I don’t normally go to festivals – too much of the camping and the terrible NME bands and the travelling for miles and the overpriced tickets. Up until the still genius concept of ATP my festival goings had consisted of 1 day at T in the Park when it was just outside Glasgow, 1 day at the Leeds festival courtesy of Trail of Dead and 2 days at Gig on the Green in central Glasgow. In the past week and a half I have been to TWO festivals. They were Cross Central in London last Saturday and Indian Summer in Glasgow this Sunday past.

Some good things I will concede about festivals:

FANTASTIC BANDS
This for me is the winner. I do not see the point in going to a festival if you don’t want to see any of the bands, however good the “vibes” are. Standing around watching crap bands while shouting at your friends is one of the most tedious things I do. Thus I was a little put out when Cross Central dropped a whole bunch of bands from the bill including Animal Collective, 1990s and Four Tet (who DJed instead). Indian Summer did the opposite, adding an extra stage that pushed the bill from meh to worth paying money for.

Some fantastic bands I saw:

Shy Child – loud and fun and a nice surprise since I knew nothing about them, and still don’t.
Ladytron – sounded HUGE with the bass almost drowning out their icy charms and playing all the songs I wanted them to, meaning I wasn’t too upset at missing Ellen Allien.
Dananananackroyd – just brilliant; an entertaining controlled mess of hardcore/emo/postrock that sounds wonderfully fresh.
CSS – a proper fun festival band with tunes, cute girls, choreography, polite stagediving and charm (“we love you! buy us drinks!”). I loved them. I didn’t buy them drinks.

CENTRAL LOCATIONS
Maybe this is the winner actually. Festivals that are so central you’re not even allowed to camp. Cross Central took place in some warehouses in Kings Cross which was so exactly like a festival site made out of concrete instead of grass it was slightly disconcerting. I don’t know what they use this place for normally, unless most disused train depots have a fully functioning club/bar tucked away in the far corner, but it really was ideal for this kind of thing with lots of big areas for stages (with real ceilings!) and lots of courtyard space and arches for hanging out in. Their major mistake was having three of the four main stages all situated upstairs with only one entrance/exit and then sticking some DJs just inside that so it was a constant bottleneck and made random checking out of stages not worth the effort. At least it all dried out quickly after the rain though. Indian Summer was a bit less central, held in the lovely Victoria Park in the West End, a good 10 minute walk from the bus stop. Still, being able to get a bus practically door to door was pretty awesome.

RANDOM MEETINGS
The bit that makes me feel less like a friendless loser and more like I know EVERYONE. I love the bumping into people you haven’t seen in forever, seeing a couple of bands with them, losing them one by one as you all find other people, repeat.

Bad things about festivals you cannot deny:

TERRIBLE BANDS
Possibly the only good thing about these bands is for bonding with people you’ve just met about how appalling they are and for giving you a break to go get food etc. without missing anything worth seeing. Luckily for the terrible bands at Cross Central, I have forgotten your names. Unkle Bob, you are less fortunate. Maybe I would have hated you less if you weren’t sandwiched between Dananananackroyd and CSS, or if I hadn’t missed Errors but seen you. But maybe I would. But let’s face it, at least half the audience was there either to get a good spot for CSS or to shelter from the pissing rain. Not terrible but disappointing were Camera Obscura who have either lost their sparkle or are not quite suited to the main stage in the mud and Gang of Four who I could clearly hear had been great back in the day but were now tedious. Drum solos, I ask you.

STUPID SCHEDULING
I can see this turning into WHY ATP IS GREAT. With ATP you get the running order with times days before the festival and you get a booklet with descriptions of the bands encouraging you to see them. Other festivals seem to be happy to force you to buy a laminate to get stage times and line-ups and with zero information on the bands. I managed without one at Indian Summer but Cross Central’s layout was so confusing and unsignposted that it forced you to buy a laminate for the map so you could try and figure out where to find anything. Not knowing the times meant I missed Errors (opening Indian Summer at a ridiculous 2:45pm) and arrived way too early at Cross Central (I’d have rather had a nap and done 10:30pm-5am than an exhausted 8pm-3am). I’ll also mention No Pass Outs here which is the single most moneygrabbing evil capitalist thing about festivals. You have our money already, must you force us to stay all day and eat your crappy overpriced food as well?

SOUND BLEED
Stop trying to cram so much into too small a space. If you can hear Camera Obscura when Dananananackroyd are playing you’re not getting it right. If you can hear what’s happening in the next stage while Ladytron are playing the loudest set ever you’re not getting it right. Call me ungrateful but I’d rather hear one good thing than 4 good things at the same time. Also stop cramming so many people in. What’s the point of DJ sets if there’s no room to dance?

GLASGOW = RAIN = MUD
If you hold a festival in Glasgow in September it will rain. If you call it Indian Summer it will definitely rain. What were they thinking? The first 10m in front of the main stage was a mudbath and everyone talked of the Dance Tent’s floorboards in awe. The only saving point was the fact that the audience appeared to consist of everyone from Glasgow who goes to gigs and thus is well used to rain. More than one person pointed out that we all stood around chatting in the rain while there weren’t even any bands playing outside. It was also freezing. Please move to early August next year, thanks.

So, in conclusion. Festivals are rubbish, except when they’re good. See you at ATP!

Chris Summerlin is, without a doubt, our most infamous contributor. I’ve met many people who have told me Chris is the main reason they read diskant and a few who have said Chris’ writing is the only thing they don’t like about diskant. Personally I think Chris is one of the best, and most entertaining, music writers around and only his unwillingness to put up with the constraints of editors has stopped him from making a career out of it. All the better for us though as we get things like his interview with Zoot Horn Rollo of the Magic Band and the lengthy article on the Blues.

Chris also holds the dubious honour of being the only contributor to have been interviewed 3 times for diskant – twice with Reynolds (this interview was the first time we met in person) and once with Lords (four times if you include the time Chris interviewed himself about Sonic Youth). Currently unemployed, Chris is putting his efforts into cataloguing his entire life on Flickr. He also designs posters and puts on gigs as part of Damn You! as well as making music as Last of the Real Hardmen and as part of Lords and Felix.

Where do you live and what do you like about it?
Nottingham. I like it because its violent

What have you been listening to/reading/watching/playing recently?
Listening to: Groundhogs, Loren Connors, Stooges, Sonic Youth live bootlegs, Sonny Sharrock, Bilge Pump, Sailors.
Reading: ‘Billy F Gibbons: Rock N Roll Gearhead’ By Billy Gibbons.
Watching: Hollyoaks.
Playing: Guitar

Tell us about your favourite local bands.
What’s to know? I like a few. Spin Spin The Dogs were the best, they broke up, their new thing Kingdom Time is coming together. The mighty Steve Charlesworth has reunited with Kalv from Heresy for new action that will be pant-shitting. My housemate Gareth Hardwick is coming into his own as a solo drone man. There’s some interesting free improv noise stuff happening. Everyone’s bashing that out. The Good Anna are a force to be reckoned with in that area. Designer Babies are always a total head fuck also.

What are you planning on writing about next for diskant?
I am planning on filling the blogs with personal ads and putting reviews in the wrong section. I have a murder conspiracy piece written but I found out lots of people I am friends with think the idea is mental and so publishing it may make them think I am too.

What are your favourite articles/interviews on diskant?
I like my review of Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. I always like Jason Graham’s end-of-year summaries and Ross McGivern’s politico-activity.

What are you looking forward to this year?
Playing more gigs.

What have you learned during your time at diskant?
No one really cares about music. It’s just shorthand notes and signifiers to get fanny/cock.

It seems to be that time again, whether coincidentally or no, as we have Time’s 50 Coolest Websites and The Observer’s Websites That Changed the World this week. Time’s makes for good reading, full of links and giving props to our awesome pals The Morning News. The Observer’s is a little dull as it’s stuck with regurgitating info on the big names (Google, eBay, Amazon etc.) like those Best Albums Ever lists that are full of The Beatles. I did find it interesting to read some of the history of sites like Blogger and Myspace. My brain has started ticking though – maybe we should do a diskant version?

Incidentally, if you haven’t noticed, I am adding new links regularly to the diskant homepage (bottom middle column) via the magic of del.icio.us. One day I will find the time to add them all to the links section.

In case you haven’t noticed there’s a new article up with us going on about all the good stuff we’ve been listening to, playing and reading. It’s the diskant Summer Catch-up.

The article was getting a bit long so I left off a few bits and pieces including the following bunch of Flickr links from Chris Summerlin. Make sure you have a couple of hours spare…

Reptile House who, presumably, is some sort of guitar tech hence the gazillions of photos of bands’ equipment up close onstage. For a geek like me, it’s fascinating.They’re also beautiful pictures. Want to know what Franz Ferdinand play through? Want to know how Josh Homme gets his live sound?

Bruce who runs the Mike Watt fan site. He has endless photos of the 1980s SST era of bands like Minutemen, Dinosaur etc etc.

Alison from Southern Records who has some amazing old photos of stuff like The Jesus Lizard at Reading and the funny one of Nation Of Ulysses that I’ve linked…

Daniel Robert Chapman, a man who is always 5 steps behind Bilge Pump with a digital camera with frequently amazing results…

We even have a Damn You! page with lovely photos like this one.

I was in Dublin last weekend which was fairly fun. Sadly I didn’t make it to the Botanic Gardens but I did wander round the city for hours and hours and hours managing to fit in Trinity College, Dublin Castle Gardens, the quite marvellous Chester Beatty Library which had some wonderful Chinese and Japanese printmaking on show, the Natural History Museum, St Stephens Gardens, shoe shopping, cake and much hotel lounging into less than two days. Oh yes, and playing a gig. Which was quite stressful but fun. I loved our support band Cap Pas Cap, a frenetic shouty angular band that made me think fondly of Park Attack and thus miss Glasgow. We also got paid and fed well which is always an enormous bonus. So, thanks Dublin. I’m not sure it was worth missing Hey You Get Off My Pavement though.

My next excursion is to London at the end of the month which happily coincides with the not at all bad line-up of the Cross Central festival at Kings Cross. If they could just move Errors and Annie over to the Saturday I’d be overjoyed. I expect they’re both DJing though so hopefully not too huge a loss. Saturday does look fun with Ladytron, Four Tet, 1990s, Animal Collective, Optimo, Ellen Allien etc. Looks better than ATP at the moment actually…

We’ve been doing the Visited Countries map at work this week and I lost miserably with my pathetic 5 countries visited. Now that I actually have some money, I intend to go see a little more of the world. China is top of the list, and I really should go to the USA sometime. I did, however, win the Visited UK Counties map so therefore I win, on an environmental level at least.
Anyway, to get back to diskant, you will be seeing some new content soon, I promise. First up I will be introducing you to the diskant team in a regular feature on the weblog so you can find out a little more about us as people which might also explain what the hell it is we spend all our time doing and thus neglecting diskant. First up, the one and only Simon Minter.

Current listening: The Pipettes, Findo Gask, Pet Shop Boys, The Organ, Ladytron.
diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 2

The blog’s been a bit empty lately so we will be introducing a few regular features for you to look forward to each week. To start things off I will be finding out more about the people who help make diskant what it is, from the old skool early diskanteers I now count amongst my best friends to the new kids I haven’t even met yet. Hopefully it will be interesting to find out more about who we are and what we do and you’ll have a read of some of the things we’ve all written for diskant in the past.

There was only one contender for the first interview – Simon Minter who has been here for far too long, is probably the oldest of us (a whole 3 months older than me) and has had a finger in most of the diskant pies, both figuratively and in reality.

Having been here since the olden days, Simon says he cannot honestly remember when or why he got involved with diskant. "I imagine it stems from old fanzine days of yore when I knew Marceline!", he offers. I recall it being quite a gradual process with him submitting classics like his interview with Alec Empire who refused to answer more than 3 of the questions sent to him and the True or False interview with The Freed Unit. Since then he’s helped out with practically everything at diskant at some point including the dinky cartoon graphics, looking after our columnists and doing numerous in depth interviews with obscure labels (have a look down the features list).

Outside of diskant, Simon’s a graphic designer by day and, well, a graphic designer by night too, now that he has his own little freelance design outfit nineteen point. He also plays guitar in Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element (who have a new 7″ out now!), co-runs the exquisite Fourier Transform record label and co-organises the successful Audioscope charity festival annually in Oxford.

Where do you live and what do you like about it?

Oxford. It’s beautiful and relaxed and there are a lot of likeminded people here.

Tell us about your favourite local bands
Divine Coils – Oxford’s beginner Vibracathedral!
The Keyboard Choir – awesome hypnotic sound sculptures.
Suitable Case For Treatment – weirdo swamp fright-goth-rock

What have you been listening to/reading/watching/playing recently?

Nothing with any great attention except the new Sonic Youth album (trying to work out if I like it or not) and Curb Your Enthusiasm (funniest TV show I have seen in a LONG time)

What are you planning on writing about next for diskant?

Whatever I get sent to review.

What are your favourite articles/interviews on diskant?

Probably the ATP/Audioscope diaries, for reminiscing!

What are you looking forward to this year?

Audioscope. ATP in December.

What have you learned during your time at diskant?

Time management is an important skill. The internet is genuinely a good place to meet friends.

I am running out of ways to say sorry. Sorry there is little new content, sorry we are so slow at reviewing records, sorry I am spending too much time playing Animal Crossing. I’M SORRY!

Reasons I have not been updating diskant:

1. It’s too hot!

My laptop is practically overheating and I am sweltering just having it in typing distance. This, surely, is an excuse to buy a new laptop, yes?

2. I have RSI

Really, kids. Don’t spend all hours of the day on the computer, playing Nintendo and playing keyboards in a band. You will find yourself saddled with a lifetime of nagging pain. It’s all very well for my doctor to tell me to rest my arm but he doesn’t have a box full of CDs to review.

3. I have been doing band stuff

Notwithstanding waiting THIRTY FIVE MINUTES for a bus on the busiest road in Glasgow after band practice, we have been working hard for a couple of gigs. We supported Rother and Moebius last weekend who were rather good, especially went they went techno-krautrock or, even better, Neu goes Pet Shop Boys. I have to say they were the grumpiest band I have ever played with and possibly the only one not to even say hello to us. Even Wolf Eyes were friendlier! Next weekend we are playing in Dublin where I have never been before. I am looking forward to checking out the Botanic Gardens.

4. Yes, okay, Animal Crossing

Alex explains the madness so well on the blog. We are obsessed. I’m sorry.

Other diskanteers have also been busy. Simon and Stu for two. Go buy the new Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element 7" from Field Records.

Current listening: Pet Shop Boys, West End Girls, the Pipettes, Errors, Otterley, Findo Gask. I need to buy some new records.

diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 2

Yes, sorry, I have a brand new Nintendo DS Lite and I haven’t been doing much other than settle into my new Animal Crossing town, capture literally millions of escaped animals in Zoo Keeper (oh, the wasted hours) and do maths and sudoku under the kindly tutorings of Dr Kawashima. Thanks to the wonders of wireless internet I have picked up a message in a bottle on the beach from someone random I will never know and there’s hope yet for a diskant AC online meet-up. Oh the irony. It’ll be like diskant online Scrabble team all over again…

Thus there is little to report in the world of diskant. We do have a few reviewers set to join us so keep an eye out for them making some inroads into the review mountain. The Robot is almost too ashamed to respond to new review requests. I really will have to put the DS aside and dig in, as there’s been some wonderful stuff through lately which I have been enjoying. You might want to take the opportunity provided by this lull in activity by perusing the diskant archives, especially since I’ve gone to the effort of making this page load up a random article for you every time you come here. Have a look to your right and see what you find.

Also of extreme enjoyment has been a book collecting the posters of Jay Ryan, 100 Posters, 134 Squirrels, published by Punk Planet. Not only is it filled with one hundred colour prints full of his trademark fat, slightly idiotic looking animals but you get insights into the thought process, Steve Albini on good form, a whole load of facts about Wooly Mammoths and the greatest band name ever -which I may steal – Squirrels Taking Risks. I got my copy from Amazon for less than ten quid- go, go! I look forward to the Chris Summerlin edition in 2010.

Current listening: Pet Shop Boys, Sonic Youth, West End Girls, the Pipettes, Gay Against You.

diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 2

So, what do we reckon to the new Sonic Youth album? I’m finding it lacking…..something. It seems to have gone straight to ‘comfortable’ after 2 or 3 listens without either the immediacy that has you obsessed for a week or the difficult, growing to like it period. It’s like I already know it well and dug it out after a year except, of course, it lacks the nostalgia and memories. Maybe that’s what’s bothering me – it has a nostalgic quality but the only memories I have associated with it so far are getting the bus to work the other morning. Thoughts?

Also can we stop with the Special Editions already? Fair enough spending an extra 7 quid to get a whole extra album of brilliant remixes Christmas songs. videos etc. but extra money for two EXCLUSIVE UK ONLY tracks is just taking the piss. Yes, I should have bought the vinyl, I know.

It really is summer now and diskant is being neglected in quite a horrifying manner for which I can only apologise. But, you know, get off the internet and go and enjoy the sun. We are still plugging away at the overflowing Review Box and will hopefully bring it down a little once I stop obsessively listening to the new Pet Shop Boys album. It has gotten so bad that Last.fm gave up listing any other bands in my weekly chart. It’s not even that it’s the greatest album ever made or anything, but it does have just the perfect mix of optimism, heartbreak, electro-pop and theatrics to make it indispensible. My copy also has some amusing style of anti-copyright where it will play and be ripped happily on my laptop but is extremely reluctant to play in my stereo.

I can’t think of even a tenuous link but Glasgow’s Stereo closed its doors last weekend and will be sadly missed. There will be a new Stereo opening later in the year which I’m sure will be even better but I have a lot of happy memories of Stereo, both on and off stage. The Asking For Trouble record launch where Sunnyvale were awesome and I spent half of my band’s set hidden behind an enormous amp. The Errors/Uter gig where people threw paper aeroplanes at us with incomprehensible messages scrawled on them. All the great, great bands I saw there from my favourite vantage point between the sound desk and, er, the boys toilets. It’s one of my favourite things about Glasgow that we have places like Stereo, Mono and Sleazys where you can almost guarantee you’ll bump into someone you know, and random band members, whenever you go there. It’s one of the millions of reasons I am still in love with Glasgow, six years after I moved here.

Actually, I probably could have made a tenuous link involving Glasgow’s electrostupidnoise duo Gay Against You who are our newest Talentspotter subjects. As hoped, they have provided entertaining and illuminating answers to all questions and you should go read it now, and love them.

Current listening: Pet Shop Boys, duh. Sonic Youth, Girls Aloud, Findo Gask, Errors. But mostly Pet Shop Boys.

diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 1