Five Festival Farkleberries
So, good people of the internets, this Friday I am going to be getting mind-meltingly bladdered at my works night out from about lunch time today, so my comments might go downhill even more sharply than usual this afternoon. Fortunately, it won’t be the teeth-grindingly awful teambuilding nonsense implied by that picture because basically my work are a bunch of total pissants. So it will be drunken mayhem, which will be far better. We even have two new people to torment, which will be splendid. Mwaah hah haaa! Actually, we’ll probably all be far too drunk to give them a hard time, but it’s the thought that counts.
For those of you who are interested, this weekend’s plans include sorting out most of the Found Toad Session, DJing at this excellent gig on Sunday and doing the Toad Records accounting so that we can pay Meursault the vast sums of money their godlike genius requires.
Also, I may masturbate and eat some pickled onions.
Not at the same time.
Why why does it always get to past two o’clock in the morning and I am still fucking awake and doing shit? Fucking hell that’s annoying. I’m soooo sleepy too, but I just can’t seem to get to bed at a normal time, it’s ridiculous.
Mrs. Toad and I had our anniversary this week – three years. We first met in 1991, so we’ve taken our time. I celebrated by going out with my mates, getting pished and breathing beer on her at two in the morning. I’m a fucking great husband, I am. She celebrated by forgetting about it and wishing me happy anniversary this morning – a day late. So it’s safe to say we don’t take this stuff that seriously in our house. It’s still nice to think about though.
DE-LURK! Please! Honestly, the voices are starting to get to me, please jump in and say hello. Friday is de-lurking day. I promise you Chutters won’t be boorish, Dylan won’t be pretentious, DC won’t be needlessly verbose and Euan won’t be sulky. I can’t promise you Bart won’t be funny though. Five yourselves all to pieces, people.
1. Work social events – good, bad or indifferent?
2. Do you like your baths scalding, warmish or cool?
3. Have you ever heard a better dismissal of a whole musical genre than ‘ethnic sex music’?
4. Favourite kind of fruit.
5. Best ever mix tape you made.
This week’s five songs are all from a mix I made for my brother… bloody years ago, I’m not quite sure when.
Snow Patrol – Fifteen Minutes Old
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Lionrock – Straight at Yer Head
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The Divine Comedy – Thrillseeker
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1. Don’t like because I tend to get far too drunk far too quickly and end up in bed far too early. It’s ridiculous. Show some stamina, man.
2. Scalding to begin with, but cool almost immediately after that.
3. No. That wins.
4. Plums which are still unripe enough to be very, very tart.
5. I’ve made so many, but one of my very favourites was a C60 for heading off in my 1977 yellow Mercedes 200 at university. It started off with the James Bond theme and just got better after that.
1. Free booze usually ensures they turn out better than expected.
2. Baths haven’t been the same for me since John Peel died. I only take showers now.
3. Dismassal? I love ethnic sex music and I don’t even know what it is yet!
4. Banana, mashed on hot buttered toast with peanut butter.
5. I did some great ones for a couple of mates in sixth form that got copied and passed around. I just numbered them in turn from one to six as I made them. Five was the best, although Two was pretty damn good.
Ooh! She will be pleased that you like her plums!
Ooh, this is early..
1. Mostly good, depending on alcohol intake, and I sympathise with the stamina problems, I think my record was a couple of Christmases ago when I had to go home for a tactical nap at about 4-30 (pm).
2. hot hot hot. Although I too am more of a shower person.
3. No
4. Ripe mangos. Although I have recently discovered the joys of pear and stilton sandwiches.
5. Ooh, we got a mixtape swap thing going for a band’s messageboarders on last year’s tour, I did a Scottish one, mostly of the folks on here, thinking about it, for greater disemmination of said folks’ music. Have you thought of doing a swap box at a SBT event at all?
1. Meh. I’m a teacher.
2. Scalding. Though my current house doesn’t have a bath. I haven’t had a bath in years.
3. Who, pray tell, was granted such a lofty description?
4. Mangoes. Avocados. Cherries. Strawberries.
5. A cassette tape I made for the bus trip to camp in year 7. Awesome then…abysmal now.
1. meh
2. I shower.
3. Ethnic Sex Music? Is that Harlem’s soundtrack to a rape?
4. Lychee
5. Now That’s What I Call Music 1. It had Duran Duran’s Is There Something I Should Know?, Will Powers’ Kissing With Confidence, Howard Jones’ New Song & The Cure’s Lovecats.
Mixtape swap box! Genius idea.
Tomorrow night!
1. Generally good, but definitely depends on the quality of the colleagues.
2. Start half-full and cool to warmish, then fill the rest to piping hot when you’re already in. Kind of like cooking lobster.
3. Not off the top of my head.
4. Grapes. But only if they’ve been pressed and fermented first.
5. Being country folk me and my school mates would have to take it in turns as designated drivers on nights out during 6th year and uni holidays, so between us we came up with just the sort of ludicrous compilations you really need to hear driving home after a heavy night in the pub. I can’t remember exactly who came up with what but there was definitely some Spandau Ballet ‘Gold’, ‘Come on Eileen’, ‘Star Trekkin’ and no tape was complete without ‘November Rain’ on it! Someone even managed to put together a cult TV theme one which included such classics as Flight of the Condor, Ulysses (that crap cartoon in space) and McGyver (the best theme tune ever written). Halcyon Days.
Great opening credits to that! Nearly as good as Thundercats – but a better theme!
1. Generally good
2. I very rarely take a bath, but when I do it has to be scalding hot
3. Where can I find some of this ethnic sex music?
4. Mangoes with yoghurt, but I’m defos going to try Dylan’s peanut butter combo
5. To be fair, they’re all really good.
1. Brilliant! I’m a teacher and my Head Teacher is an absolute pisshead so we have frequent bonding activities with free booze. The best one is the annual drunk 5-a-side tournament.
2. Hot but not enough to make me dizzy.
3. No.
4. Nectarines.
5. When I bought my first car I made a tape for driving to and from school placements. The first track was Foxy Lady. Genius.
1 – Work nights out. Always fucking ABYSMAL.
2 – Bath temperature. Scalding. Showers too. I have an abundance of hair and need excessive convection to get warm.
3 – Ethnic Sex Music – no.
4 – Favourite kind of fruit. Tomatoes. As they effectively infiltrate the world of vegetables in a secret agent type way. Conversely, sweetcorn also. Who infiltrate the world of fruits with their sweety goodness.
5 – Best mix tape – dont know. But worst one would have to be a mix tape of my early musings on guitar and “singing” as a 14 year old TIT. To be fair, not much has changed.
Ian should get some sort of Bart’s Beard of Gold Award for consistently excellent answers to the Friday Fives.
1) Can be great. A particular favourite of mine ended up being search at Cube in Glasgow. Always good.
2) Hot, but scolding may be a bit much (weirdly I kinda enjoy a cool shower but anyway…)
3) No. Next shit death metal record that turns up in the post I’ll have a go.
4)Oranges. Only good ones mind which seem few and far between
5)I made a few for a holiday to Malta with uni friends in 2004. Went down very well and got passed around so much I decided to make a blog and put mixtapes on it. That’s gone ok…
1. Good when you’re younger, as there was that slight chance that you could cop off with. Now that I’m OLD, they tend to suck baws, as I’m married and most of the folk i work with are mentalists.
2. I get bored too easily, showers all the way
3. No, but that is fucking genuis.
Reminds me of th teimt my my and maunt were discussing what kind of music i liked, having filed to listen to each other my aunt though I was into bangra music, as my mum had sadi indie and rock, but my aunt heard that as Indian Rock.
I guess you had to be there.
4. Pineapple, yum
5. Until about 6 months ago i still had a tape deck in my car. Now I have a CD player which doesn’t work. I’d love my old tape deck back. Made too many mix tapes to remember, one of my greatest featured the theme from the Kiora advert “I’ll be your dog, etc”
ps mixtape swapthon, I like that idea, keeping it old school
1. Bad. Very very bad.
2. Warm. With lots of Mr. Matey. (That didn’t sound as wrong in my head.)
3. No. Although I once read the words ‘post-jazz’ used to describe a band. I mean, really. Do we need post-jazz? Wasn’t jazz enough?
4. Snozberry.
5. I’m pretty good at mix tapes. Not sure if I have a favorite. The trouble I find, though, is that the person that receives it – no matter who it is – almost certainly won’t enjoy it as much as you do.
And much as I’d like there to be a Bart’s Beard of Gold award, I could never condone such flagrant use of Guns N’ Roses.
1. Do you mean the ones where your colleagues bring their kids and you play rounders in the park, or the ones where you get pissed, insult your boss, snog a colleague and forget all the really interesting stuff? Sorry, what was the question?
2. I’m happy with the preferences of the person that I’m sharing with.
3. No.
4. Polish cherries bought through the window of a train.
5. Made lots in the eighties; there always had to be a Comsat Angels track.
Bart’s Golden Beard of Excellence?
Aww, shucks. But seriously, I’ve got to stand by November Rain despite it being absolute nonsense!
Also – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ4c1X5ene8
It’s like Daft Punk doing 80′s soft rock power ballads!
And just for a bit of 3 post mentalism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbkG6Za6w5s
Sorry Bart.
MENTALISM!
It’s just out of control on here today.
Guns ‘n’ Roses? High quality? Are they sure?
Mrs. Toad will love you for your work here today, Ian.
I aim to please and antagonise in equal measure!
1. Usually pretty good, providing I Are Scientist and myself can avoid our big boss for long enough that we don’t end up having to discuss the Arcade Fire and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah with him for the entire evening. I was once the creator of lots of office based gossip and it seems that turned out surprisingly well a couple of years down the line. Even if he had hidden his love of 80s power ballads and slight Asperger’s tendencies until well after the initial gossip creation.
2. Scalding with Radox, unless I’ve been running, and then cool. But still with Radox.
3. Has somebody been to Womad? Eurgh.
4. Raspberries.
5. I have a hilarious red tape called “Anger” from my teenage years with lots of early Idlewild, 3CR, Symposium and stuff on (For fact fans, that was also the best Radio 1 stage line up at Leeds festival ever). I rediscovered that a while ago and it was pretty special. I made lots of great car tapes when I still owned Jeff the Yaris (sniff!). But the best tape ever was actually given to me by my friend Ebony, as it had that weird metal dwarf on it right next to Prince and some bonkers industrial techno. Alwasy kept me smiling on the long drives home from Yorkshire.
1. I work in a pub – it’s just one big social event.
2. Not a huge fan, but I did once have a bath so hot that I got palpitations, which was interesting.
3. Seeing as no one else could come up with an answer to that better than Matthew’s, I’m not even going to try
4. Bananas and all berries
5. Don’t know, but I am with Bart, you make them, get all excited and proud of yourself but the reaction never quite matches you expectations.
1. Good. Best ever was when a colleague got completely caned, collapsed, was sent home in a taxi (so we thought), turned up 3 hours later covered in mud, told everyone they were c*nts, demolished a table of booze, disappeared again and was arrested by the police at 5 in the morning for sleeping in a gutter. He now doesn’t really booze anymore. Fact.
2. Baths – warmish, and they’re brilliant after a really muddy wintery game of 11s footy. Otherwise it’s showers all the way for me.
3. Can’t beat that, it sounds amazing.
4. Bananas, although Canteloupe Melons come a close second.
5. Best mix tape ever was the one that secured my future wife – I think it could be described as containing lots of ethnic sex music on it, now that I think about it. I still have it in my car on minidisc. Why I decided a minidisc car stereo was a good idea I don’t know. It turned out to be folly.
1. The closest I’ve ever been to a work function was the big boss saying “You guy’s'll lock up when you leave right?” as he was on his way out the door with the entire rest of the staff, leaving me and another spotty temp to prat about on the internet for half an hour.
2. Shower, hot.
3. “Ooh, my pussy hurts, men make my pussy hurt!” – Our Glourious Leader on female folk ballads in one of the Toadcasts.
4. Anything fresh – mango’s a favourite. Tinned black cherries are also pretty good.
5. Not sure I ever managed anything that would qualify as “best”.
Right up until the part about giving up booze, I thought that was going to turn out to be me.
1. Only good if the booze is free and you work with pissheads.
2. Scalding, so I look like a lobster getting out.
3. Not a scooby, sounds fun though.
4. Strawberries, freshly picked by me
5. Dylan makes the best mix tapes ever. FACT. Seriously most of my music collection when I was growing up was either stolen from Dylan or mixed by him. When me and my Essex-girl pals went on holiday he did a series of mixes to span our evening, getting ready, drinking, going out and of course, one for when we got home absolutely trollied. He’s a damn good brother all in all.
Sometime lurker, second-time poster.
1. Team nights out good, general office nights out not so much. Colleagues who get their annual ‘green card’ for the evening and feel they have to make the most of it by getting pished on two shandies, dancing badly and signing along to everything…
2. I don’t have baths anymore (showers seem better), but I do remember coming home as a kid after a glorious day’s sledging and even a lukewarm bath would seem like torture.
3. In all honesty, no. Although I was reminded recently of a classic dismissal of Jet: “Jet are both good and original. Unfortunately their good material is not original and their original material is not good.” Can’t remember which publication was responsible.
4. Pineapple rings. Preferably in the form of an ‘upside-down-cake’.
5. Best mix tape I made was one for myself as a kid – not trying to trying to namedrop Alex Chilton in there (yeah, because who’s impressed by that, right?), just trying to make my paper round pass quicker. Whenever an album ran over onto the other side of a cassette, I’d use the last song on the album as the first song of a compilation on the b-side. I do remember that my copy of ‘August and Everything After’ had a great run of stuff on the other side – Alice In Chains ‘Don’t Follow’, Soundgarden’s ‘The Day I Tried To Live’, Gin Blossom’s ‘Allison Road’, Pearl Jam’s ‘Yellow Ledbetter’, The Who ‘Baba O’Reilly’, REM ‘Country Feedback’. It was the Borders in 1994 and I had a long paper round.
SIGNING along to everything? Actually, that would be quite funny.
1. All the above, i had 2 xmas do’s last year, at the first a girl spat sambuca into my mouth, at the second, i was saying goodbye to everyone and kissing people on the cheek and stuff, when one lass bit my lip!!!
2. Warm to hot
3. ‘it’s no better than Meursault’ or whatever band you want to put in the place of Meursault.
4. a guy called Marcus
5. one for an ex girlfriend, it rocked….if i give you a mix tape then it means i wanna nail you…..whilst typing this i realised that in the recent past i’ve giving a mix tape type things to both Euan and Bart in the recent past….hello boys!!!
Hi Tom.
This just got weird.
Bart’s picture doesn’t help.
“Ooh, my pussy hurts, men make my pussy hurt!”
This is very funny, especially when coming out of the mouth of Mr Toad (I’m assuming he is the glorious leader), and used as a genre of music. By quite some distance, it’s better than “ethnic sex music”.
Oh yes, Big Boss (as described by Becky) is actually all right, but feels the need to meet and mingle with His People at the twice-yearly social (we’re scientists; any more than this sends us giddy). I don’t actually recall the AF/CYHSY conversation (so I must have been having a good night), but I do recall him telling me (at some length) about how he’d seen the 101ers in London back in ye day.
And I’ve just had a proustian rush at the though of pineapple upside down cake. Everyone knows the best thing to do with fruit is put it in a cake after all..
And is it wrong of me to be craving a gin & tonic already?
It’s 3 o’clock on a Friday scientist – you are like 3 hours behind us all!
“My pussy huuuurts” music is definitely a very grim sort of music indeed.
My brother came up with that one and my missus bloody loves it.
Payday pubday here you come Scientist! In fact, have you gone already…I haven’t seen you in a while?!
I wish!!!
i wish all the time….they never come to fruition tho
Hello, de-lurking here…
1. Work social events? Bad.
2. Warmish, topped off with 5-10 seconds of scalding.
3. Nope.
4. It’s a toss-up between granny smith apples and freshly picked strawberries.
5. It was called ‘The F-Bomb Mix.’ In retrospect, it was a rather poor attempt at youthful rebellion. Putting together a mix of songs with the ‘f-bomb’ so I could sing along, shouting ‘fuck’ at the top of my lungs. In my car. Where nobody would actually hear me.
1)Bloody marvellous things, drink heavily and leave early ..never fails
2) Never been the same since the cine camera was removed in 1973
3)Britpop would probably spell the end for any current band… as in That Meursault lot are just ‘britpop at heart’ scary eh.
4)I’m with the Oranges answer and they are nearly always rubbish now compared to the whopping juicy ones we had in the old days
5)I made a C90 mix tape for use at the birth of our first child…can’t take any risks with music tastes. After a 28 hour labour we very nearly smashed it too smithereens…I think putting The Passenger on there probably wasn’t a good idea in hindsight.
Now I have the Passenger stuck in my head. A Friday gin and tonic might just sort that out, though.
1. I used to work in a garage and the nights out were v dull affairs as they were all car nuts and would drive to the pub. But I now work with people who like a pint Hurrarh for archaeology.
2. Don’t do baths but a good hot shower will do for me
3. I am always amused by the term cock rock ! although ESM sounds zzzzzz
4. Banana in a sarnie with peanut butter mmmmm m
5. Used to do lots of tapes, mainly for driving to but also for friends. I have been unable to thow any of them out so now have lots of tapes with bad 80′s punk stuff on!!
Yes it should be done for a toad night (although the mix tape can be a mix cd).
British Sea Power organised a CD Mixtape swap at the Tan Hill Gig last year. After Sparrow and the Workshop and the magnificent BSP it was the highlight of the weekend.
4 new bands discovered Float On….that was the name on the CD not a weird 1970′s declaration of joy.
1. indifferent, at best, except when I worked in Fopp and they were quite good. About the only job when we didn’t end up talking shop, ironically.
2. warmish
3. I still think MOR is pretty damning, smacking as it does of Bland bland blandzzzz
4. Apples, though six months ago I would have said bananas
5. My car tape, which includes Stereolab, Yo La Tengo, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, M.I.A, ESG and Aretha Franklin. All from vinyl and made in…2006. Seriously. My Polo was registered in December 2004 and fitted with a tape player.
(oh, and 17 seconds will be back and up and running when someone finally takes responsibility for messing up my IP).
Academic social events are excruiating and make one reconsider the ivory tower as a place of employment and consider it’s place in history as torture chamber.
Baths are gifts from the divine and proof of god’s love for us no matter the temperature.
I’m quite enamored of the “pussy hurts” genre I must say, although you must have seen that comming
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (what can I say? You all bring out the best in me! GIYF if you’re too young to get the lovely reference to my autobiography)
mixtapes are fucking difficult to make and yes, bring the most pleasure to the maker. But I do take a bit of pride in my latest one wherein I managed to tickle the fancy of not only the recipient but also his guest whom I also adore by including a rather rare and unknown track by one of their favorite artists
still brings a smile to my face to think I’ve pleased them a bit, silly tart that I am! xoxo
Seen. That. Coming.
Tart wins.
Love you so much, darlin xoxo
1. Bad, I got in a fight the last one I attended. They were all cunts though, so…
2. Warmish, I hate the feeling of a sweart bath.
3. Probably, but my mind is a blur today and devoid of inspiration.
4. Not sure, I really like most fruit. Erm, pineapple, maybe.
5. Was for a girl names Lynsey I went out with in secondary school. It had a good cover.
‘sweart’? How on Earth did that happen? I meant sweaty, obviously.
1. Splendid. I’ve been working in my current school for nine years so I now know who keeps booze in their classroom for the morning of the last day of term party day, who is likely to skip off at break for a swift half or so, and who to team up with to walk around at the end of the do finishing off all of the half empty glasses left on the tables. The problem is remembering to take a clean shirt in with me in the morning to change into after I’m sick all over what I’m wearing, and anybody else who happens to be near me on the train.
2. So hot that you have to run cold in and stand right under the cold tap to avoid serious injury – a monkey bath, yeah?
3. Anything with ‘post’ at the front of it.
4. Cherries, peaches (nicer than nectarines, fuzzy, mmmm). most things, really.
5. I like my ‘first one for years’ from about 1993 which I blogged around this time last year, a song a post for a month or so, although there was one from 1999/2000ish which I made three versions of over three successive nights in order to get it just right. It was one of ‘those’ mixtapes. It didn’t work.
Tim, in Scottish you could well be called a ‘swearty bastart’ and that would actually work, on these shores.
I know it’s not Friday anymore, but I’m catching up, so sue me:
1. I’m a teacher; work social events are a bit desperate, really, and who wants to hang out with a bunch of people whose primary claim to their vocation includes a) a desire to spend oodles of time with zit-faced teen and b) a tendency to believe that people care what you have to say, and c) a honed ability to blather on about what something means.
2. Scalding, but I stay in them until they’re warmish.
3. No, but then, having just come from a folk festival where the newest thing was “chambergrass”, which a friend dismissed before he even heard any as “classical music for old hippies”, my whole sense of dismissal is a bit skewed.
4. Grapes. It’s like Mitch Hedberg said about rice: sometimes, you just want a thousand of something.
5. Best mixtape ever: I once tried to fit 50 songs on a ninety minute cassette tape. Took bloody forever, and the girl didn’t seem to care much for it; guess nerd-dom wasn’t cool yet then. Also the most frustrating thing to listen to ever.
I know what you mean about cramming songs onto mixtapes, Boyhowdy.
It was years before I realised the song Chewbacca by Supernova was more than about a minute long, after a mate had included an – ahem! – edited version to use up the last couple of inches of a tape he did for me..