The Waiting Room & Toadcast #23½ – The Freshcast
You all know I’ve been doing a regular slot on DC’s radio show, The Waiting Room, of late, don’t you? Well this week’s slot saw me picking a track by Sky Larkin, as well as three wonderful songs from the splendid Happy Realease Records from darn sarf*. I may have been a little rude about their sound actually, but it was inadvertent. I was trying to head off the criticism from indie snobs – What? Who? None of those round here, surely? – about the fact that they are just plain enjoyable indie-pop for the most part, and ended up implying that I thought they were lightweight. The Genius of Tact strikes again. I should teach courses in this shit.
Anyway, swing by The Waiting Room to download this and past episodes, and Error FM to see what sort of crazy fools agree to put this sort of rubbish on the airwaves. The, er, internet airwaves. Interwav… oh never mind, you know what I mean.
The Waiting Room, Wednesday 12th March 2008
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* Darn sarf, for my non-British readers, is the phonetic spelling for how a cockney might pronounce the words ‘down South’. Which is where they are from. Yes, I know, hilarious wasn’t it.
And here’s a sneaky little bonus podcast from myself:
Toadcast #23½ – The Freshcast
A week or so ago, I recorded a demo show for Fresh Air FM, the local student radio station, with a view to applying for a slot during next term, only the computer ate the bastard thing. Fucking technology. Anyhow, Sunday was Mrs. Toad’s birthday, and for some reason she was keen to get plastered and do a podcast with me, so we re-did it together. It wasn’t played quite as straight as I’d hoped, and by the time I’d had time to reflect on submitting it I was pretty certain Fresh Air would chase me out of the building with sticks. Fortunately for me, however, they didn’t hate it, didn’t seem to think I was a smart-arsed twat and didn’t dispatch me from the building with a boot print in my arse.
As this show is just a pre-record and will be going out randomly over the night when they stop broadcasting, I thought I’d pop it up here for you to have a listen. I won’t be doing this with any more Fresh Air things because, well, you need to go over there and listen for yourselves really, don’t you. But for this once I thought you might like it seeing as you shower of treacherous fuckers all seem to love Mrs. Toad so very bloody much. Be warned though, because it was made for a different audience, so there may be a bit of duplication from previous podcasts, and it’s rather long, as apparently there is a lot of time to fill overnight when there are no presenters in the building.
The Fresh Air plugs themselves were enough to see us kicked out.
Toadcast #23½ – The Freshcast
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01. Shout Out Louds – Tonight I Have to Leave It (03.09)
02. The Shaky Hands – Whales Sing (06.41)
03. The Cave Singers – Thinking of Heaven (13.05)
04. Preston School of Industry – Straits of Magellan (17.23)
05. Adam Balbo – Talkin’ Bush (27.11)
06. Donnan Linkz feat. Baje One of Junk Science – The N Word (29.18)
07. Riff-Raff – Romford Girls (36.44)
08. The Pogues – Dirty Old Town (38.58)
09. Nicole Atkins – Neptune City (46.44)
10. Edith Piaf – Elle Frequentait la Rue Pigalle (50.11)
11. Dusty Springfield – You Don’t Own Me (53.34)
12. AA Bondy – Vice Rag (59.12)
13. Relatively Clean Rivers – Hello Sunshine (68.09)
14. The Eighteenth Day of May – Lady Margaret (71.05)
15. Celebrity Chimp – Pornstar (81.27)
16. Nightjar – Poor Man’s Son (84.01)
17. Ravens & Chimes – General Lafayette, You Are Not Alone! (93.03)
18. Eels – Love of the Loveless (95.59)
19. Glasvegas – It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry (106.49)
20. Flashguns – St. George (111.01)
21. Elle S’Appelle – Little Flame (123.09)
22. Elk City – Cherries in the Snow (125.58)
23. The Low Miffs – Also Sprach Shareholder (130.41)
Probably a bit public, this request, but have you been sent the Broken Records single promo? I ask because it’s got a really good new to me song on the B-side called Lessons Never Learnt (the A is If The News…) that I might otherwise throw up on the blog at the weekend.
Haha, no I haven’t actually been sent a promo copy. How did you score that one then? That makes me laugh, honestly it does. I got an email from their new promo person recently saying ‘Hey, there’s this really great band called Broken Records that I think you’d be into. Would you consider blogging about them?’. I tried so hard, and managed not to be extremely sarcastic in return, but it was pretty funny.
130 minutes! Good God, do you need a lozenge? When Vice Rag came on my 4-year-old came bursting into the room yelling “We’ve got this!” Good stuff. He also thinks that the A.A. Bondy song “Lovers Waltz” is about Pirates of the Caribbean: “Round and round Will Turner ’til the end.”
Not to intrude, but funnily enough, I also got an e-mail from the Broken Records’ publicist asking about whether I’d do a blog post. Her e-mail said she’s be checking for responses every ten seconds or something ridiculous, and when I responded positively, she never wrote back. Fuckin’ A.
P.S. I like the Cockney accent.
Surely, “Darn Sarf” is now “Darn Sarf Innit”. Do keep up with the programme Sweaty.
Sweaty? I showered this morning. Did you mean Sweetie?
China, I think the old publicity person might not be the same as the one publicising the single, as she was on board before the XL Records deal to release If the News… I think. I’m not entirely certain though.
“Will Turner ’til the end” is priceless!
Sorry you didn’t get a promo cd Mr Toad. I’ll have the culprits roundly whipped on your behalf!
PS – did you get those tracks I sent you?
I did indeed, and I will be reading out the reasons for your choice during the session. And don’t worry about the promo CD. I am a born-again vinylista so I’ll just grab a copy at the launch or some time like that.
Well what do you know, I was talking to Bart and he said that the weird smiley guy who seems to appear at gigs on his own has his own blog.
I’ve finally succumbed to the powers of procrastination and discovered this wee gem.
It makes me happy to know that there are people who say they are promoting the underdogs of the music scene and oh! Are actually doing it. Without kiss-ass either.
Dave Berman be the name that left your mind. Silver Jews be his band. They fuckin rock. Would be a worthwhile investigation for you, I’m sure.
Clarissa (eagleowler and part-time sandwich-maker)
Weird smiley guy? That ginger fucker’s in trouble the next time I see him. BAAAART!
Anyway, cheers Clarissa. Looking forward to the gig next week – I’ll come and say hello.
Forgot to respond – no, I got the CD through Young Turks/XL and have escaped the unsolicited email of the desperate. Because If The News… is still downloadable on my year in preview compilation I won’t post the B-side because that’d just then be putting up their whole forthcoming single for free, but I’ll YouSendIt over if you want.
Well I think they want to play both of those tracks for their Toad Session today, so I should be okay. The launch party’s over here in a month or so, so I’ll pick up the vinyl then. Did I say Toad Session? I’m SO FUCKING EXCITED IT’S RIDICULOUS!!!
Session? Today? Green with envy!!
Swing by, mate. We’re going to be in Banana Row Studios (and then the pub next door) in Canonmills. Just Google it and you’ll find the directions. After all, it was your DiS piece that did more than anything to get them noticed in the big wide world.
Willo The Wisp.
Characters included: Arthur the caterpillar, Mavis Cruet (a plump fairy with dodgy magical abilities), Evil Edna (a witch in the form of a walking, talking television set who zapped people with her aerial), Carwash (the Noel Cowardesque cat), The Moog (stupid mental dog), & The Beast (who was a dopey prince bfore Edna transfomred him into a hairy, dopey creature).