Toadcast #18 – The Homecast
Well you know how I said I wasn’t so convinced by Toadcast #17? Well it proved somewhat prophetic, although that prophesy may have been somewhat self-fulfilling of course. It’s one of my least downloaded podcasts for ages, but this one should sort that out. There’s some genuinely excellent music on here, although most of it is pretty obscure. There’s no Arcade Fire or anything to pull in the punters, bar a bit of The Magnetic Fields, but a really good selection of new and emerging music nevertheless.
And why the Homecast? Well that’s obvious of course: we’re back in our house at long last and I recorded this from my massive old lab bench that doubles as a desk and music centre all at once. It’s fucking brilliant – I really should take a picture and post it for you so you can see. The bench is 2.75m long, so I have computer and stuff at one end, stereo equipment at the other and a couple of good sized speakers either side. A music anorak’s paradise!
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
01. Aidan John Moffat – Eureka Springs (Edit) (00.00)
02. 4 or 5 Magicians – Forever on the Edge (02.30)
03. Flashguns – St. George (07.53)
04. George Pringle – Carte Postale (13.52)
05. Dusty Springfield – You Don’t Own Me (16.59)
06. Destroyer – Foam Hands (21.55)
07. Howlies – Aluminum Baseball Bat (28.44)
08. The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir – Aspidestra (38.36)
09. Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Leftovers (40.48)
10. Ruth Theodore – Overexpanding (49.22)
11. Akron/Family – Ed is a Portal (55.28)
12. Victor Borge – Phonetic Puncutation (63.22)
13. Josiah Wordsworth – Drive-by Media (70.23)
14. King of Prussia – Spain in the Summertime (74.44)
15. The Magnetic Fields – Threeway (83.07)
16. The Forms – Knowledge in Hand (87.44)
17. Howlies – Smoke (90.14)
18. The Beat – Mirror in the Bathroom (95.38)
19. Found – When You Fall (102.09)
Well hello there…and blimey that was a long podcast! It’s the first I have downloaded from here and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it
)
You sound like a very nice chap (I feel I have to use such words when you sound so quintessentially British…I can’t believe you actually say “old fellow”!).
I have many comments to make on what I have just listened to, amongst them:
I, too, don’t listen to much music that other people consider ‘party music’, and have beentold that the predominant genre of my music collection is ‘depressing’…something I dispute wholeheartedly, not that it gets me anywhere! Good call on the Dusty Springfield track, by the way.
I liked Johnny Flynn…or at least what I heard of him here. Sounded a bit old school…Kink-ish or something like that (I am terrible at comparisons and putting my finger on things!). Nice harmonica too.
I also find Kate Nash “fucking irritating”. And, coincidentally, also compared-but-didn’t-compare someone to her. Have you heard Laura Sings Liver yet? Really very good.
I also enjoyed Akron/Family, who I have thus far always avoided due to the silly moniker, and the fact it reminds me of Crazy Frog (Akon wasn’t it?). Having heard this, however, I think I may well check them out further…job done, well done you!
It is refreshing to see something that is not just another list of ‘quirky’ Christmas songs or year end best of list…well, that is, until I got far enough into the podcast to hear that you would, indeed, be joining in on all that malarkey…I’m sick of it already!
Well, that’s about it…except to add that, pleasingly, your podcast was immediately followed, in my iTunes, which I left playing, but Sonic Youth’s cover of Superstar and then Sonny Boy Williamson with Fattening Frogs For Snakes and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee with Scremin’ and Cryin’ Blues. Good stuff
) I had forgotten how good that Sonic Youth track was, so thank you for that!
Pleased to make your acquaintance,
Divinyl.x
Thanks such a lot for the positive comments. Funnily enough, as well as ruining it all by posting Best of 2007 lists, I actually have a Christmas song to write about as well. It’s a bit bloody depressing, but a great, great song, so I think it really has to go up.
Well, I’ve gone through this bad boy twice now. Yesterday and then again on the train this morning (only got through the first half or so but I’ll listen to the second half on the way home). It’s got to be one of your best.
Flashguns are superb, as are Howlies. I’ll have you know, by the by, that the Howlies’ pronunciation AND spelling of AluminUM (rather than aluminium) has been formally approved by means of a 1993 resolution of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC, the “Periodic Table of the Elements” People). They’ve also approved the North American Cesium (the Canadians do it too) as an acceptable alternative to the British Caesium. So put that in your pipe and smoke it!
This whole US versus rest of the world bit reminds me of the classic Simpsons episode where the family travels to Australia and finds that the American embassy has installed this huge machine that causes the water to flush down the toilet counterclockwise, “the correct American way.”
Akron/Family is really quite good. “Love Is Simple” was uneven, but with incredibly high points. For example, “There’s So Many Colors” has a tremendous refrain with a top-notch guitar bit that’s very evocative of mid-70s Crazy Horse. Love that tune.
The Forms’ tune is great. I’ll have to check that out. Thanks for the nod for Scotland Yard Gospel Choir, and sorry for the recent absences. Can’t wait to see (and hear) your year-end lists. I’m a sucker for those things.
I had no idea the spelling had been made official as well. Jesus wept. It’s weird, even when writing about Donny Hue & the Colors, who are an American band, I find it nigh on impossible to refrain from spelling Colours the English way, which is just stupid. That’s not their name, Colors is. But I can barely force myself to write Colors, just like I can barely force myself to call a song Aluminum Baseball Bat out loud.
still at uni! and will be until i drink myself away.
At uni in Manchester, is that right? Well next time I come down to visit my Granddad you can point me in the way of some fine underground gig.
uni in London then i’m just back in Manchester for holidays.
you’ve got a fine voice. and i’m sure you’ve heard it before but the drawings are fantastic. planning on doing a podcast and this is my first stop in research. kudos friend.
Brendan thanks very much. My computer’s been on the blink for so long now I am absolutely itching to do my next. Hopefully this weekend – fingers crossed. Let me know when you do yours too, as I really like the Rising Storm Mixtapes.
Did the first one. Hope you check it out some time. http://therisingstorm.net/rock/podcast
Thank you so much for playing our music alongside such great bands, and thank you for your kind words and super-cooled podcast.
We are getting ready to go out to L.A. at the end of this month and record an album with legendary producer/mad-genius Kim Fowley. If we survive, we’ll make sure to get a copy of our first full length to you. It will be out in late summer-early fall.
Hoping this comment finds you and all yours doing well,
Matt/Howlie