…and don’t spare the horses.

Yes, we are back. What an enormous relief, I hear you all cry. How did you ever get by without me. Well before I get back to my usual crisp, clear and perfectly formed blog posting* I have some bits and bobs to round up, so this will be a bit of an all-over-the-place post.

Christmas lists:
Yeah, I’ll probably be making at least one. Top 20 albums perhaps, but not much more than that because I just can’t quite be arsed. A lot of people are making Festive 50 lists in honour of the great John Peel, but I am not sure I could face it. The avalanche of new songs in 2007 reduced to fifty? I doubt I could whittle them down, but I may yet have a go.

The Contrast Podcast is doing one, and listeners and participants are invited to take part. It’s a great project, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about then bugger off and have a listen. Just email Tim your top five songs of the year, in order, by November 27th and you’ll be counted. The whole lot will come out as a series of podcasts over the Christmas period, which sounds rather jolly. Details on participating can be found at the bottom of this post.

Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Leftovers

The Waiting Room will also be doing a big old Christmas Special, with special listener requests. It doesn’t have to be at all related to Christmas, so if there’s something in particular you’d like to hear then leave a comment on the site or email DC direct and let him know. My vote was for No Christmas in Kentucky by Phil Ochs which, if you know it, is a relentlessly depressing song about poor people not being able to afford the sort of stuff everyone else takes for granted at Christmas time, and just how bleak Christmas must be if you are living in poverty and abandoned by your nation. I couldn’t find an mp3 though, so the festive spirit has been given a temporary reprieve.

Decoration – Only a Plague Can Stop Us Now

Other Shit:
Mike at Manic Pop Thrills reckons we should try and engineer a Christmas #1 for Malcolm Middleton in the UK charts. Given that the song in question is entitled We Are All Going to Die, I think you’ll agree that there could be no better choice. Given that the likely winner is some ratty old transvestite from The X-Factor, I think we owe it to ourselves as a community to get Malky in there if at all possible. Help save Christmas for the misanthropes! ‘We’re All Going To Die’ gets a digital only release on 17^th December and I’m not sure where to buy it just now, so I’ll try and remind you all closer to the time.

Blogfresh Radio has been scraping the bottom of the barrel once more and invited me to talk about Found, one of last week’s reviews. Click here for the appropriate episode.

The Sequins – Treehouses

The Daily Growl – or Tim, as he’s known to his mates – took me on a pilgrimage to the new Rough Trade record shop when I was down in London, where I spent almost a hundred quid on vinyl. What a moron. And before you ask, no I can’t afford it – not anything like. Still, I have accumulated enough singles recently that record companies have sent me as promos that I figured I might as well give in and buy a record player. Some fifteen years after they became obsolete. Genius.

Phil Ochs – Talking Cuban Crisis
*Anyone sniggering at this is barred.

Toad ignorance abounded at this particular show – I basically came because I love The Willard Grant Conspiracy, Robert Fisher’s group, but I know very little either of Scottish folk legend Jackie Leven, nor of Michael Weston King, one time lead singer of English alt-folk act The Good Sons.

Still, music in the round like this often makes for a brilliant evening. I go to live performances to understand more about the music I am listening to: both where it comes from and the person who makes it. As such, this was a perfect evening. Messrs King, Leven and Fisher got on really well and all had a nice laid back stage manner.

They’d take it in turns to talk you through a song, explain how it had come into being or why they liked it and then they’d play it. Occasionally they’d chip and help each other out, bringing a little extra layer of subtle depth to the sound when needed.

Given that The Willard Grant Conspiracy consists of about 38 members it is pretty much inevitable that Robert Fisher has to cut the numbers down slightly to tour and given his ever-expanding collection of collaborators now sprawls across Europe as well it must be quite rewarding for him to tour alone and take up with whomever from his diaspora of cohorts happens to be most local.

I was lucky in that he happened to play what was not far off a ‘Toad Best of…’ from the Willards’ back catalogue. Hearing songs like Drunkard’s Prayer and Fare Thee Well with no more embellishment than a gently strummed guitar and Fisher’s deep, rich voice is a heck of a treat. He is similar to Mark Lanegan in that he can fill a room without seeming to make any effort, but Fisher’s voice is less scary than Lanegan’s. You may feel that he knows more sorrow than you can imagine, but you never get the same impression of demonic possession than Lanegan can evince.

I enjoyed Leven and King’s stuff as well, I have to say. And it was a real surprise to hear King play a Phil Ochs classic as his last song. It was a great gig, all in all: really satisfying to watch these three interact and chatter and play some songs. It could almost have been someone’s living room.

Willard Grant Conspiracy – Fare Thee Well
Willard Grant Conspiracy – Day is Passed and Gone
Jackie Leven – Another Man’s Rain
Phil Ochs – Jim Dean of Indiana I guarantee you won’t have heard a better or sadder song for a very, very long time.

Websites: Willard Grant Conspiracy | Michael Weston King | Jackie Leven
Amazon Links: Willard Grant Conspiracy | Michael Weston King | Jackie Leven