Had a wicked weekend on my friend Baz's stag do. I'm gonna be his best man at his wedding to Debs in Septemeber, and I'm a bit nervous to be honest, what with the speeches and all that. The stag was ace - we stayed in a tipi in Ogmore, not too far from Bridgend. Horseriding was the highlight, and quite a funny site. I had the eldest horse, called Arnie, and he liked to eat quite a bit. Great minds and all that...

Hearing a lot about Los Campesinos now, which is great news. I've been enjoying their demo today, and see they have some dates coming up. Their web adress is www.myspace.com/loscampesinos. I Youtubed them earlier and came across an American lady dancing to them in her home. Not bad for an unsigned band from Cardiff!

Been putting together the running order for tomorrow nights show today, as well as pre recording a few of the shows I do for BBC Radio Cymru. I listen to the music that's sent in and the stuff I buy all week, going through the piles of tunes and myspace music. Then I sit down with an empty running order with the session tracks in, and the records Louise the producer has flagged up to me. And then it's done!

Just been listening to the gorgeous Bat For Lashes album. it's incredible, her voice cutting through everything and sending tingles down spines. Also the Oneida album that'll be out on Jagjaguar/Rough Trade is very good indeed - rollicking in fact! And the Helen Love single I played you last week is sooo good....

THAt F****ng Tank and Quack Quack are in session tonight on the show. Both are amazing, both from Leeds, both making new music of that the kind that makes you want to wet yourself in excitement. I saw Quack QUack at Resonance FM doing a session where Aun Tan Lan was sessioning too, and That Fing Tank at a gig in Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff a while back. Listen again if you missed it, and turn it up.

I had a lot of fun at Sesiwn Fawr Dolgellau last weekend, with loads of ace bands playing, from Estonian/Swansea duo Sild to the Ukele Orchestra of Great Britain, GLC to Euros Childs, Radio Luxembourg to Gareth Bonello, Hayseed Dixie to Los Abajos from Mexico, South African band Freshly Ground to the poppy Poppies.. and so much more. I like festivals. I like being outside with smelly sandals on with the sun shining. It makes you realise how lucky you are really.

On the Radio 1 in Wales show this week, Midasuno are in session. Lamacq has been playing them on his show recently, and their new tunes sound superb. I'm off to Brussels tomorrow to see my girlfriend and to half some raspberry falvoured beer and probably some nice steak, and then it's my mate Baz's stag do on the weekend. We're staying in tipis and going on the back of horses. This is what we does.

h

Just got off the train, which had all sorts of probelms because of the heat. The tracks get warm, the buffet cart gets warm, everyone gets warm.

On said train, I was listening to

Grizzly Bear - Yellow House, comingout in September on Warp. Very good. Not electronic, but spooky, spacey....

Big Scary Monsters sampler - the New Blood. Got Get Cape on it, Secondsmile, the Campaign for Real Time, and two great tracks from Jairus and Itch.... Check www.bsmrocks.com

James Dean Bradfield's the Great Western album. Some great songs on there, The Wrong Beginning, An English Gentleman, To See a Friend in Tears being my favourite. Well produced, great lyrics....

Wang Lei - dub and bass from China. Nuff said...

Tonight on the show its Marissa Nadler in session. She is amazing, really haunting and eery, beautiful and otherworldly. She's got a track on a new compilation called Folk Off that da Bank has compiled. It's a great album - Richard Swift, Vashti, Tunng and so many more on there.

So do check Marissa out tonight if you can....

Also, we'll be doing a covers special on the show in August, so any suggestions of good quality covers (no rubbish 'uns please!), do post them here or emal them in to [email protected]

Bye!

Hello boys and girls and anyone still undecided… I sit here on a sunny day in London with my little boy Arlo chewing on my thumb and making noises in his nappy. It's a 'appy scene to be sure.

Just been listening to Jarvis of the Cockers new song - Running The World, with the immortal chorus of: 'c**ts are still running the world'. Its grandiose, witty and brave - just what the bespectacled doctor ordered for a sick pop world … but possibly won't get much radio play!

Check it out at: https://www.myspace.com/jarvspace

Since we last spoke I've been doing a fair amount of festivals - both as punter and DJ. T In The Park was ace - I managed to drag about 5000 people in at 1145am for some techno action in the Slam tent. Only in Scotland could this happen - must be something in the water but it's so great to see everyone really letting go and having a whale of a time.

Went to Latitude this weekend in Suffok which is a more arty affair entirely - lots of poetry and spoken word … and the Welsh wizard Huw Stephens hosting a stage. Managed to see one band in an entire day - Howling Bells who were great but not as good as I'd hoped.

Check out One Music on Thursday to hear the incredible Vashti Bunyan and Ive got Hot Chip in session on the Blue Room Saturday and Sunday.

Adios amigos

;)

I don't think I remember Cardiff being this hot. And it's not just Cardiff is it, but bloomin everywhere. The shorts I bought in Spain have come in very handy today....

I got back from the Latitude festival this morning and had a great time. I had the pleasure of programming the Lake Stage, and so got to see a whole load of bands and artists i've been playing in the Radio 1 shows over the last year and a bit. That was Das Wanderlust and Jim Eldon, Rory McVicar and Manilla, Fernhill and Andrew Hockey, Mugstar and Lords, Voices and Euros Childs, Get Cape and Rich James and so many more. There was a very nice vibe to the whole festival - it was clean and picturesque, the setting great and loads of thing happening all the time - lots of great bands of course, but interesting things in poetry, literature and cabaret tents too, from burlesque dancers to Howard Marks and John Cooper Clarke.

There was almost too much to take in, and it got me looking forward to next year, and set me up for the weekends away I have coming up at ace festivals I've listed in below blogs. Oh, and the orange, green , red and yellow sheep were a nice touch:)

Am listening to Lamacq Live as I type, having watered the dehydrated plant in the garden and put the records I'm playing on tomorrow nights show in a neat pile. Now, it's time to doze off......

Hello again

hope you're enjoying the crazily unpredictable weather. i keep doing the incredibly grown up thing of going places and, when it starts to rain, shouting 'oh no! I've left the clothes on the line!' and so there's socks all over the back garden concrete....

I enjoyed my last weekend home for the next couple of months as the festival season kicks off. This weekend it's the first ever Latitude festival in Southwold, Suffolk, where I'm hosting the Lake Stage. There's Euros Childs, get Cape.Wear Cape.Fly, Early Years, Rich James, Mr Hopkinsons Computer, Das Wanderlust, Lords, Cate le Bon, Andrew Hockey and a whole lot more playing my stage. Then it's Sesiwn Fawr Dolgellau, my mate Baz's stag do in tipis, Big Chill, the Eisteddfod in Swansea, the Green Man Festival, the mighty Bestival (anyone got a spare clown outfit?), Macs Festival in Carmarthen and who knows where else I'll end up.

Got a smart looking show for you tonight, with Plans & Apologies and Dragonflies Draw Flame sets live from Maida Vale, two sparkling examples of mighty fine bands coming out of Derby at the moment. As well as the usual mix of fresh new tunes that I've been keeping under my matress for the last seven days...

laterz

h

I'd never been to Ibiza before the weekend just gone, and I've got to go back . What a beautiful part of the world it is, but then, it doesn't need me to tell it that. The place is legendary of course, and it was a real eye opener going there. I dj'd at the Rogue Indie night on Sunday in the Extasis club, with Young Knives playing.

They are great, straight out of Oxford, and raised on Pulp and releasing records on Shifty Disco, and now Transgressive. The bassist is called House of Lords, becuase he questions everything the other two do. Seeing them play onstage with a few scantily clad ladies was odd to say the least, and the club rocked it till the early hours. DJ Arcane played loads of crowd pleasers, and I spun a whole host of other tunes. Hello to the folk who came to say heelo while I was pressing play on cd players, and hello to the giant beetle I saw on the floor there. And thanks to Matt and Andee Rogue Indie for looking after me and taking me to see the Rockaoke. I've honestly never heard an Alanis Morissette song being sung so bad, believe it or not...

Check out the Young Knives debut album, coming out soon. I am.

I bought one record in a shop called Solo, had a drink the legendary Cafe del Mar right by the deep blue sea, and topped up my Tapestry Festival Port Talbot suntan. I'm thinking of giving up djing these guitar bands though, it's chill-out beats for me all the way from now on:)

Only joking of course - tonight, for example, the OneMusic show goes all Dance to the Radio on your asses, with iliketrains live from Maida Vale, and a few other tunes on said label. Rob has This Et Al on his show on Thursday too.

For those of you who've contacted me asking about the show moving with the Radio schedule changes in September, I'm pleased the show is still on air from then on in. It'll be on Wednesday nights from midnight, still playing loads of new unsigned music. SO do keep them coming - I listen to everything that's sent to me.

HOpe you can tune in tonight

h

I haven't posted here in over a week - very bad form! Last week I tried to post about how I didn't see Take That, how the Daedelus gig was really good, and loads of records I'd been hearing, but soemthing, somewhere went wrong. And I tried to post this morning, but the computer I was using ran out of credit!

Anyways, went to see a few bands last week. Me, Beth and Radio Ed the producer went to see the ace metal of Panel and a new band called The New 1920. They're made up of a few members of the disbanded Douglas, sounded good. It was only their second gig too. Downstairs I enjoyed watching previous OneMusic unsigned electronic dude John Barnes playing to a small crowd.

On Friday I met up with the gentlemen from Kruger magazine to talk about their next issue which is all about the future of music! Then it was off to Margam Park, Port Talbot. Last time I was there was to see Catatonia supported by Ian Brown, Big Leaves, Shack and Bjorn Again on my 21st birthday, knee deep in mud.

This time round it was for the Tapestry Festival, based on the London club night run by a nice man named Barry. Relocated from Cornwall, the festival had a medieaval theme this year, whish meant that bands and punters alike were dressed up with cloaks and swords and, err, other medieaval stuff...

My friend Tom was there to see Field Music, but we arrived just as they were coming off the stage. Still, we had a baked potato.

Bethan Elfyn and the Vinyl Vendettas were djing there, and Beth kindly let me sleep in her tent on Friday, while she and her husband slept in their medieaval kitted out campervan. I had a sleeping bag and inflatable mattress and everything! The night was spent drinking mead (how did the medieavlers do it?!), watching Rod Stern, Simple Kid, Mystery Meat and the Hot Puppies.

On Saturday there was jousting (men on horses charging each other with sticks), no mead, the covers-loving Whoredogs, Country Teasers, the ace Early Years and the kazoo-wielding Sibrydion. It was on their red bus I saw England lose on penalties, and on their bus I got back to Cardiff in time for my friend Crav's stag do, no details of which I can mention here....

At 2am on Saturday night I was packing records for Ibiza. I am now in Ibiza, with a lovely red Port Talbot tan. I'll post all about it tomorrow....

too hot to trot so im meandering instead..brain is close to meltdown and whenever my sweaty fingers touch a key on my computer a little plume of steam comes off them

why can the british go to ibiza/canary islands/miami and sit in the sun for 18 hours a day smiling but if its sunny over here we all get road rage, kick our pets and sweat like steamrooms?

anyway gonna play some more thom yorke solo stuff this week..and loads more new exciting electronics..be there!

ps got the pipettes in session on the blue room on sunday too..watch out!