this wednesday i went to system of a down‘s third and final night at brixton academy. support was provided by dillenger escape plan who were energetic as hell but didn’t go down very well with ‘the kids’. or me. i imagine they would have been a lot more impressive if i’d gone along armed with knowledge of their songs, but for the uninitiated, they didn’t leave a lasting impression. system, on the other hand, were fucking awesome. and i’m not talking awesome as in like, radical, dude, i mean i was in frickin awe. they played for well over an hour, putting everything they had into it. the atmosphere and the crowd were great, it was gosh darn mind bogglingly fantastic. i ain’t had that much fun in ages. i’m very sore, strapped for cash and feel like i’m getting ill, but it was so worth it. absolutely astounding. apple pie, mutherfuckers.

I went to check out the Body Worlds exhibition thing in London today, and I gotta say that it was BORING. For some reason I was expecting some kind of artistic event, which would leave me shocked and intrigued, but instead I was faced with a Natural History Museum-style exhibit of bodies and body bits in glass cases and unimaginative ‘poses’. I’m as interested as the next person in seeing bodies preserved through the magic of ‘plastination’, with nerves, muscles and bones exposed to varying degrees, but I found this to be a confusing and hastily-prepared show. Maybe it’s because the bodies, despite being real, just didn’t look real, so there was no sense of ‘oh, so that’s how I look inside’, or maybe it’s because it was so busy and full of people who seemed to think that having read one article about how one organ works gave them the right to loudly lecture the other visitors on the ‘precise’ workings of the body, but it was a disappointment. It’s not like you get to see a skinned horse carrying a bones’n’muscles person who’s holding two brains every day, but Body Worlds made me feel like I do. Gah.

Me again I’m afraid. If you’ve got any spare opinions or anecdotes can you forward them to the rest of the diskant staff?

Well, I dragged myself out last night to see Les Savy Fav, The Mars Volta and The Apes despite being exhausted beyond belief. So actually I missed The Apes. I heard they sucked. My impeccable timing had me arriving just as The Mars Volta started their set and I prepared to give them an open mind since I had some respect for At The Drive-In without really being very interested in them. Turns out they ruled, I was well impressed. There was still some elements of At The Drive-In: the sharpness, the fluidity, the action, but there was also a much more relaxed mood with the heavy keyboards and drawn out grooves. I guess it’s very similar to the change between the Nation of Ulysses and the Make-Up, right down to the addition of a supercute girl bassist. Except that I’ve never been too keen on the Make-Up. I can’t forgive them for not being the Nation of Ulysses any more and I imagine there’ll be some ATD-I fans feeling the same way about The Mars Volta. I’ll be intrigued to hear some of their recorded material to see if it’s as good.

The highlight of their set though was when when a bearded guy rushed through the audience and started whooping and dancing with the enthusiasm of a child in a balloon shop. Cue half the audience looking bewildered and wondering who the crazy man was. Tim from Les Savy Fav of course. LSF are just infectiously great, a spectacle of hilarity. They demand your involvement but with such charm that you participate without question. People will dance, people will hug the crazy man, people will allow him to wear their coat, rummage in their handbag and spray breath freshener in your mouth. If you are the security man you will attempt to keep things safe and correct but eventually melt a little and let the fun continue. Les Savy Fav laugh in the face of sense and order and have a bunch of tunes to make anyone dance. They just rock the house well past the curfew and leave you still dancing the next day. You have to see them.

My sleep-addled brain slowly dismissed possible causes [poltergeist, death metal band playing gig outside my window, local death metal fan committing suicide with chainsaw] and settled on workmen cutting down trees and/or mowing grass while listening to death metal on car stereo. but at 8am? it all seems very unreal now and I’m almost convinced I imagined it.

Certainly wasn’t what I needed after my evening of eclectic avant jazz at the 13th Note anyway. I went mainly to see the rare public appearance of Empire-Builder but also because Late Night Foreign Radio have put a lot of effort into making their residency at the Note as interesting as possible [themed nights, videos, record swapping]. Empire-Builder were testing out a new direction: no live drums, less guitars and instead centred round computer beats and bass-driven melodies. It was a bit sketchy at times but there’s just something about loud electronic music in a live environment that makes my heart pound so I was very happy. I want them to do a remix album and call it ‘Empire Rebuilder’ or ‘Re: Empire-Builder’.

Before this we got George Burt and friend who were amusingly jolly and possibly teach physics in their spare time for fun. As the fingers flew up and down the frets and the bits of metal were applied to the strings I had a horrible flashback to Sonic Youth at ATP2000. Shudder. I guess Sonic Youth are the nearest I’ve got to this kind of improvisational art jazz. Mostly I was in two minds as to whether it was a lot of pretentious twaddle or whether it was enjoyably odd. I think likely it was both. They did have a nice line in detuned riffs that I could have listened to all night. The headliners, Late Night Foreign Radio themselves, did a kind of similar thing but with less art and more ROCK. It again trod a very fine line between ‘yes!’ and ‘nooooo!’ but came out mostly on the side of the former.

Overall, it was kind of like being trapped inside a copy of The Wire for the evening. Except that The Wire would never deign to attend such a low key gig that isn’t even at the top of Mount Fuji or in the middle of a desert. More fool them.

The Morning News like me

I’m having a great deal of trouble coping with this news story about how the police are having a demonstration outside parliament. Who’s going to police the protesters? If they get out of control will they send in some riot police to kick in the normal police? And some of these police think they should try and win industrial reforms like the right to strike! So will they have to employ cheap labour police scabs to beat up the police pickets? Will the police on the picket line be shouting abuse at the police? I don’t think they’ve thought this through…

Got to say a couple of words in praise of the Edinburgh Film Festival Early Spring thing. Some fine fine films that there’s still time to see (esp if you’re in London) but aren’t going to get released in this country. Lantana is set in Sydney, a murder mystery with a nice meandering feel and flawed, believable characters. I was even more impressed with Les Blessures Assassines (or Murderous Maids if you prefer) and have to use words like gritty, realist and ouch to describe it. It’s like Heavenly Creatures without the fluffy bits and its take on served/servant relations makes Gosford Park look like, ooh, a tedious and mannered waste of celluloid.

Consumer Protection Warning: I’ve seen an advert for Trouble Every Day, Vincent Gallo’s new film, and it’s claiming to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Deep Throat. That’s bollocks: it’s a vampire film with sex in it, directed by a French arthouse darling. That makes it The Hunger with less shoulderpads, less Bowie, less dialogue, more moodily framed shots, more meaningful looks, and a soundtrack by the Tindersticks. It’s a good film but don’t go expecting Buffy Does Dracula (that’s still in pre-production).

We went to check out the first gig by Glasgow supergroup John’s Not Mad on Friday. They’ve got people from Lapsus Linguae, Akira and Peeps Into Fairyland on board and had the 13th Note absolutely mobbed. Queues to get in! I’ve never seen the like. Possibly.

Anyway, they were pretty good. Seemed to be aiming for a Joy Division/Mogwai kind of thing but with an added country feel. When it was slow and sad with interacting girl/boy vocals it was great, when they tried to rock out [or, painfully, cover Love Will Tear Us Apart] it went a little awry. Considering it was a first gig it was good stuff although considering they all play in other bands so it should be. Aye, keep an eye out. They’ll be coming to an independently-minded website you know very well rather soon.

After that I finally got to see The Boy Cartographer, which is most of Pentothal’s other band. I really liked them – open and friendly and heartfelt. A bit like a sleepy Spare Snare.

The headliners were Homescience from Edinburgh and they were highly amusing. All their songs were about writing songs and girls and September being crap so I had much fun trying to guess what the obvious rhyme would be. They had some charm though with their slightly wobbly voices and jangly indie guitars. If they were more interesting they could be the new Pastels but sadly they’re more likely to be the new Travis. If they’re not Steve Lamacq’s favourite band already then they soon will be. They’re never going to run out of subjects for songs either since they’ve still not covered how it can be fun in the sun or how a car can drive far or having a dream about ice cream. They had a xylophone though, that was good.

Went to see Fridge last night. Very good. Forgave them some freejazzy noodlings I wasn’t in the mood for when they finished by building up this driving track over about 20 minutes at the end. Highest marks go to the bass player’s Tshirt with blood under the armpits, though.

Having lots of fun playing with this cutup machine that The Morning News pointed me at. Sometimes it’s like a truth machine, sometimes just funny. I used it on a message* from the man who owns me for 8 hours a day and he says “I look forward to $7.8 billion.”

[* if anyone can tell me what “leverage” is supposed to mean as a verb, I’d love to know…]

– People willing to spend £22 [TWENTY TWO POUNDS!] on the first single by The Strokes. It doesn’t even have a proper sleeve or anything. Best retrieve my copy from the immense diskant box of review stuff then
– Thinking of bidding on something and discovering it’s being sold by someone you know
– Thinking of bidding on something and discovering that Simon Minter is already bidding on it.
– Discovering yourself on page 23 of the ‘Records > 45 RPM > Other’ section at half past eleven on a Friday night.

If you find my life somewhere I’d quite like it back…