Song, by Toad

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

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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 recorded this podcast marooned in the middle of France at my parents’ house, with no more musical resources than the compilation CDs I’ve been taking them constantly since I left home. It was quite weird to poke through all the old songs I’ve sent home over the years, actually.

There’s something unavoidably honest about the mixes you make for other people. Look back on the year or the decade yourself and you apply hindsight, selective memory and all sorts, but if you look at the stuff you send to other people then you don’t get the chance to quietly forget the shite because it looks a little unfashionable in hindsight.

Of course, due the benefits of hindsight and making sure I save face I am not playing you any of the shite because my ego is fragile and couldn’t stand the mockery if I told you the absolute and honest truth. So here is a version of the music I used to send to my parents, handily sanitised so I don’t make a total tit out of myself.

Right, happy Christmas, I’m off to watch Back to the Future…

Toadcast #101 – Boxing Day

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01. Sparklehorse – Eyepennies (02.48)
02. Evan Dando – Hard Drive (11.57)
03. Jay Farrar – Fool King’s Crown (14.57)
04. Lucky Jim – You Stole My Heart Away (21.31)
05. Mark Lanegan – Wedding Dress (29.39)
06. Grand National – Boner (32.34)
07. Arizona Amp & Alternator – Baby, it’s Cold Outside (41.29)
08. The Zincs – Finished in This Business (46.50)
09. Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel (54.10)
10. Tom Waits – The Part You Throw Away (61.23)

You may point and laugh, people, but I am currently lying in my bed, a mere sneeze, twitch or yawn away from unspeakable agony. I fucked my back playing football on Monday and at the moment any kind of movement is like a wild gamble. Do it wrong, and my lower back spasms to extent that it can take me ten minutes to focus on the individual muscles one by one and try and relax them. It’s bloody crap.

On the plus side, my doctor has prescribed me Diazepam which, according to the Daily Mail, will turn me into a jobless, benefit-scrounging, teenage single mother by the evening.  I was offered opiates as well, but turned them down on the basis that I would snigger about it too much.  Also, I am not fond of painkillers to begin with: I prefer to actually know what’s going on if I can.  I want to be able to know how much it hurts and consequently have a reasonable idea when it’s all getting better.

The other annoying thing is that I literally cannot do anything.  When you’ve got other illnesses you can at least potter in the garden for an hour here or make some phonecalls there or do some video editing or whatever the hell else, but I can’t even sit at a desk for more than twenty minutes before everything starts clenching up, so I am quite literally confined to lying either on the bed or the living room floor, or hobbling about the house to try and loosen up.  I have watched every shitty movie known to man in the last three days.

You know what was a real disappointment though?  Neighbours.  And Home and Away to an extent, but mostly Neighbours.  Even seven or eight years after leaving uni I could still comfortably slip back into Neighbours – face it, the plot moves at an absolutely glacial pace – but this week I haven’t had the patience.  It’s a bit gutting – like I’ve finally lost touch with an old childhood friend.  Maybe the pain in my back has eroded my patience for this kind of thing.

Anyway, while you’re off gallivanting, spare a thought for me, watching American Pie: the Wedding or some other such total horse manure, and unable to even drag myself out for a bloody pint – anaesthetic beer, mmmmm!  And what better way to kick off your Friday fun than by mocking the cripple.  You heartless bastards.

1. Most pain you’ve ever experienced.
2. Coolest sounding drug you’ve been prescribed.
3. Worst thing you’ve ever watched whilst off work sick.
4. Most innocuous injury you’ve ever had a ton of sympathy for.
5. Most painful affliction you’ve ever had which seems too lame for sympathy.

This Friday I have some mid-90s acoustic versions of stuff to share with you.

Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield – My Drug Buddy (Acoustic)

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Pulp – Joyriders (Acoustic)

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Supergrass – Caught by the Fuzz (Acoustic)

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Fun Lovin’ Criminals – Scooby Snacks (Acoustic)

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Pearl Jam – Black (Live Acoustic)

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Right, I’ve slagged off the whole boiling lot in my previous post, so you’d be forgiven for thinking that I hate Christmas with a passion, and in many ways I do. But Christmas is, believe it or not, my favourite time of year in many ways.

Are you surprised that a bad-tempered old cynic such as myself should make such a statement? Well probably not, because there’s a pretty obvious vein of romanticism close to the surface which my regular readers will have had no trouble noticing.

When my family do Christmas we do indeed buy presents, but not particularly expensive ones. There’s usually a couple of books to be found around the tree, some music (mostly from me), some worthless but nevertheless rather lovely rubbish from a junk or antiques shop and a small handful of daft but thoughtful things that for some reason or another made us think of the person in question during the year. We don’t spend much, but we do tend to bring nice things for each other.

What really makes Christmas for me is the peace and quiet and the cosiness. We cook, a lot. The meals are long and prepared with care. Two or three people spend most of the day cooking, and then we sit down in the evening with candles and the fire lit and spend about four or five hours eating and chattering (see pic, top). During the day we shop for the next meal, and walk in the countryside (we tend to spend Christmas out in France but if we’re in Edinburgh, as we will be next year, we’ll probably go for a walk down by Cramond or in the Botanics, if they’re open).

There’s lots of music, from my Mum’s classical to my brother’s jazzier stuff, to my Dylan and Waits, but all of it is cosy , downbeat and emotionally solid, without being miserable. Mum gets quite keen on having lots of traditional, hand-crafted decorations, Mrs. Toad spends a little too extravagantly on wine, I joust with Mum for control of the stereo, Dad reads his books and my brother makes sure he re-visits all his childhood rituals with all of us – walks with Dad, long late night chats with me, flavoured with new music and gin, and cooking with Mum.

So as much as I loathe what Christmas is, I absolutely love what we do with it. We eat, we relax and we spend time together. The cold and dark and the fire make it all very slow-paced and quite magical, and generally one of my favourite times of the year. How can you build a proper family if you don’t do this – take time to be together, to talk and to do things as a group? We’re not even remotely religious, but it’s times like this we reaffirm all those ties and relationships and traditions that make our family so close, and despite the horrors of the tinsel and the shopping frenzy around us, I wouldn’t swap our family Christmases for anything.

If this doesn’t bring a tear to your eye then you have no soul worth saving:  Tom Waits – Take it With Me
Sheryl Crow – Home (Yes, Sheryl Crow)
Evan Dando – All My Life
The greatest and truest christmas song of all time, and yes I did post it last year, deal with it: Tom Lehrer – A Christmas Carol