic level that I possess.

Why do I write this now? The 27th of…

Twas 1999. I was in the 2nd year of my degree at Huddersfield Uni. I'd been home for the weekend to get some proper food and utilise the magical laundry basket whereby you put dirty clothes in and in the near future they mystically came back cleaned and ironed and put away in your wardrobe…..

Anyway, I returned to the shared house that 4 friends and I inhabited one Sunday afternoon to find a bunch of absolutely stoned housemates talking complete nonsense and I was as sober as sober gets.

Now some of you would be screaming "why didn't you…

Once upon a time some Spam Artist decided to go around a bunch of people's Last.fm profiles and say something along the lines of "Hey! Check out Museum cos they're a proper good unsigned band!"

For some reason unknown to me I actually clicked on the link to Museum's page and I listened to Flowers And Dust, For The Very First Time, To Have Or To Be, Uncorrupted, Eden and The Law.

I immediately liked what I heard and was disappointed to learn that dispite having several thousand listeners that they were still unsigned.

Turns…

Short one.

Not done one in a while.

Not had much to say.

But…. damn that bloody Gavin & Stacey advert!!!! Ever since the BBC started advertising the new series of that programme with the bloke from Teachers and that fat guy who I don't find funny, I've not been able to get Don't Look Back Into The Sun out of my head.

Now don't get me wrong. I really like that song. Infact I have a bit of a soft spot for The Libertines and I even respect the talents of Mr Doherty despite his portrayal in the media.…

You know when you listen to a song and you hear certain words that aren't actually the words in the lyrics?

Such a thing recently happened when I was checking out two free tracks from a band called Tiny Planets. I'll be honest, the only reason why I was listening to the songs was because a friend of mine from work is in the band. Given that our taste in is very similar for the most part and he has been a key part in my discovery of "new" music along with Last.fm I figured it wise to give…

Every now and again I stumble across a band that I just love the sound of. Silversun Pickups were one of those happy accidents.

I first heard Lazy Eye, the track they're probably most well known for if "well known" is the right term to use, a year or so ago. I think it was on MTV2 or such like. And to be honest, I wasn't that sold on them at the time.

Skip forward to this year.

Here comes my link to Silversun Pickups. You see, this year Placebo released their 5th album "Battle For The Sun".…

Blogs.

Never done one. Never felt the need. Still don't.

Having said that, I quite like the idea of keeping track of how I find new stuff and give my uneducated opinion on what I like and what I don't like.

I'm not a person who has studied music or who understands the concept of great composition or what makes a good lyric or a bad one. All I know is what sounds right in my ears. That is all that matters to me when it comes to liking or disliking something musical.

So… "hello again!" to everyone I've met…