Hello people, more podcastenfun once again.  Having done the Deathcast recently, I thought it might be nice to do the polar opposite – the Birthcast.  This week’s podcast is all about the birth of Song, by Toad.  I’ll tell you about how I started writing about music, how I discovered blogs, how I discovered that what I was writing was in fact a blog and how I ultimately ended up on WordPress writing what you are now reading.  r casually skimming over, depending on your bent.

It has also ended up being something of a 2004 retrospective, because that’s when this all started, however slowly, and that side of it has been nice.  I had met Mrs. Toad by this point, and I was all excited, and despite the fact that my job was bollocks, living in London was great fun.  I was on a narrowboat at Nine Elms Pier at this point, which was an amazingly brilliant place to live, and I used to cook myself kettle noodles because I couldn’t be arsed firing up the stove.  I’d boil some water, throw it over some noodles and some stock and chuck in lots of fresh veg – bloody delicious.

Toadcast #40 – The Birthcast

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01. Modest Mouse – Bury Me With It (01.39)
02. The Fiery Furnaces – Chris Matthews (07.57)
03. The Innocence Mission – I Have Not Seen This Day Before (Live) (17.54)
04. American Music Club – Only Love Can Set You Free (22.57)
05. Brian Wilson – Cabin Essence (28.40)
06. Andrew Bird – Lull (35.30)
07. Jim White – Static on the Radio (42.52)
08. Tom Waits – Trampled Rose (49.09)
09. The Dears – Lost in the Plot (54.36)
10. Giant Sand – Anarchistic Bolshevistic Cowboy Bundle (59.43)

This morning I have no plans.  Nothing to do, no gigs, no chores, no work to do on the house, nothing – it’s great.  I’ve been outside to the garden and had a potter… actually, let me tell you about our garden.  It’s some rock ‘n’ roll shit, babies, seriously.

When we moved into our house our back garden was basically a courtyard.  I have always had lots of plants and my family is full of gardeners, so we saw that courtyard and had only one thought on our minds.  So we bought a ton of compost and a sledgehammer and, of the course of last Summer, took up slabs one at a time, dug in some good stuff and started to take it back.

It’s been a bit backbreaking, but quite fun wielding the sledgehammer, and now we have a couple of pretty decent sized beds and what’s left of the patio in the middle.  It was mostly planted last year with very young plants, largely ordered from internet nurseries, so there’s a lot of bare earth.  Everything’s had a year to bed in and put down some roots though, so this year we’re hoping for a bit more in terms of growth – we reckon we might just have a proper garden.

So every weekend for the past month we’ve woken up on Saturday morning, poured some coffee and wandered out into the back to peer and prod at our ever-increasing number of little shoots and buds.  There’s something so exciting and satisfying about this time of year in a garden.  All the dea, brown stuff starts to sprout tight-wound little buds of new life, and the whole thing just promises so much.

We’ve not done it the right way at all, in the sense that we haven’t planned it properly and we have no real idea what we’ve put in where, but that doesn’t matter.  We’ll see what we get this year and tinker as we go along.  It’s just nice.  There’s something so relaxing about shuffling around the garden with a cup of coffee gazing at the exact same stuff you stared at last week.   I’ll take some pictures this year and post them so you can see what I’m on about.  It’s not all coke and hookers in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, you know.

So, erm, what songs go with that, then?  Saturday afternoon music, I suppose.  You know what I mean: cup of tea, pyjamas, slightly weak March sunshine, flicking through a book, but not really paying much attention.  Bliss.

The Mountain Goats – You Or Your Memory
The Mabuses – Dark Star
The Smiths – Frankly, Mr. Shankly[
(The Real) Tuesday Weld – At the House of the Clerkenwell Kid
The Innocence Mission – I Haven’t Seen This Day Before (Live)
Adem – Everything You Need