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Archive for the 'books, zines, etc.' Category

Ulysses Speaks

Posted: June 15th, 2005, by Simon Proffitt

Ulysses Speaks: currently showing issues 2, 3 and 4.

ZINE ROUNDUP

Posted: February 6th, 2005, by Marceline Smith

Oh dear, these have been sitting by my chair for ages. Sorry, zinesters.

ROBOTS AND ELECTRONIC BRAINS #14
Jimmy Possession is still my favourite reviewer. No-one else manages to play around with sounds and thoughts getting right into the heart of a song with seeming effortless ease. I’ll even forgive him for not saying anything particularly nice about my band since he described Denim and Diamonds so perfectly. As well as the pages and pages of record and demo reviews there’s also interviews with local community radio and lots of bands you’ve never heard of, an excellent guide to promoting gigs and a free CD to add to my pile of CDs that I never get around to listening to but should.
£4 for 3 issues – come.to/robots

BEARD #2
“Music, arts and facial hair” – what more could you want? This is a great Glasgow zine by some rather good writers and photographers who also do stuff for Plan B, Is This Music? and even diskant. There’s interviews (with Kinky Friedman, Weird War and Lucky Luke), reviews (of ATP, Le Weekend and T in the Park) and lots of random articles, cartoons, beard trivia and other bits and pieces to keep you well entertained. New issue out soon too.
£1.50 from Monorail etc. – beardmag.blogspot.com

CARTOGRAPHY FOR BEGINNERS #4 / FORGOTTEN ALBUMS BEST LEFT FORGOTTEN
Two zines for the price of one from husband and wife team April and David. April’s been zining forever and the fourth issue of her latest zine is as good as ever. Generally a bunch of writing about random stuff in her life but April’s life is always hella entertaining. Thus you get her tales of the the most annoying-est things people have done at the movies, her daily transportation fun, free pizza scammers etc. all written in April’s friendly open manner. If you don’t laugh then you don’t know what fun is. Husband David’s zine is self-explanatory – detailed reviews of some of the most unbelievably terrible and hilarious records he owns; records he bought to prove they exist. From French toddlers and cheesy christians to cartoon cats and hair metal, David painstakingly points out every ridiculous facet of these records from the song lyrics and sleeve notes to the terrible terrible sleeve art. Great stuff.
$2 from emotionlotion.org – check April’s cool badges as well.

A couple of things

Posted: September 21st, 2004, by Marceline Smith

1. I got the new issue of Plan B yesterday and it’s ten times better than the last issue (except for the lack of a fantastic Andrew Clare cover) and and about 50 times better than CTCL. The layout now no longer looks like a slight CTCL update and neither does too much of the content. As well as the full length articles and lovely photos and illustrations there’s now lots of smaller chunks of text and little things to read which makes it seem much less daunting and much more accessible. I like a lot.

2. A downloadable trailer for the new Miyazaki film, Howl’s Moving Castle (more info at Nausicaa, as always). It is indeed a moving castle and it all looks very very Miyazaki right down to the cute little flame monster at the beginning. I am already excited, even though it’s not even out in Japan until November.

NME goes independent

Posted: August 14th, 2004, by Marceline Smith

I’ve just bought the NME in order to get an exclusive Hood track featured on the cover CD (put together by Domino). It feels rather like I have wandered into an alternate reality. All the more so after reading the NME editor’s suckup tribute to independent labels (the irony almost made me laugh out loud). Hood track is marvellous though. Hurry up with album please (which the NME will no doubt ignore).

Some things

Posted: August 5th, 2004, by Marceline Smith

I got some nice things in the post the other day from Alistair of Tangents/Unpopular fame. Some nice looking records (which obviously I haven’t listened to yet) and some badges but best of all was some little A5 photozines. Simply done with stamped sugar paper covers and nice shiny paper inside they’re apparently a kind of photo diary, random unconnected photos of everyday scenes and things and people. They’re really nice detailed interesting photos though with lots of my favourite things – text, signs, graffiti, patterns – and kept me occupied for a 10 minute bus ride no bother. It’s also made me long once again for a digital camera. It’s all very well having a nice proper 35mm camera but you can’t stick it in your pocket when you go for a walk. Not to mention the waiting up to a year before I have the spare cash to get films developed. Anyway, the zines are £2 each so go spend some money.

Okay, diskant-related live event plugging time:

#1 – UTER and SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB-ELEMENT play together at The Buffalo Bar in London on August 21st in honour of our fancy new record that you’re sick of hearing about (the sooner you buy one, the sooner they’re all sold and we stop going on about it). Do come, it’ll be great.

#2 – The line-up for AUDIOSCOPE 04 has just been announced with our own Chris Summerlin playing with headliner Damo Suzuki, diskant faves Cat on Form, Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies and Sunnyvale and those OXES fools being only a few of the great bands on offer. Be there! I will be.

Loose Lips Sink Ships

Posted: June 2nd, 2004, by Marceline Smith

I’ve been too lazy to enthuse about the new issue of Loose Lips Sink Ships but lucky for me, Stereo Sanctity have done the work. I’d like to agree with everything they say. I mean, show me another magazine that manages to feature Sonic Youth, Kevin Shields, Weird War, Blonde Redhead and Lightning Bolt all in the same issue. And the photos! And the funny smell the paper has. Mmmmm.

I got mine in Virgin so you should be able to find a copy easy in your local record store/Borders etc. or find out more here.

ZINEWATCH

Posted: May 23rd, 2004, by Marceline Smith

I’ve been meaning to do this for quite a while but I have the memory of a goldfish. So, despite leaving two copies of Robots and Electronic Brains on my desk I have still not remembered to write anything about them. And that’s a darn shame as Robots is possibly the greatest zine in the world at present. Jim seems to have no concept of release dates and current trends and instead just works his way steadily through what sounds like a small warehouse full of records. Thus Robots is always packed with reviews which muse and ponder over the motives, dreams and personalities behind the tunes. The only bad thing is that almost everything ends up sounding intriguingly great and would bankrupt me if I had the memory to search it all out. The other half of the zine is usually taken up with interviews which are almost always absorbingly interesting even when you don’t have a clue who they are. The two issues I have here (#12 and #13) feature the likes of EU, The Telescopes and promoters Bad Timing but most interesting are the ones with SK (early collaborator of The Streets) and Braer Rabbit (who sounded so fantastic I went and dug out the 7″ that’s been sitting in my review box for a year – it is fantastic). As well as this you also get free CDs featuring stuff from ace labels like Bearos, Antenna and WIAIWYA which make me go ‘ooh!’ and then stick on top of the pile of CDs to be listened to… I can’t recommend this enough so just go buy a couple of issues via the website.Also of note is the news that another diskant zine fave Stereo Sanctity has set up a weblog for random reviews and stuff. I have high hopes so keep an eye on it.

The Blooding

Posted: January 12th, 2004, by Dave Stockwell

That’s really bizarre, I’ve been meaning to write about THE BLOODING #2 for the last month after picking up a copy at Black Eyes in Leeds… it’s dead good though, and I thoroughly recommend it. Ahem, back to talk about books. Join our club!

THE BLOODING #2

Posted: January 11th, 2004, by Marceline Smith

More literary stuff! Firstly, A FANZINE REVIEW!

This has been sitting on my desk for weeks and weeks now, for which I can only apologise. By shouting STUPID BROKEN INTERNET.

Anyway. THE BLOODING #2. I remember very much liking issue #1 which was one of a group of zines that seemed to spring up from nowhere and prove that zines weren’t dying after all. Issue #2 is also very good. It’s got interviews with 90 Day Men, This Ain’t Vegas, Don Caballero, OXES, Karate, State River Widening and Twofold plus profiles of local label Freakscene, online distro Glaive and some other bits and pieces. It’s one of those zines that’s perfect for a bus ride or boring waiting room; I happily read it cover to cover in one sitting and was interested, amused and intrigued in turn. Definitely one of the better zines around with their coverage of both the latest Southern heroes and the stuff going on around their doorstep and some good layouts and use of space. I advise you to get yourself a copy asap. Email the_blooding@hotmail.com for more information or just send £1.50 to The Blooding, 40 Silsoe House, 50 Park Village East, Camden Town, London, NW1 7QH.

More literary stuff!

Posted: January 11th, 2004, by Marceline Smith

Firstly, A FANZINE REVIEW!

This has been sitting on my desk for weeks and weeks now, for which I can only apologise. By shouting STUPID BROKEN INTERNET.

Anyway. THE BLOODING #2. I remember very much liking issue #1 which was one of a group of zines that seemed to spring up from nowhere and prove that zines weren’t dying after all. Issue #2 is also very good. It’s got interviews with 90 Day Men, This Ain’t Vegas, Don Caballero, OXES, Karate, State River Widening and Twofold plus profiles of local label Freakscene, online distro Glaive and some other bits and pieces. It’s one of those zines that’s perfect for a bus ride or boring waiting room; I happily read it cover to cover in one sitting and was interested, amused and intrigued in turn. Definitely one of the better zines around with their coverage of both the latest Southern heroes and the stuff going on around their doorstep and some good layouts and use of space. I advise you to get yourself a copy asap. Email the_blooding@hotmail.com for more information or just send £1.50 to The Blooding, 40 Silsoe House, 50 Park Village East, Camden Town, London, NW1 7QH.

While I’m here, I’d also like to mention our new venture here at diskant – the diskant bookswap! If you read lots of books and would like to discuss your recent reading and trade your read books for some unread books then why not join up and do just that. Join up via Yahoo Groups or just send a blank email to diskantbookswap-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.