We played with Wolf Eyes last night and it was FUN. The Wolf Eyes soundcheck was a thing of hilarious wonder as they started up something that made the noise of a revving motorcycle and then did a mic check of “CHECK CHECK WAAAAAAAAAARGH WOOOOOOAAARGH CHECK!” over it. Awesome. We seemed to go down pretty well although it was very weird playing in daylight and my hands were shaking all the way through even though I didn’t feel that nervous. Our egos were bruised somewhat by every single person in the venue immediately getting up and running over to the stage when Wolf Eyes started.

I’d been hearing varying things about the Wolf Eyes live show ranging from head breaking scaryness to lameass noise and unsurprisingly it turned out somewhere in the middle. They started off building up some quite mesmerising washes of subdued electronic noise that almost put me to sleep it was so relaxing and then had me sitting with a stupid smile on my face. After that they added in some heavy riffery and waves of searing feedback which was fantastic for a while and then got a bit dull in its unchangingness. They should stop trying to be scary and just make noise.

I now have proof that computers are bad for you, work isn’t fun and I’m not invincible, as my doctor this week confirmed I have RSI. So apologies if diskant seems quiet but I’m trying to cut down on my computer usage. The Reviewsblog is being updated regularly though so don’t leave us! I don’t have the really scary kind of RSI so I hope to be better soon.

I’m not sure if this is RSI-related but I seem to be listening to an awful lot of pop music at the moment. I don’t think my aim when buying an iPod was to find myself listening to Girls Aloud while the on-bus TV screen was playing, er, Girls Aloud.

It’s not all bad news though as Nintendo have finally built the theme park I’ve been building in my head for years – PokéPark! I want to go to this so badly I could cry but sadly it’s in Nagoya, Japan. It has Pokémon merry-go-rounds and Pikachu shaped cars! Kill me now.

Okay, back to my non-computer fun. I am learning how to use a drum machine and relearning how to draw. By the end of the summer I expect to have formed a terrible solo project and written a new actual paper-based zine. Wish me luck.

I now have proof that computers are bad for you, work isn’t fun and I’m not invincible, as my doctor this week confirmed I have RSI. So apologies if diskant seems quiet but I’m trying to cut down on my computer usage. The Reviewsblog is being updated regularly though so don’t leave us! I don’t have the really scary kind of RSI so I hope to be better soon.

I’m not sure if this is RSI-related but I seem to be listening to an awful lot of pop music at the moment. I don’t think my aim when buying an iPod was to find myself listening to Girls Aloud while the on-bus TV screen was playing, er, Girls Aloud.

It’s not all bad news though as Nintendo have finally built the theme park I’ve been building in my head for years – PokéPark! I want to go to this so badly I could cry but sadly it’s in Nagoya, Japan. It has Pokémon merry-go-rounds and Pikachu shaped cars! Kill me now.

Okay, back to my non-computer fun. I am learning how to use a drum machine and relearning how to draw. By the end of the summer I expect to have formed a terrible solo project and written a new actual paper-based zine. Wish me luck.

Milky Wimpshake is one of the many projects of Pete Dale, something of a diskant hero for Slampt, Red Monkey and the awesome Fast Connection zine and this is partly a collection of old 7″s and partly new songs. Milky Wimpshake make punk pop in the classic 80s indie style; short and simple with cleverly intelligent lyrics on love, politics and people. It’s got charm and heart in shovelfuls whether the subject’s Spiderman comics, the state of the current government or just simple love, love, love. With uncomplicated guitars, perky organ and heartfelt vocals it reminds me most of Heavenly and The Wedding Present and makes them a band for incurable romantics everywhere.

Fortuna Pop

Three weeks without home internet and I barely missed it. And now that I have it back I seem reluctant to pick up where I left off. It seems I may finally have learned how to relax. I haven’t completely neglected diskant though ‘ you may notice I’ve recruited a bunch of new reviewers and the diskant review box is now almost empty. Hopefully from now on things will get reviewed in a more timely manner and by a wider range of people. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing all the new reviews and you should keep checking the reviewsblog.

I still have a personal review backlog as I’ve been blighted with a complete block on review writing for the last, er, 6 months or so (sorry to all those bands and labels). Help has come from unexpected places with some enforced fun at work. What started as a simple CD swap has now grown into a team CD ring requiring track by track reviews with scores. I’ll probably post up some of my reviews here at some point but it’s been a relatively unexposed opportunity to try and remember how to write about music. Not to mention the exposure to all kinds of bands I would never otherwise hear. And with no internet I’ve been listening blind, having to trust my heart and not what my eyes might tell me are a bunch of hipster losers. I may not get through this with my pride or my cool intact but that’s half the fun these days.

What little cool I still possess I will be clutching to my heart on the 19th of June at Mono in Glasgow where we will be sharing a stage with the mighty Wolf Eyes. Do come and see us.

I thought I was forgetting something when I was posting about why the Grand Ole Opry is so great the other day but I really can’t believe I forgot about THE MAN SELLING HOT PIES. The sooner all venues have a man wandering around the audience with hot pies for sale, the sooner I can give up my plans to become evil dictator of the world.

But anyway, ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES is here, once again. I’m getting the train tomorrow and hope to see some of you there. We’re usually at the bar side of the room between gigs (which room depends on many things) or getting overexcited in the arcade. So, look out for us. There’s photos on some of our profiles linked on the left there and I’ll be selling hot pies BOXES on the record stalls on Sunday morning (so bring a spare fiver).

We went to see Joanna Newsom last night, partly because I like her album lots, partly because it was free (ahem) but mostly because it was at Glasgow’s Grand Ole Opry which I have been trying to go to for years. As Glasgow’s premier Western themed venue I had heard tales of unbelievable decoration including abundant cacti and cowboys. So you can bet I jumped at the chance to go there without having to endure the weekly line dance night (or whatever they do there normally). It turned out to be much smaller than I expected but that made it even cuter, like a mini-Barras. We were immediately overwhelmed by the padded, neon lit saloon bar and stars and stripes bunting but soon became aware of the enormous wall murals of, yes!, cowboys and cacti! Even greater was the 3D cacti and cowboy boots stuck to the walls. Joanna Newsom was rather overwhelmed by it all. Maybe she thought it had all been decorated in her honour.

Anyway, decor aside, there was bands to see. I missed most of the first guy but White Denim seemed pretty cool although sadly we used them as background music as we were too tired to stand up and there were comfy seats and people I had not seen for ages. Joanna was great though. Coming onstage like a kid in a school play, simultaneously shy and delighted by the attention, she just started singing unaccompanied and it was lovely. Then we got pretty much all of her recent album and a few other songs, some just with the harp and some with a flautist. You can forgive her anything, even the lyrics about wizards and fairies, for her harp playing. Such a playful instrument, it suits her childlike vocals perfectly. And she’s no wispy pixie girl once you see her supergluing her fingers up so she can keep playing. She finishes up with an exuberant Inflammatory Writ on the piano and disappears off the cloud painted stage, grinning like a loon.

I expect everyone knows that this is the reincarnation of bis, back together after taking some time out with their other (excellent) bands The Kitchen and Dirty Hospital. If they were hoping to fool anyone with the name change they’re going to be disappointed. I first heard this playing in Monorail and it was immediately obvious who it was as Steven and Amanda have such recognisable voices. Sadly there’s a large proportion of people who have some kind of Kandy Pop Amplifiers that make all bis songs sound like Kandy Pop to them despite the enormous progression bis made over their 4 or 5 albums. But it’s obvious from this single that Data Panik just don’t care about them any more.

Lead track Cubis is so catchy it’s been stuck in my head since that first hearing with its jaunty chorus and mix and match girl boy verses. But on closer listen, it’s the music that impresses and delights me with a gurgling bassline, some brilliantly 80s electro flourishes and what sounds like half the Nintendo music archive crammed into the background.

Sense Not Sense is more typical of latter-era bis and could fit into Return to Central quite happily; all bubbling beats, stopstart guitars and Amanda’s slinky vocals. I can’t wait to see what they do with a whole album. Fantastic to have them back.

Data Panik

This was my main reason for being in London this particular weekend as it was the last chance to see this theatre production of Philip Pullman’s ace fantasy trilogy which is something of an Elidor/Tolkien anti Narnia and thus much beloved in my house. I’m not going to try and summarise the plot for you but its epic plotline encompassing a myriad of alternate worlds and the death of God and featuring a cast of humans, witches, “daemons” and ARMOURED BEARS, it was obvious this was something I really had to see live. It’s also unable to tour as it needs the stage at the National Theatre which rotates and has all manner of rising platforms making it both incredibly exciting to watch and easy to show the passage between alternate worlds.I was in the crap seats but this meant being three rows from the front at the same height as the stage which was actually amazing. I may have missed some of the overall picture but seeing the actors 3ft away gave it a whole extra level of realism. The stage was used brilliantly throughout the show with characters able to cut through doors and walk into another world or climb up from underneath. It also meant they could have 3 different sets on different levels and move them up and down to show the action in different places.

Even more impressive than this was the way they brought the non-human characters to life. Some of the major characters in the book are the daemons of humans – basically their spirit in animal form which can interact with other peoples’ daemons and generally act like another character. These were done with puppets made of translucent material and lit with lights. It was astonishing how a puppet being obviously moved and voiced by a visible actor dressed in black could feel as emotionally affecting as the human characters. At other times this was done for laughs with the tiny Gallivespians being marionette style puppets moving in very obvious jerky puppet movements. The armoured bears were also great – despite just being men dressed in shaggy clothes and armour with a puppet style bear head and plastic claw they were quite believable as the bears.

The real life actors were also generally very good although some were overacting a little too much. Lyra even had a perfect annoying accent which made me accept her immediately as the book Lyra (whose annoying accent took a long time to love in the book).

I’d pick out my highlights but it was all just wonderful and even all the major changes to the book (mainly for length reasons) worked really well. I wish I could see it again, especially since the film versions sound like they’re going to cut so much stuff out they’ll hardly be the same story. My only fear now is that any future visits to the theatre will be nowhere near as exciting as this.