BUT DON’T WORRY!  After last week there will be no surprise eighties bonanza, just good old whinging indie pish, as you’ve probably come to expect these days.

After the radio show there will be a bite to eat, and then a slow slide into oblivion as I go from Collar Up, Sparrow & the Workshop and Meursault at Cabaret Voltaire to the Gerry Loves Records Christmas Party at the Banshee Labyrinth.  It might get messy.

On air from 3:30pm UK time – listen live here.

Also, yesterday I dropped off some Toad merch at a new Christmas popup shop on St Leonard’s Street, in the Studio 203 Gallery.  If you’re heading out of town past the Pleasance, it’s a couple of hundred metres further out, opposite the Lismore Rugby Club, and there’s a map here, if that doesn’t ring any bells.

Normally an arts studio, I believe, the gallery is now full of all sorts of really nice handmade bits and pieces, as well as releases from some of Scotland’s best independent labels, in the music room through the back.  Well worth a visit, I reckon.

Anyhow, in the meantime, delurk, come out of hiding, bother your arses and complete this Friday’s five stupid questions:

1. Have you put any thought into your top albums/songs/etc lists for 2011 yet?
2. At what date is Christmas officially allowed to start being mentioned, in your view?
3. Next film you’re likely to see.
4. Favourite thing to do with snow.
5. Artistic skill you would learn if you had the time/inclination/talent.

And again, as per usual, the playlist for the radio show will appear below once we go live at around half three this afternoon.

1. The Fall – Two Librans
2. Liars – Scissor
3. Deerhunter – Nothing Ever Happened
4. Washed Out – Eyes Be Closed
5. Collar Up – The Boatman
6. Spook School – Are You Who You Think You Are?
7. Jetskis – Moonlight Kawasaki Ride
8. Quiet Americans – Summer House
9. Dead Rabbits – Make Me Believe
10. Robin Grey – The Hackney Gentrification Song
11. Video Thrills – Sports Park USA
12. Trapped in Kansas – Happiness is an Allegory, Sadness a Story

Anthony from God Don’t Like It has decided to call it a day, and as a salute to the years of excellent work, he has decided to make the posters from his gig nights down in London available to purchase, on nice heavy paper.  Sort of as a souvenir from the old days for those of us who had the pleasure of working with him, or for those of us who just like pretty posters.

The one above – from a gig next week, if you look closely – is amongst the available ones, and for Song, by Toad Records fans there is a Meursault one in there too.  James Kirkup, the fellow who designed them, has a gallery of the posters available up on his own website if you fancy taking a look.  If you want any, just send money to Anthony via Paypal at the following address: anthony@goddontlikeit.com with a note of which posters you’d like – £7.50 a piece, plus £1.50 for postage.

For those of you who don’t know Anthony, it’s probably fair to say the man is a fucking loon.  But he is a lovely loon.  A bit like myself, he probably comes across a little overbearing at first, but that doesn’t last, and it has been a genuine pleasure working with him as well as just hanging out over the last couple of years.

I first got to know Anthony because he really, really wanted to do the PR for Meursault’s All Creatures Will Make Merry.  We chose GDLI because Neil from the band told me that Anthony had been to every single one of their London gigs, and more than anything else I wanted to work with someone I could trust to give a shit. Anthony gives a shit.

Since then we’ve shared a good few beers, got drunk and played loud music in our living room far too late and just generally had fun, so I am really disappointed that he’s packing it in.  Also, on a personal note, he was never afraid to tell me when I was talking bollocks and slagging off someone who was actually really nice, and therefore to shut the fuck up.  And I like that in a person.

Anthony has a series of farewell shows booked in London towards the end of December, but the one I am attending will be the Rob St. John/Neil Pennycook one in the poster above.  If anyone fancies coming along too, that would be nice.

[This is long and about politics. Don't bother reading it if you don't like ranting.]

A lot like the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, I feel I have to express my admiration and support for those on strike yesterday.  The ‘hit to the economy’ is of course one we should all be happy to bear as it is done far more in the national interest than the utterly pointless hit the economy faced because two entirely run-of-the-mill rich people decided to get married earlier in the year.

Now, there are of course very good arguments about why pensions need to be reformed. It reminds me of the argument about school fees in that respect.  For anyone who thinks university should be free for all, you have to at least address the fact that since we collectively decided it should be free there has been a vast increase in the percentage of the population wanting to go to university.  So if it should be free for everyone, how are we going to fund an order of magnitude rise in the cost? Similarly with pensions: given how much longer we are all living at the moment, if we want to give people a reasonable government pension, we are going to have to find a lot of money from somewhere.

These are all valid questions, no matter how far to the left you lean.  Of course, ‘maybe the rich could pay some fucking tax for a change’ is a pretty reasonable answer, but that is only one small part of the wider problem. The question should also be posed as to why, if we have a hole in our budget, is it once again the people at the lower end of the income scale who are being asked to patch it up? But we’re really in no position to answer that because the fundamental problem we are facing today is that democracy has ceased to function in any meaningful way, and we have to fix it. Read the rest of this entry »

If you know me at all (and after nearly 3000 posts over seven years you fucking well should do by now) then you will know that I am not one to post novelty seasonal music.  In fact, the one benefit of the approach of Christmas is that, a little like during SXSW and CMJ, a quick scan of the subject line in the avalanche of emails I have to wade through every day tells me that a splendidly high number contain Christmas music and can thus be happily deleted without so much as the burden of having to read them.

Not that I don’t enjoy sifting through new music, but I hate my inbox, mostly because it fills me with guilt.

I also get a little irritated with bloggers who seem to forgo any desire to contribute to the world around these times and just slap up any old novelty song which may or may not have some sort of tangential relevance to the event at hand.  St. Patrick’s Day is bad for this too.  And as much as I love In the New Year by The Walkmen, if I post it in the first week of January please just fucking punch me in the face.

This, however, is a little different.  Mostly, because it’s awesome fun, but also because it is verging on the sacrilegious and would probably make the little baby Jebus cry.

When the kindergarten arm of Christianity pisses and moans about the War on Christmas they always seem to focus on the wrong targets.  Surely the biggest offence to the true meaning of Christmas is not whether or not someone wishes you Happy Holidays, Happy Christmas or Happy Hannukah (Happy Kwanzaa is a fucking offence against human dignity though, I’ll give you that), rather the rampant and voracious consumerism we are all harangued into at this time of the year.  And, of course, Away in a Manger by Louis Barabbas & the Bedlam Six. This song should in fact be the marching song of the secular battalions in the War on Christmas from now on.  Someone make it so!