On the assumption that people who go to watch live bands are also the sort of people who buy physical music as well, the big news of the week is that this Saturday is Record Store Day.

For those not aware of the new phenomenon, Record Store Day, now in its seventh year, is the day when all the independently owned record stores come together to celebrate the art of music.

Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists across the globe make special appearances and performances.

Festivities include performances, meet & greets with artists, DJs, in-store quizzes and many other events.

If like me, you are one of those people who have always supported such shops, revelled in the knowledge and personality of the people who run them, felt an affinity with fellow music geeks… I mean customers, and spent hours marvelling at the myriad of records to be found there, then this is your chance to join the celebration and help sustain these vital businesses.

And why are such shops so vital? Well, no one ever stumbled across life changing bands such as the 13th Floor Elevators in Tesco or got lost in the sleeve notes of a Bounty Hunters album on Amazon, that’s why.

And talking of special events, Songs of Praise at The Victoria has a bit of a treat also – nothing less than the long overdue return of The Racket. Having played a warm up last week at The Castle, the new five-piece line up opens the show, this time with more of a Brit-pop influence evident in their new sound. Also on the bill is Cursor Major, a band who believe that kookiness is next to godliness and who are led by Andy Norton, once of John Peel championed band, The Crimea. Headline is the ever-popular Black Hats, Whitney’s finest purveyors of effortlessly epic, fuzzy, intelli-punk-pop. Great hooks, great tunes and never anything less than an amazing live show. Not a bad way to start the weekend.

If you prefer something of a more rootsy persuasion, then The Beehive has everything you could possibly want in the shape of their regular Acoustic Buzz show. Hosted as ever by Tim Manning’s Blind River Scare it features the dark and meaningful observations of Benita Johnson and the old time bluesy country of Shootin’ The Crow.

Other options come from The Willis-O’Regan Band who plays bluesy-rock covers at The Rolleston and Shred at The Queens Tap.

Some great original rock on Friday comes from Healthy Junkies at The Victoria, a band who alchemize a wide range of influences, from grunge to sleaze rock to punk to new wave and come up with a result that sounds as if Hunter S Thompson was conducting an ensemble made up of members of The Doors, The Ramones and Blondie. Support comes from local bands Fry, The Hamsters from Hell, and 2 Sick Monkeys. Quite a line up.

The Rolleston is the place to be for some Italian Surf-pop as The Sunny Boys breeze back into town. They feature a wealth of Beach Boys covers alongside their own bubblegum–pop and surf grooves, the perfect way to evoke the summer.

At Riffs Bar, Nick Tann plays the acoustic session where he is joined by Lucy Kitchen and Splat The Rat play what they term folk-beat at The Beehive.

On Saturday at The Rolleston, The AK-Poets return for another bout of raucous rock and roll and magnificent melody… I seem to fall into some sort of strange alliteration every time I describe their music. How odd.

At Riffs Bar, meanwhile, dance grooves, reggae, ska and hip-hop all end up in the mix courtesy of SN Dubstation.

If anyone remembers the brilliant Driftwood Fairytales, a Berlin band who played around here last year, then they might be interested to know that ex-frontman Zeki Min Celikkilic is back over to play some solo shows and you can catch him at The Beehive on Sunday. At the same time in the afternoon The Automanics are at bandstand at the Old Town Gardens.

Something a bit heavier can be found that evening at Riffs Bar as Natures headline a night of melodic hardcore, metal and the like and the whole event is to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

All about... Piri-Piri Jam Night

I spend so much time around live music that involves major logistics: backline equipment, industrial strength sound systems, staging and the like that it is easy to overlook the purity of music in it’s simpler form.

This was brought home to me last Friday at the jam night at Piri-Piri. For those who don’t know, Piri-Piri is a small tapas bar in Havelock Street, supplying great food and great (and cheap) beer, and its clientele is a wonderful mix of Portuguese speakers and the more bohemian and arty elements of town.

My experience of such nights in the past has not been particularly fulfilling.

Often such gatherings are centred around two or three guys who play in a rock cover band who dominate and dictate the choice of songs, usually a bunch of predictable standards from their live set. Here, though, things were very different. This was the real deal.

There is nothing better than watching a group of musicians with no pre-determined plan jumping from free-form, unscripted and improvised tunes before stumbling across some half remembered folk standard and then heading off in a different direction. Rather than the almost competitive nature I have seen at other jam nights, this was something else. Ego and showboating had been replaced by a real love of just playing with fellow musicians, no direction, no planning, no fear and no reason other than the journey.

If you want to experience the joy of an other-worldly musical experience, something fresh and wild and yet older and saner, wander along to a jam night at Piri-Piri.