This is all about my beepy-bloopy tendencies and how I got into the stuff in the first place.

I better point out, right at the beginning, that I don’t see there being any difference between indie and electronica exactly.  Or at least, the dividing line is so blurred and there is so much crossover that the distinction is completely pointless, really.

I think the only reason I really make a distinction myself is because I became a music obsessive by listening to the likes of Dylan and Tom Waits and so on, and then moved onto the like of The Pogues and the Waterboys – not a beep in sight, basically.

Consequently, when I heard bands like Saint Etienne for the first time, although I loved lots of it, I didn’t explore much further because I just wasn’t used to electronic noises.  In actual fact, by the end of the podcast I think I come to the conclusion that it was actually an electronic beat which I really wasn’t used to, mostly, but in any case, I found it quite hard to get into anything vaguely electro for ages.  Given that I could barely make a distinction between the two these days, that seems kind of odd, too.

Toadcast #104 – The Bleepcast

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01. The Pet Shop Boys – Rent (03.46)
02. Stereolab – The Light That Will Cease to Fail (12.09)
03. Dubstar – St. Swithin’s Day (15.25)
04. U2 – Lemon (23.05)
05. Jason Lytle – On a Piece of Wood I Go (30.49)
06. The Avalanches – Frontier Psychiatrist (35.57)
07. LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum (40.42)
08. Money Can’t Buy Music – We Are All Asphyxiate (48.59)
09. Magic Arm – Daft Punk is Playing at My House (52.41)
10. Parts & Labour – Fractured Skies (57.49)
11. Jon Hopkins – Circle My Demise (King Creosote) (65.13)

It’s been an utterly dismal year for highly anticipated records by the big groups in 2007, but fortunately the slack has been taken up by loads of smaller acts bringing new things to the table. Except for one thing.

A really big, angry pair of rock ‘n’ roll bollocks.

I got accused, when talking about gratingly affected furry-minged feminist hippy intellectuals as part of my St. Vincent review, of being part of the ‘testosterone-fuelled indie rock blogosphere’. The cheek! But Wendy was right – I have been reviewing sensitive, introspective, subtle and slightly eccentric albums for a depressingly long time now. Not that I don’t like the music, but what my inner Neanderthal is crying out for at the moment is some raging, furious, guitar-battering indie howl. Take the shackles off lads, get your balls out and beat the shit out of your guitars. I mean, seriously, what the fuck am I supposed to listen to when I’m three-quarters of the way through a bottle of gin, it’s three in the morning and I want to play something fucking loud?

So far this year, although there has been the odd really good ‘turn it up fucking loud’ song, it’s always in total isolation, and very few and far between to begin with. Nothing with the snarl of the Von Bondies’ first album, for example. Or the Libs’ first. Or half of The Wedding Present’s early material. Or Yo La Tengo at their most incoherent. Or early Nick Cave when he went all apocalyptic on us. Even Grandaddy have a couple. Grandaddy!

It doesn’t have to be completely mental and just making a lot of noise isn’t enough. ‘Rawk’ is dreadful and need not apply. It has to have an insistent beat, be drenched in pain, and have some real fucking menace to it. Then, at some point it has to get properly fucking loud, with guitars that drive you into spasms of lurching, drunken air guitar, face clenched like a Baptist’s buttocks at Pet Shop Boys concert.

This year’s best examples:

Parts & Labour – Fractured Skies That frenetic beat, when it gets going, is enough by itself, but when the guitar kicks in..
The Twilight Sad – And She Would Darken the Memory It may take its time to get going, but it’s well worth the fucking wait.
Kings of Leon – Charmer Not especially loud, this one, but that insistent beat and the pained screech still do it for me.
The Arcade Fire – Intervention This is a big, angry song – brilliant!
Grinderman – No Pussy Blues If you nee d this exp laining to you, then you will never understand anyway.

Some classics from yesteryear:

The Von Bondies – No Regrets
The Strokes – Juicebox Just listen to that beat – fucking marvellous – and there’s a distinctly prog-tastic guitar solo in the middle as well. Fucking great
The Wedding Present – Blonde The definitive song of wounded indie rage?