It’s not going to surprise anyone at all that I am being an absolute slob today, is it?  Mrs. Toad got back from Australia around lunchtime, and after a few hours of pottering about she crashed out with jetlag, so I snuck off to record the podcast.  I am sure that soon enough she will wake and start demanding attention and general servitude soon enough, so I better get this over with quickly.

After that I am going straight back to bed to watch stupid films while my sweetheart dozes by my side, awaking occasionally to tell me off for not being comfortable enough, or to send me to fetch her things, or to just swear at me for taking all the covers or some other such sweet nothings of the kind she is wont to come out with from time to time.

Direct download: Toadcast #148 – The Slobcast

01. Elvis Perkins in Dearland – Shampoo (00.21)
02. Elvis Costello – Couldn’t Call it Unexpected No.4 (06.24)
03. Billie Holiday – Good Morning Heartache (13.17)
04. Smog – In the Pines (16.22)
05. My Tiny Robots – Ballad of the Mapmaker’s Daughter (23.17)
06. Randolph’s Leap – Going Home (32.19)
07. The Japanese War Effort – Face Like a Lemon (Ivor Cutler cover, live on Fresh Air Radio) (36.50)
08. Grass House – Lazy Bones (43.01)
09. Bob Dylan – I’ll Keep it With Mine (49.23)
10. Bettye Swann – Don’t Look Back (54.47)

In general I don’t like to just throw things up onto the internet straight from a PR email, but this is a new video, and a really nice one, by a band I know nothing about at all called Grass House.  So I suppose it’s about time to put that right, eh?

If you listen to one of their earlier songs, there’s something of the urbane British barfly about them, albeit in a stompy, harsh sort of a way, but Lazy Bones is rather different.  Where early stuff seemed to be aiming more towards Nick Cave and Tom Waits, I hear a little more of the likes of (The Real) Tuesday Weld in this new track.  And the video is ace.

Something about the newfound smoothness appeals to me more than the earlier stuff, which seemed a little like lush, polished songs trapped in a slightly rougher incarnation than that in which they might belong.  With Lazy Bones, on the other hand, the richer, more treacley delivery and arrangements seem to match the actual song itself a lot better, although that may be my incorrect impression of a band formed on the basis of hearing no more than four songs.

I need to know more, in other words, and I should start, I suppose, at their record label, which is called Holiday Recordings!

Snowcones by Grass House