A couple of weeks ago I was whingeing about not being able to get going after Christmas, and this week it’s a similar, but different whinge: so much is nearly ready to get going on!

The new Trips and Falls album is being mastered and should be ready to assign a release date in the next few weeks, hopefully.  Animal Magic Tricks is just agreeing the final mix and sequencing for her record, but we’re still waiting on the last of the mixed songs to be approved by the lady herself before we can move on to getting it mastered.  And although agreed in principle, we are just finalising the details of an official offer to Lach, to release his new album, Ramshackle Heart, over here, and that record goes for mastering just as soon as we finish batting the contract back and forth over minor matters of punctuation and US vs English spelling.

These things just take time, it’s not that anything is being done badly – just the opposite in fact – but I am on the verge of being incredibly busy, but for the time being still waiting for it all to kick off.  Once it does, of course, I things around here are going to be just as mental as ever, but for the time being that sense of antici… pation is just bubbling away.

So I, like you, have little better to do this afternoon but waste time fannying about on the internet.  And tomorrow, of course, is our first gig night – down at the Wee Red, with The Scottish Enlightenment, Johnny Reb and Morris Major.  The Wee Red has a pretty early curfew remember, so get there by half seven if you want to catch the first band.

Alternatively, if you find yourself in London Song, by Toad Records’ new signing (if you can really call it that) Rob St. John is playing at Shhh! at the Local tomorrow night.  Local pals Conquering Animal Sound are playing too, as well as the excellent Tasseomancy, and DJ sets from the Line of Best Fit and Anthony from GDLI.

1. Find a picture of a hat which looks even sillier than a leather fedora.
2. Favourite totally miserable fucker music.
3. Favourite loud-as-balls music.
4. Which of your music makes you look the coolest…
5. …and the least cool.

These five songs are from a mixtape of British music I made for my brother at the tail end of the nineties.  Back when Snow Patrol were actually a pretty good band.

Lionrock – Straight at Yer Head

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Arnold – Fleas Don’t Fly

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The Divine Comedy – Thrillseeker

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Snow Patrol – Fifteen Minutes Old

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Delakota – The Rock

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So, good people of the internets, this Friday I am going to be getting mind-meltingly bladdered at my works night out from about lunch time today, so my comments might go downhill even more sharply than usual this afternoon.  Fortunately, it won’t be the teeth-grindingly awful teambuilding nonsense implied by that picture because basically my work are a bunch of total pissants.  So it will be drunken mayhem, which will be far better.  We even have two new people to torment, which will be splendid.  Mwaah hah haaa!  Actually, we’ll probably all be far too drunk to give them a hard time, but it’s the thought that counts.

For those of you who are interested, this weekend’s plans include sorting out most of the Found Toad Session, DJing at this excellent gig on Sunday and doing the Toad Records accounting so that we can pay Meursault the vast sums of money their godlike genius requires.

Also, I may masturbate and eat some pickled onions.

Not at the same time.

Why why does it always get to past two o’clock in the morning and I am still fucking awake and doing shit?  Fucking hell that’s annoying.  I’m soooo sleepy too, but I just can’t seem to get to bed at a normal time, it’s ridiculous.

Mrs. Toad and I had our anniversary this week – three years.  We first met in 1991, so we’ve taken our time.  I celebrated by going out with my mates, getting pished and breathing beer on her at two in the morning.  I’m a fucking great husband, I am.  She celebrated by forgetting about it and wishing me happy anniversary this morning – a day late.  So it’s safe to say we don’t take this stuff that seriously in our house.  It’s still nice to think about though.

DE-LURK!  Please!  Honestly, the voices are starting to get to me, please jump in and say hello.   Friday is de-lurking day.  I promise you Chutters won’t be boorish, Dylan won’t be pretentious, DC won’t be needlessly verbose and Euan won’t be sulky.  I can’t promise you Bart won’t be funny though.  Five yourselves all to pieces, people.

1. Work social events – good, bad or indifferent?
2. Do you like your baths scalding, warmish or cool?
3. Have you ever heard a better dismissal of a whole musical genre than ‘ethnic sex music’?
4. Favourite kind of fruit.
5. Best ever mix tape you made.

This week’s five songs are all from a mix I made for my brother… bloody years ago, I’m not quite sure when.

Snow Patrol – Fifteen Minutes Old

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Lionrock – Straight at Yer Head

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Arnold – Windsor Park

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Delakota – The Rock

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The Divine Comedy – Thrillseeker

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Mentioning albums I bought just because the cover is brilliant reminded me of this: An Instinct For Detection by Lionrock.  Just look at that cover!  It’s so cool, how could I not buy it.

As it is, I barely like the album.  But at this point I was starting to get into vaguely electronic music – exploring Stereolab, Dubstar and Saint Etienne a little further – so I was quite open to new sounds.  This never quite caught, unfortunately, being just that little bit too dancey and trip-hoppy for my liking.  I was also mercilessly derided by my then-girlfriend for trying to get into dance music.  Imagine that – finding someone more of a narrow-minded indie snob than myself.  No, I can barely imagine it either. Actually, when she strayed away from indie it was in the punk direction, largely, although she liked folky stuff too, but for some reason my electronic-based explorations never met with a shred of favour.

Funnily enough, even though I didn’t take to the album, these two songs have stayed in my head persistently enough that I ended up downloading them from Napster and then again recently from… er, not sure actually.  Maybe it’s because of the mixtapes they ended up on or maybe because I’ve never played them that much since, but they make me really nostalgic for some reason.

Lionrock – The Guide
Lionrock – Straight at Yer Head

I’m down in Manchester this weekend, so I have edited the timestamp on this post to appear some time on Saturday. This way your daily dose of pompous sermonising can still come your way, despite the absence of the Toad. But no more posts until Monday evening after this one.

I am visiting my Granddad and showing him pictures of our garden which, as an old duffer with the very greenest of fingers, I think he will enjoy. He is a lovely man, my Granddad. Very old fashioned, caring, generous and the perfect gentleman. Quite brilliantly, he is also something of a ladies’ man, even at his age. All the women down at the club get quite twittery over him, so I shall be taking studious notes on his tricks of the trade and hope to translate them into similar results in my own dotage.

Here are some songs I listened to a lot while living in a shitty, damp, freezing cold basement flat on Arlington Street in Glasgow. Drunks used to sleep outside our front door, which didn’t lock properly and the close stunk of piss. Lovely.

[Edit: Erm, for those of you who aren't Scottish: the close more or less translates as the stairwell in a block of flats.]

Sleeper – Vegas
Blur – There’s No Other Way
Lionrock – The Guide
The Bluetones – The Fountainhead

I think Lionrock’s Instinct For Detection might have been just about the first ever vaguely electronic album I ever bought, and I think I only did so because I loved the cover. How characteristically shallow!