If I have nothing else to say, it is this: Man Man puts on one mother of a live show. Don’t miss it if you get the chance.

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I got a nice surprise in my mailbox yesterday. It was jam-packed with lots of CDs for me to review, including three copies of The Redemption of Mr. Tom, the new EP by the Mancunian six-piece The Travelling Band. So I figured I should share my bounty with the world.

I only need one copy for myself (I’ve already given it a couple of spins, and can attest it’s a good listen), so I’m giving away the other two. All you have to do is fill out the form below and tell me why you deserve a copy and I’ll pick the best two answers and ship the discs accordingly.

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Here’s a new video for a tune I’ve been digging for the last few days. We Were the States are a 5-piece from Murfreesboro, Tennessee (of all places), and “Up Your Sleeve” is the first track on their new debut LP, Believe The Thieves.

I’m really looking forward to getting the album and cranking it in the car this summer. There’s something about their sound that reminds me of the early work of the Kinks on overdrive, and I definitely like that. A little sloppy, a little poppy and a whole lot of fun.

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Philadelphia’s Man Man are one of those bands that just doesn’t stop touring, except to do a little recording now and then. Luckily, I’ve managed to get a few minutes to chat with the band’s singer/keyboardist/evil genius mastermind Ryan Kattner (AKA Honus Honus) on a rare, much deserved break.

“Because of band circumstances and whatnot,” explains Kattner, “I became without a home about six months ago. I’m still without a home; we tour so much. We have a couple of weeks off, so I’m just in LA couch-surfing … Nothing interesting, and definitely not jet-setter glamorous.”

After three solid years on the road, he seems to be enjoying a little time off before hitting the road again. He recalls, “in the old days - when I say ‘old days’ I mean like last year - we’d go on a gruelling tour we’d come back and immediately have to go back to our day jobs working in cafes and bars and moving companies.”

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We all like to think we have better musical taste than our cohorts; it’s an essential element of the human condition. Now, thanks to a new website, you can actually get charts and graphs to justify your position.

Songkick.com is a London-based site dedicated to helping you find a good concert to see in your area. They do so by monitoring Amazon sales, blogosphere activity, and various MySpace statistics (song plays, profile views and number of friends) from the last five weeks and applying an undisclosed algorithm to come up with a proprietary ranking for every band in their database.

The coolest thing about the site is their Battle of the Bands page, which allows you to put in any three bands and compare their stats. So I thought it would be fun to put together a TO-centric battle royale to see who would come out on top.

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It’s so hard for a young, unknown band to get some exposure these days. Thankfully, there’s the Colbert Bump, the inevitable rise in popularity one receives after appearing on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.

The latest recipients of this prestigious honour are R.E.M., currently flogging their latest studio project, Accelerate.

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I stumbled across a wicked cool link while researching a feature I’m writing about the pride of Newmarket, Tokyo Police Club, who are currently touring all over North America in support of their soon to be released full length LP, Elephant Shell. They’ve come up with a novel approach to tour blogging; rather than give you the boring details of going from show to show, keyboardist Graham Wright has taken to writing specifically about the various restrooms he encounters along the way, briefly discussing their merits and ranking them on a scale out of 50 on such things as cleanliness, amenities, décor and functionality (always the clincher).

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Here’s some bona fide Radiohead news for this April Fools Day. They’ve announced a remix contest for the song “Nude.”

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I came across this seemingly alarming post today before I realized what date it was …

Jonny Greenwood Quits Radiohead, All North American Dates Cancelled!?!

Happy April Fools Day!

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