Friday Fives Feel Faintly Furry
I was out quaffing lagers with a pal last night and once again Friday arrives with that faintly queasy, furry-tongued sensation we all know so well. Blech. Still, nothing a fine meal of fish and a couple of pints at the King’s Wark can’t solve I am pretty sure. I have yet to meet the hangover their fine lunches can’t defeat.
Tonight I am off to act as arm candy for Mrs. Toad at a client dinner with the Dastardly Finance Corp for which she works. Me, my black eye, a scruffy beard and a grudgingly-worn suit – not quite like the braying public school fat-tongues who tend to dominate these sort of events. Maybe if I act arty enough they’ll think I’m some sort of creative genius.
We’ve already had some interesting situations with this sort of thing actually, because a lot of the posh Edinburgh people we’ve met seems to have a very acute awareness of which school one attended and what job one does and therefore which of you needs to kiss the other’s arse. Because Mrs. Toad and I don’t seem all that posh they tend to start out quite optimistic, too. Then they find out we met at school in Vienna, which both worries and confuses them – it sounds posh but they don’t know the school, so they can’t be sure – oooh, what to do?
And then my job confuses them too. They know the company Mrs. Toad works for, and that’s quite legit, so they can kind of peg that one to their ladder, but of course they tend to assume that her wage is probably about two thirds of mine or less because that’s how these things tend to work in the world of finance. So when I tell them that I’m an industrial designer and that I actually make fuck all they get really confused. Am I just lying? Am I a maverick creative guru and just playing it down? Can they actually condescend to us like they sort of want to? Or am I from such a wealthy family that I simply don’t have to work? But what if they misjudge it and act superior to the wrong person? Aaagh, too many options, does not compute… head explodes! It’s quite funny.
Although to be fair, Mrs. Toad’s worky social events aren’t really like that actually; in fact they tend to be pretty friendly, to be fair. I got distracted and started nattering about another occasion entirely just there, sorry. Umm… so er, please do take advantage of the Friday de-lurking amnesty and chip in with your Friday Fives. As Christmas gets closer and closer I would imagine that less and less work is being done in the offices of the nation anyway, so you might as well.
1. Your worst-behaved plus-one moment.
2. The worst plus-one moment your other half has inflicted on you.
3. How do you subversively rebel when asked to scrub up to impress folk?
4. Do you love or loathe your other half’s colleagues? (And are you free to answer that question honestly?)
5. In the company of people you are supposed to behave in front of (colleagues-in-law, the other half’s family, your parents friends etc..) how scooshed do you actually get?
The five songs this week are new things which have found their way into my inbox recently. That’s a new Eels song from a recently announced album, which is good news, and ditto for Stanley Brinks. Tune Yards is someone just signed to Matador, and of whom they have high hopes in the new year. It’s weird, but I like it. Naughtily, I’ve had that Ravens & Chimes song for ages, so their album might actually be out already – if it’s as good as the last one that is very good news.
Eels – Little Bird
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Ravens & Chimes – Hearts of Palm
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Stanley Brinks – End of the World
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The Chord & the Fawn – Love, Sex and Rock ‘n’ Roll
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Yes, it’s Fresh Air time again, and Ruth is back from the bring of death and ready to chatter away once more. This week we have Russell from Mammoeth playing live in session for us. He has an album out on Mini50 Records some time in the relatively near future, so we may try an weasel a preview out of him if we can.
I know it’s the run up to Christmas and the New Year, but there will be no Best of the Decade lists on this blog, no sir. The reason? Well, for fuck’s sake, I’m just far too fucking lazy! Christ almighty, no disrespect to the people who have the energy to do it but I wouldn’t even know where to begin raking back through all the albums released in the last ten years, never mind starting to filter them into some kind of sensible order. Madness!
I often struggle to write about Art Pedro, because I never quite know how to phrase exactly what it is I want to say. Basically, I almost always find myself thinking ‘okay, lots of good stuff going on, not quite sure I’d say it was entirely clicking for me, but I like a lot of the ideas happening here’.
I discovered Beat the Devil, Shilpa Ray’s previous band, through the brilliant
I’m assuming that this album must be post-something, because stuff that’s kind of difficult to describe is usually called post something or other, although buggered if I know what. It was passed to me by Ruth from the Bowerya month or so ago and I’ve listened to it a lot since then.
Given how mental it looks like December is going to be for gigs, the last week of November looks as thin as I wish I still was. There are a couple of things knocking around though, so bear with me.
Yes indeed, I don’t care about your actual opinions, all I want you to do is vote for my friends, thank you very much.
The Excast is so named because I am playing a lot of people’s former bands. There’s Shane MacGowan’s Nipple Erectors, Phil Chevron’s Radiators, Shilpa Ray’s Beat the Devil and Billy Bragg’s Riff Raff.
