Song, by Toad

This weekend there will be a trip to Manchester. Meursault have a gig there – in the Saki Bar on Saturday, I think – and Mrs. Toad and I are taking the opportunity to drive them down and visit my Granddad, on my Mum’s side, who lives there. He’s lived in the same house for the last forty years, one which he bought for something like two thousand pounds when the family moved out of Moss Side. See, I told you I was nothing like as posh as you think I am, despite my (raised in Moss Side, remember) mother’s determination to surround herself with begonias, organic vegetable patches and copies of Country fucking Living magazine.

So, we’ll drive down, see the gig, say hi to Granddad and then hopefully cook a Sunday roast the next day before coming back to Edinburgh. Sunday roasts are one of my strongest memories of that house. Back when my Grandma was alive Sunday lunch was a pretty bloody big deal – the house was always full and I absolutely always, without fail, got in trouble for quietly disappearing at some point to gnaw on the bone in the kitchen.

Manchester is an odd place for me, though. I suffered massive, massive culture shock when, thinking myself basically English, I moved there from Vienna to go to university. It was a horrible year: I was too foreign to be English, and too English to get the kind of tolerance actual foreigners get, so basically people just didn’t know how to interact with me at all. It was, however, the first time I really started getting into indie music and going to gigs and so on, so I suppose there are advantages to not wanting to spend time with your peers.

The other time I lived in Manchester was when I was inbetween uni and my first job, working in a gangster nightclub (guns pulled, stabbings, brawls, the lot) and with no idea how to actually get a job in my actual professional field. I was flat, flat broke and really fucking fed up – mind you I discovered some great albums then too – inevitably I suppose. So I always think of Manchester quite negatively these days, just because I’ve always been so fucking miserable when I’ve lived there. It’s no fault of the city itself of course, but I really can’t shake that unpleasant reaction I get to the place. And, stupidly, I really like Glasgow and the two cities are virtually identical in almost every sense.

1. Strongest memory of childhood times in your Grandparents’ house.
2. What do you irrationally hate, just because your life was shit when you encountered it?
3. Great album found during a shit time in your life.
4. Where did you go to University, if at all?
5. Most embarrassing muppet you’ve introduced to your grandparents.

The Lemonheads – If I Could Talk I’d Tell You

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Barenaked Ladies – You Will be Waiting

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The Pogues – First Day of Forever

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Yo La Tengo – Cherry Chapstick

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Moby – Run On

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Well as you read this I will be in a day-long meeting with one of Proper Job’s most important clients.  The product, about which I really can’t divulge all that much, is a really interesting one.  It’s one of those things which may well in some form be essential in about five years time but at the moment is really rather embryonic and still basically on the drawing board.  It makes for a very interesting day’s work however, albeit a very argumentative one.

So whilst I am choking on shit sandwiches and bursting with excessive coffee intake, please sit back, relax, gently stroke your mouse and fire in your five frivolous Friday fuckwitticisms.  It’s not about being first, funniest or anything like that, just chip in.

Tonight there will be monumental levels of drunkenness for myself and my darling girl Mrs. Toad.  We are going to the Bowery to see Rob St.John and Broken Records singe everyone’s eyebrows with all sorts of raucous nonsense.  Well, maybe not Rob.  But he’ll still be good, I can promise you that – I’ve never sen Rob play live and not been impressed.  Broken Records will be different.  In a room that small they might just make your ears bleed.  I, for a change, will not be reviewing or filming or anything like that.  Mrs. Toad and I will be down the front enjoying ourselves and nothing more.  We will be drunk, we will be grinning like fools and staggering about like muppets and in general we will be warming up for a splendid weekend.  There are still tickets available, should you want to join in, just swing by the City Cafe some time tomorrow.

Now, in case you were intending to be so foolish as to attempt anything productive on a Friday, stop right now.  Before you go any further do you love me.  Will you love me forever; do you need me?  Will you… oops, sorry, that was a Meat Loaf lyric.  I’ll stop.  Right now.  Delurking is required, and the filling in of five of the most frivolous answers you’ve ever produced in your life.  Have a good weekend, Toadlings.

1. Best blag you’ve ever pulled off.
2. Most fortuitous ticket.
3. Biggest waste of an expensive ticket purchase.
4. Most unexpected brilliant day.
5. Forced participation which actually turned out okay.

The Decemberists – Mariner’s Revenge Song

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The White Stripes – I Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart

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Fanfarlo – Fire Escape

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The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Island in the Rain

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Barenaked Ladies – One Week

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As you read this I will be in a meeting.  I will be in a meeting all fucking day.  I will tired and cranky in that meeting and trying desperately hard to both stay awake and feign even the tiniest little bit of interest.  I’ve been up until three in the morning every night this week working on the Sparrow & the Workshop Toad Session, which will definitely be posted tomorrow, and I am fucking shattered.  You know how you get so tired that the day becomes slightly surreal?  Well like that.

Nevertheless I am feeling pleased.  Despite an almighty disaster in which the fucking bastarding shitty piss arse video camera chewed half the tapes and left me with almost zero footage of two of the songs and the tail end of the interviews, I think it’s turning out very well.  The tracks themselves sound fucking amazing, honestly, and given how nervous I was about recording live drums for the first time I am both brimming with pride and enormously relieved.

This weekend, therefore, is one for peace and quiet and not doing anything strenuous.  Above all it is one for sleeeeping.  I shall sleep the sleep of the recently deceased, I should think.

So, without further ado, here’s some stuff to faff around with and generally to waste Friday by buggering about on the internet.  De-lurk, if you haven’t commented before, and participate in this glorious Friday ritual shamelessly pinched from the boards of Guardian Talk.  And if you want to suggest the next Friday Five then bung me an email at the usual place.

1. Usual number of hours sleep.
2. Ideal number of hours sleep.
3. At what point on Friday do you usually stop even pretending to work?
4. Meeting etiquette bugbear.
5. Name a record for a sunny Sunday, best played in the early afternoon.

Some oldies this week:
Lambchop – Up With People
Barenaked Ladies – If I Had $1000000
Gomez – Here Comes the Breeze
The Trashcan Sinatras – To Sir, With Love
Supergrass – Shotover Hill

The wench is away and I am here by myself, managing the last few days of our house project. You can imagine what fun that must be, I’m sure.  Still, we move back in this weekend, so it may be a crap couple of days but it’ll all be over soon and then you’ll be relieved of me constantly whinging about it, which will be nice for you.

Given we’re living in a basement flat on a short term let for a month I got quite into the basementy idea with this playlist. I digressed into The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan and the Band, but mostly it’s music from ‘95/6 when I was living in a damp, grotty basement flat in Glasgow with a mate and the girl I was seeing at the time.

I bought stacks of CD singles back then and lost them all when someone broke into the flat.  Thanks to the joys of the internet I’ve been able to track most of them down recently, so you get a few of those, as well as some of the stuff I was listening to at the time.

It’s interesting as a historical document, to me anyway, but I am not sure how well the playlist itself works.  There’s something about this podcast that I’m not sure I like as much as the others, even though I like all the songs on it.  I don’t know, let me know what you think.  Perhaps Tears of Rage, Oasis and the Cranberries aren’t good enough songs to have all on the same podcast.

Toadcast #17 – The Cellarcast

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01. Blur w. Francoise Hardy – To the End (03.33)
02. Oasis – Rocking Chair (10.54)
03. Bob Dylan & the Band – Tears of Rage (17.59)
04. Bob Dylan – Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (Live) (25.54)
05. The Band – Rockin’ Chair (29.17)
06. Lloyd Cole – Unhappy Song (37.59)
07. Hootie & the Blowfish – Sad Caper (48.40)
08. Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Shallow Grave (54.03)
09. Tom Waits – November (55.55)
10. Barenaked Ladies – The Old Apartment (63.26)
11. Ray’s Vast Basement – Black Cotton (68.33)
12. The Bluetones – Colorado Beetle (71.08)
13. The Boo Radleys – Almost Nearly There (79.35)
14. The Cranberries – Joe (87.07)
15. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – The Ballad of Robert Moore & Betty Coltrane (96.13)