Hello and welcome to another instalment of your weekly musings around the ‘scene’. I’m going to tell you about the gigs that are happening this week, alongside other related news that you may find interesting or you may not, either way, thank you for stopping by.

Tomorrow night a celebration is on the cards as the house/electro/techno night Selectro is a grand old 4 years of age. The DJs will be led out by team captain Cy Tukay, DJs Leon Roberts and Mike Williams will be shooting up and down the wings, Dave Owens is tying up the rear with some deep defending and making his debut from the bench will be DJ Robash. Expect some class European talent at The Old Swan from 8pm and it’s free entry through the turnstiles.

Tonight at Central Station the trusty wrexhammusic.co.uk wagon rolls up for our last gig before the Good Times! Festival (tickets are still available). Trader, Arnie, A59, Danblagroyd and The Capitals are playing, check out the front page of ‘The Guide’ for the full info.

The self proclaimed cheese master himself Danny Gruff is playing The Goulbourne Pub in Borras tonight, along with his gigging stable mate Ronnie Rube. Doors open at 8pm.

Congratulations go to Stokoz to Moscow who won the Panic Promotions Battle of the Bands last Thursday. It seems my money was on the right band! Sources tell me it was a packed event with queues and everything. Commiserations go to Monte Cassino who came a close second. Watch out for the Stokoz boys at a gig near you soon.

Those of you who like a good peruse and nose around the 2nd hand racks will be pleased to know that the popular Vod Music Record Fair is back in Mold on Saturday. It’s being held at the Daniel Owen Community Centre from 10am to 4pm and you can expect to see plenty of Vinyl, CDs, DVDs, T-Shirts and badges.

Tonight at The Old Swan in Wrexham, Andy Hickie and his Merry Maidens will be playing along with Myagi. Andy, who regular readers will know, got through to the final the Glastonbury Unsigned competition and as a result is playing two gigs at this year’s festival. Edinburgh’s Miyagi have just brought out their second album after the success of ‘Luckyface’ which shot them into the public eye in Scotland. Recently they have best been summed up as sounding like ‘a cross between the vampire band in Dusk till Dawn and Johnny Cash’ by Village Voice magazine, New York. The gig is free entry and kicks off at 8pm.

On Saturday Telfords Warehouse have blues and soul singer Dani Wilde playing.

Dani’s first break came when she was asked to sing backing vocals for famous 1960s British Folk singer Maddie Prior. Dani’s vocal delivery and finger picking blues guitar style makes you consider she could have been brought up in Chicago in the 1950s, but she wasn’t, she was born and bred in Brighton. It’s free entry before 10pm and £4 thereafter.

Saturday in Wrexham consists of South Walean rock theomorphic’s The Guns playing The Old Swan. They’ve toured extensively with Lostprophets and this tour will visit Berlin, London, Bonn, Neath, Oberhausen and of course Wrexham. If you like your rock energetic and you don’t mind being spat on by the lead singer (it’s all part of the act nowadays), this is the gig for you – a mental performance in guaranteed. Doors are 8pm and it’s free entry.

“Wrexham is viewed as a ‘hick town’, a cultural desert and has a ‘stunted’ art scene”, claims a reader of the Evening Leader online. I noticed this article on eveningleader.co.uk at the end of last week and it was an eye opener to read what the contributor thought of the ‘art scene’ in Wrexham. By ‘art’, they must mean everything other than music, as there is no fear whatsoever that Wrexham doesn’t have a healthy and diverse music scene!

“What is needed is enthusiastic, experienced and dynamic, result orientated organisations that can move and shape the towns culture to produce an art scene that will attract pride, respect and an avant-garde philosophy”. I do think this is true, if you don’t know where to look, it’s very hard to notice any sort of art scene and publicity and exposure is the main problem. There is a lot of potential in our town; with numerous art groups existing, galleries, exhibitions and NEWI/Yale having well established art courses full of talented students. I do think the ‘hick town’ comment is a bit harsh though! Point your web browser to the following address to read the article: www.tinyurl.com/6jgeo5 and leave your comments.

That’s my little rant over! If you want to rant at me with any local music news/views, send me an email at ben@wrexhammusic.co.uk. Have a great week.