Friday is Not a Superstar DJ, it is a Very Naughty Boy
Yes, this weekend I am a superstar DJ, or at least I get to kid myself that I am one. Apart from full-on dancey, mixey, beat-matching stuff (and even then I have my doubts) I have never thought of DJing as much of a skill, I have to confess. As I said in the comments section of a thread discussing this ages ago, however, if it’s possible to do it badly, which it clearly is, then it must be a skill. Still, irrespective of not really knowing what I am doing, and the dubious merits of my presence to everyone else, someone like me is always going to enjoy forcing their music taste on other people and that is exactly what I am going to do: relax, get pickled on gin, and play a lot of tunes.
First a Cabaret Voltaire tonight as part of the excellent Oxjam Take Over Edinburgh night (which will sadly prevent me getting to see lots of bands I would like to see, but there you go). I might play more raucous stuff at this one – the situation seems to call for it, what with Friday night drinking and so on. The the following day I am popping down to the Bowery to play some tunes at MarchéMarché, a craft fair which will have some live music and things going on as well, and generally sounds like a lovely day.
Other than that, my friend Andrew is visiting from London this weekend, which is excellent. I remember from living in London that it’s all too easy to expect people in the provinces to come to you, albeit for no better reason that laziness. Mind you, if you had to make an hour’s journey just to have a pint with a mate then you’d bloody well expect other people to make an effort, I suppose, wouldn’t you. In any case, Andrew and Natalie aren’t really like that because they’ve come to see us twice since we’ve been here, which is more than anyone else from down there. London: about twelve million people; Scotland: about six. Weird, when you think of it.
So here we are once again, at the end of a very talkative week on Song, by Toad. But it’s not all about the big-mouths remember, Friday is as ever a de-lurking amnesty and a chance for the quiet people who just potter by and marvel at the madness to get involved themselves and see just how much of an embarrassment they can make of themselves. Let’s face it, the rest of us are pretty good at that already. And remember, Fives first, then pish, not the other way around.
1. If you were a DJ, what would be the most inappropriate song you would like to play and the most inopportune moment?
2. Song for your funeral.
3. Song you’d like to sneak onto the record player at your worst enemy’s funeral, just to ruin it.
4. Name a fantasy cover version you’d love to hear.
5. Name a fantasy duet you’d love to hear.
And here, after all the moaning I’ve done about cover songs this week, are some covers I really like, for various reasons:
The Gourds – Gin & Juice (This may be the best cover of all time.)
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Hawksley Workman – Bankrobber (Just weird, but good.)
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The Specials – Guns of Navarone
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The Dead Kennedys – Viva Las Vegas
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1. If you were a DJ, what would be the most inappropriate song you would like to play and the most inopportune moment?
this at Toads Xmas house party
2. Song for your funeral.
Halloween Head – Ryan Adams
3. Song you’d like to sneak onto the record player at your worst enemy’s funeral, just to ruin it.
There she goes my beautiful world Nick Cave, to some Bill Bailey look alike bitch that i know!
4. Name a fantasy cover version you’d love to hear.
Jimi Hendrix covering the Whilte Stripes
5. Name a fantasy duet you’d love to hear.
Karen Carpenter and Beth Ditto
Great 5 – they’re hard though!
1. Advance Australia Fair
2. Something by Sigur Ros. ‘Staralfur’ or ‘Glosoli’ or ‘Festival’.
3. Highway To Hell – AC/DC
4 & 5
Cher and Dolly Parton: Polyester Girl (Regurgitator Cover)
“I love your plastic hair and plastic eyes
marvel at your plastic breasts and plastic thighs”
1. Anything 70’s folkish, such as Skip Spence, at about 1:30 in the morning.
2. I’d start out with really nice instrumental music, and then – at an extremely touching and climactic moment – Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head by Englebert Humperdink just to pick everyone up and give them hope for the future.
3. I don’t really have a worst enemy, but I would consider sneaking into my best friend’s funeral and playing ‘Your Body is a Wonderland’ by John Mayer to piss her off even in death.
4. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis doing a version of ‘The Banks of the Ohio’
5. I have no contemporary opinion on this, so I’ll go old school: Bing Crosby and Julie London. That might be really nice.
4.
What the hell is that extra 4? Damn iPhone anyway.
Matthew, when do I get my very own little picture? I wrote a review and everything. Surely that warrants at least a solid color!
Yes. I want a picture too. Make it happen Toady.
1. Fuck All! by Atari Teenage Riot at a trance party, just as everyone is feeling really delicate because the drugs are starting to wear off.
2. Blur – This Is a Low
3. The Prodigy – Breathe
4. Dirty Three – Aerodynamic (Daft Punk)
5. Fever Ray & David Bowie
Did you see that Fever Ray cover of ‘Stranger Than Kindness’? It’s appropriately freaky
1. I requested Pump up the Jam at my friend’s wedding last year. But only because my friend loves it and I wanted to see her dancing like an idiot in her wedding dress
2. Republica – Ready to Go… I imagine!
3. I’d put on Nick Cave’s ‘Sweetheart Come’ because it is potentially a beautiful sentiment, but then I’d sit and giggle at the fact it sounds like ‘sweet hot cum’!
4. I can’t think of an answer for this one…
5. Neil Meursault and Scott Frabbit – wait, is that happening? No it isn’t, not for me, because I am stuck in effing Glasgow effing working!!! Why Friday???
Dianna – I’m going to dress Pablo up as a DJ for Halloween!
there’s a Fever Ray cd/download in this Saturday’s Guardian
Shonagh, you’re going to giggle at your own funeral? How very inappropriate. And creepy.
He’s already got a costume. He’s the cat reincarnation of Dracula – complete with bloodlust!
hawksley is a legend – incredible vocals (truly an instrument in itself)
you have to listen to “puppy (a boy’s truly rough” (esp good sunday morning, beautiful you and the woman is the water’) and “my little toothless beauties” (esp in my guilt, in my fear, complicated man and the emptiness surprises me)
I fall into the lurker category…. Here goes nothing.
1) Road to Hell (Chris Rea) as first dance at a wedding reception.
2) Cherbourg – “Shine” (“My heart will just shine into the dark.”) and Meursault – “William Henry Miller Pt.1″ (Bury me face down…”)
3) Perhaps some Analcunt might go down a treat?
4) and 5) Dave Alexander and Jeff Buckley doing a mournful acoustic version of Neil Young, “Old Man.”
xxx
Did you see that Fever Ray cover of ‘Stranger Than Kindness’? It’s appropriately freaky
Yes, it is so good.
there’s a Fever Ray cd/download in this Saturday’s Guardian
We don’t get the Guardian here in Darkest Africa. Though we do get the Daily Express, oddly enough.
1)The Macarana at the end of any cool indie disco, just to see the look in their eyes
2) Mr E’s Beautiful Blues
3) Chico Time
4) Bob Marley singing ‘Doesn’t make it Alright’
5)Kate Bush and Florence Welch
bit of childrens influence this week, bloody half term. Green Day in London tonight oh woohoo
1. I once played the Rocky theme tune just after a fight had calmed down in the pub I was playing in, it amused me highly, although it probably wasn’t the best idea I have ever had.
2. Been saying for years now that I’d like Cartwheels by the Reindeer Section, not quite sure why, but that’s what I want
3. Burn, Baby Burn by Ash
4. I’d love to see Neutral Milk Hotel covering Frightened Rabbit, I can dream
5. Peter Andre and Jordan, purely for shits and giggles
right, that’s me heading back to anonymity,
till next time over & out
peenko
1) Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up.
2) Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt 1.
3) Anal Cunt – Even Though You’re Culture Oppresses Women, You Sill Suck You Fucking Towelhead.
4) Biffy Clyro doing Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac.
Wait a second…
5) Neil from Meursault and Scott from Frabbit.
Are you just rubbing it in Daniel? Nasty!
Dianna, you are the wrong way round – although giggling through one’s own funeral sounds kind of fun…
NO! It looks doubtful that I can make it either.
It’s pretty much a wet dream of mines..
In that case i am relieved for both of them that you can’t make it!
Proph, solid picks. Kudos.
1. 99 problems by Jay Z for the first dance at somebody’s wedding.
2. Alive by Pearl Jam.
3. Worst Enemy?? What era are we living in Matthew?
4. I don’t like covers
5. Matthew and Dylan singing I Feel Pretty from West Side Story.
1. Mother of Christ by Alice Donut, at the end of a child’s first communion party.
2. Here Today by The Chameleons.
3. Push The Little Daisies by Ween.
4. I’d like to hear Loverboy’s When Its Over performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
5. Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross’s Endless Love, performed by Tom Waits and Antony Hegarty.
1. ‘Funeral Pyre’ by The Jam at the wedding of a really naff couple. Or ‘We Are All Prostitutes’ by The Pop Group.
2. ‘The Ship Song’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
3. ‘Celebration’ by Kool and The Gang.
4. David Bowie’s ‘Look Back In Anger’ done by Nick Cave or The Cure.
5. ‘When You’re Gone’ by Bryan Adams and Mel C as sung by Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. For amusement rather than aesthetic value, obviously…
3. ‘Celebration’ by Kool and The Gang.
I can’t believe I didn’t think of that sooner, or anyone that else did, actually.
1. The Elements Song by Tom Lehrer.
2. Tim, I Wish You Were Born A Girl by of Montreal.
3. No Children by The Mountain Goats. Bitch.
4. I’d like to hear Sonic Youth do a cover of the Carpenters ‘Superstar’. Wait…..
5. Michael Jackson and Eminem.
Haha, shit you’re right Shon! I’ll just have to giggle at your funeral for you… Wait…
3. ‘Celebration’ by Kool and The Gang.
I honestly can’t think of anyone I hate so much that I’d subject their funeral to this song.
1. On the subject of Tom Lehrer how about National Brotherhood Week at a Bar Mitzvah? “Oh the Catholics hate the Protestants/ and the Protestants hate the Catholics/ and the Hindus hate the Muslims/ and everybody hate the Jews…”
Or perhaps Little Animal the first time you meet your girlfriend’s parents, hoping that they don’t notice that the first line is “My girl is a little animal/ she always wants to fuck”
2. Notes From the Waiting Room by Willard Grant Conspiracy if I were feeling maudlin, but more likely something like The Magnetic Fields singing The Dead Only Quickly Decay, just for shits and giggles.
3. Worms by the Pogues: irreverant and a total anti-climax – double win!
4. Perhaps Frances Magic Tricks singing something by a lady warbler who thinks she can really sing. Just to show her that she can’t (the warbler, not Frances).
5. Jamie from Broken Records threatened to get Jill Sparrow singing on one of their songs on tour. I can’t remember which one it was now, maybe They All Fell Into the Sea. Now that I would love to hear.
Oh, and sorry I’m so late everyone. Good work though, I have to say.
1. If you were a DJ, what would be the most inappropriate song you would like to play and the most inopportune moment?
How about Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon’s ‘Will The Fetus Be Aborted’ at a shotgun wedding? Sing along, everyone!
2. Song for your funeral
‘Death Is Not the End’? Or maybe ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ – I want everyone greetin’.
3. Song you’d like to sneak onto the record player at your worst enemy’s funeral, just to ruin it.
Worst enemy? Um, I’d have to go back to Primary 2 for one. She’d get ‘Shaddup You Face’ by Joe Dolce on repeat. The bitch.
4. Name a fantasy cover version you’d love to hear.
I’d like Tom Waits to cover Five’s ‘Get On Up’.
5. Name a fantasy duet you’d love to hear.
Islands in The Stream with me and Kenny Rogers. I’d show that Dolly a thing or two.
6.30 on a Friday and I’m still stuck at work. Dont ever let me catch any fucker saying public sector workers get it easy…
Good luck all weekend Matthew. Sorry I cant come through and heckle.
1 Morrissey Rides A Cockhorse – The Warlock Pinchers at a Smiths appreciation event or Hang Me Good – Porch Song Anthology at a Joy Division/New Order tribute night
2. A Change Is Gonna Come – Sam Cooke
3. It’s About Time – Evan Dando/Lemoheads
4. I’m Too Sexy – Meursault
5. You Dont Bring me Flowers – Toad and Tart
I
fuckme JC, you’ve now got me convinced you have a cupboard full of Matthew/Tart fan fiction! which does make me a bit queasy but also laugh!
1. If you were a DJ, what would be the most inappropriate song you would like to play and the most inopportune moment? Billy Bragg, “The Short Answer” he can’t sing and nobody can dance to anything he writes, so just about any time is ok to play this.
2. Song for your funeral. Elliott Smith, “Independence Day”
3. Song you’d like to sneak onto the record player at your worst enemy’s funeral, just to ruin it. I have enemies? Hmmm…. maybe I’d just hang a xerox copy of something in a museum or something (inside joke! just kidding!!!)
4. Name a fantasy cover version you’d love to hear. Samantha Crain doing Withered Hand’s “For The Maudlin”
5. Name a fantasy duet you’d love to hear. J. Tillman and a young Joni Mitchell or someone like that.
3. ‘Celebration’ by Kool and The Gang.
I honestly can’t think of anyone I hate so much that I’d subject their funeral to this song.
Anotherdave – you are clearly a better person than I am, I can think of loads…
1. At a wedding, ‘Band of Gold’ by Freda Payne
2. It’s nothing to do with me, the dead don’t care.
3. Bill Hicks telling people in advertising to kill themselves, just in case there were any there to give it a go.
4. I heard the Pogues singing Maggie Mae live years and years ago and it was one of the very best things ever, I’d like to hear that again.
5. Almost any big fuck of showman and Chris Lowe, just to bring him down to size.
Off. Off off off off off off off off off
1) Advice for Your Mothers – The Veils, at a Christening.
2) Your Emotions – The Dead Kennedy’s.
3) Don’t Stop Believing – Journey
4) I’ll Be Seeing You – The Sparrow and the Workshop
5) Emma Peel and John Steed. How did those two kids never get together?
1. Love Makes The World Go Round by the Powerpuff Girls. The Nickelodeon version of the Smurfs, singing what is quite possibly one of the sweetest indie pop songs of all time. Ripping guitar solo too..
2. Boo Hoo by Park Attack
3. Hm. Maybe the same answer to 2, it would probably ruin mine.
4. Gay Against You covering Donna Summer, I Feel Love.
5. Uffie and Frank Sinatra. Mebbe..
1. If you were a DJ, what would be the most inappropriate song you would like to play and the most inopportune moment?
I’d Like To Teach The World to Sing at the Deaf School annual disco. How cruel do you want me to get? I can go worse than that.
2. Song for your funeral.
Welcome to the Jungle. I’m definitely going to hell if there is one so why not rock out a bit on the way.
3. Song you’d like to sneak onto the record player at your worst enemy’s funeral, just to ruin it.
Angels by Robbie Williams. Probably seems appropriate to many of the congregation but is unutterably shit. I don’t have a worst enemy though, just know a lot of people who are wasting good oxygen.
4. Name a fantasy cover version you’d love to hear.
Motorhead covering Wannabe by the Spice Girls
5. Name a fantasy duet you’d love to hear.
TuPac and Frank Sinatra. This is not only possible but probable given their respective record labels’ determination to keep mining that back catalogue.
1)I have been a DJ off and on, and once played Roy Orbison to a crowd of indie dance hipster types, and it really seemed to piss them off.
2)Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead
3)This
4)Scott Walker – Rhinestone Cowboy
5)Miki Berenyi from Lush & Ritzy from The Joy Formidable