Don’t worry folks, I’m back and I’ve got fanzines to tell you about. I should have mentioned these ages ago so apologies to the people involved. I’ve been ill though boo hoo so forgive me.

First up is The Blooding which is a new fanzine based in Devon. It looks pretty fantastic as well, exactly like an old school jotter. I feel quite nostalgic looking at it. I feel like someone’s going to tell me to cover my book [in posters torn out of Smash Hits naturally] and write a book report on The Hill Of The Red Fox. But no, inside it’s even better than Gaelic Lairds smuggling guns since it’s got generally great interviews with Guy Fugazi, Bob Weston of Shellac, Les Savy Fav, Sean Organ, Steve Gullick, FrenchKiss Records, local kids Tyler and Richie Mills ex of Cable on the story behind the band’s demise. Blimey! As well as that you get bits and pieces on Dance of Days, All Gone Wrong Records, Kids Near Water, Positive Force DC, an excellent review of ATP2002 and a reprint of Nirvana’s open letter to fans over their feud with Courtney Love which has put me firmly on Courtney’s side thanks to their pathetic whining tone throughout. I shouldn’t even be needing to encourage you to buy this, you’re already skimming down to the contact details I imagine so I won’t hold you up. I do wonder how they’re going to top this next issue. I await it with great interest. In the meantime you should be packing £1.50 carefully into an envelope [I’d stick the coins to bit of cardboard if I were you] and addressing it to Jamie and Robin at 81 Mary Street, Bovey Tracey, Devon, TQ13 9HQ. Email them at the_blooding@hotmail.com if you’ve got any questions. You can also pick up a copy at the Cavern in Exeter.

More zines tomorrow. If you’re lucky

Hey, feeling a lack of indiepop and socialism in your life? Well, lucky you cos there’s a new issue of Tasty zine out right now to fill that gap. This here issue is number 16 and is a Jubilee special which means a pull out interview with Billy Bragg and some moaning about how horrible old people are [oh, hang on, that’s actually not about the Queen, hoho!]. The Billy Bragg interview is particularly good as there’s very little of the ‘ahhhhh, Billy Bragg, socialist songsmith of the people’ and instead they take him to task over the slight dubiousness of the anti-Jubilee but pro-English sentiments of his new record. Left nationalism, hmmmm. That aside you also get good chats with Milky Wimpshake, Comet Gain, Chris T-T and The Icicles. They’re not convincing me that British Sea Power are good though. There’s also record reviews and a briefing on the Italian General Strike. And all wrapped up in a good old communist styled cover. Convinced enough to send em your cash? Well, you don’t have to because it’s FREE! That’s, er, socialism for you. So drop them an email, tell them you’re special friends of diskant and I’m sure they’ll sort you out. One way or the other. Or you can just read it online. So, no excuses, get on with it.

FREE reading material at that! First up the London listings guide Probemusic has had to give up the big newspaper style and is now an A3 folded glossy leaflet thing. It’s no bad thing though as now it’s easier to read and none of that inky fingers trauma. It’s still got the usual London gig listings, recent live and record reviews and unsigned artist spotlight and this issue here is even better than usual as it has excerpts of an interview with Mr Steve Albini [the full interview is here]. Well worth picking up if you’re out and about in London or send a cheque for £4 to Probe Magazine Ltd, 1st Floor, 94 Ermine Road, London, SE13 7JR and they’ll post you out the next twelve issues.

Also of some interest is IF e-zine. They’ll send it straight to your inbox every month so you barely have to lift a finger and you’ll get news, articles, interviews and reviews of gigs, records and demos. You can read past issues here and also sign up to receive the new issues.

ok, so appleseed cast were pretty good, but not exactly sensational. one of them looked like jason lee, which was rather amusing. cursive, on the other hand, were cack. pavement meets dexys midnight runners? not today thankyou.

avid followers of this blog (you know who you are) will remember some time ago that i won a competition with three lobed recordings and i got the first part of my prize today. it was a subscription to the purposeful availment cdep series, and today i got cds by bardo pond and six organs of admittance. woohoo, free stuff!

also, has anyone else noticed that the new issue of fracture has a full colour glossy cover? they’ll be asking people what ringtones they have quicker than you can say “newmusicalexpress”.

I like New Scientist:

Copy protection on Celine Dion’s new CD makes it harder to play. (A good news story).

And TV makes you violent. The best thing about this story is that no matter how conclusive the evidence (25 years worth, economics controlled for) folk are still trying to wriggle out of it by blaming the content. Uhuh. Don’t try and say that over 25 years these people only watched the violent stuff and that’s why they went bad. It’s the medium, it makes you a callous moron. And it’s brainwashing you. Seek help!

The stupid thing is they did the same thing a few years back. Highlighting Jade Tree and Jets to Brazil et al. It’s just more of that lazy fucking journalism that seems rife these days. They even interview The Mars Volta who the NME say are making a concerted effort to distance themselves from the EMO label and in the same section they go on to say that the band have taken emo on an interstellar journey. The band are obviously not EMO yet they must be because the NME says so. Made me laugh too that they are pushing Pedro the Lion as one of the next wave. They’ve been around for fucking years, for christ sake. EMO to me was always bands like Mineral, Christie Front Drive, Jawbreaker, Texas is the Reason, maybe Braid and The Van Pelt, most of these bands have now split and members have gone off to form other bands. Yet there’s no credit given to the fact that these bands and the bands that came before them have been releasing albums for years and touring their asses off, rather suddenly NME should be getting some credit for ‘discovering’ them. Same goes for the labels like DeSoto, Jade Tree, Crank!, Caulfield who were putting out 7″s from Jimmy Eat World and Mineral for example years ago. On a slightly diferent tack I was a bit disappointed with Careless Talk Costs Lives too. Great idea but pritty annoying the way it was written. Anyway it’s an improvement on the NME so can’t complain too much…

Sorry this struck a nerve…

Don’t mention the NME either. Even though the fact that it’s crap has been staring me in the face for ages, i’ve only just stopped buying it. I used to read it in my half hour lunch at work every wednesday (i don’t mean i’m only allowed to eat lunch on wednesday, that’s just the day i bought it) – it was ever so slightly better than nothing and the content was so lame that i could eat and read it at the same time without too much brain action. But yeah, i finally stopped getting it. What clinched it for me was the story about the White Stripes signing some million pound deal with some label or other, and as an illustration they’d done a mock up of a cheque for a million quid with a caption that said ‘what that cheque may have looked like’. That really did sting quite a bit. And that was the end of my NME reading career. And i still hate Kerrang! since they slated me nearly two years ago. But i’m not bitter.

About six months ago I managed to wean myself off buying the NME every week as it was 94% crap and costing me way too much money. However I’ve now started buying Kerrang! most weeks which, while being much more interesting and informative, costs even more than the NME. Hmm.

But there’s a rather good feature on Fugazi in this week’s Kerrang! Not long ago I would have been highly surprised and dubious of this fact but Kerrang! is certainly gaining my respect. Although granted an interview with the band they’ve obviously had to dumb the whole thing down to the level of your average Slipknot fan who’s probably never come across Fugazi yet but it’s a nice little introductory piece. The pictures are really cool as well.

I’ve been reading the Punk Planet collected interviews book and, having read the interviews with Ian Mackaye and Jem Cohen plus the Kerrang! thing, I’m now desperate to watch the Instrument video again. why couldn’t I have thought of it while I was off work ill?

and Melt Banana were fantastic on John Peel last night even though I had to blu-tac my aerial to a plastic bottle to get a half-decent reception. very much looking forward to seeing them in Glasgow tomorrow.