It took me about five minutes to twig why the roads were so quiet this morning, before I remembered that it was Easter and that every other cunt but myself was on fucking holiday.  Bastards.

Of all the meaningless holidays we have, I think Easter might be the most pointless.  Although I have to confess that when I lived down South, where the whole company shut on bank holidays, pretty much forcing you to take the day off, there was something rather good about having a compulsory long weekend at the start of Spring.

Anyhow, as soon as my hangover wears off tomorrow morning (well, let’s be honest, mid-afternoon is probably more realistic) I shall be pootling down to Henry’s for the Ides of Toad.  Not only do we have an excellent lineup on Saturday (Palms, Plastic Animals and North American War), but we also have another fine gig on Wednesday, with United Fruit, Shudder Pulps and Fat Bicth.

Anyhow, it may not look like I’ve been doing much this week, but I’ve actually been most productive.  I’ve finished all the artwork and layout stuff for the split 12″, ordered the Meursault promo material and their two singles, and in general have been a very hard-working little bunny.  Not that it’s always that obvious, from the other end of the internet of  course.

Anyhow, today is Friday, and a holiday Friday at that, so there will be no more productivity today.  The rest of today is, as per tradition, wasting time on the internet day, so answer the following five questions as flippantly as you please, and of course take the opportunity to delurk, if you haven’t commented before.

1. Instead of chocolate eggs, what should the Easter Bunny deliver?
2. What is your favourite kind of chocolate?
3. Which country would you like to visit on your next holiday, balls to expense/practicality?
4. Weird sport you’ve always fancied giving a try.
5. Today I am listening to a Mojo covermount CD from the classic ‘indie’ era of the mid-eighties (see songs below). What’s your favourite freebie compilation?

The La’s – Son of a Gun

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The Monochrome Set – He’s Frank (Slight Return)

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McCarthy – Keep an Open Mind or Else

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The Wild Swans – The Revolutionary Spirit

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The Teardrop Explodes – Reward

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The Treecast is so named because we purchased and decorated our Christmas tree this afternoon.  It is an incoherent mess of all sorts of shite, stupid garish baubles, a weird peacock thingy and some foolish attempts at being tasteful which have been utterly overwhelmed by the utter cack which surrounds them.

My parents always did seriously tasteful trees actually, so I would imagine they will be downright ashamed of the half-arsed mess we have managed to create.  Actually, my dad is the world’s biggest Grinch, so he won’t give a shite, but my mum might be silently disappointed.

Nevertheless it now feels like Christmas has properly started.  We have orded a keg of beer for our Christmas party (our own one, not the label one) and for the New Year’s piss up as well.  We’ll have Jonnie Common, The Japanese War Effort and Neil fae Meursault playing a house gig that evening, and there will, it now appears, be shitloads of very tasty beer too.  Why the fuck would anyone bother with town?

Direct download: Toadcast #151 – The Treecast

01. Grandaddy – Now It’s On (00.21)
02. Jason Lytle – D.U.I. BBQ Checkpoint (07.39)
03. Twilight Hotel – Mahogany Veneer  (12.25)
04. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Heart in Your Heartbreak (18.44)
05. Wolf Parade – Semi-precious Stone (22.36)
06. That Ghost – Older (30.17)
07. Grandaddy – Band Synergy (A Peek Inside the Magic) (35.34)
08. Grandaddy – You Know You’re Fucked Up (38.50)
09. Crystal Stilts – Shake the Shackles (43.54)
10. The Monochrome Set – Jetset Junta (Remix) (48.19)
11. Gobble Gobble – Wrinklecarver (51.20)

I am not cold in the sense that the temperature is all that low, more in the sense that I have been just a little too chilly for a few hours now and it is really starting to get me down.  Moan moan.  Song, by Eeyore etc etc.

Anyhow, Cellar 35 in Aberdeen was excellent last night – what a top wee space.  It is basically just a scruffy basement, but they’ve got a couple of carpets down and sofas and the atmosphere is really, really nice.  It helps a great deal that the staff were brilliant and helpful, but in general I thought it was a great place to put a small gig on.  John from the Kiosque tells me that it doesn’t get used all that much, which is a shame, as anything acoustic would really work well there.

They’re getting a new PA system too, which means they’ll be able to handle bigger bands soon, and apparently the new owners are making a big push to put more gigs on there – honestly, I would wholeheartedly recommend it.  It’s an ideal space and Jamie and Emma were absolutely great – and of course a big thank you to everyone who came along, and to Amber Wilson for playing and The Last Battle for stepping in at the last minute to complete the bill.

It’s basically December after this weekend isn’t it?  The time of the office Christmas Party.  I can picture myself sat here on my own with a Marks & Spencer’s individual Christmas dinner and a sad little party hat on; the only person at my own office party.  I suppose that’s not really fair though is it, because all the bands should really be there, and Dylan and Fee of course, and Wee Matthew and Andy who does the website stuff and Mrs. Toad as the Grand Matriarch.

I may sleep off Yusuf’s three album launch gigs on Sunday, but next weekend we will probably go and get ourselves a Christmas tree and so on and so forth – holly, all the usual shit.  For some reason my usual grinchery has vanished this year and I am really looking forward to Christmas.  I am looking forward to the tree, and I am even looking forward to my parents coming to visit, even if they are rather inevitably going to end up tutting at me on the Weekend of Doom when our label party is followed by eagleowl’s and then Kid Canaveral’s and then the hospital, all in the space of three days.

What’s got into me for Christ’s sake, this is most un-Toadlike, particularly after my birthday humbugging (Humbuggery?  It really has to be humbuggery doesn’t it.).  As long as I avoid the shops and the telly, which has been all too easy since ours was nicked, I think this should be an ace December.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of seasonal pish, here is the latest in FOUND’s Free Music Friday series: a remix of Au Revoir Simone’s Fallen Snow.

1. How would you rate the ambient temperature in your office/classroom/lab/bedsit?
2. What’s worse, a freezing cold toilet seat making contact with your arse, or car seats that get so hot in the sunshine that your legs stick to them if you are foolish enough to sit down in shorts?
3. Anyone started thinking about their end-of-year best of lists yet?
4. Having a good meal anytime this weekend?
5. Is there a particular ‘making time to sit down and listen to music’ time coming up this weekend?  And what will you listen to?

These songs all come from a compilation made for me by my pal JC from The Vinyl Villain to mark the occasion of the launch of Song, by Toad Records, some six months before we ever actually released anything, back in July 2008.

The Ukrainians – Batya (Bigmouth Strikes Again)

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The Delgados – California Uber Alles

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The Monochrome Set – Jetset Junta (Remix)

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Ballboy – All the Records on the Radio are Shite

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The Lilac Time – The Girl Who Waves at Trains

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What a lovely, lovely podcast this is.  No Mrs. Toad this week (yeah, yeah, I know, fuck off the lot of you) partly because she is away in the States being important and businesslike and so forth and partly because you are all a bunch of cunts for liking her best, you shower of ungrateful bastards.

Anyway, needless alienation of one’s audience aside, I am a little tired of doing themed podcasts.  Nothing particularly pressing leapt to mind this month so I thought I’d just throw on a pile of stuff I was really enjoying and sod having a coherent theme – that’s for the professionals anyway.  So it’s just a big old mish-mash of stuff I’m enjoying at the moment, but I think it’s quite a good playlist for all that.

There are actually a couple of songs chosen for other women in my life!  Oh shock horror! One is our reception lady here at work who revealed a surprisingly excellent vinyl collection when a few of us went round to her place after a staff night out recently, including Pavement and The Pixies.  Who would have thought it!  The other lady song is from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, after I was entirely charmed by the niece of our next door neighbour who apparently used to go out with their keyboard player.  She is trying to move to New York at the moment actually, where there are plans to play fiddle and harp on the new Au Revoir Simone album, which is splendid news.  Apparently this one is to be more folky than the last, which bodes very well indeed.  So go Ruth!  I can’t wait to hear it.

Better stop talking about ze laydees now of course, before I get skelped by my lovely lady.  Not one of of ‘em a patch on the sparkling gem that is the delectable Mrs. Toad of course, not even close!  *ahem*

Toadcast #14 – Total Self-Indulgence

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01. The White Stripes – 300mph Torrential Outpour Blues (03.04)
02. Rachel Unthank & the Winterset – Blue Bleezin’ Blind Drunk (12.34)
03. Jonquil – Lions (18.58)
04. Misophone – The Sea Has Spoken (20.46)
05. The Pixies – Where is My Mind (29.25)
06. The Sequins – Let’s Go Drinking in the Morning (36.09)
07. The Monochrome Set – Tomorrow Will Be Too Long (39.37)
08. iLiKETRAiNS – Death of an Idealist (44.10)
09. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Over and Over Again (Lost & Found) (50.23)
10. Ringo Deathstarr – Starrsha (55.00)
11. Babyshambles – UnBiloTitled (57.02)
12. New Pornographers – Adventures in Solitude (64.29)
13. Phil Ochs – Here’s to the State of Mississippi (75.18)
14. The Mabuses – Bonus Track (82.46)
15. The Real Tuesday Weld – Waltz For One (86.49)
16. Kenneth Williams – When the Toad Came Home (88.40)

I honestly kid you not, yes they are sneaking back into fashion, I am pretty certain of it.  The evidence?  Well, the surprising number of relatively trendy people I have seen sporting them recently and, of course, the simple fact that they have been so hugely out of fashion for so long.

The Hold Steady’s Franz Nicolay has had one at various points, the bass player for Elvis Perkins had one last night, and I saw a big picture of some chap from Interpol with a great big bloody moustache on the first page of the NME the other day.  Now, this is hardly a tidal wave of  underground fashion swelling up into and overwhelming the mainstream, but bear in mind that this kind of alternative scene is often how these things start.  The Hold Steady and Elvis Perkins is one thing, but Interpol?  They’re cool, aren’t they?  Too cool for a ‘tache I would have assumed, unless of course…

The other thing is that once something has been that unfashionable for that long some amusing wag is bound to have a stab at resurrecting it.  I get the impression there may be something in this one, Toadlings.  If you notice the banner at the top of the page you will find that a certain discerning green gentleman has been sporting a rather fine and most elegantly waxed example for some time now.  If you want to be at the croaking edge of fashion, keep an eye out for chaps sporting the only real choice of face furniture suitable for a true gentleman.  It’s the future I tell you!

Man Man – 10lb Moustache
The Monochrome Set – Man With the Black Moustache

These chaps will be pleased.