Welcome warriors and fans of the eternal good stuff and the discerners of decibels!

Its been quite a helter skelter few days here hence the column being slightly late. ‘The Art of Darkness - the history of Goth’ book has been going crazy and keeping up with its wild sales has been quite a task. Not that I want to lumber you with my showbiz problems. Time, though has been in short supply but somehow, tonight it stands still enough briefly to write to you our beloved readers with the latest communiqué.

My book is available from here…

There has been music - lots of it and as ever Louder than War have been the busiest of busy beavers in chasing it down around the planet.

Sleaford Mods gate crashed the top 5 albums looking as gloriously out of place as you would have hoped. The album itself is a work of minimalist genius. Of course, Jason is a fine lyricist with a scathing snark wit as he cocks a snoot at the alarming decay of our beloved home nation but we should celebrate Andrew - the bearded quiet one whose sonic masterpieces are quite something - Sleaford Mods trick is to ostensibly work within the narrowest of parameters and yet make each song sound totally different. Our reviewer Ryan Walker has written a fantastically over the top review of the album - it’s a great piece of writing.

It's been great to applaud the return of the Inspiral Carpets - in many ways, the most underrated band of them all. If you lived through the last few UK music scenes in real time you would remember them as the third corner of the Manc baggy triangle, along with the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays. Their Farfisa-driven garage rock stands the test of time as the recently released complete singles proves. This timelessness could be put down to many things but ultimately, it's their knack of writing killer pop songs with kitchen-sink meaning and a small town yearning and eternal choruses.

Hit Girls: Women of Punk in the USA, 1975-1983 - book review (Opens in a new window) Hit Girls: Women of Punk in the USA, 1975-1983 - book review (Opens in a new window) is a great book about the woman of USA punk. It's great that we are getting much more balanced these days and we get another take on these classic old war stories. ‘A necessary and invaluable compendium of American punk bands fronted and formed by women who are overlooked no more.’

Hotwax are our favourite new band- 3 young women from Hastings who rekindle grunge with stunning musicianship, golden melody and glorious intensity and a thrilling musical ability - check the bass player! Check the singer! Check the drummer! Possible future Glastonbury headliners? Let's hope so…

Wait! Did someone just say that rap legend Busta Rhymes grew up in Morecambe! It sounds so unlikely that no one could have dreamt it up as a fib and….yet..it’s true…he did! Being a naughty boy on the streets of New York he was sent to live with his auntie in Morecambe. It’s an idea so bamboozingly weird that we had to investigate…

Manchester International Festival is the biannual big arts festival in Manchester and it’s back this summer with a star-studded and suitably off-kilter bill of big events featuring the likes of Janelle Monáe, Alison Goldfrapp, Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Grant and Richard Hawley are on this year’s Manchester International Festival bill.

We are sorry to hear of the death of Dix Denny of American 1977 punk legends the  Weirdos. Those frenetic off kilter, genuinely weird American punk bands seemed a world apart from the claustrophobic UK punk scene. Their speed thrills take on punk rock was like a gonzoid glam played to a comic book effect but had its own innate thrilling charm. Farwell punk rock warlord.

Ville Valo coasted throughout the UK this week and the ex HIM vocalist returned triumphant to bear witness to his adoring public, in a packed and emotional ninety minutes of old and new…

Manchester Unspun is a great new book about Manchester and how the city was changed by pop culture. Not retelling the dusty old myth one more time, author Andy Spinoza looks at the way the city itself was changed by the empowerment of the music and how this created the Gotham city skyline of the now - and how the world's first post-industrial city turned into the world first post-punk city.

Suede are a band in reverse. Most groups start off great and run out of steam and yet Suede seem to have their glory days in front of them writes our reviewer after yet another ecstatic and brilliant gig from the band.

Brix Smith is back with a solo album produced by Youth and she tells John Robb all about it here…