I love His Dark Materials and having just seen the ‘behind the scenes’ trailer for The Golden Compass it looks like the film version might not be as terrible as feared (though I await Lyra’s accent before maing a firm decision). At this stage it looks better than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (which I thought was fine, if not brilliant). However, the first book has a clear story, isn’t very contentious and is full of armoured bears which should help. I predict that the second film will be okay and the third film will be terrible and a cop out but hopefully so terrible that it stops the Narnia people even considering making The Last Battle into a film.

Anyway, see for yourself.

The Golden Compass – official website. You can make your own daemon! Mine is a spider.

Have you ever looked at this page which lists all the diskant record reviews alphabetically? I have just updated it and we finally had something to list in the Y section. Now all that eludes us are records by bands beginning with the letter X. It seems a little surprising that in 2 and a half years of review blogging, we’ve never had a band beginning with X. Are they all rubbish or do they not exist at all? X is also the only letter I don’t have anything listed in my iTunes library for.

So, bands beginning with X. Some recommendations please.

Well, I seem to have finally recovered from my illness and I’m now getting quite enthused about the diskant redesign. Simon has the unenviable task of recoding the entire site while I am sitting here like an Overlord coming up with ideas. New things that look likely include a news page (for both diskant news and out there in the real world news), a film blog and some kind of exciting events page. If you’d like to help out with diskant either as a writer/reviewer or with things like news, events and links then do get in touch. We’d also still like an official diskant Geek at some point for when our technical abilities fail us.

>Otherwise, things carry on as normal. I’m busy crafting away for another Miso Funky Market in Glasgow on May 12th and have just purchased a Japanese gocco printing machine which I’m extremely excited about. I’ve also booked my holiday to Tokyo for this October and I’m so excited I’m not sure I can wait another 6 months for it to happen. Before then, the diskant massive will be taking a trip to Birmingham in July for Supersonic (and a Botanic Gardens jaunt, hopefully). If you’re off to ATP these next weekends have fun and let us know how you get on, especially if all the queuing problems have been sorted out. I hope you get some sunshine so you can report back on Minehead beach, it not being at its best in December.

Don’t forget, if you’d like to help us figure out The Future of diskant then do fill out the DISKANT READER SURVEY. We really appreciate your feedback. It only takes a few minutes and there’s a great prize on offer!

Current listening: Girls Aloud, Margaret Berger, Tortoise, Trans Am, Findo Gask.

Finally confirmed and pretty darn exciting! In full:

2007 is Gringo’s 10th anniversary year. Although the exact date of birth is of some debate. Some argue that as the future leaders of Gringo met on 21st October 1996 at a Urusei Yatsura / Eska gig, this was Gringo’s conceptual birth. However, I prefer to take the birth date as 9 June 1997 when we picked our first release from the pressing plant and then drove all the way to Norwich to see Mogwai and Navigator. Heady days.

So, 9 June 2007 it is. A big party is being organised in Nottingham, with Gringo stars past and present, poppers and streamers, that sort of thing.

Gringo Records and Damn You! present…
THE GRINGO RECORDS 10th ANNIVERSARY SPECTACULAR
Saturday 9th June, early start
The Art Organisation, 21 Station Street, Nottingham [map]
£7adv [buy ticket]

with
PART CHIMP
BILGE PUMP
LORDS
THE UNIT AMA
SOUVARIS
SAILORS
REYNOLDS
HIRAMEKA HI-FI
HEY COLOSSUS
OWEN TROMANS & THE ELDERS
DESIGNER BABIES
ANDY CLAMBAKE & THE RESURRECTION MEN
+ possibly more tbc

More info at Gringo

Trust me to welcome the arrival of Summer with my first proper illness in literally years. I have been sadly bedridden this week and have missed out on much, not to mention being too ill to actually make any use of not being at work. Since I famously have no concept of relaxation, this has been very difficult for me. It may also account for any delay you’ve experienced in contacting us. Sorry about that!

If you are extremely eagle-eyed (or particularly nerdy), you may have noticed that things are a-changing here at diskant. We have actually completely recoded the homepage but so well that it looks exactly like the old one, hah! It should be a lot quicker, more stable and easier to work with now. We are (slowly) working on the rest of the site and once these behind the scenes changes are complete, we will push on with plans for additions and improvements that will be more obvious. Simon Minter has been doing the bulk of the code changes and it’s been an enormous weight off my mind after nine years of being the sole coder at diskant. We are still looking for some geek help though so if you know anything about PHP, RSS, XML etc. please do get in touch.

Don’t forget, if you’d like to help us figure out The Future of diskant then do fill out the DISKANT READER SURVEY. We really appreciate your feedback. It only takes a few minutes and there’s a great prize on offer!

Current listening: bis, Deerhoof, Huggy Bear, Tortoise, Trans Am, Errors, Findo Gask.

Wow. Everyone has wished this and now it has been announced that there will be a full band game from the Guitar Hero folks with a range of plastic instruments. Are we excited?

There seems to be lots of interesting gameplay going on including the ability to form bands ONLINE but thanks to my work’s monitoring software, I can’t access any of the articles. Reading about computer gaming is deemed as bad as viewing porn or doing some online gambling. Bah.

This is what I can read. Both have links out to stuff I can’t read.
Guardian Gamesblog post
Wonderland’s post

It’s almost enough to make you want a PS3, ahahahahahahaha. etc.

Summer seems to have arrived at last and I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on anything of importance. Add to that my birthday, pretty much everyone else’s birthdays and two craft markets and I haven’t really achieved much this month except eating a lot of cake. Not that I’m complaining.

However, as part of my birthday celebrations I have made a list of 32 things to do while I’m 32. While this list includes things like going to the Falkirk Wheel, making a dress and catching a Tarantula in Animal Crossing, there are also some diskant-related ones including the long-discussed redesign and my pledge to write 32 record reviews for the Reviews Blog. I will keep you posted. The redesign has already begun and we hope to have something to show for it very soon. We’ll be doing it in stages as it’s all got to be done in our spare time, of which there is very little.

Remember, if you’d like to help us figure out The Future of diskant then do fill out the DISKANT READER SURVEY. We really appreciate your feedback and we’re already acting on it. It only takes a few minutes and there’s a great prize on offer!

Current listening: Margaret Berger, Trans Am, Errors, Findo Gask, The Yummy Fur.
diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 0, Me: 1

It is literally ALL HAPPENING. For instance:

SUPERSONIC, July 13-14th
Birmingham’s “eclectic and experimental playground” have announced their line-up for 2007 and it’s a stunner with Mogwai, Zeni Geva and OM headlining along with Jazkamer, Wolf Eyes, Tunng, Modified Toy Orchestra, Kling Klang, Miasma & the Carousel of Headless Horses and much more tba. Plus there’s films, exhibitions and cake! It’s a mere £35 for the weekend and I am so there.
More info

BEARDSTOCK, Saturday May 19th
Yes, our favourite Glaswegian music and facial hair zine, Beard, is having an all day festival. I hope this is is to launch the new issue which has been a long time coming. Acts confirmed so far include One Ensemble, PuMaJaW, Lucky Luke and Napoleon IIIrd, and they also promise psychedelic projections, artwork and photography, a fanzine workshop and more! It’s at the Regal Social Club in Glasgow and tickets cost £10.
More info

KILL YOUR TIMID NOTION, 12th – 15th April
Dundee’s annual international festival of experimental music, film and visual art is coming up very soon at the DCA. The musicians include CUBE, Querel, Gaelle Rouard, Lionel Marchetti, Jerome Noetinger, William Raban, Keith Evans + Coelecanth, Joe Colley and AVVA: (Toshimaru Nakamura + Billy Roisz) plus there’s installations and films.
More info

MUSIC LOVERS’ FIELD COMPANION, 11th – 13th May
More experimental music from the Instal/KYTM people, this time at the Sage in Gateshead and with a line-up including Junko + Jerome Noetinger, Gary Smith, Diamanda Galas, Angharad Davies, Tisha Mukarji, Andrea Neumann, Los Glissandinos, Jean Phillipe Gross, Rhodri Davies + Terry Day and Aufgehoben.
More info

INDIAN SUMMER, 14th-15th July
Glasgow’s previously sodden Indian Summer festival is to take place over a much more sensible weekend this year. Line-up details will be announced shortly but tickets are available now if you like surprises.
More info

I have returned from my holidays and much fun was had. I was over in Holland with my mum and sister and got to see our old family estate, the only remaining family windmill and the bust of my great great Grandfather which resides in the Zaandam windmill museum. It’s quite exciting having all this history in our family and great to see it all in real life. We also ate a lot of cake and did a lot of shopping, and I even got to further my ambition to visit as many botanical gardens as possible. Amsterdam’s is lovely. You can see all my photos by clicking on the picture above.

Speaking of photos, we have set up a diskanteers photo pool on Flickr so you can see what we’ve all been getting up to. Whether we’re away on holiday, out at a gig, off on tour, creating stuff or just eating pie we’ll post a few photos for you to see. At least you’ll have an idea why nothing’s been updated on diskant. There’s a Flickr widget on the weblog showing them all and they’ll also appear in the weblog RSS feed as they’re posted.

You can catch me in crafty action at two DADA/Miso Funky Markets this month – Glasgow on the 18th and Edinburgh on the 24th. All the info is here and you can get a sneak preview of my wares at my Etsy shop. I hope to see you there!

Don’t forget to fill out the DISKANT READER SURVEY if you have a few spare minutes. We really appreciate your feedback and we’re already acting on it.

Current listening: Margaret Berger, Trans Am, Errors, Findo Gask. diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 0, Me: 1

Here at diskant we are planning some big changes, mainly behind the scenes stuff for better organisation and to make adding and finding new content easier. At present, all the techy geeky stuff is done by me but I am no real geek so it is a constant challenge for me and my brain to get everything working as I like it. In short, I could do with some help from someone who actually knows what they’re doing and thus could do it in a tenth of the time it takes me.

So, if you’re a fan of diskant, have geeky knowledge and have some spare time please get in touch. We’re looking for for someone who knows about some or all of the following: PHP, Javascript, CSS, RSS/XML, mySQL, Majordomo, Blogger, WordPress, Web 2.0 and, of course, pie. Having time and enthusiasm is more important than actual technical skillz as we have people to fill in the gaps here and there. PHP is the main thing we desperately need.

We can’t offer you any money but, um, you can hang out with us (if you don’t already) and you’ll be fully credited for your work. I could do a whole spiel about how rewarding and fun it is working with all the new web technologies and widgets and how it’ll look good on your CV and how you’ll be giving back to the community but you either know that or you don’t care. So, email me and let me know how you can help.

Yes, I am back from my holidays. It was great, thanks. More later.