Coming back from holidays is traditonally a bit more rough than I had realised.  Apparently post-holiday blues is a common phenomenon, but this is the first time I’ve really experienced it before.  I’ve been really fucking down this week for some reason – probably the hot weather outside and the realisation that I can only take another day and a half of holiday for the rest of the year.  That’s fucking annoying, that is.  I have no damn idea where it’s all gone, honestly.  I’ve taken stray days here and there to go to London to speak to Sony, to interview Jason Lytle and a week or so for Toad Session recording and Homegame. Add that to our two weeks in Italy and that’s pretty much my lot for the year.  That means the entire last half of the year without a single long weekend, a day off or anything at all.  How fucking depressing.  Jesus.

In, um, other news… er, I am preparing the release PR for another half dozen or so Toad Records releases at the moment, and then Mrs. Toad is away for two weeks, during which I intend to finish up and post the Found Toad Session.  So much to do, as usual, and I think two weeks is going to be the longest we’ve been apart since I moved up here four years ago.  I’m not sure I even remember how to properly indulge in coke and whores any more, and the idea of going out and picking up flaky young hussies while I have the chance… well, it doesn’t sound terribly appealing I have to confess.  So it’s gin and tonics with a jar of pickles and tin of anchovies whilst sitting at the computer in my underpants as usual, I suppose.  Maybe I’ll go wild this time, and indulge in some pickled onions.

So, in a dismal funk this Friday, please to stop in and try and cheer me up by saying something fun or entertaining or bizarre or something like that.  Don’t sit out there and lurk like the sulky bastard I have turned into this week, consider it your public service duty to come out of hiding and chip in this week.  You know you’ve got it in you.  You can start with Nigaz.

1. Where was your last holiday?
2. What is your next one?
3. Name something which really cheered you up recently.
4. Favourite accidentally naughty name.  You know, like therapistfinder.com
5. Your worst ever excuse for feeling a bit sulky.

Gummi Bako – I’m Depressed

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.

Tom Waits – Town With No Cheer

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.

Oh, alright, I’ll pack it in.
Eels – Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues

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.

MJ Hibbett & the Validators – Being Happy Doesn’t Make You Stupid

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 Divine Comedy – The Happy Goth

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 is not so much the holiday podcast as the pre-holiday podcast because, for all we are away now, I recorded this on Thursday night before going away, as we prepared ourselves for the unspeakable burden of doing absolutely fuck all for two weeks.

I am taking a pile of books and a pile of new music and we are going to do pretty much nothing at all.  My parents used to do really adventurous travelling when we were young, but honestly I don’t have the energy.  I am so incredibly fucking exhausted from constant Toadery that actually, despite having a holiday inferiority complex, pretty much all I can cope with at the moment is a couple of weeks of fuck all.

Even last year when we went to Portland for a couple of weeks, we took all the technology and recorded interviews and all sorts at Pickathon.  It was relaxing and nice, but I still got a hell of a lot of work done.  This time I will take along some tunes which I have been meaning to catch up with, perhaps record a podcast or two, and basically spend the rest of the time lying in the sun by the pool.  My folks might not be all that impressed, but the recharging of the batteries is the sole purpose of this trip and I think we might manage just that.

Toadcast #73 – The Holiday Podcast

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. MJ Hibbett & the Validators – Being Happy Doesn’t Make You Stupid (04.17)
02. Midnight Oil – Bushfire (10.06)
03. Headless Heroes – Hey, Who Really Cares? (Jon Hopkins Remix) (16.56)
04. Alela Diane – Pieces of String (21.05)
05. Inspector Tapehead – A Fillet of Bozo (25.42)
06. Maxwell Panther – Shiver on a Twist of Fate (33.19)
07. Jack Richold – Lady of the Calico (37.00)
08. Grant-Lee Phillips – Calamity Jane (41.16)
09. Billy Bragg – Bread & Circuses (50.20)
10. The Divine Comedy – Les Jours Tristes (57.45)

This Saturday Mrs. Toad is in charge of collecting for the lifeboats in Stockbridge, and any help we can get with the collection would be hugely appreciated.  We will repay you all with beer and food throughout the afternoon, so it should be sociable and plenty of fun, but an hour or so of your time would be much appreciated.

The RNLI is a charitable body and hence rely entirely on public donations.  This is a fucking scandalous tax dodge by the government, if you ask me, but that doesn’t change the fact that the support of the public is absolutely crucial to what they do.  A lot of the readers of this site were up in Anstruther recently, which has a lifeboat station of its own, and was once home to a considerable fishing fleet.  Pittenweem appears to be more of a working harbour than Anstruther these days, but in general those communities who hosted us have given their fair share and it might be nice if we respected their commitment by showing a little willing of our own, as a way of repaying their hospitality.

The first collections will go out at about ten in the morning, no-one need do more than an hour, and whilst we are starting with tea and cakes we will finish up with scran and bevvies in the evening, and quite possibly some antisocially loud music at night time.  So if you can possibly help and fancy coming round, please get in touch.  Giving a few quid would also be a big help, but actually participating and helping out is much harder to do where charity is concerned, so we’d really appreciate it if you could come round and lend a hand.

The Divine Comedy – A Seafood Song

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.

And, erm, I hope it’s not too tasteless, but this is the obvious song to choose:
British Sea Power – Fear of Drowning

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.

Apparently, according to my little book of annoyingly folksy cliches, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.  It’s only half-right, I think.  Surely the way to anyone’s heart is through their stomach – or at least, it should be.

Mrs. Toad and I are both totally disasters, in terms of domesticity, but we both love to cook.  In fact, I remember one of the best things my Mum ever did for me and my little brother as kids, and that was make damn sure we knew how to cook before we left the house.  If you want to pull – either sex – cook for them.  It’ll tell you a lot.  As my Mum (she’s a smutty old bag, really she is) always said: cooking and eating are very important because they involve all the senses, and the only other thing which really does that is sex, so if someone can’t enjoy one then what are the odds that they’re going to be any good at the other?

It’s such a great pulling tool, it really is, if I could recommend any young man or woman learn any one skill (apart from becoming a black belt in oral sex of course) then it would be excellent culinary skills.  Particularly if you can make it seem effortless and do not turn into the gastronomic version of a wine snob.  In fact, best just not use the word gastronomy at all, really, it’s probably a step too far for any right-thinking person.

In a less vulgar sense, of course, it’s a good test of personality.  Anyone who picks their way through things and won’t eat this and won’t eat that is surely not worth bothering with.  I am not talking about shunning people with potentially fatal food allergies (but real ones, not imagined ones, please) but people who are picky eaters are to be avoided.  Why, let’s face it, would you fucking bother.

As for anyone who ruins meals by obsessively watches their weight, well, we don’t even need to discuss that, do we.  Flush them down the toilet with the semi-digested remains of their last meal.  Obsessive gym bunnies (male and female), manorexics (what?) or anyone so obsessed with their appearance that they don’t know how to just fucking relax and indulge a bit… well, fuck ‘em, frankly.  Or, more literally, don’t.

And as for people who have their steaks or their tuna cooked any more than medium rare (and even that’s going a bit far)…

The Divine Comedy – Seafood Song

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.

James Yorkston – Midnight Feast

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.

After a week spent debating it, how about a podcast embodying the discussions we’ve been having about production values I thought a podcast which sort of pulls all the disagreements and moans and whingeing and so on into one big mp3 of joy would be a good idea.

So we’ve got some Big Production, some demo scratchy stuff and a few bands who have dabbled with both.  I fart on about production values as if I have the faintest idea what I’m talking about, which of course I don’t.

I’m not sure how well it works as a playlist – it might be a bit disjointed – but in general I like it.  I like the debate in general, I like the thought process we’ve all gone through together this week, and in general, by association, I like this podcast.

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 – Born in the USA (Original Nebraska Sessions Demo Version) (04.31)
02. Radiohead – Everything in its Right Place (11.13)
03. Enfant Bastard – Vessel (20.19)
04. Half Man Half Biscuit – 1966 and All That (22.37)
05. U2 – Red Hill Mining Town (29.56)
06. Snow Patrol – Last Ever Lone Gunman (37.40)
07. The Divine Comedy – Life on Earth (42.10)
08. Yann Tiersen – Geronimo (Black Session w. Neil Hannon) (46.07 )
09. The Wave Pictures – A Long Way Away From Me (53.34)
10. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (Live at Hammersmith Odeon, 1975) (57.35)

I was in the pub this lunchtime, stuffing myself with fish and beer, as we traditionally do at Proper Job, every Friday, as a matter of ritual. Whilst there I vaguely recall seeing a reference to some sort of fish from Normandy and instead my more common thought (mmm.. fish!) I found myself thinking that I liked the sound of Normandy. Just the word. I know that it’s just a pretty dreary, flat and largely unremarkable region of Northern France, but the name appeals to me somehow. A bit like Picardy, its neighbour.

There are a few places I’d like to visit just because of the name, actually. Corsica is another one – it just sounds nice as you pronounce it. Andalucia is another, although only when I pronounce it without the ‘th’. So it sounds really nice, but only if I say it wrong. Damascus has a lovely sound to it as well.

I remember a Mark Knopfler song (yes yes, I know, just fuck off) where a soldier in Napoleon’s armies dreams of returning home to his sweetheart, the “Flower of the Aquitaine”. Places in the Ukraine like Odessa have always sounded impossibly romantic for similar reasons. There’s something so evocative about that part of the world, irrespective of what the reality happens to be like. Or how about Dakar – how could you not want to go there? Or Madagascar? Alexandria always sounded so enticing as well, as do Casablanca and Marrakesh. Or Budapest. Or Mali.

In fact, I think it is possibly to arrange a lifetime of holidays on phonetics alone. Although maybe, looking at that list above, I just like the sound of the hard ‘c’.

/randombollocks

Shout Out Louds – Normandie
Yo La Tengo – Andalucia
The Divine Comedy – Motorway to Damascus

Hannah from Modernaire rather kindly sent through this George Orwell essay which I rather like, especially the bit about the Toad (I assure you there is no such thing as a ‘common’ Toad, whatever George may think).

Maybe we should all step away from these pernicious computer machines, and go and lark about, carefree in the springtime lushness.

The excerpt was from ‘SomeThoughts on the Common Toad’ and whilst I object to his scurrilous accusations of lower class toadery which, as a species, we vigorously refute, it makes a nice read. Orwell may have been a stodgy novellist, by which I mean that his intellectual achievements as a writer outsrip the actual enjoyment of reading his fiction, but he was a truly excellent essayist. Anyone who is yet to read “The Decline of the English Murder” should do so immediately. But this is not really a literary site, so let’s leave it to George, shall we:

“Is it wicked to take a pleasure in Spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird’s song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenom¬enon which does not cost money and does not have what the editors of Left-wing newspapers call a class angle? There is no doubt that many people think so… People, so the thought runs, ought to be discontented, and it is our job to multiply our wants and not simply to increase our enjoyment of the things we have already. The other idea is that this is the age of machines and that to dislike the machine, or even to want to limit its domination, is backward-looking, reactionary and slightly ridiculous.

I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex, and that the sort of pleasure one gets from finding the first primrose will loom larger than the sort of pleasure one gets from eating an ice to the tune of a Wurlitzer. I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and – to return to my first instance – toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader-worship.”

There’s not a lot of music related to Orwell that I can think of, although I assume there must be loads out there. Animal Farm and 1984 have entered into the popular imagination such that people use metaphors from these books all the time, even if they have no idea where they came from.

For Animal Farm (tenuous, these two):
Cocorosie – Animals
The Beatles – Piggies
For 1984:
Alanalda – There is Always Someone Watching
Tina Turner – 1984
David Bowie – 1984 (Live)
For Down and Out in Paris and London:
The Divine Comedy – In and Out in Paris and London
There must be some more though, surely? Help me out here people.

Yes, my darling Mrs. Toad, the acid-tongued misanthropic centre of my world, has put in a bit of an appearance on The Waiting Room this week. Needless to say we consequently had far too much fun, talked far too much and DC had to take the shears to our segment to make the whole thing fit. No discipline, these new UGC stars, honestly. It’s all covers in this week’s episode, and we put that splendid Richard Godwin in there, some William Shatner and a hillbilly reworking of Snoop Dogg’s Gin & Juice. Splendid!

The Waiting Room – Drunk Covers – Wednesday 23rd April 2008

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.

Anyhow, as there was no time to throw in half the covers I know, I thought I’d post a couple here just for fun. Generally I refuse to post covers on this site because, for all many people do it with total sincerity, there is a distinct whiff of hit-whoring about it – sort of like constantly posting fucking Hot Chip and Radiohead remixes. Anyhow, time for a bit of an exception because I have three very good Divine Comedy covers, to go with the one we played in the show itself. I know The Divine Comedy have been both piss-poor and hopelessly unfashionable for quite some time now, but their early stuff was brilliant, and even now ol’ Mr. Hannon still produces the odd gem from time to time.

The Divine Comedy – Famous (The Magnetic Fields)
The Divine Comedy – Oh Yeah (Bryan Ferry)
The Divine Comedy – Radioactivty (Kraftwerk)

Well, perhaps Europop isn’t quite the right term. Eurindie perhaps. This podcast is stuffed full of splendid tracks from the rest of the European continent which we, as marvellously parochial and narrow-minded Brits, seem to forget exists half the time.

I have no real idea how much this music actually intersects with any of the local scenes to which it might belong, but it is certainly nicely in tune with the British scene as I know it at the moment. Scandinavia is inevitably rather over-represented, but I have managed to track down a Belgian, a little Dutch and something (tangentially) Italian to throw into the mix as well. And a special secret bonus surprise for right at the end, but wait for it patiently and don’t ruin it for yourselves by peeking.

The big thing I can’t get over is just how much I had to leave out of this podcast actually. I’d lazily assumed that it might be a little tricky to fill an entire playlist, but I could just as easily have filled two. So don’t whinge about what’s not on there, because I know, I know!

Toadcast #27 – Europop

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. The Divine Comedy – Europop (00.06)
02. Mikrofisch – The Kids Are All Shite (05.52)
03. A Classic Education – Stay, Son (10.40)
04. Wolfkin – These Are Illusions (14.14)
05. Tafra – Cheesy Epic View (19.47)
06. Kottarashky – Chetiri (21.32)
07. Teitur – Catherine the Waitress (29.40)
08. Jens Lekman – No Time For Breaking Up (35.44)
09. Shout Out Louds – Parents’ Living Room (40.01)
10. The Tellers – Hugo (45.34)
11. Cats on Fire – Born Again Christian (49.47)
12. Yann Tiersen – Ginette (57.21)
13. Air – Alpha Beta Gaga (61.44)
14. The Raveonettes – That Great Love Sound (70.33)
15. Die Ärzte – Quark (73.41)
16. Bettie Serveert – I’ll Keep it With Mine (77.19)
17. Snake & Jet’s Amazing Bullit Band – Doom City (82.46)
18. Röyksopp – Remind Me (87.36)
19. Sigur Rós – Untitled (Álafoss) (90.50)
20. Snapline – S2 (102.59)

And here are a couple of songs which didn’t quite make the cut:
Teitur – We Still Drink the Same Water
The Teenagers – French Kiss
The Raveonettes – Here Comes Mary
Blood Music – Eagles in the Water
Hello Saferide – If I Don’t Write This Song Someone I Love Will Die
Tafra – I’m Sorry Brakne-Hoby

JC who writes the Vinyl Villain is not so much a blog-pal – someone who writes a blog that covers similar territory to mine – as an actual pal.  A truer gent and a more generous soul you will never meet, which makes his latest plan no less than completely characteristic.

There’s been a fair bit of talk about Orange Juice recently, the legendary Scottish indie pioneers led by the peerless Edwyn Collins.  Well, for a neophyte like myself tracking down their music is bloody difficult as, amazingly enough for such an iconic band, it’s nearly all out of print. So, after Ed posted their first album in its entirety a couple of weeks ago (since taken down for reasons that will become obvious) JC, who takes the term avid collector to an extreme, has dreamed up the following offer:

He will make you a customised Orange Juice compilation CD from his extensive (in fact, one very expensive collectors’ single away from being exhaustive) archive of Orange Juice material in return for six of your English (well, Scottish preferably, I assume) pounds.  One to cover the CD and postage, and five to be donated to Quarrier’s, who I believe care for JC’s godson Kevin.

Not only is this in a good cause, and not only should you be supportive of someone donating his time and energy to things like this, but it will also give you a chance to get a pretty comprehensive insight into one of the groups who gave rise to the indie movement, before it just meant music with guitars that gets played on Radio 2.  The indie spirit is alive and well nowadays though, despite its demise as a ‘sound’.  Every band out there making up their own CD-Rs and selling them through their MySpace pages should have a look at the original indie movement because that, my friends, is where it all began.

A couple of bands covering Orange Juice songs:
The Wedding Present – Felicity (Live 1987 – Munich Alabama Halle)
The Divine Comedy – Untitled Melody Back from before they were shit.

And some more from the original indie era.
The Desperate Bicycles – The Medium Was Tedium
The Field Mice – Emma’s House
The Loft – Up The Hill And Down The Slope