Some new web things I like

Flickr’s new Map feature – www.flickr.com/photos/diskant/map
Absolute genius and immediately lost me an hour of my life as I mapped all my photos. It’s nice to see how much of Japan I did actually see though locating Mt Fuji was more difficult than expected. I love that you can look at all the photos everyone’s taken in your hometown or wherever. Flickr is possibly my most favourite website ever. Also do enjoy me and Alasdair dressed up as the Super Mario Bros.

BookMooch – www.bookmooch.com
List your unwanted books, send them to other people and ‘mooch’ books in return. Brilliant idea and tied into Amazon so you can check user reviews of the books that sound interesting. I’ve given away two books I would never have read again and will be getting a hardback book of Japanese poetry in return, for FREE. Marvellous.

ThisNext – www.thisnext.com
Odd little site that I need to spend some more time with – you recommend products you like and these are categorised and tagged in similar ways to Flickr and del.icio.us for easy searching and browsing. You can also make lists of related products like Maki’s Recommended Japanese Snacks.

Bloglines – www.bloglines.com
I have mostly been using this as a Blog search engine, to find out what people have been blogging about a gig or event recently. Much better than trawling through pages of unrelated stuff on Google. For those of you who haven’t jumped on the RSS train (and if so, why not? It will literally change your life), Bloglines is a simple entry, a web-based RSS reader that will keep a track of new posts to the blogs you subscribe to.

Current listening: Girls Aloud, CSS, Bertine Zetlitz, Jamelia, Ladytron.
diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 3

Does the festival season ever end these days? This year mine started back in April with Triptych and will end in December with ATP, taking in Cross Central, Indian Summer, Audioscope, Instal and goodness knows what else in between. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not. It’s certainly a lot more expensive than going to a bunch of smaller gigs but it’s good to discover bands you wouldn’t otherwise have gone to see.

There really is no reason to leave Glasgow at the moment with all the fantastic new bands around at the moment (and an actual summer this year). Expect some interviews here soon with the best (i.e. least lazy) of them soon. RIP to Arab Strap and data Panik though. Everyone seems to be going solo these days. Is that now just Mogwai left from the original Chemikal Underground signings? That really would be the end of an era.

I did pop down to London the other weekend but that was mostly to visit my sister, eat cake and buy armloads of Japanese food at the JapanCentre. There’s still so many things from Japan that I miss so much and only a few of them can be found over here. Someone start importing Qoo and Fanta Grape please, and the tubes of tiny cakes.

In other news, the webzine/fanzine axis has flipped again with Plan B going monthly and now available in all kinds of mainstream newsagents, Is This Music? now on issue number 23 and a new issue of Beard due imminently. This makes me very happy, especially with my RSI. The only music website I seem to bother with these days are Popjustice and No Rock’n’Roll Fun. Is there anything else worthwhile? Let us know! I think a complete overhaul of the diskant links section is long overdue so tell me what sites you love to visit .

Most things are long overdue on diskant but hopefully we will get back up to speed with the coming Autumn. I am steeling myself to make a promise to write one record review a week but for now, I am ill and I’m going to make Japanese curry and watch some anime.

Current listening: The Pipettes, Bertine Zetlitz, CSS, Ladytron, Aztec Camera.
diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 3

In case you haven’t noticed there’s a new article up with us going on about all the good stuff we’ve been listening to, playing and reading. It’s the diskant Summer Catch-up.

The article was getting a bit long so I left off a few bits and pieces including the following bunch of Flickr links from Chris Summerlin. Make sure you have a couple of hours spare…

Reptile House who, presumably, is some sort of guitar tech hence the gazillions of photos of bands’ equipment up close onstage. For a geek like me, it’s fascinating.They’re also beautiful pictures. Want to know what Franz Ferdinand play through? Want to know how Josh Homme gets his live sound?

Bruce who runs the Mike Watt fan site. He has endless photos of the 1980s SST era of bands like Minutemen, Dinosaur etc etc.

Alison from Southern Records who has some amazing old photos of stuff like The Jesus Lizard at Reading and the funny one of Nation Of Ulysses that I’ve linked…

Daniel Robert Chapman, a man who is always 5 steps behind Bilge Pump with a digital camera with frequently amazing results…

We even have a Damn You! page with lovely photos like this one.

I was in Dublin last weekend which was fairly fun. Sadly I didn’t make it to the Botanic Gardens but I did wander round the city for hours and hours and hours managing to fit in Trinity College, Dublin Castle Gardens, the quite marvellous Chester Beatty Library which had some wonderful Chinese and Japanese printmaking on show, the Natural History Museum, St Stephens Gardens, shoe shopping, cake and much hotel lounging into less than two days. Oh yes, and playing a gig. Which was quite stressful but fun. I loved our support band Cap Pas Cap, a frenetic shouty angular band that made me think fondly of Park Attack and thus miss Glasgow. We also got paid and fed well which is always an enormous bonus. So, thanks Dublin. I’m not sure it was worth missing Hey You Get Off My Pavement though.

My next excursion is to London at the end of the month which happily coincides with the not at all bad line-up of the Cross Central festival at Kings Cross. If they could just move Errors and Annie over to the Saturday I’d be overjoyed. I expect they’re both DJing though so hopefully not too huge a loss. Saturday does look fun with Ladytron, Four Tet, 1990s, Animal Collective, Optimo, Ellen Allien etc. Looks better than ATP at the moment actually…

We’ve been doing the Visited Countries map at work this week and I lost miserably with my pathetic 5 countries visited. Now that I actually have some money, I intend to go see a little more of the world. China is top of the list, and I really should go to the USA sometime. I did, however, win the Visited UK Counties map so therefore I win, on an environmental level at least.
Anyway, to get back to diskant, you will be seeing some new content soon, I promise. First up I will be introducing you to the diskant team in a regular feature on the weblog so you can find out a little more about us as people which might also explain what the hell it is we spend all our time doing and thus neglecting diskant. First up, the one and only Simon Minter.

Current listening: The Pipettes, Findo Gask, Pet Shop Boys, The Organ, Ladytron.
diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 2

I am running out of ways to say sorry. Sorry there is little new content, sorry we are so slow at reviewing records, sorry I am spending too much time playing Animal Crossing. I’M SORRY!

Reasons I have not been updating diskant:

1. It’s too hot!

My laptop is practically overheating and I am sweltering just having it in typing distance. This, surely, is an excuse to buy a new laptop, yes?

2. I have RSI

Really, kids. Don’t spend all hours of the day on the computer, playing Nintendo and playing keyboards in a band. You will find yourself saddled with a lifetime of nagging pain. It’s all very well for my doctor to tell me to rest my arm but he doesn’t have a box full of CDs to review.

3. I have been doing band stuff

Notwithstanding waiting THIRTY FIVE MINUTES for a bus on the busiest road in Glasgow after band practice, we have been working hard for a couple of gigs. We supported Rother and Moebius last weekend who were rather good, especially went they went techno-krautrock or, even better, Neu goes Pet Shop Boys. I have to say they were the grumpiest band I have ever played with and possibly the only one not to even say hello to us. Even Wolf Eyes were friendlier! Next weekend we are playing in Dublin where I have never been before. I am looking forward to checking out the Botanic Gardens.

4. Yes, okay, Animal Crossing

Alex explains the madness so well on the blog. We are obsessed. I’m sorry.

Other diskanteers have also been busy. Simon and Stu for two. Go buy the new Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element 7" from Field Records.

Current listening: Pet Shop Boys, West End Girls, the Pipettes, Errors, Otterley, Findo Gask. I need to buy some new records.

diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 2

Yes, sorry, I have a brand new Nintendo DS Lite and I haven’t been doing much other than settle into my new Animal Crossing town, capture literally millions of escaped animals in Zoo Keeper (oh, the wasted hours) and do maths and sudoku under the kindly tutorings of Dr Kawashima. Thanks to the wonders of wireless internet I have picked up a message in a bottle on the beach from someone random I will never know and there’s hope yet for a diskant AC online meet-up. Oh the irony. It’ll be like diskant online Scrabble team all over again…

Thus there is little to report in the world of diskant. We do have a few reviewers set to join us so keep an eye out for them making some inroads into the review mountain. The Robot is almost too ashamed to respond to new review requests. I really will have to put the DS aside and dig in, as there’s been some wonderful stuff through lately which I have been enjoying. You might want to take the opportunity provided by this lull in activity by perusing the diskant archives, especially since I’ve gone to the effort of making this page load up a random article for you every time you come here. Have a look to your right and see what you find.

Also of extreme enjoyment has been a book collecting the posters of Jay Ryan, 100 Posters, 134 Squirrels, published by Punk Planet. Not only is it filled with one hundred colour prints full of his trademark fat, slightly idiotic looking animals but you get insights into the thought process, Steve Albini on good form, a whole load of facts about Wooly Mammoths and the greatest band name ever -which I may steal – Squirrels Taking Risks. I got my copy from Amazon for less than ten quid- go, go! I look forward to the Chris Summerlin edition in 2010.

Current listening: Pet Shop Boys, Sonic Youth, West End Girls, the Pipettes, Gay Against You.

diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 2

It really is summer now and diskant is being neglected in quite a horrifying manner for which I can only apologise. But, you know, get off the internet and go and enjoy the sun. We are still plugging away at the overflowing Review Box and will hopefully bring it down a little once I stop obsessively listening to the new Pet Shop Boys album. It has gotten so bad that Last.fm gave up listing any other bands in my weekly chart. It’s not even that it’s the greatest album ever made or anything, but it does have just the perfect mix of optimism, heartbreak, electro-pop and theatrics to make it indispensible. My copy also has some amusing style of anti-copyright where it will play and be ripped happily on my laptop but is extremely reluctant to play in my stereo.

I can’t think of even a tenuous link but Glasgow’s Stereo closed its doors last weekend and will be sadly missed. There will be a new Stereo opening later in the year which I’m sure will be even better but I have a lot of happy memories of Stereo, both on and off stage. The Asking For Trouble record launch where Sunnyvale were awesome and I spent half of my band’s set hidden behind an enormous amp. The Errors/Uter gig where people threw paper aeroplanes at us with incomprehensible messages scrawled on them. All the great, great bands I saw there from my favourite vantage point between the sound desk and, er, the boys toilets. It’s one of my favourite things about Glasgow that we have places like Stereo, Mono and Sleazys where you can almost guarantee you’ll bump into someone you know, and random band members, whenever you go there. It’s one of the millions of reasons I am still in love with Glasgow, six years after I moved here.

Actually, I probably could have made a tenuous link involving Glasgow’s electrostupidnoise duo Gay Against You who are our newest Talentspotter subjects. As hoped, they have provided entertaining and illuminating answers to all questions and you should go read it now, and love them.

Current listening: Pet Shop Boys, duh. Sonic Youth, Girls Aloud, Findo Gask, Errors. But mostly Pet Shop Boys.

diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 1

Things I can’t shut up about at the moment:

Nintendo DS Lite
I have almost pre-ordered one twice now but the Friday launch date and letterbox size/grumpy postmen scenario makes me think getting one delivered is not the best option. If I have to spend the launch weekend knowing my new DS is at my work or at my delivery office I will probably cry (or claw my way into either building). Obviously Animal Crossing will be my first game purchase. I’m currently deciding between Wario Ware and Zoo Keeper as my second. The choice would be easier if I could work out where the hell I put my GBA and games when I moved house. Sigh.
[Update – I found them under the stairs! WarioWare still rules.]

iTunes
The program too, but mostly the Music Store. It’s like eBay to the power of Amazon. Not only can I pick up random pop songs I hear on the radio and continue to avoid having to purchase CD singles to get the remixes or b-sides, I can buy just the good (PSB produced) half of Dusty Springfield’s Reputation album and Girls Aloud videos. At 79p a track and with a credit card tie-in that beats even PayPal for the illusion of free money, they’ve even got me buying stuff twice – once on vinyl for the house and then MP3s for my iPod. Pure evil genius, I tells you. In a similar vein, I am in awe of PlusDeck, a cassette player for your PC so you can convert tapes to MP3. I want one of these rather badly – make a Mac version!

Crowded Teeth
These all involve shopping, don’t they? Crowded Teeth make wonderful Tshirts, hoodies, patches etc. for girls and guys and I am loving them. I have already bought Tshirts with bunny flowers and bears going Grrr! and now she has a SALE on I have succumbed and ordered more. Fuzzy apple prints!

Current listening: Dusty Springfield, Gay Against You, Econoline, Otterley, Pet Shop Boys, :(, Park Attack.

diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 3

So, festival season begins this weekend with All Tomorrow’s Parties and I have no plans to be at any festivals this summer. The mainstream festivals look as dull as ever (Girls Aloud at V aside of course) and even looking down the final schedule for the two ATPs I can barely find a handful of bands I’d be excited to see. It just seems like too much noize and all the usual ATP bands who played the last 4 events. Sure, ATP isn’t just about the bands but I do kind of resent it a little when I have to take 3 days off work and spend another £100 on travel etc. I really miss going to ATP though so I will be there in December. I must say, I’m looking forward to writing MAR-C AT BUTLINS on the work holiday calendar. If Thurston Moore books a lot of rubbish though I will be MAD.

Anyway, who needs ATP. This weekend I will be seeing (or hearing, at least) Lightning Bolt in the Grand Old Opry in Glasgow, a country and western themed venue complete with cacti, saloon bar and Man Selling Hot Pies. Should be just about as incongruous a setting as Pontins with its murals and pirate sword shops. The dullness of live shows has long been one of my primary moans and I’m glad there’s promoters like Synergy willing to make the effort to make gigs exciting again by using unexpected venues, putting together surprising line-ups or just getting amazing posters up.

Make sure you have a look at our own Chris Summerlin’s awesome gig posters while I’m on the subject. They really do look amazing all together and they’re all for sale. I’ve got my order in, even though my bedroom is already decorated with too many posters of gigs I’ve played at.

If you are going to ATP have fun. Hopefully the diskanteers in attendance will post their highlights when they return. In the meantime have a read of our new Talentspotter profile, of Pangaea Recordings which is full of advice for anyone thinking of starting a label. It’s reminding me of all the hard work I have ahead of me with my next release…

Current listening: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Otterley, Mogwai, Findo Gask, Errors, West End Girls.

You’ll hopefully have noticed that the diskant homepage is all new and exciting. This has been a long time coming but it took a while to find solutions to the main blight of diskant (= I have no time to keep updating it constantly). So, hope you like it and thanks to Minter for his suggestions and help. You’ll also note there’s now a huge area in the middle for me to blather away about random nonsense (this was not my idea – I am not (entirely) self-obsessed) so expect slightly less of that here. The blogs are due a tidy up also and that’s next on my list. Let me know what you think and keep suggesting events and links we should feature.