As this evening brings us yet another excellent Ides of Toad lineup at Henry’s (it’s starting pretty much now – run, you might make it!) I thought I should probably write out another one of those lists of upcoming stuff, just so it lodges in the back of your mind now, and then you can all flood down in your droves on the night, filling the bands with joy and making me an unspeakably rich man in the process.

Well, it’d be nice if at least a few of you came anyway.  This is where I feel I should insert one of those internet Safety Winks, just so you know I’m joking —>

Anyhow, we now have pretty much a gig every other week booked between now and the blundering behemoth of the Edinburgh Festival, which I fully intend to boycott in its entirety this year.  Honestly, whilst a couple of our gigs last year went pretty well, I’m not sure I can be fucked with the stress this time around.  Still, last year’s posters were pretty cool.

All tickets can be purchased either online here, or from Avalanche Records on the Grassmarket.

Tuesday 22^nd May
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Bronto Skylift, Lady North & Rollor

This will be pretty full-on, I think, with Rollor returning to Edinburgh to take on the combined frantic mentalism of Lady North and the Highlands’ most fearsome band, Bronto Skylift.

Friday 15th June
Venue TBC
PAWS, Dolfinz, Waiters & Sex Hands

For the launch of the split 12″ we are releasing with the above four bands, we are organising a mini tour of the UK (London, Manchester & Aberdeen as well) and getting all four bands to play.  It will be raucous and guitary and fucking ace.  And you can buy gorgeous clear turquoise vinyl at the gigs too.

Saturday 30^th June
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Milk Maid, New Fabian Society & OP

Milk Maid return to Edinburgh, with their second album pretty much finished.  I am very much looking forward to seeing them again. They are joined on the bill by hypnotic, shoegazey newcomers The New Fabian Society, and OP who are a mysterious concoction of members of North American War and The John Knox Sex Club.

Saturday 7^th July
The Queen’s Hall (tickets for this are from their website)
Meursault Something For the Weakened album launch, with Rob St. John & Jill O’Sullivan and Jenny Reeve

Meursault’s third album Something for the Weakened is now finished and ready to be prodded out into the world. Having worked with a stable six-piece for the last two years this is much more of a band record than previous albums. Support will come from label-mate and musical collaborator Rob St. John and long-time pal Jill O’Sullivan from Sparrow and the Workshop, who will be performing with Jenny Reeve.

Wednesday 18^th July
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Dolfinz & Fantasy Rainbow

Dolfinz are on the verge of becoming the Ides of Toad’s house band, and they’re back in July, bringing another two of the UK’s finest garage bands with them.  It will be loud and messy and awesome, as per usual.

Friday 27^th July
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Jo Schornikow (The Shivers) & Scott Rudd

Jo Schornikow from The Shivers, who just released More on Fife’s Fence Records, will be touring her solo material, along with the beautiful acoustic songwriting of New York’s Scott Rudd.

This is called the Justcast because, whilst it may well be late, it is entirely justifiably late, so piss off and stop moaning at me. And come on, stop being coy, I know you’re secretly tutting.  Or at least I fucking hope you are, because the other option is that you don’t really give a fuck, and where would that leave us?

So, having worked all through the working week, and then having spent all of Saturday working at Record Store Day stuff, I got to Sunday and was honestly just not up for doing anything at all, sorry. I was pooped.  Bushed.  Knackered. Tuckered. Done for.  So I did fuck all, and I actually felt guilty about this for a while, and then realised that actually, every cunt gets a fucking weekend, so stop feeling sorry for yourself, embrace a day of doing bugger all, and just do the podcast as soon as you can reasonably manage.  So there you go.

Next week I might do a bit of a podcast on my Record Store Day purchases (and there were many) but not this week, because I haven’t had the chance to sit down and listen to them yet.  Maybe Thursday that might happen.  And/or Wednesday.  And then I will waffle on about them on the internet next week, for which I am sure you will all be truly grateful.

Direct download: Toadcast #223 – The Justcast

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01. The Leg – Witch on the Speaker (00.15)
02. Algiers – Blood (05.33)
03. The Walkmen – Heaven (14.17)
04. Milk Maid – Do Right (18.49)
05. Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – The Powers and the Glory of Love (23.44)
06. Daily Life – Alabaster (29.26)
07. Possimiste – Clockworkbird (33.17)
08. Liars – No.1 Against the Rush (40.16)
09. Richard Hawley – Leave Your Body Behind You (46.13)
10. The Babies – My Name (57.33)

I think I’ve picked up more new music in the last year simply by virtue of having the guys from Milk Maid in the house and by finding the YouTube channel belonging to Manchester band Former Bullies than I have by any other means.  And in the video at the top of the page, the two things rather happily coincide.

Weird Era and Easter are two bands you’ve heard me mention here before, and both are bands I was introduced to by the guys from Milk Maid, back when we recorded their Toad Session last April.  I don’t mention Daily Life as much, but I heard about them at the same time – and in fact Luke from Milk Maid plays in the band as well – but the above video for Alabaster is a fucking pop tune and a half.

Both Waiters and Sex Hands, two bands we have been recording with for a Song, by Toad Records release, have videos on the same channel.  Joe (who happens to play in both of those bands) has also had one of his other projects featured recently as well, in the form of the relatively recent upload Kids Gone Wild by Feel Right.

In fact, this whole channel is better than pretty much any blog I’ve read recently for finding new and interesting stuff.  The flat wail and relentless pace of the brilliant new Float Riverer song is bloody awesome, and despite continual support by the likes of The Gentle Invasion up here in Edinburgh, I am ashamed to say that it is only recently that I find myself starting to get into Glasgow/London band Golden Grrrls.

Music commentators and music journalists may worry about their place in the world these days, but this is pretty clear confirmation that the need for good curators will always exist.

01.Easter – Somethin’ American This might be the first time such an unknown song by such an unknown band has ever been given top spot on any of my end of year lists, but they were absolutely brilliant live when they played up here in September, and this song is just fantastic, as are the other two songs on their Soundcloud page.  It’s less lo-fi than a lot of the DIY stuff I’ve listened to this year, and the squalling solos which tease Easter’s songs to an end evoke loads of old school US indie music.  This gives quite tight pop songs a loose, expressive, emotive finale and when they get going live these bits really are amazing.

02.Crystal Swells – Patent Trolls This is another absolute peach of a song which went straight from a PR email to the very front of my brain for the entire year.  I had this on tape in the van for months, and I go back to it again and again.  This one is probably more menacing, compared to the reckless pace of the rest of the album, but that opening riff and the crescendo to which the song builds are just absolutely fucking blinding.

03.Ringo Deathstarr – Do It Every Time Alright, this is the highest-placed pure pop song on this list.  A simple guitar rhythm and a simple tune, delivered with plenty of pace and energy.  This is one to leap around to, pure and simple, and just about the best one of its kind this year.

04.The Low Anthem – Boeing 737 I played this on the podcast last week and struggled to introduce it then, as I probably will now. Firstly, I have hardly heard anyone sing anything about the twin towers attacks without sounding just a little bit forced and uncomfortable when doing so, but this manages it with some aplomb.  And then to have that kind of subject matter twinned with such and incredibly rousing song is an odd and absolutely brilliant juxtaposition.

05.Earth Girl Helen Brown – Hit After Hit This was one of those ‘what the fuck am I even listening to?’ moments, the first time I heard it. It’s old fashioned music, what I can only really describe in my cultural ignorance as soda-stream pop, and it’s not that unusual exactly, there’s just something weird about it.  It’s a bit unsettling, a bit out of focus somehow, and at the same time absolutely brilliant.

06.Josh T Pearson – Thou Art Loosed The solo album may not hark back to Lift to Experience all that much, but this song, the first on the album, seems to have just enough of that shimmering texture to link the two eras of Josh T. Pearson’s music together.  And that repeated “I’m off to save the world” seems to rather sadly presage the tales of personal failure which make this album so uncomfortably compelling.

08.Weird Era – Garage Honeymoon A muffled, growly mess, but it’s got such momentum and drive that I can’t stop listening to it.  It’s rough, muffled, growly shoegazey guitar stuff with a great riff.

07.Jonnie Common – Photosynth Alright, it’s possible I might have included this when it was a Down the Tiny Steps song, so including it again seems like a bit of a cheat.  Doesn’t matter though, this is pop brilliance.  And the video was shot in our back garden too!

09.Timber Timbre – Woman Is that seriously a sax on there?  Why yes, yes indeed it is, and it’s brilliant.  This is one of the biggest songs on the album and one of the most surprising too, given the relatively extravagant instrumentation.

10.Milk Maid – Back Of Your Knees I am absolutely delighted with the band’s Toad Session recordings, not least because I was so apprehensive about the actual recording process.  This might be my album highlight, as much for its more raucous live incarnation as this excellent version.

Zip file download: right-click, save as.

1-10 | 11-30 | 31-50

 So, ta-daaah, here we go, what all right-thinking people have been enjoying most this year.  And if you haven’t been enjoying these most this year, then dammit, what do you do when I tell you what opinions to have about music, ignore me?  Surely such a thing is inconceivable.

As those of you who listened to last week’s podcast, where I played two songs from the more forgotten albums on my first ever Albums of the Year list (2004), I am actually more fascinated by these lists in retrospect than at the time.

Looking back at this list in five or ten years, the interesting albums won’t be the ones I am still listening to, but the ones I am not.  I am sure practical details, like whether I have them on vinyl or tape or just digitally, will play a role, as will drifting fads and fashions.  But sometimes it really does just seem to be random – albums just drift out of favour for no really obvious reason.  Or, as has been the case with Kurt Vile this year, some albums seem to remain favourites for ages, despite not necessarily being the ones which grabbed you the first time.

So enjoy, this is what I have been mostly enjoying this year.  And a fine list it is too, I hope you will agree.

 10: The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient This is a very late entrant to this list, because for some reason I didn’t really listen to this album at all until the last month or two, but it’s bloody brilliant, managing to drift from ambient dreamers to Springsteen-like rockers to melancholy acoustica perfectly seamlessly. And the other joy of it is: another back catalogue to explore, too!

The War on Drugs – Your Love is Calling My Name

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 9: Pillars & Tongues – The Pass and Crossings This is a stunning album from what I think must be my favourite record label of the year: Empty Cellar.  They have released three albums in my top twenty this year, and worked with the artist who released another, and that’s before we get into the singles.  This album is grandiose, beautiful and all those words like sweeping and elegiac which journalists love to use so much.  Except in this case it actually is.

Pillars & Tongues – Palms to Tell

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 8: Milk Maid – Yucca This record is actually a collection of lo-fi home recordings, but somehow the end result has got real style. Not charmingly rough and ready style, although it has that too, but a real sense of swagger.  It’s not as frantic and noisy as a lot of its lo-fi brethren this year, either.  Recording Milk Maid’s Toad Session was probably one of my favourite things this year.

Milk Maid – Can’t You See

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 7: The Sandwitches – Mrs. Jones’ Cookies A little like Sonny & the Sunsets, this album doesn’t entirely click on every single song, but it does on most.  And beyond the pop tunes, there’s a wild, wailing quality to this which had me scrunching up my face in incomprehension for the first few listens.  ‘What the f…  did they just… are they…serious?‘ It didn’t take too long for it to click though, and I have since been foisting this record on visitors to our house all year.

The Sandwitches – Summer of Love

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 6: David Thomas Broughton – Outbreeding This is a disciplined and polished pop record from a man more commonly known for spending most of his gigs figuring out just how much he can antagonise his audience before they give up altogether.  A favourite of mine since I first saw him at the End of the Road Festival in something like 2008 or 2009, I couldn’t have been much more surprised by this album, but it’s fucking brilliant nevertheless.

David Thomas Broughton – Nature

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  5: Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for my Halo I am getting into ‘every damn list on the internet has this album on it’ territory here, but balls to it, I still love this record.  I actually struggle to explain why though, because it’s not gripping, weird, striking or anything.  It is, in fact, an entirely straightforward collection of songs crooned over fairly minimal guitar, bass and drums, at a relatively middle of the road pace.  But for some reason I find the whole album one I have gone back to again and again and again all year.

Kurt Vile – Puppet to the Man

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 4: Crystal Swells – Goethe Head Soup This is one of the mostly ferociously-recorded things I’ve heard all year, with barely the slightest quarter given to the listener’s more delicate aural sensibilities.  But underneath all the buzzing, distorted racket, and despite the headache-inducing nine-minute kick in the ears that is the title track, this mini-album holds a half dozen of the finest pop songs I’ve heard all year.

Crystal Swells – Waco, Wasilla, Waikiki

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  3: Jonnie Common – Master of None Pure genius, this one.  This album has charm to spare, but it’s not as straightforward as it seems.  The actual sounds Jonnie uses in assembling his songs are really quite unusual, but the results are pure, joyous pop.  He seems to have pulled off the trick of being an experimental musician, but keeping that fact completely undercover, and making us all think he’s created the pop record of the year.  Which of course he has.

Jonnie Common – Hand-Hand

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2: Timber Timbre – Creep on Creepin’ On I don’t know what it is about the ghostly voodoo stuff these guys do which I love so much.  Certainly with the increasingly deep arrangements there is a certain theatricality to this record, but then instrumentals like Obelisk and Swamp Magic could as easily be found in one of Tom Waits’ more flamboyant nightmares as they could on the stage, or indeed a contemporary pop record. Creep On Creepin’ On is never pompous or overblown though, and displays a remarkable deftness of touch, particularly with the more

Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin’ On

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  1: Josh T. Pearson – Last of the Country Gentlemen I hesitated a long time before putting Last of the Country Gentlemen at the top of this list. Apart from the fact that at times the word enjoyable isn’t exactly the right one to apply, the whole album seems to belong in a slightly different category to everything else.  It’s just different to all the other albums, and it feels difficult to actually compare the emotional response to this to the emotional response I’ve had to everything else.  But in the end, between SXSW, Homegame, an aborted and a successful Toad Session, the number of times I’ve heard these songs and the effect they’ve had on me, there is little doubt that this, even if it isn’t my favourite album of the year per se, is still the album which dominated 2011 and is almost certainly the album by which I will remember it.

Josh T. Pearson – Thou Art Loosed

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11-20

It’s a relatively manageable week, this one.  It’s quiet enough, until Saturday, which has a couple of rather unfortunate clashes, but there are definitely some great gigs on.

Pick of the bunch would, for me, be the Mazes and Milk Maid show at Sneaky’s on Wednesday, but the Emily Scott album launch also looks rather promising, with the presence of extra strings for both herself and Yusuf Azak adding a bit of extra incentive.

Once again I seem to have managed to start the week with a little bit of a hangover, annoyingly, so I have been sitting here feeling groggy all day.  Balls.  Tomorrow will be different, as I keep telling myself.

Wednesday 5th October 2011: Mazes & Milk Maid at Sneaky Pete’s.

Having recorded a (rather fantastic, if I do say so myself) Toad Session with Milk Maid when they played up here in the Spring, I am really looking forward to seeing them again, along with Manchester compatriots and Fatcat label-mates Mazes.

Milk Maid – Not Me (Toad Session)

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Thursday 6th October 2011: Born to Be Wide music video seminar at the Electric Circus.

Born to Be Wide put on consistently interesting seminars designed to help out today’s DIY musician.  This month’s topic is music videos, and confirmed for the panel so far we have this lot: Aman Khullar – VPL, Scott Macdonald – KFM Records, David Weaver – Detour.

Friday 7th October 2011: Indie Funday Friday at Henry’s Cellar Bar with The Asps, Morris Major, Son of Portslade, Steven Borthwick & The Friendly Vibes.

Raising money for the Sick Kids Friends Foundation, this is the second Indie Funday Friday.  Morris Major played the very first Ides of Toad night in January this year, but I have to confess to not knowing all that much about the other bands.  That’s what those links are for of course, so you can decide for yourselves.

Morris Major – Seymour Grove

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Saturday 8th October 2011: Birdhead, Edinburgh School for the Deaf & Plastic Animals play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.

More Limbo jollies, this time with plenty of guitar noise. I will be extremely interested to see what people make of Edinburgh School for the Deaf, now that co-vocalist and guitarist Kieran has moved to London.  The last time I saw them play, he battered his head off the wall at Henry’s and played his guitar so loud his fingers bled. Is it too much to demand that his replacement do at least as much?

Edinburgh School for the Deaf – Love is Terminal

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Saturday 8th October 2011: Emily Scott album launch with Yusuf Azak & Lorraine McCauley at The Third Door.

I believe The Third Door is the venue which used to be Medina, just downstairs from Negociants on Bristo Square. It was never a bad space before, although the PA was horrible, but that is all changing apparently, with a new system, new decor, a new layout and a new name all slowly being sorted out. Both Emily and Yusuf will be playing with added strings, so this should be a lush, gorgeous gig.

Yusuf Azak – The Key Underground

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Saturday 8th October 2011: Papi Falso at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

Papi Falso isn’t a band, nor is it strictly a ‘club night’ per se, although I suppose it cleaves closer to the format of the latter than the former.  It is a bunch of interesting people with good taste in music playing records all evening, simple as that.  There is no obligation to make people dance or sing along, and the general guiding principle is, as far as I know (I’ve been drunk every time I’ve discussed it, sorry), eclecticism. Perfect, in other words, for those of us who love music, want to drink late and fucking hate night clubs.

Video: Vimeo – YouTube
Photos: Flickr
Audio: zip dowload (right click, save as)

This session came together in an extremely short space of time, and as such I am extremely pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out – from an audio point of view in particular these are some of my favourite session recordings.

We invited Milk Maid to play an Ides of Toad gig in June, they arrived the night before the gig, and we happened to be having beers and listening to some records when I mentioned that we sometimes record in our living room.  I showed them the Scottish Enlightenment Toad Session, and they suggested recording a session too, the next day, before the gig.

Recording a band with a full drum kit, two guitarists and a bass in one room made me nervous enough, and actually getting anyone to help seemed improbable at such short notice, but thankfully Fee and Rory were able to make it down, so I owe them both a massive debt of gratitude for their help.

As per usual we have a full set of photos, freely downloadable session mp3s, a full interview podcast (immediately below, and with the tracklisting at the bottom of the page) and videos of both the whole day (above) and each individual song (below).  Enjoy!

Direct download: Toadcast #186 – Milk Maid Toad Session

Milk Maid – Can’t You See (Toad Session)

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Milk Maid – Girl (Toad Session)

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Milk Maid – Stir So Slow (Toad Session)

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Milk Maid – Not Me (Toad Session)

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01. Milk Maid – Can’t You See (Toad Session) (04.11)
02. Women – Black Rice (12.14)
03. Weird Era – Summer Heights (15:26)
04. Milk Maid – Girl (Toad Session) (20.19)
05. Irk the River – Mind That Child (26.22 )
06. Daily Life – No Eyes (28.43)
07. Milk Maid – Stir So Slow (Toad Session) (36.32)
08. Evan Dando – Hard Drive (45.12)
09. Easter – Holy Island (48.24)
10. Milk Maid – Not Me (Toad Session) (62.50)

 Another one of those incredibly difficult band names to track down on Google.  Not as incriminating as Teens, Girls, Women or (shudder) Sexy Kids, but nevertheless, you try tracking down a band called Easter when all you know is that they have a song called Holy Island.  I sifted through a lot of religious shit and quasi-spiritual bollocks before I finally tracked them down.

I was actually introduced to this band by the lads from Milk Maid, when they came in to record their Toad Session and play an Ides of Toad gig a month or so ago.  The asked to put Holy Island on the Session podcast, which was the first I’d heard of the band.

Having finally tracked them down on Soundcloud, I am really enjoying their stuff; it’s quite grandiose, actually, and just a little bit proggy in places.  There are even moments when I am reminded of bands like Shearwater, albeit more in the emotional character of the songs, rather than any musical resemblance.

In amongst the clatter and the engine noise of the guitars, the actual vocal is cold and a little bit unwelcoming.  I don’t mean that as a criticism though, because it gives the songs a nice, distinct character of their own, but again I find myself reminded just a little of Jonathan Meiburg.  It’s not that it’s an unemotional voice, more that the emotions to which it does succumb are resented and bottled up as much as possible – almost as if their breaking through into the song feels like some kind of failure to the singer, who doesn’t really trust us enough yet to really want to share too much.

It’s hard to make much of just three songs, as I say constantly on these pages, but this lot look really promising.

Easter – Somethin’ American

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This review is a month or so out of date now, but umm… well the review process got kind of caught between formats, in the sense that I review from my computer upstairs, but I have this on vinyl downstairs and never got round to downloading the free mp3s which came with the record.

I actually got into Milk Maid by accident.  I was buying a Brown Brogues single (highly recommended, incidentally) from Suffering Jukebox Records and seeing as I was in a vinyl-buying mood I thought I might as well give Such Fun by Milk Maid a try while I was there.

I loved it, but the album still surprised me, I have to confess. After the raucous buzz of Such Fun I think I kind of expected a lo-fi garage rock record, and I suppose half of it is kind of like that. At other times, however, it’s much more a laid back bluesy sound with really strong melodic guitar hooks, and at others it drifts into old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll, while Same as What is a nicely rolling acoustic number.

Generally though, this is a consummate DIY pop record full of shit you can and will hum, suitable for turning up loud as balls and generally fucking great to listen to.  Yucca was all recorded in singer and main songwriter Martin Cohen’s bedroom, but Suffering Jukebox is run by the lad from Mazes, who release with Fatcat, and he then recommended them to the label, who offered to release the record.

As an album, whilst it is occasionally as boisterous and beefy as Such Fun, generally there is a laid-back cocky feel to it, kind of like the bad boy sat at the back of the bar who watches as you chat to all the handsome city types but maintains that half-raised eyebrow that says he knows it’s him you really want to be talking to.  Or, to put it another way, it has a kind of challenging ‘yes, and?’ kind of attitude.

For a record I expected to be a blitz of rough guitars this is actually a varied and interesting listen, as much as it is an immediate and catchy one.  They shift the pace here and there, keeping you guessing, and in doing so show themselves to be a band with a good bit more depth and a few more tricks up their sleeve than your average ‘let’s just pile a shitload of noise on top and hope for the best’ lo-fi bandwagon jumpers.

Milk Maid – Such Fun

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Milk Maid – Girl

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MySpace (no, seriously!) | More mp3s | Buy direct from Fatcat Records

The reason this is called the Nukecast is because I am pretty irritated by the exaggeration of just how horrible it is to be alive in 2011.  2011 is a total piece of piss.  It’s easy, unthreatening and perfectly comfortable, and the idea that the modern world is in any way topsy-turvy is just plain silly.

I am not all that old, but even the eighties, when I was a kid, were far rougher than this.  There was actual genuine menace, the world might just have been about to end in a nuclear fireball, and no-one had anything you could honestly call a proper job.

So I complain about this for about an hour, while Mrs. Toad calls me an idiot.  Welcome to the drunken Toadcasts.  Again.

Direct download: Toadcast #179 – The Nukecast

01. Tom Lehrer – Who’s Next (00.08)
02. Billy Bragg – Think Again (10.34)
03. Milk Maid – Girl (21.07)
04. Odonis Odonis – Mr. Smith (24.06)
05. Sonny & the Sunsets – I Wanna Do It (31.09)
06. Phil Ochs – Talking Cuban Crisis (41.19)
07. Crystal Swells – Dead Awake (47.43)
08. Male Bonding – Bones (52.07)
09. M.J. Hibbett & the Validators – The Fight for History (63.10)
10. Tom Lehrer – So Long, Mom (72.33)