Right, given we’ve come down to Manchester for the Meursault gig, I thought I might make a podcast based around the two years I spent living here.  As I mentioned on this week’s Friday Five, however, those were really not very happy times so basically this podcast is just a great big hour-long whinge about how shit my life was a couple of times a few years ago.

Nah, not really.  I mean, I do describe why life was tough then but it really isn’t just a great big moan, I promise.  For some reason the music in my life at those times seems to have really stuck in my head and become incredibly strongly associated with the period in question.  Partly, I suppose, because the emotional succour you get from music when things are a bit rough is something you’re grateful enough for for it to really form an important connection.

The other aspect is that on both those occasions I had so little music with me that the stuff I did have got played over and over again, so a really small amount of stuff really dominated my listening habits at that point, and became incredibly strongly intertwined with all of my memories of the time.  So, er, yes.  Here you go: The Manchester Podcast.

Toadcast #88 – The Manchester Podcast

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01. Pearl Jam – Dissident (03.16)
02. The Newcranes – Box of Shadows (08.53)
03. James – Say Something (17.17)
04. The Lemonheads – Into Your Arms (20.30)
05. Blur – Clover Over Dover (27.00)
06. Yo La Tengo – On Our Way to Fall (39.47)
07. Moby – Southside (41.31)
08. Calexico – Removed (48.10)
09. Jolene – Constantinople (51.46)
10. The Magnetic Fields – Yeah! Oh, Yeah! (57.57)

This weekend there will be a trip to Manchester. Meursault have a gig there – in the Saki Bar on Saturday, I think – and Mrs. Toad and I are taking the opportunity to drive them down and visit my Granddad, on my Mum’s side, who lives there. He’s lived in the same house for the last forty years, one which he bought for something like two thousand pounds when the family moved out of Moss Side. See, I told you I was nothing like as posh as you think I am, despite my (raised in Moss Side, remember) mother’s determination to surround herself with begonias, organic vegetable patches and copies of Country fucking Living magazine.

So, we’ll drive down, see the gig, say hi to Granddad and then hopefully cook a Sunday roast the next day before coming back to Edinburgh. Sunday roasts are one of my strongest memories of that house. Back when my Grandma was alive Sunday lunch was a pretty bloody big deal – the house was always full and I absolutely always, without fail, got in trouble for quietly disappearing at some point to gnaw on the bone in the kitchen.

Manchester is an odd place for me, though. I suffered massive, massive culture shock when, thinking myself basically English, I moved there from Vienna to go to university. It was a horrible year: I was too foreign to be English, and too English to get the kind of tolerance actual foreigners get, so basically people just didn’t know how to interact with me at all. It was, however, the first time I really started getting into indie music and going to gigs and so on, so I suppose there are advantages to not wanting to spend time with your peers.

The other time I lived in Manchester was when I was inbetween uni and my first job, working in a gangster nightclub (guns pulled, stabbings, brawls, the lot) and with no idea how to actually get a job in my actual professional field. I was flat, flat broke and really fucking fed up – mind you I discovered some great albums then too – inevitably I suppose. So I always think of Manchester quite negatively these days, just because I’ve always been so fucking miserable when I’ve lived there. It’s no fault of the city itself of course, but I really can’t shake that unpleasant reaction I get to the place. And, stupidly, I really like Glasgow and the two cities are virtually identical in almost every sense.

1. Strongest memory of childhood times in your Grandparents’ house.
2. What do you irrationally hate, just because your life was shit when you encountered it?
3. Great album found during a shit time in your life.
4. Where did you go to University, if at all?
5. Most embarrassing muppet you’ve introduced to your grandparents.

The Lemonheads – If I Could Talk I’d Tell You

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Barenaked Ladies – You Will be Waiting

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The Pogues – First Day of Forever

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Yo La Tengo – Cherry Chapstick

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Moby – Run On

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You may point and laugh, people, but I am currently lying in my bed, a mere sneeze, twitch or yawn away from unspeakable agony. I fucked my back playing football on Monday and at the moment any kind of movement is like a wild gamble. Do it wrong, and my lower back spasms to extent that it can take me ten minutes to focus on the individual muscles one by one and try and relax them. It’s bloody crap.

On the plus side, my doctor has prescribed me Diazepam which, according to the Daily Mail, will turn me into a jobless, benefit-scrounging, teenage single mother by the evening.  I was offered opiates as well, but turned them down on the basis that I would snigger about it too much.  Also, I am not fond of painkillers to begin with: I prefer to actually know what’s going on if I can.  I want to be able to know how much it hurts and consequently have a reasonable idea when it’s all getting better.

The other annoying thing is that I literally cannot do anything.  When you’ve got other illnesses you can at least potter in the garden for an hour here or make some phonecalls there or do some video editing or whatever the hell else, but I can’t even sit at a desk for more than twenty minutes before everything starts clenching up, so I am quite literally confined to lying either on the bed or the living room floor, or hobbling about the house to try and loosen up.  I have watched every shitty movie known to man in the last three days.

You know what was a real disappointment though?  Neighbours.  And Home and Away to an extent, but mostly Neighbours.  Even seven or eight years after leaving uni I could still comfortably slip back into Neighbours – face it, the plot moves at an absolutely glacial pace – but this week I haven’t had the patience.  It’s a bit gutting – like I’ve finally lost touch with an old childhood friend.  Maybe the pain in my back has eroded my patience for this kind of thing.

Anyway, while you’re off gallivanting, spare a thought for me, watching American Pie: the Wedding or some other such total horse manure, and unable to even drag myself out for a bloody pint – anaesthetic beer, mmmmm!  And what better way to kick off your Friday fun than by mocking the cripple.  You heartless bastards.

1. Most pain you’ve ever experienced.
2. Coolest sounding drug you’ve been prescribed.
3. Worst thing you’ve ever watched whilst off work sick.
4. Most innocuous injury you’ve ever had a ton of sympathy for.
5. Most painful affliction you’ve ever had which seems too lame for sympathy.

This Friday I have some mid-90s acoustic versions of stuff to share with you.

Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield – My Drug Buddy (Acoustic)

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Pulp – Joyriders (Acoustic)

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Supergrass – Caught by the Fuzz (Acoustic)

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Fun Lovin’ Criminals – Scooby Snacks (Acoustic)

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Pearl Jam – Black (Live Acoustic)

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This is our first attempt at a stunt podcast, live from a festival.  We go to festivals and I am trying to figure out how much work I can make for myself without taking the fun out of the festival for myself, or just generally trying too hard.

I didn’t really set up any interviews this time around – no, not even Billy Bragg – but I did manage to grab Mark from emerging Glasgow band The Seventeenth Century for a chat.  The audio is terrible, I’m afraid, but it should be just about audible.  If I’d been able to locate the keys for the Toad van at that point we’d have gone in there, just for a respite from the wind noises on the recording and the colossal amount of bleed from the main stage.

In any case, it should be entertaining enough, I hope, and with a bit of luck subsequent attempts at the same thing will be a lot better.

Toadcast #79 – The Wickerman

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01. The Cave Singers – Beach House (04.04)
02. Julian Plenti – The Fun That We Had (07.31)
03. The Second Hand Marching Band – Mad Sense (15.37)
04. The Seventeenth Century – Mid October (22.59)
05. Celebrity Chimp – Pornstar (35.37)
06. The Lemonheads – The Outdoor Type (40.00)
07. The Human League – All I Ever Wanted (47.11)
08. The Go Team! – Feelgood by Numbers (50.25)
09. Meursault – Lament For a Teenage Millionaire (59.16)

Christ, I get back from a long (and, frankly, really rather interesting) meeting and find the website suffering somewhat from the last post being just a little serious. Stop it, people, there will be no meaningful discussions on Friday, particularly not after lunch, it’s just not right.

On the radio show last night I played a song by a band called National Beekeepers Society, and it occurred to me afterwards that they have a sound very reminiscent of a lot of 90s indie rock.  In fact, there’s been a fair amount of that kind of stuff surfacing recently, even down to the likes of the excellent Sholi who I reviewed a day or so ago on this very site.  It’s about time for the 90s revival, I suppose, given that we’re about a decade away from them now, and I suppose these are the first green shoots of that very re-evaluation.  I can’t personally imagine what the 90s revival will be like really, having been a bit too involved with the real thing to guess what it will look like when viewed through uber-ironic teenage eyes.

On the subject of green shoots, I am gazing out the window into the sunshine, desperately hoping that tomorrow is at least vaguely like today.  Our garden has been neglected pretty much entirely since October, and there is something absolutely fucking amazingly wonderful about sitting out in the garden with a cup of tea.  Or a fucking great big gin and tonic.  It actually feels like spring is here – this has been a very pleasant week indeed, long may it continue.

1. Thing you are most looking forward to in the 90s revival.
2. Thing you are least looking forward to in the 90s revival.
3. Most embarrassing thing you allowed yourself to revive during the 80s revival.
4. Has Spring hit where you live yet?
5. Do you grow things or have plants or a garden or something? (What a well-constructed sentence that is.)

National Beekeepers Society – Lazy

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The Ramones – The Garden of Serenity

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The Lemonheads – Confetti

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The Wedding Present – Gazebo

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Echobelly – Natural Animal

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Apparently you can still read a sentence quite easily if the letters in the words are completely jumbled up, as long as the first and last letters in each word remain where they belong. Isn’t that nice.

I am nearly at the end of the unspeakable ordeal that is generating the Toad Records blog spam list. This entails going to the Hype Machine’s blog list, looking at what every single blog is posting and if they post stuff I like, emailing them with links to the Toad Records releases with a nice note saying something along the lines of ‘I hope you enjoy these and it would be lovely if you were interested in reviewing them’. The problem is that there are fucking thousands of blogs and going through this list is so tedious it’s untrue. Still, I’m as far as ‘t’ now, and it needs to be finished by this weekend because everything is officially released on Monday. Fuck I’m tired. I’ve been up until 3am every night this week working on this, with the exception of the Snow Patrol Frightened Rabbit gig on Tuesday (thanks Euan).

In other news, we just invested in a really, really nice vocal microphone for the Toad Sessions. When I say nice, I do mean nice as well, not just ‘slightly nice’. It’s supposed to be a bloody grand’s worth, but we got it for under half that, so roll on the next Toad Session.

If you want to suggest the next Friday Favourites, just get in touch and let me know. This week the Five Friday Favourites come from our own dearest Tart, who left the following comment: “how about a Friday Five on what actually did help you all get sex: music, dialogue, scent, substance etc?”

1. Best pulling music.
2. Worst pulling approach that actually worked.
3. Apart from rohipnol, what should you give someone (food, drink or drug) to get into their underpants?
4. Best bit of chatting up you ever managed.
5. Coolest first date successfully executed.

Willie Nelson & Family – Good Hearted Woman

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Tom Waits – Burma Shave

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The Men The Couldn’t Hang – Dacing on the Pier

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The Lemonheads – Into Your Arms[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/TheLemonheads-IntoYourArms.mp3]
Alabama 3 – Bourgeoisie Blues

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I’ve been on Blogfresh Radio a few times in the past, and always enjoyed the experience. I used to chat to Bill Pearis, which was always fun, but he’s moved on now. These days when I talk to them it’s with a chap called Dev Sherlock who has proved to be just as much fun to chat to as Bill. A little too much fun actually – it seems to be traditional that when I talk to Blogfresh I prattle on endlessly for fucking ages, and then they face the unenviable task of trying to cut it down to a concise minute or so. Poor bastards – still, someone’s got to make them work for their money.

Anyhow, in addition to the more usual approach where a blogger chats a little bit to introduce a song they’re really enjoying at the moment, Blogfresh have very kindly done a profile on Song, by Toad on their latest show. There’s inevitably vanity at play here, of course there is, but I am nonetheless really chuffed that they decided to feature this blog on their recent show. It’s nice because I like what they’re doing, and they’re nice people. So go an listen and make a point of listening regularly. Their shows are short and sweet, unlike my rambling dispatches, and give you a really good taster of what’s going on on the blogs that week. It’s weird to hear a blogger’s actual voice, because sometimes I’d imagined something entirely different, but rather cool nonetheless.

In other news, I am back on Fresh Air Radio (click on the Listen Live thingy) this weekend. I have two shows, Saturday 12-2pm and Sunday 2-4pm both this weekend and next.  So if you want to hear me successfully managing to not swear – no seriously, it happens – tune in.  It’s Freshers Week at the uni as well so I might concentrate on a bit of an introduction to the Edinburgh music scene, and also play some songs from my own time as a first year student. That’ll give the game away something chronic about just how bloody old I am but fuck it, why not, it sounds fun. And there’s nothing to help people settle down and get over their nerves about being new to a place that finding some silly old fart to snigger at.

Here’s a couple that I might well consider:
Lemonheads – Being Around (Acoustic)
James – Say Something

Or my first year in Glasgow:
Gene – Sick, Sober & Sorry
Pulp – Common People

I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone with this podcast.  Firstly, I am throwing in a couple of songs that I wanted to put on the Contrast Podcast episode entitled Young a few weeks ago.  I was away at my brother’s wedding at the time, and I never got the chance so here they are.

Secondly, a good while ago a regular reader of mine called Allen Lulu tagged me with one of these internetty meme thingies whereby you write about the music that was in the charts the year you turned 18.  Well for me that year was 1993, but the chart music was abysmal, so I couldn’t possibly do that to you.  Instead I had a look at what I was listening to myself from that year and came across so many excellent old songs I haven’t heard for ages that a quick post turned into an entire podcast.  And this is that podcast – me at age 18.

Toadcast #9 – The Folly of Youth

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1. The Spin Doctors – Two Princes (03.21)
2. Stereo MCs – Connected (09.08)
3. Radiohead – Anyone Can Play Guitar (13.41)
4. Stone Temple Pilots – Plush (17.30)
5. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Loverman (25.12)
6. Levellers – This Garden (31.29)
7. James – Five-O (38.24)
8. The Long Blondes – Once & Never Again (6Music Acoustic Session) (43.12)
9. Gogol Bordello – Never Want to be Young Again (49.48)
10. The Mathletes – Linger (Cranberries Cover) (55.27)
11. Pearl Jam – Daughter (57.45)
12. Blind Melon – No Rain (63.19)
13. Soul Asylum – New World (67.57)
14. The Lemonheads – If I Could Talk I’d Tell You (71.50)
15. Portishead – Mysterons (75.24)
16. Engine Alley – Song For Someone (82.26)

Yes, I’m afraid so my Toadlings. I seem to have pulled a muscle in my back so at the moment I am shuffling about like I’ve just shat an angry porcupine.

It is, believe me, excruciating. I can’t even find a comfortable position to lie and watch telly, so god knows how the bloody hell I’m going to sleep tonight. Mind you, there I was feeling sorry for myself when it occurred to me that The Band had a splendid song called Up On Cripple Creek which, assuming a certain enjoyment of tasteless and slightly black humour (and let’s face it, you wouldn’t still be here otherwise), seemed rather appropriate.

The Band – Up On Cripple Creek
The Raveonettes – My Boyfriend’s Back Not the greatest song, but that ambiguous apostrophe was just too good to be missed.
Tom Waits – Walking Spanish If that’s what you want to call it.
Jackson Browne – Walking Slow
The Lemonheads – No Backbone