I’m not sure what I think about this article about ATP on Freaky Trigger. I like the way it’s written, the way the half thoughts instantly remind me of my own ATP experiences and yet seem entirely personal. I think where it goes wrong is in a certain smugness and superiority over the music. There seems to be a whole layer of Belle and Sebastian fans who feel emotionally attached to ATP purely because of the pre-cursor Bowlie and spend a weekend each year trying vainly to recreate it at what is technically and actually a completely different festival, both in terms of organisation, music and audience. Although very few people would say they go to ATP purely for the music, I would hope most people go because they’re interested or intrigued by the line-up and want to hear some new and exciting music. In the FT article, there’s a patronising air that the bands were unimportant, unmelodic and a mere distraction from the real attractions of beach, pub, singalongs and television. If the music is such a minor part of the experience and the audience considered further and further from the twee ideal, maybe they should pack up their ‘We were here first’ indie cred and invade the Kerrang Weekender instead where they can really feel like outsiders. Or just go for a weekend in Skegness.

Well, AUDIOSCOPE was brilliant, again. People mocked my seemingly insane plan of sitting on a train for a total of fourteen hours to spend a day and a half in Oxford trapped inside a small dark venue but I WAS RIGHT. The best line-up yet, lots of nice people to talk to, the opportunity to blow up lots of Shelter balloons and my usual seat at the merch stall, I couldn’t have been happier.

My favourite bands of the day were undoubtably Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element for setting the level of LOUD and ROCK for everyone else to follow; The Edmund Fitzgerald, following on afterwards and being unexpectedly marvellous and all noisy and abrasive and young and Electrelane who I hadn’t heard before and turned out to be tremendously enjoyable and very cute. But really, it was non-stop fantasticness all day and there wasn’t a single band I would have wanted to miss. Oh, except Six By Seven who I thought were DULL DULL DULL. Not to mention boring, rude and arrogant. But top day all round and big cheers to Simon, Stu, Hanna and Jo for organising it. hurray! The only bad thing that happened was being beaten at GIANT Connect 4 by Max Tundra. But, er, obviously I let him win since he’s a popstar. Ahem.

For I have the misfortune of currently residing within the confines of a particularly wonderful New Town called Stevenage. At the best of times, this is enough to make me all but inconsolable; but things are due to get a whole lot worse with the anticipated influx of 325,000 mindless idiots flooding the town to watch Robbie Fucking Williams mince about onstage at “Knebworth Castle” (it’s a house with a faux facade, and a damn ugly one at that). Not only that, but I have the fortune to work in Knebworth, and within earshot of the whole shebang. Today I got to hear what sounded like Kelly Osbourne being worried by a particularly rabid mongrel for a good two hours. This evening at band practice we went outside for a spot of fresh air, only to be confonted with a never-ending loop of Mr William’s (or should I say the Stones’) “Let Me Entertain You”. I’m really not sure exactly how I am going to get through tomorrow.

Unless…

Luckily, I received through the post today courtesy of Tee Pee Records a copy of ‘Dopesmoker’ by the inimitable Sleep. The ‘original demo’ of the infamous song/album ‘Jerusalem’, it’s a full 64 minutes long, and will fulfil anyone’s rock needs for (probably) ever.

Maybe I can find a way to get through tomorrow after all… then I can find a rock to spend Saturday & Sunday under.

Yes, I am moving house again, which means diskant is moving too since we don’t really all work in a big castle. The broadband is being a bit tricksy so there may be some delays in getting things updated. It’s also highly possible that this might cause delays in me replying to emails but even if it doesn’t I’ll be using that excuse for at least two months. And, hey, if you’re ever in Glasgow come visit us [unless you are a psycho].

I did wade through the boxes and leave the house over the weekend though, thanks to the major ego boost of being asked to be part of the panel at one of the workshops at Frock On. I had a really great time and met lots of nice people. I’ve always been a little wary of GURLfests, despite being initially radicalised via Riot Girl. Never been too keen on all the vegan, anarchist, new age stuff that goes along with the music and the feminism. But I had a jolly nice free lunch and a couple of hours discussion about self-publishing and zine making with a cool crowd of girls. As I say, I was on the panel along with Lucy from Chica, Marie from No, I’m A Veronica and Pat from Vesuvius and they were all lovely and much more interesting than me. Good discussion from panel and ‘audience’ and lots of networking of the nice kind. Sadly, my head was still full of boxes so I never made it to the evening gigs but I’m sure it was all good. Big thanks to Heather for asking me along.

Right, I better get back to my boxes. Maybe fit in a THINGS I LIKE though:

YAY:

– Mojave Three and Ligament. Covering all bases at present

– New house!

BOO:

– Soil gnats! They may not be damaging my plants but they are damn irritating.

– all the crap, boring, tiring parts of moving house

Finally, I am selling some indie/Britpop stuff on eBay so have a look if you might possibly be interested. It’s all ending in the next day or so though.

Either that or they’ve been doing really boring things like going to see Fugazi and to the cinema and stuff. cough cough etc.

I’ve been doing some exciting stuff but it was ages ago now and I can’t remember much about it. Fugazi tomorrow though and the mighty Eska supporting. I just wanted to mention a couple of things. Firstly, the nice people at Instal [hopefully they’ll update that website soon…] are offering YOU a 2 for 1 ticket deal for this year’s event. It takes place at the Arches in Glasgow on December 1st and features all manner of exciting and innovative ‘brave new music’ including perfomances by Ryoji Ikeda, Stephan Mathieu, Koji Asano & the Paragon Ensemble and Phill Niblock. We’ll be previewing Instal 02 in next month’s ZINE but there’s details on the event, the line-up and the ticket deal here. I suggest you get yourself along.

In other news, um, there’s a really interesting interview with ME in the latest issue of Tasty zine. You can also email Sam for your own free copy! Okay, I’ll shut up now.

Boo, commenting is broke so I can’t add snidey comments to Chris’s post there. I’ll just have to post my own ramblings instead. Got a couple of hours to spare til I have to go catch a plane. so, aye, Gig on the Green. I think the general consensus was that it was pish. Generally speaking. There were some good bands playing and I like it being in the town and the weather was perfect but all the general festivalness of it and the smallness just made it a bit of a disappointment. Main whine would be that the New Bands stage was hidden away, not publicised and finished hours earlier than the other stages. Oh yeah, and 90% of the new bands were rubbish too. The Silver Pill were indeed quite good, especially for their amusing mud diving, security baiting friends. I’d have liked to see RAAR as well but it was rather a lot of fun just watching them arse about backstage. Which is more than can be said for Trail of Dead: swotty Conrad Keely was sat translating French novels in the sunshine. And after making us break their fiendishly tricky guest list code to get there in the first place! They had tales of Axl Rose and Slipknot and the making of their very good new video though. Trail of Dead were ace by the way. Small kids going mental, much crowd jumping, rock styling, security guard tussling and happy upbeat songs about killing people. Who else did I see? Death Cab For Cutie were lovely and cuddly kitten emo jumper good, The Streets were kinda fun in a ‘look, it’s not a guitar band’ way but they weren’t anywhere near as good as Jason Reece seemed to think they were. Spiritualized were exactly as expected. No surprises but satisfactory despite the booming of the Prodigy seeping into the tent. And Slipknot were weak ass. Very disappointing but their crazed hyper-enthused fans almost made up for it.

Sunday was both less and more fun. The Bellrays I thought were just okay. Without her they’d be nothing and, idiotic though it sounds, I’ve never been that keen on people who can sing well. I liked the White Stripes better, doing a similar retro thing but with more pop and the kind of style branding that should have won someone an award by now. I left to see Guided By Voices only to discover they’d swapped sets with…..Leaves! So I made a hasty retreat back to the main stage. Would have liked to see the Reindeer Section but not more than seeing Jane’s Addiction who were total rawk frenzy. Perry Farrel set about proving his A+ loon credentials, wearing a huge feathered hat and prancing and posing all over the stage. They were funny as hell and preaching streams of nonsense. I got bored after that, having no wish to see Stereo MCs or Feeder and only a vague wish to see Pulp. I might have liked to see how The Strokes were getting on but then I’d have seen them live four times which is three times too many.

So, to sum up: I hate festivals but I like Trail of Dead.

Beats shopping…

On Saturday: Offspring sucked while NOFX were surprisingly OK (“Idiot son of an asshole…” hohoho), if pseudo-punk is your thing. Slipknot were a bunch of wusses. Saying “godamn motherfucker” doesn’t scare anyone and there was more moshing going on at …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead. They win for liberating cans of juice from backstage and throwing them to the audience. I saw Silver Pill at the new band stage, they were interesting. I can’t remember who else played that day, they must have sucked.

Sunday I was more in the mood for. The Bellrays kicked off, rocking indecently hard for so early in the afternoon. They’re like music from an alternate past, where rock moved towards soul instead of virtuosity in the early 70s. Ow it was intense. Have to be seen live. Most of the other bands I saw were crap: Vines, Leaves, piss off. However, Zuba, on the new bands stage were in the right weather for their summery African-styled tunes. Them I liked.

So that’s the White Stripes then? OK I see the appeal. They sounded much better with just two people than all the overstaffed rock bands I saw over the weekend (Jane’s Addiction, Reindeer Section, I’m looking at you). And they’re charismatic enough to hold an audience (Pulp and Stereo MCs scored highly here too, despite my lowish expectations).

Then I got bored with guitars (Where were the electronic artists?) and went to the dance tent (sponsored by Grant’s Vodka). Carl Cox was there, with 100s of monged Weegies and their kids, all counting up to four over and over again. I left when it got too crowded out of a misguided notion that I should see the Strokes. NO! The Wanks more like. The singer’s too pissed to stand or speak and I’m supposed to applaud? All Your Songs Sound The Same, you could at least make an effort to gloss over it. If they are style over substance they forgot the style today and there’s not much there. Hey, it’s Glasgow, last date of the festivals, lets just do it drunk. Don’t let Butlins fuck you over on the way down you arrogant prick. Ugh. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, I should have stayed in the dance tent. No-one there was half as incoherent and they could all still move.

But yeah, Sunday was fun. A whole sunny weekend in Glasgow! Rock.

I tried to make the effort and be anti-Jubilee today by wandering over to Glasgow Green for the Citizens, Not Subjects event. It was a perfect day for the park and I was looking forward to seeing James Kelman and just sitting about in a sunny park scowling at policemen. But we arrived to a small group of people half-listening to some other people babbling on about Scotland and how great it is to be scottish and reading excerpts of god knows what written in auld scots. I am scottish, I’m a member of the Scottish Socialist Party and I’m a long time socialist. However, I don’t think Scotland is a wondrous place and I don’t feel any greater affinity with other scottish people over my english friends. So get over it already. We decided to duck into the Winter Gardens for a while and see how things were later. I can’t believe I haven’t been to the Winter Gardens before, they were ace! Loads of cacti and banana plants and other tropical big-leafed fantastic plants with a clunky board path, tropical temperatures and some interesting wee exhibitions hidden in the back all about the history of Glasgow Green and the city itself. I sat for a while and immersed myself in leaf patterns and warmth. Mmmmm. When we returned outside it was to discover more excerpt reading and even worse some acapella singing of heavy duty protest songs. As we left we pondered the thought that pro-Jubilee street parties were probably more fun since at least they’d have music and cake. I’m not saying they should have got Le Tigre style outfits and dance routines but a summer park event aimed at families should have music and fun above all else.

You might have noticed the new issue of the diskant ZINE isn’t up yet so if you’re lacking something to read then I recommend you stop by The Morning News. Not only have they been putting up some great articles recently but they’ve also been involved in a collection of writing called Manual. You can download the whole thing as a PDF and I second their suggestion that you print it out and read it away from your computer [especially if you can use the printer and paper at work hoho]. You get seventeen little pieces of writing with a How To theme. A few do this as a semi serious advice giving article such as How To Organize Your Record Collection (I order mine almost exactly by the ‘Conveniently’ method described) and How To Start A Dialogue With A Complete Stranger (pretend to get hit by a car, good call!) and others in the form of short fiction. Favourites of these include the touching and subtly detailed How To Perform A Card Trick and the cutely sadly funny How To Unsuccessfully Woo Your Roommate’s Future Husband. Most if it is damn good stuff though so go get it and go read it.

I arrived in time to walk through the door and see OXES rocking out, with a high PVC element and an even higher ‘set the tone for a perfect weekend’ element. Truly this was a weekend to remember. Criticisms of ATP I’ve seen so far seem to be based around the premise that this small, independent community thing is in some way inferior to ‘major’ festivals, but everybody – and I mean EVERYBODY – who I spoke to over the weekend, left me thinking “I like this person”. I don’t want to get all emotional, like, and I’m hoping that everyone I spoke to over the weekend wasn’t left thinking “drunken halfwit”, as the weekend for me was equally about the people as well as the music.

That aside, Shellac, huh? One of the best live bands I’ve ever seen – seriously – especially on their Sunday performance which was laser-sharp, super-super-tight and surprisingly humorous. I always imagined Steve Albini to be kind of a nasty guy, but now I think differently. And when, uh, I met him (thanks Marcy, for dragging me over to him) he was FRIENDLY! Even though I must’ve been the fiftieth drunk idiot to want to shake his hand of the hour!

Other highlights: OXES. OXES. OXES. But I don’t want to go on. You can all contact me personally for individualised highlights. Rest assured there were a lot of them.

Friday

– arrived in plenty of time to see Shellac. They were ok, but kept slowing down songs which was a bit frustrating. Was pretty drunk by the time Oxes started but again they disappointed a little. Entertaining but a bit crap musically. Was completely twatted by the time Dianogah started and got distrated by talking to big shouldered man from Jullander and Luke Younger. Still managed to see most of them though and they were great, very humble too, singer guy said he couldn’t believe so many people turned up to a festival with the bands on the bill. Then upstairs for more beer and Blonde Redhead which didn’t inspire me but I have to admit my attention span was beginning to be affected by the alcohol. So downstairs quick smart for Shipping News who were the best thing I saw all weekend. They were incredible and sounded very little like anything on their two LPs. Like I said they were just damn lovely. In all honesty we couldn’t be arsed about going up stairs for the Breeders in our condition so we just headed for the pub before catching some of Low. Got bored during them and so went back to pub. Now I think I remember seeing Dave, Ady, Paul Ackroyd and some others and even buying them all a drink before deciding I should really go and talk to Marcy and co. So off I went chalet number in hand. Now the chalet ended up being just opposite ours but you’d not have gussed that considering I wandered about for ages trying to find it and ended up in a field at one point. Anyhow found them in the end and drunkenly greated ’em all. Now it wasn’t me who broke that stereo by the way. I think anyway:)

Saturday

– Feeling a little (read as utterly) atrocious the following morning I felt shellac came too early for me. So I lurked in the chalet for a few extra hours eating pasta. I did see High Dependency Unit and was impressed. So ended up buying most of their stuff. Missed everyone else that afternoon as thought it would be a good idea to drink again. It wasn’t. Did see smog though, well two songs until we decided he wasn’t going to play with his band and also that it was crap, so we left. But still somehow missed the rachels. Did meet mister summerlin in the mechandise stall though which was some consolation. Do Make Say think I thought were excellant and I also got bored with Godspeed. Had to leave early though because I had the chalet key and two of my mates were dead drunk and I had to go let them in. One of ’em was at one point trying to kick the chalet door in and cut his foot pretty badly. So was sitting in chalet at 3am on Sunday morning cleaning his foot up and improvising a bandage until the morning. Fun. Did get a Sunnyvale demo though and the contract isn’t binding. I asked our label legal council Gunther the Badger, you forgot to make me sign it.

Sunday

– Again I didn’t see many bands but this time it was mostly because I was on a stall selling me records to lots and lots of lovely lovely people. We had to put up with some friendly heckling from mister summerlin about being up at 11am to sell records but it went great. I actually sold everything I took. Met some other lovely people too. It was the whole community/firendly feeling about the afternoon, swopping stuff with the other labels and talking to people like Efrim Godspeed and stuff. Anyhow this was when I turned down the pie. Now I was offered what looked like a slice of very lovely if a little burnt cherry pie. Very kind and everything but hating cherries whether in a pie or out meant that there was no blinking way I was gunna eat that pie. Steak and Kindey? Different story. I did turn it down very nicely though I thought. Anyhow sorry for not eating the pie. I would not have enjoyed it, it would have been wasted and wasting pie should not happen, like, ever. Did see Mission of Burma who I liked lots and also Cheap Trick who I just damn loved. They were so funny and also oddly proud that their bassist had invented the 12 string bass. Plus the plectrum tricks were worth it alone. They were taped all over the mic stands and at one point the guitarist played a chord, threw the plectrum in the air and caught it in his mouth, while taking a new plectrum and playing a bit more before throwing that one into the crowd, spitting the one in his mouth in the air, catching it and playing with that one for a few chords. It was shall we say damn great to watch. plus the whole stadium rock stuff has always made me smile. The Upper Crust were sooooooooo bad it wasn’t funny. As were Silkworm earlier on but they barely even deserve a mention. Anyway the last band were the fall and they sucked by any serious consideration. But I just thought it was entertaining tht it seemed like he’d just asked the three band members the other day if they’d play the gig and then basically ignored them when on the stage. Entertaining overall I suppose. Was only an hour however so didn’t last too long anyway.

Good things I’ve not mentioned:

– the absolutely amazing general atmosphere. So friendly and open.

– meeting tons of random people and getting demos like that one off Marcy I nicked.

– the sunday record stall. I loved those 6 hours. Yes loved. Best thing all weekend.

– amazing situation of diskant and errol chalets with all the waving fun that ensued. Didn’t speak much though:(

Bad things I’ve not mentioned:

– sun burning neck on sunday afternoon

– not meeting people like Greg Kitten, Rob Strong, Kirstie, Neph etc etc

– Lack of oven gloves. Cooking stuff in grill very dangerous without them and I have the burnt fingers to prove it.

– only seeing Shellac play once and on the worst day, the friday.

Basically however I’m not sure how you could fail to have a great time. So many lovely people. So much to do. I loved it, every minute apart from first thing saturday morning when I realised that so much Kronenburg is not meant to be consumed. I did not feel too chipper shall we say. Anyhow GREAT weekend.