Toadcast #17 – The Cellarcast
The wench is away and I am here by myself, managing the last few days of our house project. You can imagine what fun that must be, I’m sure. Still, we move back in this weekend, so it may be a crap couple of days but it’ll all be over soon and then you’ll be relieved of me constantly whinging about it, which will be nice for you.
Given we’re living in a basement flat on a short term let for a month I got quite into the basementy idea with this playlist. I digressed into The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan and the Band, but mostly it’s music from ‘95/6 when I was living in a damp, grotty basement flat in Glasgow with a mate and the girl I was seeing at the time.
I bought stacks of CD singles back then and lost them all when someone broke into the flat. Thanks to the joys of the internet I’ve been able to track most of them down recently, so you get a few of those, as well as some of the stuff I was listening to at the time.
It’s interesting as a historical document, to me anyway, but I am not sure how well the playlist itself works. There’s something about this podcast that I’m not sure I like as much as the others, even though I like all the songs on it. I don’t know, let me know what you think. Perhaps Tears of Rage, Oasis and the Cranberries aren’t good enough songs to have all on the same podcast.
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01. Blur w. Francoise Hardy – To the End (03.33)
02. Oasis – Rocking Chair (10.54)
03. Bob Dylan & the Band – Tears of Rage (17.59)
04. Bob Dylan – Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (Live) (25.54)
05. The Band – Rockin’ Chair (29.17)
06. Lloyd Cole – Unhappy Song (37.59)
07. Hootie & the Blowfish – Sad Caper (48.40)
08. Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Shallow Grave (54.03)
09. Tom Waits – November (55.55)
10. Barenaked Ladies – The Old Apartment (63.26)
11. Ray’s Vast Basement – Black Cotton (68.33)
12. The Bluetones – Colorado Beetle (71.08)
13. The Boo Radleys – Almost Nearly There (79.35)
14. The Cranberries – Joe (87.07)
15. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – The Ballad of Robert Moore & Betty Coltrane (96.13)
Loving Blur w. Francoise Hardy – To the End check
Dylan check
The Band (The Last Waltz, anyone?) check
Buying CD Singles for B-sides check
Portable 2 Tape, CD Player (un-PC “w*gbox” is how they described them in the ironically racist student enclaves of Cardiff, ahem) check
Tom Waits vs. Nick Cave equal adoration vs. frequency played check
’tis getting scary, this dual life.
I was working in Forbidden Planet in the early ’90s when this journalist came in the store & asked me if I could advise her how she might get hold of The Boo Radleys for a feature. I told her that I had no fucking clue as to how to get hold of them along with the fact I hadn’t paid much attention to them so didn’t really know much about their music let alone their comings & goings. “oh,” she said “you looked like you might.” and promptly left the store. Never figured that one out.
Drunk “Count” ry
Indeed. The Cranberries were worldwide stadium-sized famous, but disappeared up the tantrum-happy arse of Dolores’ stadium-sized ego; whereas Catatonia were moderately tabloid-friendly famous in the UK & parts of Europe, untouchable (yet “down to earth” – The South Wales Echo) Royalty in Wales, but clarity & decent tunesmithery disappeared in a concrete-thick fog of Cerys’ alcohol & Class A frenzied lifestyle, which led to the total (working & social) relationship breakdown between her & the lead guitarist (& main songwriter) – moral: never fuck the help – that led to her making decisions like duetting with Tom Jones. & now she’s a divorcee slutting it up on I’m Available For Christmas Panto, But Watch As I Fanny Fart In This River, all botoxed up & pining after an ex-Soap Star adulterer.
I’m not sure who wins that one.
You haven’t answered the age question
Incidentally, it really made me laugh how Welsh you got when you did your show with t’other half.
Quite something, isn’t it? When the alcohol is ramped up to 4 bottles of (mixed colour) wine in 2 hours & you’re in the company of a lovely bagpus of a fellah, with an accent made out of cotton wool & Nerys Hughes, I automatically soak it up & regurgitate it entirely unconciously. I have a fucking annoying, uncontrollable ‘talent’ for picking up accents within minutes of being emersed in a sea of them. Almost got me lynched in Texas when a bunch of local oldsmobile/workwear denim owners took exception to the sudden appearance of a twang & enquired via the fat end of a pool cue if I was mocking their Southern ways… but, yes, the dormant accent does rear itself when suitably hammered.
Age = 36. Music Age = 19-22
I am musically older than 22. I don’t like Kate Nash, that Penate fellow or Scouting For Girls.
Ha! I meant MY 19-22yo (circa 1990-1994ish) & not necessarily what was about at that time, but what i was listening to, then (Waits, Beefheart, anything on Shimmy Disc, Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth, Coil, etc.). Fairly elitist fare, really, as my then lady once described it in a marvelous segue during a stand up row about working for the Civil Service (I was in the Welsh Office Export Dept. for 3 years, for shame).