in a big box sent all the way from america.

it’s about twelve inches by twelve inches in size, with a delightful repeated motif of the X from House Gothic 23 Extended Bold all over it in a fetching brown and white design. WHAT A RESULT!

cushions are the new rock and roll, for this week

i saw monsters inc. last night. it’s really good, hmmm, but i didnt think as good as either of the toy story movies. but don’t get me wrong, it’s still great. also quite worrying was the fact that there were bigger laughs during the ‘out-takes’ section during the credits than the rest of the film, so if you go see it, make sure you stay til the end. but yeah, check it out, deffo.

Ah, I had a great time on my little mini TOD tour of London and Nottingham. I ended up seeing Trail of Dead twice, WolvesofGreece twice and The Faint twice which is always good for forming opinions. I’m not saying any more about pie on this weblog so I’ll skim over the meeting up with Greg and Kat. We soon ditched them to hang out in our VIP balcony anyway where half the population of Scotland was situated. The Faint were pretty enjoyable with really loud bouncy pop songs but it all got a bit 80s sub-goth after a while. I bet they sound weedy as hell on record. Clinic were BORING and I don’t get them at all. I watched Trail of Dead‘s first song from the balcony and it all looked wonderful but the incessant chatter pissed me off so I once again took up residence on the stage where I had a nice sit down view of the band and the audience. It still all looked amazing and the songs were sounding clear and good but it was all a bit too clean with little in the way of riot antics and noise. I wanted to cheer when Jason gave that awful guitar of his away. Always good when Jason kicks the drums across the stage though and Neil throwing his bass at David’s head was pretty funny as well. Afterwards we had fun with fruit, wee stuart Mogwai and lots of fans before leaving to get stuck behind a burning truck on the M1 for hours.

The next day I bought lots of records in Nottingham and then went to see WolvesofGreece play at a basement party. They were insanely good that night, Simon knocking everything over and Neil having to be forcibly coerced back onstage. The songs [and they sound so much more like songs now] are just expertly structured yet chaotic power noise and it’s exhilarating as anything you want to mention.

Thus I was very much looking forward to seeing what the Nottingham TOD kids would make of the Wolves experience. Much fun was had watching their little faces change from initial support band boredom through wide-eyed confusion to eventual enjoyment. It was ace. The Faint were again enjoyable but unsatisfying. Trail of Dead however played a complete stormer of a set, possibly the best I’ve seen them do. Obviously hyped up by the tiny venue and enthusiastic audience, TOD brought out everything we love about them and had me laughing out loud in glee. Teenage girls desperately fondling Conrad’s knee; Jason clambering on top of a free standing tower of speakers, Neil hanging off the ceiling, Jason trading his disgustingly sweat-sodden shirt with a fan’s; Conrad shaking that hair; someone pulling the plug out of the stage lights. It was all just hilarious fun. Songs were sounding fantastic too with loads from the first two albums and a few choice moments from the new one. Sadly no breaking of stuff but I think someone would have definitely got hurt if they’d tried since it was so mobbed. I was not happy to see the stagediving/crowdsurfing revival is upon us. Seriously, GROW UP and let everyone enjoy themselves at a gig, not just you kicking small people in the face.

Afterwards was the usual CRAZY Trail of Dead backstage rock activities we’ve come to expect. Chocolate Hobnobs, New Tropical Fruit flavour Fanta [containing Brilliant Blue colouring but actually orange], lessons on How To Eat A Cadbury’s Flake Seductively, Neil wearing pyjamas, Jason teaching me and Matt Gringo how to start conversations with Drunken Ladies and Tycoons. Then they tried to convince me to come to Paris with them on their enormous sleeperbus complete with white leather seats but I thought that might be too much Fanta-filled rock for the likes of me. Back around May. I can’t wait. New album is really damn good too. I advise you to purchase it.

i’ve been on an excitement fest this past week. well, by my standards, anyways. on thursday i met up with marceline in london to go see trail of dead. i also met david for the first time. surprisingly, pie was eaten. trail of dead were fantastic. i’d not seen them since Reading 2000. damn, that seems so long ago. lesson learned that day: don’t trust rock stars to pass messages on for you. i’m sure marceline will have more elaborate tales of rock on the TOD front, so i’ll not go on about it.

last night i saw ghostworld, and you know, it’s as good as everyone else said it was. the reason i’m seeing it so late is because my local odeon only show non-blockbuster types on special screening events. it’s been southend projection month or something these last few weeks. ghostworld, unfortunately, is the last in the series, but i did see the pledge with jack nicholson the other week, which was equally good – a touching story with a surprising ending. jack was on top form.

i’ve also been making a skateboarding video on a digital camera which has been fun.

and today is my birthday. so yay. i’m Getting Old too. i give up.

heh

I’ve been on a bit of a reminiscing trip this past week. It all started in Avalanche last week when I found a copy of the second Drop Nineteens album for £3. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’ve been searching for this record all my life but it is a record I’ve always wanted and never got round to buying. Their first album Delaware is an american indie shoegazing classic that I still listen to regularly but sadly this second one isn’t half as good. It’s still got some top tunes on it though with a more 70s rock element to the fuzzy shoegazing. Then I started rummaging in my wardrobe and today I’ve been listening to The Pastels on a compilation tape my old lost friend Alex made me. He used to make me all these tapes on his record player that goes hisssssssssssCLUNK at the beginning of every song and I’m getting all sentimental hearing it again. I also bought the Ride boxset last week which I’m very much looking forward to hearing, Ride being my favourite band as a teenager. Yes, I am Getting Old. Still, I’m off to live the rock with Trail of Dead this week so don’t give up on me yet.

I played at that gig mentioned below (on 020202) so I’ll continue the self-obsessed and nepotistic theme by mentioning it here. For us (that is, Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element (or Sunnyville…, Sunnyvale Noise Experiment, etc)) part of the fun of the night, nay the whole weekend, was travelling up for 10 hours in our little van, and picking the Starries up along the way, thinking we were on some kind of rock voyage, like if Summer Holiday was set in 2002 and featured a bunch of Shellac and Ninja Tune fans.

Anyway, setting aside the wonderful diskant hospitality and the general feeling of warmth and happiness to be experienced in Glasgow (my new choice of place to live – as these feelings quickly wore off as we returned to the miserable south), the gig was a success. And not just ‘cos we thought we played well – we thought we played quite well, incidentally – but because the place was pretty packed, the people were good, the pie was tasty and the Irn Bru was flowing. The Starries played more confidently and raucously than I remember them playing before, and with a top Husker Du / melodic hardcore blah blah edge, and were good and LOUD. Fighting Red Adair were an incredibly pleasant surprise, the description of them on the flyers as some kind of Shellac / Oxes fight hybrid being spot on, as they cranked it up and let rip with their sharply-honed vicious barrage of structured noise.

There will be more of these diskant gigs, i hear. And that news is A GOOD THING.

I’m now replacing the 60% IrnBru content of my body and eating pie. It would be completely self-obsessed and nepotistic of me to write about my own gig so that’s pretty much what I’m going to do. It all went pretty much to plan really. The Sunnyvale Fun Bus arrived only 5 hours later than expected, 2 members of The Starries broke their trousers beyond repair, we stamped Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls on lots of hands and almost everyone joined in our amusing plan to get Sunnyvale’s name misprinted in as many different ways as possible. The Starries were very much the noisy but tuneful melodic hardcore band they were claiming to be, Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element were mighty electronic confusion and Fighting Red Adair wrapped the whole night up with an absolute frenzy of ROCK. Even the ‘water dripping from ceiling’ incident only added an air of anticipation and danger to the night. It was a triumph I tell you!

I need to lie down now.

Not done anything notable recently but at least I can arrive on time, unlike certain ROCK STARS in bands with long names.

“we’re in Scotland”, “och aye”, “40 miles from glasgow”

“What time were we picking the van up”

I want my pizza you dawdling fools.

Who are you anyway? Sunny Noise Sub Experiment? Nice