Hmmm.  I am not a big fan of Christmas, really.  Which is not to say that I don’t enjoy it, because I do, more that there are a million things about the season which fucking irritate the living shit out of me.  A simple example would be the appearance of Christmas decorations in shops in October; that annoys everyone, I know, I am not claiming to be unique here.  High Street Christmas is an ungodly shitfest of an invention, and the less I have to do with it the happier I am, generally.

Then, on the other hand, there’s actual Christmas.  There’s the dark and the cold, both of which I love, funnily enough.  Then there’s the quiet evenings with family and all the food and watching the Back to the Future Trilogy one after another and all that sort of stuff.  Hell, I even kinda like the decorations.  I really like that Christmas.

The thing is, the first, shitty kind of Christmas starts really early so it’s basically the only kind of Christmas there is available for the best part of two months.  Then, at some undefinable point, Proper Christmas quietly takes over and the whole thing becomes very pleasant indeed.  My Mum’s already been in touch to ask what kind of things we’d like her to cook when we get to France on Christmas Eve.  Christmas trees are available everywhere, and for some reason I really like Christmas trees.  So it’s starting: actual good, decent proper Christmas is starting to rear its head, but it’s not there yet.

For some reason I am still waiting to actually feel at all Christmassy.  I suppose the contradiction of despising the high street at this time of year is that if you boycott it entirely, which we have, and if you make no actual Christmas effort yourself, which we haven’t, then you end up just a little short of the cues to trigger that Christmas feeling, which their relentlessly avaricious Yulery tends to do whether you like it or not.

So I think that at some point, probably towards the end of next week when everyone in the office stops even pretending and I start to feel a genuine panic at not having bought my bloody mother anything, I will start to feel that warm, restful, bosom-of-the-family kind of Christmas feeling, but it hasn’t happened yet.  I can see Christmas starting to happen all around me, but for some reason I am still waiting to actually feel like it’s Christmas time.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Right Now I’m A-Roaming

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Lift to Experience – Waiting to Hit

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I know, it’s a shocking thought, isn’t it – the idea of me spouting tedious garbage on the World Wide Superhighways in the faint expectation that anyone might take the time to listen.  Anyhow, recently I have been involved in two such enterprises, both eminently listenable, but for entirely different reasons.

Firstly, I made my debut appearance on Hype Machine Radio this month, talking about Julian Plenti.  Given that Hype Radio is supposed to be at least loosely related to their charts I think the chances of my making regular appearances on this thing are pretty slim, although I’d love the chance to go on and slag off The XX, who are fucking dismal, but I’m not sure that faux-hipster sneering is quite what they intend to be about so that chance probably won’t come my way.

Anyhow, the episode I am on is September 2009, which is currently at the top of this page, here.  My friend Dev who runs Hype Radio and comments here from time to time was drinking whisky the other night and was not impressed with his tipple.  He emailed me this plea for help:

I am currently sipping a single malt from Islay, the maker is Bowmore (clearly a mass producer posing as a small producer) and it kinda sucks.  Wine is really my thing these days (or, you know, beer, or margarita, or gin & tonic, of course, depending on the occasion) but I have been every so slowly endeavo(u)ring to develop my Scotch palette over the years… and this stuff sucks.  You have any favorites?

My personal favourite is Laphroaig, but I am so new to whisky that I’m in no position to offer advice or suggestions at all, so I thought I might throw this one open to the readers.  And Dev is a nice guy, so don’t offering the poor man cleaning products just for fun.  Suggestions in the comments, please.

And secondly, do you all listen to the Contrast Podcast?  Well if you don’t, you should.  Every week for the last 180-plus weeks Tim has put together a podcast assembled from songs and intros emailed in from music people around the world, all centred on an ever-changing theme.

I chipped in two weeks ago on the topic of darts, not because I know any songs about darts, but because I know one which mentions them somewhat tangentially and also contains the stupendous line ‘Is your child hyperactive, or is he perhaps a twat?’ which is, in its supremely brilliant delivery as much as its rather brutally hilarious content, one of the funniest things I have ever heard in a song anywhere, ever.

Half Man Half Biscuit – Surging Out of Convalescence

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Rye Whisky (I know, I know, he doesn’t want a rye, but I like this song so fuck off.)

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DO NOT WORRY!  This is not a podcast stuffed full of tedious moralising and empty pontificating and generally depressing garbage about a subject far too weighty and philosophical for this sort of half-arsed internet enterprise.  In fact, towards the end it really gets quite chipper.

Basically, there are so many extraordinarily good murder ballads that that particular aspect could so easily have entirely overtaken a podcast ostensibly about prison, crime and criminal justice.

This week, however, I have still managed to marginalise the role of the murder ballad, because the concept of death incorporates so many disparate emotions and aspects that simply doing a whole podcast about murderous folk tales and their musical counterparts seemed unnecessarily narrow.  So you get this.  Which starts out a little heavy but becomes positively gleeful by the end, I promise you.

Toadcast #86 – The Deathcast

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01. Willard Grant Conspiracy – Painter Blue (03.01)
02. Samamidon – O Death (12.33)
03. Eels – Going to Your Funeral (22.31)
04. Melanie Rivaud & Strange Weather – The Fall of Troy (Tom Waits Cover) (25.05)
05. Bob Frank & John Murry – Jesse Washington 1916 (31.53)
06. Bruce Springsteen – Dead Man Walking (37.02)
07. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Up Jumped the Devil (41.15)
08. The Men They Couldn’t Hang – The Green Fields of France (48.26)
09. Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Tramp the Dirt Down (57.02)
10. Chumbawamba – Passenger List for Doomed Flight 1471 (66.35)

For those of you coming along to help collect for the Lifeboats tomorrow, that you so much.  If you know where we live, then just swing by and we’ll give you a tin to shake for an hour (or more if you like) and then you can stick around for tea and cake (or beer as the hour grows later) or go about your business, as you please.  If you don’t know where to come along to, then just drop me an email and I’ll tell you.  I’m not too keen to just type our address out in the middle of teh internetz, although god knows it’s hardly a secret anyway.  Thanks so much for everyone who has agreed to help, it really is good of you.

Now, on to the more frivolous business of the day: it’s Friday and hence time to get silly.  We had our first real expedition in the mighty Toadmobile yesterday, driving through to Glasgow for the Hinterland Festival.  Honest to goodness, that van fucking rocks.  I stopped to ask a copper where the best place to park it was and he – yes, a policeman – said “This is Glasgow, mate, nowhere’s secure.”  Then we embarked on a ten minute conversation about how cool the van was, then he recommended I do a massive great illegal u-turn in the middle of the road.  Glasgow cops: tremendous value!

In honour of the Lifeboat collection effort tomorrow, I thought the five this week should have a vaguely nautical theme, so here we go.  It has become a most sociable post in the last couple of weeks, with all sorts of reckless de-lurking and far more people than the usual suspects taking part, which I think all of us appreciate, so go on, go for it.  Step out of the sordid intershadows and reveal yourselves.  Actually, that sounds more than a little wrong.  Just chip in, that’s all.  Then talk pish to your heart’s content.

1. Best name for a kind of boat.
2. What’s the most camp, being in the navy or riding a motorcycle?
3. When was the last time you actually went swimming in the sea?
4. Coolest boat-based movie.
5. Ever been on a boat journey where you feared for your life?

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – The Ship Song (Live)

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The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Dover Lights

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The Pogues – South Australia

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Van Dyke Parks – Greenland Whale Fisheries

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The 6ths – The Sailor in Love With the Sea

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No, we’re not doing that this week actually, although Five Ways to Leave Your Lover would be a fine Friday Five at some point in the future.  Nothing too insulting, nothing too pedestrian, and points given for believability combined with strangeness.  Nice idea actually but, well, maybe later.

This week’s five were suggested by the excellent Mr. Team Turnip on the Pains of Being Pure at Heart review, I think.  It was all about bands who develop their songwriting and those who simply consolidate once they have found a style with which they and their fans are comfortable.

This is a nice one actually, because it exposes our prejudices.  The sum total of all music criticism pretty much boils down to ‘I like this… and I don’t like that.’  It’s an instinctive decision and as much as we can try and rationalise it afterwards, no amount of good argument can make you like or dislike anything much more than you do instinctively.  I suppose being pointed out that something was ripped off from somewhere or that such and such is a dickhead or so on can make you cool on something, but basically I think we’re mostly left with just a gut reaction, as far as music is concerned.

So for all we praise bands for developing, complain that they are derivative or criticise them for standing still, there are always plenty of groups we love who make total hypocrites of us for doing so. So chip in with yours, please, and take this opportunity not to worry about the fact that 90% of the comments on this site come from the same ten or fifteen people.  Ignore them, they’re harmless, and I’d be delighted to be introduced to a new lurker, should you fancy it.  Take the plunge, the water’s lovely.

1. Band who just knock out the same old shit time after time, but you love them anyway.
2. Band who have impressed you by continuing to develop, despite having a lot to lose.
3. Band who have become better and better with time.
4. Band who are a total rip-off, but you don’t fucking care, thank you very much.
5. Band you love who make you feel like a total hypocrite.

Eels – Sweet Li’l Thing

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The Strokes – Vision of Division

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – We Call Upon the Author

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The Decemberists – Red Right Ankle

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Babyshambles – Delivery

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Live recordings – in fact, specifically, live albums – came up in a recent post on Song, by Toad and the idea of doing a podcast composed entirely of live recordings really appealed to me because there are so many great ones.

That said, on the post in question there arose a debate, one voice expressing my deepest hatreds of the genre, and another being perhaps over-generous in the other direction.  Frankly, I despise the vast majority of live albums.  Mostly they are shit recordings of songs we already know, released for the sole reason of fleecing fans whose devotion has already been established, and whose wallets can clearly be plundered for a few more empty sheckles.

Despite that, of course, there are some truly stunning live recordings.  In fact, I’d argue that some of the most memorable, legendary recordings of all  time are in fact live ones.  Bob Dylan live at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1966.  Bruce Springsteen pretty much any time in the seventies.  Basically, for all live recordings are mostly rip-off bollocks, there are some truly phenomenal live albums, ones which open your eyes to the artist, ones which fill in that artist’s musical upbringing, and some which are just genuinely amazingly wonderful recordings in their own right.  Therefore we bring to you the Livecast.  Enjoy, Toadlings…

Toadcast #57 – Production Values

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01. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – 10th Avenue Freeze Out (04.09)
02. Andrew Bird – Why (11.47)
03. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Papa Won’t Leave You Henry (16.22)
04. The Moulettes – Country Joy Song (25.29)
05. Colin Meloy – Blues Run the Game (32.49)
06. Quasar Wut-Wut – The Partisan (35.45)
07. Jeff Mangum – Two Headed Boy (43.04)
08. Tom Waits – Diamonds on My Windshield (54.37)
09. Billy Bragg – Days Like These (DC Remix) (56.46)
10. Ben Folds Five – Satan is My Master (60.15)
11. Bob Dylan – Like a Rolling Stone (64.16)

We both hate Valentine’s day and have no desire to take part in its consumerist pantomime.  It seems to have created its own little rituals in our house though: we have an annual Valentine’s hate-fest, which lasts a couple of days, where we pour scorn on both the event itself and anyone who takes part in it.  The problem is, in doing so, we have sort of made ourselves part of what gets on our own nerves.  Fucking people and their fucking stupid valentine’s traditions like, er… this one.

This is only the second in what will probably become an annual Valentine’s Scorn-o-rama, but it already feels like a time-honoured tradition.  So if you’re single, generally antagonistic, miserable, lonely or just plain indifferent then this is the podcast for you.  We even have an odd conversation where we wonder what the point of marriage is – a slightly bizarre thing for a married couple to start wondering about.  But that’s the Toadcasts for you.

Toadcast #56 – Valentine’s Schmalentine’s

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01. Nirvana – Rape Me (00.57)
02. Weeping Willows – Failing in Love (06.39
03. Cherry Poppin’ Daddies – When I Change Your Mind (13.36)
04. The White Stripes – Conquest (16.04)
05. Tammy Wynette – D.I.V.O.R.C.E. (22.38)
06. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – She’s Leaving You (25.32)
07. Yo La Tengo – Stockholm Syndrome (35.26)
08. Aidan Moffat & the Best Ofs – Oh Men! (42.33)
09. The Avett Brothers – The Ballad of Love & Hate (45.36)
10. Arab Strap – There is No Ending (59.09)

First things first: business, I’m afraid.  We are trying to organise a UK tour for Meursault.  Given I have never organised a tour before, I thought I might enlist the help of my Toady friends, because you know about the place where you live far better than I do.

Basically, if there is a venue or a promoter in your neck of the woods who you think I should get in touch with, please let me know.  We’re just looking for someone who puts on vaguely Toad-friendly lineups in half-decent places and is likely to draw a reasonable crowd.  Not massive, of course, but they don’t want to be playing in front of five neds in the local Slug & Lettuce if we can avoid it.  The venues don’t have to be massive – 50 would do the trick, as long as it is likely to be quite busy.  Basically, you know the kind of gigs myself and my Edinburgh pals go to around here, so if you think you can hook us up with one of those please let me know – no matter if it’s Dundee, Dubai or Droylsden.  Well actually, not Dubai, because we can’t afford the air fare.  So there we go, if you want to see Meursault appear in a town near you in May, just point me in the right direction and I’ll do the rest.

Now, back to the more serious business of disrupting everyone’s Friday productivity, which I don’t believe for a second was up to much to begin with.  Are you all looking forward to our Valentine’s podcast tomorrow?  It won’t be pretty, I can promise you that.  We will get home, heat up some fine scran, pour a couple of whopping gins and burble our way through an hour of misanthropy and cynicism for your listening pleasure.  Fantastic.  Then, in the evening, I will leave Mrs. Toad by herself in the house and bugger off out to a gig by myself.  Romantic as fuck, aren’t we?

Now, I’ve seen your conversations on Facebook walls, there is no privacy in the 21st Century, so I know there are lurkers out there who can’t quite be arsed to join in.   Well fuck you, get off your lazy backsides and play along!  Haven’t you heard of the ancient Chinese proverb which states that ‘Those who do not play nicely with the other Toadlings will not get their hole on Valentine’s Day’.  So unless you want to be chasing the witless, pig-ugly, incoherently drunken dregs of humanity around the dancefloor at a quarter to three on Sunday morning peruse our five questions below, mull it over intelligently for a while, and then jump and say something inappropriate and make a tit of yourself.  Makes a change from me doing it all the time.

1. Most evil elbow you have given.
2. Most evil elbow you have had.
3. Best Valentines present.
4. Most failed attempt at an exotic sexual practice (chocolate smearing etc).
5. Best single sad sack Valentine’s day.

The Wedding Present – Don’t Take Me Home Until I’m Drunk

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Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash – Girl From the North Country

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – The Girl at the Bottom of My Glass

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No Age – My Life’s Alright Without You

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And one for my girl, because she fucking loves this song, and always reaches for this one first when we start playing vinyl in the evening:
Stiff Little Fingers – Alternative Ulster

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Oh thank fuck it’s Christmas. Or, any holiday really. I am so fucking incredibly tired I could pitch face first on the tarmac and sleep for six months without so much as coming up for air.

I have been reading, with some amusement, the bickering over the religious nature of Christmas which seems to take place in the American press with monotonous regularity. Apparently the Christians are adamant that we remember the religious nature of a pagan festival, which seems a little odd considering that the Christianisation of Christmas itself was basically the Christian colonists’ acceptance that they could never defeat local pagan religions. So basically they adopted Yuletide and tried to wedge their amusing Biblical myths into a story that their conquered people would never give up, and then waited a few years for it to degrade into some sort of carnival of aquisitiveness which they could have a tantrum about.

So it’s a pagan festival which has turned into an unbridled celebration of Western consumerist greed… erm, which part of this came up in the Bible again?

Personally, as an atheist, I love Christmas. It’s got nothing to do with that Jeebus character, it’s closer akin to the the pagan celebration of light and life in the middle of the darkest part of the year. As a family we have always come together and spent peaceful time together at this time of year. We play music, we read books, we cook together, but above all we rest. We get together and enjoy one another’s company. Mrs. Toad and I will, this year, be doing nothing more than snuggling up on the couch and wasting time. And that time wasting together is oddly one of the most important things you can do to forge a strong relationship. Just taking time to be together and enjoy one another’s company is, after the year we’ve had, going to be a rare treat, and one which I intend to enjoy immensely.

Toadcast #51 – The Yulecast

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01. Yo La Tengo – On Our Way to Fall (03.12)
02. Tom Waits – Soldier’s Things (07.21)
03. Pale Young Gentlemen – We Will Meet (15.23)
04. The Felice Brothers – Greatest Show on Earth (19.15)
05. Eels – Beautiful Freak (27.27)
06. Clem Snide – The Dairy Queen (35.25)
07. Bob Dylan – Tangled Up in Blue (43.13)
08. A.A. Bondy – Black Rain, Black Rain (48.45)
09. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Brompton Oratory (54.19)
10. Sufjan Stevens – Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother (60.06)

You can’t fucking move in Edinburgh this week but for accidentally walking in on a quality gig.  Honestly, you could end up with a liver like a cricket ball if you went to all of the bastards, so there may be a few orange juice gigs (yes, I know, boom-tish and all that) for me this week, or I’ll have to spend all of December sobering up.

Given what Christmas is generally like anyway, I suspect that’s what January is likely to be for but, as with Christmas itself, it seems that the party season is starting earlier than ever this year.  Anyhow, there are a couple of really major ones this week, so unless you are at gigs from Wednesday until Sunday with barely a pause for breath, then bollocks to you.

Wednesday 26th November 2008: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at the Corn Exchange.
I don’t think I need to tell you what a legend I think Nick Cave is.  Along with Tom Waits and Bob Dylan he forms some sort of Unholy Trinity here at Song, by Toad and as his age increases so, seemingly, does his swagger.  Dig, Lazarus, Dig may not have been the most brilliant of his albums, but the stage show is still pretty amazing, helped considerably by the presence of demonic dervish Warren Ellis, torturing his violin to within an inch of its life.  Not to be missed.
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Opium Tea

Wednesday 26th November 2008: Mary Hampton & Pete Greenwood bring the Green Man Tour to the Bowery.
If you can’t face the plastic glassed, beer stained, sweaty aircraft hangar which is the Corn Exchange then this is place for you.  The Bowery’s cosy setting is as perfect as I can imagine for the kind of delicate folk that the Green Man tour will be bringing to town.  Peter Greenwood is a little more popsome than Mary Hampton, so the two should provide a nice counterpoint to one another and a splendid evening altogether.
Pete Greenwood – Negotiations & Last Words

Thursday 27th November 2008: The Limbo 1st Birthday Party at the Voodoo Rooms, with Micachu, A-Lix, Dead Boy Robotics & Ex Lion Tamer.
Quite how Limbo have managed to put on a gig every week for a year is bloody well beyond me.  This will be at the dancier, electro-spazzier end of the spectrum of music you’ll hear about on this site, but then again this is supposed to a party after.  So well done to Dave and Andy at Limbo, and you can be assured that I will be there with bells on.  And, while we’re at it, well done to Ex Lion Tamer on signing with Seventeen Seconds Records.
Ex Lion Tamer – Go Ghost

Thursday 27th November 2008: Oxjam at the Hive, with Thieves in Suits, My Tiny Robots, Found, Sorren MacLean, Black Diamond Express Saint Jude’s Infirmary & the Wee Baby Jesuses.
Forgive me if I don’t link to every single MySpace page for this one, but you can all use Google.  This is the second of two nights in the capital this week with an all-star lineup of bands and all sorts of shadowy-sounding extra entertainment, like Ox-Factor stage, a Guitar Hero Arena and a cocktail bar.

Friday 28th November 2008: Withered Hand, Ish Marquez, Stanley Brinks and an Uber-Secret Special Guest at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
Even without the Very Special Guest this is a pretty special lineup for fans of scratchy anti-folk twisted with unrest and disquiet.  Withered Hand is pretty much head of the Edinburgh arm of the anti-folk society, and certainly the one who fits most cleanly with their sound.
Jeffrey Lewis – If You Shoot the Head You Kill the Ghoul

Saturday 29th November 2008: White Heath & Fanattica at The Tron.
I am not entirely convinced about White Heath’s recordings on their MySpace page, but Euan put them on at Trampoline the other week and said that they were excellent live, so this should be worth checking out.  Recorded, there is quite a straightforward indie rock foundation to songs subsequently spiced up with real instruments.  Live apparently there is much more of an unhinged carnival atmosphere than I have thus far detected, so maybe it’s just not quite been captured on the recordings.  Fanattica are excellent live, with plenty of influence from the considerable Edinburgh Polish population, which they churn up with plenty of spirit and deliver with plenty of mayhem.

Saturday 29th November 2008: Gimme Shelter at the Caves, with pretty much the cream of the Edinburgh music scene.  I can’t be arsed linking all the MySpace pages, but here’s the list: Broken Records, Ballboy, Wake the President, Steve Mason (DJ Set), The European Union, De Rosa, Found (DJ Set), Withered Hand, Meursault, eagleowl, Jesus H Foxx, Little Pebble, The Kays Lavelle, Team Turnip, Kat Healy.  Basically, as you can probably tell, one great big fuck off extravaganza of music.  Surprisingly enough, my tip for the day is Team Turnip.  It may be a silly name, but Russell was one of the first people to ever submit music to Song, by Toad and his songwriting is really good.  He’s been under the radar somewhat since then, so I’ll be really interested to see how he’s getting on after almost two years.