Song, by Toad

Ah the weekend finally, finally approaches. It’s been another hectic week here at Toad Hall, but I will be glad to put my feet up and have a nice big fat glass of gin tonight. And while we’re on the subject, here is a song that I discovered recently that could pretty well be the theme song to this website:

Derek Meins – The Gin Song

The folks are visiting this weekend as well, and we’re recording the next Toad Session with Meursault on Saturday, and there will be the Great Toad Tom Waits Expedition on Sunday – I’ll confer with some chaps and appoint an official pub for this gathering in the next day or so: say meet at 5pm?.

Oh the excitement, and oh the hectic schedule. Still, Mrs. Toad and I are then away on holiday for a couple of weeks in Portland, and going to the Pickathon music festival. There will be a few interviews conducted, some chatter and maybe even some videos, but basically it is a doing bugger-all sort of holiday. We’ve rented a boat for most of it and will be sitting peacefully afloat and doing pretty much sweet fuck all. I will be posting occasionally, but I haven’t made proper arrangements for C&B to do his usual and very kind job of blog-sitting in my absence, so we may all just have to muddle through as best we can. Don’t worry though, it won’t go silent.

In the meantime, it’s the weekend, and I haven’t had an antiseptically large gin and tonic for fucking ages, and it is very much time to put that right.

Willie Nelson – I Gotta Get Drunk

Oh, and one last thing. Thank you all for taking the time to make some really thoughtful comments on the site this week. Rod Stewart aside, I am a little short of quality new music at the moment, and I had some unbearably pompous verbiage broiling away inside that I kind of had to get off my chest, so thanks for chipping in and making for some really good threads. It really is appreciated when people take part, you know.

Rod Stewart – Baby Jane
Rod Stewart – You Wear it Well

So, plans, people, plans.  What are they, what’s going on, what am I missing out on?  Tonight, despite the blazing sunshine and hugely inviting back garden I shall be indoors, with the shutters and the curtains firmly closed, recording the guitar bits for what is probably going to be the next release on Song, by Toad Records.  It’s a demo really, although it’s going to be the best demo recording we can manage using the kit we have in the house, so not a deliberately scratchy pile of old rubbish.

Robert Fisher of the Willard Grant Conspiracy told me, unprompted, that he would like to do a Toad Session in the Autumn when he’s touring with a stripped down band.  That would be after Meursault, Down the Tiny Steps and Eagleowl.  Fucking brilliant.

Saturday will be spent working on the Alela Diane Toad Session, which is very close to publication, and trying to avoid the lure of the back garden and a bucket of gin.  Tanqueray, Sir?  Ooh, don’t mind if I do Philpott.  In the evening there will be the absorption of culture (local community theatre in which my friend Morgan – Toad Sessions’ cameraman, cinematographer, grip, best boy, etc… – will be playing a starring role) followed by the absorption of industrial levels of botanically infused spirits at Euan from Trampoline’s birthday festivities.

Then Sunday will see the acquisition of some new speakers, to replace the ones Mrs. Toad and I have blown yet again, getting the posters sorted for the Song, by Toad Records launch night on the 14th June, followed by cleaning up the house so our downstairs floors can be restored on Monday, followed by the Mae Shi at Cabaret Voltaire.  Full, I would say, and little room to sit and do fuck all which is what the weekend is really for.  But plenty of fun to be had in there somewhere I would say.

The Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club – Ban the Gin