Whilst up in Fife at Homegame this year pretty much everyone crashed on the floor of the two cottages Mrs. Toad and I rented in Pittenweem, and this is also where we all ended up retreating to finish off the day’s drinking after the pubs of Anstruther finally got sick of all the folkies and closed their doors.

My old pal DC from the Waiting Room had intended to get a quick interview with Neil from Meursault all weekend, but they never quite managed to make it happen, unfortunately.  Consequently DC had to settle for a couple of songs performed at the end of Sunday evening in the cottage after everyone had spent the best part of the day pouring beer down their gullets.

These videos and the accompanying mp3s may be just a tiny little bit shonky, but they are rather funny and do give you something of an idea of the weekend .  For those who were there, this particular evening turned into something of a carnival of offensive and spectacularly inappropriate humour, pretty much all of which I’ve edited out.  Sorry people, but it’s best for everyone this way.  The only way to find out just how bad it got is to come next year.

The episode of the Waiting Room on which these recordings appear, and which includes the overall wrap-up of Homegame in general, can be found here.

Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt.1 – Waiting Room Session (The ‘Dylan Gives Everyone the Clap’ Version)

Meursault – Hard On – Waiting Room Session (Charles Latham Cover)

Howdy folks & apologies for (a) busting in on Mr. Toad’s podcast post, & (b) being late. Again. There’s a very good reason for that, namely I’ve been busting my orbs getting stuff & nonsense sorted out ready for our new station premiere — which, frustratingly, I still can’t say anything about.  All I can say is it’s happening very soon indeed.

One of the things I’ve been doing, sleeplessly, for the past week, is giving TWRHQ a bit of a tart up creating & adding new graphics, links, & building an entirely new add on site (TWR 2.0) that hosts all our interviews & sessions.  Finally, long after a number of people asked for it, you can now listen to/download all the individual interviews, minus the rest of the shows they were originally docked within, that we have conducted on the show.

To this week’s blather, then:  chatter-wise it’s the standard tongue wobbble you’ve come to expect. Musically you have my permission to delight in The Peasantry, One Two One Twos, The Phantom Band, The Leisure Society, The Miserable Rich, Osso, Oh Land, The Spring Standards, Darren Hayman & The Secondary Modern, Shenandoah Davis, Hey Rosetta!, Timber Timbre & a picnic hamper chock full of many, many more.

Enbloodyjoy.

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 11th February

Mary Mother of Jesus up a pole. The nightmare continues.

This week’s well on time (as in assembled & ready) show was marred only by DCHQ’s onboard navigational equipment. During the process of uploading the podfile to this here podpage the hard drive of the studio computer had a fit & went to sleep. Then it wouldn’t wake up. Why won’t you wake up Mr. Drive? we sobbed. But he never did say, for he were asleep.

Turns out we’d fragged something pretty major in the configuration some time ago (something to do with me pissing about in the System files & deleting suspected virus strains) & over time/use Mr. Drive slowly grew sleepier & sleepier until he could keep his eyes open no more. Unfortunately that meant the show was stuck fast in the dreams of the comatose Mr. Drive. Boo! Hiss!

Optimistically I remotely sent out the usual promo emails, in the very tentative hope all would be well in advance of broadcast time, but Mr. Drive was away in slumber land right through to earlier today (Friday).

T’was only the intervention of a paid for tech-type what saved the day; said paid for tech-type splashed water on Mr. Drive’s face, snapped smelling salts under Mr. Drive’s nose, & planted a smacker on Mr. Drive’s lips (like in Snow White, but hornier). Slowly, but Shirley, Mr. Drive opened one eye, then the other, blinked, yawned (not unlike Bagpuss), stretched & said his first words for almost 60hrs: Windows is in Safe Mode. “Yay!” shrieked the children from the village. A few bowls of TWoTH’s hot broth & a Jeremy Kyle boxset in bed later & Mr. Drive was raring to go. Although, he was very upset he’d missed all the snow.

On which happy note brings us to here — yet another apology laden late posting of another week’s show. I’m beginning to suspect our soon to happen debut on our soon to be announced new radio station will be bum funned by technology before we even breathe an opening on air sigh of relief.

Chase cut towards, then, we present this time around the very likenesses of: Luminescent Orchestrii, A Camp, Symfoniokestern, Rosi Golan, The Welcome Wagon, Clem Snide, Andrew Bird, The Fine Arts Showcase, Meursault, Birdie Busch, Theresa Andersson, Timber Timbre & the extremely pleased to meet you many more.

Shush, now, then; there’s been enough stalling for one episode…

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 4th February

Oops!  Sorry we’re late.  Thankfully, we’re not pregnant.

What a couple of tech-fart heavy days.  Firstly, the show we done prepared/recorded for Wednesday 29th done got killed dead by our glitch-ridden editing software (now retired & replaced) as we were transferring it from one format to another. Gone, it were, plain old gone. To compensate & salvage some professional pride we put the show back to Saturday 31st in order to allow room to breathe & re-record the entire thing (essentially a re-record of the pre-record).

Secondly, we took it as a given that the show was all uploaded & ready to air, via an auto-post for 10pm Saturday 31st, so we turned the computer off & took a much needed relax/sleep.   Imagine our aghastness, then, when today, late afternoon, Sunday 1st February, we discovered the damn auto-pilot had (again) failed to launch.  Buggeration.

Thirdly, we forgot to bloody write the post for this here site – jetlag, see. A contemporary middleclass disease, I’ll have you know.

This, then, is a re-write of the re-write of the original post for the original show.

The above promo art may give you some clue as to what is included in this week’s outing (albeit via the now expected cryptic variant of direct marketing what we employ); ½DC (not at all) fresh from yet another Stateside jaunt goes into some gobsmacking detail about the continuing (mis-)adventures of his erstwhile American counterpart, Ed, whilst boarding under the same roof for almost 2 weeks.  Let’s just say you’re lucky he’s here, alive, presenting the show for you today.

Music, then, comes from the likes of Beirut (new EP track), Andrew Bird, Clem Snide (exclusive new LP track), Trembling Bells, Lisa Hannigan, Broken Records, Raise High the Roof Beam, Hari & Aino, The Welcome Wagon, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart,  Operahouse, + the very welcome many, many more.

A veritible ear orgy, wouldn’t you say?

Next week we’ll back to our usual Wednesday broadcast time. Until then, strap it on.

The Waiting Room: Saturday 31st January

Well, kids, it’s been a strange old sleepless week & a bit. Of course, what with the Presidential pageant all a hoo-ing & a hah-ing at every turn, I managed to mince about pretty much unnoticed for the most part.

The weather has been atrocious to say the very least. Did I pack for ground frost? Torrential rain? Near hurricane-strength winds? Like fuck I did. Added to that, I’ve been averaging 2am to bed (a foldout in the livingroom of the rented space – sharing with 4 others) & 5.30am wake up calls.

Ed, my (un)usual USof travel companion, has insisted on cooking breakfast for us every morning at 5-cunting-am. The smell of slowly charring bacon has gagged me awake every fucking day – including my one & only day off. On Monday, at 6am, he set the smoke & fire alarms off in the whole apartment complex as he set fire to the electric oven hob with another of his dodgy homegrown concoctions.

The cooker was ruined &, as the rental is billed to my credit card, I’m expecting a sizable bill in the near distant to repair or replace. I’ll go into the finer details of our latest adventure on next week’s show.

So, then, to this week’s show, which has been done on the hoof, via laptop, as I flitted about the States like a ninny. There’s not so much chatter – I was knackered most of the time & the mic I had wasn’t up to much & I am to much of a tight arse to buy another just for one show – but the music more than makes up for it. Some of it, in my humble, is nothing short of astonishing.

Expect, then, many brand new tracks from as yet unreleased albums by the likes of: hillary & the democrats, brooke waggoner, little boots, anna kramer & the lost cause, pete & the pirates, meursault, babian, the welcome wagon, hurray for the riff raff, the cotton jones basket ride, andrew bird, plants & animals, raise high the roof beams, jolie holland, bobby bare jr., hari & aino, the kazoo funk orchestra, warpaint, climber, alela diane, anya marina, the decemberists, basket of figs, miss emily brown, ragged claws, clem snide, & samantha crain & the midnight shivers.

You know what to do.

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 21st January

This here is an automated, pre-written post as I’m currently away on one of my spy missions to the USof until the 21st January. Not only does my welcome absence afford TWoTH some much needed ‘down time’ from my giddy ninnying, she also has about 2 weeks of having to only worry about the DCHQ cats dropping half-chewed food on the duvet, leaving suspect puddles on the floor & jumping all over her head at 3am because they can’t sleep & want attention.

This week, then, in a further installment of the Drunk Covers series, TWoTH & I am genuinely delighted to present GUILT BY ASSOCIATION VOL. 2, the second album of intriguing & sometimes ingenius cover versions (recorded by a gaggle of well known, & not so known, indie bands & artistes) on the wonderful Engine Room Recordings.

Replicating exactly what Hope Eternal & I achieved, when she was at the helm of the good ship TWR, TWoTH & I are playing the entire GBA2 album, in sequence, & reviewing said in our now standard clatter patter style, marking the whole thing, like we’re important or something, out of 10.

If that’s not enough to get you juicing at the seam, there will also be a fine selection of additonal cover versions for you to wrap your where-have-I-heard-that-befores around. Given how much Toad loves cover versions, this show should give him a big old fashioned male orgasm.

Amongst the many, then, will be: Miniature Tigers, Anna Ternheim, Noah & The Whale, Frightened Rabbit, First Aid Kit, My Brightest Diamond, Jukebox The Ghost, Cassettes Won’t Listen, Ema & The Ghosts, + Gareth Pearson — a 19 year old guitar virtuoso (from Cwmbran, Wales) who fingers off a truly astonishing MGMT cover.

That’s about it, then, for this week’s puff & stutter. See you in about 2weeks, when we’ll have news about our new radio station lodgings. Sunny days, people, sunny days.

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 14th January

It’s been a strange few days over here at DCHQ.  On Monday a certain NY radio station sent what can only be described as a compliment-strewn e-beg asking us to join their airwaves, affording us carte blanche on show content & tomfoolery. Yesterday we received word that this month our TWR podcasts are #1 on the Podbean site for the Radio category (with almost 14,000 listeners tuning in since New Year’s day). Then we discover we have the 4th most listened to Radio podcast on the entire Podbean site, ever.

This morning I received an email from a promoter asking me to assist in finding some information on the Butthole Surfers‘ first ever overseas gig back in the 1980s.  Seems he discovered a comment I left on S,bT a while back mentioning said gig, which had been held in Newport Leisure Centre in Gwent.  He’s hoping I can provide details for a book that’s being written about the band.

This afternoon I received an email from a Swedish band, who we’ve featured a handful of times on the show, telling us they’ve name-checked us in their latest song.  Minutes later we get an email from a Cardiff film crew asking us to take part in a documentary they’re planning on UK anti-folk, asking to interview me + film an episode of TWR being made. 

Fuck’s going on?  When did we get to be the mutt’s?  Madness, I tells you; madness. If nothing else it’s clearly going to be stupid busy (again) this year.

Anyway, enough of this ego-spunking.  Tonight, The Woman of The House & I kick off the year with a wine-soaked show, dragging along for the ride new bands/artistes/exclusive tracks + a brand new theme tune (courtesy a delightfully silly Scottish ensemble).

In residence, then: Miss Emily Brown, Miniature Tiger, The Deep Dark Woods, Supercot, Holly Golightly & The Broke Offs, Ruckus Roboticus, Clem Snide, Lily Frost, Lenka, Jukebox The Ghost, Kitty & The Can Openers, Basket of Figs, The Kazoo Funk Orchestra & very many more.

You know what to do.

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 7th January

&, in case you missed them, here’s the last 2 shows:

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 31st December

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 24th December

This Wednesday 24th December (Christmas Eve, naturellement), at or around abouts 10pm GMT (USA: 2pm PST + 3pm MST + 4pm CST + 5pm EST; Europe: 11pm CET), splashed all over the interwaves via the usual birdshit splatter pattern, for your listening consideration, will be The Waiting Room Christmas Eve 3hr Best Of 2008 Round-Up Show.

On this very (quite, in this case, literally) Eve we, one half of Drunk Country & The Woman of The House, will be dishing out thoughtfully considered Gold Guitar Pick of Excellence ‘Awards’* to the lucky Nominee(s) what is found to be the Best Of in their particular category.

It’s almost like a real end of year music award’s show but with less drinking & no Gallagher brothers.

Below, then, is the list of Categories & Nominees, 34 Artistes + 34 Songs. We have rather cruelly (although this is clearly a cynical attempt at injecting some tension into the proceedings) refrained from listing the Nominees in the last 2 Categories. Those will be revealed on the night. Mwah, I believe, Ha Ha, indeed, Ha.

So, there you go.  This took us AGES to compile from thousands of songs listened to & playlisted over the whole of this past year. *PHEW* just does not cut it. 2008 was simply awash with brilliance, surprises, genius & plain old breathtaking musicalisation. Oh, & singing.

The list, then:

Best “What The Fuck Was That?!”

1) Celebrity Chimp – Celebrity Chimp

2) The Just Joans – Hey Boy… You’re Oh So Sensitive

3) Aidan John Moffat – Cunts

4) Eagleowl – Motherfucker

5) The Theatre Fire – Coyote

6) Joe Rodger & The Velcro Quartet – Suddenly They Realised…

Best Cover Versions

1) Robin Grey – There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis (Kirsty MacColl cover)

2) Erlend Ropstad – 7 (Prince cover)

3) The Miserable Rich – Over & Over (Hot Chip cover)

4) Taken By Trees – Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns ‘n’ Roses cover)

Best Contenders for a Bond Theme

1) Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan – Come On Over (Turn Me On)

2) The Last Shadow Puppets – In My Room

3) Get Well Soon – You/Aurora/You/Seaside

4) Hour Of The Shipwreck – Unclouded Eyes

Best Emotional Blackmail

1) Porlolo – Turning On Heels

2) Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers – Beloved, We Have Expired

3) The Dø – Stay (Just A Little Bit More)

4) Meaghan Smith – 5 More Minutes

5) Ane Brun – Don’t Leave

6) Plants & Animals – Bye Bye Bye

Best Pound Down The Back of The Sofa

Nominees 1-8 = a big fat question mark

Best Song of 2008

Nominees 1-6 = a bigger, fatter question mark

The podcast will be available, as we say, sometime tomorrow around 10pm (we have very limited access where we are headed for the holidays, so bear with us).

It remains only for us to wish every one of you all the very best this Christmas holiday & to remind you that our 3hr New Year’s Eve 2008 Jukebox show will be on (just like the title reads) Wednesday 31st December, from 10pm-1am GMT. See the New Year in with us, why don’t you?  (Yah, fucking right…).

Thanks for tuning in & listening. It’s been a heck of a year.

MC & a HNY,

½DC + TWoTH

*when we say ‘Awards’, what we really mean is  we will email a picture of a solid Gold Guitar Pick of Excellence – we’re not that unhinged that we’d actually fork out for 6 solid gold plectrums. Jesus, no.

‘iya, as my Kairdiff accented friend would say; only me.

Here it is, then. The last show before the last show before Christmas. Hasn’t the year simply zipped?

To assist the remainder of 2008 pass through you like last week’s Chinese takeout omlette, re-heated using only the breath of a cider-drunk Deutscher Schäferhund, this week’s offal will be spat out in the same manner as you coming across a crust of dead flies stuck to the bottom of a glass of home-made lemonade mid-swallow.

As per, then, I & TWoTH will stain the airwaves with jibber jabber not heard since Brendan Fraser, the actor, was asked to explain ‘irony’ during a press conference for his broken bottle rape of the celluloid artform via the medium of “Monkeybone”.

Once you’ve recovered from that delightful triple image donkey punch you’ll be able to tuck into such aural delights as: The Great Lake Swimmers, Delta Spirit, Ane Brun, The Thermals, Mitchell Museum, Bosque Brown, SoKo, The Strange Boys, The Duchess & The Duke, Meaghan Smith, Lex Land, Lindi Ortega, Mercy Choir, & the Spanish Inquisition that are the many, many more.

Thanks are due, once again, to Mr. Toad for allowing us to park our wide load in his driveway. Plus a big nod, elaborately crossed arms & a suck on the teeth stance to all of youse out there in listeningland what are coming back week on week. Ta very, muchly appreciated, thanks.

We don’t yet have a plan for our Christmas Eve show, but the New Year’s Eve 3hr bonanza will essentially be a run down of our favourite bits of musicary we’ve played throughout 2008. We’re hoping to feature a number of our friends (The Lord Dog Dylan, being one), between each track, talking about whatever comes to mind.

But that’s the almost immediate future. The very immediate future is pretty much right about now. Click on, then, fair fellows, click on.

The Waiting Room: 10th December 2008

Once again we, over at the ever-grateful TWR, are taking advantage of Toad’s generous offer to host our nonsense on the hallowed pages of  S,bT while we negotiate a permanent home for the radio show.

For those of you who give even the slightest hint of a toss, we’re currently talking to a number of very interesting (& interested) proper professional radio stations, here in the UK & the US.   We should be in a position to make an informed decision early part of January ’09.  Until then we’re taking a bit of a break from the ‘on air’ chaos &  are instead just podcasting each week’s outing.  Essentially it’s a busman’s holiday.

This week we have the pleasure of introducing to you, the Listening Few, the following sweetness: Mother Mother, The Duchess & The Duke, Arthur Adams, Blitzen Trapper, Tom Williams & The Boat, Michael Bach, Rags & Feathers, The Tallest Man on Earth, Jay Jay Pistolet, Fredrik, Eagleowl, Francis + the now expected many much so more.

The Theme Tune Competition is still running, as are competitions for the Sŵn bundle of goodies, the Ida Maria/V.V. Brown bundle, as well as the  The Kabeedies/Tim & Sam’s the Tim & Sam Band with Tim & Sam/Pelle Carlberg/Lucky Delucci bundle.  Free stuff, effectively, for the sake of an email.

Tune in, then, you.

The Waiting Room: 10th December 2008