I wasn’t scared and I didn’t cry and it was generally just great. They played lots of songs that I wanted them to and it was just one of those gigs where you’re kind of overwhelmed by actually seeing the real people and by hearing the songs in real life. Low themselves are so huggably cute and do their little joking about between songs. Aww. Highlights for me were the times when they all sang away from their microphones so you could hear their real voices as well as the amplified versions. It was just heartwarmingly lovely. We got an encore of about 3 songs and then once they’d gone there was a hardcore of about 50 people hollering for them to come back and props to them as Low did indeed reappear despite half the audience having gone home thinking it was all over. and even played a christmas song as the audience were so insistent that they should.

I’ve been listening a lot to the new Papa M album which is just your perfect autumn/winter record and today I picked up the James Orr Complex single on Rock Action which just shines with Chris Mack’s character and personality. Buy them both. As soon as possible.

so i spent last weekend hanging out with marceline and nicolette in glasgow. of course, it rocked. i’m only getting round to writing about it now because i’ve been recovering. but that’s not because i’m a wuss, of course.

highlights were seeing american analog set, who were absolutely delightful, being involved in possibly the biggest diskant meet-up ever, seeing john and steve from bis, who looked absolutely upstaged and starstruck when they realised the diskant crew were in the house, watching instrument, the mighty fugazi video & finding out what it really means to be punk, playing with candles, and watching an hour’s worth of ‘metal anthems’ on mtv2.

oh yes.

since that weekend i’ve been listening a lot to american analog set’s ‘know by heart’ and getting all sappy and nostalgic. bah.

interesting things i have been doing lately include:

skiving work, liking the bubba sparxxx single far too much, whatching stupidly bad tv (young, gifted and broke anyone?) and ah yes, seeing mogwai of course. they were good but not like amazing. better then average i’d say. my mogwai gig tally is now in double figures though, which is quite nice.

i have been listening to rhode island’s lightning bolt lots and lots, who are certainly worth checking out if you like full on noisy mathmatical stupidity (and let’s face it, who doesn’t). i also got the set fire to flames album, who manage to nicely escape the moniker of ‘yet-another-godspeed-side-project’ which can only be good.

the official diskant tape ring 2001 (as it has now become known) is proceeding at a terrific rate as anyone involved will tell you. well done to everyone for making it this far. it can only get better.

I went to see Mogwai last night. I paid my £12.50 and went there with large amounts of trepidation as the last time I saw Mogwai at the barras was definitely my worst Mogwai gig and the one that temporarily stopped my statement after every Mogwai gig that it was the best I’ve seen them. but thankfully it was not to be like that again and they really were the best I’ve seen them.

It must have been very close to sold out and not as huge a number of neds as last time, definitely an enthusiastic but in the right places audience. they weren’t over-frendly to support band Sophia though who had a fun heckle bout in between every song. I really liked Sophia, absolutely no pretensions to them.

I’d been granted my ten minutes of jostling in the photo pit and after that I got myself a nice vantage point where I could still take photos quietly without flash. I also stole wee Stuart’s bottle of Irn Bru that he’s left behind after watching Sophia. To drink, mind, not to keep as some sick souvenir or to sell on Ebay.

Anyway Mogwai pretty much picked all the songs that make me all tearful. I’m getting to be a right sap now. I thought it was just the overdrinking at Leeds that made me want to cry but no. Stuart’s voice is just getting better and better and that version of Cody is going to be in my top ten highlights of my life. well, maybe not quite that high. I’ve never heard Cody live before but it was all dragged out and Low-like. I’m just so glad Stuart got over his singing embarrassment thing and sings loud now. Chances of me crying at Low next week now stand at 84%.

The only bad bit was Secret Pint which sounded pretty rubbish. Stuart was complaining about something technical but the whole song just sounded out of sync and wrong. and John didn’t stay and break everyone’s hearing at the end of the encore, they just all left the stage and left the noise playing for a good ten minutes during which half the audience left. heh.

Finally got to see ‘Battle Royale’, although I had to be in London to do so, ‘cos the exciting! big! multi-screen! Warner cinema in Reading still shows only the most mainstream movies. BUT, consider my surprise, upon realising that I didn’t actually like the film all that much – it was entertaining, sure enough, but ultimately I found it cheesy, confusing in parts, a very very good idea messed up. The idea behind the film (if you don’t know it) is that due to kids being little fuckers these days, why not drop batches of them on a deserted island and let them kill eachother? (it’s not quite as simple as that, but that’s the gist)…. my friend said afterwards that she always considers whether she’d enjoy foreign language films (Battle Royale is Japanese) the same if they were in English. And in this case, no way, as the dialogue is at times super-childish and unrealistic. a shame… and a real let down.

Well The Dismemberment Plan were fun. They had tunes and a cute geeky singer with some robotic dance moves. For some reason the audience was mostly made up of crazy american college students who ran down the front, danced wildly, whooped, sang along and heckled. There was a group of them at the front then a foot of space and the all the local crowd standing bemused at such outward displays of enthusiasm over a relatively unknown band. one of the guys was heckling so enthusiastically during one song that the singer kept giggling while trying to sing and ended up inviting the guy onstage to dance to the next song. I like gigs where you spend half the time laughing even when you’re there all on your own [sob etc.]. very funny guys and they seemed to be having a great time too. There seemed to be some people from Fracture there as well but I don’t know who. I’ve spent all morning trying to organise my million of photos and now I think I might wander down to Byres Road and do some shopping before Wil Forbis of Acid Logic webzine arrives.

So, on Tuesday I went to see Trans Am and The Fucking Champs. And one song by Eska, since the 13th Note now seems to open the doors at the time noted on the ticket and not an hour later. Dammit. Eska are really utterly fantastic these days. I mean, they were always utterly fantastic but now they’re utterly ROCK fantastic. If the new EP isn’t deserving of the word ‘awesome’ I’ll be very surprised. I went down the front to take photos of the Champs [actually to eye up Tim Green..ahem..] but after about three songs my ears were aching and my legs wobbling from the shuddering wall of power guitars. R! O! C! K! etc. it was mighty. I watched the rest from a safe retreat at the back of the venue where the floor still vibrated in shock.

After that, Trans Am had to be a disappointment and they kind of were. Some of it was great but mostly when they sounded like Tortoise or Brainiac. when they came back for an encore I was not too happy but they played their best song yet so that cheered me up immensely. And Chris gave me another corporate pen for my collection so another good night all round.

Now I’m off to see The Dismemberment Plan tonight. Does it ever stop? No.

okay, now I can find time to write about the burnt out festival. very timely considering the last few days have involved burning buildings at my place of work. I just went down and took some photos of the burnt botany building. it looks pretty sad with no roof.

the burnt out festival is on all this week in glasgow and they really went to some effort. really nice old-church type venue, slide and film projections and even printing the tickets on fancy cardboard. anyway, I went on the first night for Hood and Very! Special! Guests! Mogwai!

which obviously was wee stuart b dj-ing for well over an hour. he didn’t do his mobile indie disco but instead did a damn good proper dj set with fancy mixing skills and sticking in a whole bunch of stuff from hip hop to electronica to cheesy garage to digital hardcore to heavy metal to sesame street. but I think he mainly likes dj-ing so he can put on a long record every now and again and run about getting another beer and chatting to people. I expect this to get worked in to Mogwai’s set at some point.

Hood were the main band and they were really great. it all just worked together really well. the electronicy stuff, the guitars, the projections and everything. and they did a fantastically loud rock out bit to finish on. I was rather impressed.

Good night altogether. And John from Mogwai bought me a pint! what a guy!

I’d just like to say that it wasn’t me that set the QMU on fire in the hope of making Starsailor die a horrible burning death. Despite working in a building mere yards away I have witnesses to the fact that I was involved in the complicated task of breaking our own websites while being electrocuted via the static electricity conducting devices that are my polyester slacks.

and I’ll post about Hood and Mogwai later. But before I go out to see Trans Am!

there’s an A and a C in wack, too