This particular podcast was somewhat railroaded by two different things, and hence has very little of the new music/inbox harvesting stuff you may have come to expect from Song, by Toad.

Firstly, I went to see Jeffrey Lewis on Wednesday.  He was supported by Seth Faergolzia from Dufus and covered 2+2=? by the Bob Seger System, which explains two of the songs.

Secondly, I went out to visit a couple of pals on Thursday night.  That resulted in an epic Pearl Jam-a-thon, so I was looking for some Pearl Jam to play today, only to happen across an old compilation with Pearl Jam, Luna, The Magnetic Fields, Yo La Tengo, Beck and others on it, which explains a couple more songs.  As for the rest, well, there’s just no excuse really, is there.

Direct download: Toadcast #198 – The Revivalcast
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01. Soulsavers – Revival (00.16)
02. Pearl Jam – Bu$hleaguer (08.47)
03. Seth Faergolzia – Weird Old Toad (16.40)
04. Bob Seger System – 2+2=? (19.53)
05. Lords of Bastard – Chant (25.24)
06. The Blue Runes – Stream Fog (31.59)
07. Beck – Golden Age (37.54)
08. Luna – Black Champagne (42.24)
09. The Eagles – Outlaw Man (52.25)
10. Honey Train – Yo Toad/Deepness (Demo) (58.37)

Bill Oddie, for those of you who don’t know, is a legendary British television birdwatcher – twitcher as they’re known.  He is also the subject of one of the most famous of all mondegreens: Madonna’s “Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie, put your hands all over my body”.

Anyhow, as a legendary feather flutterer it seemed only appropriate that his name should adorn a podcast entirely made up of bands with ornithological names.  We have everything here, from the albatross to the gull to the guillemot to the owl to the sparrow to the pigeon.  Honestly, this podcast could have been twice the length that it is, there were just so many appropriate bands – no Flock of Seagulls, for example, no Sparrow & the Workshop, no Sheryl Crow.

So I hope you enjoy it.  While you’re listening to this, Mrs. Toad and I will be enjoying the End of the Road Festival, and hopefully getting a few interesting interviews in for you all.  It’ll be my first ever attendance as a legitimate press person, so I am feeling very full of myself at the moment, but with a bit of luck I’ll justify the inflated sense of self-importance and bring back some fine bits and pieces for you to enjoy in the next week or two.

Toadcast #37 – The Oddcast

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01. Hate Beak – Feral Parrot (02.27)
02. The Eagles – Outlaw Man (04.52)
03. Eagleowl – Motherfucker (10.55)
04. Woodpigeon – Knock Knock (15.22)
05. The Lovely Sparrows – Department of Foreseeable Outcomes (19.45)
06. The Bowerbirds – In Our Talons (23.47)
07. Doves – A House (35.30)
08. Counting Crows – Start Again (38.12)
09. Andrew Bird – Why (Live) (46.32)
10. Guillemots – Take Me Out (Live Lounge) (50.43)
11. A Hawk & a Hacksaw – Portlandtown (56.07)
12. Gossamer Albatross – Held Hands (59.57)
13. The Housemartins – Me & the Farmer (63.26)

I have to confess – actually I don’t have to; Mrs. Toad would be right on here to correct me if I pretended anything else – that I was a right pussy when I was a teenager. I was still a nice sensitive boy by the time I met my darling girl at fifteen, but I was even worse before that. Even so, even by the time we met, I was still far too soft for a leather-jacket-sporting, drinking, drug-taking party girl who hung out with the school’s rock band to even consider indulging in foolishness with me.  We got on incredibly well and had that sort of unspoken trust that you get sometimes when you click with someone.  So rather, we both considered it – sort of – but in a rare show of good sense for either of us we both knew instantly that it would be an unmitigated disaster, so put that idea to bed for another ten years to mature.

Anyhow, if I was bad then, I was worse in Singapore. I moved back to Vienna from South East Asia at fourteen and it was in Singapore that I first got into genuinely tragic and completely wet teenage heartbreak. Frankly it was, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, just a little pathetic. I look back and I think ‘oh for fuck’s sake man, grow a fucking spine!‘ but t’was not to be. I was a state, a sincere, cowardly sexual retard with another nine years to go before I was to spontaneously and unprecedentedly grow a pair of balls at about age twenty or twenty-one.

Anyhow, want to hear what I cried myself to sleep to after yet another crushing rejection?  Every one to the time-honoured mantra of ‘You’re like a brother to me’ and ‘What we have is so special, I don’t want to ruin it by going out with you’ and ‘But you’re my best friend’ and other such cunning euphemisms for ‘don’t be ridiculous, you dickless wonder’. My friends and I called it ‘the old fuck-off-and-die routine’ because frankly we’d have found being told to fuck off and die more dignified. Lots more dignified.

Anyhow, I’m better now, but I can’t hear these songs without cringing. Worryingly, there may have been worse, but I think my mind has blocked them out, thankfully.

Jackson Browne – For a Dancer
Bruce Hornsby & the Range – The Road Not Taken
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band – You’ll Accomp’ny Me
The Eagles – Desperado