I did go to London and I did see Part Chimp, Reynolds and Fixit Kid in the company of 10 diskant-related persons. I’d forgotten how tall Ollie is. Fixit Kid were enjoyably noisy but I didn’t hear enough of them to find that over-exciting. Reynolds, however, pulled out some old songs and were quite fantastically brilliant. I’d not heard ‘Stopper’ live before and it was awesome. Disappointing that ex-vocalist Matt Tagney didn’t get onstage though. Some people might say going to London for a day to see Reynolds was insane but those people obviously aren’t suffering from a 15 month Reynolds withdrawal situation. Anyway, Part Chimp were also in the house and almost worth the trip themselves. In case you haven’t seen them yet, Part Chimp are ex-Ligament and have lots of deafeningly great riffs. Tunes as well. Including one they stole off ‘Little Drummer Boy’. I truly had a trouser flapping rock moment while standing in front of the speakers. Only downside to this is that after three songs you’ve gone deaf and can’t hear the rest of the set. But, words don’t do Part Chimp justice so go to Vitaminic and get their MP3 and then email them and demand they release a record. I assume the reason this hasn’t happened yet is because they’re picking out the heaviest vinyl known to man and inventing something that prevents you listening to the record if the volume is set any lower than max power.

Kitten Towers is a most hospitable place. I recommend it. Greg omits to point out below that we actually had a pie eating contest which he lost spectacularly. I’d also like to recommend apple pie as a good breakfast food.

last night i went along with marceline and kat to see reynolds, part chimp and fixit kid (but not in that order) upstairs at the garage. we met up with ollie there and tried to convince him to throw the tv out of his hotel room window. as of yet i’ve not heard that he hasn’t, so i’ve got my fingers crossed.

i’d never heard them before but i was really impressed with part chimp, they were great and their drummer was really funny, they were really fun to watch, i totally recommend them. fixit kid didn’t make much of an impression on me, just a bit too shellacy rock with shouting. i hadn’t seen reynolds for ages, so i was totally glad to see them again, they were great and i enjoyed their set, and was particularly pleased to see them do ‘stopper’.

and this morning we ate pie. woohoo!

Except I got a big bad noisy hifi box that looks like it could power an infrasonic weapon. And more Velvet Underground than is good for me. 3 versions of Sister Ray, mmmm…

During our five hour stay in Borders bookshop I was reading Future Electronic Music Technology magazine [or something] and apparently you can now buy a program for Palm organiser things that turns them into a metronome! Now that‘s useful technology…

My glasses broke today and I had to stick them back together with superglue. Well, it was either that or go about wearing my prescription sunglasses and even I’m not cool enough to get away with that in winter. Although I could maybe have gone with risk of snow blindness. Except there isn’t much snow here.

I’ve been trying to overdose on films, Haribo and the 13th Note this last week and all three going very well. for some odd reason NTL have given us all the extra Film Four channels for free. we may not have the actual Film Four channel but we do have the Film Four repeated one hour later channel. so I’ve been watching all manner of films while eating the bucket full of sweets that Greg sent me and doing the incredibly difficult jigsaw he also sent me. Greg should never have got me started on jigsaws, I’m too determined and HAVE TO FINISH THEM or I feel like it’s an insult to my intelligence. or something. and then David came to save me from jigsaws and instead we tried to spend an entire 48 hours in the 13th Note before I sent him home with pockets filled with Haribo.

I’ve got a £10 voucher for Woolworths or HMV. suggestions on how I should spend it please. best suggestion so far is to buy £10 of pick’n’mix [thanks Ollie]. I tried really hard in HMV but I just cannot spend £15 on a cd even if I am getting £10 off.

hullo. I’m pished. ha. I’m still wearing a yellow plastic hairclasp that I got in a cracker at work christmas lunch today and I’m eating a finger of Fudge. I saw Belle and Sebastian last night at their Christmas Charity Do. I arrived while some people were playing cheesy keyboard covers of popular tunes while all disguised with big fluffy hats and fake moustache/glasses/nose combinations. it was fairly amusing. then this girl got up to do a speech on behalf of the anti-war campaign [one of the recipients of funds raised] and completely messed it up. Then Suckle came on. They were shambolically under-rehearsed and did all new songs but it was sounding like there was some lovely stuff going on. Once they get it together a bit more it should be fantastic. Must dig out their album on Chemikal in a minute. Then we got Alasdair Gray talking about politics again and he was even worse than the girl. Cringingly bad actually. It’s this kind of thing that gives politics a bad name. No-one’s interested in politics when some guy goes on about the collapse of Russia in the 1930s, especially not in the middle of a christmas gig. You want short sharp exciting politics. Aye.

So Belle and Sebastian finally came on and played for at least two hours. by about half way through I was feeling very old and wishing for a seat. and some slippers and a cup of tea. They were fab fun though. Most of the members did a little solo spot, singing a cover version and there was lots of fun and frolics including someone dressed as an orang-utang appearing during Isobel’s song about orang-utangs and wandering around the audience with some mistletoe collecting kisses. We also got a bunch more covers, some christmas songs [including a beee-utiful ‘Come O Come Emmanuel’] and a few top B&S hits. All jolly good fun. They also did a raffle half way through, giving out gifts donated by Chemikal Underground, Mogwai [“5 tenners in a brown paper envelope! Not much thought there!”] and B&S themselves including Isobel’s orang-utang and Stuart’s box full of extremely rare B&S stuff. Nice touch. Then they shouted for Monica Queen and she came down and they did Lazy Line Painter Jane. Aye, that was it. I might have some coffee now…

Saturday I went on the Anti War (try this site, they were there) march in Glasgow. It was OK but I’m very much not a fan of the ritualised shouting that these things can get stuck into (see bits of “face it, your politics..” in the Reading Library section here for why). Especially when the woman with the megaphone is right behind me. Some of the speakers were more interesting than I’d thought, though. And it was a good mix of people who probably wouldn’t have agreed on much else.

But then it was enough Hippy Peacenik nonsense and after some shopping (CAPITALIST!) I went to 6 Hours of HATE! at the 13th Note. It was closer to 8 really. Some good bands and beside that there was a lot of bands doing slow chunky metal with a singer with shaved head and goatee beard thing who were OK. Esp. good were In Decades Decline (formerly Unique Freak) and their mates Divide, they were on the more punk side of things. Also liked the silly fast metal bands Evidence of Trauma (short songs and old skool metal haircuts) and Regorge (? – re-something anyway, technical thrash but better than that sounds).

I survived (the folk there were actually friendlier than usual, I’m sure) and at 10 I left to go home and listen to John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano.

well, I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun on a saturday [actually, I’m that sad I probably can if I think about it]. DEATHLEHEM was funny as hell and great too. I arrived to find a group of teenage boys arguing with the doorman then descended into a dry-ice filled cavern full of rock. okay, I’m exaggerating but it was full of nu-metal kids, old metallers, scary people and no goths sadly. the bands I saw were mostly good as well although the presentation usually outdid the music somewhat. I liked EYEBOLT and the band that insisted all their songs were about the Ilisu Dam and the economy in Romania and the band that spent more time making jokes and arguing with the audience than playing their hardcore punk tunes. One of the bands had the most evil person I’ve ever seen in my life playing bass for them. He looked like a teenboy singer from Muse [scary enough] but he also had the most evil piercing eyes and stared at people all the time. it was like a twisted evil goblin was living inside his head. I was very very scared. I could only manage 6 and a bit bands but chris was enjoying himself far too much so ask him about it.

I then wandered the streets for a bit taking photos of the christmas lights and being a bit odd and then I went to see Amélie. I got there 20 minutes early so I could go and sleep in the cinema til it started. Amélie was so perfect I cried at the end. make sure you see it soon.

I also heard a salesman today describing fibre-optic christmas trees as ‘the latest technology’. wait til he hears about phones that fit in your pocket and spaceships that go to the moon!

this not gunna be a long blog but I just wanted to convey to you what happened to me on Monday when I was just trying to do something nice. I went to give blood. I’ve done this regularly since I was 18, about 10 times and never had a problem. This time however I did. As I lay down waiting for the nures to stick me I took a few deep breaths ‘cos it hurts to begin with. However I wasn’t prepared for the bloody butcher they had working that day. After being jabbed, she muttered ‘mmm…missed the vein’ and proceeded to wiggle the fucking needle about under the skin trying to find the vein. After 20 seconds of this she admitted defeat pulled out the needle then without warning stuck me again. The dozy bitch still couldn’t ‘find the vein’ but by now I had a fast spreading bruise where she’d been poking the needle. Deciding I’d not been mutilated sufficiently she thought it best to release the pressure of the bruise by using the needle to pierce the skin once again. I resisted the urge to strangle the bitch shouting I’m not a fucking pin cushion but another nurse wandered over and said ‘ah… sorry about that why don’t you get yourself a cup of tea and come back in a few weeks’. The temerity of the woman! Suffice to say I’m not going back their anytime soon although I’ll still give blood ‘cos it’s a good thing to do. Anyhow I’m off to hand in my essay and I’ll be back blogging again soon, once I’ve recovered from my ordeal. Toodle pip…

Hello. Fun weekend I had, with Instal on sunday just been covered well enough. Friday I went to Alec Empire followed by the 555 Records Extravaganza with Kid606.

Got attacked by Alec Empire when he invited me to mosh and I told him “actually Mr. Empire I think overall your Hypermodern Jazz album is ultimately a more rewarding experience than your enjoyable but slightly overblown for 8:30pm gabber”. “Riot!” he replied, “destroy 2000 years of culture!”

The 555 records folk are dead nice. They put out an album to celebrate their wedding. Aaaaah. Steward is the pair of them playing guitars and throwing rockstar shapes over borrowed beats from tunes like “Hey Micky, ” by Toni Basil. Can’t dislike that. Joan of Ass did similar stuff but without the guitars and a bit screechier. Amusing as all that was it did seem like Kid606 was the only one doing it properly, but he was well worth the wait. It’s somewhere between DJing and playing live and it’s fantastic he should be playing to much bigger crowds. But I can’t convince people of this so I’ll just have to console myself with saying “I told you so..” when he opens for Madonna in a couple of years time. Or she opens for him.