Weekender : the excitement never ends

FREE MUSIC: Another low grade download this week - all of 56kbps - but it's an insight into one of this year's most interesting leftfield releases so far. From Animal Collective quarter Panda Bear's Brian Wilsonian Person Pitch, the barn-sized Comfy In Nautica.

HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: After the discovery of Pete Gofton's doings last week, another scion of the North-Eastern scene now. Round about 2004 there were four Tyne & Wear bands everyone knew were going to be big and do interesting stuff, but while Maximo Park, the Futureheads and Field Music went on either sell out big venues or produce music that should have done the Golden Virgins fell apart after a solitary album that passed most by. Singer Lucas Renney has now set off on his own with a set of melancholic acoustic demos largely recorded by Peter Brewis of Field Music (apart from one overseen by that man Gofton) that might just do it for him at the second time of asking.

VISUAL REPRESENTATION: Nuggets alumni and garage rock of the same era this week, because YouTube is full of grainy mimed rarities of the very top drawer. Watch the girls go wild by the pool for Count Five's Psychotic Reaction and the 13th Floor Elevators' You're Gonna Miss Me (no wonder Roky Eriksson went mad), wonder where the organist went for the Kingsmen's Louie Louie who couldn't look less subversive if they tried, admire the Arabian-themed magician get-up of Sam The Sham as he sings Woolly Bully, note the arty direction frames the Seeds' Pushin' Too Hard and see the Electric Prunes sock it to The Man on The Mike Douglas Show.

VIRAL MARKETING: We saw the Maccabees at the weekend, making sure to keep as far at the back as possible while still being able to see what was going on. The kids go mad for them alright. Colour It In is out on May 14th and the 4 Music strand put out a JD Set live performance and interview at the weekend, archived here and here.

FALLING OFF A BLOG: reallyrather isn't an mp3 blog, but it does get wordily excited about new music in a way we only like to think we do.

EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: We've never been totally convinced by Simon Reynolds' print journalism but his books hit the nub of his themes squarely on the head, so we're intrigued by forthcoming polemicism prose Bring the Noise: Twenty Years Of Writing About Hip Rock And Hip Hop, published 3rd May and advertised by Reynolds talking to Fact magazine about where both themes are heading.

IN OTHER NEWS: We've not forgotten More Songs To Learn And Sing, but given we've not had any volunteers outside the list of people we were going to contact anyway we feel we have to remind you subtly every so often. So: do you want to write a few words about the song that everyone should hear for publication in June? You do? Well, contact us, then.