Song, by Toad

No, we’re not doing that this week actually, although Five Ways to Leave Your Lover would be a fine Friday Five at some point in the future.  Nothing too insulting, nothing too pedestrian, and points given for believability combined with strangeness.  Nice idea actually but, well, maybe later.

This week’s five were suggested by the excellent Mr. Team Turnip on the Pains of Being Pure at Heart review, I think.  It was all about bands who develop their songwriting and those who simply consolidate once they have found a style with which they and their fans are comfortable.

This is a nice one actually, because it exposes our prejudices.  The sum total of all music criticism pretty much boils down to ‘I like this… and I don’t like that.’  It’s an instinctive decision and as much as we can try and rationalise it afterwards, no amount of good argument can make you like or dislike anything much more than you do instinctively.  I suppose being pointed out that something was ripped off from somewhere or that such and such is a dickhead or so on can make you cool on something, but basically I think we’re mostly left with just a gut reaction, as far as music is concerned.

So for all we praise bands for developing, complain that they are derivative or criticise them for standing still, there are always plenty of groups we love who make total hypocrites of us for doing so. So chip in with yours, please, and take this opportunity not to worry about the fact that 90% of the comments on this site come from the same ten or fifteen people.  Ignore them, they’re harmless, and I’d be delighted to be introduced to a new lurker, should you fancy it.  Take the plunge, the water’s lovely.

1. Band who just knock out the same old shit time after time, but you love them anyway.
2. Band who have impressed you by continuing to develop, despite having a lot to lose.
3. Band who have become better and better with time.
4. Band who are a total rip-off, but you don’t fucking care, thank you very much.
5. Band you love who make you feel like a total hypocrite.

Eels – Sweet Li’l Thing

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The Strokes – Vision of Division

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – We Call Upon the Author

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The Decemberists – Red Right Ankle

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Babyshambles – Delivery

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What a lovely, lovely podcast this is.  No Mrs. Toad this week (yeah, yeah, I know, fuck off the lot of you) partly because she is away in the States being important and businesslike and so forth and partly because you are all a bunch of cunts for liking her best, you shower of ungrateful bastards.

Anyway, needless alienation of one’s audience aside, I am a little tired of doing themed podcasts.  Nothing particularly pressing leapt to mind this month so I thought I’d just throw on a pile of stuff I was really enjoying and sod having a coherent theme – that’s for the professionals anyway.  So it’s just a big old mish-mash of stuff I’m enjoying at the moment, but I think it’s quite a good playlist for all that.

There are actually a couple of songs chosen for other women in my life!  Oh shock horror! One is our reception lady here at work who revealed a surprisingly excellent vinyl collection when a few of us went round to her place after a staff night out recently, including Pavement and The Pixies.  Who would have thought it!  The other lady song is from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, after I was entirely charmed by the niece of our next door neighbour who apparently used to go out with their keyboard player.  She is trying to move to New York at the moment actually, where there are plans to play fiddle and harp on the new Au Revoir Simone album, which is splendid news.  Apparently this one is to be more folky than the last, which bodes very well indeed.  So go Ruth!  I can’t wait to hear it.

Better stop talking about ze laydees now of course, before I get skelped by my lovely lady.  Not one of of ‘em a patch on the sparkling gem that is the delectable Mrs. Toad of course, not even close!  *ahem*

Toadcast #14 – Total Self-Indulgence

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01. The White Stripes – 300mph Torrential Outpour Blues (03.04)
02. Rachel Unthank & the Winterset – Blue Bleezin’ Blind Drunk (12.34)
03. Jonquil – Lions (18.58)
04. Misophone – The Sea Has Spoken (20.46)
05. The Pixies – Where is My Mind (29.25)
06. The Sequins – Let’s Go Drinking in the Morning (36.09)
07. The Monochrome Set – Tomorrow Will Be Too Long (39.37)
08. iLiKETRAiNS – Death of an Idealist (44.10)
09. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Over and Over Again (Lost & Found) (50.23)
10. Ringo Deathstarr – Starrsha (55.00)
11. Babyshambles – UnBiloTitled (57.02)
12. New Pornographers – Adventures in Solitude (64.29)
13. Phil Ochs – Here’s to the State of Mississippi (75.18)
14. The Mabuses – Bonus Track (82.46)
15. The Real Tuesday Weld – Waltz For One (86.49)
16. Kenneth Williams – When the Toad Came Home (88.40)

I am going to try and avoid discussion of the Pete Doherty Tabloid Roadshow here, because surely even his most besotted fans must find that tedious, intrusive and more than a little off-putting. Between the media gargoyle and the deranged acolytes proclaiming his worshipful status as the Most Beloved Prophet of the Terminally Misunderstood People’s Republic of Punkistan I really find myself not wanting to write about this record at all. I want to hear it, but not to write about it. Here, however, goes.

This is actually a pretty good album. It is not the second coming, nor even a Blistering Return to Form. It’s just a decent record with some scruffy stuff on that doesn’t work so well, and some really rather good songs.

Looking back at the Libs and their sound and taking into account the subsequent output of Dirty Pretty Things and Babyshambles I am starting to think I see some patterns, although I could easily be wrong. It seems to me a little bit like Barat brought a more polished pop sensibility to Doherty’s ragged poetic ambitions, and in return, Doherty brought a welcome edge to Barat’s punk pop.

Waterloo to Anywhere was a terrific album, every song had an infectious hook, but it didn’t push any boundaries and it was certainly less ramshackle than any of the Libs’ output, whereas Babyshambles have been just that – a shambles. Not crap, just deliberately unpolished, scruffy and anarchic. Together they blended brilliantly, in a musical sense. Apart I would suggest that both lack a little of what the other brought to the table. Carl Barat could do with scuffing his polish, and Doherty could occasionally do with someone to bring more pop structure to his clattering.

Applying that to this album, there are plenty of nice hooks and excellent little bits and pieces here and there but not all of them equate to a whole song. It starts with its most populist feet forwards, I suppose sensibly enough, and both Carry On Up the Morning and Delivery are excellent songs.  Like much of the album they veer between The Jam, The Who and The Kinks with punchy guitars and a little bit of vocal harmony and organ to hold it all together. So far so really rather good. Crumb Begging and You Talk don’t really press my buttons at all I’m afraid. They sound more like demos that should have been axed long before release, but the two Un_Titled ones are terrific. Bilo brings in some shoegazey jangle guitar and Stookie, while still quite shoegazey, uses more of a thrum, breaking into more of a Doherty growl as it builds towards the end.

This kind of inconsistency bedevils Shotters Nation, but there are enough really good moments to make me glad it has arrived. Lyrically it is very strong: occasionally self-indulgent and annoying, but generally on the button, sharp and combative. I’ll let you get into that side of it for yourselves though, as I’ve gone on quite long enough. The idea of someone who promised as much as Doherty being dragged down by self-fulfilling mythology created in part by the gleefully circling parasitic media vultures, and also by his own self-destructive tendencies, would be a real tragedy. After taking a sound beating, the music in his life appears to be making a comeback. An occasionally tentative one perhaps, but a comeback nonetheless, and it really gives the impression that it might just be able to save him. Assuming, of course, that he really wants to be saved, or would even consider it salvation at all.

Babyshambles – UnStookie Titled
Babyshambles – Baddie’s Boogie

website | hype | amazon

I can’t stand Hard-Fi or Babyshambles.  Hard-Fi’s one-dimensional brand of chirpy cockney toss-rock grates on me something rotten and their last album was more or less entirely bereft of decent tunes.  In the case of Babyshambles, the Pete Doherty Self-Destruction Roadshow has become so mind-numbingly tedious I can’t participate in conversations that even mention his name anymore without needing to walk away and calm down before I punch the person who brought it up in the first place.  And Pete himself is just another artist on a crash course to complete oblivion who has only ever really produced one decent record, and even that was with the considerable help of Carl Barat – a fact put starkly in perspective by the excellence of the Dirty Pretty Things album.

Actually, what I hate most about Babyshambles is not Doherty himself, but his gaggle of fawning acolytes proclaiming him a troubled genius, rather than the mildly skilled fuckwit that he clearly is.  The second coming – of what, for fuck’s sake?  Jordan?  And Hard-Fi are just so desperately mediocre that any acclaim they receive above a barely raised eyebrow and an indifferent shrug of the shoulders is something I find utterly baffling.

And yet and yet and yet…

A couple of recent tracks by both aren’t entirely awful.  Ed actually liked the Hard-Fi album and he’s a pretty reliable judge of these things.  And apparently the new Babyshambles isn’t actually all that bad.  I can’t see myself reversing my position exactly, but its conceivable I might soften it slightly.  In the case of Hard-Fi I’m just amazed they’ve written a song that isn’t completely rubbish, but Babyshambles may have finally produced an album worth listening to.  Maybe.

Babyshambles – Delivery
Hard-Fi – Watch Me Fall Apart

Buy Babyshambles here and Hard-Fi here if you’re feeling so inclined.