The Things You’re Missing National Tour was launched last week in Letterkenny featuring fourteen acts over eleven dates. Easily the largest and most ambitious tour in quite some time, the alternating line up boasts Neo Supervital, Estel, Large Mound, Aurel, Rollers/Sparkers, Stoat, The Dudley Corporation, Yakuza, The Evangelists, The Holy Ghost Fathers, Omelette, Playground Psychotic and The Coldspoon Conspiracy. You can still catch dates in Galway, Limerick, Dundalk, Cork, Kilkenny, Waterford, and Dublin so check www.things youremissing.com for all the relevant info. Incidentally, John Peel has been bigging up The Evangelists.

Not to be outdone, April brings the Volta Sounds Spring Tour 2003 with Goodtime John, Jape and the artists formerly known as Creative Controle and hereafter as Messiah J & The Expert. Both Goodtime and Messiah J & The Expert are currently completing albums due for release by Volta Sounds.

Mundy is currently recording a new album for an autumn release. Rodrigo and Gabriela’s Re-Foc album will be released in the UK this summer.

The twelfth Road Relish single has become the fastest selling of the whole series. Perhaps something to do with the white vinyl but chiefly down to the fact that Neo Supervital and The Chalets produced the goods and goodies.

Fellow Things tour road mates The Holy Ghost Fathers have just released their debut album entitled Cock of the Walk.

Another new release is a compilation called Mother Of Mercy featuring Carnun Rising, The Swarm, Mabus666, Dog on Stilts, Slave Zero, Rift and more, all for under the price of a pint at Zhivago (Galway), Plugd (Cork), Secret Book and Record Store or Sound Cellar (Dublin).

After a thoroughly successful South By South West for a whole load of Irish acts, Daemian Frost keeps on jet-setting through Italy and France, taking in dates with Howe Gelb and Capitol City Dusters. A homecoming with Large Mound and Weevil follows in April. Large Mound have been through a couple of line up changes but are now stabilised and out on the road. Expect a late summer album release and the possibility of tours in the UK and Canada.

A new venture called Sounroom (sic) is launched on March 30. The inaugural bill is Ollie Cole (Turn), the omnipresent Neo Supervital, Louise Byrne, Tadhg Cook and Stephen Walker in DA2 on Wexford Street.

Another night out with a difference is Sugar and Spikes fortnightly in the Sugar Club on Leeson Street. A sample bill would be a screening of the Buffalo 66 movie followed by Playground Psychotic and Deputy Fuzz with resident spinmaster Peepee of Chalets fame and visuals from Del9.