The Age/SMH cryptic by DA #20,708

We got a fun form of music puzzle. All of the across clues looked like song titles with band names. I wonder how long this took DA to create all those clues. His impressive cleverness that me feel like a putz. Once we can get your minds trained to ignore all the italics and punctuation it becomes a lot easier. This was an easier puzzle than previous weeks in my opinion.

That said I got about 3/4 done on my own and the rest was working definition and cross letters with One Across and working the clues backwards. I found the SE corner the toughest and was stuck on the 22s for ages. I have managed to resolve most of the solutions.

Here's my pic:

19D - Old bloke suggests how to produce uni alumnus? (7)

I got this from the definition "Old bloke" and I can see that "uni alumnus" would be GRAD but how do we know to split that around AND and why AND?

Which is the only one left I haven't figured out from my unknowns. I still don't know why "to recruit" is included for 22D and it's distracting as a possible container signpost. All it's doing is adding on the EL - is that it?

Once this was done I was in the garage getting some painting done. I've never been artistically inclined before and only started painting a week after my mother passed away. It's been helping with my grief even though it's tough to not share this new hobby with her as she was always supportive of anything I did and always told me I was good at things. Life goes on. I've begun to put some pictures of my paintings on Flickr since I'd not used it for photos in a while and have paid for the professional subscription, I may as well use it.

Anyway, me and my short attention span are going to have fun in the sunny Saturday weather. I'm very delighted to see blossoms, sunshine and daffodils. All the signs of Spring are great. Sure I need allergy medicine and eye drops several times a day - small price to pay! Bring on the beach weather, I need beach warmth.