I listened to this after around 20 other CDs Marceline dropped on me like the envelope of hot shit they were.
I will drift from the subject for a moment if I may… a few years ago myself and Matthew Ernest Newnham (head honcho of the Gringo Records Empire) each took a week off work on compassionate leave after we heard the devastating news that the Tight Bros From Way Back When had broken up. I was pretty down. Matt at least got to see them play.
Raising Sand sound a lot like the Tight Bros. I suspect this may not be deliberate. This EP is nearly awful, nearly. But it’s not. It fucking rips. It’s just the right side of cheesy but ultimately it’s immensely good fun to live with for the length of it’s 4 songs.
The press release says the guitarist is Graham Bartram. Graham, I salute you. You are a BAD ASS guitar player. This man knows how to drop a Billy Gibbons let me assure you. Raising Sand are more on the lines of AC/DC (albeit a little more Southern Rock) but the guitars are straight up ZZ Top at times. And they seem to have taste too. I admit when the closing track Witness To The Storm starts I feel a little bummed out, it’s a kind of rock ballad that all bands have on their albums or EPs because they feel they should do. Led Zeppish, nice solo but a bit dad rock. But, like The Chain by the mighty Mac, the start proves to be a stooge for the most bitching ending and any subsequent listen is influenced by this knowledge. Like trying to follow the plot in a film with a really rude shag scene in it. Impossible, because you know what’s coming up. And what’s coming up is yet more smoking riffery.
Vinny Foreman’s vocals too are pretty smoking. He doesn’t shy away from getting Bon Scott when it’s needed and thankfully his Bon never gets too Brian if you know what I mean.
Plus, these dudes are from Guildford.

Wow, my fist review for Diskant. Pretty exciting eh? Well no.
Rather it seems I have been cunningly duped by Marceline into listening to an album I would slap my own mother for even looking at in a shop.
‘Supernova’ by Liquid Blue is a truly dismal record by a band who represent the very antithesis of creativity, heart and rock n’ roll.
Hailing from San Diego, Liquid Blue (eh?) appear to be the brainchild of Raw Power Magazine co-founder Scott Stevens, who also happens to be a fully qualified financial advisor. So right away you see what kind of band they are. This guy is David Brent with a big trust fund.
The band, anything from a 7 to a 17 piece affair boast drums by Josh ‘funky cold’ Medina and ‘turntable’ by someone called ‘Big Dude’. I’m really not joking. I would have at least added monkeys.
Popular on the USO scene in the states, the band’s fan base seems to be dribbling Alabama soldiers impressed by the 3 not-cynically-included-at-all ‘purty’ female singers.

In short (and it really does deserve to be), this is a dreadful mixture of directionless, bland soft rock music, mixed up and corrupted new age philosophy, faux social concern, kindergarten political comment and robust sporty girls. Oh yeah, and 4 not so robust 40 something guys, trying to look anything but their age. The only interesting question this album raises for me is:

What is it about soft rock and aerobic sportswear?

A small tip Liquid Blue (Fuck, that is the worst name for a band ever). Most bands who pretend to “care about the planet” and insist upon foisting their vapid concerns on the public tend not to list their surfboard and wetsuit sponsorships on the back of their albums. Yes, I like to surf while I shed a tear for the little children too, but I’m not sure the others will understand like I do.

I suppose I’d better comment on the actual record. Right, hold your nose.

1) Kashmir – Jesus, where to start? This toothless affair blends a painful mishmash of musical themes and a weak male lead vocal to very little effect.

2) Show me Love – No.

3) If You Gotta Ask – I do I’m afraid, and the question is why, sweet Jesus, why?

4) Supernova – This track implores me to do the “Bossa-supernova”. Oh my fucking God. This is the best track so far by miles.

5) Pretend – More cod ‘Arabian Knights’ pish as the intro. Really guys? Every single tune? Who sold you on that idea? This track is called pretend. I’m going to pretend I was a pro and listened to it all.

6) Rhythm of Love – Without wishing to incur the wrath of The Weathergirls, this sounds a bit like ‘It’s Raining Men’ but not in a good way. Listening to this made me want to strangle my sleeping child.

7) Real – Oh my God. For fuck sake stop letting the keyboard player do Indian/Arabian/Romancing the Stone soundtrack intros!!!!!! AHHHHH! What, do you owe this clown money or something? Just stop it! This sounds like a Britney Spears track remixed by a funky sheik. I know that sort of sounds good. Believe me, this isn’t.

8) Rescue – Once again, sitar/pan pipe Easterny intro. I want to go into a health food store and kill everyone. Once again, the sitar/pan pipe Easterny intro has nothing to do with the pappy American ultra soft rock song it fades into.
This is the best actual song on the album. If done on a piano by someone with an ounce of class or sensitivity it might just be shite. Lyrics include references to something called “Pair-adise” and “when will we rescue the sea?” Anyone still doubt God is dead?

9) Arms of Love – All I can tell you about this one, as I lasted exactly 23 seconds, is that it sounds like Afghanistan’s version of Moby on Top Deck and Mum’s out of date valium.

10) Give Me Back My Heart – Go on! Mibbe she’ll shut up then! Once again, sub-Destiny’s Child garbage to give the tot, I mean talented female vocalists, a chance to shine.

11) Can’t Stop It – And we so wish you could.
ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING INTROS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s hard to believe these people truly imagine that their spray-on, transparently fake concern translates into even mildly diverting lyrical content. This one, about being a couch potato while all around “people” “suffer”, is akin to being lectured on ethics by an aerobics instructor.
Coupled as it is with music that sounds as if it’s been recorded alongside an unrelated advert for a curry house, this track made for as harrowing an experience as my creaking constitution has experienced in many a long year.

12, 13, 14) Fuck it. I can stand no more. I remove the offending disc as I would a piss-stained vagrant from my favourite armchair. You can’t make me listen to the rest so there.

America. If you really want to know where Osama Bin Ladin is hiding, try slapping this baby on the Guantanamo Bay playlist.

Click here to observe the pointless tragedy.

FREE RECORDS!!!!!

I’m moving house soon so it is time for a clear out. I’ve already chucked out about ten million crappy old cassettes and am currently working my way through an ENORMOUS box of zines I found at the back of a cupboard. I also have some half decent cassettes, CDs and 7″s* that you are welcome to for the price of postage. Use the comments box or email marceline at diskant.net to claim anything, first come etc. Most of this is either review stuff, things I also have on vinyl or where I’ve copied the good songs to MP3. It’s all going to charity otherwise. More soon, maybe.

*I did go through my LPs and 12″s but only managed to discard one so I put it back in…

Ooh, I forgot I also have the following:

LEXMARK inkjet printer – does colour OR B&W but not both at the same time. It’s okay.
EPSON Scanner – only works with Windows 98, usefully. Pretty good scanner though.

These are FREE to anyone who can pick them up from Glasgow. I doubt they’re worth the cost of postage.

Yesterday I got to play guitar for Damo Suzuki as part of his Network for the 2nd time at the Audioscope Festival in Oxford. I think this in itself sets up the day as being fairly weird but the day was just that. Weird. In post-gig-comedown-stroke-depression-at-going-back-to-work-coupled-with-boredom I thought I would write about what it was like.

When Damo recorded “Mother Sky” with Can I was minus 7 years old. Playing with him is a huge headfuck for that reason alone. The other colossal reason that doing this fries your brain is that it is totally spontaneous and unplanned. You literally get up there and play. Damo does this night in and night out as part of his “Never Ending Tour” where he goes around the world hooking up with groups of musicians to improvise with. When he booked his Nottingham show the promoter Anton got in touch and forwarded an email from Damo outlining what would be required by his band for the evening. I think it was along the lines of being “sound carriers” prepared to engage in “Metaphysical Transfer”. That Anton thought I would be the man to ask is something I am eternally grateful to him for.

So I got in touch with as many people as I thought would be into this that I knew and we ended up with Neil from Bilge Pump, Elvis from Twinkie on drums together with Phil, Neil and myself from Wolves Of Greece.

We went and had a get together the weekend before the Nottingham gig and just worked out what sounds we wanted to use but mainly we just jammed a bit and chatted. We couldn’t preplan anything because I think Damo would have sussed us out and tripped us up if he could so we just tried to have fun and get comfy.

The gig itself was nuts. I think we all individually freaked out at soundcheck and had to take some sort of huge breather to calm down. We had lots of equipment problems when we got there so we were quite fraught when we met Damo out of his cab from the station. Soundcheck was a combination of normal boring muso shit like “Is my amp sounding good?” and “Can I have some more drums?” coupled to “FUCKING HELL I’M PLAYING WITH DAMO SUZUKI FROM CAN. AND HE SOUNDS JUST LIKE DAMO SUZUKI“.

Like he wouldn’t…

The gig was twice as crazy. Damo had found a willing co-conspirator in Elvis and had managed to get most of us fairly well stoned beforehand so there was much giggling and good humour before we went on which I was really thankful for as I was shitting it. We’d been out watching the support band earlier and had been speaking to some of the older local music fans we know and they had no idea we were playing and were actually quite surprised to see us there as though Damo and Can were out of our listening league let alone our playing league. So I was fairly nervous that I was not worthy.

Damo asked us beforehand if we had any plans for starting. We didn’t. He told us

“I will jump. When I am in air: SILENCE. When I land: SOUND”.

Which we all immediately forgot.

And then it was over. We got signalled we had 5 minutes left and I was like “Shit, we’ve only played 30 minutes”. In fact we played 75.

People seemed to dig it. One internet commentator expressed an opinion that we weren’t local and were blatantly his backing band and had rehearsed it all. I take that as a compliment. I thought it was OK after playing but listening back to the bootleg that Ian Scanlon made I am pretty chuffed.

So we got signed up to Audioscope as well which was yesterday. A soundcheck at 12 o clock meant leaving Nottingham at 8am to go via breakfast at Elvis’ in Derby. We drove round Oxford for ages looking for the Cowley Road and the Zodiac and cursing about Oxford in general.

We finally got there and Damo was already there so it was a case of getting the gear in and almost immediately running through a quick check minus Neil on drums as he was getting the train later. It was all really cool and relaxed and we hung out blowing up Shelter balloons and getting reacquainted with Damo before heading for food and some guitar shop browsing with Damo in tow. Sonic Youth were on the TV in one shop and Elvis asked him if he dug the Youth to which he replied that Thurston is a good friend of his. Eeek.

We got back to the Zodiac in time to see Sunnyvale Noise Sub Element who were very, very loud. My personal taste in music means I always like human drummers but then again my personal taste in music means I like anything thats very, very loud so SVNSE were a good way to kick things off.

The atmosphere was cool all day and we spent most of the day milling about munching on nibbles and drinking body temperature Carlsberg Export and chatting to the other bands.

The room backstage was rammed all day with people and equipment. I think for the 5 of us it was just different to be headlining something and to have this kind of atmosphere. It was fun. We’re all used to rushing to gigs, playing first and getting drunk. This was like a weekend excursion to the country, plenty of food and loads of time to spare.

All the bands were cool, Vibracathedral Orchestra stood out and they seemed like awesome people too. Ditto for The Telescopes who finished their set by drilling through an amplified electric guitar.

We decided to go for a stroll and ended up on the roof of the Zodiac at one point, the 5 of us and Damo sitting in plastic school chairs, staring at the night sky while Elvis ran around drumming on anything that would make a sound. Until we got kicked off by security that is as the roof is unsafe. Could have been a serious way to make an entrance.

Oxes really got the place going, it seemed like they were the natural headliners in terms of being a draw for people. This just served to make me more nervous and I’d been drinking since about 12 and it was now 10pm and was also entering into the cosmic mindset by being mashed out of my brain causing me to walk round and round in circles with my guitar case working out what the hell I was doing instead of setting my equipment up.

When I got round to this I was freaked by people snapping pictures of my pedals and hollering at Damo.

He pulled a surprise on us and jumped in the air when no one was looking apart from the drummers so our big, tight entrance was a mess of us all coming in at different times which doesn’t bode well seeings thats the only planned part of the set.

I don’t remember much about it except it was LOUD. My ears are ringing still, we were much more ROCK than in Nottingham. Elvis and Neil cooked up some insane rhythms that just fucked with my head and left me, Phil and Neil just hoping we could make sense out of them. It was like some Afrobeat polyrhythm thing and it killed my brain at times where I almost lost my balance. That may have been the Carlsberg, mind.

We listened to Queens Of The Stone Age, Mudhoney and Soundgarden on the way up in the car and every time I tried to play something subtle and cool it just came out like some Stooges rock riff. In the end I went with it and Damo seemed to dig the volume as he really wailed.

I’m not sure if people had te patience to be into 45 mins of improvised rock after such a long day but it was fun for me.

And then, immediately the day stopped being fun for an hour at least. We got bundled out into the street with our gear as the Zodiac had a club night on. Then a van with 12 police people in it pulled up. About 8 of them got out and with no real effort to understand why we were parked on double yellows (I’d have said me carrying a huge amp was their clue and the venue we were parked outside maybe?) they began shouting at us to move. I tried to ask where Gareth (our long suffering driver) and Elvis where there going to move to (you know, so I could actually FIND them and get home) and was told to “SHUT UP” by one particularly prickish copper. It seems in Oxford they have such an over subscription of applicants to the police force that they can go out of their way to hand select the most evil, inconsiderate, retarded fuckwits to make the grade.

But it worked out, we went back to Simon and Stuarts and had some more drinks with Damo and Marceline who runs some webzine or another and our mate Brum who’d come up from London.

Got in at 4am. Am knackered.

Had to share that with you so thanks.

What I wanted to say most of all is that we all had our doubts about the idea of doing these 2 improvised gigs. Damo’s attitude is if we communicate then it is a success and the people playing can truly transcend the band environment if they let themselves. Sounds like total hippy nonsense but he’s completely right, it was such uplifting fun. I want to do it again!

Dear Mr Revels

I never thought I’d see the day when I would be writing a letter about my disappointment with Revels but it seems that day has arrived.

Yesterday I purchased a packet of Revels drawn in by the excitement surrounding your ‘new sweet’ revelations. The whole idea had given me days of thought before I even bought a packet. What would the new sweet be? And, more importantly, what sweet was being ditched to make room? My money was on the peanut. A certainty, I thought, what with the growing problem of nut allergies. The new sweet gave me more difficulty. I was hoping for coconut but knew it was unlikely since it probably has nut allergy problems itself and of course the public’s dislike of coconut in sweets, the fools. Almost as annoying as the general public’s abhorrence of liquorice (liquorice-free Liquorice Allsorts, I ask you!). Maybe a mint cream, I pondered.

So you can imagine my excitement upon receipt of an actual packet, tantalising me with question marks and promises of NEW SWEET! A rummage around and it seemed my peanut guess had been correct, there being no telltale peanut shaped sweets. I soon munched my way through the rest of the packet, each sweet providing a checklist of all the old favourites present and correct.

And then the packet was finished. AND WHERE WAS MY ‘NEW SWEET’? There was none, unless you have invented the magical invisible sweet.

Your packet clearly states the inclusion of a new sweet and this was not the case with my packet. I have no answer to my questions, no knowledge of this new sweet. When will I ever sleep again?

Yours in disappointment

Marceline Smith

PS. If you’re ever stuck for an advertising slogan feel free to use mine from a few years back: “Like a crap box of chocolates”.

PPS. The addition of raisins to the ingredients list kind of gives it away, doesn’t it?

• Gig in Glasgow, at Stereo, last weekend. Good place (including a record shop where I got served by Stephen Pastel – doesn’t get much more exciting than that), good company (stayed at diskant towers, Marceline’s bohemian flat slap bang in the centre of Glasgow), good bands to play with (Uter and Hex), good good good. Celebrating the launch of our new record.
  
• Gig at Truck Festival, on the edge of Oxford, this weekend. Playing in an actual barn. With hay around the place.

Couple of capsule reviews to tide you over until my next column:

• Stuffy/The Fuses 7″ on May Go 0 Records: Nicely heavy, yet nicely melodic. Very pop-savvy, one of those bands who sound like they’re enjoying life. A great live band. ‘Early Blur crossed with late Ash.’
• Chuck No, Not Ah! 7″ on Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation: Mexican-bandit style heavy surf garage punk with added chanting. Blue vinyl. Pleasingly deranged and pleasingly not of these times. ‘Early Shadows crossed with Man Or Astroman.’
• Trencher When Dracula Thinks “Look At Me” CD on Victory Garden/Jonson Family/SuperFi/A Tree In A Field/Action Index/La Vida No Es Un Mus: Heavy. Fucking. Mayhemic. Noise. 14 tracks of complex, fast, guitar skroink in around 18 minutes. ‘Early Locust crossed with Melt-Banana.’
  

I got to fulfil another years-old wish on Wednesday. I played a gig with a band with Ian Svenonius in it. Every house I’ve lived in has had the Nation Of Ulysses 13-Point Program To Destroy America poster in the front room. I’m still Ulysses through and through. There was a point in time if you met another person who liked NOU you had found a friend for sure. It’s how I know Marceline come to think of it.

Anyhow we supported Weird War in Lords. I’d seen WW the week before in Nottingham and although the touch paper was visible and always in reach they never quite lit it. The sound was weedy and it did them no justice. Whereas Make Up could survive on a bare sound, Weird War needs maximum fatness and a thick juicy sound to make the most of their tunes. Weird War is infinitely better than the Make Up in my book. I’ve caught myself checking out wah-wah pedals in music shops recently. Weird War is my proof that I might be on the right track.

In Leeds they smoked. Getting Alex Minoff together with Svenonius and Michelle Mae is the shit. Minoff is such a white-hot guitarist this band can’t fail. His playing in Golden is like waking up in the morning to find you’ve grown a 15 inch bright blue cock overnight and it’s looking back at you and singing I Feel Good by James Brown. The man rules. He tears shit up in Weird War. Put that with Svenonius preaching like only he can and Michelle Mae actually breaking a grin at times and you’re on it.

If you can’t beat ’em bite ’em

hi gang, been doing things recently (in a roundabout way). best of all was a rather wonderful trip to san francisco where we saw hella, walked up some massive fuck off hills and ate crazy new food. thanks mainly to the insane amoeba records, we are now up to our eyeballs in new music too, which is pretty great. in another thinly veiled excuse for a band list, here are some recent purchase highlights:

alvarius b/dylan nyoukis – sugar: the other white meat lp

dylan nyoukis – with hicks in the sudan cassette

friends forever/gang wizard – split 9″ (lathe cut too, no less)

ashtray navigations/gang wizard – split 7″

amon duul ii – yeti cd

amon duul ii – phallus dei cd

sunroof! – bliss 2cd

wolf eyes & smegma – the beast lp

wolf eyes & black dice – collaboration lp

riveting, i’m sure you’ll agree. buying stupid records and then showing them off as shamefully as possible is one of the best pastimes a man can have if you ask me. the live circuit is still fairly quiet, but we are hopefully seeing KHANATE!!!!! next thursday. judging by the live photos circulating from the shows they’ve been playing, they look insane and should be nothing short of excellent. just after that, cheer accident are playing in town with a band featuring ex-members of sweep (remember them?!) which i’m kind of in two minds over. all this activity of course in no way makes up for the fact that we’re missing atp this year (and all the various gigs that the bands are playing around the same time). i for one am also insanely jealous that mister younger is getting to go to no fun fest in nyc! jammy tyke. and as if that weren’t enough, radio playing excitement to boot? how does he do it?

on a slightly sadder note, a tiny little part of my soul finally died yesterday, as we gave up on the endless struggle against all of society, and bought mobile phones. fancy ones too, with cameras and email and all kinds of crap. we’ll be eating tapas and ending loud and irritating public conversations with “ciao” before you know it.

other recent things include: long overdue haircuts, the surprisingly good dawn of the dead remake, final fantasy:crystal chronicles, vague plans to move to various different places which usually last about an hour, kickass new tape deck with flashy lights and things, and of course, a constant state of anarchic joblessness. when will the excitement end?

kudos must go to chris s. for his saab purchasing. after a big clanky late 80s volvo, a saab would definitely be my car of choice (if i could drive, this is). i think though, if he mentions the slint thing to anyone else, his saab should become THE saab from tweez, it would make for a much better story, especially since it would be coming from chris summerlin, master of rock, and would therefore be entirely believable.

lastly, down there on the left just above the blogger button, you can now see what each of us have been listening to. well, currently it’s just marceline and i *coughSTAFFcough*, but hopefully it will provide you with some insight into, er, something or other. this somewhat miraculous feat of technology (by my standards) is provided by listen-to.com. clever stuff.

Marceline’s having internet problems at the moment, which explains the lack of recent content on the site – and believe me there’s some exciting new content on the way when everything’s up and running again!

For now, I thought I’d put onto this blog a column which I received from Ross McGivern yesterday, as it’s particularly timely. I’m hoping that he’s not the only person out there who’s been more than a little concerned about the recent reactions to Saddam’s capture… here it is:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, We got him”

These were the words that I awoke to on Sunday 13th December, I was as surprised as anyone as I was expecting to awake to the dulcet tones of John Craven on Countryfile discussing the intricacies of unsustainable farming policies. Admittedly we had it on the wrong channel but watched to see what was going on in Iraq.

My first reaction when I heard that US forces had captured a suspicious bearded man this close to Christmas was that they had in their wisdom captured Father Christmas,or, the 2 of Clubs as he is known to GI’s around Tikrit. Maybe they had mistaken “my first Chemistry set” as a mobile bio weapons lab capable of launching a strip of magnesium sulphate on British citizens within 45 minutes, only if the budding scientist had a meths Bunsen burner and a pair of crappy plastic goggles.

What I’ve picked up over the course of the week are mixed messages from our ‘leaders’ and media, such as where he will stand trial, what’s his punishment will be and WHERE ARE THE WMD?

So far we’ve heard that its likely that Saddam Hussein will face trial in Iraq and not in an international war crimes tribunal or other type of International Court. This maybe because the US do not want to sign up to the idea of an International Court as it will leave their military actions open to account, such as killing 15 children in less than week in two separate raids in Afghanistan. And given that there was no UN mandate to go to war anywhere there could be a counter claim, and I think there should be! Presumably in the consumer friendly Iraq where smuggling and Sky dish installation are now the number one occupations, this case will be handled by a British No Win No fee solicitors advertising in Iraq (shortly before offshoring to Baghdad to open a call centre). “Have you been injured in an accident at work or been hit a Daisy Cutter? Then call Claims Direct” They then cut to a little kid saying how claims direct helped him as he was hit in the face by a football and now needs to wear glasses for the rest of his life.

Today, 15/12/03 Bush came out and said that Saddam should face the death penalty, now this is where I get confused. In a news report during the week I had heard how in the new Iraq, the death penalty had been abolished, yet Bush wants him to face it in the Iraq. Is this another example of the US president trying to dictate someone else’s policy? It does to this cynic. In the speeches made, you can’t help but hear the undertones of revenge, such as “facing the treatment he gave his people”. If, post saddam, this is a better world why are still hankering after revengeful acts such as the death penalty, however coming from Bush, who as Governor of Texas oversaw the executions of many prisoners, including those with severe mental illness, it isn’t surprising. Yet our leaders and media trumpet that we have won a victory for civilised society.

It does amaze me at what short memories some people have, when justifying the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Human Rights abuses and specifically public executions were highlighted as atrocities which needed resolution by dropping a vast amount of explosives on them and installing a US friendly administration, but by allowing the execution of Saddam Hussein, or even encouraging it, aren’t our world leaders being hypocrites once more? Surely if we have turned the corner, we should be making sure that everything is done properly and fairly, not as Tony Blair has said “seen” to be a fair trial. Even though he is undeniably an evil dictator who should be held account for his murderous reign, what is wrong with making sure no short cuts are made?

After all, if short cuts are made and he faces a public execution, which will probably be shown on Sky Pay Per View, what signal will this send to supporters and citizens already resentful of the occupation of Iraq? By showing footage of him being manhandled by a US doctor, they have already enflamed many across the Middle East by humiliating and degrading him; and this is the reaction from those are pleased that he is gone.

Finally they have found Saddam Hussein, less than 6ft tall, but they haven’t been able to locate 20ft rockets, whats going on? I maybe exaggerating but if they found a couple of screws they’d claim it comes from a rocket launcher which is set to hit Skegness in less than an hour. But still no sign of them I find this interesting, maybe that’s because there aren’t any? I had initially thought that once they had captured him, and with such ease it won’t be long before a deal is struck and Saddam avoids death by either telling them where the WMD are, or allowing them to be planted etc, however it appears he is now not talking so that might have scuppered that theory.

All I’m suggesting is that before demanding that the only course of action is the death penalty, or a fixed trial or an illegal stay in Camp X-ray that a bit of common sense is applied and serious consideration is given to the consequences of an imperialistic vendetta.

I have however thought of some “hilarious” punishments

1. Replacement for Bertie Vogts as Manager of Scotland.

2. Leader of the Conservatives, a torturous affair no less

and finally…

3. Take my place for the horrors that await my Christmas; not only has my mad mother in law invited herself to Christmas lunch (I’ll be the one cooking), thus spoiling plans already made, I’ve also been volunteered to drive her and her new chap to Gatwick (they better not canoodle on my backseat). They have to be there for 4.00 am I’ll probably get home around 06.00 Boxing Day. Sleep Deprevation and White Noise must pale into insignificance.

I feel an attempt to discuss the current state of the word in an articulate and valid way would be an exercise in futility. Like Marceline said, it’s near impossible to take account of the whole sphere of issues and collect them into neat little sentences, and right now even thinking about it for more than 10 minutes at a time makes me very unhappy indeed. See? Even know I sound like a complete fool, so I’ll change the subject…

THE INTERNET! There’s a good one. I’ve been giving a lot of thought of late. Well, the internet in the terms of how I and probably a lot of people reading this might use it. So far I haven’t come to many solid conclusions, but there are a lot of interesting things to think about. There is pretty much one reason I will bother to look at anything on here, and that is music (dun dun duh!) and obviously this is how I stumbled across diskant and many other sites of a similar vein. Nowadays, or at least recently, this has turned into a seemingly endless pursuit to hear new things that excite me, which seems to manifest itself in the purchase of more records than I can afford. The centre of this activity for some time has rather predictably been that wretched hive of scum and villainy, Ebay. Now, it has long ago occurred to me and no doubt many of you, that spending one’s time simply acquiring possessions (which is what it is at the end of the day) does not a worthwhile existence make. I have a big list of the records I own up on Skylabcommerce, so that other people can see how great I am at what I do. I am under no illusion that this is the most horrifically anal and inexcusably geeky thing that I could be doing, but hear me out. For a long time I bought the latest CDs from latest bands that NME had decided that I should like, because that was all the exposure to anything vaguely interesting that I was exposed to in my happy little middle-class town. This lasted for some years, until I saw fit to further this pastime and invest in a shiny new computer. And lo, all of a sudden, I was given choices. There was literally a world of information at my fingertips, and I was bombarded with bold new ideas and ways of doing things that I would have probably been blissfully unaware of if I’d stuck to the safe old NME. And now, some years on, I still discover new things everyday that remind me why listening to music is exciting to me. I say listening, because I am one of the few who have never made the transition from passive spectator to a doer. I feel that this, while apparently branding me worthless in the eyes of some on the other side of the spectrum, does allow me to see things objectively. This is kind of irrelevant, and not what I was aiming at, but I do feel some minor glimmer of self importance in that I can feel how I want about a band, without the worry of having to appear to ‘do any better’. Anyway! Had it not been for the internet, I would not have been given said choices. This is why, despite the endless amounts of bilge that riddles this place, I do feel like it will always be a vitally important thing in terms of kids and music. My account with Skylab may generate many mocking remarks in those who simply see it as me ‘showing off’ in some pathetic manner, in fact I myself cringe a tiny bit everytime I look at the page, but it is one of the few ways I am able to hear the things I would otherwise not be able to. It’s very easy to condemn such activity if you come from, or live in a place where things are happening around you which excite you. Those who live in the places where stuff does appear to actually ‘happen’ (London, Nottingham, wherever) do not know the struggles of those of us shut away in our bedrooms trying desperately to be impressed, amazed, or sometimes even mildly amused. Damn, this is getting quite long. All this stuff stops me from completely condemning things like Makeoutclub, which while on the surface is solely frequented by the most despicable hipster/scenester scum, I’m sure it is for a lot of kids, the only way they have to meet people of a like mind. If there weren’t these few things which remind people that there are things going on outside in the world, then there would I’m sure be even more filthy ben sherman clad macca fuckwits roaming the streets. These things actually have the ability to save kids from the horrible inevitability of a working in a bank, going down the pub on a friday night/picking a fight on the way home, 2 weeks in Ibiza every year lifestyle that so many young people already subscribe to.

FUCK KNOWS what I’m talking about now. As usual I can’t convey how I feel with mere words. Contrary to popular belief, I’m a simple boy, and I don’t need much to make me happy. The love of a good woman, and knowing there are a few boxes of vinyl in my living room are more than enough