Hah! I scoff at your ATP full of all those bands who have already played ATP fourteen times before. Instead I will be at TRIPTYCH 2007, the annual music and films festival taking place simultaneously in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen (hence the name) over April 25-29.

Just lookee at that line-up! Damo Suzuki, CSS, Erol Alkan, Evan Parker, Ute Lemper, Pajo, Cat Power, Einsturzende Neubauten, Bobby Conn, The Pastels, Field Music, Cinematic Orchestra, Electrelane, Gruff Rhys, Bat For Lashes, Fujiya & Miyagi, Errors, Park Attack, Paper Cut Out, 65daysofstatic and more more more. Plus a special show tieing in with the Ballads of the Book thing Simon mentioned on here featuring the likes of Sons & Daughters, Idlewild, Norman Blake, King Creosote, Alasdair Roberts, Emma Pollock and Aidan Moffat.

I literally can’t wait. Full show line-ups, info, tickets and streaming music available now at www.triptychfestival.com.

As promised, a few posts ago, I have created A MONSTER RSS FEED which includes the following:

– full posts from the weblog
– full reviews from the reviewsblog
– daily links from diskant’s del.icio.us
– photos from the new diskanteers Flickr group
– updates on new features, Talentspotters etc.

If you are an RSS hero, add this link to your reader NOW. It is a beta link so some things may change again. The current RSS feeds will continue to work so you can still keep subscribed to them if you don’t want all this extra stuff. It’s fine, we understand.

If you are currently an RSS dullard (and I see from the reader survey that we have quite a few) now is the time to learn. I am really not joking when I say this will change your life.

RSS is a way of subscribing to the content of a website which means all the content comes to you, as it happens, instead of you having to go over there and see if anything’s changed (which is hasn’t except for as soon as you leave, then they upload tons of stuff which you don’t see til the next time you visit). You can subscribe using a web-based RSS reader such as Bloglines or even your personalised Google Homepage, or you can download a free desktop RSS reader such as NetNewsWire Lite (for Mac) or RSS Owl (for PC). You can also subscribe using Firefox and even IE7 but I haven’t tried this yet. With both these options you can add all your favourite website feeds and there are literally millions of them. Almost all of our blog friends linked down the left side there have RSS feeds. I will post a guide to my favourite RSS uses on the web soon.

Once you’ve added all your feeds, you just sit back and let everyone else do the work. If you have a desktop reader, it will automatically go off and fetch new content for you which you can even read offline. If you have a web-based reader then you have one site to check in with regularly that will tell you if there’s anything new to read. You usually get the full content though you will have to click through to the site to see comments or full articles. Speaking from experience, it will immediately half the time you spend faffing on the internet as you will no longer have to trawl through a bunch of sites only to see nothing has changed. Unfortunately, you will start discovering so many new things on your RSS feeds that you will quicky fill that time back up.

So, don’t be scared. Give it a go and come join us here in The Future.

This is the URL you should add for the diskant feed:
http://feedblendr.com/atom/11797

Well, February has been….interesting. My trip to London was good fun with lots of shopping and wandering and eating but then the next day there was hella snow and I got stranded at my sister’s with no plane home! This did mean I got an extra day to have a peek at the V&A and buy more expensive Japanese books but all the extra expense has not done my purse any good. Typically, there was not a drop of snow to be found in Central Scotland. Gah! My purse was refilled slightly by the DADA/Miso Funky Market where I sold a few things and had some fun and sewed up a few new purses. There’s a few things available at my Etsy shop if you’re interested.

The big news at diskant is that we are doing A READER SURVEY to find out what we’re doing right, what we’re doing wrong and what we should be doing in future. The response has been brilliant so far, confirming some of my thoughts and giving me lots of great new ideas. If you have a few spare minutes do please fill it in so we can make diskant even better. There’s even an amazing prize on offer.

The main call so far is for MORE CONTENT, MORE OFTEN which is always our biggest problem. The reviews blog is ticking along as always and the weblog is picking up again but hopefully your comments will inspire our writers to get working on some new interviews and articles. I’m certainly feeling a lot less like giving the whole thing up which is always good.

Current listening: Margaret Berger, Asobi Seksu, Robyn, Joanna Newsom, Errors.

Some things that caught my attention recently:

– A very interesting interview with Thurston Moore about his Ecstatic Peace label at Austin Sound (via TMN)
– Andrew at The Morning News scoffs at us lightweights and our annual roundups. He’s working his way through the top ten albums of EVERY YEAR since 1978.
– the pie debate reaches a whole new level of mentalism over at Freaky Trigger
– OxfordBands.com has had a makeover and looks much cleaner and more streamlined. And orange! We need more orange on the web.
– How could I forget?! I have had to create a website at work using our new web building product for testing purposes and so there now exists Bunny Bento, the lazy girl’s guide to bento. I think I will actually keep updating this.

Don’t forget I am adding new links on the home page regularly. I am working on some kind of ALL ENCOMPASSING RSS feed that will basically inject diskant’s every move straight into YOUR BRAIN your RSS reader. Until then, you’ll have to do the work yourself by clicking on this link occasionally.

I knew that would get you clicking! diskant is undertaking A READER SURVEY so that YOU (being the reader) can TELL US (that’ll be the survey) what you think about diskant and what you’d like to see more (or less) of in future. It’s only ten short questions and you don’t even have to answer them all if you don’t want to. diskant collects no personal information and will never bother you again.

As well as the satisfaction of helping steer diskant in the best direction, one lucky random person will win A PRIZE consisting of the following.

– Some half decent CDs that have been reviewed on diskant or have been sitting here so long the band released something newer. Will likely include some things by FatCat, Resonant and Fortuna Pop!
– A Japanese origami paper covered notebook, handmade by me
– An Asking For Trouble box set, if you don’t already have one
– A tin of German soup containing chicken, mango, pineapple and banana (no, really!)*
– A highly sought after diskant badge
– A corporate branded pen from my work
– A plastic stress monkey with googly eyes
– A plastic light-up pen with a dog on top
– A plastic San-X WanRoom table in the shape of a dog (from JAPAN!)
– Whatever else comes to hand in diskant HQ

How can you resist? Here is a picture of some of it. I haven’t gone through the CDs yet.

So, what are you waiting for?

THE SURVEY IS HERE

*In the event of our winner not residing in the UK I am not even going to try posting the soup. If this happens I promise to eat it myself and report back.

It really has been a while. I last saw Trail of Dead live maybe two years ago (maybe three!) and this was a bit of a come down for both of us. They had been downgraded from the QM to the much much smaller Oran Mor and I was reduced to standing on a chair at the back of the venue rather than stageside. They are so much more suited to smaller venues though that it was more of a treat then anything. But first there was Forget Cassettes, the other band of one of the new TOD guys (I keep getting them mixed up…) who had so many technical difficulties that they only got to play about 4 songs. With retro grumbly keyboards, strong female vocals and swathes of guitar noise they were a bit like a noise goth PJ Harvey, the singer similarly striking. I was not in good shape though so they mostly gave me a sore head. Later I managed to totally bash my head in and have a nice bump to show for it. In the olden days this would have been due to excessive fun, these days it is because of tiredness and not looking where I’m going. Sigh.

So, Trail of Dead. The first two songs were utterly atrocious, so much so that I actually almost left. Relative Ways has never been in my top 100 TOD songs and I don’t think Conrad has ever managed to hit those high notes so it was all quite painful. Surprisingly, it was another song I never liked, The Best from Worlds Apart, that turned things around and had them back at what they do best – riot action prog rock. A few Jason songs with him careering around the place like the mentalist he is ( in the audience, up the speaker stacks) got everything properly started and from then on it was all good, if a bit ragged round the edges. Never having been the biggest followers of professionalism or, well, being in tune, they just pulled out all the old stuff and had fun with it, the new guys helping free up Conrad and Jason for more audience interation. Totally Natural, Richter Scale Madness and, of course, A Perfect Teenhood all got the extended fervoured spoken word extended middle treatment and were triple the fun. It all felt like a celebration, like those early days of mayhem and over-excitement. I felt quite nostalgic really. They may have never fulfilled their potential or made their millions but they still know how to work a crowd and how to entertain and how to make me laugh and that’s good enough for me.

Things are very very very very busy with me at the moment. As if I didn’t have enough things to do with diskant, a record label and a band, I am frantically busy crafting things for my very own stall at the DADA/Miso Funky Market on the 10th. It’s quite a jump from my usual leisurely brooch-making to creating a whole stalls-worth of saleable things. Only four days to go and I think I might just make it. If you’re around, do come and say hello.

Before that, I also have to squeeze in a short jaunt to London which cost us an entire £1.42 in air fares. Yes, I do feel guilty about the environmental effects but it’s February and it’s COLD and I haven’t had a day off since the 1st of January. Plus there are many Japanese foodstuffs and cute things needing to be purchased and sometimes Glasgow just won’t do.

Things aren’t being completely neglected on on diskant though with The Spencer McGarry Season featured in Talentspotter and a whole bunch of reviews over on the review blog. I’ve also wiped the slate clean and will be restarting my interview slackness stats from today. The previous lot have had enough reminders that I can’t be bothered pestering them any more.

It being a new year, my thoughts are being dragged unwillingly towards a redesign. I’ve been having to brush up my CSS skillz lately as it seems to be the way the web is going with almost everything I use for web development (Blogger, WordPress, Shopify etc.) using CSS more and more. So, I may be looking for some reader feedback soon to see what’s most in need of work. But first I will have to find the time…

Current listening: Margaret Berger, Asobi Seksu, Joanna Newsom, Errors, Shigeru Umebayashi, Cat Power.

diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 0, Me: 1

Can Errors do no wrong? Salut! France is quite possibly the most accessible thing they’ve done – condensing all the best bits of all their other songs into one 3 minute pop song, just short enough that you really want to hear it again immediately after. It’s unmistakably Errors with a dark doomy electronic bassline, delicate guitar melodies, tricksy, ever-changing beats and a clever knowingness that puts them up there somewhere between Kraftwerk and the Pet Shop Boys.

Errors must do a lot of walking. Most of their songs have a driving beat at the heart that’s just the right bpm to keep you going and, I find, forego the bus and just walk into town. They also have nicely timed quieter interludes so you can slow down and see what colour the sky is today and how much longer it’s going to take to finish building those flats. There’s a flow and an intricacy to their songs that makes them very easy to fall right into and forget yourself. I’m already quite impressionable but I know if that throbbing bassline kicks back in at an inopportune moment I will quite likely find myself walking into oncoming traffic.

Maeve Binchy on the other side is more downbeat with mournful robotic vocals and layers and layers of shimmering sounds that’s altogether quite lovely. If you’re not familiar with Errors then really, this single is your perfect opportunity, and you really should take it as at this rate their album is going to be, well, the greatest thing ever. Even better, this comes on lovely thick custardy yellow vinyl. I almost want to eat it.

(HAH, I published this and Blogger informed me: “Your blog published with errors.” YES, it did. Well done).

Errors
Rock Action

Find Copy Haho CD under pile of other CDs. Think ‘why do I still have this in my review pile? I am obviously never going to listen to it’. Read press release and spot words “members of Hookers Green No.1”. Think ‘ooh, I must listen to this’. Put back in pile. Repeat. This is what has been happening for the last few months until finally, FINALLY, I actually listened to the CD. And, you know what, it’s fantastic. It’s a rare thing indeed for a song from a review CD by a band I’ve never heard of to make it on to my daily bus ride favourite songs playlist and much much rarer for both songs to go on the playlist and still be there two months later. Ergo, Copy Haho are something special.

Bookshelf starts off all twinkling keyboards, lilting vocals and meandering guitars, stumbling sleepy-eyed through the dusk before they take a wrong turning and lurch unexpectedly into a lost chorus from Slanted & Enchanted. Which, of course, is brilliant so they stand firm, coolly acting like this was part of the plan all the while looking for the door so they can get back to wandering and remembering. Dessert Belle is even more dazed and dreamy, the vocals smudged around the edges and the music swirling around, tinges of Hood and, yes, Hookers Green making it all the more lovely. Oh, Aberdeen, how much better you are doing since I left. I almost miss you.

This is actually a 7″ and you can buy it now.

Copy Haho at Myspace

Is there NOTHING exciting happening this month? Normally we highlight an upcoming exciting event on the homepage but we have had nothing since mid-December since no-one has emailed me about anything noteworthy and nothing has caught me eye during my daily trawling of the web.

So, what I am saying is tell us about your events. Whether it’s a music all-dayer, a film festival, an art show, a craft fair, whatever – if you think our readers would be interested in it then maybe we’ll feature it.

Two things to note:
1. we’re talking EVENTS here, not just your average gig.
2. give me a bit of notice. I’m not going to spend time writing a blurb and finding an image for something that I can only put on the site for a couple of days.

Got anything? Email me at diskant-overlord AT diskant.net. You can email me stuff that’s happening after January too, of course.

UPDATE: FatCat‘s upcoming 10 year anniversary shows have fixed this problem for the immediate future but keep your event suggestions coming. As commented below, the Chinchilla Fest 07 is looking awesome.