You were a lot better than 2007!

I wrote up a stupidly epic post about pretty much everything I did last year on my other blog but here are some LISTS.

New records that I both liked and purchased
– Mogwai album. Apparently everyone thinks this sucks. They’re so wrong.
– Errors album, finally.
– Blood Red Shoes album, also finally
– Girls Aloud album – AMAZING
– Findo Gask 7″ that I really must review argh
– The Lords and James Orr Complex albums I got just before Christmas and am still getting into

What I actually listened to, according to Last.Fm
– Girls Aloud
– Errors
– Scout Niblett
– Mogwai
– Blood Red Shoes
– Annie
– Battles
– Kylie Minogue
– Santogold
– Pet Shop Boys

Good bands I saw live
– Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element & Findo Gask – bringing the party to 08/08/08
– Blood Red Shoes and Copy Haho at ABC2, Glasgow
– Errors album launch thing – still good
– The debut of Stage Blood – I didn’t hear much since they rendered me deaf after 30 seconds but I definitely saw them

Games I enjoyed playing on my DS
– Picross – I can’t stop playing this!
– Cooking Mama 2
– Mario Kart
– Wario Ware Touched
– Zelda Phantom Hourglass, until I couldn’t face going back to the Temple of the Ocean King for the billionth time. Why not just give us the option of stabbing forks in our eyes for an hour instead?

Good books I read
Wil Forbis book of awesome
Bill Drummond – 17
Bridge of the Brocade Sash
Al Burian – Natural Disasters
Mark Steel’s new one
The little Philip Pullman book about Iorek
Lots of zines I must blog about
A bunch of free stuff off Bookmooch

Good things I watched
– The Wire, of course
– LOST, duh
– Kung Fu Panda! So good I watched it twice in 2 days
– Cloverfield – hilarious
– Stick It – gymnastics and Black Flag oh yes
– Prince Caspian – much better than the first one.
– Juno, I guess.
– 24 – utterly ridiculous.
– Tales From Earthsea

Things I missed
– My Bloody Valentine reunion. I booked my flight to Bangkok without thinking the dates through. IDIOT.
– Tons of bands including Shellac. I am punching myself in the face right now. Stupid lack of money.
– the diskant albums/films of the year articles. New plan required for 2009.
– Doctor Who. I couldn’t deal with Catherine Tate AT ALL but I will have to give it another go. Hurrah for constant repeats on BBC3.

Looking forward to
– New LOST, aaaaaaaah!
– New Ghibli movie
– New Pet Shop Boys Xenomania album, for my birthday, thanks!
– The great unknown that comes with not having a tedious job to go to
– Making some money, hopefully.

(Originally posted October 2003)

“Next month,” I wrote [something like], “expect arbitrary gurglings about Lightning Bolt’s ‘Wonderful Rainbow’”. That was back in April. Since then there’s been a bit of an upheaval here at Diskant Towers, so we’ve been away. However, normal service can now be resumed – if under a different, altogether more appropriate, banner from now on.

You may have come here after reading the blurb about me being an obscurist bastard, for which I applaud, because I certainly wouldn’t have bothered. There’s nothing worse than reading a whole load of shit by some twat dribbling on like some heinous King of the Scene about some bands that you’ve never heard of (and will probably never hear of again), in terms that mean nothing to the average passer-by. So if you find yourself thinking, “What an [elitist] asshole!” at any point during this column, please feel free to email me and admonish me accordingly. It certainly isn’t my intention to alienate or blow my own-fucking-cleverness trumpet.

Speaking of which, do you know that godawful scene in that heinously smug film ‘High Fidelity’? You know, the one with Mincing John Cusack doing a wonderfully subtle bit of product placement for the Beta Band by saying “Watch me sell three copies of the Bayda Band”, putting it on the stereo, and having a strategically placed ‘customer’ turn around and say “What’s this?”; just so he can knowledgably assert “It’s the Bayda Band!”, and the customer guy can nod approval and say “cool” whilst stroking his namby-pamby adolescent beard like a faux-pseudo-bohemian hipster? I fucking hate that contrived ‘hey, I’m Hollywood, but I’m hip to the alternative’ scene. Unfortunately, it is the closest reference I can find for my intentions for this column. Bah.

But there are few things that make me happier than seeing someone turned onto music that I myself have discovered by random chance, or by taking a blind leap of faith in something I’ve heard about. It’s not the ego rush of being there first and being a superior snobby bastard about it, but the genuine pleasure of seeing someone get a kick out of something that presses your button too. The last time this happened to me was a couple of weeks ago, and once again my hapless victim was Simmo, who has frequently been my passenger on road trips. (In fact, most of my tapes in my car are designed to assuage/aggravate his moods, depending on how annoying I’m feeling whilst I drive.) This time around, we were off gallivanting to what was going to be our shared abode in Nottingham, and I’d just got this self-titled 7” on Wantage by an American band called The Whip. Upon hearing it once, I had to dub it straight onto the end of a dodgy Orchid tape, because it was the biggest, best, most rockingest new thing I’d heard in absolutely ages. Like since the time I first heard the mighty Part Chimp fellas. Even better, they had these huge heavy riffs with slightly odd rhythms, and weren’t afraid to pound them out again and again for your sonic delight. Hell, the A-side even has a couple false endings before it blasts through a few more repetitions towards a final conclusion. Plus, the singer sounds like Ian McKaye fattened up by years of WeightGain3000 abuse and no skateboarding. I haven’t got a clue what he’s singing about, but it sounds grand and I’m sure it’s deadly important. Unfortunately, The Whip’s drummer recently passed away in an unfortunate riverside accident (which isn’t funny, you Spinal Tap-loving trickster), and I’ve not idea whether they intend to carry on or not. It’s a damn shame because there’s some fantastic skin pounding on this, and it’s some really good stuff. Gah. In fact, it’s safely the best 7” single I’ve bought all year – mainly because I can’t think of anything else I’ve acquired that was any cop at all that wasn’t something grotesquely expensive+by Black Dice.

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