Even though I am up to my eyeballs in diskant party planning, I still find the time to give you new interviews to read. It’s amazing isn’t it?

First up is a long-overdue Talentspotter profile of the lovely SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB-ELEMENT who have just released an album of live tracks and remixes and will be bringing their own particular brand of genre-defying experimental electro-rock all the way from Oxford to our 10 year anniversary party (THIS FRIDAY!).

In the other corner is the mighty WIL FORBIS, Acid Logic founder, musician, diskant columnist and general good guy. No wait, bad guy. Oh, whatever. With his book just published and his Bargain Bin Culture columns dusted off and re-posted on diskant, I thought it was time to catch up with the man himself. It’s a pretty damn good read if I do say so myself.

Wil has also kindly offered up a copy of the book and his latest CD for a giveaway right here on diskant. Just leave a comment on this post and I’ll get Wil to pick someone as a WINNER in a week’s time. Flattery is probably the way to go. All joking aside, this really is a fantastic book so get on it, or buy your own copy by clicking on the image to your right.

This contest is now closed.

Shit. This’ll be the third time I try to review this record. Let’s hope I don’t scratch the CD any more or my crappy computer doesn’t crash from overheating again before I reach the end. Anyway:

This record came out on Monday 28th July. It’s in a limited edition of 500 in translucent red, which is cool because everyone knows that coloured 7″s are totally down with the kids now. And translucent red is always the best colour to have your vinyl. You can buy it here: www.myspace.com/brewrecords.

This review is pretty redundant. Not only because it’s late, but because you can listen to both sides of it here: www.myspace.com/kongdom.

But whatever. Maybe you want to read a little whilst you listen. So who are Kong? A power trio (guitar, bass, drums) from Manchester, I heard they contain members of Oceansize (who released their debut 7″ on Diskant-related label Errol back in about ’99) and Amplifier (who I have a demo CD by that must have come out in about 2000 and are apparently still going). There are a bunch of videos of them on Youtube, the most pertinent of which is probably this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjHkWdB7gLU&feature=related[/youtube]

From this video you can make out a penchant for clown masks; that their guitarist manages to make a Fender Stratocaster sound really nasty for the first time I can remember in years; that their bassist seems to wish he was Andy from That Fucking Tank:

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Now, I can’t remember why I was sent a demo CD from 4tRECk – I get stuff sent for review, but I also get stuff sent that concerns Audioscope and/or Fourier Transform. I have no way of telling what this CD’s ‘purpose’ is. Damn my disorganisation.

Anyway. Regardless. I’ll mention it here because it’s veh good. A weird Anglo-French dinky-donky sounding set of tracks produced by one man and his portastudio, that mixes sensitive folk music with the structural oddity of American Heritage/Don Caballero/etc. Interesting for no other reason that it sounds both familiar and new, and it’s music that makes me smile.

The lot of a part-time reviewer is a strange one: half the time it seems like time is being taken away from listening to music I really want to hear, being instead spent piling through endless rounds of CDs from going-through-the-motions promo companies, where more art goes into the writing of a press release than into the music being desperately hailed as Something Important. It’s hard to remember the reasons for having got into this ugly scene in the first place; the occasional jolt of enjoyment to be had from one of two things:

1. Receiving a free promotional copy of a record I was already planning on buying;
2. Receiving a free promotional copy of a record I would never have bought, but which is a serendipitous glimpse into the world beyond my normal listening habits.

This three-track demo CD is an example of the second situation above. Far, far from the music I tend to listen to through choice these days, this is straightforward blues-based indie music, with one foot in the laddish guitar melodies of early Oasis and Ocean Colour Scene (remember the days when people genuinely, unashamedly liked those two bands?), the other in the unblinkered world of young musicians who have yet to be ground down by the relentless demands to be new, groundbreaking or boundary-pushing.

Sure, this is traditional, simple music – ‘Then I’ll Be Leaving You’ opening up like REM’s ‘What’s The Frequency, Kenneth’ before loping into a blues-scale-verse-chorus-verse-mid-paced song where you can certainly see what’s coming. However, I find it absolutely listenable. It might be the vocal style, which is more Davy Jones sensitive than Liam Gallagher growl; or it might be the sheer lack of surprises (everybody’s doing musical surprises, these days); or it might be the nostalgic twist of pleasure I get from this. Two further tracks ‘Sebastian Melmoth, You’ve Got A Nerve’ and ‘Hollow Eyed and High’ introduce, respectively, a touch of Faces-tinged piano mixed with Byrds-style western strum, and, well, a combination of the first two tracks’ styles. (I did say that this wasn’t surprising stuff).

Obviously 4 Believers (terrible name by the way lads, I’d urge a change if possible) are never going to set the world on fire. But is that so wrong? Here’s a band just getting on with things, and it’s occasionally a relief to hear that.

(Originally posted August 2002)

Anyone who knows me will agree. I am a guitar geek. Plain and simple. 3 of the columnists on Diskant tote axes that used to belong to me and I’ve lost count of the guitars I have owned in the past. The cool brown Telecaster I bought from a USAF pilot and then sold to Luke Younger to pay my rent? Don’t mention it unless you want to see a grown man cry. The weird all black Rickenbacker I traded some stuff for and sold to Ian Scanlon who then sold it to his own drummer? There’s a story. The white Stratocaster I split in 2 and glued together, filling the cracks with Tipp-Ex and then sold to a guitar shop? That was nice. My first guitar, loved and cared for then sold to some Scottish wannabe punk rock chick. Damn. The SG I bought last week for next to nothing. Love it.

I actually own a guitar built the week I was born and sold to me by a weird man in a house with no furniture near Newcastle. Less said the better I think. I also own a guitar worth more than my Dad’s car that was sold to me for fuck all by a lovely man purely because he realised I wanted it more than him and I’d never sell it. That lesson in karma restored my faith in humanity and got me a guitar for life, or at least until someone steals it. And I’m not even getting on to the tale of my friend Tony and the £10,000 guitar he found in a skip in Los Angeles or my housemate’s guitar he bought from Dave Pajo of Slint. Straight up. Anyway. I finally accepted my position in life and from now on I am officially a guitar dealer. That’s right. You name what you want and I will get it. Guaranteed. E-mail me. I have a few bargains as we speak (nice Fender Musicmaster bass from the 70s…mmmm…).

So! To celebrate, my column this month is all about the Gods Of Guitar. My axe heroes and heroines. Let’s not be bashful. Let’s reclaim the guitar from the cock rockers and celebrate it. Written in the format of a rock magazine review. Pete Townsend does NOT feature. The twat.

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