Good evening, morning or indeed afternoon, depending on where the sun is when you’re reading this. I had a week off work last week and I managed to recharge the old Duracell’s whilst enjoying the sunshine, even though it was quite deceiving as it was as cold as ICE-T outside. Shall we begin with this week’s rundown?

Tonight Panic Promotions are supplying us with their hand-picked offerings from the local scene at McLean’s in Pentre. K115 (Ellesmere Port), The Stilletoes (Deeside) and Iguana (Wrexham) are this weeks yield. Iguana recently won the NEWI Battle of the Bands contest at NEWI, Wrexham – taking the winning place out of the 16 bands who participated. Doors are 7:45pm and it’s a mere 3 pictures of Liz to get in.

Telfords Warehouse in Chester have The Roseville Band playing on Friday night. Entry is free before 9pm and £4 thereafter. The Wrexham based band are mid-flow into their ‘My Town is Your Town’ tour, which will see them visit Liverpool, London and Preston with the final stop of the tour being on Friday 28th March at the REDI Nights at Central Station in Wrexham. Their double A-side single ‘My Town is Your Town’ / ‘Mission’ is out towards the end of the month and is available from www.therosevilleband.co.uk.

Tomorrow, Milliners on the High Street in Wrexham have Tequila playing. It will cost you absolutely nothing to watch them and it starts at 9pm.

On Saturday the Old Swan in Wrexham play hosts to Capguns, who are from the North Wales coast and have been together since 2004. Shoegazing napalm-strength epic progressive metal are a few choice words to describe these, although I could use many more and still not be hitting the nail on the head. Whilst listening to them on their Myspace site you hear influences jutting in from all over the musical provinces – I’m the getting the feeling their live show is going to be nothing short of immense. Support comes from Cyril Snear (wasn’t he the baddie in the classic 80s cartoon The Racoons?), it’s free to get in and the proceedings begin at 8pm.

The Frog & Nightingale in Chester have a busy schedule this week. On Sunday they welcome the Picake Promotions Battle of the Bands competition which hopes to showcase some local talent. I’d like to say that I enjoy a healthy battle of the bands competition – but I’d be lying through my pegs, and at this time of the year there always seems to be an abundance of them. Most competitions carry the tagline ‘The search for the next big band’ or something similar, it all seems a bit too cheesy, like those Graeme Gooch hair growth adverts. Sorry, that’s enough of my mumblings, doors are 8pm and its free entry. Tonight you will find Chester based indie band Eskimo Spies taking to the stage at 8pm. It’s also free entry. Tomorrow night Deeside band ‘Stokoz to Moscow’ (no idea what the name means, but I like it!) play their alternative rock/indie at the F&G. Again, doors are 8pm and yes you guessed it, it’s free to get in.

For those not in the know, every Sunday on BBC Radio Wales, Adam Walton presents a live show containing offerings from the Welsh music scene. The show doesn’t have any genre defining boundaries; you’ll hear hip-hop breaks back to back with Welsh language folk strummings. For any band/artist who wants to get their craftsmanship aired on national radio, this is the first step. You can email Adam with your high quality mp3’s to themysterytour@gmail.com and if he approves, he’ll play them. You’d be following in the footsteps of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Catatonia and Stereophonics – who all received their first airplay on his previous show ‘Revolution’. Listen to the show from 10pm on 93-104FM or online at bbc.co.uk/wales/radiowales.

Speaking of the Welsh music scene at the moment, we have a native who is number 1 in the charts at the moment. Duffy, from North Wales (albeit – the far west of North Wales) has roundhouse kicked those music terrorists Basshunter (the eurodance drivel) off the top place after their 3 week stint, with her song ‘Mercy’. Sounding like an old school northern soul number, it wouldn’t sound out of place being played as one of the ‘3 before 8’s’ at the Wigan Casino circa 1973. Duffy is playing Central Station in Wrexham on March 5th but don’t even think about buying tickets – it’s all sold out. eBay it up people.

Have you listened Mechanical Owl yet? The word on the street is that he is currently getting his live band together and will be doing some gigs soon (myspace.com/mechanicalowl). Keep your ear to the ground on that one. He has also received some airplay from Bethan Elfyn on her BBC Radio 1 show last week.

I’m spent. Let me know what you are up to – email me at ben@wrexhammusic.co.uk.

Stay pretty.