Once more we get to Fresh Air time, and this week I have a splendidly hot off the press mp3 from the new New Pornogrgaphers album.  It arrived in my inbox just as I was getting ready to leave work, so you can’t get much more news-whorish than that!

For the rest of the show, however, I am going to take a slightly different tack to the usual indie-folk, or whatever you want to call it.  I have some Dusty Springfield, some Nicole Atkins, some Bettye Swan and even some Dionne Warwick just because erm… well no reason really, it just struck my fancy when I was picking songs for the playlist in all honesty.

Live on Air 8pm-9.30pm – Listen live here.

I’ll fill in the playlist live below from 8pm onwards, so feel free to leave feedback, constructive criticism, mindless abuse, etc in the comments during the show.

01. Dionne Warwick- I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself
02. Joanna Newsom- On a Good Day
03. Grand National- Boner
04. Hot Lava- The Auctioneer
05. Laura Gibson & Ethan Rose- 3 Knife
06. Dusty Springfield- Don’t Forget About Me
07. The Come Ons- Strangelove
08. The Morning Benders- Excuses
09. Mountain Man- Honeybee
10. Nicole Atkins- Brooklyn’s On Fire
11. Scott Walker- The Girls And The Dogs
12. Kate & Anna McGarrigle- Love Over and Over
13. New Pornographers- Your Hands Together
14. Lissie- Everywhere I Go
15. Morrissey- You’re Gonna Need Someone On Your Side
16. The Tallest Man On Earth- King of Spain
17. Vampire Weekend- White Sky

Alright, the Alela Diane thread has been one of the most interesting on this site for a while, so it’s time to destroy all that mature and considered debate and return to the sort of trivial internet white noise which, if we’re being honest with ourselves, is really what we do best, here at Song, by Toad.

This weekend holds a trip to Manchester and a discussion with a pal of mine about possibly putting some design thinking into this site.  I am not happy with it, but I decided to stop buggering about and just accept it for the time being, until I was well and truly ready to design it properly, once and for all.

Now, seeing as we had such a splendid discussion about production values this week, and seeing as last week’s five was so racy as to terrify the living shit out of a large number of people and hence curtail participation, here’s a fitting and much more family fucking friendly Five For Friday.  Emerge, join in, release yourselves from the travails of skulking lurkitude.  Then get absolutely cabbaged, fuck someone wildly inappropriate and wake up in and empty house in a bath full of ice with a suspiciously angry scar across your abdomen. And have a splendid weekend in the process.

1. Favourite song or band which is as rough and ready as fuck.
2. Favourite song or band which is Big!  Big Sound, Big Production, the works.
3. Which ultra-low-fi band could you imagine doing really well with a bit of shiny recording and production?
4. Which big shiny band would you like to hear record a rough-as-a-bear’s-arse demo?
5. Your biggest culture shock when a band you love went glossy.

Maxwell Panther – Rewire

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Nicole Atkins – The Way It Is

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Enfant Bastard – Plastic Bag

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Bruce Springsteen – I’m on Fire

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The Wave Pictures – Kiss Me

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Part 1: 1-10
Part 2: 11-23
Part 3: 24-36
Part 4: 37-50

The next installment of late year list-o-rama brings us up to date with the first half of the Toad Festive Fifty. Slightly more, in fact, because I’m gearing up for a top ten, so I’ve cheated slightly on numbers here are there. For those of you who want to make your own lists, see this post for the rules, and get stuck in. The more who take part the better.

One of the things that struck me with this part of the list is the inclusion of a song from the Broken Records Toad Session. Basically, Broken Records would be all over this list, apart from the fact that they were all over last year’s list, as submitted to the Contrast Podcast, and all the songs they released this year are songs I knew from last year. So instead of where they belong, on this year’s list, they are on last year’s list. Later on there are also songs by bands which were released last year, I’m pretty sure, it’s just that I only discovered them this year.

So as well as not being in rigid Order of Toadly Merit they aren’t even in accurate chronological order either. Ah well. You’ll live. Read the rest of this entry »

You all know I’ve been doing a regular slot on DC’s radio show, The Waiting Room, of late, don’t you? Well this week’s slot saw me picking a track by Sky Larkin, as well as three wonderful songs from the splendid Happy Realease Records from darn sarf*. I may have been a little rude about their sound actually, but it was inadvertent. I was trying to head off the criticism from indie snobs – What? Who? None of those round here, surely? – about the fact that they are just plain enjoyable indie-pop for the most part, and ended up implying that I thought they were lightweight. The Genius of Tact strikes again. I should teach courses in this shit.

Anyway, swing by The Waiting Room to download this and past episodes, and Error FM to see what sort of crazy fools agree to put this sort of rubbish on the airwaves. The, er, internet airwaves. Interwav… oh never mind, you know what I mean.

The Waiting Room, Wednesday 12th March 2008

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* Darn sarf, for my non-British readers, is the phonetic spelling for how a cockney might pronounce the words ‘down South’. Which is where they are from. Yes, I know, hilarious wasn’t it.

And here’s a sneaky little bonus podcast from myself:
Toadcast #23½ – The Freshcast

A week or so ago, I recorded a demo show for Fresh Air FM, the local student radio station, with a view to applying for a slot during next term, only the computer ate the bastard thing. Fucking technology. Anyhow, Sunday was Mrs. Toad’s birthday, and for some reason she was keen to get plastered and do a podcast with me, so we re-did it together. It wasn’t played quite as straight as I’d hoped, and by the time I’d had time to reflect on submitting it I was pretty certain Fresh Air would chase me out of the building with sticks. Fortunately for me, however, they didn’t hate it, didn’t seem to think I was a smart-arsed twat and didn’t dispatch me from the building with a boot print in my arse.

As this show is just a pre-record and will be going out randomly over the night when they stop broadcasting, I thought I’d pop it up here for you to have a listen. I won’t be doing this with any more Fresh Air things because, well, you need to go over there and listen for yourselves really, don’t you. But for this once I thought you might like it seeing as you shower of treacherous fuckers all seem to love Mrs. Toad so very bloody much. Be warned though, because it was made for a different audience, so there may be a bit of duplication from previous podcasts, and it’s rather long, as apparently there is a lot of time to fill overnight when there are no presenters in the building.

The Fresh Air plugs themselves were enough to see us kicked out.

Toadcast #23½ – The Freshcast

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01. Shout Out Louds – Tonight I Have to Leave It (03.09)
02. The Shaky Hands – Whales Sing (06.41)
03. The Cave Singers – Thinking of Heaven (13.05)
04. Preston School of Industry – Straits of Magellan (17.23)
05. Adam Balbo – Talkin’ Bush (27.11)
06. Donnan Linkz feat. Baje One of Junk Science – The N Word (29.18)
07. Riff-Raff – Romford Girls (36.44)
08. The Pogues – Dirty Old Town (38.58)
09. Nicole Atkins – Neptune City (46.44)
10. Edith Piaf – Elle Frequentait la Rue Pigalle (50.11)
11. Dusty Springfield – You Don’t Own Me (53.34)
12. AA Bondy – Vice Rag (59.12)
13. Relatively Clean Rivers – Hello Sunshine (68.09)
14. The Eighteenth Day of May – Lady Margaret (71.05)
15. Celebrity Chimp – Pornstar (81.27)
16. Nightjar – Poor Man’s Son (84.01)
17. Ravens & Chimes – General Lafayette, You Are Not Alone! (93.03)
18. Eels – Love of the Loveless (95.59)
19. Glasvegas – It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry (106.49)
20. Flashguns – St. George (111.01)
21. Elle S’Appelle – Little Flame (123.09)
22. Elk City – Cherries in the Snow (125.58)
23. The Low Miffs – Also Sprach Shareholder (130.41)

I’ve seen this album described as a guilty pleasure and it certainly feels that way.  There’s just something so unashamedly, grandiosely fabulous about it that it feels completely wrong for a shuffling, pretentious indie kid such as myself to love it, but love it I do.

I am not sure how to describe it, but if one album were likely to turn me into Bridget Jones it would be this one – exaggeratedly loud, sweeping, slightly camp dance gestures, hairbrush karaoke, the lot.  In fact if she had been listening to this I might have actually felt a shred of sympathy for fat, self-absorbed heifer. Actually no, that would have just ruined it.

There’s glam, broadway, pop, rock, noir and all sorts of other things crammed into a sound that actually makes terms  like ‘massive, glossy production’ sound like a good thing.  I can’t imagine how she has managed to make a record that seems so utterly unselfconscious, given the pomp and bombast that swirl around every song, but somehow this all seems so completely sincere and unaffected that it would just seem mean to snigger at the sheer silliness it flirts with from time to time.

It’s not all pantomime though, and that may where the genius lies.  Songs like Neptune City have such a nostalgic, faded glamour that the exuberance of the rest of the album catches a little in the throat and you suddenly crane a little closer to the stereo.  Together We’re Both Alone is also dark enough to cut through the theatre.  Cool Enough, Love Surreal and War Torn give the whole album a bit of a weak spine, unfortunately, but this under-performing triumvirate are bookended by some of the most fantastically splendid fun I’ve had listening to music for ages.  Touching and joyous.  And camp as fucking Christmas!

Nicole Atkins – Neptune City
Nicole Atkins – Brooklyn’s on Fire!

website | hype | amazon

We are bloody well homeless, which is making it very tricky to record podcasts at the moment, so I apologise for the enormous wait since the last one.  I promise I’m not losing interest, it’s just been a logistical nightmare to find the time and space to actually sit down and record of late.  It takes a few hours, not least because my computer is depressingly slow, so please bear with me.

I’ve got a couple of new singles by The Indelicates and The National, as well as a couple of groups I’ve seen live recently, and then some more esoteric stuff towards the end including the highly uncharacteristic Nicole Atkins and a potentially naughty sneak preview of the new Raveonettes album.  Enjoy, Toadlings, enjoy yourselves all to pieces.

Toadcast #15 – The Homeless Podcast

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01. Dragons – Here Are the Roses (01.50)
02. Killing Joke – Eighties (08.28)
03. The Indelicates – Sixteen (13.42)
04. The National – Apartment Story (18.30)
05. Arcade Fire – Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels) (21.51)
06. The Parish Music Box – Heavy Drinkers (30.40)
07. Rick Redbeard – Dreams of the Trees (35.45)
08. Loch Lomond – Tic (41.49)
09. Over the Rhine – Don’t Wait For Tom (48.10)
10. Ravens & Chimes – The House Where You Were Born (52.10)
11. Siberian – Islands Forever (59.27)
12. Ice Cream Socialists – Mr Crazy (65.42)
13. 586 – Rags & Tags (71.47)
14. Nicole Atkins – Brooklyn’s On Fire (75.03)
15. The Raveonettes – Aly Walk With Me (82.22)
16. The Sugars – Monsters (88.27)