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)

In preparation for applying for a slot on Edinburgh’s student radio station Fresh Air, I thought I would challenge myself to get through an entire podcast without actually swearing because, on public access radio, you can’t use naughty words. A Toad without swearing, you say, what the fuck has the world come to?

Well to make sure I don’t disappoint you in your noble quest for dissolute anti-culture I thought I’d compensate by playing a collection of the filthiest and most sweary songs I could lay my hands on. Thinking about it, I’ve managed to forget Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot’s truly foul ‘Je T’aime, Moi Non Plus’, but there you go. I could have improved just about every playlist I’ve ever done in retrospect, I think, so at some point I have to draw the line.

So, I use bad words when I quote other people and when I give you the names of the songs but I don’t think I let a single naughty word slip during my own chat on this one, but let me know if you catch me out.

Toadcast #23 – The Filthcast

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01. Aidan John Moffat – Cunt (01.09)
02. The Pogues – Boys From the County Hell (05.24)
03. Adam Balbo -Let’s Make a Porno (10.03)
04. Celebrity Chimp – Pornstar (13.06)
05. The Tacticians – Hardcore Porn (15.37)
06. Billy Bragg – St. Swithin’s Day (21.05)
07. Grinderman – No Pussy Blues (26.05)
08. The Libertines – I Get Along (33.10)
09. Carbon/Silicon – What the Fuck (35.47)
10. Frank Turner – Heartless Bastard Motherfucker (42.03)
11. Les Enfant Bastard – U R My Fucking Sunshine U Cunt (44.52)
12. Plans & Apologies – Tony Blair Fucknut (49.50)
13. The Libertines – What a Waster (57.00)
14. Lambchop – Your Fucking Sunny Day (60.49)
15. The Ex-Men – Suck Her (67.35)
16. Micah P. Hinson – Patience (73.04)
17. Eels – It’s a Motherfucker (76.59)
18. Doug Anthony Allstars – I Fuck Dogs (80.07)

Yoo hoo Toadlings, welcome to Toadcast No. 22.  This one is a sort of natural follow-on from the series of movie soundtrack posts we ran on the site a week or so ago.  I can’t believe we managed an entire series without mentioning either Ennio Morricone or Quentin Tarantino.

So I’ve tried to put that part right here, as well as throwing in some corkers by the likes of Nick Cave & Warren Ellis and a few others.  It may come across slightly as a novelty podcast, what with the Darth Vader theme music and so on, but I still think it makes an interesting listen.

It actually made an interesting listen for me this morning too, because I was so utterly shanghaied on gin by the end of it that I actually don’t remember half of the introductions to the songs towards the end.  So join me on a voyage of discovery and find out exactly what on earth I found to say about Nick Cave whilst pickled out of my tits on a Friday evening.

Toadcast #22 – The Cinecast

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01. John Williams – The Imperial March (00.00)
02. Barry Adamson – 007, A Phantasy Bond Theme(05.37)
03. Ennio Morricone – The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (11.44)
04. Hans Zimmer – True Romance (16.20)
05. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis – Rather Lovely Thing (23.37)
06. The Divine Comedy – Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds (28.10)
07. The Psychedelic Furs – Pretty in Pink (32.21)
08. Simple Minds – Don’t You Forget About Me (36.12)
09. Andrew Lloyd Webber – Everything’s Alright (45.04)
10. The Divine Comedy – Les Jours Tristes (51.43)
11. R.E.M. – Leave (58.31)
12. The Shins – Saint Simon (62.27)
13. Eels – Your Lucky Day in Hell (70.52)
14. Tom Waits & Crystal Gale – Take Me Home (77.49)
15. Barry Adamson – Mitch & Andy (80.30)
16. Andrew Lloyd Webber – King Herod’s Song (88.53)
17. John Williams – Cantina Band Theme (93.01)
18. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand (Scream 3 Version) (97.01)
19. The Pogues – Night on Bald Mountain (105.22)
20. Ennio Morricone – Once Upon a Time in the West (Deborah’s Theme) (109.01)
My Odeo Channel (odeo/03301a3286442766)

Morning you ‘orrible lot. My wench is away being important once more. She said to me the other day when she was trying to skive off work due to a hangover: ‘I can’t go into work in a bad state, I handle money.’ Haha, what bollocks. I love it when financial people get all delusional like that, so don’t worry I set her straight. I calmly pointed out to her that if I fucked up my last job someone might have found a small metal implant buried in their spinal column. This means dead or paralysed. She stopped, fortunately.

‘I handle money though.’ Yeah well, I handle my penis and every last little sperm is a potential human life, so don’t gimme that. The frustration’s setting in again, can’t you tell? This podcast has some news and some current things, and then explores the randomiser on my music library, doffing my cap to the recent Contrast Podcast episode which I was too slow to participate in. Gah.

It is also my birthday on Monday, thirty-two since you ask, and we will be down in London to celebrate the occasion with our Southern friends, so there’s a couple of birthday thingies in there too, most screamingly obviously the first track of course. Enjoy Toadlings, enjoy.

Toadcast #16 – The Birthday Podcast

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01. Clem Snide – Happy Birthday (02.18)
02. The Courteeners – Acrylic (08.56)
03. Joe Lean & the Jing Jang Jong – Sleazy Hughes (12.46)
04. Cloud Atlas – Cigarettes & Apricots (15.54)
05. Arab Strap – There is No Ending (24.04)
06. Malcolm Middleton – The Devil & the Angel (29.32)
07. Down the Tiny Steps – Photosynth (37.29)
08. Eef Barzelay – Make Another Tree (42.19)
09. Loch Lomond – Northern, Knees, Trees & Lights (51.35)
10. The Pogues – Bolero Del Perro Listo (59.23)
11. Crash Test Dummies – Sonnet #3 (The Cold is Here) (66.52)
12. Ben Folds – You’ve Got to Learn to Live With What You Are (68.44)
13. Cold War Kids – Hair Down (81.39)
14. The Hold Steady – The Party Pit (90.22)
15. Tom Waits – Diamonds & Gold (94.11)
16. Skuobhie Dubh Orchestra – Monsieur Le Charmant (100.18)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a quite splendid podcast. Not the chat – there’s actually blessed little of that for a change – but the actual music. There may not be the one or two big names I tend to try and slip in to make sure that casual listener more likely to have a listen and thus bring an audience to the smaller bands, but it just didn’t quite happen. I like to do it for myself too, really, but for some reason they just didn’t quite get a look in this week, although I did throw in a rather obscure Pogues track, but it just seemed fine without them.

I really like this one though, and there are some excellent new things to hear, so get stuck in. It’s all quite an acoustic folk-pop sort of atmosphere, so I hope that sort of thing is your bag, but I’ve thrown in a couple of slightly different things, like David Cronenberg’s Wife, Mother & the Addicts and A Hawk & a Hacksaw to make sure it’s not too one-paced. So get stuck in, my little Toadlings, music a-plenty and jolly fine stuff too!

Toadcast #8 – New Things & Englishness[audio http://media.libsyn.com/media/songbytoad/ToadcastNo8.mp3]

1. Donny Hue & the Colours – Humming With the Flowerbirds (01.01)
2. Monkey Swallows the Universe – Jimmy Down the Well (06.19)
3. Emmy the Great – Canopies & Grapes (10.26)
4. Mother & the Addicts – Are Others (14.30)
5. Champion Kickboxer – Perforations (20.42)
6. Jake Flowers & the Carol-Anne Showband – Annabel (26.06)
7. Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Tickle Me Pink (28.07)
8. Mirah & Spectratone International – Supper (34.09)
9. Patti Page – Old Cape Cod (38.01)
10. A Hawk & a Hacksaw – The Way the Wind Blows (41.52)
11. David Cronenberg’s Wife – My Ukrainian Girlfriend (47.20)
12. The Pogues – First Day of Forever (54.08)
13. Iron & Wine – Kingdom of the Animals (57.22)
14. The Ralfe Band – Albatross Waltz (63.23)
15. A Hawk & a Hacksaw – Portlandtown (68.19)

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)

My short companion and myself are in London for the weekend, so there will be a paucity of posting until perhaps Sunday evening or some time on Monday.

I understand how devastating this will be for you all, but such is life. I can’t spend all my time keeping you muppets entertained you know. Bugger off and do something a little more wholesome like surf internet porn or get drunk and shag someone you shouldn’t.  Face it, I’m nothing like as diligent as a certain Villain we all know and love.

I’ll be going to see Andrew Bird at the Scala while I’m down, so there’ll be a review of that one to look forward to in the near future. Having read how much the lovely Marcy enjoyed it, I am positively twitchy with anticipation for this one.

I miss my old London pals actually. I lived there for about three years and loved the place. People in Edinburgh have this sort of insecure reflex whereby they have to instantly assert London’s inferiority, long and loud, as soon as you mention not having hated the place. I think this comes from the fact that quite a few folk from here move down to London at some point (both places have huge financial industries, for example), miss the more laid back pace of life and move back up quite quickly. Generally, they seem nervous that this is seen as some kind of cop out and that people will think less of them for it, particularly someone who loves London, like myself. It’s weird though. Try saying you love London around Edinburgh people, they really don’t like it.

I don’t personally care, myself. I like both cities, they are in no way comparable and I am quite happy to like both for different reasons. So, a few days meeting up with old pals, and I’ll be back with you all early next week. And by way of apology, lots and lots of songs with this one.

Calexico – Guns of Brixton
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Grief Came Riding[
The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Blackfriars Bridge
The Pogues – The Dark Streets of London
Cinerama – London
Saint Etienne – London Belongs to Me
Frank Turner – The Ladies of London Town