My favourite individual track from Richard Hawley's masterful Truelove's Gutter is Open Up Your Door. However, when I listen to the album all the way through, I enjoy Remorse Code best. It's all about context.

I'm sure you all have similar experiences. Care to share?

This is sad, but perhaps predictable:
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1262747_man_behind_fr...

I would happily contribute, and I'm sure many others would. Does anyone know of a fund?

The BBC commits a great howler here, confusing the respected producer for the Just The Way You Are Hitmaker with Da Bruddas Ramone (read past the Phil Collins stuff):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10348375.stm

Google Insights is a fun way to find out what's going on in the music business.

Here is a graph showing the three synthpop divas - La Roux, Florence & The Machine, Little Boots in terms of searches on Google over the last year:

Interesting, because it shows interest peaking and dropping off, except for Little Boots who seems to sustain a low level of interest.

Tracking the growth in interest yields interesting results...

This data appears to show that Little Boots will sustain a career whereas the other two attract and repel people at high volume.

Does anyone have any other good graphs from Google Insights?

Earlier today I played the new Son Volt album on standard iPod headphones. I tend to use them because they are cheap and it doesn't matter if they get battered around. I can wind them around the pod and stick it in my pocket.

Anyway, the album sounded terrible.

Just came home and dusted off my Grado SR60s, as recommended to me by an American friend. The same album now sounds like the greatest thing I've heard all year. It lives and breathes. I feel like I'm in the same room that it was recorded in.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but decent headphones really do make a difference. I wonder how much music gets overlooked just because of how we listen to it? It's all too easy to audition some music and move on, because it doesn't grab us, without the realization that we've ruined it for ourselves.

I am 41, and like the Mars Volta. What started as an emergency supplement to my King Crimson habit, has now overtaken it, and I find myself obsessing over this band.

It's not as if I don't understand the criticisms. They are prog, pretentious, loud, unsubtle, shrill, too prolific for their own good, cryptic, self indulgent, insert another obvious negative point here. Trouble is, that sounds like a convincing manifesto to me. An antidote to the so-called landfill indie that's out there. A band that's actually worth caring about.

I started with Deloused in the Comatorium, which sounded a bit like a mighty band with edges blunted by excessive opiate intake, and slightly compromised by Rick Rubin's involvement. That's exactly what it was (it was still exactly what I wanted to hear). By the second album, they had gone straight-edge, and in Frances The Mute, delivered the most utterly pretentious prog rock opus of all time (at that point). The singles that were released contained another 20 minutes of material to supplement it (you could edit it into the running order). It was preposterous. And fantastic.

Then the live album, Scab Dates. Edited from many dates, and with field recordings thrown in - avant garde, completely wrong by the normal rules, and yet still strangely addictive. Almost immediately followed by Amputecture, where guitarist/producer/leader Omar Rodriguez-Lopez handed nearly all the guitar duties to regular hired hand John Frusciante to concentrate on the production. The sound was settling in to something unique. Just as I thought it was safe, along came The Bedlam In Goliath, with new drummer Thomas Pridgen soloing throughout, and I can safely say that this is the most ferocious thing I have ever heard, as well as easily the most preposterous. The energy in the following clip is a joy to behold:

The current album, Octahedron, is a quieter affair, with more focus on melody and ambience, again completely addictive, and leaves you desperate to hear the next one. It is impossible to predict what they are going to do next - progressive rock that actually progresses.

Rodriguez-Lopez has released many solo records, about 13 in the last two years, that show some of the groundwork that goes into making a volta record. One of the best is The Apocalypse Inside An Orange, a sort of acid/psych/jazz/freakout with Money Mark on keyboards. It is how you would imagine a Miles/Hendrix album to sound. You can listen to it here: http://omarrodriguezlopez.bandcamp.com/album/the-apocalypse-inside-of-an...

So, I eagerly await a kicking from the massive. Should I get help?

I've long believed that there are two categories of artist. There are those who understand the nature of their talent (however small) and why people like it, and those who are bewildered by it.

In music, the first category is made up of journeymen artists, who put out a long succession of music that is tailor-made to please their fans. They don't overreach themselves. Tom Petty is perhaps an example. The second category is an interesting one, because it not only includes giants like McCartney (who struggles to connect with the public and himself regularly), but also people who become famous by accident in talent shows, or through a surprise hit single.

McCartney obviously suffers for it, I reckon. He really tries so hard. The most recent release (Electric Arguments - which I like) could be seen as deliberately making a bad record to see if it connects with people, perhaps based on the realization that the ones he really sweats over are not popular.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this subject? Who are the people who are at home with their talents? Who are the people who struggle to understand it?

While many of this parish were having a rough old time with Dylan, I was at the quaint Tamworth Assembly rooms watching Spiers and Boden. These guys are the leaders of avant-garde folk-funk big band Bellowhead, and also play as a duo - and what an incredible sound they make. It sounds like five people on stage.

Jon Boden plays fiddle, stomps on an amplified wooden board, and sings. John Spiers plays melodeon and concertina, and does some backing vocals. They play music derived from traditional folk but it has influences from minimalism and uncategorizable acts like the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. They are funny, entertaining and wind up the traditionalists somewhat.

A couple of purchases at the gig, their most recent duo album Vagabond and Jon Boden's recent solo album Songs from the Floodplain, prove that not only are they prolific, but importantly they appear to be creatively at the top of their game.

Any other fans out there? Is there anyone in the massive who finds their take on folk to be a step too far?

I greatly enjoyed the section on fanclubs this month in the mag. I've been on both sides of the fence here. I belonged to the ELO fanclub too, much like Andrew Collins, and whilst I still love their slightly ersatz music, moved on quite quickly. Joining it in about 1980 when the hits started to dry up probably didn't help.

I also ran one for some time with my wife. It was the fanzine/information service for Boo Hewerdine/Eddi Reader/Gary Clark and associated artists called 'Ignorance!'. We became good friends with most of the artists and I even got a chance to play with Boo on stage a few times, and it was mostly a fantastic experience getting involved. It only went sour when it turned from a hobby into something approaching a job, and also anything like this attracts a mixture of people. It only takes a few hardcore nutters to scare you and make you think twice about it. I'd imagine that most folks who get into running clubs/fanzines experience this. Obviously it's worse for the artists. And that's scary (lyrical reference for Boo fans).

Anyone else done it?

George Lamb, the talentless himbo on 6music, rightfully gets some stick from just about anyone with a brain. But what about the BBC Radio network's other bad signings? In particular, the perennially annoying Sarah Kennedy. She has many obscure catchphrases...

"he may be tonsorially challenged, but he's welcome on this show at any time" (James Taylor)
"the Banglingtons" (The Bangles)
"I haven't heard that in a goodly long time" (anything really really well known and overplayed, like Build Me Up Buttercup, and she really does seem to believe she hasn't heard it for ages)
"here she is, in her ratting suit" (the travel woman)
"Sainsbugs" (Sainsburys)
"SW's to you" (a reference to the Steve Wright 'Love the Show' tradition)
"chesticles" (some sort of illness that causes her to be replaced by Aled Jones)
"I hope you've got out of your trucklebed" (no idea)
"I hope you've got your gamp with you" (ditto)

There must be other annoyances from this most unpredictable of DJ's...