at last year’s field day i debuted my live tweeting reviews. it wasn’t perfect by any means, and i’ve improved it since, but thank you field day 2010 for starting me on this. this probably wasn’t particularly original, but it made my life very easy indeed so expect the same sort of thing again on monday.

as a bit of a preview to tomorrow’s field day i’ve put together a playlist of those acts i’m planning on seeing. i’ve used a clash guide, which i imagine has been put together through a lot of guess work so it may be impossible. some already overlap anyway and i haven’t accounted for food. or, more pressingly, getting drunk and losing my glasses. it’s nice to go with a plan though isn’t it. also, the chances of me being there by pearson sound are pretty much non existent. my aim is ducktails to start really and if i can only see one act all day it will be twin shadow. i don’t know why i would only get to see one act though.

you can listen to the playlist right here.

it should come as no surprise that this month’s playlist is a bit of an amy winehouse special. i wasn’t blogging very regularly last weekend so didn’t really mention her on here. enough has been said anyway, so it isn’t really worth saying much apart from how much she’ll be missed. especially her music. as it happens, i’m in the camp addiction is a disease and it doesn’t matter how what the situation around her life was, she was a young girl who lost her life. and that’s bad. just in case you haven’t read it by the way, russell brand wrote an amazing piece about her.

these playlists aren’t just about what i’ve written about on here, but also what i’ve been listening to in the background. as most new bits of music i like get included on the blog, the extras are often older stuff. this month i’ve broken out crazysexycool for a bit of tlc love. i had to include them on here. also on an rnb feel you’ll find some cassie. a few days ago i had her playing on youtube (she’s hot, so it’s always video rather than mp3 with her) and accidentally started ‘rudie can’t fail’ by the clash on itunes. suffice to say that the two mixed together brilliantly and i now rate myself as the next carl cox.

enjoy the playlist, which can be found here and any feedback (especially tlc love) is always appreciated. also a quick thank you to emma who chose the amy winehouse connected songs to close the set.

it is 3am in the morning and i can’t sleep. fuck knows why but for whatever reason i can’t. therefore i’ve decided to write something about the mercury music prize nominations. as i’m still a week away from having internet access at home you will notice that the little time at the bottom of this post probably says about half eight or something. glad we’ve got that cleared up.

i can’t be bothered to list them all as every other site on the web has already done that so if you’d like the list please click here. i’ll wait a moment while you read it. done? good. what did you think? i know what you’re thinking. where are wild beasts? where is tom vek? where are yuck? all three of those (especially wild beasts) will have to go down as 2011′s gorillaz for their glaring omission.

let’s talk about who is in then. ghostpoet. happy day. the quite wonderful ghostpoet is there. i’ve written about him so many times i’ve lost count. not only does he hold the distinction of being the first ever post on the relaunched sockformation, but i also confirmed that i didn’t lick him during a very drunken gig and he was my only tip for 2011 in amongst all of josh’s (none of which are in. take that short stuff). i hope he wins. i really do.

strangely i didn’t review the ghostpoet album. i can’t remember why. in fact, i only reviewed two. or to be more exact, i reviewed pj harvey and helen parton reviewed metronomy for me. both were very positive and i predict that it will be pj harvey who walks off with the prize. she may well be more established than a lot of winners tend to be, but let england shake is a brave and unusual album. mercury love that shit.

others to keep an eye on would be king creosote & jon hopkins or katy b. i’m not the biggest fan of the latter but i think she’s probably come out at the right sort of time for the awards. anna calvi was another hotly tipped artist for this year and her nomination confirms that her self-titled album lived up to expectations. adele has done alright for herself this year and you’ll have trouble discounting her from the running. i’m unsure whether she’s a label mate of last year’s winners, the xx, will affect her negatively though. shame because out of all the nominees i’m sure she could probably do with the £20k prize money the most after selling more records worldwide than there are people.

i’ve put together a playlist on spotify of all the nominees. there are a couple of tracks from each album. you can find it here.

finally. who the fuck is gwilym simcock?

it’s been a quiet month here on sockformation thanks to me moving and finding out that virgin media can’t service my flat. the shits. that means that the playlist for june doesn’t fit in with the posts quite as simply. that’s nice in a way though as you can hear what i’ve been listening to on the bus every morning instead.

one of the mains things is monsieur serge gainsbourg. i watched the biopic and my obsession with all things to do with cool french people smoking just increased. what a man. anybody who has ever looked at the header here will know that i’m a bardot fan of course, but funnily enough after watching the film i’ve decided that serge and jane birkin are my new couple crush. what a pair they were. having said that it’s a bardot duet that i’ve gone and included on here so that makes little sense.

you can get your playlist here and i’ll be back with more frequent posts soon.

i’m sorry but this month’s playlist has been put together with very little thought. i just had to shoot through it quickly. still, i hope you enjoy it. to try and ensure you do, i’ve included a few tracks from the legendary gill-scott heron who tragically passed away this month.

you can download it here.

april ended with nothing but talk of the middleton sisters various body parts. after the royal wedding you couldn’t move for tabloid inches full of pippa’s arse and kate’s finger. my favourite part of proceedings though was definitely hearing about harry and friends locking themselves out of site in princess anne’s old bathroom for most of the reception. i can only assume that they’d all drunk too much water so felt it better to hang in there together.

there has been a lot more going on other than just wedding shit though. roger sargent premiered his film about the libertines’ reunion, odd future came to london but cancelled the gig i was meant to be seeing them at and tottenham managed to throw away any chance of champions league football next season while also looking like they might even miss out on the europa league. cocks.

we also lost gerard smith and poly styrene from the world of music.

without further ado, here is your playlist for april. hopefully you’re all still using spotify despite them royally fucking us over.

i wasn’t happy with just posting that previous thing. i also realised that i haven’t once mentioned the tragic death of tv on the radio’s gerard smith. i’m not one to go on about things like that because i don’t have the skills to put real thoughts into words, but what i can do is put together a quick playlist showcasing tv on the radio. i’m sure most of you are more than familiar with them, but if any of you aren’t, please familiarise yourself and realise what a loss to music gerard smith is.

tv on the radio playlist (spotify)

march is over already. and what a nice march it has been. we even had a pint outside in primrose hill last weekend. amazing. there’s been plenty of music written about on here and generally exciting stuff happening all over. we’ve had justice, lykke li, metronomy and a shit load of cool frontwomen. we’ll start next month with a review of last night’s brilliant summer camp gig at xoyo (confirmed as pronounced ex-oh-yo by the way. i think). in the meantime, enjoy the playlist.

you can get it by clicking just here. i’ve got rid of those shitting little logos i used to use.

i decided i’m going to make a few more spotify playlists. based on a bit of feedback from the forum, here’s an easy way to listen to some of the bands i’ve written about over the first two months of the year. hopefully it’s a nice mixture of established acts you’ll know and the odd one or two thrown in that perhaps you’ve never got around to listening to. i’ve added some other artists that i’ve been enjoying over the period as well. both old and new. have fun.

jan.feb.11 (spotify)

this was my christmas. 9am. josh got up. later than expected. open stocking. 10am. kedgeree. good. 10.30am. open presents. i’m getting a bike so i had a book and some lights. josh got a table football table. ben 10 ds game. lego. lots of bits basically. 11.30am. to my brother’s with the family. guinness on arrival. 12.30am open presents. i got a massive daft punk print. josh got an ant world and chemistry set. i see danger and mess ahead. 1.30pm. sister in law’s family arrive. rum is given to me. good. more guinness. 4pm. dinner. very good. brother and his wife’s first effort. impressive. red wine. 5pm. christmas pudding. custard. excellent. 6pm. rapidough. lager. 7pm. shout out loud. lager. 8pm. london underground game. lager. 9pm. four player mario kart on the wii. i won. lager. 10pm. christmas cake. black bomber & biscuits. lager. 11pm. sports resort on the wii. i won. midnight. fifa on the wii. i won.

what this basically means is that i don’t know what to post about. how about a spotify playlist to relax on a boxing day to? perfect.

boxing day playlist (spotify)

if you’d like to know who’s included, probably best to check the tags at the bottom as i can’t be arsed to write out the full playlist here