Song, by Toad

Part 1: 1-10
Part 2: 11-23
Part 3: 24-36
Part 4: 37-50

Now, I know I played nicey-nicey with the previous parts of this list, and it is certainly true to say that there is barely any real difference between places fourteen and twenty-eight, but at the business end I think that some of it is a bit more definite.  Certainly, having thought it over, I think that Now You Are Pregnant is my favourite song of the year.  How or why it edges out the superb Wonderful Life I couldn’t quite tell you, but I know it would feel wrong to have put them the other way round.

The other rather obvious point that needs to be made is that, of course, I have no objectivity left whatsoever as regards the Meursault album or any of the songs on it.  I didn’t have anything to do with making the thing, of course, but I’ve worked so closely with that album over the course of the last six months or so, since it became a part of Song, by Toad Records, that my relationship with it is totally different to anything else I’ve been listening to.  So I am being honest when I feature Meursault stuff so highly, I’m not lying to you of course, but there’s no way I could be objective anymore.

So here’s the final installment of the Toad Festive Fifty.  DC will be posting his Christmas extravaganza tomorrow, and that will be the last you hear of Toad for a few days.  In between Christmas and New Year I will be going through my album of the year countdown and trying to move Toad over the self-hosting in order to avoid the horrors of DMCA harrassment.  This way I can host the fucking thing in China if need be, and they can all just fuck off.  So Happy Christmas all, and we’ll try and get things up and running as normally as possible right after the changeover. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello You.

This Wednesday 24th December (Christmas Eve, naturellement), at or around abouts 10pm GMT (USA: 2pm PST + 3pm MST + 4pm CST + 5pm EST; Europe: 11pm CET), splashed all over the interwaves via the usual birdshit splatter pattern, for your listening consideration, will be The Waiting Room Christmas Eve 3hr Best Of 2008 Round-Up Show.

On this very (quite, in this case, literally) Eve we, one half of Drunk Country & The Woman of The House, will be dishing out thoughtfully considered Gold Guitar Pick of Excellence ‘Awards’* to the lucky Nominee(s) what is found to be the Best Of in their particular category.

It’s almost like a real end of year music award’s show but with less drinking & no Gallagher brothers.

Below, then, is the list of Categories & Nominees, 34 Artistes + 34 Songs. We have rather cruelly (although this is clearly a cynical attempt at injecting some tension into the proceedings) refrained from listing the Nominees in the last 2 Categories. Those will be revealed on the night. Mwah, I believe, Ha Ha, indeed, Ha.

So, there you go.  This took us AGES to compile from thousands of songs listened to & playlisted over the whole of this past year. *PHEW* just does not cut it. 2008 was simply awash with brilliance, surprises, genius & plain old breathtaking musicalisation. Oh, & singing.

The list, then:

Best “What The Fuck Was That?!”

1) Celebrity Chimp – Celebrity Chimp

2) The Just Joans – Hey Boy… You’re Oh So Sensitive

3) Aidan John Moffat – Cunts

4) Eagleowl – Motherfucker

5) The Theatre Fire – Coyote

6) Joe Rodger & The Velcro Quartet – Suddenly They Realised…

Best Cover Versions

1) Robin Grey – There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis (Kirsty MacColl cover)

2) Erlend Ropstad – 7 (Prince cover)

3) The Miserable Rich – Over & Over (Hot Chip cover)

4) Taken By Trees – Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns ‘n’ Roses cover)

Best Contenders for a Bond Theme

1) Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan – Come On Over (Turn Me On)

2) The Last Shadow Puppets – In My Room

3) Get Well Soon – You/Aurora/You/Seaside

4) Hour Of The Shipwreck – Unclouded Eyes

Best Emotional Blackmail

1) Porlolo – Turning On Heels

2) Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers – Beloved, We Have Expired

3) The Dø – Stay (Just A Little Bit More)

4) Meaghan Smith – 5 More Minutes

5) Ane Brun – Don’t Leave

6) Plants & Animals – Bye Bye Bye

Best Pound Down The Back of The Sofa

Nominees 1-8 = a big fat question mark

Best Song of 2008

Nominees 1-6 = a bigger, fatter question mark

The podcast will be available, as we say, sometime tomorrow around 10pm (we have very limited access where we are headed for the holidays, so bear with us).

It remains only for us to wish every one of you all the very best this Christmas holiday & to remind you that our 3hr New Year’s Eve 2008 Jukebox show will be on (just like the title reads) Wednesday 31st December, from 10pm-1am GMT. See the New Year in with us, why don’t you?  (Yah, fucking right…).

Thanks for tuning in & listening. It’s been a heck of a year.

MC & a HNY,

½DC + TWoTH

*when we say ‘Awards’, what we really mean is  we will email a picture of a solid Gold Guitar Pick of Excellence – we’re not that unhinged that we’d actually fork out for 6 solid gold plectrums. Jesus, no.

Part 1: 1-10
Part 2: 11-23
Part 3: 24-36
Patt 4: 37-50

And so we stumble on to the penultimate post in the countdown to the Toad’s favourite song of the year.  At this point the idea of some sort of hierarchy of love is becoming rather ridiculous.  Do I genuinely prefer Make Another Tree to Frankie’s Gun?  No, of course I don’t.  Do I really get more goose bumps or feel more lightheaded with glee when Out on the Water comes on the stereo, compared to, say, Restless?  No, not in the slightest so what am I going on, here?  Well I don’t know, it’s just a gut reaction I suppose, largely dependent on my mood at the time at which I finally turned a ‘bunch of songs’ into some sort of list.

So don’t take it too seriously, just enjoy that fact that there have been this many brilliant songs released this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s get straight to the point here people, I feel like shit, I have been passed out in bed since Friday evening and I am not getting up any time soon, so this might end up being the least comprehensive preview of Edinburgh’s gig calendar that I’ve written all year.  I have dragged my foetid carcass from its pit for half an hour to scribble this barely coherent couple of paragraphs and then I am going straight back there, and balls to the lot of you.  If anyone has any gigs they think I’ve missed a/ I’d hardly be at all fucking surprised and b/ I don’t give a shit either.  Just spam the comments to your hearts’ content and stop moaning.

Tuesday 23rd December 2008: Aberfeldy & The Gillyflowers at the Voodoo Rooms.
There’s another blog-turned-label in Edinburgh these days, and funnily enough neither Ed nor I had any idea of each other’s plans when we set our own machinations in motion. Well, Aberfeldy release Claire on Seventeen Seconds Records shortly, and this gig serves as something of a Christmas celebration.  I’d love to make it along, but I have my doubts.
Aberfeldy – Slow Me Down

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Thank you for taking the time to read what might just qualify as the worst post on Song, by Toad in years.  I’m going back to bed.  And I might watch Back to the Future.

Oh thank fuck it’s Christmas. Or, any holiday really. I am so fucking incredibly tired I could pitch face first on the tarmac and sleep for six months without so much as coming up for air.

I have been reading, with some amusement, the bickering over the religious nature of Christmas which seems to take place in the American press with monotonous regularity. Apparently the Christians are adamant that we remember the religious nature of a pagan festival, which seems a little odd considering that the Christianisation of Christmas itself was basically the Christian colonists’ acceptance that they could never defeat local pagan religions. So basically they adopted Yuletide and tried to wedge their amusing Biblical myths into a story that their conquered people would never give up, and then waited a few years for it to degrade into some sort of carnival of aquisitiveness which they could have a tantrum about.

So it’s a pagan festival which has turned into an unbridled celebration of Western consumerist greed… erm, which part of this came up in the Bible again?

Personally, as an atheist, I love Christmas. It’s got nothing to do with that Jeebus character, it’s closer akin to the the pagan celebration of light and life in the middle of the darkest part of the year. As a family we have always come together and spent peaceful time together at this time of year. We play music, we read books, we cook together, but above all we rest. We get together and enjoy one another’s company. Mrs. Toad and I will, this year, be doing nothing more than snuggling up on the couch and wasting time. And that time wasting together is oddly one of the most important things you can do to forge a strong relationship. Just taking time to be together and enjoy one another’s company is, after the year we’ve had, going to be a rare treat, and one which I intend to enjoy immensely.

Toadcast #51 – The Yulecast

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01. Yo La Tengo – On Our Way to Fall (03.12)
02. Tom Waits – Soldier’s Things (07.21)
03. Pale Young Gentlemen – We Will Meet (15.23)
04. The Felice Brothers – Greatest Show on Earth (19.15)
05. Eels – Beautiful Freak (27.27)
06. Clem Snide – The Dairy Queen (35.25)
07. Bob Dylan – Tangled Up in Blue (43.13)
08. A.A. Bondy – Black Rain, Black Rain (48.45)
09. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Brompton Oratory (54.19)
10. Sufjan Stevens – Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother (60.06)

Brilliant.  In today’s fucking inevitable shitfest of the fucking week, it seems that I am coming down with a nasty flu just in time to go on holiday.  My malingering mistress Mrs. Toad has had the indulgence of missing an entire week of work, only to return to health just in time for two weeks off, the bloody chancer.  I, on the other hand, find myself brewing her particularly virulent brand of flu just in time to ruin my two week break.  Minge.

We’ve neglected to really do any Christmas shopping as yet, but we actually have a tree for the first time since we’ve been together and trees sort of demand presents, so despite the fact that we generally don’t bother we may actually make an exception this year, if just to avoid being stared down by a stupid fucking fir tree draped in tat.

On the subject of presents, actually, a friend of mine asked a question once that rather amused me.  You know those Americans who insist on pronouncing presentation as if it were written preesentation?  Well what do they give each other at Christmas, preesents?

And, just to be even more crap, I have a festive joke for you as well, and what a special one it is:
Q: How did Luke Skywalker know what his dad was getting him for Christmas?
A: He felt his presents!

And oh how we laughed.  So welcome to Friday Fives again, and please do take the opportunity to delurk and save us from ourselves.  And anyone who wants to suggest next week’s five, email me at the address on the contact page.  Enjoy, and happy Christmas.

1. Favourite comment of the year on Song, by Toad.
2. At what time do you hit the pub today?
3. What’s the state of your Christmas shopping?
4. What will be the defining sin of your Christmas, sloth, gluttony, covetousness, or something else?
5. What percentage of your Christmas holiday will actually be your own, to do with as you please?

Phil Ochs – No Christmas in Kentucky Thanks DC.

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Tom Lehrer – A Christmas Carol

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Tom Waits – Silent Night/Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis (Live)

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Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Cold White Christmas

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Willard Grant Conspiracy – Christmas in Nevada

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Part 1: 1-10
Part 2: 11-23
Part 3: 24-36
Part 4: 37-50

The next installment of late year list-o-rama brings us up to date with the first half of the Toad Festive Fifty. Slightly more, in fact, because I’m gearing up for a top ten, so I’ve cheated slightly on numbers here are there. For those of you who want to make your own lists, see this post for the rules, and get stuck in. The more who take part the better.

One of the things that struck me with this part of the list is the inclusion of a song from the Broken Records Toad Session. Basically, Broken Records would be all over this list, apart from the fact that they were all over last year’s list, as submitted to the Contrast Podcast, and all the songs they released this year are songs I knew from last year. So instead of where they belong, on this year’s list, they are on last year’s list. Later on there are also songs by bands which were released last year, I’m pretty sure, it’s just that I only discovered them this year.

So as well as not being in rigid Order of Toadly Merit they aren’t even in accurate chronological order either. Ah well. You’ll live. Read the rest of this entry »

‘iya, as my Kairdiff accented friend would say; only me.

Here it is, then. The last show before the last show before Christmas. Hasn’t the year simply zipped?

To assist the remainder of 2008 pass through you like last week’s Chinese takeout omlette, re-heated using only the breath of a cider-drunk Deutscher Schäferhund, this week’s offal will be spat out in the same manner as you coming across a crust of dead flies stuck to the bottom of a glass of home-made lemonade mid-swallow.

As per, then, I & TWoTH will stain the airwaves with jibber jabber not heard since Brendan Fraser, the actor, was asked to explain ‘irony’ during a press conference for his broken bottle rape of the celluloid artform via the medium of “Monkeybone”.

Once you’ve recovered from that delightful triple image donkey punch you’ll be able to tuck into such aural delights as: The Great Lake Swimmers, Delta Spirit, Ane Brun, The Thermals, Mitchell Museum, Bosque Brown, SoKo, The Strange Boys, The Duchess & The Duke, Meaghan Smith, Lex Land, Lindi Ortega, Mercy Choir, & the Spanish Inquisition that are the many, many more.

Thanks are due, once again, to Mr. Toad for allowing us to park our wide load in his driveway. Plus a big nod, elaborately crossed arms & a suck on the teeth stance to all of youse out there in listeningland what are coming back week on week. Ta very, muchly appreciated, thanks.

We don’t yet have a plan for our Christmas Eve show, but the New Year’s Eve 3hr bonanza will essentially be a run down of our favourite bits of musicary we’ve played throughout 2008. We’re hoping to feature a number of our friends (The Lord Dog Dylan, being one), between each track, talking about whatever comes to mind.

But that’s the almost immediate future. The very immediate future is pretty much right about now. Click on, then, fair fellows, click on.

The Waiting Room: 10th December 2008

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Part 1: 1-10
Part 2: 11-23
Part 3: 24-36
Part 4: 37-50

Here is the official beginning of Christmas List season, here at Song, by Toad. If you want to get involved and write your own list, then please do. Go here for more details. The more of you that contribute to that the better the results we will get, so don’t be shy.

This is the first quarter of my Festive Fifty for 2008. I will also be preparing a list of my twenty favourite albums, but I might just neglect singles and EPs this time around. If you disagree with anything then do get stuck in, but bear in mind that this is far from a definitive ranking. Ask me on another day and Pictish’s brilliant I Don’t Know Where to Begin could easily be in the top five. Ask me in four months’ time and it would probably be all-change again. Read the rest of this entry »

He doesn’t half make enigmatic little records, Mr. Rob St. John.  I’ve had a copy of this in my possession for a couple of months now but it seems to take me ages to quite come to terms with where I think the beating heart of this recording actually lies.  Previous release Tipping In also baffled me for a while: much like this my favourite songs seemed to change with every listen, and my impression of the core of the recording shifted similarly.

Funnily enough, even though I think Tipping In was a better pop record, in the sense that it had more obvious, immediate hooks, I might be starting to think that this is nevertheless the superior piece of work.  Would it be fair to suggest that, while on Tipping In he sounded a bit like James Yorkston, here he sounds very much like himself.

Having seen him play live, where he’s wielding an electric guitar these days and singing with real conviction, it seems to me that Rob has hit his stride.  This EP is spookier than his previous, and there’s an underlying tension to it which jousts subtly with the beauty he achieved so easily on Tipping In.  It may not be as lovable, and this may be why I took so long to review the EP in the first place, but I would say that this is perhaps the more satisfying record if you give it the time it needs to sink in.

Rob St. John – Paper Ships

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Buy from Rob’s MySpace