Well, AUDIOSCOPE was brilliant, again. People mocked my seemingly insane plan of sitting on a train for a total of fourteen hours to spend a day and a half in Oxford trapped inside a small dark venue but I WAS RIGHT. The best line-up yet, lots of nice people to talk to, the opportunity to blow up lots of Shelter balloons and my usual seat at the merch stall, I couldn’t have been happier.

My favourite bands of the day were undoubtably Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element for setting the level of LOUD and ROCK for everyone else to follow; The Edmund Fitzgerald, following on afterwards and being unexpectedly marvellous and all noisy and abrasive and young and Electrelane who I hadn’t heard before and turned out to be tremendously enjoyable and very cute. But really, it was non-stop fantasticness all day and there wasn’t a single band I would have wanted to miss. Oh, except Six By Seven who I thought were DULL DULL DULL. Not to mention boring, rude and arrogant. But top day all round and big cheers to Simon, Stu, Hanna and Jo for organising it. hurray! The only bad thing that happened was being beaten at GIANT Connect 4 by Max Tundra. But, er, obviously I let him win since he’s a popstar. Ahem.

Here’s an interesting project for you called 44 strings since the idea is to release a compilation of tracks by bass and double bass players. It’s organised by the nice people at mrw44 and they’re touting for submissions at the moment so go find out more.

Some nice random links for you from my IE history, none of which involve reading about me for a change:

– Pixel Decor – (lovely lovely retro patterns for desktops and backgrounds)

– NeeKlamy’s Zelda fairy trapped in a bottle plush. I want one!

– Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics take an in depth look at The Core (“It’s the worst physics movie…ever….”) and end up showing exactly why it’s such a great movie. Thanks to BBC News for that link.

– Children reviewing indie music (william: i feel like i might say “hey hey” and i was thinking about a robot). Thanks (again) to TMN for that one.

I had my dad visiting this weekend so we decided to get on a train to Edinburgh and see some stuff. Partially because the Edinburgh International Games Festival was on, it has to be said. We also did some fairly educational traipsing round the Royal Museum and Our Dynamic Earth so here’s what I learned, in no particular order:

– DinoBirds are better than birds but not as great as dinosaurs

– Leopard seals are unexpectedly ENORMOUS and extremely scary

– It was pretty cold in the Ice Age

– Tropical rain showers are pretty lame when compared to a typical Glasgow day but Glasgow downpours could be made more fun by having a man work the crowd beforehand.

– Children are more scared of a shark than a Cyclops

– I know lots about Antarctica, strangely

– My favourite bridge building era is…err…oh heck, I’ve forgotten

– A child frantically punching his hands at lightning speeds can kill as many ninjas on the EyeToy game as a child boredly flapping his arms about and not even looking at the screen.

– Unicorns are really twee

– having a cinema screen on the ceiling so you can lie on your back while you watch stuff is a fantastic idea (except for when you have to get up at the end)

– going back 15,000 million years in a time machine only takes a couple of minutes

– At the same time as the mountains and valleys of the earth were formed by glaciers, balloon animals roamed the icy wastes (or maybe a small child left one there)

– Nothing we saw was as exciting as catching pigs in Zelda Wind Waker

Haaaughghughhh! I have gone insane! We just drove from Sarlat in the south of France all the way to Glasgow in an epic, sleepless 24 hour madness insanity thing. I have had precisely four hours sleep since I got home and am now wandering around slowly going mad. The first thing I saw when I left the house was wee Stuart Mogwai riding a bike and I was so confused I thought I was hallucinating and couldn’t say anything. Then I spent half an hour gazing forlornly at the plasters section of Boots with no idea of which ones to buy. I’m not intending on ever doing such a ridiculous journey ever again but if I do I’m not going to consume only Ribena, wine gums and RAC 124, a crazy Red Bull style drink (Peach flavoured!) made by the RAC and packaged in the greatest can design ever (orange, silver, road signs). I’d believe I hallucinated this too if I hadn’t had the foresight to buy an extra can to take home. “Not to be used as a substitute for sleep”!

France was good though, if unbearably hot. I didn’t really do anything at all actually. But that’s good! and relaxing!

I have to go to work tomorrow – helllp meee.

Big cheers to Camera Obscura too for the free ride to France and back, particularly John and Kenny for taking part in our epic journeys across Europe in a small car during a 50+ degree heatwave with no aircon. Buy their records or something.

New Pitchfork design brilliantly illustrates why advertising on websites is bad and wrong. I couldn’t keep my eyes in one place long enough to actually read anything on the front page. Also, why the huge screen resolution? After a series of jobs where I would covertly read websites during work hours, I now have the fear of full size web browser windows and particularly resent scrolling to see YET MORE ADVERTS. I really like Pitchfork and I wish they’d stop shooting themselves in the foot like this. I like the brown though, it’s a very underused website colour.

This bad web design/usability thing seems to be a growing problem generally though. I’ve been wandering around the web quite a lot lately and I’m surprised at how few music/culture/etc. websites are well designed. They all seem cluttered, over-designed and difficult to navigate. Maybe I’m just becoming mental over web design now that I spend my days designing horrific websites for magicians and garden pond makers but is it too much to ask for simple, understandable navigation, readable text, a minimum of scrolling and NO FANCY GIMMICKS? God, I feel old. Again.

(Having read the above, try and imagine exactly what my response was to a colleague suggesting I used FRAMES on diskant…)

IdeasFactory is a new website set up by Channel 4 to provide information for young people thinking of a career in creative media. The Scotland sub-site is now up and features quite a few interesting articles that make it worth while having a browse through the site. Of particular interest is, inevitably, an interview with ME ME ME about how to waste your life on a stupid music website and features all kinds of revelations about my dodgy past. Also good is Chris Mack’s diary of visiting Brazil and an interview (by me!) with local video interview website Triggertonic.

Okay, I’ll stop bigging myself up here.

Do also note that diskant is moving servers sometime this week (we already have the new space and most of the new design, we’re just waiting for the domain) so there will be some downtime and confusion at various points. Hopefully once we get ourselves organised some other diskant contributors might, you know, contribute to this blog. You really never know…

I have been thinking about this a fair bit lately but not for the usual STOP STEALING MUSIC reasons but because I am finding myself at work with a high speed connection and winamp enjoying The Faint and The Mars Volta. I know this stuff sucks really – it’s eighties goth disco and overblown prog rock respectively – but I’m enjoying it in the privacy of my headphones. If I didn’t have access to this stuff online there’s no way I’d have spent actual money on it but now I have to admit to liking The Faint. Delete me from the internet! I’m also becoming annoyed with Pitchfork for assuring me that the music I listen to is indeed crap. It’s like The Strokes all over again. But not.

I had more to say but I have to get back to designing a website for holiday villas. Delete me from the world!

Nice one Dave, remind everyone that I have a huge stack of zines sitting on my computer waiting to be reviewed… [insert crappy excuse here].

I’ve just realised this is the first time ever that I’ve not bought the new Mogwai album the first day it was released. Or at least tried to (see legendary ‘One Up in Aberdeen only ordering in 3 copies of Young Team’ tale). I would like to personally blame Glasgow City Council for leaving me destitute and incapable of record buying while owing me hundreds of pounds. Bah.

New job designing websites for quality meat product suppliers and towbar sellers means I am s-k-i-n-t until payday and thus completely missing out on Glasgow’s best gig week in months. No Erase Errata, American Analog Set, 90 Day Men, El Hombre, Hex, Cat Power or Nina Nastasia for me. Waaah.

Still, at least the weather’s nice, eh? I got up really early today and went to see Watership Down with a small child which was rather nostalgic. I didn’t blub though, possibly because they kept messing up the sound so I never really got into it. And then I did some gardening and planted some herbs and once I’ve finished here I’m going to take my computer to bits. mmm.

So, Things I Like (in the absence of cash)

– Mario Party 3! Without my Mario Party Gang I would die of boredom and miss out on the opportunity to throw giant snowballs at my flatmates. But my button pushing fingers might hurt less. Not as good as Mario Party 2 though due to far too many memory games.

– Friendster! Yes, I am sad and pathetic. But I have twelve friends!

– Papa M Rediscovery possibly prompted by finding David Pajo on Friendster

– The re-design of diskant! Oooooooh, bet you can’t wait, etc.