Due to a bit of stupidity on my part it looks as though we may well have 2 spare tickets for the sold out Iron & Wine Gig at St Bonns on Monday November 1st. It’s a long shot I know but if anyone should read this and wants to go the gig leave me a message in the comments section and we could try to sort something out. Remember that I won't see any messages before Sunday evening.The excellent Micah P. Hinson is the support act by the way.

Talking of music, I’ve picked up a few tunes this week, by coincidence there is a pretty heavy Bristolian element to the albums. First off was the excellent Smith & Mighty compilation called Retrospective. It’s great to have those groundbreaking early singles Walk On and Anyone on CD, along with their production work for Carlton and Fresh 4. It’s features lots of great tracks from more recent years and should be an essential purchase for anyone with an interest in music from Bristol.

Next up are a couple of Massive Attack related items, Daddy G’s contribution to the DJ-Kicks series and the Massive Attack soundtrack album for the film Danny The Dog. Daddy G’s album is a great mix old reggae favourites, a couple of old soul gems and few remixes. No major surprises but thoroughly enjoyable, it like having your iPod on shuffle and getting 17 killer tracks in a row. The soundtrack album is full of brooding instrumentals, some of which are really beautiful, as with most soundtrack albums, it’s hardly essential but fans who have to everything will find much to enjoy. Talking of those sort of fans they will be pleased to know that the Massive Attack – Mos Def collaboration “I against I” is included on Grants DJ Kicks album, I think it’s the first time it’s been commercially available.

My final purchase is the final album from the sadly departed Elliot Smith – From a basement on the hill. With the exception of the classic either/or his albums always take a while to really get into my head, I’ve only heard this new album once but it does have a couple of really fine stand out tracks. I’m sure that over the next few months I’ll be playing it a lot, such a shame that we won’t be getting anything else from intense and wonderful man.

We are off to Manchester in a few hours, as well as the Magnetic Fields gig, we are excitedly looking forward to visiting URBIS and CUBE where they have an exhibition on the work of one of our favourite architects Erich Mendelsohn.