I’m in Manchester at a music industry conference thing called UnConvention, and I’ve been hanging out and going to some pretty amazing gigs with lots of really interesting people. Musicians, independent record label people, music managers and so on.

There are quite a few people here I have met before, and it’s been really good to catch up. My friend Nick from Penny Distribution has come over from Belfast with a couple of his friends, and I’ve been spending a bit of time with them.

One of them - Tracy - is a life coach (in Belfast - really) and she does a lot of work with musicians. We got chatting, and she happened to mention she had a New Zealand connection.

“Have you heard of a guy called Charlie Dempsey? He was head of FIFA Oceania. Died a little while back.”

“Yeah - he’s my uncle.”

“You’re shitting me. He’s my uncle. I’m Tracy Dempsey.”

We unpicked the threads, and it turns out that our grandparents are cousins. How bizarre.

Number 3 is too young…

I was watching some old episodes of Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Really old episodes. Mark Lamarr was hosting.

And when they did the lineup, the question was ‘Which one of these is Paul Gray - the bass player from Eddie and the Hot Rods?’.

I know him! He works for the Musicians Union, and has played host to me in towns across the bottom and left hand side of the country when I’ve given seminars.

He was dismissed from the lineup as being far too young: “You would have been minus two when Eddie and the Hot Rods were around.” I hope he took that as a compliment.

But it was very exciting to see him on the show. Like when I bought Trivial Pursuit in New Zealand way back - and Trevor Reekie and Barry Jenkin were both answers to questions.

Adam Regan presents the latest DJ team sensation to hit the Heath

I DJ’d at the Hare and Hounds last night. There was a big crowd because Norman Jay was playing (somewhere) upstairs, it was a Friday night in Kings Heath, and where I was playing was out in the courtyard, where the smokers retreat.

A lot of people smoke, and they bring their friends out to the fresh air when the main room doubles as a sauna.

I met Clutch at the bar for a quiet drink first, and was introduced to David and Tom, a DJ-ing partnership who I was to alternate with over the course of the night. One’s from London, the other from Manchester - and they team up to play in Birmingham, and evidently Croatia.

Turns out that what they play and what I played were extremely complementary. At times we would have to make a mental note not to play a certain track, because the others had already done so.

I let them go first - a good decision, because as tends to happen in these sorts of situations, there were technical difficulties. They had the first hour of messing with the mixing desk, before it was finally replaced with one that worked more properly (not ‘actually properly’ - just ‘more properly’).

By the time they came off, they were frustrated and stressed. When I started, I had a smooth run.

A veritable throng in the courtyard at Hare & Hounds

Not only was the music great, but David and Tom were really great guys: smart, funny, good taste in music.

As the evening went on, Tom took it up to a full-on house music vibe, and I tore it right back to Marvin Gaye’s ‘Mercy, Mercy Me’. We threw some reggae in the mix, and we started to hear that people were coming out to the courtyard to retreat from the drum and bass direction that Norman Jay had started to move in.

And as so often happens in these sorts of situations, it became kind of competitive, the duration of the sets became shorter so that we could ‘respond’ - and by 1.30am, we were taking alternate tracks.

After two, it started getting silly. I managed to get a sing-a-long going with Free’s ‘All Right Now’ - but around 2.30am, we had to call it a night when Tom and David dropped ‘Give A Little Love’ - the final number from the film Bugsy Malone.

Everybody did the ‘Na na na NA NA NA NAAAA’s. You can’t come back from that.

We’ve resolved to team up for a repeat performance. And this time, I’m bringing the closer.

The Kora brothers do their thing

Bobbie, Jake and I took Juliet and Louise to go and see New Zealand funk/reggae/rock band Kora last night, so named because that’s the surname of the four brothers in the band (and there’s also one “token white dude from Wainuiomata” who played bass and keyboards).

They were stormingly good. Everyone played pretty much every instrument. Almost everyone was a lead vocalist. The technical skill and polish was astonishing, and when they brought the funk, it was Parliament heavy.

Small crowd of really enthusiastic punters, and the guys put on an amazing show. I’d heard they were good live, but they were even better than I was expecting. All of the highlights from the album with a few really extended grooves and a drum and bass workout for good measure.

They finished the set with ‘Flow’ - which I managed to capture on video (and it turned out better than I’d hoped):

An encore was obligatory, and they didn’t disappoint.

Two support acts. Beatboxer and ‘live-looper’ Red was pretty astonishingly good. The Tivoli were sort of generic. It’s fine to sound like another band, of course. They sounded like an entire category of music. No distinguishing features.

But all in all, an awesome night. Shame there were only about 30 people there to see it. Next time - go.

Almost 20 years ago, he was Doogie Howser, MD. Now he’s a criminal mastermind with his own web-only (for now) musical, written and directed by Buffy creator (and genius) Joss Whedon with a bunch of his friends and family.

Serialised online (Act 1 up now), Dr Horrible features a really great cast, enjoyable musical numbers (and I HATE musicals), and it’s very funny.

Go watch it.

A bit more background here.