This week's DIY Label of the Week is the brilliant Suffering Jukebox label from Manchester.

Started to help promote new bands, and doing so marvellously, they've got releases under their belt by Mazes, Brown Brogues and Coleen Green already, and a lot more forthcoming.

Independent and uncompromising, their love of melodies, ideas and energy is evident, so I caught up with Jack (also in the aforementioned Mazes) to get the lowdown...

Listen again to Huw Stephens on Radio 1 or download this week's podcast, featuring a track from Milk Maid on Suffering Jukebox

Lights Go Blue are an 'edgy electronic pop rock' duo hailing from Gravesend in Kent. Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned on their website that they've been playing gigs at far-flung legendary venues like The Troubador in Los Angeles or The Gramercy Theatre, New York.

And they haven't stopped there, in fact they've played a whole host of US dates that even The Rolling Stones would have been proud of, whilst supporting Enter Shikari. Pretty impressive.

How much fun must it be travelling all over the States as the support act?! You get to play to crowds that aren't really expecting much from you, then hit the bar, go crazy for the rest of the gig, and finish the night exchanging stories on he road with old grey long-haired Texan cowboys. What could be better? (I hope there are at least some bands out there reading this that still dream the Rock n' Roll dream... well, my vision of it, at least).

Lights Go Blue come recommended by BBC Kent Introducing, and Tom Robinson on 6 Music is also a fan. This track, Flashlights, is from their EP This Is Spectrum, which is out now.

Links

https://www.lightsgoblue.com/

https://www.myspace.com/lightsgoblue

Eeeeeasy rudeboys/girls, let me introduce you to The Foot Clan, fresh off da uploada!

That's right, BBC Introducing in West Yorkshire put forward this grime/dubstep/hiphop crew from Leeds, and now here they are for you to listen to.

Now this Foot Clan is not led by the evil Shredder, but by a female MC who goes by the name of MC Taurus. She hooks up with her two drummers, two turntablists, and some stinking live bass and synths. I wonder which Foot Clan the Mutant Ninja Turtles would rather bump into in a dark alley?

(OK, after reading that Wikipedia entry I'm definately going to have to find all of the original Ninja Turtles cartoons and watch every single one back to back. Look how good the end credits were for a start. They just dont make cartoons like they used to).

Anyway, Ninja Turtles aside, The Foot Clan already have a decent little collection of beats behind them, all hand made, and when you add a politically concious female MC with a feisty flow, you have a recipe for something quite explosive (check out In This Country).

At a time when a lot of record labels seem to be cashing in on 'urban' music and bringing it to the masses, it's refreshing to hear a genuinely raw sound that hasn't been poisoned by the industry. And with the original Yorkshire rapper Braintax still sadly in retirement, theres always a place in my heart for hip-hop with a northern twang.

But don't just take my word for it, as Neil Buchanan would say, try it yourself.

Links

Myspace.com/footclanuk

Facebook.com - THE:FOOT:CLAN

Fixit Kid are a 4 piece from Derby, but don't assume this simply means singer, lead guitarist, bassist and drummer. No, no, no. Their Facebook page offers a far more descriptive breakdown:

Mat = Voice of reason

Jay = High-freq sixstring attack

Olly = Low end sonic rumble

Dan = Pounding tribal rock action

I was looking forward to sampling some pounding tribal rock action, and I think this week's tip, Release The Dogs, delivers just that (although voice of reason I'm not sure about; voice of angry person, maybe).

It's released on Fight Me Records, which also has some pretty angry names associated with it, such as Death Of Thieves - An Angel Has Your Knife and You Judas - Rolling in The Blood. So if you need a bit of a Friday afternoon stress relief, this could be the label for you.

They’ve supported the likes of Dead Kennedys, Mclusky and Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster and Mike Davies from the Radio 1 Punk Show has also shown his support. But you don't need Mike from LA to tell you what's cool, do you? No. Check them out for yourselves right here, right now:

Links

https://www.myspace.com/fixitkid

https://www.myspace.com/fightmerecords

Hello. Huw here with this week's DIY Label of the Week. You can spot them a mile off. The cartoon posters, the ace flyers and the multi-colour artwork says one thing; Greco-Roman.

The collective promotes, presses and plugs new music from across the squelchiest of genres, and they're doing it for the love of it. They've backed recent releases from Drums of Death (check our their Maida Vale session for BBC Introducing from back in the day!), Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and Joe Goddard.

I spoke to Alex from the label in Berlin to get the lowdown...

Links:

https://www.myspace.com/grecoromanmusic

https://www.greco-roman.co.uk/

https://soundcloud.com/greco-roman/

Normally, you expect to hear murmurs when exciting new bands form. Word of mouth spreads through friends of friends and anticipation builds steadily as the world awaits the group's first demos.

But every once in a while, an act takes you utterly by surprise, springing to life out of nowhere, seemingly fully-formed with tunes that instantly rock your world.

This is true of our tip this week, YAAKS.

Try as you might, you won't find much out about them, except:



(i) They're from Eastbourne. Or Brighton. We're not sure which.

(ii) They're some kind of six-sided hive mind

(iii) They're into philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (look it up).

That's literally all we have to go on at the moment. In fact, when a member of the band uploaded HRHRHYTHM to us on 10 October (thanks!), here's the profile information they gave us:

Since then, an elite handful of music blogs have raved about YAAKS, including Illegal Tender, The Recommender, Neu Magazine and Mybandsbetterthanyourband. There's also a post on German site, aufgemischt.com, which features the brilliant words Geheimniskrämerei (secrecy), Vermarktungsstrategie (marketing strategy) and Nichtinformation (err... keeping things on the down low). So, you get the picture.

You might remember the mighty Islet (who, by the way, were immense at Swn this year) kept a similarly low profile last year, and everyone got very excited, ourselves included. Keeping schtum certainly hasn't stopped YAAKS attracting the attentions of Radio 1's Zane Lowe, who played the band on Wednesday this week, and Rob Da Bank, who declared this track one of his favourites of 2010.

There's a lot to be said for letting the music do the talking. So, with that in mind, here's Huw to introduce the unpronounceable HRHRHYTHM:

Links:

https://www.myspace.com/weareyaaks

https://soundcloud.com/yaaks

https://twitter.com/weareyaaks

This Fall...

From November 6th to November 12th

An unforgettable tale of love, revenge, and rock n' roll,

showing for one week only, in a city near you.

Experience some of the legendary BBC Introducing stage performances of the summer,

on the biggest of screens.

From the people who bought you the epic performances from Glastonbury and T in The Park.

This is...

OK, so it's not quite Hollywood, but who needs Hollywood when you have so many blockbusting cities here in the UK with their very own big screens. 16 of them in fact.

Between 6 - 12 November, participating BBC big screens around the UK will be featuring a montage of performances from local artists who have performed on our festival stage this year. You should be able to catch the videos around lunchtimes and early evenings

So where are these big screens I hear you cry? Well, you will find them in the following cities:

Edinburgh - Belfast - Middlesbrough - Leeds - Bradford - Manchester - Derby*** - Leicester - Swansea - Cardiff - Bristol - Swindon - Portsmouth - Dover - Norwich - London (Waltham Forest)



And if you want to know exactly where to find each screen, take a look at this map.

So if you're wandering around the shops, grabbing a sandwich on your lunch break, or hitting the town for a night out, do pause and check out some brilliant live music on our big screen. You won't be disappointed.

*** Update - the BBC Big Screen team have informed us they're having some technical problems with the screen in Derby, so the BBC Introducing video won't be shown until Monday 8 November.