With thunderstorms in the forecast, Singapore was quite lucky to receive little more than a sprinkle. This was a huge relief to Laneway festival founder Danny Rogers, as he looked out into the crowd and thanked the previous attendees for braving what he called "monsoonal weather" last year.

What is MIDEM, you may ask? Well, literally it stands for Marché International du Disque et de l’Edition Musicale... though in our own words, it’s the world’s largest music industry trade show. Taking place each year in Cannes (France), it’s an opportunity for all music key players, businesses, start-ups and new technologies to meet and make new business connections.

It may not have been one of my international excursions. It may not have even lasted 24 hours. But my trip to the Brisbane leg of the Harvest "gatherings" turned out to be one of my most memorable musical expeditions to date.

Although the Melbourne timetable for the festival is M.I.A, the much anticipated Harvest Festival is almost upon us. With Portishead headlining each night with no opposition, our dedicated Harvest team took a good hard look into the timetable and indeed, our very souls, to come up with the best decisions for the rest of the clash-laden schedule.

The Flaming Lips VS The National
The Flaming Lips: 7:30-8:45, The National: 7:15-8:15

In my fourth day of CMJ, I made tracks to catch up with 1,2,3, a band from Pittsburgh who were heading into James Iha's recording studio (complete with Smashing Pumpkins memorabilia), Stratosphere Sound, to lay down a few live tracks as part of the Fred Perry Artists Lounge sessions. They were quite the tight band... playing some classy rock n' roll. They listened to plenty of Beatles growing up, I'll tell you that much! Stay tuned for our chat with them!