Summer’s always a disappointment. Remember when you were a kid, and the school holidays went on forever…World Cups were great because you weren’t saturated with 24/7 football from every league on the planet on TV, so seeing players like Hagi or Maradona or Stoichkov or Platini or Gullit was a genuine thrill, watching these exotic masters of a football run rings round the opposition…fuck it, maybe I’m just old…

And being old, the disappointment’s more pointed. Watching Holland spend 120 minutes trying to kick the beautiful game back into the Stone Age sucked. So did T in The Park, with the worst bill in living memory (Kasabian as headliners?! Honestly, stay in the house, dig out some old Primal Scream b-sides and charge yourself a fiver for a can of beer that you put in the airing cupboard rather than the fridge for the same experience…at least you won’t get rained on…) Ditto Glastonbury where U2 cancelled and they missed an opportunity to do anything other than have a Damon All-Bran vanity project replace them….poor Bono and his dicky back…he should remember to lift from the knees when carrying all the world’s problems on His shoulders…cock….and bands don’t put out anything interesting because they’re all at festivals doing greatest hits sets so that a glut of witless goons – Yates, Cotton etc – on BBC3 can tell them that they ripped up the crowd (consisting of 80,000 people completely out of their trees). This situation is changing…keep your eyes on the reviews sections over the next wee while, as there’s some good stuff about to hit…

It is in this spirit that we’ve decided to give the summer the kick up the arse that it needs, and launch the event that’s going to DEFINE the summer. Nay, the year. Nay, this fucking generation. Ladies and gentlemen, Shout4Music.com is proud to launch the inaugural Shout4Music.com In My Pants World Cup.

If you don’t know the ‘In My Pants’ game, it basically runs that any song title can be improved by bolting the phrase ‘In My Pants’ onto the end of it. We want you to look at your record collections and send in the best to either twitter.com/shout4music, or visit the Facebook page, and send us a message containing your favourites to stick up on the newsfeed. By the time you read this, we should have stuck some up to give some inspiration; my personal favourites just now are Repeat Failure (In My Pants), by The Delgados, Jeffrey Lewis’ Bugs And Flowers In My Pants, or Mogwai’s all time classic Glasgow Mega-Snake In My Pants.

 Please send to the Twitter site as either Direct Messages, or as a reply (start the tweet with @shout4music) so we can keep an eye on them. Trend them as #inmypants, and we’ll stick all of it up, with anything that makes us laugh like a drain or physically sick (so death metal fans are in with a big shout) perhaps eligible to win some LPs or singles, or whatever we’ve got knocking round the office. Usual rules apply with employees, girlfriends/boyfriends or family of staff not allowed to enter / attempt to bribe judges / tell us not to be so juvenile.

Good luck, and remember kids, we’re all winners in our own special way!

I’m never sure about album launches. With all the industry bods and friends of friends of friends in attendance, they’re a bit like going to the football with your work and sitting in the corporate seats – you’d rather be in the crowd, shouting and swearing and jumping around like a loony. Tonight, here to promote upcoming LP ‘Boots Met My Face’, Admiral Fallow take a high ball from the keeper, turn and hit a 40 yard half-volley past France to have Peter Martin screaming from his commentary box ‘JAMES MCFADDEN! HE’S A GENIUS! PICK IT OUT LANDREAU!!!!!’

Recently renamed from Brother Louis Collective, AF have been slowly building up their songs and live rep over the past couple of years, finishing University, and putting on nights in Glasgow bars. Revolving around main songwriter Louis Abbott, they comprise 5 (sometimes 6) full time members, and occasional string and horn sections. Tonight everyone’s here – I counted 10 on stage at one point, everyone’s swapping instruments every other song (Kevin Brolly going from clarinet to being a 2^nd drummer)…..(?!?!?) and everyone’s contributing to a joyful noise.

Opening with the folky, ghostly, ‘Delivered’ the visual contrast between Louis, hunched, head sandwiched inbetween guitar and mic, and co-vocalist/flautist/pianist Sarah  Hayes is immediately striking; he looks like he’s going to a fancy dress party as a very ill Alastair Roberts, she with a hotpants dress and huge earrings, a nightclub in 1986. Flitting through ‘These Barren Lands’, the trombones and trumpet come in on ‘Old Balloons’ which is a huge tubthumping hoedown of a song. ‘Dead Against Smoking’ brings the atmosphere back down, its strings creating a pastoral melancholy that the Tindersticks would be proud of. Announcing on ‘Bomb Through The Town’ that the song comprises ‘quiet bits and loud bits’ , as Louis feels ‘it’s important to cover both genres’, an insistent rhythm guitar underpins Low-esque harmonies. This is taken even further on ‘Four Bulbs’ where all the mikes are switched off (brave move in a venue as big as Oran Mor) and the 6 guys in the band acapella absolutely note perfectly. You can hear a pin drop, and it’s deservingly honoured with the night’s loudest ovation.

‘Taste The Coast’ is another acoustic rattler, a skiffley guitar line bringing to mind The Delgados playing music for line-dancing, and if the melody line for ‘Dead Leg’ is nicked straight from ‘Mr Tambourine Man’, its fat, woozy, drunken brass turns a delicate number into a celebration. For so many people onstage, AF have a deft lightness of touch; there is no succumbing to bludgeoning the audience with a wall of white noise – only on ‘Subbuteo’ does the screeching clarinet ending thru a fuzz of electric guitar employ atonality for effect, and even then, its more like James Yorkston hitting Tanya Donelly at full pelt than a stab at post-rock. And did I mention they use an upright bass? Upright basses are cool. End of.

The LP’s produced by Paul Savage – think Emma Pollock and The Phantom Band. This is not a guy who hangs around with average bands. If there’s one criticism, it’s that the abrupt ending to their best known track ‘Squealing Pigs’; a mad flamenco Pogues ‘Fiesta’ of a tune means that just as the crowd are cutting loose and acting like Scotland fans when we win a game, (an event rare and precious) means its perhaps not the best song to finish on…but that’s splitting hairs to a ridiculous level. Admiral Fallow really are special. Think Frightened Rabbit meets Smog meets The Delgados meets The Fence Collective Guys meets The Bad Seeds meets a less shouty Twilight Sad. Think what you like. Just go and see them.