It’s been a funny week or two of late with lots of quirky stories floating around the news under the usual rubbish such as the Daily Mail trying to find a causal link between Twitter and Cancer so they can run a front page demanding it (Twitter) is banned immediately and all those with accounts get flogged to within an inch of their worthless lives. Pity all those PR ‘executives‘ who have multiple accounts!

It’s also party conference season in the UK, last week it was the Liberal Democrats (given that they are not really either of those two words it’s no wonder they prefer to be called the Lib Dems) and this week it’s Labour who will be turning Liverpool into a bit of a ghost town, other than from political groupies who will probably be fewer in number now that the purse-strings on MP expenses are that little bit tighter than days of old.

The first thing that caught my attention was  the news that Pegasus Global Holdings is building a real ghost town, called The Center, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This town will occupy an area of 20 square miles, that’s the size of Bristol and house 35,000 hypothetical people. It will resemble a mid-sized American town, complete with highways, houses, apartments and commercial buildings in a mix of old and new styles.

If you’ve been reading over the last few months you’ll possibly recall my posts on the Last.fm and HP acoustic pop-up events that were held in what passed for Summer in London. I was able to make it along to see both Slow Club and Ghostpoet and in between Boxer Rebellion performed in Carnaby Street.

I’ve often wondered why I don’t hear more about gigs involving Last.fm. I vaguely recall things happening over the years but nothing regular. That could be either because there are no events happening or I’m not looking in the right places but as a long term last.fm user I would have thought they’d wanna tell me, or maybe they did and I’ve forgotten? That happens more than I can remember!

Well, from next month Last.fm are bringing Londoners Live Friday, a monthly event featuring a selection of DJs and acts who are chosen by and here’s the good bit, Last.fm users! OK, so you probably already guessed that, after all, what else is that massive database good for if not to find the kind of acts that people will want to see? If you’re even remotely geeky you’ll love the next bit…

You may or may not have already read an earlier entry where I’ve mentioned the Mancunian drum n bass producer/dj/artist Dub Phizix. Either way, he is releasing free Drum n Bass tracks from his Face Book page.

It’s not necessary to read those earlier entries in order to read this one but if you do like drum and bass, or even if you’re just interested in hearing free music read them in order to access the free downloads as they’ll allow you to explore some slightly different styles. Who knows, you may like it? You’ll find the entries here and here.

Anyway, Dub Phizix has a 4 track EP entitled The Editor coming out on 19 September. The EP features the vocal talents of Strategy, Chimpo and Fox all three of them are from Manchester and the EP is being released on the Mancunian label SOUL:R, which just so happens to be celebrating it’s 10th year anniversary this year. There’s certainly a creative buzz in Manchester and the output is very pleasing to the ears.

I decided last year that I would wake up on my birthday in a hotel somewhere away from London. I originally planned San Francisco but in the end went off to the much closer Manchester where I had the good fortune to catch up with Fritz & Gillian on Saturday and Sunday.

On Sunday I had wandered into town to find a pub where I could watch Manchester United play Arsenal. I had predicted Arsenal would lose 3-2, oh if only the scoreline had been as kind; instead we had an 8-2 massacre. I did feel my wallet was somewhat massacred in Manchester by the very average food served up at Sam’s Chop House. On a previous visit I had gone to see the bronze statue of Lowry propping up the bar, at that time I noticed they seemed to do a roaring trade in customers dining so I decided to eat there.

A little while back I attended an exclusive pop-up gig in Soho Square featuring Slow Club that was sponsored by HP UK and Last.fm, there was also one featuring The Boxer Rebellion that I wasn’t able to attend and then last night there was the final one featuring Ghostpoet aka Obaro Ejimiwe. You’ve probably heard of Ghostpoet, he was nominated for a Mercury Music Award (now prefixed by a credit card who I won’t endorse on account of their sky-high interest rates in these times of near recession)

Ghostpoet gained his nomination on account of his splendid album Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam which is really a story of how he went from where he was to where he is now. Do yourself a favour and have a listen, do him a favour and buy a copy, you won’t regret it.