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My phone always rings when I'm, you know, indisposed.

As soon as I had washed my hands I called the number back.

The woman at the other end, after a little small talk, asked for a session for a band she "knows".

"They're the best band in [insert name of Welsh city]", she said.

"I like them. I've played them a few times. But I won't be offering them a session," I said.

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The Cardiff indie stalwarts will be playing the city's Coal Exchange venue on 20 November for 'Recreation', celebrating the legendary Creation Records.

Read more about the gig on the Wales Music site.

The venue that I DJ and occasionally promote in is pretty relieved that term time is upon us.

This summer it has been a challenge to get the crowds in to see our (excellent) bands, a challenge exacerbated by the smoking ban and the recession. It's a story echoed in venues throughout the UK. This isn't the case for every venue, or every band. But the unmitigated success stories are fewer and farther apart than in recent memory. It has been a tough couple of years for venues, bands and promoters.

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Bands from North Wales who have achieved any kind of commercial success or artistic recognition are few and far between.

They're like gossip magazine covers that aren't blighted by airbrushed gormfests of P*ter *ndre or K*tie Pric*.

That rare.

Shudder.

For today, at least, we'll focus on the positive, and on one of the rare achievers: a band who, whilst never scaling the charts or anything as crass as that, left an excellent recorded legacy and managed to bewitch the most important and influential music broadcaster of our times.

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Times is hard. Everybody's saying so. So, each little bargain eases the burden on your pennies and helps alleviate the gloom. That's why, when an event or a release merits it, I'm going to do my best to point you in the direction of the best FREE music you can enjoy from North Wales.

There are a couple of notable freebies today, Monday 21 September 2009.

Most imminently deserving of your attention (because if you read this too late, you'll have missed it) is celebrants of all things positive and harmonious, Heal the Last Stand's, free gig in the library bandstand in Wrexham THIS AFTERNOON at 12:30.

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Every week I'm going to draw back the curtain on the inner workings of my ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Wales new music show. Okay, not exactly the same as getting the lowdown on the making of Apolcalypse Now, or a firsthand account of what's going on as Future Of The Left haul themselves around Europe, America and Australasia, but it might interest some of you.

It's the radio equivalent of the Wizard of Oz: all the mysteries are the responsibility of a mundane, slightly overweight man hidden behind a curtain.

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