This is called the Tapecast because last night, for the first time in about ten years, I made a mixtape.  Because of the van having a tape player there is actually a point to making these bloody things now, so we got hammered and listened to records all night (again), only this time I recorded them all onto a C-90!

There is something so stupidly fascinating about making tapes in the first place, but there is certainly something surreal in resurrecting what genuinely was dead technology.  It is far from easy to actually buy blank tapes these days.  I ended up recording over a shite old one I had to hand, and there is only a limited supply of ones hanging around which I would be happy to tape over.

It was bloody fun though, so I think it might well happen again!

Oh, and as I am now hosting these podcasts on Mixcloud as well, I have a new streaming widget thingy.  Mixcloud are PRS registered, which means the artists get money when you listen using their doo-dah, which is something we should all think about.  I am not convinced about doubling up the post images so I may have to give a bit more consideration to how to integrate it into the page, but there it is anyway for the time being.

Toadcast #133 – The Tapecast by Song By Toad on Mixcloud

Direct download: Toadcast #133 – The Tapecast

01. The Humms – Blood Sucking Vampire (02.30)
02. We Can’t Enjoy Ourselves – Put Your Blue Dress On (11.19)
03. Ezequiel Ezequiel – Dear Permafrost (15.03)
04. Small Town Boredom – Apologies for Apathy (22.32)
05. Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights (30.59)
06. The Dodos – Walking (35.59)
07. Trips and Falls – I Learned Sunday Morning, on a Wednesday (41.57)
08. Br’er – Whitewash (48.41)
09. Efren – Stay High (53.22)
10. Donny Hue & the Colors – Wild Again (59.22)

Mrs. Toad has been stranded in God Bless America by that infernal cloud of Icelandic ash, so I am home alone for the last week and all of the next one.  This is very much Not Fun, because as much as she’s a mean old bitch, I do seem to have developed a grudging affection for the silly old mare so a fortnight apart is very much unappreciated.  It’s about time those Icelanders re-established some bloody discipline, honestly.

Anyhew, there is some excellent stuff on this podcast, even though it really doesn’t hang together around a particular theme as they sometimes do.  In actual fact, I don’t think I’ve done a themey one for a while – might give that a go next week.

Toadcast #118 – The Ashcast

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01. Johnny Flynn – Kentucky Pill (4.11)
02. Burnt Island – A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (10.51)
03. Draw Me Stories – Becomes the Hunted (18.25)
04. Haunted Stereo – Lock the Doors (22.29)
05. Ragged Claws – Lamed Wufniks (30.44)
06. Fleet Foxes – Silver Dagger (36.07)
07. Hezekiah Jones – I Love My Family (40.13)
08. Cocorosie – Lemonade (42.14)
09. Br’er – Crocus (50.41)
10. Devolver – Promise (56.24)
11. Giant Sand – Anarchistic Bloshevistic Cowboy Bundle (58.44)

I’ve been dancing rather coyly with Br’er’s music for the last few months, trying to get to the stage where I really could figure out quite what I made of it.  It’s tense, but not all that edgy, and can be beautiful, without ever being particularly pretty, and it is experimental but in more of an unsettling than a confrontational way.

It’s not that I intentionally try and pigeonhole music, although I suppose we all do it subconsciously, but it definitely took me a while to decide that with this stuff, I am just not that sure what I am listening to.  There are elements of chamber pop, of cinematic indie stuff, of darkly camp musical theatre, and of elaborate orchestration and plenty of other things none of which seem to end up asserting a defining character over the finished article to the extent that I would feel really comfortable trying to express what I think I’m listening to here. I mean, for Christ’s sake, there’s even some Gregorian Chanting in here, or something worryingly close.

In general I suppose it’s the theatre of the thing which grabs me the most.  It’s full of very disparate moments of high drama, all exaggerated to the point where most songs at some point have you raising an eyebrow, looking at the stereo, and thinking ‘what the fuck is this?’ with genuine curiosity.

Lyrically, I can’t make out much, to be honest, beyond to confirm the fact that the lyrical imagery seems to chime very much with the impression above: by turns theatrical, experimental, unsettling or flamboyant.  Like the rest of the album it’s weird enough that I still don’t know if I love it or might turn out to hate it, but I’m definitely fascinated by it and I do find myself playing it a lot, albeit with the same slightly puzzled look on my face most of the time.

Bre’er – Painted Lady

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Br’er – Centralia

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Woo hoo, it’s house gig day!  I am really looking forward to this.  The lineup is ace, it should be nice and busy and we can even open the windows in the lounge nowadays to air the place out, because it can get awfy toasty in our living room when it’s full of people.

Other than that, there will be recording happening in Toad Hall this weekend; lots of it. Tomorrow King Creosote and Animal Magic Tricks will be recording… er, something or other together, which sounds really promising.  And then on Sunday Neil and Pete will be recording the Meursault side of an Animal Magic Tricks and Meursault Split 10″ to be released later this year.  Actually, I don’t know if it’ll be under the name Meursault or just as Neil, because it’s only really him and Pete, the band’s new cellist, who will be involved.  I’ll have to ask about that.

Anyhew, I’m absolutely gasping for a pint.  I’ve been incredibly good at entirely cutting out midweek drinking for the last month or so, and for some reason this week I’ve come up against three or four occasions when I’ve really fancied a pint of an evening, but my resolve has held true and it won’t be until tonight that I can finally punish my liver with the wrath of a thousand scorned stalkers.

No Honeytrap Toad Session once again.  There’ll have to one more inbetweeny podcast, and then next week it will finally go up.  Then I’m down to one last one in the band – Shenandoah Davis – and the slate will finally be wiped clean.  The Honeytrap one is going to be brilliant, I think.  An editor’s nightmare, but bloody hilarious if I get it right.  There was drinking, there was comedy dancing, there were 80s singalongs.  It was an alcoholic trainwreck, basically.

So here we go with the Friday Fives, as shamelessly pinched from the Guardian Talkboards. This is the delurking amnesty, because things can seem a little cliquey in the comments here, because a lot of us know one another in real life (wait, what, like socialising but not on the internet – what madness is this?) so on Fridays all lurkers are encouraged to come out of the shadows and chip in with their five, whereafter the talking of utter pish may commence.

1. To which song do you feel compelled to do your most exaggerated and embarrassing comedy dancing?
2. Favourite movie singalong moment.
3. Worst movie singalong moment.
4. Best point-and-laugh comedy dancing moment.
5. Which song(s) do you know all or most of the lyrics to (and for the band people on this thread, no, ones you perform regularly do not count).

Here are some random things from my inbox which I am very much enjoying at the moment:

The Limes – Dead Furniture (Buy)

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Khaya – Duet (Single Version) (Buy)

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Br’er – Painted Lady (Buy)

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Charles Bukowski – The Death of an Idiot (Buy)

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R.E.M. – Radio Free Europe (Original Hib-Tone Single)

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