Hello. I should be in Manchester rocking the shit out of people but I am not because all day (a day in which I have so far managed to eat a single apple) I have been puking and shitting like a machine. I normally commend the food from The Wireless Stores on Hockley but seeing it emerge again this morning has left me less than confident about future returns there.
I also have that weird senstitive thing where my arms and legs hurt when they get so much as brushed by something.

Anyway, in the week I reprinted all my poster designs for gigs onto ultra-posh matt heavyweight card and I am selling them all – have a looksy at www.honeyisfunny.com and see what I mean.

Hi. Not sure if this kind of self-promotion is appropriate, but its been fairly quiet on here of late so I’ll chance my arm.

My band, Sailors, are going on tour for the first time this week. It would be cool if you came out and saw us and said hello.

Friday April 14th – Spalding, Lincs, The Black Swan w/ Not In This Town and Toys For girls (according to the Spalding Shows website)

Saturday April 15th – Brighton, The Freebutt w/ Cove, Foals, Tired Irie (we’re playing first)

Sunday April 16th – London, The Pullens Social Centre, Elephant and Castle LUNCHTIME SHOW (we play about 2) w/ Valerie and Corey Orbsion

Tuesday April 18th – Bristol, The Junction, w/ The Unit Ama, Colonel K (i think we’re on second out of three, but not sure)

Wednesday April 19th – looks like we may well be doing The Judges Lodgings, York w/ Whores Whores Whores and Chickenhawk

April 20th – Manchester, House Gig @ 33 Anson Road, w/ Breakneck Static, An Emergency and more.

You can hear Sailors at www.myspace.com/wearesailors

I really am now, tomorrow! I’m sure the rest of the diskant team will keep you entertained in my absence but for the next couple of weeks expect no major updates to the site, mail to go unanswered and many many review CDs to pile up on the kitchen table. I will be staying at this hotel in Tokyo! I see it has an internet room so I will endeavour to post some frenzied babblings mid-holiday. Woo!

I wasn’t going to do this either but what the hell. I’M GOING ON TOUR tomorrow morning and you should come see us because I’m not doing this again any time soon, not least because I have hardly any holiday allowance left. I leave in 12 hours and still have 4 million things to do. I am coming down with a cold and have just discovered an worryingly enormous bruise on my leg that I have no recollection of inflicting on myself. I also see we are bringing Scotland’s lovely weather with us.

So, yes, ÜTER in Oxford, Brighton and London. One of these gigs is with the mighty econoline, one we are supporting someone who used to be in Spiritualized and thus can’t play our Spacemen 3 cover and the other is FREE. Find out more here and come say hello. I even bought a dress, what more do you want?

(Actual content when I return – I am in the process of interviewing my 4 favourite up and coming bands in Glasgow. If anyone can guess them I will give you a prize*).

* it is not a video camera

I wasn’t going to post this here because I thought it might seem too much like spam, but things have recently taken an interesting turn, so I’m doing this for your benefit. Yes, you.

A friend of mine from the icy wastes of Canadia is running a non-profit organisation, and their latest project is to get a bunch of young immigrants (‘new Canadians’) to make their own health awareness videos (because the people that normally make health awareness videos don’t really care or know anything about young immigrants), and they’re actually not that bad considering the kids that made them had never done any film stuff before. In order to get as many people as possible to watch the videos, they’ve done a quiz about them. Easy stuff, like ‘what colour is the girl’s jumper in video number 4’. The prize in the quiz is one of 4 new iPods (2 video iPods, 2 Nanos). Then there’s a ‘tell-a-friend’ contest where you get entered into another prize draw to win a Panasonic digital video camera just by getting other people to enter the quiz too. The more people you tell, the more entries you get.

Now – this is the interesting bit – the quiz has so far backfired quite spectacularly, because people are obviously so used to seeing epilepsy-inducing spyware-packed banner ads for FREE iPODS NOW L@@K!!!!11 that they’re just not entering. And they’re even less interested in winning a video camera. Kids these days are just so spoiled. So far, after 3 weeks of the quiz being open, and I don’t think it’s too unethical of me here to pass along cold hard figures, only 70 people have successfully entered the quiz. The best (or worst) bit though is that so far only 2 people have entered the digital video camera contest. You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to work out from that information that if you enter, you have a pretty good chance of winning. You don’t even need to get the answers to the quiz right to enter the referral thingy. How hard can it be?

Here’s the quiz page
Here are the videos (one of which, iQuit, is actually quite good)

I’ll even tell you the bloody answers if you want.

Or what I have been doing instead of being here

Listening To: Last Exit “Koln”, Soundgarden “Badmotorfinger”, The Harry Smith Anthology Of American Folk Music Volume 4, Charley Patton “Screamin and Hollerin The Blues”, John Fahey “City Of Refuge”, The White Stripes “Elephant”, Notorious Hi-Fi Killers “2 song demo”, Silver Jews “Tanglewood Numbers”, Bonnie Billy/Tortoise covers LP, No New York reissue and the usual Thin Lizzy/ZZ Top/ ACDC / Hendrix

Reading: Crosstown Traffic by Charles Shaar Murray

Working on: 2 Lords record sleeves, learning a Beatles song to record on Weds for the BBC, sorting a mortgage out, convincing my landlady to drop ten grand off her asking price, selling my Saab, buying a more economical car, getting an Echoplex, draught proofing my house, playing Last of the Real Hardmen song with a tape loop machine, making a solo record from collages, booking a tour

Looking forward to: some rest

Or what I have been doing instead of being here

Listening To:

Michael Dracula – Destroy Yourself
The kind of band Glasgow does best. They’re the Lung Leg to Franz Ferdinand’s Yummy Fur which means spiky guitars, screamy drawly vocals and GURLS. I tipped them on this very blog way back when they played with some other band I couldn’t remember the name of (yes, Franz Ferdinand at their first proper gig) but hopefully they’ll get some records out soon (ideally the awesome remix by Optimo’s Twitch)

Annie – The Wedding
Sometimes she’s just too candy cute but this is adorable without making your teeth hurt. It boings and burbles and whooshes in all the right places while Annie whispers away “I do I do I do” til your heart melts.

Black Heart Procession – 3
Mmm, depressing winter music. Time I dug out Cold House by Hood too. Sigh.

Reading:

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
After a few months of reader’s block all it takes is a new Murakami to get me to finally finish a book. Sure all his books are the same but when they’re about libraries and cats and memories I don’t really care.

DIY: The Rise of Lo-Fi Culture by Amy Spencer
A book about zines! It reads like a thesis and probably is but it has artwork by Rachel Slampt and stuff on the Yummy Fur. In a real book.

Working on:

www.misofunky.com
A new craft collective I’m part of with my friends Claire and Jo. We make mostly knitted and sewn things and you can buy them and look fabulous. Or just look at the website which is also fabulous if I say so myself. You’ll all be wearing disco ties by christmas.

A new paper zine
No really, soon.

Looking forward to:

Playing with Data Panik on Friday.
The new Girls Aloud album with Christmas cover versions and limited edition festive cover art!
Snow

What about you?

After the successes and failures of the last Name That Tune post, I thought I’d point out a project that Mrs. P started a couple of weeks ago. It’s called Pop Idle (the inspired title was my idea – it’s a pun, see?). The format’s simple: she posts a mystery mp3 once a week, and five guys who generally don’t know much about music (or anything else – me included) try to review it in our own unique, ham-fisted and uninformed way, without knowing who it is. After we’ve all slated it, she reveals who it is, and we all hang our heads in shame as it turns out that it’s someone really famous and the ‘popular music press’ love it, thus revealing how out of touch we are with modern culture.

So, come along and join in – comments are open and welcome and you can all join in and play along, and call us rude names when we say bad things about your favourite bands.

I joined a tribute band. Its only for one gig. Maybe two. I can’t decide if this is lame or not but I’m looking forward to it. My friend Phill is John Paul Jones in a Led Zep tribute and assures me it’s a blast. This conveniently allows me to inform anyone in or near Nottingham to keep December 20 free and then they can make their own minds up. Not only is it Gareth Hardwicks birthday it’s also Sneinton Stooges at Junktion 7. Plug over. And out.

I don’t normally self-publicise (ahem) but the upcoming Plan B alldayer in Glasgow on August 28th is shaping up to be awesome and not because of my involvement. Not only will there be some great bands and DJs but the first part is FREE and you’ll get to see me on the panel of the B Your Own Boss discussion along with Stephen Pastel and people from Plan B and Rock Action. Come along and ask some (easy) questions.