Song, by Toad

…and don’t spare the horses.

Yes, we are back. What an enormous relief, I hear you all cry. How did you ever get by without me. Well before I get back to my usual crisp, clear and perfectly formed blog posting* I have some bits and bobs to round up, so this will be a bit of an all-over-the-place post.

Christmas lists:
Yeah, I’ll probably be making at least one. Top 20 albums perhaps, but not much more than that because I just can’t quite be arsed. A lot of people are making Festive 50 lists in honour of the great John Peel, but I am not sure I could face it. The avalanche of new songs in 2007 reduced to fifty? I doubt I could whittle them down, but I may yet have a go.

The Contrast Podcast is doing one, and listeners and participants are invited to take part. It’s a great project, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about then bugger off and have a listen. Just email Tim your top five songs of the year, in order, by November 27th and you’ll be counted. The whole lot will come out as a series of podcasts over the Christmas period, which sounds rather jolly. Details on participating can be found at the bottom of this post.

Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Leftovers

The Waiting Room will also be doing a big old Christmas Special, with special listener requests. It doesn’t have to be at all related to Christmas, so if there’s something in particular you’d like to hear then leave a comment on the site or email DC direct and let him know. My vote was for No Christmas in Kentucky by Phil Ochs which, if you know it, is a relentlessly depressing song about poor people not being able to afford the sort of stuff everyone else takes for granted at Christmas time, and just how bleak Christmas must be if you are living in poverty and abandoned by your nation. I couldn’t find an mp3 though, so the festive spirit has been given a temporary reprieve.

Decoration – Only a Plague Can Stop Us Now

Other Shit:
Mike at Manic Pop Thrills reckons we should try and engineer a Christmas #1 for Malcolm Middleton in the UK charts. Given that the song in question is entitled We Are All Going to Die, I think you’ll agree that there could be no better choice. Given that the likely winner is some ratty old transvestite from The X-Factor, I think we owe it to ourselves as a community to get Malky in there if at all possible. Help save Christmas for the misanthropes! ‘We’re All Going To Die’ gets a digital only release on 17^th December and I’m not sure where to buy it just now, so I’ll try and remind you all closer to the time.

Blogfresh Radio has been scraping the bottom of the barrel once more and invited me to talk about Found, one of last week’s reviews. Click here for the appropriate episode.

The Sequins – Treehouses

The Daily Growl – or Tim, as he’s known to his mates – took me on a pilgrimage to the new Rough Trade record shop when I was down in London, where I spent almost a hundred quid on vinyl. What a moron. And before you ask, no I can’t afford it – not anything like. Still, I have accumulated enough singles recently that record companies have sent me as promos that I figured I might as well give in and buy a record player. Some fifteen years after they became obsolete. Genius.

Phil Ochs – Talking Cuban Crisis
*Anyone sniggering at this is barred.

Song, by Toad has been nominated as Best Music Blog in the People’s Choice Awards. I didn’t actually have to nominate myself, but you can, so it’s hardly an Earth-shattering achievement, however I think it’s important we muster a bit of a turnout at the voting booth for reasons I’ll allow Tim from The Daily Growl to explain:

more importantly, I want to see proper British music blogs occupying that top 10. Not like last year where the top 5 was taken up by ‘blogs’ by top-selling artists which I cynically see as just another promotional racket (yes, I’m looking at you Mike Skinner and Dave Gilmour) and others that weren’t really music blogs at all.

…let’s see a proper music blogger – i.e. a non-professional, just writing for sheer love of music – on the podium come 2 October.

He’s right – bollocks to the well-funded, slick-arse, sphincter-polishing, devil’s shilling-grubbing professionals. That’s not what a fucking blog is, dammit. However, fortunately it turns out you can vote for numerous different blogs using the same email address and it also turns out you can vote with as many different email addresses as you have, so get out there and vote for me as often as possible. Then make your friends do it too. Then go to The Daily Growl and Fucking Dance and vote for them as well – let’s make a dent for the amateurs this year, eh! Any of my other blog pals who are in the running, let me know and I’ll link to you buggers too.

And, of course, the reason for all this bollocks in the first place – the tuuunez! And it’s nearly beer time. Woo hoo!

Depeche Mode – Everything Counts
The Siddeleys – You Get What You Deserve
Elastica – Connection
Gene – I Can’t Help Myself
Cold War Kids – Passing the Hat
Decoration – It’s OK to be Fickle
Thomas Truax – Inside the Internet

One of my regular readers, a certain Campfires & Battlefields, apart from making many an excellent contribution to the comments section of this blog, has also made a few equally welcome contributions to the Toad Music Archives. This is the man whose six-year-old described me as a ’sort of foul-mouthed Harry Potter’ on listening to the first ever Toadcast.

So, by way of thanks for the new suggestions, apologies for scaring C&B Junior and apportioning credit where it is due Song, by Toad hereby presents the Campfires & Battlefields Deluxe Selection:

The Lodger These chaps are a jangly indie band from Leeds. Sort of a living apology for having forced the Kaiser Chiefs on us I suppose. Their debut album, Grown Ups, is out and four of the tracks can be previewed on their MySpace page.

The Lodger – Watching

Papercuts Can sound a bit like a blissful pop act, but there’s a definite underlying tension to their music. They’re quite folky at times too. Their latest album, Can’t Go Back can be found here (although you have to scroll down a bit).

Papercuts – John Brown

Decoration Definitely my favourite of the C&B recommendations, these chaps are part of a larger movement of groups re-interpreting that late 80s English jangly indie that I love so much. Unfortunately their most recent album is sold out, but there’s plenty more there to explore, and a little more on their MySpace page too.

Decoration – Pavey Ark

So cheers C&B, thanks for the tips. Hope the kids are, erm, alright these days…