*Disclaimer:*

I was right down the front for Noxagt, because they sounded like arse if you weren’t in direct firing line of their amps.

And yes, Andy Abbott for Shellac! Mmm, fretless. I am becoming less enamoured with Kill Yourself every time I see them, so I guess Mr Summerlin and myself are headed in opposite directions in that regard.

Chris gives a far better description than me for the other two bands. I must remember to borrow some Chinese Stars off someone soon.

Oh and check out PLC LTD – they’re market leaders

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I feel a desire to balance the opinions voiced below somewhat. I went to the gig with Dave and I thought Noxagt were fucking rubbish. Well maybe not rubbish but the bass just disintegrated at volume and they just seemed to humourlessly bash away for far too long and while being loud had no arse end to them at all.

Chinese Stars were mighty like some sick perverted disco band. Like watching a stranger pelvic thrust and he’s grinning at you and you’re waiting for the bus and hoping he comes nowhere near you but you can see he’s got a semi-on.

Spin Spin The Dogs seemed to get a dose of the Bunkers Hill sea legs that immediately quashes any bands ability to connect with the audience but despite that they had some great songs that would have shined through no matter what.

And the Shellac comparison for Kill Yourself is getting lazy these days. Sure they still sound like Shellac but now they’re getting songs together that are as good as the real thing if not better. They played 2 songs in the set that were amazing. One had a cool 70s rock twangy riff that was completely out of place (unlike the other bands where everything was very much in place) and the other was an exercise in restraint and tension that was more Jesus Lizard than Shellac which is kind of splitting hairs but you know. I think the realisation that Shellac would be better with Andy Abbott on bass is what has swung me round to liking KY more.

You went and gave me an absolute din of tinnitus last night. You had a yummy (all-conquering) bass sound though, and your flailing knuckles method of attacking your chosen instruments was highly appealing, so I’ll let you off. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a band stand quite so towering above their recorded output.

I should also give mention to the Chinese Stars, who also played and actually did manage to sound just like Arab on Radar with a disco groove obsession (even if it was pretty much exactly the same on every song). There was also a particularly spunky set from Spin Spin the Dogs, who held their own pretty damn well. I guess I should also say that Kill Yourself opened, but the only thing that comes to mind about them is, “Shellac meets Shellac wearing a gasmask (which renders any vocals incomprehensible), and gets in a fistfight with Shellac at a party hosted by Shellac, where a Shellac is getting sodomised on a stage by Shellac…” or something.

At last, at last, E3 is here which means Nintendo DS revealed!. Hurray for Nintendo – this actually looks fantastic, particularly the idea of multiplayer DRAWING madness. New “non-kiddie” Zelda should shut up the moaners as well. And Animal Crossing DS! Woooo!

Firstly Blogger has had a redesign so you may be spotting some changes round here. Already you can view our fancy Blogger Profiles to the left instead of those horrendously out of date pop-up profiles. Also means if you only like one of us you can just read their posts on their profile and pretend the rest of us don’t exist. HAHA.

While looking for ATP photos for our ATP Round-up I stumbled across the website for Everett True’s forthcoming post-CTCL magazine Plan B. By the looks of things it’s fairly similar in terms of contributors and subject and thus very much worthy of your time. Check out the three different reviews of ATP for instance. They’ve got a launch issue out soon but they’re posting reviews and stuff on the site all the time as well as blogs from some of the writers including the lovely Andrew Clare and ET himself.

And finally, WHAT THE HELL? story of the week as Freaky Eyed Hobbit Boy^TM Elijah Wood gets the chance to take over John Peel’s show for a night. Just ‘cos you saved the world from the wrath of Sauron doesn’t mean you can stand in for John Peel. “Elijah is a really big music fan,” a Radio 1 spokesman said. Well, so am I!

actually, finally, WHERE IS EVERYONE ELSE?

I’m sorry all my posts are about gaming recently (I’m not really) but I’ve just been playing Wario Ware, Inc on my Gameboy and laughing out loud. I always knew I’d like this game but I’ve rarely seen it full price and finally saw it secondhand at the weekend. I was not prepared for this amount of hilarity though. It’s basically a non-stop barrage of mni-games which are thrown at you and then immediately taken away again before you’ve had half a chance to react. It’s also done in the most ridiculous old-skool graphics ever. There’s nothing like a mobile phone emoticon shouting BOUNCE at you followed by a game in which a stick man is bouncing in the air requiring you to move a trampoline below and catch him. Then DRESS ME as clothes fall from the sky and you move Wario underneath to clothe himself. Then CHOP as you hit A when the power bar is red to get a chalk-drawn man to karate chop a tree trunk. Then GRAB as you help Wario catch his pint of beer as it slides across the bar. It’s mentalism gone mad. I’ve just completed the Nintendo level (“WOW, marcy, you rock!”, it tells me!) playing mini 5 second versions of Zelda (ENTER THE CAVE!), Super Mario (SQUASH!) Donkey Kong, Duck Hunt and other classics with hilarious results. Ah well, whatever. At least it keeps me off eBay the streets.

(Apologies for the lack of updates – there’s been something up with the diskant FTP so no blogging or anything else)

Anyway, my dad was down visiting at the weekend so we had another Sunday afternoon jaunt to The Lighthouse to see some poncey art and design.

My main reason for suggesting this was an exhibition called Field Trip which I’ve been seeing advertised around the place. Basically five groups of people making journeys in Scotland and “where they went, what they saw and what they brought back”. I thought my dad would like this, he being fond of walking and Scottish history.

Turns out I loved this exhibition myself. The five journeys were all between different places and with different aims. So one group went on the ferry to Bute to see how things have changed since the days when this was a regular holiday jaunt for Glaswegians, another group went through Falkirk along the canal routes and another up the roads to Glencoe noting the signs and notices along the way.

Laid out as five long display units you could view maps of the journeys, the photographs, drawings and notes of the travelers and 3D architectural maquettes of the main locations with their symmetrical trees and step-graded hills. Along the bottom were laid out the items that the groups brought back, from tourist souvenirs to bits of bark. And then at the end were videos showing parts of the journey and geographical and historical information panels.

The main idea of the exhibition seemed to be to remind people about all the interesting stuff right on our doorstep and try and get us all getting out and about. It certainly worked for me as the Bute display reminded me of how much fun it had been to go on the train and ferry to Rothesay with Mogwai and that there was all this stuff that we could have seen there if we hadn’t spent it breaking our ears. I’m also amazed by the Falkirk Wheel and have vowed to go see it in real life at the next opportunity.

So if you’re in Glasgow in the next few weeks then get yourself to The Lighthouse (they also do wonderful shortbread and have the ponciest, greatest, most expensive shop ever). If not, have a think about your local places of interest that you’ve never actually been to or your childhood haunts that you haven’t seen for years. And send us a postcard if you visit them!

Also, apart from the usual trip to IKEA my dad’s other plan was to buy a new GC game, he having completed his racing game. While we chortled over Pokemon Channel and its rapidly decreasing price ticket in every shop we visited, our dad found himself a likely looking new racing game. Upon getting home he then discovered he had liked his old racing game so much he had bought himself another copy! Now, if only he’d bought Mario Kart. “Oh no! I thought this was a different crazy mushroom monkey dinosaur italian plumber racing game. D’oh!”

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

On Saturday I am going to see my mam fly a plane but if I wasn’t then I would be going to the benefit gig at Stereo from 3pm. It’s for the Glasgow Autonomous Project who I met at the SchNews tour the other day and are nice. There’s 3 bands playing, one of which has a cello (I lost the flyer). All glaswegians should go, it’ll be good.

I would try and make this sound as interesting as it really is but I am very tired. Feel free to add some exclamation marks and capital letters to this using a felt-tip pen.