I seem to have two modes of sleep it seems – well rested and relatively funtional.  As I discovered over Christmas, I can happily sleep for about ten hours a night if possible, and I feel rested and chipper and happy.  That was great.  Oh how I miss those heady days – bed at one, pished, up by ooh, nearly noon just in time for lunch.  That was special.  I actually woke up in the morning of Monday 4th to come back to work and experienced a stunning sensation: I actually felt okay.  It wasn’t even a wrench to actually wake up!

This morning I experienced something similar.  It seems that I have a more commonplace sleep pattern as well – one which is not ideal, but with which I can live quite happily: six hours.  When the blog and the label are going full pelt I tend to go to sleep either exhausted or pished – working until the very small hours or, alternatively, taking the opportunity to blow off some steam.  This means a lot of three and four hour nights, which takes its toll on you, really it does.  Then there are times when I make a point of going to bed early and getting seven or eight hours and you know what? It doesn’t help.

What does seem to do the trick is six hours.  It’s not ideal, but I just seem to wake up feeling a bit shagged but basically alright – like this morning – and it seems to be a pretty consistent phenomenon.  Apparently this is thought to be largely down to the natural sleep cycle of your body – we all have one and they are all slightly different.  It seems that about six and a half hours kind of suits me, for some reason.

I don’t know much about this, but apparently there are theories that a lot of insomnia might be linked to the differences between the world’s twenty-four cycle and a person’s natural cycle, which may be twenty-two hours, or twenty-five and a half or whatever, and sometimes the two cycles interact incredibly disruptively, making it difficult for insomniacs to to find a sleep cycle which interacts positively with their body’s natural cycle.  So it’s not a problem with sleeping, exactly, more a disruptive interaction of the two frequencies, which can be very interesting mathematics in itself.  None of this, as is presumably evident, is anything I know much about, but I read about it once in a book and found it all very interesting.  Feel free to tell me I’m talking shit in the comments of course, because it’s quite possible, but make sure and do your five first because that’s the rules.

So, erm, not quite sure how that leads into five silly questions to invite the lurkers out of the shadows, but here goes…

1. When do you get your best lie-ins?
2. Strangest place you’ve ever had a night’s sleep.
3. Most inappropriate sleeping you’ve ever managed.
4. Longest time you’ve managed without sleep.
5. Last interesting science stuff you read about.  Nothing ‘sciencey’ like the Daily Mail and their ‘official saddest day of the year, as sponsored by shitey travel agents though please.  I am tipping Becky to win this one.

The Boo Radleys – Martin, Doom! It’s Seven O’Clock

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Ben Folds Five – Narcolepsy

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Bonnie Prince Billy – Cursed Sleep

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Dan of Green Gables – Nothing Could Stop You From Sleeping Tonight

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Beatles – I’m So Tired

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’m not sure why the end of the noughties should necessarily lead to any kind of retrospective of the nineties, but it has.  I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that I just feel it’s way too early for me to figure out what I make of the noughties.

So, given that it must be about time for the nineties revival (actually, probably best give it another year or so) and given that the nineties are now quite a long way away and given that, erm… well I dunno. Given I was poking around at that stuff recently and listening to some Pulp and Gene and Blur and stuff I figured I might as well pop the whole bloody lot into a podcast.

Toadcast #97 – The Nineties

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

01. Pearl Jam – Even Flow (Unplugged) (4.16)
02. The Stone Roses – (Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister (12.23)
03. Belly – Untitled & Unsung (18.37)
04. Echobelly – Insomniac (22.13)
05. Blur – Yuko & Hiro (29.00)
06. Gene – Wasteland (36.14)
07. Ben Folds Five – Underground (38.49)
08. Blur – Country Sad Ballad Man (44.56)
09. REM – Parakeet (52.03)
10. Radiohead – Everything in its Right Place (59.30)

Live recordings – in fact, specifically, live albums – came up in a recent post on Song, by Toad and the idea of doing a podcast composed entirely of live recordings really appealed to me because there are so many great ones.

That said, on the post in question there arose a debate, one voice expressing my deepest hatreds of the genre, and another being perhaps over-generous in the other direction.  Frankly, I despise the vast majority of live albums.  Mostly they are shit recordings of songs we already know, released for the sole reason of fleecing fans whose devotion has already been established, and whose wallets can clearly be plundered for a few more empty sheckles.

Despite that, of course, there are some truly stunning live recordings.  In fact, I’d argue that some of the most memorable, legendary recordings of all  time are in fact live ones.  Bob Dylan live at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1966.  Bruce Springsteen pretty much any time in the seventies.  Basically, for all live recordings are mostly rip-off bollocks, there are some truly phenomenal live albums, ones which open your eyes to the artist, ones which fill in that artist’s musical upbringing, and some which are just genuinely amazingly wonderful recordings in their own right.  Therefore we bring to you the Livecast.  Enjoy, Toadlings…

Toadcast #57 – Production Values

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

01. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – 10th Avenue Freeze Out (04.09)
02. Andrew Bird – Why (11.47)
03. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Papa Won’t Leave You Henry (16.22)
04. The Moulettes – Country Joy Song (25.29)
05. Colin Meloy – Blues Run the Game (32.49)
06. Quasar Wut-Wut – The Partisan (35.45)
07. Jeff Mangum – Two Headed Boy (43.04)
08. Tom Waits – Diamonds on My Windshield (54.37)
09. Billy Bragg – Days Like These (DC Remix) (56.46)
10. Ben Folds Five – Satan is My Master (60.15)
11. Bob Dylan – Like a Rolling Stone (64.16)

It’s all going to be underground this week, with most happeny things happening at the Bowery, aided and abetted by Sneaky Pete’s on the Cowgate.

Ben Folds Five – Underground (Live at Ziggy’s)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This weekend has been nice, actually.  Getting the Samamidon session posted took me all the way through Friday night without any sleep, and all I managed was a couple of hours’ nap before the Meursault in-store at Avalanche, and then then off to have a couple of bevvies with Broken Records to celebrate their signing to 4AD.

After all this, though, Sunday was a real treat.  I did no work whatsoever, Mrs. Toad and I tidied the house, albeit at a rather leisurely pace, and I played vinyl all afternoon.  A gin was poured at about five in the afternoon, I read through the latest National Geographic and we cooked a great big meal for some friends.  Fucking marvellous.  I have to confess that I hogged the record player all night, but then, recently that hasn’t always been the case.  I’ve been so busy that Mrs. Toad has done all the playing of records, while I beaver away at the computer, so it was nice to shelve all that for a couple of days and really just relax and indulge for a bit.

And let’s face it, there’s can’t be much better than a Sunday afternoon playing vinyl with a nice, strong G&T.

Thursday 12th February 2009: Share & The Second Hand Marching Band at the Bowery.

I know nothing at all about Share, but the Second Hand Marching Band’s recent EP is superb, so I am really looking forward to seeing them live again.  With 22 of them fitting everyone on stage will be a challenge, as will the mic setup.  Nevertheless, their ramshackle, folky gentleness promises to provide a memorable evening.
The Second Hand Marching Band – Don’t!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Thursday 12th February 2009: The Endrick Brothers & Broken Records at the Caves.

The Endrick Brothers are a plain vanilla alt-country band who I nevertheless enjoyed enormously on the only occasion I’ve seen them live – they just had a sort of warm charm to them.  Broken Records are likely to be playing out of their skins as they celebrate the recording of their album. Tickets from here.
The Endrick Brothers – Star of the Silver Screen

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Friday 13th February 2009: Meursault & How to Swim play This is Music at Sneaky Pete’s.

I’ve shamefully never been to This is Music.  Probably because I fear the late closing and the dancing students – what a dismally pathetic excuse.  I’ve done a lot of drinking this last week with people with no jobs to go to in the morning, and believe me, it takes some doing.  Anyhow, with the carnval mayhem of How to Swim and the demented howl of Meursault, this should be fucking superb.
How to Swim – A Little Orgasm of Disappointment

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Saturday 14th February 2009: My Kappa Roots, eagleowl & Rob St. John at the Bowery.

This is a collaborative effort between the Bowery, the bands, Ten Tracks, the Collective Gallery and The Skinny.  Irrespective of all that, of course, it’s just a fucking splendid lineup of the capital’s finest alternative folksters.  And balls to Valentine’s Day – to quote Billy Bragg “Those glossy catalogues of couples are cashing in on happiness again and again.”  And never mind the unhappiness it fucking generates.  Pointless fucking whore of an occasion.
Billy Bragg – Valentine’s Day is Over

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’ve not had anything to say about Sarah Palin and the Republican ticket in general yet, but those of you who know me probably know that it’s been coming. McCain is basically just a bit pathetic. He used to be the voice of reason and tolerance in the Republican Party, and it was genuinely good news that he was nominated to run. Now, unfortunately, in order to generate any sort of enthusiasm within a party base who generally don’t trust him, he has been forced to capitulate to all the standard Christian Right idiocy and has managed to not only sacrifice his credibility in the process, but also any semblance of dignity.

I was genuinely amazed when Palin was first nominated as the VP candidate, and the gamut of emotions I experienced swung wildly from delighted horror, to cackling amusement as she blundered her way about the place, cheerfully lying through her teeth and splendidly displaying her gold medal-standard ignorance for everyone to enjoy – basically showing herself for the vapid little small-town ignoramus she is. It was, for a bit, really quite funny. But not for all that long.

Watching the gleeful, baying enthusiasm from the troglodytes to whom she appeals was bad enough, but it’s the smug, self-satisfied smirk on her face when she yet again fails to answer a simple question with even a spoonful of coherence that finally began to ruin the fun. This parochial fishwife simply has no idea how contemptuous she is. Has anyone seen Kirstie Alley in Drop Dead Gorgeous? That is who Sarah Palin is. Read the rest of this entry »

Well only one: this wonderful website *cough cough*. Well, while Mrs. Toad and I are either sloshing about in the mud or, and I am hoping this is the case, lazing about in the sunshine at the End of the Road Festival you will presumably all be at work, shuffling paper in some lame pretence of productivity.

Sigh exhasperatedly at your computer, never walk somewhere when you can march purposefully, suddenly search briskly through that pile of shite on your desk, rub your chin thoughtfully, anything but let them know that you don’t give a flying fuck about their shitty job and that really you are just there for the money and want to be left alone as much as possible to prat about pointlessly on the internet.

Or maybe you’re one of those fulfilled people who does an interesting job surrounded by people he likes and respects and…  nah, not if you’re reading this I wouldn’t think.

Anyway, fuck the day job, here’s our Five for Friday, as shamelessly stolen from the GUT boards.  Please use this as an opportunity to de-lurk and jump in.  You don’t need to explain or justify your choices, just go for it and get stuck in:

1. Worst mobile phone etiquette.
2. Link to favourite lolcat (if you don’t know, I suggest emplying the GiYF* technique).
3. Your biggest phobia.
4. Something really shit on telly that you like to watch anyway.
5. Alcoholic jelly recipe.

Adam & the Ants – Prince Charming
Richard Hawley – Coming Home
Stephin Merritt – The Meaning of Lice
The Folk Implosion – Free to Go
Ben Folds Five – Don’t Change Your Plans

*Google is Your Friend.

A girl I went to school with, who is a bit of a star-fucker, has been moping around all things rock ‘n’ roll since god was a boy. Mrs. Toad’s boyfriend when she was 16/17 always used to make her feel bad about not being as ‘cool’ as this girl, because she was so hip and trendy and he had a thing for her. I am a defensive bastard so my relationship with this lass has gone from a casual tolerance to vitriolic malevolence because she IS NOT HALF THE WOMAN MRS TOAD IS AND NEVER FUCKING WILL BE. I hate the bloke for daring to make my darling girl feel inadequate, and I detest this girl for any feeling of inferiority Mrs. Toad may ever have mistakenly harboured.

It’s all the bloke’s fault, I hear you saying, how can you blame this innocent lass? Well it may be all the bloke’s fault, but this girl is the sort that whenever you talk to her you get the impression she is looking over your shoulder every once in a while to make sure there’s no-one cooler she might be talking to instead. Now, when we were casual acquaintances this is the sort of thing I just didn’t care about, because her approval didn’t matter a jot to me, and she was generally nice. But when this sort of status-merchant is compared in any way favourably to someone as utterly superior to her in terms of brains, wit, strength of character, appearance, and just plain desirability as my young lady, then my blood fucking boils.

So imagine my delight at finding out that having hung around second-rate wannabe rock stars her whole life because she thought they were cool, she is now in a band herself. And they’re absolutely woeful! Ah hahahaha hah haaaa! Embarrassingly, amusingly bad. Tremendous! It gladdens my heart, it really does.

Art Brut – Formed a Band
Ben Folds Five – Underground

I am not going to link to any of this, because I think that would be hugely mean and I don’t really want to make this personal. I do, after all, know I am being totally irrational here. That said, I will email you a link if you are really desperate…

I was writing about bands selling out a couple of days ago and the phrase ‘the anti-popular reflex’ cropped up. Now, there are plenty of instances of bands genuinely selling out that we covered in that post and the subsequent comments, but I thought this particular phenomenon needed a little more idle chatter devoted to it. Hooray, I hear you say.

I have an instinctive and barely controllable anti-popular reflex whereby no matter how much I like something, as soon as it starts to become hugely popular I find it very difficult to maintain my enthusiasm. Sometimes this goes so far as to instinctively hate things simply because they are so popular. I can’t bring myself to watch Lost, for example, despite the fact that plenty of people whose opinions I respect keep telling me how good it is. And if I did watch it, it would be with that wrinkled up nose a little child gets when forced to eat brussel sprouts.

I think a lot of indie lovers suffer from this, and I think there are a couple of reasons, one trivial and one a little deeper.

The trivial one is that we indie lovers care quite a lot about music, and the general public does not. We care about music and form close bonds of loyalty with our favourite groups because no-one else likes them and it can feel that our evangelism on their behalf is important for them. Whether this is true or not is a moot point, but it can often feel that way. When these groups get popular it can be impossible to maintain that intense relationship because, well, if they’re special to several million people then it’s stretching the definition of the word special a little, isn’t it.

The slightly (only slightly though, don’t look so scared) deeper reason is this: most indie lovers are alternative types in general. Virtually none of us were from the cool set in school, nor are we amongst the champagne and martinis set now we are older.

To those not at the beating heart of all things cool, this makes the attribute of coolness something which can be oppressive, condescending, and demeaning, not least because those in the inner circle tend to guard their status rather jealously. Many of us react to this by redefining cool as being the things we ourselves most like, rather than the things that the vagaries of fashion and public clamour tell us we should like, but this is still a slightly defensive position. What is held up to be cool in the magazines and on the telly is popularly defined as being better, at the direct expense of everything else.

The stance – well, my stance anyway – is ‘Fuck off, who the fuck do you think you are to look down your nose at me you vacuous, bovine imbecile. What makes you think I give a shit what your opinion is of my lifestyle, or care the slightest fig for your herd mentality, you hollow, empty shell of a human being, you.’ Or some such. My relationship, and I don’t think I am alone in this, with the world of high cool is a fractious one at very best.

So when bands I love go mainstream this hostility towards things in the upper echelons of the hierarchy of popularity can kick in and overwhelm the actual warmth I may feel for the music. And equally, if I first hear of a band or a TV program or a pair of trainers simply because they are already very cool, it is highly unusual that I will think anything other than ‘Ah right, just more shit the masses venerate for no reason whatsoever. Just like they venerated that stringy transvestite Sarah Jessica Parker. Or those vapid cunts in The OC. Or that self-indulgent idiot Pete Docherty. Or that unbearable shitfest Titanic (Oscars, that film actually won Oscars).’

So it may not always be entirely reasonable, but I don’t think the anti-popular reflex is completely unfair.

The Magnetic Fields – Famous
The Endrick Brothers – Star of the Silver Screen
The Beatles – Honey Pie
Ben Folds Five – Underground
The Extraordinaires – Seeds of Jealousy
And now the kicker. Yes, I am actually going to ask you to listen to Meat Loaf. Yes I own this album and no, I didn’t have to go and buy this song just for this post. Snigger all you want, but if you listen to the lyrics and replace the girl in question with your favourite music and the anti-popular reflex (reason #1) is perfectly described.

Meat Loaf – More Than You Deserve