girl anachronism

Sold.

I think I require an intervention... :/

Wish I could say I was downsizing, but no, my habit's getting out of control, and I need more pedalboard real estate. I'm selling my Diago Gigman, it's 60cm by 30cm. I've had it for a good few years and it's been with me to every gig I've played in that time; still in really good nick, nice and sturdy. At the moment I've got 10 pedals and a power supply in it. That's about the average it holds, although you might manage to squeeze a few more in if you've got more "Boss-sized" stompboxes. Here's a pic: It's the same as this one: http://www.gak.co.uk/en/diago-gigman-pedal-board/30307 Looking for £40 or very near offer.

I thought he was good. The start was great, and I agreed with a lot of the stuff he said about Alison Pearson. The weird convoluted American football fantasy thing bored me a fair bit though and I found myself looking at my watch. Then as he got progressively more drunk and let rip at the end, I started finding it funny again. His analysis of UK and US bar experiences was highly amusing. Also, since he stayed on for an hour more than he was scheduled to, I'd say he was probably having a pretty good time (he wasn't leaving that up to fate, though).

I'd be all about Real Estate on Sunday. tUnE yArDs is incredible live and Yuck are dead good too.

I'm super jealous. That's an unfortunate predicament though! Not really into the whole camping festival thing any more, which is probably why I like SXSW so much. Saying that, if I had the money, I'd probably head to Latitude in July, lineup looks amazing (the section with the bands just above the comedy line up is just woah...): http://www.latitudefestival.co.uk/line-up/

New M. Ward record "A Wasteland Companion" is streaming on NPR now: http://www.npr.org/2012/03/25/148922178/first-listen-m-ward-a-wasteland-companion

Heard it on Facebook a while ago, but don't know if I mentioned a sufficient number of times just how good it is: it's really bloody good.

Thanks for the feedback guys, and thank you for taking the time to read it. Sage advice Dave, I'll bear that in mind if I keep it up!

Yeah, I'm pretty excited about it. Probably a medium wear so it looks fairly roadworn but without any serious buckle rash or anything like that. Swamp ash is lovely and light so I'll go for that. I'm just going to get light yellowing and aging though. Since it's a nitrocellulose finish it should age nicely itself.

I've just ordered a lefty body for my Strat from these guys: http://mjtagedfinishes.com/cart/index.php I've seen their work first hand and it's pretty nice. Excited about it. Going for a vintage-finished surf green. Not sure about pickguard yet, either going to keep my black one or go for brown tortoiseshell. Just got to wait 4-8 weeks now!

I like not being landlocked. I went for a walk round the bay between Torry and Nigg today and it was ace. Really pretty scenery, fantastic weather and I had the new School of Seven Bells record in the headphones (which incidentally is really good, FYI). Taking a walk round there and then stopping for a drink at Campbells and watching the boats go in and out all day is braw. Normally I don't like to blow my own trumpet about how I've had a brilliant Monday off in the sun when I'm aware that so many of you were probably working, but: toot toot.

I wasn't quite sure where to put this. I'm not much of a writer, but I recently wrote an article on UTG, and after some positive feedback and gentle encouragement, I finally got the confidence together to start a wee blog. For my first post, I've attempted a review of the bands I saw (and some delicious food!) at SXSW 2012. It's a pretty lengthy review, but I saw a lot of bands! You can find it here: http://goldstarforrobotgirl.tumblr.com/ This is my first attempt at anything like this, I'm an absolute novice, but found it quite fun to write and hope that a few folk might enjoy it. If anyone's got some critique on it, or any tips on writing and reviewing then that'd be excellent. Incidentally, if anyone has anything that they might want reviewed, then let me know and I'll give it a shot, I could use the practice! I've also been enjoying reading other music blogs, and I know that a few folk on here have some. I thought it might be nice if people wanted to post links to them here and we could start a wee directory or something? I'd definitely welcome some more reading material! Happy reading!

We just clubbed together the remainder of our holiday money for a Fuzzhugger ABSynth, which essentially means we can't afford to do anything for the rest of the month, but oh dear god, it's properly incredible. Great sounding stand alone fuzz, but capable of crazy oscillations. Much preferred it to the Malekko 212 plus ultra that I've been lusting over for ages. I also picked up a Memory Toy, which is great fun, and Jan found a PSK phaser, which sounds really lovely for a Boss clone. God bless the exchange rate...

J Mascis joining in Sharon van Etten's set at SXSW tonight. I think my mind is blown.

Last night, I attended a "terrible film party" and witnessed: Sand Sharks Well. Where to start really. This is a film about some container rupturing out at sea, releasing some prehistoric sharks capable of swimming through sand. These sharks subsequently wreak havoc on the town of White Sands (with an apparent population of 15 people, although I expect the film wanted us to believe this figure was a lot higher, given that the island had its own police force, mayor and, of course, marine biology lab). Imagine Tyler Durden having spent half his life on a sun bed to the point that he looks like a purse, and you have our dreamboat main protagonist, Jimmy Green. A bit of a LAD who wishes to pioneer a music festival on the beach; the aptly named Sandman Festival. Against all the recommendations of the police and marine biologist with incredibly lax observational skills for such a profession (Hulk Hogan's daughter, the resemblance is pretty clear), the festival does go ahead with disastrous results, and it's up to our hero Jimmy with his napalm, and the local mental with a flamethrower to hatch a crackpot plan to save the day. The plan being to use the napalm to melt the sand, creating liquid glass which would then solidify, entrapping the sharks in a glass cage. Foolproof. Utter trash. 1/10...but only because of: 1. The immortal lines: "Sandpocalypse now", "I need a marine biologist", "the proof is in the biology" and "take that, you sand of a bitch". 2. The festival scenes which were just gloriously out of proportion. The "main stage" was a tiny shack, on which a single DJ played the most monotonous sounding tune for a large proportion of the film whilst the "thousands of college students" that descended on the beach danced in an incredibly organised and choreographed fashion. I expect what they did here, was take an aerial film of a step aerobics class with around 15 people and then photoshop in the sand. They probably couldn't convince enough extras to take part in something THIS bad. 3. The utter chaos that ensued when the festival goers were instructed to "GET OFF THE BEACH!!!12" I can only assume that they were all blind. 4. The touching scene between our man Jimmy and the female cop who'd been bitten in half, in which he attempts to keep her alive by rearranging her entrails, before realising the futility of his efforts. He then gets into the car in which she was propped against and drives off, prompting her severed upper half to slump and squelch to the ground. Poetic. 5. The mayor sealing his own fate with the line "I'm drawing a line in the sand". 6. The hefty campaign by the local police to keep people off the beaches which consisted of one puny sign. 7. The gargantuan twist at the end where mother shark emerges from THE FREAKING MOUNTAINS to exact her revenge. I also watched Troll 2, but I'm still not sure exactly what it was that I've just been exposed to. I need a little more time to digest that before I can possibly begin to piece together some sort of review. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer to the next film on my list, Birdemic:

I find the young Josef Stalin quite attractive... I probably wouldn't pee on any of his personal belongings if he broke up with me.

Mike Wexler – Dispossession Lots of love for this at the moment.

This was a great night. Radio Trees was very pleasant indeed, some lovely songs. Adam Stafford blew me away, so, so inventive and utterly captivating. Great songs, loops and danced like nobody was watching. At the end of his set, I felt like I'd just witnessed some sort of musical exorcism. The stuff on his Wise Blood Industries label is well worth checking out too, including Radio Trees stuff, and Adam's old band (Y'all Is Fantasy Island) who were properly great. More please!! Glad people enjoyed our Kitchen Cynics Orchestra set, it was my first real foray into the world of live improv, Seas, Starry sets are improvised to an extent, but this was something new to me. I have to admit I was a little nervous, but ended up having an absolute blast, and well, with Captain Cynic at the helm, it was never really going to go wrong! Great fun. Thanks very much to Alan for letting us join in, and for IMP for putting on such a thoroughly great show! Matricarians are brilliant, so people should definitely go and enjoy on Tuesday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaGFV0YJg-0

Well, I'd certainly be interested in that Whammy.

Bruichladdich is probably my joint second favourite whisky with Auchentoshan 1998 sherry cask matured. Port Ellen is lovely, I'd love to be able to buy a bottle, but don't have a spare £500 kicking around. I do like to treat myself to a nip when I'm out and feeling a bit extravagant though! Bruichladdich also do a really good gin called The Botanist, lovely and crisp. Great with some tonic and cucumber. Beer wise, I'm also a fan of Innis and Gunn and Samuel Smith's.

Havana 7 is seriously tasty. Has anyone ever tried the Bundaberg rum? Is it any good? I love all their soft drinks and have a feeling that the rum with some of their ginger beer and a slice of lime might be hard to beat on a hot day (unless the rum's rubbish of course).

Can't wait!

Flying Dog -_- Mainly the IPA, but the amber is real nice too. Port Ellen (mothballed Islay distillery), difficult to come by, but MY GOD. So, so good. Aaaand; Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Morador Malbec. Not joking, for the price, that's some seriously nice wine, and I've had lots of wine!!