The Raincast is so called because we have had three days of sporadic, but at times absolutely torrential rain here in Edinburgh this week.  The leak in our ceiling has sprung back into action with some vigour, although this time it manifested itself in a manner which didn’t ruin all sorts of my vinyl, which was generous of it.  We really must get that looked at before the whole bloody ceiling comes crashing down.

The rest of my day will be spent sticking things into envelopes to publicise the Lach release, which is really, really soon, as well as the new album by Trips and Falls, which isn’t out until the end of September.  I will be back on the gocco printer hand printing the artwork for that one though, which isn’t something I’ve done for a while, so rather looking forward to it.

Anyhow, in the meantime, have a wee listen to this. It’s an interesting mix this week, from the utterly obscure, to the borderline famous, to the might almost have been nearly famous five years ago, but not really likely to crack it now.  And then Radiohead. Yes, I’ve finally listened to King of Limbs.  At last.

Direct download: Toadcast #182 – The Raincast

01. Barry Adamson – Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis (00.29)
02. DanDanDan – Match of the Day Background Music (08.47)
03. Anna-Anna – Mirrors of America (13.17)
04. Clem Snide – Ice Cube (21.56)
05. Lambchop – Up With People (24.29)
06. Public Dims – Lorimer (31.09)
07. Rollor – Energies are Dead in the Mind Constellation (40.17)
08. Camera Phone – Artifacts (43.44)
09. Radiohead – Lotus Flower (50.55)
10. I Like Trains – Sirens (Remix) (57.19)

 News International (I do not need to tell you) is one of the most repellent organisations in the world, but this whole business might just end up working out to their advantage, in a twist of supremely Machiavellian achievement.

NI decided to close the News of the World a long time ago, as you can see from this Guardian article detailing the plans being set in place to deal with its disappearance, dating from weeks ago. The sunonsunday.com URL was registered before any of this even kicked off.

As much of a right wing, darkie-hating, shit stain of a wank rag that the NotW has always been, this might turn out to be a masterstroke by the Murdoch empire. They have been caught out in some of the most disgraceful acts of both illegality and moral offence in the history of the press, and they have managed to actually turn it to their advantage.

They close the NotW to show how serious they are about this sort of legal transgression, they reduce their market share of the UK press, and as a result they might just manage to persuade people that they are neither a monopoly concern, nor a dangerous blight on political discourse, and in doing so secure the kind of domination over the UK press and hence UK political debate which could turn us into the next United States – forever having to pander to the latest reactionary retard wheeled out on Fox News to agitate the bigots and the racists.

Because let’s face it, NI are not weakened by this event, they are consolidated. The Sun and the NotW basically catered to the same market: ignorant, unpleasant, narrow-minded racists. Closing one just strengthens the other, but if this PR stunt enables the BSkyB takeover to take place we will still be faced with one of the most conservative, racist, morally repellent organisations in the modern world owning a scarily large chunk of UK media.

Day-to-day journalists have all been fired (although given they work for the NotW in the first place I have no fucking sympathy), but the people who actually engineered and implemented all the craven, corrupt and utterly illegal actions we’ve learned about recently will all continue to work within Murdoch’s empire of sleaze.

In other words, what was potentially one of the greatest PR disasters in corporate history might just end up being turned into the kind of publicity stunt which turns the British media into a shameful mirror of the hatred, bigotry, and outright lies which is Fox News, by consolidating the power of a group of people who treat the world like their own fucking puppet show and care for nothing but insulating their own twisted version of reality to the point where a writer of dystopian science fiction simply couldn’t make this shit up.

Anyway, and breathe…

Here are your five questions for this week.

1. Your number one news media hate figure.
2. Compare someone in the news to a movie or cartoon villain.
3. Whose phone would you hack if you could?
4. Cameron and Murdoch is a predictable terrible twosome.  Pick a less predictable one.
5. What will your lunch be today?

This week’s five songs are from a tape called ‘Cheerful Choons, Innit’ which I found in the van recently.  I was living in Cambridge at the time, which was home to a surprising number of mockneys, hence the title.

Clem Snide – Ice Cube

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Lambchop – Up With People

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Eels – Jungle Telegraph

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The Pernice Brothers – Shaken

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Barry Adamson – Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis (with Jarvis Cocker)

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Fast because I need to squeeze eleven songs into an hour because I just didn’t want to trim the playlist, fast because I want to get out into the back garden asap to enjoy the sun, and fast because um… well, just because.  I dunno.  Fuck you, anyway, this is the one-hundred-and-eighty-first stupid name for one of these damn things I’ve had to come up with.  The names were bound to get worse over time really, weren’t they.

Anyhow, once this is done, I expect to get a couple of hours out in the garden before buggering off to Henry’s for the Edinburgh School for the Deaf, Zed Penguin and Spook School gig.  These things have to happen on bloody glorious days, don’t they. Ah well, at least it wasn’t a Toad Session this time, like it usually is the moment we get a sunny day.

Direct download: Toadcast #181 – The Fastcast

01. Yo La Tengo – Outsmartener (00.25)
02. Enfant Bastard – Demo Scene (06.40)
03. Lambchop – Came Home Late (12.34)
04. Smog – Teenage Spaceship (16.35)
05. Castor – Watcher Buckles (21.56)
06. Boring Girls – Tin Foliage (27.57)
07. Mitchell Museum – What They Built (32.15)
08. Plastic Animals – It Fell Apart (35.27)
09. Seafieldroad – Cramond Island Causeway (40.56)
10. Sun Glitters – Things Are… (47.11)
11. Little Deadman – Post Helado Madness (52.31)

Let’s get one thing straight, no matter how fucking busy I am today I will be out in that damned garden by four o’clock this afternoon with a beer in my hand or there will be hell to pay!

I am currently working on the Scottish Enlightenment Toad Session, due to go up tomorrow, and it’s going to be tight, but dammit the weather in Scotland is this nice so fucking rarely that days like this must be seized, with some determination.

Actually, if we can get it to stay this nice for a couple of days we are likely to have a barbecue before the Alex Cornish and Avital Raz House Gig tomorrow.  If it’s sunny come by from about five or six and we will be out the back relaxing!  If not, then just turn up whenever, of course.

I am really looking forward to this one, as well as being a little nervous.  Apparently Alex is bringing a full bloody string quartet with him, which is a slightly terrifying (if rather cool) prospect. As ever, please let me know if you’re coming down so we can be prepared!

Anyhow, better get this posted, or I’ll never meet my four o’clock deadline!

1. Favourite barbecue food.
2. Shorts – yes or no?
3. Can you manage to not look a tool in shades?
4. Do you burn quickly in the sun?
5. Are you passive or active when barbecues are being lit, and then cooked with?

Enfant Bastard – You Are My Fucking Sunshine

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Lambchop – Your Fucking Sunny Day

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The Bees – Sunshine

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Yo La Tengo – Beach Party Tonight

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Belle & Sebastian – A Summer Wasting

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I fucking love vinyl.  This is a recent fetish, I have to confess, which is perhaps why I am setting about it with the unshakeable passion of a born-again, but whatever the reasons, there it is. I had a lot of vinyl as a kid, primarily because I could afford it, but once I moved onto one of those twin cassette deck plus CD on top thingies at university I thought that was the last I would be seeing of my record collection.

The problem is that at the level of Song, by Toad Records, and presumably many, many other tiny indies, vinyl simply doesn’t sell enough to be financially feasible.  It costs a fucking ton to manufacture and trickles out the door really quite slowly, leaving you with a massive cashflow problem and a similar storage problem.

It’s frustrating, because I would love to release more vinyl, but I have tried and tried to think of a practical way of doing it which wouldn’t run a massive risk of bringing the whole label to its knees within six months but I just can’t.  If we make few enough that I would be confident we could sell them, then it would cost so much we could barely sell them at cost price (and if they’re 7″s then you can’t even do that), but if we make more then the unit cost goes down, but I have grave doubts that we could sell enough to take advantage of it.

Having a band with the history and clout of Lambchop signed up might help of course, as might a slightly different approach to the rather daunting business model of vinyl releases.  Grapefruit Record Club are doing just that in 2011, by starting a rather intriguing subscription-based vinyl club.  For those not in the States it will cost in the region of $150, so it’s a fairly formidable investment, but then that is quite simply just what vinyl costs to make I’m afraid.

The four albums you’ll be signing up for in 2011 will be by Lambchop, Richard Youngs, L. Eugene Methe and 200 Years.

My personal worry with attempting subscription-based models is whether or not I could consistently find enough material to fulfill my promises to people, and what I would do if I didn’t?  Offer refunds?  Release something I was less keen on to make up the numbers?  With only four releases, though, I don’t think that will be a problem – the longer you are a record the label the more the problem becomes whittling it down, not finding material you love.

So, in short, I think this is a very interesting experiment, and something I really hope succeeds. Go forth and spend, Toadlings, it will be worth it.

I may only have lived in the Wiltshire village of Seend for about four or five months about ten years ago (seriously, ten?) but the fact that I had no job, nor was able to find one, meant that the music I listened to ended up with an extra resonance.

Apart from looking for jobs I didn’t know how to find, I spent an inordinate amount of time browsing through copies of Uncut magazine, back before it turned to shit, and buying albums based on how well I liked the songs they chose for their covermount CDs.

There are a couple of other songs on this podcast, but I think the memories of Seend (including my goal in a 3-2 victory, having been 2-0 behind at half time) are still surprisingly strong.

Direct download: Toadcast #137 – The Seendcast

01. Meursault – Bulletproof (La Roux/Radiohead Cover) (02.52)
02.The Czars – Lullaby 6000 (09.19)
03. Hamell on Trial – Choochtown (20.30)
04. Lambchop – Bon Soir, Bon Soir (24.10)
05. The Savings and Loan – The Virgin’s Lullaby (31.09)
06. Phillistine’s Jr. – The Bus Stop Song (36.55)
07. Vado in Messico – Sisma (38.50)
08. Billy Bragg – Take Down the Union Jack (47.12)
09. Kevin Tihista’s Red Terror – Sucker (51.46)
10. Cinerama – Health and Efficiency (58.49)

So, finally some more sessions happening – this week we have Edinburgh’s most tippediest new band The Last Battle popping in.  There are something like seven of them, I think, so I hope they’ve either limited their numbers for this evening or I suddenly develop into a technical genius, because recording seven musicians with two microphones might prove to be somewhat tricky.

Ruth and I are still trying to think up a suitably hybrid name for the show.  Song, by Toad is basically my thing, and calling the show that rather underplays her role in it, so we thought we’d try and find another name if we could.

Last week’s suggestions included the Princess and the Toad and the current favourite: Toad on a Hot Tin Ruth.  Any further suggestions will be most welcome – please just pop ‘em in the comments below.

Live on Air 8pm-9.30pm – Listen live here.

I’ll fill in the playlist live below from 8pm onwards, so please come and say hello, shout mindless abuse or whatever else it is you internet people spend your time doing.

1. Clem Snide – Moment In The Sun
2. Amanaz – Sunday Morning
3. The Last Battle – Nature’s Glorious Rage (Live in Session)
4. Joni Mitchell – Carey
5. Slow Club – Lets Fall Back In Love
6. The Last Battle- Black Waterfall (Live in Session)
7. Dr. Dog – Shadow People
8. The Last Battle – Cutlass (Live in Session)
9. Hailey Beavis – In Any Case
10. Yo La Tengo – Yellow Sarong
11. The Beatles – Sexy Sadie
12. The Last Battle – Oh Best Beloved (Live in Session)
13. The Akron Family – River
14. The Last Battle – Soul of The Sea (Live in Session)
15. Lambchop – Every Time I Bring it Up it Seems to Bring You Down

Thanks people, see you next week for the Mammoeth session.

The most enormous difficulty with recording this podcast was that it was monumentally, wonderfully, amazingly sunny and hot outside.  So there we were, stuck in our house, trying to play songs and conduct an interview while we were all secretly (and not so secretly) longing to just be out in the back garden.  Mrs. Toad was making burgers, you know.  Gaaaaah!

I remember when FOUND recorded a show with Marc Riley recently and I got plenty of emails saying that they really weren’t very talkative.  Which is odd really, because I didn’t entirely get that kind of impression as we recorded this session or about them in general, but then I listen back to it again and the first few interviewy segments really do take a while to get going.  I guess it took a while for Ziggy (who I’d never met before) and myself to figure out exactly how to talk to one another and whether or not we really got on.  So that whole dynamic makes for a really good podcast, which gets more and more interesting, from my point of view anyway, as the thing progresses.

They even hint at the mighty Cybraphon, their recent creation, but like a fool I don’t really press them on it too much, having no idea what a splendid great behemoth it was going to turn into.

As usual, all the videos are embedded below and can be seen at the Song, by Toad Vimeo on YouTube pages, along with a portfolio of photos by Dylan from Blueback Hotrod, and Fee on Flickr here.  The session tracks can all be downloaded below, and the main interview podcast itself is immediately below.  Have fun Toadlings.  I am going to sleep like a freshly-slaughtered corpse.

Toadcast #82 – FOUND Toad Session

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FOUND – Mullokian (Toad Session)

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FOUND – You’re No Vincent Gallo (Toad Session)

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FOUND – Medley (Toad Session)

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FOUND – Anti-Climb Paint (Toad Session)

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FOUND – Gifted (Toad Session)

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Now we’ve got the main session video below, followed by the videos we made for the individual songs (Vimeo are being fucking useless at the moment, but eventually that main video and Gifted won’t be on YouTube).

01. FOUND – Mullokian (Toad Session) (05.11)
02. Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks (09.27)
03. The Avett Brothers – The Greatest Sum (Acoustic) (13.26)
04. FOUND – You’re No Vincent Gallo (Toad Session) (20.39)
05. Animal Collective – Brother Sport (20.32)
06. FOUND – Medley (Toad Session) (36.00)
07. Phil Collins – In the Air Tonight (44.20)
08. Lambchop – Your Fucking Sunny Day (49.11)
09. FOUND – Anti-Climb Paint (Toad Session) (64.29.)
10. FOUND – Gifted (Toad Session) (72.25)

Foiks really should be a proper word, shouldn’t it.  I think that might be as close as I get to the infitnite number of Booker Prize-winning monkeys.  That would be quite disappointing actually, wouldn’t it – Booker Prize-winning monkeys.  You wait almost an infinite amount of time (say, ‘ages’, for example) for your infinite number of monkeys to rattle off some Shakespeare and all they fucking lazy simian bastards come up with is the latest Joanne Harris Novel for Menopausal Women Who Think Their Artistic Side is Being Neglected.  Fuck you, monkeys!  The Girl With the fucking what?  Jesus, as if I didn’t feel like I was having my period already.  Mind you, it could be worse.  They could write Jeremy fucking Clarkson’s autobiography.

That picture at the top there is how we are hoping to get the Toadmobile  painted.  We spent Thursday night getting drunk together and fannying about with Photoshop to come up with a few different ideas, and that was a narrow favourite, just ahead of one in bright metallic green with black and white racing stripes down the middle.  It also was very cool indeed.  Christ knows what our mechanic is going to say when we show him that picture, but, erm, well we’ll just leave that for another day shall we.

Grmpf.  That’s it, really, so please de-lurk and chip in with your Friday Five, as pinched from the talkboards on the Guardian.  And if you want to chip in next Friday’s five then just email me at the usual address.

1. Favourite not-a-word-but-should-be.
2. Place name which sounds completely made up.
3. A word doesn’t exist for this, but it should.
4. Cool-sounding foreign word.
5. Word you could never spell.

Velvet Underground – Venus in Furs

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Wilco – I’m Always in Love

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Gomez – Make No Sound

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Lambchop – Grumpus

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My Teenage Stride – Actors’ Colony

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As you read this I will be in a meeting.  I will be in a meeting all fucking day.  I will tired and cranky in that meeting and trying desperately hard to both stay awake and feign even the tiniest little bit of interest.  I’ve been up until three in the morning every night this week working on the Sparrow & the Workshop Toad Session, which will definitely be posted tomorrow, and I am fucking shattered.  You know how you get so tired that the day becomes slightly surreal?  Well like that.

Nevertheless I am feeling pleased.  Despite an almighty disaster in which the fucking bastarding shitty piss arse video camera chewed half the tapes and left me with almost zero footage of two of the songs and the tail end of the interviews, I think it’s turning out very well.  The tracks themselves sound fucking amazing, honestly, and given how nervous I was about recording live drums for the first time I am both brimming with pride and enormously relieved.

This weekend, therefore, is one for peace and quiet and not doing anything strenuous.  Above all it is one for sleeeeping.  I shall sleep the sleep of the recently deceased, I should think.

So, without further ado, here’s some stuff to faff around with and generally to waste Friday by buggering about on the internet.  De-lurk, if you haven’t commented before, and participate in this glorious Friday ritual shamelessly pinched from the boards of Guardian Talk.  And if you want to suggest the next Friday Five then bung me an email at the usual place.

1. Usual number of hours sleep.
2. Ideal number of hours sleep.
3. At what point on Friday do you usually stop even pretending to work?
4. Meeting etiquette bugbear.
5. Name a record for a sunny Sunday, best played in the early afternoon.

Some oldies this week:
Lambchop – Up With People
Barenaked Ladies – If I Had $1000000
Gomez – Here Comes the Breeze
The Trashcan Sinatras – To Sir, With Love
Supergrass – Shotover Hill