Helloooooo… once again Brian and myself will be gracing, if that’s the right word, the airwaves of Fresh Air Student Radio this afternoon.  We will also be introducing a new member of the team, the lovely and lively El Parks, who you might know from The Electric Circus. And if you don’t, you’ll soon know her from the show.

As per usual, the show will be kicking off at half past three this afternoon, and we will guide you lovingly through the last couple of tedious hours of work, before pub o’clock sweeps in like an avenging angel of inebriational joy to rescue us all from another week in our dingy offices.  Or wherever it is you happen to be foostering about this week.

On air from 3:30om: listen live here.
Or iTunes: Radio – College/University – Fresh Air, The Alternative

In the meantime, it’s de-lurking time on Song, by Toad, as it always is on Friday afternoon.  Those of you who fly by and point an laugh, why not take the chance to fritter away your afternoon answering the following five daft questions.  And then listen to us on the radio, because it will be awesome.

1. Expression or word you use all the time which you wish you could stop using.
2. Thing you wish you could have been the one to discover.
3. One great thing about living hundreds of years ago.
4. And one bad thing.
5. Coffee break routine.

The playlist for the radio show will appear live below as we go along:
1. Zed Penguin
2. PET – What You Building
3. Grandpa Was a Lion – In a Dream
4. Lady North – It’s All About Gettin’ That Claude Monet
5. Weird Era – Summer Heights
6. Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Get the Fever Out
7. Plastic Animals – Pirate DVDs
8. Mastodon – Black Tongue
9. Magic Arm – Daft Punk is Playing at My House
10. Luna – Sweet Child O’ Mine
11. Jack Steadman – Beatplate (Remix)
12. PAWS – A Romance in Lower Mathematics

This particular podcast was somewhat railroaded by two different things, and hence has very little of the new music/inbox harvesting stuff you may have come to expect from Song, by Toad.

Firstly, I went to see Jeffrey Lewis on Wednesday.  He was supported by Seth Faergolzia from Dufus and covered 2+2=? by the Bob Seger System, which explains two of the songs.

Secondly, I went out to visit a couple of pals on Thursday night.  That resulted in an epic Pearl Jam-a-thon, so I was looking for some Pearl Jam to play today, only to happen across an old compilation with Pearl Jam, Luna, The Magnetic Fields, Yo La Tengo, Beck and others on it, which explains a couple more songs.  As for the rest, well, there’s just no excuse really, is there.

Direct download: Toadcast #198 – The Revivalcast
Subscribe to the Toadcasts on iTunes

01. Soulsavers – Revival (00.16)
02. Pearl Jam – Bu$hleaguer (08.47)
03. Seth Faergolzia – Weird Old Toad (16.40)
04. Bob Seger System – 2+2=? (19.53)
05. Lords of Bastard – Chant (25.24)
06. The Blue Runes – Stream Fog (31.59)
07. Beck – Golden Age (37.54)
08. Luna – Black Champagne (42.24)
09. The Eagles – Outlaw Man (52.25)
10. Honey Train – Yo Toad/Deepness (Demo) (58.37)

 When you start a business, certain things which stamp you with the mark of legitimacy are basically just a nuisance.  Completing your accounts for the year is very much one of these: an awful chore, which never at any point makes you feel like your are a proper business-owning muthafucka and don’t you forget it, more like a twelve-year-old staring resentfully at their homework.

Being a blogger doesn’t help.  If I called myself a writer or the owner of one of the UK’s most upwardly mobile record labels then I would feel like… I dunno, like I wasn’t just making shit up as I go along and hoping to get away with it.  But the very term ‘blogger’, no matter how many of the world’s most respected writers now write blogs too, still reeks of a misunderstood teenager complaining into the vast, indifferent wastelands of the internet, whilst sitting in his parents’ basement at three in the morning with his hand down his pants and a half-eaten jumbo pack of Cheesy Wotsits spilling over the keyboard.

Recently, though, I have started to have to do things which actually make you feel awkwardly legitimate.  Not legitimate specifically because you have to do them, but because the very act of doing them makes you finally realise that actually it is legitimate and right for you to be doing them, which is actually a bit of a shock when it finally dawns on you.

I have written, for example, a couple of employment references for people in our bands, and over the last couple of years, a couple of employer references for people renting flats.  And actually, given the nature of the music industry, I am probably just about the right person to be doing it, which is an odd sensation.

And, seeing as I am now defining pissing about on the internet as being a proper job, how do I define skiving?  When you fill in your Friday Fives and then bugger about talking pish for the rest of the afternoon you are genuinely skiving, but when I do it am I executing business strategy?  I liked it better when it was just outright skiving, frankly.

1. Thing you do which makes you feel most like a proper grown-up (n.b. you don’t have to actually be a grown-up to answer this).
2. Thing which still makes you feel like a child – not past-time, we all have those, more a chore of some description.
3. Thing you thought would make you feel grown-up but didn’t.
4. Something you have entirely grown out of enjoying.
5. Thing which, despite growing up, hasn’t lost its appeal.

Luna – Dear Diary

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Pearl Jam – Bu$hleaguer

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Beck – Guess I’m Doin’ Fine

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Yo La Tengo – Upside Down

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Future Bible Heroes – Losing Your Affection

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Do you remember shuttle runs?  They were the single most unpleasant fitness exercise I ever remember being forced to do, and I was quite fit as a young ‘un.

Anyhow, today I am charging back and forth from Carluke, where we are getting some mastering done for the label, to the house, to the printers to collect some promo material, to the house to get them couriered down to London and then back to Carluke once more.  I don’t know if I’ll need a pint or a nap more desperately by the time all this shit is done.

I am also bracing myself for a little bit of trouble with the fearsome Mrs. Toad.  I may have queried Record Store Day a fair bit this week, but that doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to it, and I am most certainly going to be out of bed sharpish to trundle into town on Saturday and see what’s what.

Where this may prove to be a controversial decision is that Mrs. Toad has been away in God Bless America for the last week and only gets back on Saturday morning, and I would guess that she might anticipate a little more love and attention than ‘Hello darling, nice to have you back, but I’m off to the shops and I’ll see you in a few hours’.  Ah well, some people are football widows, and Mrs. Toad is a music widow. Them’s the breaks.

Anyhow, in the meantime, I should stop wasting time and get on with wasting time.

1. Your favourite form of exercise.
2. Your least favourite form of exercise.
3. Which hobby always takes up just a little more of your time than any partner might reasonably be expected to understand?
4. We were too disorganised this year, but what should Song, by Toad Records do for Record Store Day in 2012?
5. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

Luna – Dear Diary

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Pearl Jam – Bu$hleaguer

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Beck – Guess I’m Doing’ Fine

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Yo La Tengo – Upside Down

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Magnetic Fields – Sad Little Moon

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No, that doesn’t mean anything, don’t ask. I just think German is a language that excels when you start to insert random nonsense into it, especially if you start saying it all in a really loud, strident voice. “Jawohl! Der is some Schnitzeknodel in mein Uberschittengraben.” Just as an example.

On the subject of German, I remember two conversations with ladies about the German language which make me laugh, and I thought I might share them.

Firstly, when I was in my first year at Glasgow School of Art I remember seducing a girl at a party with my ability to speak German. Honestly. German. It was exactly in the style of Otto from A Fish Called Wanda – I could say more or less anything – niederhopfengruber, for example – and she’d act like I’d just said the sexiest thing in the world. Hilarious, slightly surreal, and so very, very first year of uni, too.

Secondly, the opposite. I was at a party with a girl up here a couple of years ago who actually is (ancestrally) German, and I mentioned the fact that, given I speak English, German and a little Dutch, I seem to speak only the ugly-sounding languages in Europe, apart from a little bit of piss-poor French. Anyhow, it appears I offended her sense of national pride because we embarked on this hour long ding-dong about whether or not German was a beautiful-sounding language, which culminated in her telling me that I just didn’t understand the German language like she did. Needless to say, I let forth I tirade of abuse at this, demanding how she had the right to tell me she understood a language better than I did when she didn’t even speak it – all in German of course – at which point things went a little quiet. Ah, I’m really popular at parties, me.

So, I think the Sarah Palin post may have tempted a great many lurkers out of the woodwork, but as per usual the Five on Friday post (as pinched from GUT) is the best and easiest way for new commenters to say hello. You don’t have to be witty or verbose, just play along with everyone else if you fancy.

1. Good example of a group singing in a language other than their native tongue.
2. Really crap example of the above.
3. Favourite foreign band who write in their own language – i.e. not English.
4. Favourite foreign word you just like the sound of.
5. Favourite country name.

Luna – Slow Song
The Wedding Present – Pourquoi Est Tu Devenue Si Raisonnable
Supergrass – She’s So Loose
Talking Heads – Radio Head
Wilco – She’s a Jar

Well you should’ve.  It was a splendid show featuring a handful of Toad favourites, and a four song section introduced by my good self.  I thought I’d throw up a quick post of a song DC played, which I think you deserve to hear.

I was emailed this ages ago and, even though I always intended to either use it either in a post or a podcast, it somehow drifted to the back of my mind.  Anyway, DC played it yesterday which reminded me of the thing, so here you go.  It’s by a German group called Mikrofisch and pretty much lays into every XFM hero whose fame could ever fill you with dismay.  Honestly, it’s a tinny little tune but the lyrics are a masterpiece of misanthropy, which you can imagine I would appreciate.

Secondly, the show closes with a cover of Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Sweet Child o’ Mine recorded by Taken by Trees, who are what has become of The Concretes.  When DC introduced it I thought for a moment he was building up to the rather less lush and rather more spectral Luna version of the same song which is also brilliant.  So here it is, because I love this version.  I actually like the original too.  In fact, I like most of Appetite For Destruction.  As DC says, no matter how much of a prat Axl Rose is, he still wrote some good songs, and that album was a bit of a high point.

Mikrofisch – The Kids Are All Shite
Luna – Sweet Child o’ Mine

And here’s the entirety of The Waiting Room podcast in full (assuming it allows me to hotlink):
The Waiting Room – The Toadcast  27/02/08

I’m in America at the moment at my brother’s wedding, but I very kindly recorded this before I went away. I’ve thrown in some stuff about weddings and some summery happy tunes too.

Also, he’s getting married on Cape Cod, and I worked there as a waiter for two Summers when I was a student – with my everso English accent the tips were quite splendid – so I’ve thrown on a few songs that remind me of my Summers on Cape Cod, although not all are obviously related. All in all it’s a cheerful, happy mix with a nice atmosphere to it, so you should like this one.

By the time you hear it though I could very easily have sworn myself into exile and ruined my relationship with my new in-laws forever. Wish me luck, Toadlings, wish me luck.

Toadcast #4 – Summery Songs and Wedding Bells

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1. Billy Bragg – The Marriage (0.46)
2. Tom Waits – Better Off Without a Wife (5.10)
3. Clem Snide – Happy Birthday (9.38)
4. Gomez – Make No Sound (13.36)
5. Dave Matthews Band – Two Step (19.56)
6. Vampire Weekend – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (26.49)
7. Judy Garland – Get Happy (30.20)
8. Tom Waits – Never Let Go (34.59)
9. Bell X1 – Bound For Boston Hill (38.12)
10. Suburban Kids With Biblical Names – Funeral Face (43.37)
11. Luna – Sweet Child O’ Mine (48.41)
12. Len – Steal My Sunshine (54.07)
13. Billy Bragg & Wilco – Hesitating Beauty (59.28)