Hang, draw and quarter the DJ

Somerset, via Bournemouth, is a long way from Nottingham, and so another long car journey this weekend brought more radio station hopping, in the hope of finding something to chase the tedium away down the M1.

No such luck, of course. I've never been a big fan of the radio (I'd rather choose what I listen to next, ta very much), but it's only when you delve into the cesspit that is daytime weekend radio that you begin to realise how far the germ of modern, homogenised, watered down mass culture has spread.

Saturday mid-morning, and Patrick fucking Kielty appears on Radio 2. Kielty took over from Jonathan Ross - a self-important dullard if ever there was one, but at least he could argue that he had something to be self-important about, I suppose. Like his wages every week. Kielty, on the other hand, sinks to depths not heard since I was 12 by taking the piss out of people who try and do the Irish accent. He also tells us at least eight or nine times that, after he's got the slight annoyance of his well-paid job at the BBC out of the way today, that he's going back to Ireland for the weekend. And then he tells us each time how he's getting there, right down to the road numbers he'll be using. Anyone wanting to bump him off on Saturday would've had a decent chance. WHY DID NO-ONE DO THIS?

Kielty seems to be one of those modern "entertainers" (and that's in the loosest sense anyone's ever used a word) who think that if their agent gets them on the telly, in the papers and on the radio enough times, then people will love them. James Corden also suffers from this mightily disruptive ailment. Could they be more wrong? Answer: no.

Then there's "Jules", who tells us all how many traffic jams we're going to be stuck in with the sort of glee that can only make me think she was bullied at school. And if she wasn't, she certainly should be now, because she's possibly the biggest psychophant I've heard. And that includes that prick who's on Steve Wright's "Big Show" in the week. Jules laughs at everything Kielty says, and falls foul, in a very willing show of daft loyalty, to his centuries old gender-specific "humour" at every turn. Oh, yeah. Kielty has to remind you he's a man every five minutes. Presumably, he thinks that one day, he'll be deafened by the sound of middle-aged housewives' knickers hitting the deck. I have faith in womanhood, mind.

Of course Kielty could be an annoying wanker, but he might have decent taste in music, so we give him a chance. What saps! Scouting for Girls follows some awful Stevie Wonder pap, following a band called Train who should be derailed immediately and nationalised under workers' control so we can all kick fuck out of them for free.

Seriously, who the fuck makes chart pop music these days, and thinks: "Yeah, the kids are gonna love this rap about me taking them out for meal at Nando's, then proposing and putting a ring on a finger." AND ALL THAT SHIT. I heard castle rhymed with rascal in a song on Radio 1 this weekend. Lucky for the person singing that I didn't catch their name, that's all I can say. I was livid.

Truly, it's only when you listen to Radio 1 for longer than half an hour that you begin to realise the humming, throbbing mediocrity that 16-24s are force-fed nowadays. The DJs think everything "awesome" and "amazing" and they're going to tell you every ten seconds. I reckon if you said you'd just gone round and done a shit and a piss in their washing machine they'd proclaim it "awesome", before telling you that Radio 1 has Pendulum live from Reading this evening, and only then smacking you in the face for being such a dirty bugger.

Five Live, then. That'll be some kind of brief nod towards something of slight intellect, won't it? WRONG. I touch that dial only to find Fred MaCauley on a current affairs debate answering the question: Television or books - which has the more exciting future. FUCK OFF!

I switch the radio off and treat my Significant Other to a rendition of Morrissey and Siouxsie Sioux's 'Interlude'. Oh, how the miles fly by.

Download Chris TT's lost classic, 'Can't Stop Dreaming of Injured Popstars' here.

Notes and queries

The nights are drawing in, the leaves are starting to hit the ground, and there's a new series of X Factor polluting the Saturday night telly scehedule. What can save us?

What's that noise? It's The Notes, a mysterious London band who appear to be all over the internet on that there Twitter, Facebook, Bandcamp and Myspace. However, information on who or what they are seems harder to come by.

Fear not, though, 'cos all you need to know about The Notes is that they make the kind of primal indiepop currently peddled by the likes of Neverever. Add in some Joy Division basslines and some hot! jangly! guitar! action! and it's quite a heady brew, I can tell you.

Anyway, The Notes are Sam, Lauren and Aaron and they deserve your immediate and unconditional love.

Indiepop Days

You can't fart in the comfort of your own bedroom these days without reading or hearing about another Popfest, it seems. As well as the ones in Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow later this year, there's Indie Pop Days in Berlin coming up on 3-5 September.

'Chips favourites such as Bart Cummings, Pocketbooks, The Felt Tips, The Sunny Street, Le Man Avec Les Lunettes are playing, along with a smattering of German bands, and, as ever, the regulation Scandinavian troupes.

Anyway, it all looks a blast. I've never been to Berlin, and there's no way I can make this, but YOU SHOULD. You can get weekend tickets for just 30 euros, which I think works out at 4 guineas sixpence per band, and that, you have to admit is a bargain.

Also: look at that poster!

Right up my Sunny Street

I don't think I've mentioned our weekender in a few weeks time for, ooh, at least four hours, so I thought I would. The Middle Ones, Norwich's very own indiepop Peters & Lee (but without a blind man, of course) have been added as headliners for the Sunday. Ain't life grand?

Also playing the weekender are The Sunny Street, the multinational pop sensation currently residing in that London who feature members of Pocketbooks and Electrophonvintage and probably hundreds of other bands too (I don't know - I'm not hep enough to keep up, and there's always some washing needs doing).

Any road 'round, Roque from Cloudberry Records has gone and put together a video for a track called 'Insull', one of the tracks off the band's new album. It's pretty neat.



Today's top tip: Iceland own-brand cornettos are bloody lovely. You won't notice the difference, honest.

I'm very tired.

Warning: contains mild tweeness

Now, the last thing I'd like to labelled is twee, but since having a kid I've been a regular viewer of CBeebies. There's not a lot you can't tell me there days about Third and Bird, Zoo Lane, The Summer Song and Tommy Zoom. These programmes usually go on in times of extreme weakness like when I need a fag or am about to go mental from being forced to dance junior Metcalf's toy keybaord.

However, giving my son square eyes has it advantages, because these people writing the theme tunes for CBeebies programmes should really be the next indiepop heroes.

Take, for example, the Spanish pop of Charlie and Lola (itself a pretty ace band name):



Or perhaps, like me, you can just hear A Smile and a Ribbon covering the 3rd & Bird theme:



But my favourite at the moment is 64 Zoo Lane, the tune to could easily be an early Belle and Sebastian or Pines song.



Before anyone calls me twee, I'd like to remind you that I have been, more than once, involved in manual labour for a living and have owned a dog bigger than a lady's handbag. I do, however, like cats.

I'll leave you with the masterpiece: 'Summer Song'.



Normal service will resume when I've come into contact with Real Life at work this week.

"That's Mike. Oh, hi!"

I woke up this morning with the kind of hangover only a mixture of Harvest Pale and red wine can give you feeling pretty crappy. The internet has, however, perked me up no end.

And why, dear reader? Well, because Sourpatch have a new single out soon called 'Deli Dream', and I think it's possibly my favourite Sourpatch song in the world. It's out on HHBTM Records, and it's a song so flippin' uplifting that it makes you wonder how you get through the day without listening to it at least fifteen times. Which is what I did do today.

'Deli Dream' is a short, (bitter)sweet nugget pop spectacle. Happy and sad at the same time, it teases you into thinking that it' all going to fall apart at any second before lifting off for the stars all over again. In a year of great, great singles, I think this might be my favourite so far.

Mike from HHBTM was saying earlier that he wants to do some kind of big pop tour of the UK with Sweater Girls, Sourpatch, Afternoon Naps, Cars Can be Blue, Fishboy, Smittens, Keith John Adams, Lovely Eggs, Hotpants Romance, Tunabunny, Casper & the Cookies, and Titans. Comrades, if we don't make this happen, I'll have your guts for garters. Think on.

Tears Run Rings

Ah, now this takes me back to the summer of '92, when I was barely seen without either a Lush or Boo Radleys t-shirt out and about on the mean streets of Grimsby. Back then, if Tears Run Rings had made t-shirts, I'd have owned one.

The band, made of up ex-Autocollants, Laura Watling, and Evening Lights members are streaming their new album on facebook, and it ticks every one of my shoegaze boxes. Hazy, mysterious vocals, layers of fluffy (and sometimes cutely harsh) guitar, and a female voice in the background that is barely audible, but just has to be there. Oh, and some pretty pop sensibilities. This might just be the finest shoegaze record to emerge since Slowdive's 'Just For a Day'. You could say I like it a lot.

You can pre-order 'Reunion' from the ever-wonderful Tone Vendor. It's pay day next Tuesday, and that's first on my list of 'things to do' for the day.

Here's 'Forgotten', which comes from the band's previous album, 'Distance' that was released only a couple of weeks ago, apparently. I'm way behind...