last night i went along with marceline and kat to see reynolds, part chimp and fixit kid (but not in that order) upstairs at the garage. we met up with ollie there and tried to convince him to throw the tv out of his hotel room window. as of yet i’ve not heard that he hasn’t, so i’ve got my fingers crossed.

i’d never heard them before but i was really impressed with part chimp, they were great and their drummer was really funny, they were really fun to watch, i totally recommend them. fixit kid didn’t make much of an impression on me, just a bit too shellacy rock with shouting. i hadn’t seen reynolds for ages, so i was totally glad to see them again, they were great and i enjoyed their set, and was particularly pleased to see them do ‘stopper’.

and this morning we ate pie. woohoo!

hullo. I’m pished. ha. I’m still wearing a yellow plastic hairclasp that I got in a cracker at work christmas lunch today and I’m eating a finger of Fudge. I saw Belle and Sebastian last night at their Christmas Charity Do. I arrived while some people were playing cheesy keyboard covers of popular tunes while all disguised with big fluffy hats and fake moustache/glasses/nose combinations. it was fairly amusing. then this girl got up to do a speech on behalf of the anti-war campaign [one of the recipients of funds raised] and completely messed it up. Then Suckle came on. They were shambolically under-rehearsed and did all new songs but it was sounding like there was some lovely stuff going on. Once they get it together a bit more it should be fantastic. Must dig out their album on Chemikal in a minute. Then we got Alasdair Gray talking about politics again and he was even worse than the girl. Cringingly bad actually. It’s this kind of thing that gives politics a bad name. No-one’s interested in politics when some guy goes on about the collapse of Russia in the 1930s, especially not in the middle of a christmas gig. You want short sharp exciting politics. Aye.

So Belle and Sebastian finally came on and played for at least two hours. by about half way through I was feeling very old and wishing for a seat. and some slippers and a cup of tea. They were fab fun though. Most of the members did a little solo spot, singing a cover version and there was lots of fun and frolics including someone dressed as an orang-utang appearing during Isobel’s song about orang-utangs and wandering around the audience with some mistletoe collecting kisses. We also got a bunch more covers, some christmas songs [including a beee-utiful ‘Come O Come Emmanuel’] and a few top B&S hits. All jolly good fun. They also did a raffle half way through, giving out gifts donated by Chemikal Underground, Mogwai [“5 tenners in a brown paper envelope! Not much thought there!”] and B&S themselves including Isobel’s orang-utang and Stuart’s box full of extremely rare B&S stuff. Nice touch. Then they shouted for Monica Queen and she came down and they did Lazy Line Painter Jane. Aye, that was it. I might have some coffee now…

Saturday I went on the Anti War (try this site, they were there) march in Glasgow. It was OK but I’m very much not a fan of the ritualised shouting that these things can get stuck into (see bits of “face it, your politics..” in the Reading Library section here for why). Especially when the woman with the megaphone is right behind me. Some of the speakers were more interesting than I’d thought, though. And it was a good mix of people who probably wouldn’t have agreed on much else.

But then it was enough Hippy Peacenik nonsense and after some shopping (CAPITALIST!) I went to 6 Hours of HATE! at the 13th Note. It was closer to 8 really. Some good bands and beside that there was a lot of bands doing slow chunky metal with a singer with shaved head and goatee beard thing who were OK. Esp. good were In Decades Decline (formerly Unique Freak) and their mates Divide, they were on the more punk side of things. Also liked the silly fast metal bands Evidence of Trauma (short songs and old skool metal haircuts) and Regorge (? – re-something anyway, technical thrash but better than that sounds).

I survived (the folk there were actually friendlier than usual, I’m sure) and at 10 I left to go home and listen to John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano.

well, I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun on a saturday [actually, I’m that sad I probably can if I think about it]. DEATHLEHEM was funny as hell and great too. I arrived to find a group of teenage boys arguing with the doorman then descended into a dry-ice filled cavern full of rock. okay, I’m exaggerating but it was full of nu-metal kids, old metallers, scary people and no goths sadly. the bands I saw were mostly good as well although the presentation usually outdid the music somewhat. I liked EYEBOLT and the band that insisted all their songs were about the Ilisu Dam and the economy in Romania and the band that spent more time making jokes and arguing with the audience than playing their hardcore punk tunes. One of the bands had the most evil person I’ve ever seen in my life playing bass for them. He looked like a teenboy singer from Muse [scary enough] but he also had the most evil piercing eyes and stared at people all the time. it was like a twisted evil goblin was living inside his head. I was very very scared. I could only manage 6 and a bit bands but chris was enjoying himself far too much so ask him about it.

I then wandered the streets for a bit taking photos of the christmas lights and being a bit odd and then I went to see Amélie. I got there 20 minutes early so I could go and sleep in the cinema til it started. Amélie was so perfect I cried at the end. make sure you see it soon.

I also heard a salesman today describing fibre-optic christmas trees as ‘the latest technology’. wait til he hears about phones that fit in your pocket and spaceships that go to the moon!

Hello. Fun weekend I had, with Instal on sunday just been covered well enough. Friday I went to Alec Empire followed by the 555 Records Extravaganza with Kid606.

Got attacked by Alec Empire when he invited me to mosh and I told him “actually Mr. Empire I think overall your Hypermodern Jazz album is ultimately a more rewarding experience than your enjoyable but slightly overblown for 8:30pm gabber”. “Riot!” he replied, “destroy 2000 years of culture!”

The 555 records folk are dead nice. They put out an album to celebrate their wedding. Aaaaah. Steward is the pair of them playing guitars and throwing rockstar shapes over borrowed beats from tunes like “Hey Micky, ” by Toni Basil. Can’t dislike that. Joan of Ass did similar stuff but without the guitars and a bit screechier. Amusing as all that was it did seem like Kid606 was the only one doing it properly, but he was well worth the wait. It’s somewhere between DJing and playing live and it’s fantastic he should be playing to much bigger crowds. But I can’t convince people of this so I’ll just have to console myself with saying “I told you so..” when he opens for Madonna in a couple of years time. Or she opens for him.

I was at Instal, a festival of experimental electronic and contemporary classical music yesterday and it was fantastic. seven hours and I wasn’t bored for a single moment. it was kind of like a cross between a music festival and an art gallery with new artists starting their sets in different parts of the venue moments after each other. nice mix of stuff as well although we managed to avoid most of the classical stuff which sounded least interesting to me. we did catch the Symphony for 100 Metronomes though, or rather, since we were a little late, the Symphony for 5 Metronomes. I was more interested in watching other peoples’ reactions to watching the last 2 metronomes click-click-clacking for ten minutes but then Koji Asano started his set and everyone got bored of watching metronomes. Koji Asano was probably my highlight of the event, loud but really textured and I could hear so much going on. Philip Jeck was another highlight, looking like a dusty old history teacher but bringing out the beauty of his old deteriorated records. Local acts Rhomboi and Defaalt gave different tones to the event with echoing throbbing guitar and interactive graphics respectively.

Headliners Icebreaker International were in a class of their own though. Funny, intriguing and vaguely mad in person, we left our interview just as confused as when we arrived, our heads full of economics and well-spun tales. Live, they were definitely the most acccessible act with their flowing electro-pop and NATOarts business suits. sadly they got cut short by a technical problem – a sad note on which to end such a well-organised event. I ended up stumbling home in the frost at 1am where I saw a fox watching me from the roadside. I then had seemingly endless strange electronic music soundtracked dreams and woke to a group of economists discussing world trade on the radio. my head’s been a bit odd since.

I went out in the cold and the wind and the rain last night to support both the 13th Note and also the musical rock scene of Aberdeen. Really good turnout I thought even with headliners Purple Munkie having to cancel. So we were left with Nero and Maple. I was keen to see both as it’s been well over a year since I saw either of them, seeing as I moved to Glasgow and that.

So, Nero. I remember being pretty horrible about them the first time I saw them but damn me if they weren’t great this time. They had pop tunes, rock guitar, three-way singing, jokes, charm and dance routines. they were pretty much all over the place really but tremendous fun to watch, especially since the singer reminded me a bit of John from the Yummy Fur with his geeky looks and jerky dancing. but the songs are the main thing and Nero’s are stupidly infectious, or maybe infectiously stupid. the kids should love them.

Nero had reminded me how funny and crazy Maple were so I was all excited. there was something different going on though. Maple have really grown up in the last year and they’ve now got this serious practiced edge. the riffs are solid and loud, the vocals have lost the overt crazyness and it was all just sounding, well, professional. it took me about four songs to start getting to grips with this new version of Maple and then they only played maybe one more song and just stopped. so I hope they come back soon so I can give it another go.

I went down to the 13th Note on Wednesday to have a look at Cayto. Well, I actually went to the cafe first ‘cos I was thinking too much about how awful it will be if the 13th Note has to close. Once I’d realised my mistake I backtracked to the club and was greeted by a ‘can I see some ID?’. I must have looked pretty incredulous, told him I didn’t have any and that I was TWENTY SIX and he let me in. gee, how many more years til people believe I’m not 17?

Anyway, I picked up my raffle ticket er, ticket and walked into an appalling wailing noise which turned out to be Slowloris. I’d kind of liked their track on the Smoke compilation so I was surprised, but they soon picked it up and the rest of the set was generally good stuff. Haunting vocals and nice atmospheric beats. After meeting up with diskanteer Will and getting a free badge it was time for Fighting Red Adair. I had nothing to go on here except that they had a good name and one of them had a hat on [often a good sign]. But they literally launched into their first song, throwing themselves about the place as they bashed out an instrumental OXES/Reynolds kind of thing. I was stupified with glee and all ready to proclaim them as my new favourite band. the rest of the set wasn’t quite up to that level but still had me laughing to myself and I was that person left still applauding when everyone else has stopped. heh. they did some dual vocals on the rest of the songs with one singer having an americanised sounding voice and the other just a mental shouting voice. they just made me laugh a lot and I really want to see them again. it’s making me laugh just thinking about it. haha.

but I was technically here to see Cayto and I was now very worried. I’d not been overly impressed with their EP and after that display of rock activity I couldn’t see that they could impress. but I was pretty much hooked in from the first song. I guess they come across like a more energetic Radiohead, like if the early punky Radiohead had the song structure and technology of current Radiohead. It all just sounded really big and much more powerful than their records. the singer reminded me a little of stevipus [Steve of The Oedipus, diskant fact-fans] in the way he ran about and jumped off the stage and stuff. they had one song with a clarinet bit which was kind of painful to watch and didn’t really sound of anything but most of the songs were pretty great.

After that they did their legendary raffle but I didn’t win anything [and I could have really done with those biscuits]. so, basically I’m glad that I got off my lazy ass and went down to the gig. if there’s any possible good thing to come out of the 13th Note’s situation it’s that people like me are more prepared to go out to mid-week gigs on a recommendation or a whim. I even forced myself to drink alcohol so as to give them more money. I felt like going up to the bar and saying, ‘I’ll have one of whatever you make the most profit on’. Ah, all hail the 13th Note!

We (Minter, Ady & I) went along early, saw Cassetteboy. Brilliant, brilliant stuff, all on tape loops so the bloke didn’t actually have to do anything, he just sat on a stool WITH HIS PENIS OUT (well a sort of putty penis, if you follow me, looked realistic though) and a mask of Jimmy Saville, then he cut his penis off, went offstage and came back on dressed as Bin Laden with a hat made of aeroplanes.No really. And he fought with another man who had a cardboard twin towers on his head.You had to be there. The music was loads of cut up, blink and you’ve missed it loops of songs, famous and not famous (caught the Smiths, Public Enemy, Joy Division etc amongst other things). ‘The drugs don’t work’ with the lyrics changed to say ‘the drugs work, they don’t make you worse, i know i’ll be on drugs again’. Blinding. And a cut up politician’s speech made to sound like it was good to murder 11 year old boys. Some sort of comment on the manipulative power of the press, i expect. Before Cassetteboy, some well-constructed glitchcore (ha ha, love these terms, tech step, darkcore) from Wauvenfold. A weird evening up there with the fish-headed man of Gloucester (ask Minter).

Hood themselves were really, really good I thought. Started off with left handed guitarist playing right handed bass upside down and right handed bassist playing left handed guitar upside down, but sorted out after first song.

Sounds a lot punchier live (obviously), and i think it’s a good thing that the vocals were occasionally sunk under the rest of the mix, what with them being weak from time to time. Asked them about Audioscope too, they seemed quite up for it, amazingly.

Ace gig, though, apart from the crowd. Loads of them faced away from the band the whole time and even more talked all the way through, very beard-scratchy being there to look cool sort of crowd.

There was even one guy with an old man’s cap on, backwards, a little goatee anda black polo neck, smoking rollups. The man was a cliche on legs. I swear I saw him in top lesbian sitcom Ellen once, too.

In other news, Sunnyvale have their first MP3 up for download on our fantastic website It’s us messing about doing a two-minute funk interlude, and is in no way representative of what we do most of the time, but some of you might enjoy it. If you like 70s cop show themes. Let’s play drums…

I wasn’t scared and I didn’t cry and it was generally just great. They played lots of songs that I wanted them to and it was just one of those gigs where you’re kind of overwhelmed by actually seeing the real people and by hearing the songs in real life. Low themselves are so huggably cute and do their little joking about between songs. Aww. Highlights for me were the times when they all sang away from their microphones so you could hear their real voices as well as the amplified versions. It was just heartwarmingly lovely. We got an encore of about 3 songs and then once they’d gone there was a hardcore of about 50 people hollering for them to come back and props to them as Low did indeed reappear despite half the audience having gone home thinking it was all over. and even played a christmas song as the audience were so insistent that they should.

I’ve been listening a lot to the new Papa M album which is just your perfect autumn/winter record and today I picked up the James Orr Complex single on Rock Action which just shines with Chris Mack’s character and personality. Buy them both. As soon as possible.