The Brit awards has come and gone for another year, with Adele adding more gongs to the six Grammys she won last week, and causing the only controversy of this year’s awards by flipping the middle finger after getting her acceptance speech cut to go to Blur.

We love a bit of controversy, and the Brits has had its fair share over the years – who could forget Sam and Mick, Alice and John, Liam and Robbie, the list goes on. If we had to give an award for Best Controversial Moment though, the clear winner would have to be Jarvis.

Interesting, if a little ranty, article on the development of microchipped wristbands and their use at festivals.

http://www.thisisfakediy.co.uk/articles/blogs/microchipped-wristbands-stopping-touts-or-marketing-ploy

Now this is a nice story. NPR have a great article about Peter Frampton being reunited with his dream guitar which was thought lost in a plane crash in Venezuela in 1980. Frampton had no idea his precious guitar had survived the crash and had made its way into the possession of a musician on the island of Curaçao, until it was spotted by a local guitar collector who recognised it and contacted Frampton with the information of its whereabouts.

On getting back his prized instrument, Frampton said “It’s got to go on the road. For it to be given back to me … It’s not something I’m going to hide in the closet.”

Full story here and a great picture of a very happy Frampton here.

25th December – Waterstrider ‘Constellation’

There’s an argument that an advent shouldn’t include Christmas Day, so if this doesn’t count I’m going to use it as an excuse to slip in one of my favourite songs of this year, Waterstrider’s ‘Constellation’.

Happy Christmas!

24th December – S.C.U.M ‘Summon the Sound’

As one YouTube user puts it, “The Horrors meets the Bunnymen. Love it.”

23rd December – Bombay Bicycle Club ‘Shuffle’

One time Road To V winners, look at them now eh?

22nd December – The Rapture ‘How Deep Is Your Love?’

There was a time when we never thought we’d see The Rapture again, when they came back with this belter we realised just how much we’d missed them.

21st December – Painted Palms ‘Great White’

Painted Palms made another of the dreamy, sun-drenched pop tunes that formed the soundtrack to our summer. Taken off the Canopy EP, this song is audio bliss.

20th December – Wise Blood ‘Nosferatu’

Another artist from the Dovecote Records stable in the US, Wise Blood has been on the rise this last year. The only fault we can find is that on the one night he played in London we had to be at the UK Festival Awards. Damn.

19th December – Absofacto ‘Feathers (Don’t Change On Me)’

Absofacto has to be one of the cleverest, most interesting singer songwriters of recent years. Do yourself a favour and check him out, you won’t regret it.