Following a couple of plays of "Change The Record" on his Radio 1 show, Steve Lamacq has chosen 4 or 5 Magicians as his weekly "New Favourite Band" and has invited me along to do an interview for his 6music show on Wednesday if you would like to tune in. Cool huh? It goes out live so there will probably be a number of pauses for thought and mumbled sentences that tail off. Anything could happen.

You can listen online at www.bbc.co.uk/6music or on digital TV at channel 0somethingand6 or on digital radio or if you hold a shell up to your ear.

I will be on sometime between 5:30 and 7:00. I can't really be any more specific than that I'm afraid! It's a good show anyway, so just listen to it. Sometimes he plays Mansun and Kenickie!

And now a news round up :

- BOOK US - I'm in the process of booking shows for July and August. It is quite likely that we will be coming somewhere near you if you live anywhere in the UK. Unless it's Cornwall. Though we might even come there if someone will book us? That goes for anywhere else too - if you want us to come play in your town or at your night or with your band or all three, then get in touch!

- JOIN US - So yeah we'll be back in July with new songs (which will be the best lot yet!), and a slightly different lineup - but we need YOU (well, maybe not you, but then yeah, maybe you) to join the band. Sam M is working 9-5 like Dolly Parton so he won't be able to play faraway shows during the week, our other guitarist Graham is only part time, and is in another band, (and hasn't fully committed yet to the July shows so he might not even do them!) and keyboard player Mike doesn't play shows outside Brighton as he has his own band ... SO we need a fifth (sixth? seventh? I can't work it out) member to join. Here's the totally non-confusing breakdown.

i) When none of Sam / Graham / Mike can play, you would be playing Sam's, (mainly lead) guitar parts.

ii) When Sam can play, but Graham can't, you'd be playing my (mainly chord based rhythm) guitar parts on some songs while I roam around the room singing in people's faces, and on a couple of songs, keyboard. Even if you've never played keyboard before, you'll be able to do it easily - we will supply the keyboard!

iii) When Graham can play, but Sam can't, then I'm not sure really. You'd be playing a mix of guitar and keyboard again, but maybe different guitar parts on some songs.

iv) When Sam and Graham can both play, you'd be mainly playing keyboard. If you played something else like the trumpet, trombone or whatever, you could probably play that a bit as well.

v) On the rare occasions that Sam, Graham, and Mike can all play, then Mike will probably just rap over the top of me (a bit like Wyclef in The Fugees) and you will play keyboard. Or a third guitar or something rad like that.

So yeah. There we go. Playing keyboard, trumpet etc. isn't essential, as long as you can play guitar well (or well enough to play our songs), are a nice, easy to work with person with a bit of charisma, and can commit to a number of shows throughout July and August, then we'd be happy to have you. Please get in touch! Obviously we'd like someone who could commit full time to the band, but if you're a student or something, who could only give up July and August to the cause, then we'd still like to hear from you! It would also be great if you could sing as the songs could really do with some backing vocals. This isn't completely essential though either.

We'll be meeting up in the last week of June in Brighton to learn the new songs, so you would need to make it down then to rehearse, and will be on tour for long parts of July and August starting July 3rd.

- JOIN US pt2 - Due to the somewhat transient nature of the band, it would be great to get a bit of a Rafa Benitez style "squad" of magicians on the go in case we were ever stuck for members for particular shows. So if you play drums, guitar, bass, keyboard, whatever and want to learn the songs, then go for it! Get in touch and we'll have a chat about it. Anyone half decent should be able to learn the songs by ear, and then play a gig after a rehearsal or two. For all you tuned instrument people - we tune all strings down half a step (so E is D, A is G etc.) and the songs should be easy to work out from there. For all you drummers, just listen to the songs and swing your arms!

- NEW RECORDINGS - We're doing some more recording with Ian Button in early July - woop! I have five new songs and expect to have one more by the time we record. We will be re-recording a couple of old songs too. This will then give us either an awesome 14-track album demo (with the songs we have already recorded) to send round labels, who will then pay for us to go to America to record them again, or if those big fish still aren't biting, then we'll get it mastered, draw some pictures, and release the recordings as two limited edition 7-track EPs in the Autumn, either ourselves, or through a small label, maybe Fake DIY would be up for it, we are doing another single through them in early August (Behind Each Others Backs).

- MANAGE US / BOOK SOME SHOWS FOR US - Just in case there are any industry types reading this (though there's no way you've read this far!) we're still looking for the right person to manage us, and we'd really like a booking agent to get us some cool shows too. Just thought I'd throw this in here.

- BE MY GIRLFRIEND - I'm currently single. All hot girls 17-25 please get in touch, and we can go for a drink. You're paying, I'm broke.

- LISTEN TO DUTCH HUSBAND - Everyone listen to Dutch Husband in our top friends. They remind me of Seafood around Surviving The Quiet but probably even better than that. It pains me that you haven't heard them. If you haven't. If you have then you know they are awesome. They are playing a show with us in London on August 3rd where they are Sebadoh, we are Guided By Voices, and some of the other best bands in the country are other great bands. More news on this to follow. Needless to say it will be absolutely mega.

I think I'm out of news now.

Dan x