First up, Funeral For a Friend are playing the Corn Exchange on Friday 1st. It will cost 12 and a half of your English pounds, and will be full of genuine emo.

If your tastes lean more towards the weird, you could do worse than check out redcarsgofaster, who have been described by this very site as Mark E. Smith fronting what looks like the Cooper Temple Clause and who sound rather cool. They’re appearing at The Soul Tree on Wednesday 13th courtesy of Club Rocker, who’re also hosting Kalev on Wednesday 27th. Entry is £4 before 10pm (or for NUS-ers and Club Rocker badge holders) and £5 afterwards.

Also appearing at The Soul Tree are The Kooks (Sunshine 60s guitar pop - NME) and Dive Dive (One of the world’s greatest rock’roll bands - The Fly) on the 14th. That one’s hosted by Greenmind, who’re also putting on Special Needs and Red Organ Serpent Sound at the Portland Arms on the 28th. Other things you might want to watch at that esteemed watering hole include the fantastically-named Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, who will be treating us all to laptop acoustics on the 12th; and the rather cool girl-kickass-punk of She Makes War, who will be hosted by R*E*P*E*A*T Fanzine on Monday 11th. July will also be the month in which R*E*P*E*A*T release the second Volunteers album, and the band themselves will be appearing at an album launch party on Saturday 16th, accompanied by Very Special Guests and asking for but a fiver of your hard-earned cash.

Finally, the Man on the Moon are hosting Canadian band Zeroscape on the 15th. Zeroscape sold all their stuff to come over to Britain and are living off what they make through gigs and merchandise, and you should go and see them for that alone. Plus for the fact that they put on a damn fine metal-rock-hiphop-reggae fusion which will make you dance. Support comes from Loophole and Eudaimonia.

And finally-finally, mockery aside, take a minute to go over to the Oxfam website and e-mail Tony Blair about the principles you feel he should be upholding at the G8. I know the whole Trade Justice/Drop the Debt/More And Better Aid thing’s been kinda drowned out by the PR attracted by the concerts (universal law #78,086: Pink Floyd reunion rumours sell more newspapers than dead Africans), but it is very, very important.