I went to see mùm the other night and they were mmmmm lovely. All soft and pretty with sinister quirks and clouded with atmosphere. We all just stood silently and blissful. Sigh. They had the epicness of Godspeed, the swirlingness of Slowdive, the modernity of electronica, the simplicity of Mogwai, the wide-eyed wonder of child angels. They were beautiful.

For some reason this reminded me of Bill Drummond‘s latest episode [Bill Drummond’s life always seems to me to be a series of episodes] – selling 20,000 pieces of his Richard Long photograph. Alistair Fitchett describes it all so well [as always] on Tangents.

A free lollipop for anyone who noticed I was gone. I’ve been moving house and getting broadband internet yay. I’ve also been listening to Autechre and Le Tigre and Papa M [thanks Simon and Adam] and reading loads of stuff which included having a pretension check after reading every word in both Wired and The Wire. My new need to take public transport to work has vastly reduced the amount of music I listen to and almost convinced me that Metro is an interesting and worthwhile newspaper. Helllp meeee etc.

Must also mention wee Stuart Braithwaite‘s column in The List this fortnight. It’s a classic. The columns aren’t online sadly and I don’t have it with me but basically it says this [yes, I’m paraphrasing]:

‘We’re on tour in South America! It’s amazing and the shows have been tremendous. Only a complete fool would find anything to complain about…..but..but all my pals back home are getting to watch the new Star Wars movie and I can’t!! waaaaaahhhhh!’

The man’s a comedy genius.

Currently on repeat: Shellac‘s Saturday set from All Tomorrow’s Parties on CD courtesy of Rob Strong. And how good is this? It’s rare to be able to hang on to special events in your life, too often you don’t even have a photograph or a scrap of paper to remember things by. But here I am, Saturday afternoon at ATP, squashed into the photo pit for Shellac’s set, the act of photography taking second place to the chance of watching the performance from such a privileged viewpoint. After a bit of photographer musical chairs I ended up with prime position, right at Steve Albini’s feet. I could see everything and completely connect the movements to the noise: the way Albini steps back and forwards, back and across and forwards, the way he would just brush the strings of his guitar. The utter metallicness of all their equipment. Basically I was in awe. The most affecting part was Mama Gina without a doubt. I was affected to the very depths of my heart by this song live. It’s such open honest emotion. And I’m taken back there instantly hearing it play back on the CD. And being able to hear them jumping on the stage in The Watch Song. The sort of thing that would be lost in the fug of a homemade bootleg. I shall treasure this CD as I treasure that experience.

And just to top things off the CD also has the Trail of Dead session on John Peel where he reads out an email from the TODlist and says I have a nice name. Awwww.

Aye, I went to see 24 Hour Party People on, err, let me think…Thursday! I was vaguely interested when I heard about it, slightly put off by Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridgeisms in the trailer and then swayed by mostly good reviews and wee stuart saying it was the most hilarious film he’s ever seen. Anyway, it’s about the rise and fall of Factory Records: Tony Wilson, Joy Division, Happy Mondays, The Hacienda and all that. It’s all filmed in day-glo fake documentary style which is equally amusing and annoying. It’s not a film to take too seriously as they certainly don’t take it seriously themselves, Tony Wilson often narrating the story and making asides to the audience, pointing out things that they’re exaggerating for the story. It still manages to deal with all the suicide, financial troubles, violence and failure in a non-jokey manner [mostly] and doesn’t make anyone out to be a hero, even Ian Curtis. Basically it’s an enjoyable romp through punk, rave and indie with the music at the forefront and it feels really good to have this stuff up there on the cinema screen. Our history and not our parents’. Must be even better if you used to go to the Hacienda and stuff. It does seem a bit crazy that they’re making a film about people who are mostly still alive and bands that are still going – I found myself getting quite annoyed that the actors didn’t look exactly like their real life counterparts but that’s unfair. I’m also not very good with real life stories – I keep hoping it’ll turn out differently and am then a bit upset when it doesn’t. So no surprises, Ian Curtis does kill himself, The Happy Mondays do bankrupt the label, the Hacienda does close down, but you’re still left feeling optimistic at the end. This stuff is important, that you set up labels wth your friends and release badly recorded records by local bands that lose you more money than you ever had and that it’s all more important than money, it’s about your friends. Awww. It’s also very funny and the music sounds fantastic. So, not life-changing but very enjoyable. I’d also like someone to write a hefty tome about the real story of Factory in the same way that David Cavanagh did for Creation. And speaking of Creation, I’m just dreading someone seeing this film and thinking, “let’s make ‘The Creation Records Story’ with crazy Alan McGee and Oasis!” Please no, that Paolo Hewitt book was bad enough.

In other news, there’s a new issue of the diskant ZINE up for your enjoyment. An All Tomorrow’s Parties special no less so go read.

And I’ve got a ticket to see Fugazi next month. Wooo!

So, Sunday then. First stop of the day was the Glasgow Film Theatre to see the Cinematic Orchestra playing a live soundtrack to the film Man With A Movie Camera, a silent black and white documentary filmed in the 1920s. It’s certainly something that should be done more often as I found it really exciting having a band playing right in front of me with odd shadows of equipment poking into the corners of the film. The film started up silent showing the opening of a cinema and the people streaming in and sitting down with the orchestra preparing to play and when the onscreen orchestra started (silently, obviously) the real Cinematic Orchestra started playing. That was my favourite bit really. Not that the rest of it was a letdown, the band managing to compliment the images without ever trying to outdo them. Advertised as a jazz collective and playing for the most part jazz, they did also have a dj/electronic element which I particularly enjoyed, bringing in samples of strings and the odd bit of scratching. The film was a marvel though and a real document of its time [1920s Russia]. It was almost as if they’d attempted to document absolutely everything that ever happens around them so we got the whole scope of local people at work and play, marriage, death, birth, accident, sleep, travel, holidays but most interestngly for me all the workings of the factories and the trams and buses. It also had two different viewpoints: one man filming stuff and another one filming him dragging his camera around the most precarious places. Watching someone set up their camera on the outside of a very tall tower or in the depths of a mine was certainly fun. I don’t imagine I’ll ever need to see the film again but I hope to see this kind of event being repeated.

Intellectual culture fix over (only kidding) I went to see Arab Strap and Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai in a very nice church in the east end. I’d arranged to meet Chris in the old 13th Note and was struck with horror the minute I walked through the door. Gone were the scruffy locals with their sticky pints and spicy chips listening to unlistenable music on badly recorded cassettes. Instead it was full of trendy overenthusiastic girls holding drinks with straws while their boyfriends drank american branded beer. There was a fruit machine in the corner! The noticeboard promised a ‘new menu’, no doubt free of pesky vegan politics. That was the longest ten minutes of my life as I mourned the death of a place I loved more than any other. Look after your local venues people before you lose them. Once I manage to work out where the hell they’ve set up the new West 13th venture I shall be going to give them any spare money I have in return for sticky pints and badly recorded music.

But anyway, foul-mouthed scots performing in a church. How did they get that one past the vicar? At least they were all being relatively quiet, this being an acoustic show. Wee Stuart was up first, just him with his guitar and orange amp. He started with a cover and then worked his way beautifully through Mogwai’s vocal moments: Cody sounding lovely as always and Tuner bringing the usual tear to my eye. They should bring it back into the Mogwai live set now. Stuart was in his usual chuckling mood, slagging sponsors Tennants and giggling to himself. He attempted to sing a song by The Cure but gave up and shouted for Aidan Strap to come onstage and sing it with him which he did rather well. Then we got a medley of Take Me Somewhere Nice and Secret Pint with Stuart’s vocals sounding really confident and strong before he finished on a rather apt cover of Lord Can You Hear Me by Spacemen 3. Go the wee man.

I’ve now seen Arab Strap live three times, once as a fantastic rowdy bunch of fools, once as a rather dull keyboards and rant thing and now in a church with acoustic guitar, violin and cello, the odd battering from a drum machine and Aidan’s rueful tales of life. They were really rather stupendous, managing to be downbeat, funny, ramshackle and heartfelt all at the same time. They played lots of songs, most of which I didn’t recognise due to the fact that I appear to have never bought a single record by Arab Strap. I think I might rectify that soon. Free exclusive 5 track cd as well, available at an eBay near you soon.

Oh dear, I can’t keep up with myself. I’m trying to extend my rock escapades into a third week and managing quite successfully. Just as my ATP hangover was beginning to fade I met up with my boys from Trail of Dead and went to party. Well, first we went to have a very nice dinner in a west end pub and then Trail of Dead played their rock in the QMU. They were preceded by two support bands though – Sunshine were a rather ace hardcore plus electronics noise rock band with numerous keyboards and pedals littering the stage while The Vue were really really dull garage rock. Bet the NME loves them. Also the singer looks like the guy from Starsailor- nooooo!

I stood at the back of the stage for Trail of Dead and took lots of rather good photos as they showed off what months of touring has done for them. Needless to say they were utterly fantastic with the stagediving antics never getting in the way of a damn good tune. I was supposed to leave half way through to go and see The New Year but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. If I had I would have missed the fun of Jason kicking the drumkit across the stage and Neil flinging a mic stand skywards before they all ran to each other and wrestled on the floor until Neil’s amp toppled and their weak little arms struggled to prevent it crushing them to death. Then they collapsed on the floor and eventually dragged themselves off stage, Kevin jauntily collecting his undamaged glasses on the way. The long walk back to the dressing room was barred by hundreds of people wanting a piece of Conrad’s ass so I skipped up in the lift and drank half their bourbon – hoho. Then it was off to the 13th Note to party although that nearly didn’t happen when the doorman advised me he wasn’t going to let Neil in ‘cos he was drinking in the streets [again]. All worked out though once we bribed him with $100 [nah, only kidding]. Um, I can’t remember much about the partying except for people continually buying me drinks, even when I was already holding one! There was some arm wrestling going on as I made my goodbyes and stumbled off to find the night bus. I miss those guys already. Still a couple of dates left on their tour – go see!

Last night I went to see Smog as an apology for missing The New Year but went with some trepidation as the general consensus on his set at ATP was that he was rubbish. I didn’t see him there myself apart from that running gag every time we stepped outside into the fog on Saturday (“Is Smog still playing?” etc.). I missed the support because, um, I was too lazy to leave the house earlier. Anyway, Smog for tonight was just Bill Callahan with an electric guitar and his superbly mournful voice. And, hmm, I don’t know what to say about it all really. There’s no denying that’s he’s got some great songs but there was something not quite right going on here. He seemed exceptionally tired, spending a good five minutes between songs sighing and yawning and forming chords on his guitar before dropping his hands heavily to his sides. He did strike up a bit of a rapport with the crowd though, chatting to hecklers and caling for requests. I dunno, I think I just felt he wasn’t bothered enough, that he’d rather not be playing and at one point it really seemed like he was singing his songs over random guitar chordage. I’d definitely go and see him again but I wouldn’t make any huge effort over it in case he wasn’t feeling like putting in any effort either.

Cinematic Orchestra, wee Stuart Braithwaite and Arab Strap today. Most exciting Sunday I’ve had in ages [well, apart from last Sunday…]

ROCK
– introducing Steve Albini to Simon Minter
– Shellac on Saturday and getting to sit at Albini’s feet and use up an entire film on them
– watching Ian Scanlon force down our gift of pie under our insistent eyes
– Professor Minter’s Saturday night balcony lecture on the subject of boxes
– waving, especially at Adrian Errol’s chalet
– OXES vandalising david’s shoes
– Rachel’s, Blonde Redhead, Dianogah, The Breeders and Zeni Geva for being great
– Todd Trainer. just generally
– Stu making me sandwiches
security man in the pub asking us if we’d been burning paper. not sure if this was due to my flaming shoes and flaming belt and Stu’s flaming shirt or because we’d been burning paper

NOT ROCK
– not being able to get photographic evidence of the twin Albinis
– Stu taking multiple photos of Simon Minter with ‘celebrities’ and forgetting to use the flash
– Adrian Errol refusing our pie. sob…
– Greg Kitten HIDING AGAIN
– missing most of OXES due to picking up photo pass
– Arcwelder and Mission of Burma for not managing to hold my attention. Cheap Trick for being crap and probably getting paid more than all the rest
of the bands put together
– falling asleep during Wire even though they were great
– being too lazy to go to Leeds and see Trail of Dead
– very little fighting action and no swords
– everyone leaving really early on Monday. place was deserted before we even got up.

So, is it next year yet?

I braved the Blectum From Blechdom vs Dianogah dilemma last night and went for the girls playing electronics since there is very little of that at ATP and lots of Dianogah. Well, some Dianogah anyway. Seemed like everyone was having traumas though as the venue was pretty quiet and meant my only choice of company was to foist myself on wee stuart Mogwai and his lovely wife who was promoting the gig. So big yay to them. Great band choices too. First up were The Magnificents who I had seen supporting Mogwai but sounded wrong that night apparently. I remember being quite bemused by them at Mogwai and they were certainly much more enjoyable this time. Helped on by John Cummings’ excellent soundman choice of turning everything to ‘FUCKING LOUD’ they ended up coming across like Joy Division fed through an electronic frenzy machine. Doom electro racket or something. It was funny as well, the main singer guy batting his microphone about the place like some slapstick master and barking super vocoder nonsense [‘HELP…HELP….HELP……MEEEEE’]. Fools.

Blectum From Blechdom are two cute american girls with three laptops, a keyboard on a strap, a banjo and a girlish sense of humour. They kind of alternated between crouching beside their laptops pulling off glitchy electronica breaks and some punk rock girl shouting. The best bits were when they were both singing away in front of those booming crunching beats I like so much. The bad bits were when it all got a bit too much on the funny lyrics and you started thinking Moldy Peaches. Kind of hard to describe really but they were fun fun fun. Girls are much more fun than boys, it’s the truth! I should have bought one of their records, duh. They ended up staying at my house as well due to cat fear and were very nice. Even left me a bottle of vodka. Rock!

Simon just mentioned The Internet Archive which is a website that archives past versions of websites. Sniggering at early basic HTML Amazon was all very amusing until we both had the same idea of looking for diskant. Simon’s not been here that long though so wasn’t able to dig as far back as I was and here we have diskant as it was in October 1999!! Note our catchy address of diskant.future.easyspace.com, classy banner ads and boasting of ‘Over 100 Links’. Awww. For me, this is somewhat like stumbling across some high school essays – I’m cringing over my awful web design skills and remembering the trauma of Website of the Month. Dear oh dear. I’m just grateful there’s no evidence of the very first incarnation of diskant which was similar but all the text was in size 4 and we only had three websites.

But what strikes me more now is actually how little diskant has changed in those two years. We’re still yellow, we still have a very similar logo [though it’s not showing up], the diskant icon at the bottom of the page hasn’t changed a pixel and we still cover the same themes. Yet it seems like forever ago.

Haha. Remember when the Mogwai website used to look like this? Sadly I couldn’t find any examples of the icky fleshy pink version.

Okay, so official ATP over-excitement may not start til Monday [according to us] when we will start with the shrieking and the jumping up and down. But anyway, get yourself in gear for that by reading the coverage of the New York ATP on Fake Jazz. This article is the better one and they make no effort to try and cover the thing properly, they just go to exactly what they want and ponder all kinds of things around it. Sounds like the weekend was ace with possibly a little too much avant garde instrument hitting. I want to see Merzbow! Wow.

I also want to go to the Sonar festival in Spain. Look at at that line-up!! Shall have to make do with Blectum From Blechdom here on Wednesday instead. Especially since the head of department took all my remaining holiday allowance away meaning I have to struggle back to work the day after Trail of Dead. Gar!

And finally, I’m having a very odd time with the Electro Group album. I remember listening to this the day they all left for Leeds and thinking it was a vaguely nice jangly indie guitar record but I put it on yesterday and damn me if it hasn’t transmogrified into a super fantastic effects laden My Bloody Valentine swirlfest. What happened there? I’d think I ‘d been listening to the wrong CD before but a) I wasn’t that drunk and b) I remember the spooky hidden song ten minutes into the last track. Hmm, I need help.