Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be Nigel Blackwell

I hate tribute bands, I hate the idea of tribute bands, and I despise both the purveyors of tribute muzak and the sad fools who pay money over to see such exercises in collective embarrassment. Or at least I did until I came across these lads on the Half Man Half Biscuit website.



They're called Half Arsed Half Biscuit and I expect the very idea of an HMHB tribute band keeps Nigel 'I-wouldn't-want-a-record-contract-they- expect-you-to-do-too-much-work' Blackwell's restless legs doing midnight marathons on long winter nights around West Kirby or wherever it is on the Wirral he lives these days.

The idea of a tribute to anything from Birkenhead (Town Motto: Fold your arms, toss your head back while raising your eyebrows and tutting once loudly), except perhaps Tranmere Rovers for a brief period under the management of John Aldridge, really does break down the boundary between post-modern irony and post-laundry ironing.

Anyway, they seem to be from the Limerick area which is the only place in Ireland where people look uncannily like they grew up on the Woodchurch Estate. If they ever plan to come to Dublin, I'd gladly join them on stage for a chorus of Shit Arm Bad Tattoo. If only they'd put their gig dates on their totally Birkenhead website I'd even travel beyond the pale to see these lads.

So, happy 2008 to the rest of yez. I expect to be back here a bit more regularly in the forthcoming months.