The recently announced welcome return of Long Division to the festival calendar (pleasingly coming back over June 1st-3rd) has prompted us to think about what other events there are to look forward to in 2018.

Having taken a year off in 2017 Rockaway Beach returns to the Bognor Regis Butlin’s over January 12-14 & features The Horrors, The Orb, Wild Beasts, Honeyblood, Alabama 3 & a host of other acts. It could be just what you need to get back into the swing of things after the Xmas excesses. Prices currently start at £79 per person for room-only accommodation for the entire three-night festival – for more details click here.

Midway through spring Hipsville returns to Margate's Dreamland on 04-06 May. We’ve not managed to attend since the first one so it’s high time we remedied that.

June will be jam packed, what with Long Division at the start, Beaches Brew back at the Hana Bi in Marina di Ravenna and Edinburgh’s Franklin Fest seeing in its fourth year from 28 to 30 June.

Staying in Scotland, August will see Doune The Rabbit Hole once again set up shop by The Lake of Menteith. This is another event where a few years have elapsed since we last attended so it’ll be interesting to see what sort of beast it’s become.

Later in the year Iceland Airwaves returns over 07-10 November for its 20th year. Earlybird tickets are already on sale for £115 or so. Further details here.

Further updates on all of the above will feature on Musos’ Guide in the months ahead & no doubt other events will take our fancy and get the attention they deserve too.

Austrian garage punks Wild Evel And The Trashbones have thankfully made it back into the studio five years after their debut LP Tales From The Cave, coming up with Digging My Grave to stun the world a second time. The star performers at the very first Hipsville haven't been completely silent in the intervening years but to finally have 13 (pretty much) new tracks from the boys is very welcome indeed.

Okay, so track one ('Der Bucklige') is a tiny instrumental. That still leaves a round dozen to wig out to. Indeed after that ode to hunchbacks everywhere the title track pushes all the right garage punk buttons.

Track four, 'The Mess I'm In', first came out on 7" five years ago, a couple of songs later the band do a so-so cover of 'Ain't It Hard' & straight after that song number seven is a re-recorded version of their 2011 homage to garage maestros The Satelliters, 'Why Can't We Be'. The original in this case is in many ways better but for whatever reason they've felt the need to do it over.

None of which really detracts from the album overall or the actual quality of the songwriting. Their cover of Willie Dixon's '300 Pounds' is suitably cartoonish to make up for any minor failings elsewhere. Live all quibbles will easily be swept aside too.

The rawness which Wild Evel And The Trashbones bring to the airwaves with Digging My Grave is the sort welcomed by those of us appreciative of a far less polished & smoothed over approach to music making. A basic sound for the primitive in you.    

The quartet played a couple of UK dates in the run up to the album's release but here's hoping they make it over again & further North in the coming months (Franklin Fest Four in the summer maybe?). 

Digging My Grave is available from bandcamp here.