Song, by Toad

Well, kids, it’s been a strange old sleepless week & a bit. Of course, what with the Presidential pageant all a hoo-ing & a hah-ing at every turn, I managed to mince about pretty much unnoticed for the most part.

The weather has been atrocious to say the very least. Did I pack for ground frost? Torrential rain? Near hurricane-strength winds? Like fuck I did. Added to that, I’ve been averaging 2am to bed (a foldout in the livingroom of the rented space – sharing with 4 others) & 5.30am wake up calls.

Ed, my (un)usual USof travel companion, has insisted on cooking breakfast for us every morning at 5-cunting-am. The smell of slowly charring bacon has gagged me awake every fucking day – including my one & only day off. On Monday, at 6am, he set the smoke & fire alarms off in the whole apartment complex as he set fire to the electric oven hob with another of his dodgy homegrown concoctions.

The cooker was ruined &, as the rental is billed to my credit card, I’m expecting a sizable bill in the near distant to repair or replace. I’ll go into the finer details of our latest adventure on next week’s show.

So, then, to this week’s show, which has been done on the hoof, via laptop, as I flitted about the States like a ninny. There’s not so much chatter – I was knackered most of the time & the mic I had wasn’t up to much & I am to much of a tight arse to buy another just for one show – but the music more than makes up for it. Some of it, in my humble, is nothing short of astonishing.

Expect, then, many brand new tracks from as yet unreleased albums by the likes of: hillary & the democrats, brooke waggoner, little boots, anna kramer & the lost cause, pete & the pirates, meursault, babian, the welcome wagon, hurray for the riff raff, the cotton jones basket ride, andrew bird, plants & animals, raise high the roof beams, jolie holland, bobby bare jr., hari & aino, the kazoo funk orchestra, warpaint, climber, alela diane, anya marina, the decemberists, basket of figs, miss emily brown, ragged claws, clem snide, & samantha crain & the midnight shivers.

You know what to do.

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 21st January

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It’s been a strange few days over here at DCHQ.  On Monday a certain NY radio station sent what can only be described as a compliment-strewn e-beg asking us to join their airwaves, affording us carte blanche on show content & tomfoolery. Yesterday we received word that this month our TWR podcasts are #1 on the Podbean site for the Radio category (with almost 14,000 listeners tuning in since New Year’s day). Then we discover we have the 4th most listened to Radio podcast on the entire Podbean site, ever.

This morning I received an email from a promoter asking me to assist in finding some information on the Butthole Surfers‘ first ever overseas gig back in the 1980s.  Seems he discovered a comment I left on S,bT a while back mentioning said gig, which had been held in Newport Leisure Centre in Gwent.  He’s hoping I can provide details for a book that’s being written about the band.

This afternoon I received an email from a Swedish band, who we’ve featured a handful of times on the show, telling us they’ve name-checked us in their latest song.  Minutes later we get an email from a Cardiff film crew asking us to take part in a documentary they’re planning on UK anti-folk, asking to interview me + film an episode of TWR being made.  Read the rest of this entry »

The lord has been very cruel this weekend, O Readers of Toad. The first sparklingly sunny weekend of Spring is clearly here. It’s a little chilly, but the trademark crystal clear Edinburgh sunshine is just begging to be enjoyed.

Thing is, my bastard proper, paying job has something of a crucial project happening at the moment, and here I sit in the fucking office, staring enviously out the window at what I could have won. My super-duper sums-o-matic computer is crunching away at some pretty taxing photo renderings and I sit here and prod it along every five minutes, working my way through image after image.

I’m sitting here bored as shit, and for once I don’t even have any new music to tell you about. I can’t be arsed writing my review for the Arcade Fire or Andrew Bird just yet, and that’s about all I have to catch up on at the moment. I’m going to follow JC’s lead, I think, albeit in a sulky, infantile sort of way and post a couple of redeeming tracks on an otherwise dismally ordinary compilation CD.

King Tut’s do a Your Sound thingy every month where they bring together emerging bands with a bunch of music industry types, add beer and a DJ and hope to produce magic. By and large it’s a great idea and a top evening, but their ‘Best of..’ CD is dreadful. I’ve heard way better than this from the groups represented at these events. Still, if I have to sit through this then so do you, so here are the redeeming songs from the CD for you.

Here Comes the Bird – El Padre | El Padre myspace
Baby You’ve No Eyes – The Kazoo Funk Orchestra | Kazoo Funk Orchestra myspace
Francesca – Yellow Bentines | Yellow Bentines myspace

There you go, was that a sulky enough post for you? Mrs Toad is sat at home by herself too, wanting someone to celebrate her promotion and the appearance of Spring with – it’s just not fair! Fucking ARSE! Your beloved Mr Toad, dear readers, is in grave danger of cracking up completely.