Toadcast #192 – The Winecast
 Winecast because after soberly recording these on a Saturday afternoon for the last couple of years, I’m recording this after a bottle of wine on a Sunday evening for a change. So don’t expect coherence, but it honestly isn’t all that bad.
Mrs. Toad and I were down looking at the Port O’ Leith Motor Boat Club today, wondering if we might buy the place, move in and try and turn it into the kind of recording space and performance space we already try and use our house as. It’s a great building, but I am not entirely certain how popular a place in Newhaven might prove to be to Edinburgh people reluctant to go more than a block or two for their musicfunz.
Anyhewww, here we have another ten songs of unbelievable brilliance, for which you will no doubt be enormously grateful and umm *cough cough* well, you’re more than welcome.
Direct download: Toadcast #192 – The Winecast
01. Prize Pets – It Takes Time (00.09)
02. Ian Humberstone – House on the Hill (07.34)
03. Waiters – Tomorrowland (15.05)
04. Former Bullies – Golden Chains (20.21.)
05. Talvihorros – Beta (26.39)
06. Palms – Wolf (37.23)
07. Burning Yellows – Chopsticks (42.32)
08. Debutant – Yeah! Currahee! (51.00)
09. The Japanese War Effort – Dreaming of a New Labour (54.49)
10. King Creosote & John Hopkins – Bats in the Attic (Unravelled) (62.52)
…the Boatclub is a great space but Newhaven is weird. Having lived there for a few years I couldn’t wait to get out. It’s really not that far from the centre but it feels miles. The Newhaveners are a separate people – called something like ‘Bowtows’.
It’s pretty round there, though and getting a little busier. Plenty of buses. You could buy a boat, too…
Aye…about Newhaven. During my time at the mortuary, we had a lot of suicides down that way. Kinda ironic that the motif for the area is ‘Persevere’.
Well in all honesty we can’t really afford to do it this year anyway, so we are looking at maybe spending 2012 getting ready, planning and finding somewhere we like, and 2013 making it actually happen.
Fucking buy it. I’ll come, so you’ll have at least one punter. Newhaven was an active whaling port until 1963, which may not exactly swing it for you, but I rarely get a chance to trot out that bit local trivia.
Is it something to do with being sandwiched between Granton and the Fort that makes folk reluctant to venture down to Newhaven?
I’m partial to the odd pint at the Starbank, and my brother lived in Newhaven for years. Alien Rock seems to do quite well down there and the local pubs are pretty decent too.
We’re probably going to go and have a look at it either this week or next.
Love a bit of ambient. Very nice.
Re the performance space, I think it’s a great concept. As a destination however, I can say that in my 4 years as a student at Edinburgh, the edge of the Universe was pretty much New Town (north) and Bruntsfield (south). I remember seeing ‘Newhaven’ on the front of a lot of buses but never had the urge to go explore it.
Yeah, but there’s a lot more going on in Leith now than there ever was, meaning Newhaven isn’t quite as out of the way as it used to be. It’s still not exactly city centre though, you’re right, and we struggle to interest the students enough as it is.
Successful out of town destination venues?
The Cluny in Newcastle maybe.
Struggling a bit after that. Salford maybe?
Salford is a good call. The Leith-Edinburgh relationship is very similar to the Salford-Manchester one. Leith is a busy place these days, so it’s not totally crazy, but just far enough out that I would seriously second-guess it.
Bear in mind as well that we aren’t looking to start an actual venue at this point, just expand what we already do in the house, and hopefully take the chance to live somewhere really cool.
Nice out of town venue wouldn’t be a problem for me, but then I am used to travelling up to 90 minutes to go to gigs in Glasgow. So you’d have one more frequent guest to put in your business plan.
Really wanted to comment on Ian Humberstone, he reminds me of Bill Callahan (aka Smog) one of the reasons why I had to buy Ian’s song + the vinyl.