Rubbish band find bad review on diskant two months after it was posted and encourage their fans via Myspace to leave comments telling us we are idiots. Badly spelled hilarity ensues. Go see. I love the timing – HAPPY BIRTHDAY JGRAM!

I keep meaning to mention this. If you are a member of hip new internet sensation™ Facebook, then come join us in the diskant rocks! group where you can talk to us and find out the latest happenings in diskant world. It’s almost as exciting as real life!

The actual latest happening in diskant world is that the Supersonic 2007 round-up article is now online for your reading pleasure. Who says Sundays are boring?

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be regularly posting some short pieces here about people’s favourite movie soundtracks, and why they mean something to the writer in question.

The first will be online soon, but I’d love it if you got in touch to tell me your favourite soundtrack, and why, so you can get involved. Send your suggestions to me at simonminter@diskant.net.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

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.

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.

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

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.

A bit of market research, if you all don’t mind. We here at diskant are eager to hear your suggestions for bands and labels (and indeed anything else) that you would like to see featured/interviewed on the site. We can’t promise anything (especially if you want to see an interview with Elton John or something), but it’d be great to get some ideas about stuff to cover here.

You can see some of the other people we’ve covered here: www.diskant.net/features/index.htm.

Feel free to leave suggestions as comments on this post, or alternatively you can e-mail Marceline or I at the usual addresses… thanks!

I have set up an Amazon aStore for diskant so that you can buy some of the things we go on about on here. Obviously we’d recommend you use your local independent store but if you’re going to use Amazon then at least a tiny proportion of the cash is coming back to us. At present we have our favourite albums and films of 2006 and a bunch of personal recommendations from your own diskant Overlord. Hopefully some of the other diskanteers will do their own recommendation sections but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Do rest assured that I will not be plastering ads all over diskant – the shop is completely seperate to diskant and will only be linked by text in a few relevant places. I also guarantee that all profits made will be spent by me on great things which I will subsequently write about on diskant. At present I personally pay all the hosting and domain registration costs for diskant out of my own pocket. The day diskant ever starts to cover its costs we will decide what to do with the money (free pie for everyone of course).

This is diskant. He likes Takoyaki, amusement parks and ‘Now’ compilations and dislikes Microsoft Word, Emo and geese. He has been made of felt and buttons by the wonderful Miso Funky and we are giving him away on the diskant newsletter. To be in with a chance of winning you need to be signed up before Thursday, so GO JOIN NOW. You’ll also get updated on what’s new at diskant and what you might have missed. Imagine the excitement awaiting you on Thursday!