Song, by Toad

Tonight Mrs. Toad and I are going to Glasgow and I am NOT ALLOWED to take the opportunity to go to a gig, apparently.  Mean old bitch.  Still, we are staying in a posh hotel for a couple of nights, before popping up to somewherenearglasgow for a wedding on Saturday.  We are going to Rogano’s for oysters on Saturday lunchtime before pottering off in our suits and hoping that everyone else will be so smashed they won’t notice what a couple of dickheads we are when surrounded by large groups of people.

We love Rogano’s actually.  The decor is Art Deco and absolutely brilliant, and it’s full of people who look like they’ve been coming there since their glamorous youth in the seventies.  We go there, drink champagne and martini’s and eat lots of fish, and it’s brilliant.  It actually makes even me feel slightly glamorous, which is no mean feat, I promise you.  I just hope we are a little restrained and don’t turn up at the bloody wedding off our tits.

In other Hoping Not to Offend People news, my mother’s birthday is coming up, but she and my dad are off gallivanting somewhere exotic and mercifully hard to reach, so I will not be able to forget to send her a present this year, a little ritual we have which routinely results in floods of tears and plaintive cries of “Why do you hate me?”  Every single fucking year – honestly, you’d think either I’d start remembering properly or she’d just get the fuck over it, but neither of us seems to be able to sort it out, it’s ridiculous.

Anyhow, please de-lurk and say hello.  And remember to take your hipster pics of people being Incredibly Cool so you can win a vinyl copy of the Communion Compilation.  Judging will be on next Friday’s Five, so find your pics and email me at songbytoad at hotmail.co.uk.  In the meantime, Christ, please let the day be over so I can get a fucking pint.

1. What do you do which routinely causes family histrionics?
2. Apart from the Smiths, these songs are all starting to feel nostalgic now, despite only being about five years old.  Where does current stop and nostalgia begin, for you?
3. What do you wear which makes you feel distinctly Not Like You?
4. What generally disgusting foodstuff do you love.
5. Favourite childhood boardgame.

Richmond Fontaine – The Warehouse Life

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.

Eels – Sweet Li’l Thing

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 Smiths – Bigmouth Strikes Again

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.

Andrew Bird – Lull

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.

Bright Eyes – Gold Mine Gutted

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.

Hooray for us – possibly the vilest and least romantic Valentine’s Day Podcast yet!  And before anyone whinges about that picture, go to fucking Wikipedia and complain, because that’s where we bloody got it from.  I know!  Scandalous!  Someone should complain.

So erm, yes.  I don’t think we left anyone unoffended this year.  I sincerely hope not because I don’t like to think of people out there nurturing an anticipated false outrage complex only to be let down.

We do not like romance, we do not like being told when to have fun by people who are simply hoping to exploit our disposable income, we do not like it being implied that being single is some sort of failure, we do not like people measuring their self-worth by how much their partner can be emotionally blackmailed into spending on them, we do not like having to live up to commercially defined standards to demonstrate that we love one another, we do not like having to skip the football just cos we’re supposed to behave one some particular day or other, we do not like fucking teddy bears or fucking chocolates, we do not like sitting in tumbleweed-infested restaurants whilst people glance nervously around them wondering if they’ve done it right, and we do not like having a list of things to live up to before our relationship is considered functional thank you very fucking much.

We do like lazy Saturdays in the garden, swearing at the fire for twenty minutes trying to get it to light with damp logs, meals with friends, new places, listening to vinyl so loud the floor shakes, a bit too much to drink with people that we really like, laughing/shouting at films, arguing about the side of the bed, swearing blind it’s not your turn with the chores when you know damn well it is, drinking coffee in the garden when it’s sunny, slagging off almost everyone, shouting at reactionaries on TV, emailing one another stupid stuff all day, insulting the cat, surprise cups of tea, buying shit on the internet when we’re drunk, only coping with the washing mountain when it threatens to start a SARs epidemic, watering the plants mere minutes before death and walking hand in hand through the park and peering at cool old dudes chuntering around at the allotments or sailing model boats in the park pond.

Oh, and getting pished and recording offensive podcasts for Valentine’s Day… enjoy!

Toadcast #108 – The Boabycast

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. Cracker – Mr. Wrong (03.10)
02. Billy Bragg & Wilco – Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key (09.57)
03. The Smiths – Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me (17.11)
04. Eels – Love of the Loveless (20.16)
05. The Clash – Brand New Cadillac (29.40)
06. Bill Hicks – Pussywhipped Satan (31.41)
07. Evan Dando – Hard Drive (44.33)
08. The Coathangers – Nestle in My Boobies (48.11)
09. Virgin of the Birds – She’s in the Moon Again (59.10)
10. David Cross – Your Baby is FUCKING BORING! (65.59)

I described this a couple of podcasts ago as Eels-lite, and to a degree it is.  A little like their last record, the musical inventiveness has pretty much gone and the song structures are all the same and you kinda know what you’re going to get from the first few minutes.

Mrs. Toad was pretty horrified when she first heard it, frankly, and there is a bit much really bland bluesy stuff in here, with a medium pace, a medium delivery and all sorts of other mediumness too.  That stuff is, I will admit, a little frustrating.

Nevertheless, the core things which made Eels great in the first place have not gone, for all they may have settled down somewhat.  Everett is a really, really sympathetic lyricist and a good few of these songs demonstrate that he is a long way from losing his knack for making you really genuinely feel what he is feeling.  Is it lyrics, or just the sheer believability of his voice – I don’t know.

He hasn’t lost the knack for putting his finger on what it is which causes him to hurt and explaining it in a manner which makes you not so much understand his pain, but be able to imagine exactly what it would feel like if you yourself felt that same pain.  Written down, that difference may seem almost meaningless, but in terms of an emotional reaction to a record it is surprisingly important.

Blinking Lights and Other Revelations was also quite stylistically predictable, but it contained its surprises in tiny parcels within the individual songs, rather than making them apparent in the overall record.  This one doesn’t even do that, but it still talks to you in a gentle yet sincere manner until you find yourself beginning to understand it.

At this stage Mark Oliver Everett’s music has become an old friend, and it’s kind of in this manner which this record has very slowly become one I am really enjoying.  Sure, there’s some stuff I really am not into, and there’s a real feeling of musical coasting at times. Somehow, though, Everett seems to have got to a stage where the flair and excitement has gone out of his music, but none of the character or sincerity, and he’s managed to get me to travel with him as he relaxes into middle age.  So in a sense this album feels somewhat like sharing a late night whiskey or glass of wine with someone you’ve known for years.  Sure the topics of conversation are all the same as they were when you were young, but by this stage the exchange of words is not about debate or any real exchange of information, it’s simply a warm way of reconnecting with someone and re-establishing those bonds of affection which have formed over the years.

Eels – In My Younger Days

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.

Eels – Masions of Los Feliz

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.

Website | More mp3s | Buy direct from the band

I never really know what to do with pre-release mp3 teaser thingies on this site.  I don’t like just slapping them up on the blog without any thought, as a great many mp3 bloggers do.  It seems a bit of a waste of my time, and bit… well, a bit thoughtless I suppose.  As if suddenly the site would become a mindless news aggregator, which is not really fair, but it does feel a bit like that.

So I decided a little while back that I would use the podcasts for popping in new mp3s I had been emailed, but which didn’t have a home within a proper review of any sort.  That makes good sense, but then a lot of people don’t listen to the podcasts for varying reasons (no, not just because they’re shit), so it feels like there should be a way to pop the things up on the blog as well, for you other lot who heartlessly ignore all the hard work and effort that goes into the loving creation of a weekly podcast.

Anyhow, here are some things, most of which have been featured on every blog in Christendom already, and have also appeared on my own podcast already, but erm, I figured that non-podcasters deserved some fun too.

Sara Lowes may be best known for her work with the Earlies and Micah P. Hinson, but she is a fantastic solo artist in her own right, and this song is a teaser from a her new album Back to Creation, out, erm, soonish.  It has quite a lush pop sound, but for a change I am not going to complain about that.  Instead I am going to embrace it and say that I rather like it.  How’s that for an old dog learning a new trick then, eh?

Sara Lowes – Night Times

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.

My friend Phil and Little Matthew who helps with Toad Recordy things (as well as being a smart arse in the comments section) both love Eluvium, so I find myself really rather looking forward to their new record.  This teaser track sounds extremely promising, too.  The album is called Similies, is out on about the 15th Feb or so, and can be pre-ordered here.

Eluvium – The Motion Makes Me Last

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 new Eels album, frankly, ain’t really doing it for me just yet.  It’s a touch Eels-lite, but there are some good moments.  Little Bird is the official teaser for the album, End Times, which is out on Monday I think.

Eels – Little Bird

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.

Sam Amidon has also released an mp3 from a new album called I See the Sign.  It’s out in March sometime, and when I put it on the last podcast I remarked that it sounded a lot more like the Doveman stuff he does with his friend Thomas Bartlett, and speculated that perhaps Thomas had a lot to do with the new record.  Apparently this isn’t really how Bedroom Community (his label) work, so I may well be wrong, but I’m going to see him play in London in a week or two and I’ll ask him then.  Until then, this is How Come That Blood – nothing like the Sam stuff we know and love, but still brilliant if you ask me.  I’m really looking forward to this album.

Sam Amidon – How Come That Blood

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.

So, feedback time.  Do you have a preference for how to deal with this kind of newsy shite in future?  Should I have a way of just slapping up brand new mp3s sent by PR people to make sure you get your news on time, or does waiting for the review but sticking new stuff in the podcast make more sense to you?

Before you break out into a cold sweat about having to sit through another list of the best albums of the decade, don’t worry, this is not one of those.  Although most of these songs would be there or thereabouts if I were actually compiling a favourite songs of the decade list, that’s not why they’re here.

Basically, rather than try and rank anything against anything else, all this is is a meander through the last ten years and me chattering about how my relationship with music has changed and what sort of stuff I was into at what times of my life.

Basically, this is the soundtrack to a perfectly normal, albeit enthusiastic, music fan’s descent into full-on deranged internet mania.

Toadcast #99 – The Decade

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. Eels – A Daisy Through Concrete (04.09)
02. Goldfrapp – Pilots (10.04)
03. Grandaddy – The Crystal Lake (14.17)
04. Lift to Experience – To Guard and to Guide You (23.13)
05. Interpol – NYC (30.46)
06. Tom Waits – Kommienezuspadt (34.57)
07. The Decemberists – Red Right Ankle (40.41)
08. The Walkmen – The Rat (44.06)
09. The Mountain Goats – Dilaudid (51.20)
10. Broken Records – Lies (Demo Version) (57.07)
11. The Savings and Loan – Christmastime in the Mountains (64.11)

I get an awful lot of stuff in my inbox.  When I get jaded and fed up it seems like a bit of a burden, in all honesty, like I owe it to every band and every publicity monkey who ever gets in touch with me to give them complete attention and the time to let the music sink in and all these things which just aren’t possible.

Sometimes, though, I get in the right mood and having an inbox full of bits and bobs is an indulgent treat.  This week is one of those weeks, where I am enjoying pottering through my inbox and having a listen to this and that and basically, it’s just a bit of a treat.

So, after weeks of structured and themed stuff, this week I am basically playing whatever the fuck it is I fancy.  No theme, no plan no goal and no coherence in particular

Toadcast #98 – Randomness

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. Stanley Brinks – The End of the World (01.42)
02. Tune Yards – Hap-B (08.09)
03. eagleowl – Laughter (17.00)
04. Stringjammer – Long Road Home (19.45)
05. Eels – Little Bird (26.09)
06. Fang Island – Daisy (31.32)
07. Candy Claws – Island Grows (41.30)
08. Animal Collective – Bleeding (43.41)
09. Dylan in the Movies – Josephine (52.53)
10. Clues – Perfect Fit (61.20)

I was out quaffing lagers with a pal last night and once again Friday arrives with that faintly queasy, furry-tongued sensation we all know so well.  Blech.  Still, nothing a fine meal of fish and a couple of pints at the King’s Wark can’t solve I am pretty sure.  I have yet to meet the hangover their fine lunches can’t defeat.

Tonight I am off to act as arm candy for Mrs. Toad at a client dinner with the Dastardly Finance Corp for which she works.  Me, my black eye, a scruffy beard and a grudgingly-worn suit – not quite like the braying public school fat-tongues who tend to dominate these sort of events.  Maybe if I act arty enough they’ll think I’m some sort of creative genius.

We’ve already had some interesting situations with this sort of thing actually, because a lot of the posh Edinburgh people we’ve met seems to have a very acute awareness of which school one attended and what job one does and therefore which of you needs to kiss the other’s arse.  Because Mrs. Toad and I don’t seem all that posh they tend to start out quite optimistic, too.  Then they find out we met at school in Vienna, which both worries and confuses them – it sounds posh but they don’t know the school, so they can’t be sure – oooh, what to do?

And then my job confuses them too.  They know the company Mrs. Toad works for, and that’s quite legit, so they can kind of peg that one to their ladder, but of course they tend to assume that her wage is probably about two thirds of mine or less because that’s how these things tend to work in the world of finance.  So when I tell them that I’m an industrial designer and that I actually make fuck all they get really confused.  Am I just lying?  Am I a maverick creative guru and just playing it down?  Can they actually condescend to us like they sort of want to?  Or am I from such a wealthy family that I simply don’t have to work?    But what if they misjudge it and act superior to the wrong person?  Aaagh, too many options, does not compute…  head explodes!  It’s quite funny.

Although to be fair, Mrs. Toad’s worky social events aren’t really like that actually; in fact they tend to be pretty friendly, to be fair.  I got distracted and started nattering about another occasion entirely just there, sorry.  Umm… so er, please do take advantage of the Friday de-lurking amnesty and chip in with your Friday Fives.  As Christmas gets closer and closer I would imagine that less and less work is being done in the offices of the nation anyway, so you might as well.

1. Your worst-behaved plus-one moment.
2. The worst plus-one moment your other half has inflicted on you.
3. How do you subversively rebel when asked to scrub up to impress folk?
4. Do you love or loathe your other half’s colleagues? (And are you free to answer that question honestly?)
5. In the company of people you are supposed to behave in front of (colleagues-in-law, the other half’s family, your parents friends etc..) how scooshed do you actually get?

The five songs this week are new things which have found their way into my inbox recently.  That’s a new Eels song from a recently announced album, which is good news, and ditto for Stanley Brinks.  Tune Yards is someone just signed to Matador, and of whom they have high hopes in the new year.  It’s weird, but I like it.  Naughtily, I’ve had that Ravens & Chimes song for ages, so their album might actually be out already – if it’s as good as the last one that is very good news.

Eels – Little Bird

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.

Ravens & Chimes – Hearts of Palm

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.

Tune Yards – Hap-B

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.

Stanley Brinks – End of the World

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 Chord & the Fawn – Love, Sex and Rock ‘n’ Roll

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 know it’s the run up to Christmas and the New Year, but there will be no Best of the Decade lists on this blog, no sir.  The reason?  Well, for fuck’s sake, I’m just far too fucking lazy!  Christ almighty, no disrespect to the people who have the energy to do it but I wouldn’t even know where to begin raking back through all the albums released in the last ten years, never mind starting to filter them into some kind of sensible order.  Madness!

So if anyone wants to ask me I’ll shrug and say ‘I dunno, fuck it, probably Kid A or A Ghost is Born or Funeral or Lyre of Orpheus or summat like that I guess’.  Probably.  I think.  Perhaps.  I mean, I find it hard enough to balance my year end lists as it is, trading off the immediate glow of enthusiasm still retained by albums released in the last month versus the more distant memories of those out in January.

Spread that over ten years and Christ Al-fucking-mighty what a task.  I mean, I was a totally different person back in 2000.  And again in about 2002, and 2004.  I moved up here halfway through the decade and suddenly became not just a fan but a reviewer and a promoter as well – fuck’s sake my whole relationship with music has been completely changed over the course of the decade.

The albums I listened to whilst working in a shitty gangster nightclub in Manchester in 2000 did something totally different for me than the ones I listened to in the giddy excitement of my first days with Mrs. Toad where I was thinking ‘fucking hell, this really is it, isn’t it’.  Imagine comparing Withered Hand’s superb Good News, which has been in existence for a mere handful of months, to a record like And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out by Yo La Tengo, which I have listened to in good times and bad for the last ten years.

I know this is the case over the course of a single year as well, but the magnitude of it seems a little more manageable.  It also seems less grandiose a statement, too ‘my favourite album this year’ seems a little more hedged and modest than ‘the best album of the last decade’, which seems like it should be in capital letters or italics or have a load of bloody exclamation marks after it or something.

I know that’s missing the point somewhat, of course.  Lists are just for fun, really, and largely for the entertainment of the people writing them, although also to a lesser extent for other people too. It’s just a bit of fun, and kinda fascinating to look at how, say, Wilco’s A Ghost is Born and the Willard Grant Conspiracy’s Regard the End would probably be on my list, despite never being an ‘album of the year’, whereas Nux Vomica by The Veils might not make the list at all, despite being my top pick in 2005.  It’s also fascinating to try and figure out where albums by your friends, like the Meursault record for example, might stack up when held up against the likes of Kid A or The Sunset Tree by The Mountain Goats or Clem Snide’s Your Favourite Music.  How do you even make that comparison fairly?

I don’t mean to criticise anyone who has compiled such a list of course – Euan has done a fascinating one over at the Steinberg Principle for example, and fair bloody play to him (page 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5) – but I genuinely don’t think I would even know where to begin.  I have my lists of course, but what about the records which didn’t make those lists?  I think I may just have to write off the last ten years as the decade in which I became the person that I am today, which had a lot of good music, and which will forever remain in a memory rather than a list.

Eels – Guest List

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 used to love taking the train down to London.  When GNER had the East Coast mainline Mrs. Toad and used to travel pretty regularly, in the days when I lived in London and we only saw one another every couple of weeks.  As often as we could we would go and sit in the dining car and slowly get drunk all the way to the end of the line.  Those were really rather romantic days.

Anyway, when GNER’s parent company got into trouble they were forced to sell off the East Coast mainline under some obscure rule of Capitalism which requires failing companies to get rid of the only bits of them which work – in other words the only parts of the company which might actually help them work through their problems and get back on their feet.  Obviously if this doesn’t make perfect sense to you then you must be some sort of Communist, but it strikes me as some sort of ludicrous rule dreamt up by the vultures rather than the victims, but hey ho.  If nationwide healthcare is too Communisty for you then what chance do sensible rules of business have?

Anyhow, that line went to National Express who have made an unspeakable balls up of the whole operation.  Apart from running a previously healthy line into near-bankruptcy they have taken away the fucking dining cars, which now only operate on a fraction of the trains.  So yes, making a service notably more shit and that service therefore becoming markedly less favourable with customers, who’d have thought those two were connected.  Gosh the world can be a strange place sometimes.

So, this being Friday, please take the opportunity to de-lurk and fill in your Friday Five:

1. Favourite mode of long-distance transport.
2. Weirdest place you’ve had a surprisingly civillised meal.
3. Thing that just isn’t what it used to be.
4. Most boring everyday thing which actually turned out to be quite romantic.
5. Most annoying train habit.

Beck – Broken Train

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.

Eels – Railroad Man

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.

Billy Bragg – Train Train

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.

iLiKETRAiNS – The Beeching Report

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.

Phil Ochs – Automation 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.

DO NOT WORRY!  This is not a podcast stuffed full of tedious moralising and empty pontificating and generally depressing garbage about a subject far too weighty and philosophical for this sort of half-arsed internet enterprise.  In fact, towards the end it really gets quite chipper.

Basically, there are so many extraordinarily good murder ballads that that particular aspect could so easily have entirely overtaken a podcast ostensibly about prison, crime and criminal justice.

This week, however, I have still managed to marginalise the role of the murder ballad, because the concept of death incorporates so many disparate emotions and aspects that simply doing a whole podcast about murderous folk tales and their musical counterparts seemed unnecessarily narrow.  So you get this.  Which starts out a little heavy but becomes positively gleeful by the end, I promise you.

Toadcast #86 – The Deathcast

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. Willard Grant Conspiracy – Painter Blue (03.01)
02. Samamidon – O Death (12.33)
03. Eels – Going to Your Funeral (22.31)
04. Melanie Rivaud & Strange Weather – The Fall of Troy (Tom Waits Cover) (25.05)
05. Bob Frank & John Murry – Jesse Washington 1916 (31.53)
06. Bruce Springsteen – Dead Man Walking (37.02)
07. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Up Jumped the Devil (41.15)
08. The Men They Couldn’t Hang – The Green Fields of France (48.26)
09. Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Tramp the Dirt Down (57.02)
10. Chumbawamba – Passenger List for Doomed Flight 1471 (66.35)