Song, by Toad

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)

This week, the Friday Five commemorates Mr. & Mrs. Toad’s official state visit to Italy, with questions and music that reflect the culture and history of that great nation.

They’re staying in Puglia, apparently. The ‘heel’ of Italy’s ‘boot’, geographically speaking. An agricultural region, it’s well known for its abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables. Obviously, however, the Toads will be happy anywhere they can get their hands on gin in biblical quantities.

I’d also like to say how well I think Euan’s been doing so far at the conn of the Starship Toadiprise. It’s certainly been a refreshing change of direction for the site, perhaps a little bit more intimate in tone than usual, and with some unusual but rewarding detours. I particularly like the article about the We Sink Ships online photgraphic exhibition. Nicely done, sir.

So, as usual at this time of the week, here’s your opportunity to creep out from the woodwork and talk arse with a bunch of other skiving ne’er-do-wells. This week’s five is possibly not the most biting piece of reportage you’ll have ever encountered, but it’s a vast improvement on last week’s disaster!

So, with a note of apology and a view to casting all memories of Matthew’s despicable scatological fetishes aside, here’s the Friday Five.

1. Which tantalisingly delicious Italian delicasy do you find most maddeningly irresistible?
2. Ferrari, Lamborghini or Maserati?
3. Most notable Italian historical figure.
4. What would you do with a fortnight in Italy?
5. What did the Romans ever do for us?

Beirut – Postcards From Italy

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Pet Shop Boys – King Of Rome

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Turin Brakes – Long Distance

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Bad Manners – Rose Of Italy

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Tiziano Ferro – Stop! Dimentica

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Today I am angry at Capitalism.  Partly, funnily enough, I am angry at Capitalism because in many ways I myself am a Capitalist.  The problem I have with Capitalism is not really the theory, but the practise.  So many people and companies who chant the free market mantra simply are not free marketeers.  They want isolationism and protectionism as much as the most paranoid Marxist when it will protect their interests, but they won’t for a second entertain the economic theory behind that sort of behaviour – gosh no!

So there is plenty of paranoid ranting in this week’s podcast, railing against people who talk all Capitalist whilst not actually being Capitalist, people who are moral and honorable in their personal lives but who turn into voracious whores as soon as they put on a suit and, erm, well generally there’s lots of pish to be talked, sorry.

Still, at least it’s marginally better than last week.

Toadcast #66 – The Greedcast

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01. Pet Shop Boys – Opportunities (03.27)
02. Billy Bragg – NPWA (16.27)
03. Eric Bachmann – Liars & Thieves (21.30)
04. The Zincs – Moguls’ Wives (28.04)
05. Tom Lehrer – Selling Out (34.24)
06. Depeche Mode – Everything Counts (39.16)
07. The Clash – Bankrobber (45.07)
08. Tom Waits – God’s Away on Business (54.07)
09. Billy Bragg – To Have and to Have Not (65.56)

Right, given Dadrock seems to be the enduring theme of the moment, let’s poke a little further shall we? Actually, Dadrock in our house was pretty fucking cool. My Dad introduced me to the Waterboys, the Pogues, the Men They Couldn’t Hang, as well as the stuff he grew up with: Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, The Band and various other classics. Mum wasn’t bad either: Depeche Mode, Bowie, the Stones and The Pet Shop Boys, as well as some splendidly camp pop such as ABC, Erasure, Kate Bush, Elton John (just the early stuff, calm down) and things like that.

There were some moments of genuine shame in there too, to be fair. Who knows, we may look back on the Decemberists with derision for their pretension and intricacy, so you can never entirely tell which music will and won’t age with dignity.

I still make my parents a lot of compilation CDs, even though I don’t make them for myself anymore. In fact, ever since I left home in 1993 I’ve been regularly returning with a little pile of pre-filtered new music for them. I try and steer clear of the Libertines and the Von Bondies, but maybe that’s silly because you know who introduced me to the Dead Kennedys? Yup, my folks.

Having heaped them with praise, it must be confessed that after many years of cool, my Mum did rather embarrassingly lapse into a penchant for the Lighthouse Family. Or, in the recent traditions of this site, the Fucking Lighthouse Fucking Family. Or that Italian clown Eros Ramazotti. Dad has remained pretty steady, to credit the old bastard, but he is still the man who introduced me to Billy Joel, so some responsibility does need to be taken there, irrespective of the quality of Captain Jack and Piano Man.

So if you’re lurking, lurk no more. Now is the time to come out of the woodwork and alternately shame and praise your family. Come on, they can’t be all bad.

1. Your Mum’s most shameful crime against music.
2. The coolest thing your Mum listens to.
3. Your Dad’s worst moment of musical shame.
4. Dad’s moment of musical triumph.
5. The most shameful musical thing that you and your folks have in common.

David Bowie – Let’s Dance
The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Scarlet Ribbons
Depeche Mode – People Are People
Bob Dylan – Drifter’s Escape
Pet Shop Boys – What Have I Done to Deserve This

The tenth Toadcast is a Pink Podcast, celebrating all things gay in indie music, but trying to steer well clear of any sort of annoying Graham Norton stereotypes. So, in avoiding anything that might have seen this lapse into the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert podcast I enlisted the help of my friend James, who was Mrs. Toad’s best man at our wedding.

As well as being gay, James is a real indie fan so I though he’d be perfect to consult with on the playlist and most of these songs are his choices.It’s surprising actually, just how indie this ended up being.I left off quite a few things I really wanted to play and it’s still the longest ever Toadcast.

Ultimately, I’ve tried to explore the relationship between the gay community and indie music, but needless to say there are times where it descends into slightly angry ranting. Hopefully not too much to allow you to enjoy the music though. It’s also not really ended up being as much of a discussion of gay culture as I’d hoped and that is almost entirely down to my own ignorance. I should probably have got James round to help actually present, but that would have been a right pain the arse logistically, as well as technically in terms of capturing both voices on one shitty little webcam microphone.

On a technical point, there is a bit of an echo on the vocal recording. This is because we have moved out of our house for a couple of months while builders tear it to pieces and I am having to rather make do in terms of recording location. I’ll try and sort this out by next week. And I at one point describe the Book of Ruth as being in the New Testament, which is also wrong. What a muppet.

Toadcast #10 – The Pink Podcast

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01. Pet Shop Boys – It’s a Sin (01.20)
02. The Mamas & the Papas – Dream a Little Dream of Me (08.35)
03. Bloc Party – This Modern Love (13.55)
04. Rufus Wainwright – The Rebel Prince (18.08)
05. The Radiators – Under Clery’s Clock (24.34)
06. The Magnetic Fields – When My Boy Walks Down the Street (29.15)
07. Donna Summer – I Feel Love (35.28)
08. Soft Cell – Sex Dwarf (41.36)
09. The Ballet – I Hate the War (47.52)
10. Madonna – Ray of Light (51.02)
11. Blur – Girls & Boys (60.00)
12. M.J. Hibbett & the Validators – The Gay Train (67.25)
13. David Bowie – China Girl (71.50)
14. Morrissey – November Spawned a Monster (80.40)
15. R.E.M. – First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin (90.27)
16. Scissor Sisters – Return to Oz (103.20)
17. Elton John – Ballad of a Well-Known Gun (112.12)

Erm, I ave no idea how to explain what you’re in for if you bother to listen to this I’m afraid. The story goes like this: it was our anniversary, we were drinking and chatting and listening to music. A classic came on the stereo and we got talking about songs that would be so popular and so ingrained in popular culture that the writer of them would never have to work again and could live off the royalties, be they from television, advertising, movies or everyone wanting to cover your song. Like that chap in about a boy, for example.

Unfortunately, we were far from sober already and by the end of this, honestly: take my gin consumption, take the equivalent volume of water out of Noah’s flood, and the Ark would have run aground on Clapham Common. In Toad world, apart from slurring, that means ranting and a relatively well-conceived podcast about commercial immortality descends into a rambling, incoherent tirade against the advertising industry, with songs.

So listen to it at your peril, you have been warned.

Toadcast #6 – About a Boy

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1. Blur – Song 2 (02.38)
2. Eileen Carr – What a Feeling (04.46)
3. Eels – Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues (10.10)
4. Bob Marley – Three Little Birds (16.15)
5. Tom Waits – Innocent When You Dream (20.58)
6. Kinobe – Slip Into Something (27.00)
7. The Pet Shop Boys – Go West (30.28)
8. Queen – Crazy Little Thing Called Love (35.34)
9. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts – I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll (38.06)
10. The Pogues – Fairytale of New York (43.15)
11. The Who – My Generation (49.40)
12. The Clash – Should I Stay or Should I Go? (52.55)
13. The Kaiser Chiefs – I Predict a Riot (58.14)
14. The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army (64.04)
15. Bill Hicks – Marketing & Advertising (71.09)

The Pet Shop Boys must have more indie credentials than most indie bands, never mind dance acts.  I know more indie kids who love the Pet Shop Boys than anyone else in their general sonic vicinity by some distance.

Personally, I love Actually, which this is from.  It’s practically one of my first ever popular albums – my Mum and I were nuts about this when I was about thirteen or so out in Singapore.

Pet Shop Boys – Rent

[Disclaimer: I am actually on holiday at the moment, probably fucking up my brother's wedding by swearing too much in the best man's speech, so it's all a bit minimal at the moment.  Normal service will be resumed after we return on about the 25th July]