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Warning: This review can cause severe jealousy! Ah Barcelona. What a city! We touch down in the golden glow of setting sun, and hit the sticky tarmac; embracing that warmth that bounces off walls and fills you with smiles. I was back for more Primavera Festival fun, which I've decided is most definitely one of the best festivals in the world.

Primavera crowd. Photo: Inma Varandela

First stop, a quick check-in to a beautiful apartment overlooking the marina of Port Vell. Our balcony has one of the best views in the world: the city, the sea, the mountains, the boats, and looks down on an ants nest circuit of tourist buses and people bustling around the seafood restaurants. Perfect. It's late already, but life in Barcelona is only just kicking into life - no wonder they need a siesta in the afternoon.

Word on the street is that there's a B Music party in a swanky hotel called Me. B Music is the collective of DJs including Andy Votel, Cherrystones, and Bob Stanley from St Etienne, who like to unearth rare records, and have released compilations on the label Finders Keepers including the Welsh Rare Beat collections.

The modern, sculptured lobby of the hotel is awash with the seven inch 60s sounds of Bob Stanley's record collection, and beautiful people are looking nonchalantly on. There's a queue snaking through the sofas, past Wayne Coyne, past Big Boi's posse and seems to be heading into the elevators. Yes, this is the entrance to the club that's on the sixth floor. I feel like I've entered a 'Being John Malkovich' surreal world. On the club floor there's a pool and deck area, and the whole situation is gorgeous beyond belief. Needless to say it was a rather fun way to start the visit here to Barcelona, a beautiful, modern, glamorous and above all totally unpretentious city.

One of the treats at Primavera is that unlike UK festivals, the main activities don't really start till the evening, so there's time in the day to wander the city, head to the beach, shop for food at the amazing indoor market, eat tapas, go sightseeing or whatever. Barcelona is full of gorgeous little shops too - I found one 80s clothes closet which was a new favourite. There's always something new to discover. Yes, this is a busman's holiday but I'm not complaining one bit.

Grinderman. Photo: Dani Canti

Okay, back to the festival.

Thursday. The Welsh massive are in early to catch who are playing the ATP stage at 6pm. A few technical hitches aside, they are impressive and feel like they're ready for the international stage. They are certainly a band with something different to offer in the current musical climate. Passionate, instinctive and breath-taking, whether in a small club or scaling the stage at Primavera.

(On the metro home on the last night a girl from Paris is telling me all about this band she's discovered at the festival, called Islet! They've put in a memorable performance.)

The rest of my Thursday night I wander around and catch the following: , a delightfully bonkers band, who wash the mainstage with wrestlers, balloons, and all sorts of madness. Glasser, edgy electro with the soaring vocals of Cameron Mesirow, Big Boi from Outkast and a full stage of party hip hop energy and dancing girls. The highlight of the night is the menace and darkness of . They are severe, beautiful, energetic, raw and everything you want from a band. The songs are unique, gems, something I want to listen to in a dark room, something private, something pained, something that just speaks directly like a sinner at a confessional - it's like pleading for mercy out loud. If you think I'm being dramatic, check this description from John Robb:

"There is some biblical thunder going on up there. Breathing fire and brimstone and speaking in tongues with songs of lust and fury Grinderman are, perhaps, the best rock band in the world. Their sound is all at once tough, dark and spliced with a foul, black humour. Like a bunch of gunslingers posing as god's servants they take the stage in beautifully cut suits and some of the best hair and beards on god's own stinking earth." My night ends at the furthest point of the festival with Interpol, and Caribou, and then sadly my heavy eye lids don't make it through till Flaming Lips, who take to the stage at 2.30am. I'm done for the night with a dark but happy heart."

.

Friday. I start my day chilling on a grass bank looking down on the main stage, drinking in the late evening sun. 's warm country sounds spill around the arena from the main stage. He plays one of my all time favourite tracks, his version of Buddy Holly's Rave On, and the night is well and truly on.

Onwards from the main stage to see British band , who are criminally underrated in the UK, but seem to be on one massive European jaunt this year. They have a remincent sound to Led Zep, and sound classic without being pastiche or cheesily retro. It's a big, rich, passionate and unique sound, that particularly makes me wanna headbang while watching!

I don't know why I'm not a little more adventurous for the next couple of hours, as I've never been a huge Belle And Sebastian fan, but their festival set is back to back hits, and I' m sucked in, and probably getting a bit excited by now about the main band of the weekend, the re-emergence, and revival of Pulp.

Pulp. Photo: Inma Varandela

It's slightly weird for me to be seeing so many of the bands that had such a huge influence on me growing up; that impressionable era of leaving school, and short few years at university. The Charlatans, Blur, Primal Scream, St Etienne, Suede, Echo And The Bunnymen, Sonic Youth and Mercury Rev: 90s bands in droves are coming back together and performing classic albums. Tonight with Pulp it feels very special and their music has certainly lived on beyond the bands' touring life and songs like Common People and Disco 2000; just absolute all-time classics.

The set runs like this: Do You Remember The First Time, Pink Glove, Pencil Skirt, Something Changed, Disco 2000, Babies, Sorted For Es and Wizz, Feeling Called Love, I Spy, Underwear, This is Hardcore, Sunrise, Bar Italia, Common People, Razzmatazz.

Jarvis is charm personified throughout, and dedicates Common People to the recent treatment of protestors in Barcelona's Placa De Cataluna. The whole set is considered, intelligent, fun, beautiful and uplifting pop at its very best, and Jarvis such a strong and confident front man. I'm trying to remember if the skinny strange dancer I saw when Pulp toured my University in the 90s is still the same man. Older and worldly wise he maybe, but with a life of experiences to add to that one time 'outsider' status, and a growing three decades of cult followers, he's becoming more and more impressive and a man you can listen to. It's why we still need bands like Pulp, and front men like Jarvis, and I'm so glad that pop is more and more allowing everyone to grow old disgracefully.

John Cale. Photo: Dani Canto

Saturday. Saturday starts in a very special way, in the dark auditorium with a Welsh music legend about to take to the stage. John Cale is performing Paris 1919 with full orchestra, bands and backing singers. Wow and again I say wow! The next hour I am in raptures. Cale's voice sounds strong and forthright, not a word spoken just absolutely lush orchestrations of amazing songs.

The run around the festival continued with Tuneyards, Fleet Foxes, Einsturzende Neubauten, Swans, Money Mark, Gang Gang Dance, Kurt Vile, and back to the main stage for PJ Harvey and Animal Collective, before ending the festival over with Pissed Jeans and DJ Shadow.

PJ Harvey. Photo: Inma Varandela

It takes till the last night to really get into the swing of the festival, the late nights, running from one end of the wide festival site to another, and feeling like the Spanish sea legs are in full working order. Still, better late than never, and it is a great night to end the festival, with so many delightful discoveries, and audio and visual simulations. Primavera, I'm booking again for next year: 2012 here we come!

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is now available via the iPlayer.

I'll keep it brief this week, because even z-List radio 'personalities' have rubbishy DIY tasks to fulfil on a Bank Holiday Monday, like a low-rent, really-let-himself-go, B&Q Hercules (for the record: I need to complete the Odyssey of the Front-Door, which involves capturing glittering brassware from the perilous passages of the local hardware emporium. Wish me luck!)

I've decided I'm going to try and curb my use of unmerited, casually tossed around hyperbole. About time, really. I've butchered more 'AMAAAAZINGS', 'AAAAWESOMES' and 'FANTASTIIIICS' than the combined scripts of Disney's teen channel. So this week's show contains some fine and interesting music... more per square kilohertz of airwave than quite a few others.

Hmm.

Sorry, I can't rein myself in like that.

This week's show is brimful of brilliance.

Including an exclusive play of a track from Black Serpent Choir's peripatetic new album, and first-time plays for Yaj, Jodie-Marie, Jumping Back Slash, People Of Pontic Origin, Shifty Sarah, Repeater 64, Touchstone Pictures, Apostles, Just Keep Swimming, Giles Barratt, Fingurz, Dataslaves and Rob Harrison.

Huw Williams again reminds us of the groovy excellence of Tony Sheveton's early recordings.

Lara Catrin translates my favourite song from Lleuwen's gritty and superlative recent album, Tn.

Ben Hayes inspires us with some Van Der Graaf Generator.

Please send new noise / gig info / banter to: themysterytour@gmail.com

If it's the 1st time you've submitted music to the show, I recommend you check out the blogs linked to below (of course I do):

They're quite long.

Has anyone got a screwdriver?

Flipping Bank Holidays! Do enjoy yours, though and have an excellent week,

Adam Walton

- 'Once Around Again ( Session Track )'
Capel Curig / Betws Y Coed

- 'Magicians'
Cardiff

- 'Helter Skelter ( Soundhog Remix )'
Liverpool

- 'Dinosaur. Train. Postman. Mouse.'
Cardiff / Wallasey

- 'Look For Skull'
Cardiff

- 'Honey All Over'
Bethesda

- 'The Voyeur'
Los Angeles / Cardiff Label

- 'Hong Kong'
Cardiff

- 'Single Blank Canvas'
Narberth, Pembrokeshire

- 'Snakes In The Grass'
Wales

- 'Indigo'
Caernarfon / Cardiff

- 'Kwaai Sneakers'
Ikapa / Wrexham

- 'Fireworks'
Neath

PEOPLE OF PONTIC ORIGIN - 'Those Snakes Will Get Nanette'
Bethesda

- 'Glory Horn ( Alt. Edit )'
Cardiff

HUW WILLIAMS - 'Spoken Contribution'
Swansea

TONY SHEVETON - 'I Have A Feeling'
Cardiff

- 'Raise The Battle Cry'
Cardiff

- 'Yellow Brick Road'
Newport

- 'Bounce'
Bangor / Cardiff

- 'Hypnic Jerk ( Radio Edit )'
Cardiff

- 'Better By Design'
Bridgend / Sweden

- 'State'
Milford Haven

- 'Dagga'
Newport

TOUCHSTONE PICTURES - 'Night Eraser'
Dunvant

- 'Brecwast Astronot'
Denbigh

- 'Paranoid'
Nefyn

- 'Come Home'
Caerphilly

- 'Pen Rhydd'
Penmachno

- 'Centre Fade'
Old Radnor Powys

- 'The Moss Will Tell'
Wrexham

- 'Leonardo Dicappuccino'
Neath

- 'Cross My Heart'
Newport

- 'Bop The Bopping Bunnies'
Cardiff

- 'We Love You'
Swansea

- 'Tesco Disco'
Cardiff

- 'Brighton Bossa'
Mumbles

- 'Reasons And Excuses'
Newport

- 'Rockabye'
Cardiff

- 'What's In A Name'
Bangor

JOHN CALE - 'Cable Hogue'
Unknown.

- 'Place Lid On Me'
Bangor

LARA CATRIN - 'Spoken Contribution'
Bangor / Cardiff

- 'Cawell Fach Y Galon'
Bangor

- 'Growing Old'
Bridgend

- 'People Are Innocent'
Betws - Y - Coed

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Ruthin

- 'What's In A Name'
Manchester

- 'Cognitive Overture'
Swansea

When I call Alan Holmes the 'Godfather of the Welsh underground' I'm doing more than mythologising someone who appears regularly on my show, so that I can indulge in some much-needed reflection bathing. Alan deserves the epithet, although I suspect he'd prefer to shrug it off. He's a founder member of Fflaps and Ectogram; he's produced Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and designed striking Bosch-on-mescaline cover art for them (and others). He is a fount of easily shared wisdom behind the counter at Recordiau Cob in Bangor. When Alan says something, it's worth listening to.

He said something prior to my show on Sunday night that has struck a chord in me. And I'm going to share it here so that it strikes a chord with you, too. In this way, I'm hoping that we can catalyse a musical chain reaction across Wales that will shake some interesting music out of the nation's bowers.

The chord we're playing isn't an E Major. It isn't a powerchord either. In fact, not knowing which chord it is, is entirely the point.

"Bands are all very competent, these days, aren't they? There don't seem to be any bands who don't know what they're doing... you know, bands making mistakes and, as a result, sort of doing something interesting."

That was, more or less, the extent of our conversation on this point. We had radio business to hand. Only the business of saving lives or baking cakes is more important. But Alan's sage observation has been tapping me on the shoulder ever since.

In my experience, he's quite right. Young bands in 2011 appear out of nowhere able to play the entirety of Funeral For A Friend's back catalogue note perfect. It seems that - right here, right now - people forming bands can all play. What an awful, prescriptive, suffocating state of affairs!

It's not all that long ago that The Stilletoes were thrillingly bugging the hell out of the bands they were gigging with by treating their instruments like a substance-fuelled one night stand. The majority of music in 2011 is made by people married to their instruments. Snore! It's made by people whose fingers automatically gravitate towards a note that will go with the one that preceded it. You'd be more likely surprised by a Hollywood rom com.

"What? She's going to fall for that dweeb she really hated at the start of the story in the last reel of the film?"

Yes, she is. In perpetuity.

E from the Eels once told me that he has a room filled with odd instruments he can't play. When he's writing he picks up one of these instruments, the one he is least familiar with, and stumbles into its strings or keys or holes knowing that whichever way he bounces off them (if you can bounce off a hole) is likely to be in an interesting new direction. E doesn't want to be the dweeb assigned to a cutey pie in the last reel of a film.

He wants to be a sonic photon, zinging around the universe pseudo-randomly, illuminating the parts of the imagination that other human beings cannot reach.

At least, that's what's listed under 'Occupation' on his passport.

I was fortunate enough to interview eminent physicist and science communicator, Frank Close, for Â鶹Éç Radio Wales' Science Café earlier this week. It was like interviewing an incredibly intelligent and eloquent six year old. His head is still full of questions. None of the doors are closed. But some of us, the less gifted and inspired, spend our lives learning by shutting the doors that open into unexpected rooms.

So, I learnt to shut the A-to-E-flat-Major door pretty early on, cos it wasn't a change apparent in the Small Faces' back catalogue. But I shouldn't have been learning things that prescriptively. Stumble into accidents; do not be afraid of the unknown; put mined whoopee cushions on every easy chair in the front-room of your creativity. I didn't abide to any of these credos. I'm trying to do it now with my writing, and it's embarrassing, isn't it? I'd rather be embarrassing than dull. I've turned into the Dad Dancer of Â鶹Éç Music Blogs.

Bob Dylan

There has been a lot written and broadcast about Bob Dylan over the last few weeks. Seems the ornery fuzzball is 70. But he isn't 70 where it matters. He still plays and sings as if he's never learnt a note on the guitar. His harmonica playing sounds like someone trying to do a through reeds. Â鶹Éç4 and 6Music have been littered with comments from former band members saying things like: "we wouldn't know which song he was going to play next, or how he was going to play it. We just had to go with him. If we could."

If you've seen Bob Dylan live in the last 30 years, or so, you'll know it can be a frustrating business. I stood watching him at Phoenix Festival 15 years ago. One half of the people around me were singing along to Tangled Up In Blue, the other half were mouthing Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat, God knows which song Dylan was doing. But on the occasion when this harem scarem approach works, man, it's thrilling! You get to hear this knackered, restless, wildebeest of a man discover a whole new savannah in songs that've been bleeding into our water table for decades.

Quite a thing.

And it's testament to something that this most titanic of blues artists sees fit to induce incompetence into his performances. I think it's more than just wanting to keep the set he plays hundreds of times every year interesting. I just think it's the way, artistically and intellectually, he has wired himself. Make the moment shine in what you do, don't dull it with pre-meditation.

, Wales' finest record producer and a man whose recorded output is nothing if not peripatetic, also plays keyboard for Julian Cope. Recently he detailed an experience on stage with Cope where he ended up playing a song he hadn't heard for years, let alone played. But that was the moment in the performance that most enervated David, and most gripped the audience. Keep an intuitive musician on their toes and they're more likely to do something amazing.

Back to Dylan. In Scorcese's , Al Kooper tells us the story of his impromptu organ part for Like A Rolling Stone. Kooper had been hired to play guitar, but his six-string talents paled considerably next to another hired gun, Mike Bloomfield's. However Kooper wanted in on the session. He could sense the frisson of history being made in the studio. He shuffled over to the organ when the producer was otherwise distracted. The band (literally) roll into the next take of the song. Kooper stares at Dylan's fingers, trying to fathom which changes are coming. His part starts off hesitant, each swell of the organ an off beat late. But as the song progresses, he gets more familiar with it and the part grows, flourishes, becomes one of its most recognisable features. It's that hesitancy and edge, that narrative, that makes the part and helps give the performance its momentum.

It's a state of grace-thing, is what it is. But it's rarely graceful.

So, where have all the shambolic bands gone?

Where are the happy accidents, the interesting mistakes, the ineptitude that enables surprising feats of expression? Or has rock music become the new jazz? Have we stopped allowing the inept into our cabal?

If you haven't got a clue what you're doing, but you've got ideas that need to get out anyway, please hurl them in my direction.

Be punk, but not Punk, punk.

Welsh indie rockers Kids In Glass Houses have announced details of their third album, and have put a free single on their website, which yesterday crashed under the weight of demand.

Kids In Glass Houses

In Gold Blood will be released on 15 August with its lead single, Gold Blood, out for download on 5 June. However, it's available for free download from for the next couple of days.

Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other Â鶹Éç blog, you will need to sign in to your Â鶹Éç iD account. If you don't have a Â鶹Éç iD account, you can - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of Â鶹Éç sites and services using a single login.

Need some assistance? , or get some .

This week I'm busy trying to avoid the depressing inevitability of a 'significant' birthday. My mid-life crisis won't manifest itself in the shape of a nifty sports car. Nor am I going to try and hoodwink a woman of half my age into thinking my precipitous forehead is distinguished rather than Tefal-like. Nope, I'm just going to hang out with musicians, jollying them along like a careworker without the requisite qualifications. I may grow a pony tail... what do you think?

Fortunately this week's show is much more about the music than it is about me. And I have some truly excellent music with which to beguile > you. The full playlist is below. We have debut plays this week for Audio Herz UK, Discord, Rural, Maxx Roach, Heldinky, Khytop, Deficit and Adam A Williams.

If you have an excellent piece of music, hot out of Garageband or Ableton Live, or - why not! - fresh from a recording studio, please toss it to me in an easily catchable manner via themysterytour@gmail.com.

You can also post excellence to this address:

Adam Walton,
Â鶹Éç Radio Wales,
Canolfan y Diwydiannau Creadigol / The Centre for the Creative Industries,
Prifysgol Glyndwr / Glyndwr University,
Wrecsam / Wrexham
LL11 2AW

I'd recommend you read the expansive blogs on submitting music to the show - start with the last one if it's your first time.

Elsewhere in this week's show, Alan Holmes comes in smelling strongly of pachouli oil, having back-combed his, erm, well... yes. He's clutching something by Dammerung. It has Gothic tendencies. And it's great.

Lara Catrin translates something poetic from Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog and Ben Hayes treats us to something AMAZING (and legal in the UK) from Amsterdam.

- 'Welcome To The Zoo ( Flying Skulls Remix - Radio Edit )'
Cardiff

- 'Bad Man Ah Bad Man'
Newport

- 'The Heat ( American Language Remix - Radio Edit )'
Cardiff / Philadelphia

- 'Pogo's Gotta Go Go'
Swansea

- 'Shimmer'
Llangollen

- 'How To Stop An Imploding Man'
Chester / Llangollen

- 'You Was Me'
Pembrokeshire

- 'Xenodocheinology'
Bethesda

- 'Bag Of Meat'
Cardiff

- 'Do It'
Llanelli

- 'Miami Spider ( Ponciau Edit )'
Wrexham

- 'Typikal'
Bangor

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Bangor

DAMMERUNG - 'Faith In Fakes'
Bangor

- 'Don't Leave Your Joy'
Colwyn Bay

- 'No One's Ever Gonna Leave You'
Cardiff

- 'Change Your Mind'
Wrexham

- 'Sunday Dub'
Cardiff / Bristol

MARCIA GRIFFITHS - 'Feel Like Jumping'
Jamaica

- 'Erased'
Hebron, Pembrokeshire

- 'Girl I Want U'
Cardiff

- 'Shirley Temples'
Cardiff

- 'Thrashopolis'
Cardiff / Newport / Bristol

- 'Interrogation'
Wrexham

- 'Lady Lion'
Wrexham

- 'Impetigo'
Rhyl

- 'Ketchup'
Bangor

- 'Llosgi Pontydd'
Cardiff

- 'Justice Emerges'
Newport

- 'Cedar'
Prestatyn

- 'Tear It Down'
Cardiff

- 'Mercenary'
Llanberis

- 'As Jungle Drums Rang Across The Amazon ( We Held Our Heads & Screamed )'
Cardiff

- 'Honey All Over'
Bethesda

- 'The Trees Don't Seem To Know That It's September'
Cardiff

LARA CATRIN - 'Spoken Contribution'
Bangor / Cardiff

- 'Malu Ffenestri'
Llyn Peninsula

- 'Nothing Bound'
Penyffordd

- 'Do You Ever Stop To Think You're Dying?'
Rhyl

- 'Calling'
Wrexham

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Ruthin

HUNTERS, THE - 'Russian Spy And I'
Amsterdam

- 'Fizzy Moon'
Cardiff

- 'December'
Bethesda

- 'Antipodal Point'
Gwespyr

I career into a 'significant' birthday next week like a bad ice skater trying to avoid the combine harvester blades that have just materialised, Final Destination XXVII-like, on the ice. If age has given me anything, it's given me more perspective than I had, and hair the colour of greying wheat. Mmmm! Greying wheat!

See, you young folk won't remember that it used to be all fields round here. Admittedly it is - still - all fields round here. But you can't recognise them in 2011 because each of them is filled with a festival. Whereas young, slim and un-worry-worn me had a choice of Glastonbury or Reading* (and Reading was just in, you know, Reading), these days young folk can coax the VW camper van to a rut that'll break its sump any weekend from May to September.

And it's not just young folk. It's not just longhairs who want to channel the spirit of Gaia through an interminable guitar solo that'll last the whole summer. It's not just space-eyed druggies who want to bongo you to death for three entire days and nights. Normal people go. Some of them take picnic tables. Some of them only drink warm beer.

But this massive proliferation of festivals, as if Glastonbury and Reading had eaten an apple laced with viagra, got thrown out of festival Eden, and then watched their rabbit-like progeny infest the whole land, isn't necessarily a great thing.

"How can it not be a 'great thing', oh master of the unwieldy simile?"

Well, like giving out free guitars and Big Black albums to school children would appear to be a 'great thing' on paper - until some kid comes to the inevitable conclusion that it'd be awesome to cover Lady Gaga in a Big Black-stylee - the things that oftentimes sound like they'd be greatest, turn out to be nothing better than repeatedly stubbing your toe.

Four million festivals a summer may be good news for Rizla and Eurohike, but these events are in danger of diluting their own potential audience to the point that some of them could be held in one of the larger of those self-same Eurohike tents.

This rash of music fun across the land also means that we, the potential audience, have great choice and great power. Which sounds good. And it is good, unless you're trying to promote and finance a festival. In the olden days I recalled earlier, when my haircut was at the very bowlheaded cusp of fashion, you'd loyally attach yourself to a festival as if it were a football team or your favourite Kellogs cereal. These days it's more like a swingers party where your favourite variety pack portion gets thrown into a bowl in the middle of the room, and who knows what you're going to end up with when you're cajoled into making a choice at the last minute?

Pray it's not All Bran.

De-extrapolating that duodenum-like analogy reveals this point: festival-goers in 2011 are much more likely to decide which festival they want to go to at the very last minute. (Glastonbury and Reading/Leeds-excepted). I know many people whose festival going depends on the advance weather forecast. No need to unnecessarily brave a wet weekend on the Yorkshire Moors when there's a festival in Mid Wales the following weekend. Again, this is fantastic if you're a punter. But it's a nightmare if you're a festival organiser.

Unless the festival is propped up on grants and funding, the oxygen that a new festival relies on is the advance ticket. The advance ticket means that the organisers know a certain amount of the fees they have guaranteed their line-up will get paid. No one loses sleep as if they're in hock to Slicer Jerry, the local loan shark. But new festivals find it incredibly difficult to generate advance ticket sales. They have to trust that all of the promotional work they've done, and the bill they've assembled, will lure people in, in the week - heck, the day - before the festival itself. A new event needs the opportunity to bed itself into the local calendar. Especially with so much competition around.

And if you have backers, they need to recognise that fact. The backers need to back you, otherwise they're backless. And it you ever saw me in a backless dress, you'd know that this is - potentially - a horrific state of affairs.

was a festival due to be happening this coming weekend in Llangollen (Friday 27 - Saturday 28 May). They had Funeral For A Friend and The Blackout headlining. There was a welter of some of the finest Welsh talent lined up to play. It was a new festival with heart. It reflected the talent in Wales, it wasn't just another anodyne festival-by-numbers. But advance ticket sales were not good, the backers panicked, and the event as originally envisaged has been cancelled.

I hadn't put any money into Focus Wales... it's easy for me to moralise about support and backbone, especially in these difficult economic times we're all enduring. But it strikes me that a new festival like this was always going to struggle to generate advance ticket sales. Customers would - as they now have the luxury to do - make a decision whether to go on the day. If you're going to 'back' a festival, you need to be aware of this fact. Otherwise a lot of disappointment and bitterness will usurp the excitement and pride that had been evident before cancellation.

Fortunately the organisers of Focus Wales, Neal and Andy, are adamantine in their determination, unquenchable in their passion for new music. They've relocated Focus Wales to Central Station in Wrexham this Friday and Saturday evening / night. Inevitably the bill has changed.

There will be no Funeral For A Friend or The Blackout, but there will be a line-up of some of Wales' best, new musical talent. I'd be looking to check out the amazing early on the Friday evening; (responsible for one of the albums of the year, Tethered For the Storm); and . Full details of the excellent bill, and of how to get tickets, are available on the Focus Wales website. I have to work on the Friday night, but I'll be there early doors, and I'm looking forward to what Saturday has in store for us (especially Mowbird and Mother of Six).

Don't let my presence put you off. I won't be wearing a backless dress, I promise.

* "Had a choice of Glastonbury or Reading..." - I'm exaggerating to make a point. i.e. lying.

So far in this series of blogs offering advice on getting your music played on my radio show we have looked at, in part one, researching the shows you intend to send your music to and realising the importance of being brilliant; in part two, how 'being yourself' can give you a distinct advantage, and in last week's magnum opus, how vital it is to be your own worst critic.

I baulk at the amount of words that have been hacked to death thus far, so this week's final instalment is going to be brief and to the point. I promise.

DO think carefully about your band's name.

Check to see if another band is already using your name. Any kind of confusion or ambiguity further down the line is likely to be disadvantageous to all. Try to pick something that isn't likely to get buried under tens of thousands of other Google results. 'Free Porn' might strike you as a punkish and subversive name, but no one will ever (have the energy left to) find you. If you have a vaguely riqsué name spam filters will swallow you whole before you get anywhere near the likes of me.

DO send your best song / track. You know which one it is. Be honest with yourself, here. Very honest. And only send one or two tracks. See the opening paragraphs of part three for an idea of the amount of music I receive. And that's just little old me. Huw Stephens must feel like one of Elton John's pillows, with the countless thousands of expensively-transplanted hairs deposited on the pillow playing the metaphorical part of the amount of tracks he finds himself tangled in every morning.

I should make it clear that Huw played no active part in that analogy. I've never heard him moan about the music he receives. That is my domain.

DO submit your music according to the following guidelines. If you send it any other way I can't guarantee that I will hear it. Please submit your recordings either as (method of delivery in order of preference, high to low) .mp3's / download links to themysterytour@gmail.com; tracks submitted via the Â鶹Éç Introducing Uploader; CDs/vinyl posted to Adam Walton, Â鶹Éç Radio Wales, The Centre for the Creative Industries, Glyndwr University, Wrexham, LL11 2AW. Links sent via Facebook will be buried and lost before I get a chance to see them. Seriously.

DO include a short, factual biography with an e-mail address and contact number. DON'T (important one, this) overcook your biography. You're not double glazing salesmen. Bands who hype themselves are invariably rubbish. Trust your music. If you don't, it's not ready to send.

DO keep the postage price down by leaving the glossy press kit out of the envelope. See point above about self-hyping bands. I've never played a band who sent me an 'EPK'. I want to think you spend all your time living life intensely, then writing about it, not wazzocking about in front of a camera. Getting a (crap) stylist won't elevate you to the heights of the musicians you most admire. Look as outrageous as you like, but make it evident that that is of less importance to you than the music.

DO ensure that your CDs have your band name and a contact e-mail written on them. Avoid stickers that are going to rip off in my CD drive and knacker it, please. Ensure that your .mp3's are tagged correctly. I have tens of thousands of CDs scattered around my room, if I drop a blank CDR it's lost and unidentifiable forever. No joke. My box bedroom floor is a Bermuda Triangle of blank CDs, my hard drive a Bermuda Triangle-squared of 'Untitled' .mp3's. If I can't identify it, I can't play your music or get back to you.

DO be civil with me. I'm a very lonely man and spend most of my existence forging friendships with attachments that arrive in my inbox. I will be honest with you because you deserve that honesty. If you're not ready for some constructive criticism, it's best not to send me your music. I'm a human being. If you're rude (which happens very rarely, thankfully), I could lie and say that I'll be the bigger man, forgive you and support you in the future. But rude people never earn good favour.

If you don't agree with any criticism you receive that's your prerogative, of course, but know that it's been offered after a great deal of thought. I know how hard this is. I know because I was rubbish at it, despite my best efforts. If only someone like me had told me a few home truths, I might not have wasted the best part of my twenties strutting around like a twit (feel free to use your own vowel) making all of the mistakes, and then some, I detail in these blogs.

This has been a long, long trek. I've been mostly positive... lots of do's, a few don'ts. To finish, then, a simple, stark, stone tablet of negativity: DON'T think that abiding to a pompous list of do's and don'ts is going to act as a substitute for inspiration. There are no rules in rock 'n' roll 'n' rap 'n' reggae 'n' folk 'n' punk 'n' pop 'n' metal 'n' blues 'n' country 'n', er, futurebass (well, I had to add at least one genre term that will date this article within minutes of it being published).

I do hope this advice has been of some use, but it's all about the music and how good you make it.

Over to you.

If you have any questions or comments about these blogs, feel free to leave them below. I'll answer them at the first opportunity.

On my return this week from a holiday and a sojourn into the world of documentaries (it's always important to remember Americans are in bed when we're in the office) I've found that Wales is a-buzz with festival news.

Some of the main festivals are on our Festivals and Events pages on the website, but I thought I'd round up some of the smaller ones or new ones here.

20-21 May 2011
Held at Hendre Hall near Bangor, the inaugural Bangor Aid aims to raise money for homeless charities. The Friday night is world music night while the closing Sunday night is a rock-themed event with up-and-coming Welsh acts , , and taking centre stage. With dozens of other acts throughout the weekend, check out the on the festival's site.

26 May - 5 June 2011
Now in its third year, Hay-on-Wye's HowTheLightGetsIn is "an annual festival of philosophy and music" but it's the latter we're interested in here. Gigs are held in venues across the border town and highlights include , , and .

8-10 July 2011

https://www.mrhuw.com/

Held at Glangwenlais Farm, Cilywm near Llandovery in Carmarthenshire, this diminutive festival has two covered stages and a great line-up of acts from Wales and other small nations. Check out the on the webite, but highlights include , , and .

27-28 May
This week it has been announced that this festival has relocated as short notice from Llangollen International Pavilion to Wrexham Central Station as Denbighshire Council cancelled the booking, citing financial risk after poor ticket sales. Assuming it goes ahead as planned, acts playing the festival include , and .

We'll be adding details of more Welsh festivals as they come in.

Welsh indie pop outfit were taken by surprise this weekend when that they were his "new favourite indie band".

Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other Â鶹Éç blog, you will need to sign in to your Â鶹Éç iD account. If you don't have a Â鶹Éç iD account, you can - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of Â鶹Éç sites and services using a single login.

Need some assistance? , or get some .

This is part three of my series of blogs that offer advice to music-minded people who are considering sending their masterworks to my show (an act for which I am incredibly grateful). Please don't let this long list of demands - like Lady Gaga's kitten rider (one pink, one blue, one gold, all in Kittie Kat jumpsuits and trained to paw diamond-encrusted baubles in time to Bad Romance/go feral at the sight of Katy Perry) - mask that fact.Without your music, my show would be a nightmarish wilderness of drivel and bluster. Fortunately for me, Wales is uncommonly busy with incredible musical minds. This is an empirical fact. In an average week I receive 200-ish pieces of music. I play 40-ish tracks on my show. Ten-ish of those are return plays for singles/album tracks from established artists; three are picked by the regular contributors who bring wisdom to the show; five-ish are old and ace to offer us benchmarks of excellence and inspiration... which leaves us with 22-ish 'slots' for 200-ish submitted tracks.

Which gives you a one-in-10-ish chance of getting played. It's not easy. Nor should it be. This is national radio. And although it is public service broadcasting, that service is more for the audience than for the artist.

There's a reason for that, other than high-mindedness. If I played every piece of music that got submitted to the show, 1) we'd have to extend Sunday nights by approximately 11 hours every week, 2) the quality would plummet like a real-life lead zeppelin and, thus, 3) no one, other than the occasional artist seeking the buzz of hearing their painstakingly mastered material squished into an AM or FM signal, would be listening. And if no one's listening, then what's the point in playing your music in the first place?

All of this preamble should have been in the first piece, probably. Better late than never. This is an unplanned rant, which is ironic given that what I'd most like to impress on you in this piece is the need to plan, to be painstaking, to leave as little to chance as is possible. This particular piece of advice has been the mantra appended to every rejection e-mail I have ever sent out.

DO be your own worst critic(s).

I am frequently astounded by what some people deem suitable for broadcast. Listening to a dictaphone recording of someone doing a Celine Dion cover in the utility room (not a fabricated example) - with a tumble dryer in the background - fully expecting me to play it on the radio, I wonder if 'we' are getting the message across clearly enough. And I wonder what on earth that person hears when they listen back to their recording. Listening back to it critically, it would be obvious even to a lemur with a penchant for Celine Dion covers that it's not suitable for broadcast. Clearly this is an extreme example. But it does demonstrate the variation in talent and expectation.

And, just to complicate matters further, if the 'Celine Dion backed by Tumble Dryer' recording had come from one of Wales' more esoteric labels, and had revelled in its own ironic post-modernism, I may have played it. Context is pretty important too. One man's turd on a stick is another man's thrilling deconstruction of the mores of Modern Art.

I do not expect high fidelity recordings from everyone, by any means. I've played dictaphone recordings of some artists (notably ) that are some of my favourite songs of all time. But that's a rare example of where the talent transcends the limitations of the technology, or makes a merit of it (excellently written songs, recorded with great immediacy and little over consideration).

In that kind of scenario it's clear that the lo-fi recording is part of the artist's ethic. When I get a dictaphone recording from a screamo band recorded in their front room and the accompanying emails says: "We don't have a microphone or PA so the singer had to stand by the recorder and shout..." well, I'm thinking before I've even clicked 'play' that it's not going to be broadcastable. Call it intuition or evidence of a sixth sense. In that example (not as rare as you would imagine) the recording sounded like blocks of out of tune slate being tipped into a bucket of cold vomit. Now I know that there are people who would claim to like that sort of thing, but it's not for me, sorry.

In this example, it's not the ideal sound/recording that the band are ultimately aiming for. Recording rehearsals like that can be essential for developing a song. "We need a bit more slate and a bit less cold vomit in the second verse, I think..." But honestly, swear to god and (evoked in this instance for good reason), it's not going to be suitable for radio play. Like, ever.

That's another extreme example. So, having set our parameters, let's talk more specifically about what I mean when I say "be your own worst critic".

Try and force yourself to listen to your recording as if it had come from a complete stranger. This is very hard to do. It's like asking someone with a car on their foot to pretend the limb belongs to someone else. But it's that kind of objectivity that is essential if you want to (truly) judge the merits of your work.

When you're caught up in the dizzy rush of creating something of your own, you lose a lot of the ability to judge whether it is any good or not. I know this from personal experience. The first demo I recorded was a ham-fisted cover version of 's Love Removal Machine. We'd recorded it in a day at Rick Astley's demo studio in Widnes. The drums were the best bit. The guitars were a little out of tune. The bass must have been played on an elastic band submerged in a slurry pit. My guitar solo sounded like Billy Duffy being chased out of Dodge by a crowd pelting him with bum notes. The vocal - pegged on in the last ten minutes of the session - would have earned itself a TV slot at an X Factor audition, for all the wrong reasons.

Yet, once we got home from the studio I listened to nothing else for weeks. It was me and my best mates, for crying out loud! (And crying out loud was what my mum and dad were doing the 6,000th time they'd heard Paul maul the opening line.) I couldn't hear any of the fatally obvious flaws (that it's a cover version of The Cult being the most glaring). My ears forgave them. I listened to it aspirationally, filling in all the gaps, smoothing out the awfulness.

What I should have done was listen to it and judge it dispassionately next to the original. That's what I should have done.

Being your own worst critic means acknowledging every flaw and weakness in your recording, because the dispassionate, objective listener who isn't you, your Nain, or your bestest mate, will hear them writ loud, trust me.

Good to great bands don't let anyone hear their music until it has passed their own exacting standards.

Being a perfectionist needn't ruin the immediacy of rock 'n' roll. It's all about you having high standards and pride in what you do. Make it the best you possibly can, then send it. It will improve your chances markedly... and (importantly) not just with me. I'm making all the demands here, but this advice will serve you well whoever you're sending your music to.

BE YOUR OWN WORST CRITIC. Get it tattooed somewhere convenient but unlikely to be seen by the public. (The drummer is a good place.)

Here's an incomplete list of the kind of things I hear all the time that relegate submissions to my 'Rejected' folder: unnecessarily out of tune instruments; unnecessarily out of tune vocal (even just a single phrase); timing problems; clichéd lyrics; unimaginative, preset sounds (electronic music); self indulgence (too long, yawn-inducing solos); a failure to apply the essential adage: 'don't bore us, get to the chorus!' - even if you don't have choruses; dullness (but if your music is dull, you never know it); lots of swearing (not a quality issue, I just can't play music with swearing in it); heard-it-all-before-a-million-times-and-done-better-ness; missing spark.

I'm likely to add to this list. Feel free to comment/question this blog below. This isn't all one-way traffic. I'm not a kidnapper. It's about dialogue and clarification. I may be heavy but I am not immovable.

I hate pre-recording programmes.

Doing it live is what it's all about, to me. When you record something, instinct and intuition evaporate like Blue Stratos on a griddle pan (I'm going to walk Masterchef, I tell you).

But I did record this week's show because I had been invited to DJ at a sold-out Frank Turner gig, which gave me the opportunity to play Mclusky/Y Niwl/Strange News From Another Star & Saturdays Kids at ear-splitting volume... so, still evangelising Welsh music, just in the flesh and with more Guinness to hand.

But this pre-record broke the mould.

It went well.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and I believe that you may too. Which is the point, you know.

So I made it especially extra special just for you.

Rather than hoodwink you with a faux-live experience - a rickety, patched-up cousin of the usual broadcast - I decided to do something a little different. So, this week's programme is dedicated to Welsh music on vinyl. In short, I have become something of a vinyl convert after a long existence of not really giving a stuff which format my music was delivered on.

Mostly this is because it's great to have something tangible in this dimensionless digital age. But it's also to mark the fact that there is a very definite renaissance in vinyl pressing amongst new artists. I'd hypothesise that this is because artists/independent labels understand - implicitly - that those of us who love music love it even more when it isn't just a series of 0s and 1s locked away on a hard drive.

And, in our house, the amply scattered platters give the cat something to sit on other than the carpet.

Cats are weird.

My Damascan vinylish revelation is detailed in (much more) depth in my Vinyl Worship article.

It's highly recommended if you're so bored giving your eyeballs a random dance across the screen counts as some sort of entertainment.

Ben Hayes - aka the vinyl extremist who converted me - comes in to play a beautiful beautiful piece of music from Endaf Emlyn.

And I juggle 7"s, 10"s, 12"s in a way that would have Frankie Howerd "Ooh er missus"-ing himself to the point of hyperventilation. There is old Welsh music on vinyl, new Welsh music on vinyl, covering a range of sounds & genres. And I pontificate, including a few world class Partridgisms.

This week's show will be back to 'normal'. Please bung me new music on any format you like to the postal address below/via the Â鶹Éç Introducing Uploader or to themysterytour@gmail.com.

Have an excellent, music-filled week.

Or an excellent music-filled week.

Diolch yn fawr iawn/thanks very much,

Adam

- 'Ice Hockey Hair'
Wales

TOPPER - 'Wake Up Time/Amser Deffro'
Penygroes

TOPPER - 'Something To Tell Her'
Penygroes

- 'Joust'
Wrexham

- 'An Old Lady Sings Pentecostal'
Cardiff

- 'High In The Sky'
Cardiff

- 'Is He Really Coming Home?'
Cardiff

- 'Whisper In My Ear'
Cardiff

- 'Eating Noddemix'
Cardiff

- 'Something New'
Cardiff

DA - DA - 'Better Dub'
Blaenau Ffestiniog/Penygroes/Cardiff

- 'Taking The Easy Way Out Again'
Merthyr Tydfil

- 'I Started The War'
Cardiff

- 'Adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood'
Cardiff

- 'Happy Shopper'
Newport

POOH STICKS, THE - 'Cool In A Crisis'
Swansea

- 'Sly Alibi'
Waunfawr

CAVES, THE - 'Wow Machine'
Swansea

- 'Blood'
Swansea

- 'Give Us Your Blessings'
Bangor

- 'Original Sgamster'
Carmarthen

DYNAMO DRESDEN - 'In The End ( John Kennedy Remix )'
Cardiff

- '500 Bad Mice'
Ruthin

- 'Kerosene'
Aberystwyth

- 'Drws - Y - Coed'
Snowdonia

CULPRIT 1 - 'Jarred'
Newport

- 'Drink, Fight & Fun'
Swansea

- 'Summertime, Summertime'
Pontardawe

- 'Better Days'
Swansea

- 'Smash The New World Order'
Rhyl

- 'Cur'
Caernarfon

- 'Turnham Green'
Benllech

- 'The Day I Lost My Voice'
Bangor/Cardiff

ENDAF EMLYN - 'Goodbye Cherry Lill'
Bangor

EMILY - 'Reflect On Rye'
Ruthin

FIVE DARRENS - 'Me Sad'
Newport

- 'Un'
Gwynedd

- 'Sold Down The River'
Newport

- 'No One Can Drag Me Down'
Penboyr

- 'Poodle Rockin''
Camarthen

- 'Dust Of Ages'
Cardiff

Some people can get a bit sneery.

"You're almost 40," they'll say, noses tipping upwards. "When are you going to get a proper job?"

Then their eyes will focus on the band t-shirt I'm wearing, the tatty jeans and the seen-better-days desert boots, and I'll maybe wish for one millisecond that I had a suit on, that there was a BMW parked on the drive outside, that I had a job that felt like a job so that I could stand proud in their jaded gaze. But the feeling soon passes. The feeling doesn't manage to hang round as long as it would take Y Niwl to play their amazing new single Un Deg Saith. Even mayflies wish that that would twang on a bit longer.

But they can take their pimped up lawns, their assiduous pension plans, their saloon cars, annual forays to arenas filled with volume-limited supermarket music, real stone worktops and tucked in shirts, and they can stick them all right up their colonically-irrigated, joyless backsides.

I don't say that to their faces, of course. I bow my head a degree or two, blush a little, feel like I should be ashamed of myself. Then I feel ashamed for feeling ashamed. All the time I'm not saying anything and they think I'm being rude.

I'm not being rude. I just don't have anything to say to them. At all.

But you! I have lots to say to you. It's going to be a while before you see the end of this here page. Better prepare some provisions.

The sneering happened on Tuesday, a mate of a mate. But the words struck home. Great as this role is, in recent weeks it had been getting on top of me. Hours spent in front of a computer while the rest of the world is out gambolling in the sun can induce rancour. There isn't an iota of that left in my system. I feel re-energised, vindicated, absolved and pretty damn excited considering my pensionable age and the fact that it's 1:22am in the morning and there isn't much likelihood of sleep til dawn.

Amazing what a trip to Llanrwst can do.

Why Llanrwst? Well, Conwy County Council runs a laudable initiative called Goleuo. Goleuo organises "cultural evening events in rural Conwy county." This manifests itself as regular concerts in gig-starved rural communities and it serves a number of purposes. The 'venue' (never a traditional venue - always a local business: a café, a bistro, a hotel) gets the benefit of a good, midweek crowd spending money over the bar; the locals get the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by the best Welsh bands, and those bands get a chance to play without having to stick a minimum of £50 in the van to bomb over to Liverpool/Manchester/Wrexham on the A55.

It's a brilliant initiative. Do other Welsh councils do anything similar? If they do, let me know, I'd love to sing their praises and support their events.

So, after an hour on the A55, my erstwhile gig-going compadre, Andy, and I arrive in Llanrwst a little concerned that we don't know what the venue is called, or where it's situated. Fortunately an ad hoc sign on the pavement ('Live Music Tonight') means we don't have to do too much in the way of worrying.

The venue is a lovely hotel, Y Dolydd, with an awe-inspiring view out over Snowdonia through its bay windows. Within moments we've bumped in to Y Niwl's drummer, Pete Richardson. Pete has drummed in some of my favourite bands (Gorky's, Topper, numerous recording sessions, including some amazing work on recent recordings by Georgia Ruth). Then there's a yawn that makes the mountain's themselves rumble and John Lawrence emerges from the back of a transit van.

"I've got a double bed in the back, there."

And a pedal steel, a teepee and recording studio, no doubt.

I'm more excited (and nervous) than usual because tonight I'm going to see Trwbador for the first time. Trwbador are my favourite new band. There's no point in me pretending otherwise for the sake of diplomacy or fair-mindedness. There is only two of them: Owain (from Cross Hands in Camarthenshire - "where the M4 ends", he tells me, helpfully) and Angharad (from a village just outside Camarthen - "you'll forget its name," she says, correctly). They're an intriguing weave of acoustic guitar, glockenspiel, cut 'n' paste electronics and a crystalline voice that radiates unforgettable melodies. They're Pentangle as reimagined by Four Tet; Fairport Convention rewired by Cornelius. They're original and beautiful, and if there could be a musical evocation of the breathtaking, fresh spring panorama outside, it would be them.

They take to a stage that is, in fact, a bay window bristling with amplifiers and instruments. A tasteful chandelier casts sparkles of light onto their fresh faces. Snowdonia deepens into the gloaming. People are sitting cross-legged in front of them, reverent and respectful of their enchanting quietness.

Trwbador performing at Y Dolydd, Llanrwst, 12 May 2011

You can tell they're nervous as hell. It feels like it's an effort of superhuman will for them to coax their fingers and voices to conjure the music for us. But that slight tension makes us all lean forward to urge them on. Angharad's voice, so quiet yet so perfect, plays around the room like a ray of the purest light. It's a voice that can melt cynicism at 100 paces and it's one of the most remarkable I've ever heard live.

And they warm to their task and gain confidence from the audience's acclamation for what they're doing. It's like watching newborn Bambi struggling to his feet, but by the end of the set Bambi is a ballet dancer: graceful, assured, free of that initial nervousness. They do unexpected things. Songs end suddenly, or burst into la-la singalongs. Recorders, tambourines, handclaps, 'slow disco' beats from the battered keyboard, all embellish their sound. They do justice to a cover of Kate Bush's Army Dreamers (quite a feat), treat us to an MC Mabon tune and scatter their own bewitching songs around the room like bejewelled flowers. We love them. We all love them.

It's one of those moments: like 60ft Dolls at In The City in Manchester (but not really *like* 60ft Dolls); like Super Furry Animals in Cardiff in '95; like Murry The Hump in Chester in '99; Mclusky at the same venue the year after; like Georgia Ruth in Sheffield last year... a moment when you get to witness the early flickerings of a most brilliant talent. Go find Trwbador. And don't you dare chatter while they're playing. And if someone should make your mobile phone ring during their set, delete them, whoever they are, from your lives and never speak to them again.

Ahem.

Y Niwl are gentleman musicians of the highest order, Knights of Sound. They're a Welsh Booker T & the MG's... not sonically, of course. But like Booker T & the MG's, they're a consummate instrumental band, without peer in the land. They've become Gruff Rhys' touring band (as the MG's were for numerous Stax acts); and their multifold talents as individual musicians have burnished recordings by some of Wales' finest artists in the most egoless and tasteful fashion imaginable (Georgia Ruth, Euros Childs, Sweet Baboo, Cate Le Bon et al - it's a who's who of the recordings I'd reach for first if my iPod was to burst into flames).

Alun 'Tan Lan' Evans is from Llanrwst. His first album was produced by Catatonia's Mark Roberts (also originally from Llanrwst). There's a real resonance to Y Niwl playing their hometown. It feels incredibly special to be a part of this audience of close friends and family members. Unless they're unlucky enough to be stood behind me. Space is at a premium, and my bulbous head probably made it very difficult for some unfortunate member of the clan Evans to see their close friend/relative. Sorry about that!

Y Niwl performing at Y Dolydd, Llanrwst, 12 May 2011

Y Niwl are a psychedelic surf band steeped in the electrifying tunefulness and musicianship of The Ventures, Link Wray, Dick Dale and, more latterly, East Bay Ray (of the Dead Kennedys) and Man Or Astroman. Any thoughts of pastiche or retro Ludditism are assuaged within moments of hearing them, whether live or on record. They play, and compose, with such melodic vigour. It's proper thrilling and vibrantly exciting.

When they finish with Chwech, it's like a series of chromatic steps down into some seedy club where feverish guitars, free tequila and lithe bodies in a state of abandonment are going to seethe and sweat until the late early hours.

It's like that, but that's not what happens. Andy and I go all fanboy and buy ourselves a mug and a t-shirt each (he can get away with it, he's only 35). We dribble sycophantically all over Trwbador and Y Niwl, Wish the latter good luck with their forthcoming Gruff Rhys tour in America. Bid more goodbyes to the multitude of other friendly faces we've met (Eilir Pierce, Sen Segur, Dataslaves, Jen Jeniro, Y Bandana - bands all out supporting each other...). Feel tempted to break into the back of John Lawrence's passion wagon so that we can have a drink and fall asleep in his double bed, rather than do the sober drive home.

But the sober drive home is the only sensible option. And sensible on occasion is my one sop to advancing age. To think, I could have had a really early night, got woken up by Chris Moyles on the alarm clock, caught a train to Accountantsville, and spent the day paying off the interest on my Beamer.

No thanks.

Not ever.

A number of Welsh acts have been added to the Wakestock festival line-up. The music and wakeboarding event will include appearances by Masters In France, Sibrydion, Colorama, Mr Phormula, Poket Trez, Bare Left and Â鶹Éç Radio 1's very own Huw Stephens.

They join previously-announced headliners Ellie Goulding, Chase and Status, The Wombats, Biffy Clyro and The Cribs.

Wakestock takes place from 8-10 July in Cardigan Bay, north Wales. Visit the for ticketing information.

Manic Street Preachers' second single Motown Junk is to be reissued as a limited edition 7" vinyl single.

Just 1,000 copies of the single will go on sale on Saturday 21 May, at the Heavenly Recordings stall at the Independent Labels Market on Berwick Street, London, and at the Manics' concert at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena. Any unsold copies will be made available through the Heavenly and Manics websites.

Cover artwork for Manic Street Preachers' Motown Junk single

Motown Junk was originally released on 21 January 1991, and followed the group's Suicide Alley single and the New Art Riot EP. It was available on 12" vinyl and CD only, making this 2011 reissue a first.

The single was not a chart success, but gained the Manics much press attention. The band's early iconoclasm was present in the words "I laughed when Lennon got shot," a line which James Dean Bradfield now omits when performing the song live.

For more on the 7" reissue, visit the .

This is the second in a series of blogs offering advice on submitting music to my Â鶹Éç Radio Wales, Welsh music show. You can read the first instalment here.

I've decided to do this as a series of dos and don'ts, in the dictatorial style of a poster at the municipal swimming pool. So, assuming you're not smoking or heavy petting, here is the second DO.

DO be yourselves.

What makes music exciting and interesting to someone like me, who listens to thousands of new tracks every year, is a fresh viewpoint, a twist, something that transforms the familiar into a thrilling new territory. All musicians, without exception, learn by copying those that most influence and inspire them. It's entirely natural. It's how we learn to speak, to play, to feed and dress ourselves. Imitation is a form of flattery, but as musicians it will rarely flatter you.

Why, for example, would anyone want to hear a poor man's Lostprophets?

I can understand why impressionable bands get drawn into the slipstream of a local band made good. This was most apparent in the aftermath of Stereophonics' success. For a good few years every demo (seemingly without exception) that arrived from the Valleys was in thrall to the boys from Cwmaman. I don't know if anyone has ever done a sociological/psychological study on this effect, but it would make for a good one.

What factors are at play? Well, Stereophonics were a good band, so their music would have been an influence, but it extends beyond that. If you watch some lads from the village down the road sign a major label record deal, if there are few employment opportunities, if knee-jerk record labels are sniffing round the locale seeking to snap up their own Stereophonics, it's inevitable that some bands will morph into what the situation seems to expect of them. And this brings us to a fundamental point: bands/artists who do that aren't interesting. They fill a void, but they don't escape it.

The most over-represented genre of music I receive is pop punk, aka 'alternative' punk (I assume it's the alternative to good punk). There are fewer leaves on your average oak tree than there are pop punk bands in Wales. And just like those leaves, it's impossible for these bands to distinguish themselves. That troubled me for a long while. Why bother making music if it's nothing more than paint-by-numbers Blink 182? Well, some people like to do paint-by-numbers, don't they? But please - please - don't expect me to hang it in my gallery.

Having your own sound doesn't mean designing a whole, new sonic architecture with strange scales and bizarre instrumentation. (But if that appeals to you, fill your boots, sounds fascinating.) Subtle elements can elevate the familiar to something more original and interesting. For example, a singer with a unique voice can transform an otherwise moribund band. Stereophonics are a prime example. Musically, they were simple and rather pedestrian, but add Kelly's voice and lyrical nous and you have a more interesting proposition.

So, my advice is: find your own sound. The easiest way to do that is to be yourselves. If you're a rapper from Mold, rap about Mold: celebrate the differences between you and your influences. I hear many Welsh hip hop artists every year whose lexicon, style and philosophy is lifted by rote from American artists. There's nothing thrilling to be heard in that. Be courageous enough to steal the tropes for your own. Break them. Mess with them. Twist them to your own design.

It's why a seemingly anomalous band like Tystion (Welsh language rap) still sound thrilling and earned recognition and airplay across Europe. Who'd have thought Caernarfon and Compton could have had a symbiotic cultural relationship? It's also why Cardiff's hip hop label, Associated Minds, is one of Wales' most celebrated.

As I write this, I'm in a car on the way to Aberystwyth (I'm not driving, don't worry), and we're listening to ' All These Things EP. It's a perfect example of 'being yourself.' Chloe's music isn't, by any means, a radical re-imagining of music as we know it. It's a woman with a transcendent voice, surrounded by warm, folkish instrumentation. So, you may be thinking of Laura Marlin or Paper Aeroplanes... but there's something brooding that sets the mood of these songs apart. They're mysterious and wonderful and I can't wait to play them on my show.

More grandiose pontificating from up here on my high horse tomorrow.

If you have any questions or comments about these blogs, feel free to leave them below. I'll answer them at the first opportunity.

Now that my Sunday night show for new Welsh music has been fully assimilated, Borg-like, into the future technology of the Â鶹Éç Introducing Uploader, I thought it would be a good idea to offer some tips and advice to artists intending to send me their music.

And, just to emphasise, these loftily-offered words of (intended) wisdom are for music submitted to 'my' show. Music absorbed by the Introducing Uploader (and directed towards Wales) lands not only in my inbox, but also Bethan Elfyn's and Jen Long's too. We all have different tastes, different approaches, different remits and different audiences... almost as if we were individual human beings. What I write below might horrify Jen and Beth. Their mileage will, undoubtedly, vary.

So, my first piece of advice - and it's a key one - is to check out the shows you're submitting your music to. This applies equally to whoever you send your music to - whether it's labels, blogs, promoters or venues, as well as radio shows. Find people who already have empathy, or a leaning, towards the kind of music you're creating and doors will open more easily. If you scatter your music at random, without researching the tastes of the recipients, most of the doors you push against will be immovable.

Last week I received a couple of Auto-Tuned-to-hell-and-back, pieces of slick, modern R&B. My tastes are broad, and my show isn't concerned with fitting music into boxes, but even a cursory listen would have told the artist concerned that his music was unlikely to find a welcome on my show.

"What, you don't play R&B?" was his rather surprised response.

"No, I don't."

That's no one-off. It isn't a problem or an imposition for me but it is a waste of an artist's time and focus. Of course, if the R&B in question had been brilliant - more Janelle Monae than R Kelly in Auto Tune Hades - then I'd have played it. Which is rather contradictory, I know. This isn't an exact science.

It is difficult to write guidelines and recommendations like this without coming across as a pompous ass, especially as I am a pompous ass. My role, as I see it, is to gather together fascinating Welsh music and present it to whoever is kind enough to listen with enough relevant information for the audience to find out more, if they're as inspired as I am. My key responsibility is to enthral that audience. Some artists think a show like mine is there to provide them with a platform regardless of my opinion of their music.

"You might not like it, but someone out there will," is an understandable (and common) response to my rejection emails.

But I have to filter hundreds of pieces of music every week. I can only play 40 or so in any given show. So I have to make the best judgements I can. Hopefully the remainder of these articles will give you an insight into that decision making process.

I thought it would be most useful to do this as a list of Dos and Don'ts, spread across a few different blog posts (I have a LOT to say on this matter!). So, to end this first piece a very important DO.

DO be brilliant. This is national radio, here. Wales is bristling with inventive musical minds. Since the start of the year I have played 400+ different, new, Welsh artists. That's a mind boggling number for a relatively small country. And there are double that number who I've rejected. So, what constitutes 'brilliant'? Well, I'm after fresh and interesting sounds, put together with joy, passion, fury and imagination. I hate the pedestrian. I hate badly wielded cliches (except when I write!). I get turned off by pomposity.

These are the new artists who - I feel - have sent me brilliant music this year. Check them out. They provide the benchmark: Saturdays Kids, Georgia Ruth, Ifan Dafydd, Trwbador, Sweet Baboo, Dauwd, Joy Formidable, Gallops, Houdini Dax, Y Niwl, Pete Lawrie, Wolf Curse, Jewellers, Plyci, Chloe Leavers, Mudmowth, Falls, EVM, The Gentle Good, Koreless, Winter Villains, Shy & The Fight.

Add to that the music from such established Welsh geniuses as Future Of The Left, Gruff Rhys, Jonny, Colorama, and you'll have a better idea (if you weren't familiar with the programme already) of the level of brilliance that is already out there. If you send me a pale imitation of Funeral For A Friend or Sum 41 you're not going to pass muster. Really.

Of course, being brilliant isn't possible for everyone but aiming for brilliance - and having high standards - indubitably is.

This is the most subjective factor at work in my decision making process. I promise you I love music. My only motivation is to find the good in the music that I hear. I'm no cynic. I get dizzy, hot, excited and froth like a capuccino maker when I hear something with merit. I'm not out to criticise you, to find fault with your music, to not play you on the radio. I want to shout your praises from the radio rooftops until I'm hoarse.

Tomorrow, another DO. A good one, too.

If you have any questions or comments about these blogs, feel free to leave them below. I'll answer them at the first opportunity.

This week we get to revel in some excellent, new Welsh artists who - to the best of my knowledge (limited, admittedly) - have never before graced the nation's airwaves.

Please visit this link any time between now and the start of the next programme to listen.

(If you're at all familiar with Departure, track 1 on The Moody Blues' In Search Of The Lost Chord, then please read out the next paragraph in a similarly histrionic voice.)

Marvel at Dauwd's organic and emotive electronic panoramas! Gasp at the expansive muscularity of TOTSO's riffs! Luxuriate in the folktronic verdancy of Jeweller's arpeggios! Pulsate in time with Darren Rhys' minimal genius! Whimper under bombardment from The Undercrackers' fuzzed up filth! Crazy pogo bedroom slamdance along with Survivalist's rambunctious guitar mangling! Raise you hands in the air and your hearts in your chest to I'll Fight With Fire and collapse in a sweaty heap while Ladies Love A Superhero pound upside your head gleefully, with the kind of shameless, pop punk exuberance that makes anyone over the age of 21 insanely jealous and witheringly cynical.

Then, breathe out.

It's quite a selection of vital and inspirational new Welsh talent.

More newness to salivate my music metaphor glands to themysterytour@gmail.com (high quality .mp3 or download link).

Or via the Â鶹Éç Introducing Uploader - which I know sounds like a piece of machinery in one of those terrible Star Wars prequels, but is - in fact - a handy way for music people to get their sounds to the likes of me, Bethan Elfyn and Jen Long.

Elsewhere Huw Williams - front person with The Pooh Sticks, svengali in platforms, agent provocateur and archaeologist of excellent, ancient Welsh musical artefacts - reminds us of Tony Sheveton.

Ben Hayes gets all in a lather for Jonesy - early '70s proggish excellence, rather than the former Radio Cymru presenter.

And I go for the 'Bad Workman Blaming His Tools' world record. I'm not giving anything away, but I will be happy to sign any copies of the Guinness Book of World Records 2012 for you for a small fee.

Next week is our celebration of Welsh music on vinyl-only.

It took two days to record and aged me by 12 years.

But it was all worth it, if it entertains and beguiles you.

Have an excellent week.

Thanks/diolch,
Adam

- 'Could It Be'
Llangollen

- 'You Don't Trust Anyone'
Wales

- 'Wolf Whistle'
Swansea

- 'Hey Hey Hot Legs'
Mold/Leicester

- 'Eukodol'
Wrexham

- 'To Live In Your Pocket'
Newport

- 'The Day I Lost My Voice'
Bangor/Cardiff

- 'I Want You Girl'
Cardiff

- 'Are You That Somebody ( Aaliyah Cover )'
Chicago/New York (cardiff Label)

- 'If I Were A Song'
Resolven

- 'New Loafers'
Newport

- 'Un Deg Chwech'
Gwynedd

- 'You Was Me'
Pembrokeshire

- 'Final Form ( Emmy's Unicorn Are Badass Remix )'
Swansea Remixer

- 'Luminous Lights'
Bethel/Caernarfon

- 'Warning'
Newport

- 'Dancing Machines'
Cardiff

- 'Water Of Leith'
Cardiff

- 'Indigo'
Caernarfon/Cardiff

- 'Techno-ology ( Synthicide )'
Cardiff

HUW WILLIAMS - 'Spoken Contribution'
Swansea

TONY SHEVETON - 'A Million Drums'
Cardiff

- 'Caesar'
Llanfairfechan

- 'Shapeshake 2025'
Bangor

- 'Dark Horse'
Pembrokeshire

- 'Hong Kong'
Cardiff

- 'Nataraja ( Takk For Alt Remix )'
Cardiff

- '=+) Smiley Character'
Newport

- 'Open Your Mind'
Swansea

- 'Teeth To Concrete'
Newport/Cardiff

- 'Obsession'
Cardiff

- 'Treading Water'
Newport/Bath

- 'Four Seasons'
Cardiff

- 'Honey All Over'
Bethesda

- 'Thrashopolis'
Cardiff/Newport/Bristol

- 'Debbie Loves Joey'
Swansea

- 'Fall For You'
Pontypridd

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Ruthin

- 'Ricochet'
Canterbury

- 'Crackin' Up'
Resolven/Cardiff

- 'Patterns'
Cardiff

Welsh National Opera will hold an open day at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay on 4 June.

Highlights of Open House will include an on-stage rehearsal of Mozart's Così fan tutte, a special performance of the opera called Cosy Café by members of the chorus, and a preview of The Sleeper by Welsh National Youth Opera.

Members of the public will also be able to learn to sing arias and play percussion with the orchestra, and can see WNO singers being coached in a master class. There will also be demonstrations of prop, make up and costume techniques, and an arts and crafts workshop running throughout the day.

The open day is suitable for all ages. A Turandot workshop will allow children to explore Puccini's masterpiece through playing games, dressing up and acting.

More information should be added to the nearer the time.

Caernarfon-based music promoter is to revive the Welsh Underground Festival.

The counter-cultural event will feature a mixture of music and comedy, and takes place on Saturday 14 May at Galeri in Caernarfon. Guests will include Margi Clarke, Henry Priestman from The Christians, drag comedian Shagger and guests from the 1980s Welsh music scene.

Rhys Mwyn was a key figure in the Welsh-language punk scene in the 1980s and 1990s. He played bass for Anhrefn as well as running the independent label Recordiau Anhrefn. He was responsible for releasing early records by Y Cyrff, Datblygu, Llwybr Llaethog, Big Leaves, Anweledig and Catatonia, and continues to do much to promote Welsh language music.

Mwyn told the : "I think this will be the most outrageous show the Galeri has ever hosted. We wanted to have an alternative cabaret style evening with stand-up and music in the worst possible taste.

"Music will feature, but it's a cultural event not a music festival. The digital age is a new 'DIY' age. Politics needs to be back on stage and Welsh culture is ready for another gear change.

"It's time to shift the agenda, stir it up again, confront, agitate, provoke, educate, inspire, challenge."

The Welsh Underground Festival takes place at Galeri on 14 May from 7.30pm. Tickets are available from or 01286 685222.

Sir Tom Jones, Katherine Jenkins, Charlotte Church and Duffy all make an appearance in this year's Sunday Times Rich List of music millionaires.

Jones is the highest-rated Welsh star, with an estimated £140 million to his name. He is 14th in the list, which is headed by Zomba/Jive Records co-founder Clive Calder.

For the second year running, Katherine Jenkins has topped the top 20 list of young British music millionaires aged 30 or under. The singer has an estimated fortune of £13 million. However, as she turns 31 next month, it is the last time Jenkins can feature in the list.

Katherine Jenkins and a million-pound sofa (possibly)

Also in the young music millionaires list are Charlotte Church (sixth place; £8 million) and Duffy (ninth place; £6 million).

The Blackout and Bullet For My Valentine have each been nominated for three Kerrang! awards.

The Blackout

Merthyr Tydfil rockers The Blackout are up for the best British band, video and album, while Bridgend's Bullet are contenders for best single, live act and British band. My Chemical Romance lead the field with five nominations.

Bullet For My Valentine

Kerrang!'s deputy editor Daniel J Lane said: "It's been an amazing year for our music and it's really exciting to see such a diverse range of bands nominated for this year's K! Awards.

"I personally love the fact that our very own home-grown heroes Bullet For My Valentine, Bring Me The Horizon and The Blackout are going head-to-head with US heavyweights like My Chemical Romance, 30 Seconds To Mars and Avenged Sevenfold."

The awards ceremony takes place in London on Thursday 9 June. More information, including the full list of nominations, can be found on the Newsbeat website.

Bryn Terfel is to release a CD single in aid of the charity Wales Air Ambulance.

Bryn Terfel

Anfonaf Angel features the Welsh bass-baritone with backing from the Welsh National Orchestra. The single is launched on Friday 20 May at the Galeri in Caernarfon, and will go on sale in record shops and via .

Terfel is the charity's patron. In 2010 he contributed to a fundraising album, On Air, which also featured Stereophonics, Cerys Matthews and Only Men Aloud.

Supporters of Stoke City FC are attempting to get Tom Jones' 1968 song Delilah back into the charts.

Delilah has long been a favourite of Stoke supporters on the terraces. The club is reportedly in talks with Jones' agent in the hope that he'll re-record the song in time for the FA Cup final on 14 May, when Stoke City face Manchester City at Wembley Stadium.

Read more on the Â鶹Éç News website.

More details have been announced about Wakestock 2011, Europe's largest wakeboarding and music festival, which takes place on 8-10 July at Cardigan Bay, north Wales.

Day tickets go on sale tomorrow morning, 4 May. Further acts have also been revealed, and include Kelis, The Cribs, The Joy Formidable, Neon Trees, Wolf Gang, Tek One, Noisettes, Pulled Apart By Horses and Innerpartysystem.

They join previously announced headliners Ellie Goulding, Chase and Status, The Wombats and Biffy Clyro. Other acts due to play over the weekend include Kids In Glass Houses, Example, Chiddy Bang, Wretch 32 and Kissy Sellout.

More information on tickets and acts, as well as the wakeboarding schedule and camping options, are on the .

We begin this week's show with a tribute to Les Morrison, a key member of the Welsh musical community, who sadly passed away on Friday 29 April. Les set up Stwdio Les in Bethesda, a facility he would allow the local bands to use for free.

Back at the tail-end of the '80s and the early years of the '90s, studios were expensive and the experience and opportunities Stwdio Les gave to many nascent Welsh talents (including Gruff Rhys & Cerys Matthews) were priceless and key to them getting their music to a wider audience.

Les was a fine musician too, contributing banjo and inspiration to recordings by Super Furry Animals, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, The Peth, Bob Delyn A'r Ebillion et al. He was also Super Furry Animals' guitar technician. I didn't know Les personally, but everything that I've read about him since his death on Friday speaks of a much-loved, musically intuitive and helpful man.

Our condolences to his family and friends.

Find out more about Les at his website:

And read Gruff Rhys' touching tribute to his friend:

Elsewhere in the show, Alan Holmes introduces us to the lyrical acoustic wonderment of Alasdair Bouch's music. Lara Catrin translates something heart-rending from Y Bandana, and Ben Hayes shows us why Bill Wyman's reputation should be more about his musical talents than his penchant for women a third of his age.

We have a selection of bristling, excellent and inspirational new Welsh music including debut plays for Crack Fox, Sleepy Panda Club, Phrazer, Bitform, i-de-ate, Little Nell, Spires & Jay T.

Please send demos/new releases/gig info to themysterytour@gmail.com or in the post:

Adam Walton
Â鶹Éç Radio Wales
Canolfan y Diwydiannau Creadigol/Centre for the Creative Industries
Prifysgol Glyndwr/Glyndwr University
Wrecsam/Wrexham
LL11 2AW

Via our Twitter Jukebox, we also have your selection of Lost Welsh Classics - songs & bands that you feel should have got more recognition... everything from Novocaine to Heather Jones. Some *great* choices.

This week the jukebox is looking for your suggestions of Great Welsh Album Tracks... songs from our best artists that never got released as singles, but should have done. https://twitter.com/welshmusic - or post a reply.

The key Welsh releases this week are: The Keys (Bitten By Wolves album), Chloe Leavers (All These Things EP,), Anni Rossi (Heavy Meadow LP), Little Arrow (Music, Masks & Poems EP), Revoker (Revenge For the Ruthless LP), Pete Lawrie (A Little Brighter LP), Y Niwl (Undegsaith single) - all highly recommended.

Have an excellent, music-filled week (the comma is optional!)

Adam

THE PETH - 'Last Man Standing'
Bangor / Bethesda / Ruthin

FFA COFFI PAWB - 'Valium'
Bethesda

GORKY'S ZYGOTIC MYNCI - 'Where Does Yer Go Now?'
Camarthen

- 'Light Leaves, Dark Sees'
Cardiff

- 'Joust'
Wrexham

- 'Yegelle Tezeta'
Ethiopia / Wrexham

- 'Racing Birds'
Waunfawr

- 'Sun In The Winter'
Camarthen / Cardiff

BENCH - 'Your Badly Fitting Skin'
Cardiff

- 'Heavy Cloud'
Swansea

- 'Medicated'
Swansea

CARTOON - 'Alcoholic Show'
Cardigan

- 'Cellophane Wrapped New Head'
Newport

- 'Cut Dem'
Newport

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Bangor

- 'The Conquistador Repents'
Bangor / Prague

- 'Nazz Mk Ii'
Newport

CUBARE - 'Punx Snot Dead, It Just Sux Now'
Cardiff

- 'Un Deg Saith'
Gwynedd

- 'Bitten By Wolves'
Resolven / Cardiff

- 'All These Things'
Colwyn Bay

- 'Candyland'
Chicago / New York (cardiff Label)

- 'Aeroplane'
Cardiff

- 'Time To Die'
Rhymney Valley

- 'All That We Keep ( Don Diablo Remix )'
Penarth

- 'Something You Should Know ( Friends Electric Remix )'
Llanelli

- 'Daylight'
Cardiff

HEATHER JONES - 'Syrcas O Liw'
Cardiff

- 'Casserole Efeilliaid'
Cardigan

- 'Negative Cycles'
Cardiff

- 'Chinese Whispers'
Capel Curig / Betws Y Coed

- 'Nonchalance'
Ruthin

ARMSTRONG - 'Bank Holiday Monday'
Newport

- 'Best Of Intentions'
Wrexham

- 'Blen'
Camarthen

- 'Pontiago'
Pembrokeshire

LARA CATRIN - 'Spoken Contribution'
Bangor / Cardiff

- 'Can Y Tân'
Caernarfon

- 'Shut Up Iris'
Llandudno / Conwy

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Ruthin

- 'Nuclear Reactions'
London

- 'Slew ( Sweeping The Nation Comp Version )'
Prestatyn

- 'Living ( Sweeping The Nation Comp Version )'
Chester / Llangollen