All week this week, DIS in conjunction with Vivaro on Tour sponsors Vauxhall, is driving up and down the UK. We’re not just zooming around willy-nilly, no siree, we’ve been visiting various venues for Independent Venue Week.

Sitting in motorway traffic got us thinking about all the places we’ll pass and all the artists that these lumps of rocks in the atlantic have produced. Acts who’ve taken on the world from various local scenes. Then there are those artists who’ve flipped upsidedown reality as we know it. And yet these are just people from different corners of this country.

For a bit of fun, we’d like to challenge you to take a trip around the UK in 20 songs. You can pick any route you like and come up with any theme you please.

You can submit your playlist over on our messageboards (if you're not already a member, don't worry, it only takes a few seconds to sign up).

The theme for my playlist is based on where the artists are from but I’m sure someone out there can come up routing based on concept albums or lyrics mentioning places. My routing starts down in the West Country with Muse (which is where I grew up), goes around the coast, jumps up to Yorkshire and heads into Scotland via Sunderland. My journey back nips over to Ireland, down through Wales, and ends up in the home of Radiohead.

South West: Muse - Agitated (Teignmouth)
South Coast: PJ Harvey - A Perfect Day Elise (Bridport)
Southern England: Frank Turner - The Way I Tend To Be (Winchester)
South East: Ed Harcourt - Last Of Your Kind (Lewes)
South East: Billy Childish - Bottom of the Sea (Chatham)
South East: Depeche Mode - Halo (Basildon)
East Anglia: The Darkness - One Way Ticket (Lowestoft)
East Midlands: Six by Seven - I O U Love (Nottingham)
The North: The Cribs - Mirror Kissers (Wakefield)
North East: The Futureheads - The Beginning Of The Twist (Sunderland)
Scotland: Idlewild - Circles in Stars (Edinburgh)
Scotland: King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - John Taylor's Month Away (Fife)
Scotland: The Twilight Sad - Drown So I Can Watch (Glasgow)
Ireland: Villagers - Ship Of Promises (Dublin)
Island: Sam Airey - Endless Sea (Anglesey)
Welsh Borders: Mountain Men Anonymous - We Stole Your Rhyming Dictionaries (Gloucestershire / South Glamorgan)
Wales: Manic Street Preachers - Marlon J.D. (Blackwood)
West Midlands: Black Sabbath - Paranoid (Birmingham) South West: Portishead - The Rip (Bristol)
Southern England: Radiohead - Idioteque (Oxford)

A word from our sponsor: Vauxhall’s Vivavro on Tour initiative has already saved artists over £30,000 on van hire. Learn more and find out how you band can borrow their van for free.

What’s Independent Venue Week? It’s a series of shows across the UK at independently owned venues. Visit our IVW17 mini-site to learn more