Song, by Toad

Fookin’ marvellous, not only is it Friday but this weekend is supposed to be stunning and there are all sorts of fun and capers planned between now and Monday.  Firstly, tonight Honeytrap – one of my favourite bands – are playing Sneaky Pete’s with Meursault, and I am really looking forward to it.

Then tomorrow we have a marathon double Toad Session day of mentalism, with Found coming in at about two in the afternoon and Honeytrap at six.  It is going to be, I think it’s safe to say, fucking hectic and probably very drunken, but the stuff we get out of it should be absolutely fucking amazing.   It’ll no doubt take some time to get through all of the stuff we generate, but I think it will be worth it for a couple of brilliant sessions.

So, while I go out and find somewhere to have a couple of pints in the sun over lunch, please take this opportunity to come out of the shadows and have your say.  Fridays are de-lurking amnesty threads, so if you’ve never chipped in before, why not make today the time you pop your cherry.  Fill in your five and then talk total pish with everyone else for the rest of the afternoon, whilst you’re supposed to be working hard but are secretly just waiting for 5pm so you can bugger off down the pub.

1. Most sinister-looking animal.
2. Favourite movie villain.
3. What goes best on toast?
4. Favourite cocktail.
5. Best place to have a cup of tea.

Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – The Summer’s Been Good From the Start

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Shivaree – Reseda Casino

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Mark Eitzel – Move On Up

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The Come Ons – Strangelove

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Rufus Wainright – One Man Guy

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It’s been a longish week, but believe me this weekend is going to be worse.  I am offering up my poor old Volvo for sale, which breaks my embittered little alcoholic heart, so it does.  I am going to miss that car, we’ve had some wonderful times pottering about in her and I am going to miss the silly old girl, really I am.

This is a joint podcast, seeing as how I was in the pub with Dylan and the poor whelp seemed to have nowhere else to go, I invited him back to the house to add his own particular brand of incoherent nonsense to this week’s podcast.  Because lazy racial stereotyping is something of a stock in trade around here, I find myself making several lame attempts to bring up Welshness and national identity and all that pish, but ultimately this is just two drunk people chattering about music.

More or less the usual, then.

Toadcast #64 – The Welshcast

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01. Billy Bragg & Kirsty MacColl – A New England (05.12)
02. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – Miniature Kingdoms (14.54)
03. Manic Street Preachers – From Despair to Where (18.53)
04. M.J. Hibbett & the Validators – The Fight for History (27.46)
05. Broken Records – And They All Fell Into the Sea (35.50)
06. Drunk Country – The Rain That Almost Drove the Windows In (44.44)
07. Meursault – William Henry Miller (49.34)
08. Super Furry Animals – Into the Night (57.24)
09. Supergrass – Moving (65.15)

The last time I whas in Whales I think I whas about eight – my grandparents took us to Llandudno.  With the beach and the somewhat naff arcade on the pier and so on I whas probably entirely entranced, but if I’m honest I really don’t rhemember all that much about the experience.

My Granddad is Whelsh actually, so I suppose that makes me ¼ Whelsh myself.  Given my total lack of familiarity with the place though I think it would be silly to claim that ¼.  The Whelsh music scene is not one I whould general compare to the Scots in terms of output or quality, especially ghiven that there are four million Whelsh, compared to about five or six million Scots – the difference just isn’t that great.  And the Scots have whiskey to distract them.

There are definitely a couple of brilliant Whelsh groups that spring to mind of course, but in my ignorance I wouldn’t be able to name all that many that spring to mind as being current and promising.  A bit like Canada before the Arcade Fire, when its musical reputation was dominated by pantomime embarrassments like Celine Dion, Alanis Morrissette and Bryan Adams, the image of Whelsh music is still associated in my mind with clowns like Stereophonics, Tom Jones and that fat girl from Catatonia.  Mind you, if people thought of Scotland in terms of The Proclaimers, Wet Wet Wet and fucking Texas…

So, if you fancy an introduction to Whalesong, pop over to the Whaiting Room and have a listen to a couple of hours of DC and the Lady of the House wrestling the reputation of their nation back from the Dadrock of the Manic Street Preachers.  Me, I’ll be running about like a blue-arsed fly getting ready for the launch night most likely.

These songs are from one of my favourite Whelsh albums of rhecent years: Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s legendary Barafundle.
Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – Starmoonsun
Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – The Wizard & the Lizard
Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – Miniature Kingdom