Rock. If you don’t know me I’m the events hadler. Or gig boy. Anyhow might as well let you all know that I’ve been doing some serious events research recently. Last Thusday (27th Oct) was Coventry with the glorius Souvaris. I thought they were great they thought they were crap. Typical huh? If you not familiar with them they have six members and play long instrumental sound scapes that meander a bit, lurch a bit and just generally make you feel all warm and fuzzy. Sunday (30th Oct) was Portsmouth and an all dayer with Hirameka Hi-Fi, Caretaker, Escanna and disoma among others. Caretaker were very late and while I was drunk I just wasn’t impressed. Hirameka were ace however, played some new stuff too all of which sounded wonderful. Escanna were the best I’d ever seen them play and disoma just plain rocked. Anyhow Bristol yesterday for Les Savy Fav, Enon, Kiska and Mountain Men Anonymous. MMA did their heavy instrumental thing well; Kiska did a groovier instrumental thing; Enon were just plain ace and Les Savy Fav were Les Savy Fav. If you’ve not seen them yet you must. Arty-Punk stuff. They even played Paradise City by Guns ‘n’ Roses during a fuck up with the guitarists gear, glorious. Next is Oxford on Monday for Billy Mahonie and Jullander. It’s tough working for Marceline but the job does have it’s good parts. Be back soon and sorry for the shit descriptions and reviews but that ain’t my job. Bye Bye…

About six months ago I managed to wean myself off buying the NME every week as it was 94% crap and costing me way too much money. However I’ve now started buying Kerrang! most weeks which, while being much more interesting and informative, costs even more than the NME. Hmm.

But there’s a rather good feature on Fugazi in this week’s Kerrang! Not long ago I would have been highly surprised and dubious of this fact but Kerrang! is certainly gaining my respect. Although granted an interview with the band they’ve obviously had to dumb the whole thing down to the level of your average Slipknot fan who’s probably never come across Fugazi yet but it’s a nice little introductory piece. The pictures are really cool as well.

I’ve been reading the Punk Planet collected interviews book and, having read the interviews with Ian Mackaye and Jem Cohen plus the Kerrang! thing, I’m now desperate to watch the Instrument video again. why couldn’t I have thought of it while I was off work ill?

and Melt Banana were fantastic on John Peel last night even though I had to blu-tac my aerial to a plastic bottle to get a half-decent reception. very much looking forward to seeing them in Glasgow tomorrow.

on my way home tonight I saw Aidan from Arab Strap talking on a cellphone outside the 24 hour shop on Byres Road. However, that’s also right next door to Blockbuster so I think he’s probably succumbed to the charms of Steve, the hilariously patronising video store guy who works there. and who can blame him?

I did go to the record store after work but ended up only buying the Papa M mini album and the new one by Tara Jane O’Neil. I have no idea why I didn’t buy the Papa M thing when it came out – I’ve seen him play these songs live three times and been singing them for days after yet never thought to actually buy them. I was going to buy the new Les Savy Fav as well but I didn’t have enough cash on me and the counter at Missing is too high for me to sign Switch card receipts on. I’d have to stand on a box and frankly I don’t want to make that much of an idiot of myself.

Argh, don’t even mention boxsets. I made a disgusting impulse buy yesterday and ended up getting the scream trilogy boxset which i so can’t afford. I was ill, i got confused, they were playing the new Ian Brown album in the shop and i just lost my mind. I wouldn’t mind but scream 2 and scream 3 are so, so crap! And what the hell are Jay and Silent Bob doing in scream 3?

Oh yeah, and i’ve got an american express pen if you want it, marceline. Corporate enough?

anyone want to send me additions to my corporate pen collection? they’ve got to be advertising huge corporations or ‘hip’ design/internet companies. so far I’ve got a solid silver Windows 2000 pen [okay, it’s actually some kind of crappy metal painted silver], a Microsoft MSDN plastic pen, a purple Macromedia pen and an astounding pen from Learning IT [they’re not a corporation but the pen has a mini yellow highlighter in the lid!]. send more to me at the address on the contact page. I’ll love you for it.

I’m going to go buy lots of new records today after being stuck in the house for the first four days of my new paycheck. I’ve got four in mind but I don’t think I should buy them all. not with the new Fugazi album coming out very very soon. I really want the Ride boxset though…

Will post something interesting that’s come out of my own brain and everything soon, but for now, everybody should read this piece of genius writing: God reiterates ten commandments

I got pointed in the direction of Nat from OXES old Baltimore Rowdy Collective website. It’s very very funny and stupid [“We talked in the destructo voice”] but in their list of Rowdy Slogans is one Break Stuff [the name of our stupid Trail of Dead site]. I always thought we just stole that off Fred Durst and he was going to come round and kick my ass one day but no, we also stole it off a bunch of crazy psychos. Nice one. However if I ever get killed I’d like you all to point the finger at Fred Durst, those OXES boys were no trouble when they stayed round our house.

I think we need to make up some slogans for Break Stuff though. The BRC ones are great: Education is for the Stupid; Don’t Eat, Die; WHHHHYYYYY!! and, my favourite, Crying. . . Heard it Before.

I got a letter from Central Trains today enclosing a £28 travel voucher in apology for cancelling my train home from the leeds festival and making me walk three miles in the middle of nowhere. Result! The letter reads like it was written by a team of over enthusiastic robots so everything is said three times in a slightly different way. I actually had no idea what the point of the letter was until the last sentence about the travel voucher. Now I have to find a reason to travel somewhere in the Central Trains region. Hmmmm…

Incidentally, I never said Chris Leo from The Lapse was a sex god. I said he was ‘not unnattractive’. I should be going to see bis, Melt Banana and Les Savy Fav this week and I can’t decide which one I’m most excited about. I’ve possibly already reached my excitement pinnacle for the day though after discovering me and david finally got a mention in the news page on trailofdead.com. About time like.