Toadcast #52 – Let’s Go
Well here we go. The new year is yet to quite take hold or take off, but I promise you that things will kick back into gear this weekend. There are some fine love shows appearing on the calendar, slowly but surely, and eventually 2009 will get going. No rush though.
This Toadcast is a bit of a mix. I’ve got some of this year’s favourites, I look back at some of last year’s favourites, and I also poke away at a couple of the bands I hope will make their mark in 2009.
In that sense, examining last year’s favourites makes a lot of sense. I’m always curious about how well our fads and fancies bear up to the passage of time. I’ve not been too fickle in recent years, which is sort of nice, so I don’t mind looking back like this. There aren’t too many embarrassments to be had, so it’s kind of nice to take the chance to look backwards, look forwards a little and generally just take the opportunity to pause for breath and enjoy the new year. As should you, toadlings, as should you. Happy new year, folks.
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. Bombadil – Cavaliers’ Har Hum (02.24)
02. Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta – The Ragged Garden of Your Eye (08.57)
03. Aidan John Moffat – The Boy That You Love (12.19)
04. Mitchell Museum – Extra Lives (18.11)
05. The Savings & Loan – The Virgin’s Lullaby (24.36)
06. The Builders & the Butchers – When it Rains (28.06)
07. Elvis Perkins – It’s Only Me (34.30)
08. Mother & the Addicts – Are Others (38.21)
09. The Pictish Trail – Winter Home Disco (46.27)
10. The Low Lows – Dear Flys, Love Spider (54.49)
Wow, although there doesn’t seem to be a single electric guitar in sight, the vocals on that Mitchell Museum tune really remind me of how Polvo sounded back in the mid-1990s, in particular on their Celebrate the New Dark Age EP.
I got in touch with Martin from the S&L back in the Spring of 2008 and bought a copy of the EP from him then (I think I heard one of the tunes on a Toadcast in fact), and I have to say that I think this record is going to make a huge impact when it comes out on S,bT Records. I’ll be very surprised if it doesn’t make many people’s Best of 2009 lists. With that record, along with Meursault and Eagleowl and the Builders and Butchers/Loch Lomond connection, I think you can hold your head high in the company of Fence, Bladen County, Ramseur and the rest.
When I saw TBaTB back in October Ryan said they’d probably be releasing a new record in February of this year, possibly on Fat Possum Records (which also handles A.A. Bondy). I also see from their myspace that they’ll be hitting the road heavily in February. Coincidence?
I’d forgotten just how good that Mother & The Addicts record is. All In The Mind is one of the best ‘side 1, song 1′ jolts in recent memory.
Don’t scare Matthew with your talk of electric guitars, C&B.
He’s confused and terrified by their witchcraft and sorcery.
Did you that Halofish CD arrive yet Dylan?
Actually, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to get a lot more electric guitar into my life. I’m digging out my Chameleons, Popguns, For Against, and early Catherine Wheel records as we speak, and it’s high time I gave a proper listen to that Pains of Being Pure At Heart record.
No, not yet, DC. Looking forward to it though.. It will probably be in my pigeon-hole on Monday.
Dylan: The production/sound is really ropey, it is a bootleg afterall, but under the squall you can hear just how fucking delicious their melodies are. No idea if a proper release is on the cards as apparently they’re anti-label or some shit, but on this evidence definitely worth catching live.
Well played. Keep up the good work!
right you crazy cats……you should all head up to Avalanche Records and sign up for there soon to emerge album club….you need to ask the nice guy behind the counter and he’ll let you put your name, address and email into the big book….the first member of the album club was a certain Mr Ian Rankin….i’m member no 12 if you care…..join and enjoy!!!!
mmm…’fine love shows’
He gets about thon Rankin boy.
Of course, the other reason to go to Avalanche is the nice fat pile of Meursault albums that they recently took delivery of…
Aidan Moffat rules. Not something I would ever have expected to like (scarred by memories of parental William Shatner and Tele Savalas spoken word albums from the 70′s perhaps) but he is brilliant.
Your parents enjoyed the awful William Shatner albums from the 1970s, did they, Mrs. Toad?
In that case, I take it they’re not fans of his quite wonderful Has Been album of a couple of years ago..
Nice selection – good work
wakey wakey
The latest Shatner record (Has Been) is an absolute gem! It’s hilarious (by design, unlike his 70s efforts) while at the same time beautifully, painfully honest; you’ll struggle to find a purer record anywhere…
Anyway, nice ‘cast; keep em comin’.xxx
So true, Tom. I was expecting to just have a good laugh at how terrible the album was and then chuck it in the bin… Then, as I was listening to it I found an myself experiencing a strange and quite unexpected reaction.
It was actually genuinely good.
The Lemon Jelly collaboration in particular is sublime.
I love that William Shatner album. Ideal Woman is a masterpiece, and I surely don’t need to say anything about his cover of Common People.