The key word in that phrase, of course, is if.  There are a massive number of people in the fucking internet age, however, who seem to think that intending to build it is reason enough for people to come and it is really, really getting on my nerves.

Bloggers start blogs, write five posts, and then start making demands about being listed in the Hype Machine or elbo.ws directories immediately, despite it being incredibly fucking clear that it’s going to take at least two months before they’ll even consider you. They are important services and drive a lot of traffic to your site, so I can understand the desire, but please just show some fucking patience.  At least create something of substance before clamouring for people to shower you with praise.

This happens when penis-brained publicists get their hands on a small but promising band as well: the uber-hard sell comes out to play.  “Greatest band ever, set to explode!“  And not infrequently this band has no more than a small handful of songs to their name.

Venture capital-backed start-ups promise to REVOLUTIONISE online music sales/sharing/funding/whatfuckingever and send out these breathless fucking emails full of wind and promises about how you’ve JUST GOT TO BE in from the start.  Do we?  Do we really have to?

People do it to bands all the time.  I can get you on the radio, I can get you this, I can get you that.  And then they just stop paying any fucking attention, it all fails to materialise and the band is left with nothing.

The new mantra for the 21st Century should be more along the lines of: “I don’t care about your fucking plans, your grandiose ideas or your vacant, meaningless promises.  I don’t care what you intend to do, or about your fucking ambitions.  Go away, get your nose to the fucking grindstone and DO something.  Then talk about it.”

Can you tell I haven’t had enough sleep?

Shout Out Louds – Hurry Up, Let’s Go

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The Magnetic Fields – Promises of Eternity

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Micah P. Hinson – Patience

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This may be the limpest of all excuses I’ve ever had for naming a podcast.  You know why it’s called the Jeffcast?  Because I kinda mention Jeffrey Lewis a couple of times.  Oooh, yes, that makes sense.  Still, sorry, I couldn’t think of anything else really, off the top of my head.

I suppose I am off to see Jeffrey Lewis directly after recording this, so I guess it sort of counts.  He is playing a secret gig at Henry’s Cellar Bar after sneaking out of the Beggars Banquet Christmas Party at the Picture House over the road.  It’s one of the things I love about the anti-folk crowd: you genuinely get the impression that they’d rather be playing to an appreciative crowd of their mates, rather than a bigger crowd of anonymous punters who may stand there and demand entertainment.

So there you go, that’s the deal for tonight.  For the rest of the weekend we’re putting together Meursault albums, ready for the official (re)launch of their record next Friday at the Song, by Toad Christmas Party.  So, after folding and screen-printing a thousand of the bastards we’ll all be well ready for Gimme Shelter in the Caves on Saturday and a spot of Candythief action in the Jazz Bar on Sunday.  Enjoy the 48th Toadcast.

Toadcast #48 – The Jeffcast

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01. Yo La Tengo – Double Dare (04.12)
02. Wolf Parade – Call it a Ritual (07.29)
03. Modey Lemon – Loch Ness Monster (11.25)
04. Sly & the Family Stone – Life (17.09)
05. The Velcro Quartet – The Love Song of Little Cosmo Nostradamus (20.03)
06. The Pernice Brothers – The Ballad of Bjorn Borg (25.57)
07. Caramel Jack – The Lincoln Jackson Incident (34.37)
08. The Magnetic Fields – All the Umbrellas in London (38.29)
09. Sparklehorse – Happy Man (Memphis Version) (44.46)
10. The Veils – Birthday Present (49.44)
11. Grandaddy – Miner at the Dial-A-View (54.24)

I always remember the snivelling acolytes of the cool kids at school being so horrified when you showed indifference to the glowing aura of dazzling beauty emanating from the posteriors of their deities that there was only one response: you must be jealous.

Aye, right, spot on you fucking psychological genius.  Christ almighty, are you that heartbroken by someone showing a lack of respect for your personal heroes that you have to whine like a jilted baby?  The answer is yes, of course.  Yesterday someone left a great comment on my post about Scarlett Johansson’s merciless butchering of Tom Waits’ back catalogue which was pretty much in that exact same vein.  It was perfect – a little gem of spurned, wounded madness and I thought I had to share.  No rambling, no idiotic screed, perfectly concise and absolutely brilliant.  No need to mock the old dear any more of course, but I though you might find this funny:

I actually love Tom Waits AND Scarlet’s covers, especially “Falling Down.” There is absolutely no reason for you to bash someone personally because they didn’t cover a beloved song of yours to your liking or because you’re bitter about not being famous.

She’s quite right.  I am unforgivably bitter about not being famous.  Because I’ve done, erm… nothing worthy of fame really.  But then, that doesn’t seem to discourage many people. And it couldn’t possibly be because I think Scarlett Johansson can’t fucking sing and that our pathetic toadying to celebrity means no-one had the balls to tell her, could it?  No no, that would be entirely implausible.  Can anyone sense that I’m in a bit of a mood today?

And what better song:

The Magnetic Fields – Famous

I am perhaps not the best person to be reviewing this, given I am basically a casual fan of a cult band – a slightly self-contradictory combination. Stephin Merrit has done mountains of work under numerous guises, and a lot of it has been truly brilliant. A lot of it, however, has not. After the peak of 69 Love Songs came the trough of the truly disappointing I, so full of the overbearingly twee and the excruciatingly arch that it barely warrants a listen. As he himself says: “The previous Magnetic Fields record had been self-consciously soft rock”. The self-consciousness is always on the verge of smothering The Magnetic Fields, but the soft rock bit was a step too far for me, I’m afraid.

Fortunately, this is a bit of a return to earlier territory for Merritt. Distortion fits the bill indeed as a title, with those Jesus & Mary Chain guitars of old being in evidence throughout – in fact he explicitly set out to reimagine their landmark album Psychocandy. For the most part this is extremely welcome, bringing songs full of tension and growl. The songs themselves I would only describe as partially successful however with a few, as ever, just failing to capture that underlying melody that brings hummability to distortion-laden noise-pop.

Merritt has always been like this. Every album has a few misses to go with its hits, so there are plenty of tracks on this that I really like. As ever, unfortunately, there are several that I really don’t which means, as I mentioned above, that I am only ever going to be a casual fan of The Magnetic Fields. An attitude, as well as a review, quite possibly, that may just slightly irk the purists.

The Magnetic Fields – Xavier Says
The Magnetic Fields – Drive On, Driver

website | hype | amazon

Well you know how I said I wasn’t so convinced by Toadcast #17?  Well it proved somewhat prophetic, although that prophesy may have been somewhat self-fulfilling of course.  It’s one of my least downloaded podcasts for ages, but this one should sort that out.  There’s some genuinely excellent music on here, although most of it is pretty obscure.  There’s no Arcade Fire or anything to pull in the punters, bar a bit of The Magnetic Fields, but a really good selection of new and emerging music nevertheless.

And why the Homecast?  Well that’s obvious of course: we’re back in our house at long last and I recorded this from my massive old lab bench that doubles as a desk and music centre all at once.  It’s fucking brilliant – I really should take a picture and post it for you so you can see.  The bench is 2.75m long, so I have computer and stuff at one end, stereo equipment at the other and a couple of good sized speakers either side. A music anorak’s paradise!

Toadcast #18 – The Homecast

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01. Aidan John Moffat – Eureka Springs (Edit) (00.00)
02. 4 or 5 Magicians – Forever on the Edge (02.30)
03. Flashguns – St. George (07.53)
04. George Pringle – Carte Postale (13.52)
05. Dusty Springfield – You Don’t Own Me (16.59)
06. Destroyer – Foam Hands (21.55)
07. Howlies – Aluminum Baseball Bat (28.44)
08. The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir – Aspidestra (38.36)
09. Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Leftovers (40.48)
10. Ruth Theodore – Overexpanding (49.22)
11. Akron/Family – Ed is a Portal (55.28)
12. Victor Borge – Phonetic Puncutation (63.22)
13. Josiah Wordsworth – Drive-by Media (70.23)
14. King of Prussia – Spain in the Summertime (74.44)
15. The Magnetic Fields – Threeway (83.07)
16. The Forms – Knowledge in Hand (87.44)
17. Howlies – Smoke (90.14)
18. The Beat – Mirror in the Bathroom (95.38)
19. Found – When You Fall (102.09)

The tenth Toadcast is a Pink Podcast, celebrating all things gay in indie music, but trying to steer well clear of any sort of annoying Graham Norton stereotypes. So, in avoiding anything that might have seen this lapse into the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert podcast I enlisted the help of my friend James, who was Mrs. Toad’s best man at our wedding.

As well as being gay, James is a real indie fan so I though he’d be perfect to consult with on the playlist and most of these songs are his choices.It’s surprising actually, just how indie this ended up being.I left off quite a few things I really wanted to play and it’s still the longest ever Toadcast.

Ultimately, I’ve tried to explore the relationship between the gay community and indie music, but needless to say there are times where it descends into slightly angry ranting. Hopefully not too much to allow you to enjoy the music though. It’s also not really ended up being as much of a discussion of gay culture as I’d hoped and that is almost entirely down to my own ignorance. I should probably have got James round to help actually present, but that would have been a right pain the arse logistically, as well as technically in terms of capturing both voices on one shitty little webcam microphone.

On a technical point, there is a bit of an echo on the vocal recording. This is because we have moved out of our house for a couple of months while builders tear it to pieces and I am having to rather make do in terms of recording location. I’ll try and sort this out by next week. And I at one point describe the Book of Ruth as being in the New Testament, which is also wrong. What a muppet.

Toadcast #10 – The Pink Podcast

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01. Pet Shop Boys – It’s a Sin (01.20)
02. The Mamas & the Papas – Dream a Little Dream of Me (08.35)
03. Bloc Party – This Modern Love (13.55)
04. Rufus Wainwright – The Rebel Prince (18.08)
05. The Radiators – Under Clery’s Clock (24.34)
06. The Magnetic Fields – When My Boy Walks Down the Street (29.15)
07. Donna Summer – I Feel Love (35.28)
08. Soft Cell – Sex Dwarf (41.36)
09. The Ballet – I Hate the War (47.52)
10. Madonna – Ray of Light (51.02)
11. Blur – Girls & Boys (60.00)
12. M.J. Hibbett & the Validators – The Gay Train (67.25)
13. David Bowie – China Girl (71.50)
14. Morrissey – November Spawned a Monster (80.40)
15. R.E.M. – First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin (90.27)
16. Scissor Sisters – Return to Oz (103.20)
17. Elton John – Ballad of a Well-Known Gun (112.12)

I was writing about bands selling out a couple of days ago and the phrase ‘the anti-popular reflex’ cropped up. Now, there are plenty of instances of bands genuinely selling out that we covered in that post and the subsequent comments, but I thought this particular phenomenon needed a little more idle chatter devoted to it. Hooray, I hear you say.

I have an instinctive and barely controllable anti-popular reflex whereby no matter how much I like something, as soon as it starts to become hugely popular I find it very difficult to maintain my enthusiasm. Sometimes this goes so far as to instinctively hate things simply because they are so popular. I can’t bring myself to watch Lost, for example, despite the fact that plenty of people whose opinions I respect keep telling me how good it is. And if I did watch it, it would be with that wrinkled up nose a little child gets when forced to eat brussel sprouts.

I think a lot of indie lovers suffer from this, and I think there are a couple of reasons, one trivial and one a little deeper.

The trivial one is that we indie lovers care quite a lot about music, and the general public does not. We care about music and form close bonds of loyalty with our favourite groups because no-one else likes them and it can feel that our evangelism on their behalf is important for them. Whether this is true or not is a moot point, but it can often feel that way. When these groups get popular it can be impossible to maintain that intense relationship because, well, if they’re special to several million people then it’s stretching the definition of the word special a little, isn’t it.

The slightly (only slightly though, don’t look so scared) deeper reason is this: most indie lovers are alternative types in general. Virtually none of us were from the cool set in school, nor are we amongst the champagne and martinis set now we are older.

To those not at the beating heart of all things cool, this makes the attribute of coolness something which can be oppressive, condescending, and demeaning, not least because those in the inner circle tend to guard their status rather jealously. Many of us react to this by redefining cool as being the things we ourselves most like, rather than the things that the vagaries of fashion and public clamour tell us we should like, but this is still a slightly defensive position. What is held up to be cool in the magazines and on the telly is popularly defined as being better, at the direct expense of everything else.

The stance – well, my stance anyway – is ‘Fuck off, who the fuck do you think you are to look down your nose at me you vacuous, bovine imbecile. What makes you think I give a shit what your opinion is of my lifestyle, or care the slightest fig for your herd mentality, you hollow, empty shell of a human being, you.’ Or some such. My relationship, and I don’t think I am alone in this, with the world of high cool is a fractious one at very best.

So when bands I love go mainstream this hostility towards things in the upper echelons of the hierarchy of popularity can kick in and overwhelm the actual warmth I may feel for the music. And equally, if I first hear of a band or a TV program or a pair of trainers simply because they are already very cool, it is highly unusual that I will think anything other than ‘Ah right, just more shit the masses venerate for no reason whatsoever. Just like they venerated that stringy transvestite Sarah Jessica Parker. Or those vapid cunts in The OC. Or that self-indulgent idiot Pete Docherty. Or that unbearable shitfest Titanic (Oscars, that film actually won Oscars).’

So it may not always be entirely reasonable, but I don’t think the anti-popular reflex is completely unfair.

The Magnetic Fields – Famous
The Endrick Brothers – Star of the Silver Screen
The Beatles – Honey Pie
Ben Folds Five – Underground
The Extraordinaires – Seeds of Jealousy
And now the kicker. Yes, I am actually going to ask you to listen to Meat Loaf. Yes I own this album and no, I didn’t have to go and buy this song just for this post. Snigger all you want, but if you listen to the lyrics and replace the girl in question with your favourite music and the anti-popular reflex (reason #1) is perfectly described.

Meat Loaf – More Than You Deserve

I don’t know if there is another group of more low-life lizards on the face of the planet than gaybashers, particularly those who make a song and dance about gay marriage being some sort of issue.

There are more evil and more psychopathic people, for sure, and more cynical and dishonest. Even the Iraq war cheerleaders are responding to the clear and serious danger of terrorism, albeit in the most insane way I can imagine. But at least the issue is real.

Gay marriage opponents who pretend that allowing other people the same rights they enjoy is in some way a threat to ‘families’ are basically using the relentless persecution and alienation of people who have done nothing to them as some sort of whipping boy (Rrowrr!) on which to inflict all their own insecurity, fear and self loathing. They are pathetic and they make me sick.

Mrs. Toad’s best man was gay. I have been to more gay weddings (two) than straight ones (my own) and the idea that this ‘gayness’ can in any way affect myself and my young lady’s desire to spend the rest of our lives together and raise a couple of irritating little gob-shites is so utterly farcical as to barely warrant a response.

So these disgraceful fucking lizards use their religion as little more than a stick to beat other people with and get all het up about the danger posed to families by people wanting to actually make more families. And yet, with a sort of depressing inevitability, there is nary a whisper heard about what our culture of entitlement and instant gratification might do to people’s determination to stick it out through the good times and the bad as their lover grows old and fat and wrinkly. I’m not making any claims, of course, but it seems a little more relevant than sticking your nose into the relationships of people who have absolutely no involvement in your life whatsoever.

What brought this on? Well apparently gay marriage represents a threat to families and children, but this sort of idiotic stunt doesn’t. Right. In the words of Wendy Leach: ‘Well thank you for popping in and protecting us.’

Beck – Sexxlaws Yes, I know, the obvious one.
Fleetwood Mac – Family Man Don’t whinge. I’m not a massive fan, but I heard this quite a lot growing up so I don’t hate it as much as my inner indie snob thinks I should!
Iggy Pop – A Family Affair
The Magnetic Fields – When My Boy Walks Down the Street