Hello You.

This Wednesday 24th December (Christmas Eve, naturellement), at or around abouts 10pm GMT (USA: 2pm PST + 3pm MST + 4pm CST + 5pm EST; Europe: 11pm CET), splashed all over the interwaves via the usual birdshit splatter pattern, for your listening consideration, will be The Waiting Room Christmas Eve 3hr Best Of 2008 Round-Up Show.

On this very (quite, in this case, literally) Eve we, one half of Drunk Country & The Woman of The House, will be dishing out thoughtfully considered Gold Guitar Pick of Excellence ‘Awards’* to the lucky Nominee(s) what is found to be the Best Of in their particular category.

It’s almost like a real end of year music award’s show but with less drinking & no Gallagher brothers.

Below, then, is the list of Categories & Nominees, 34 Artistes + 34 Songs. We have rather cruelly (although this is clearly a cynical attempt at injecting some tension into the proceedings) refrained from listing the Nominees in the last 2 Categories. Those will be revealed on the night. Mwah, I believe, Ha Ha, indeed, Ha.

So, there you go.  This took us AGES to compile from thousands of songs listened to & playlisted over the whole of this past year. *PHEW* just does not cut it. 2008 was simply awash with brilliance, surprises, genius & plain old breathtaking musicalisation. Oh, & singing.

The list, then:

Best “What The Fuck Was That?!”

1) Celebrity Chimp – Celebrity Chimp

2) The Just Joans – Hey Boy… You’re Oh So Sensitive

3) Aidan John Moffat – Cunts

4) Eagleowl – Motherfucker

5) The Theatre Fire – Coyote

6) Joe Rodger & The Velcro Quartet – Suddenly They Realised…

Best Cover Versions

1) Robin Grey – There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis (Kirsty MacColl cover)

2) Erlend Ropstad – 7 (Prince cover)

3) The Miserable Rich – Over & Over (Hot Chip cover)

4) Taken By Trees – Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns ‘n’ Roses cover)

Best Contenders for a Bond Theme

1) Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan – Come On Over (Turn Me On)

2) The Last Shadow Puppets – In My Room

3) Get Well Soon – You/Aurora/You/Seaside

4) Hour Of The Shipwreck – Unclouded Eyes

Best Emotional Blackmail

1) Porlolo – Turning On Heels

2) Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers – Beloved, We Have Expired

3) The Dø – Stay (Just A Little Bit More)

4) Meaghan Smith – 5 More Minutes

5) Ane Brun – Don’t Leave

6) Plants & Animals – Bye Bye Bye

Best Pound Down The Back of The Sofa

Nominees 1-8 = a big fat question mark

Best Song of 2008

Nominees 1-6 = a bigger, fatter question mark

The podcast will be available, as we say, sometime tomorrow around 10pm (we have very limited access where we are headed for the holidays, so bear with us).

It remains only for us to wish every one of you all the very best this Christmas holiday & to remind you that our 3hr New Year’s Eve 2008 Jukebox show will be on (just like the title reads) Wednesday 31st December, from 10pm-1am GMT. See the New Year in with us, why don’t you?  (Yah, fucking right…).

Thanks for tuning in & listening. It’s been a heck of a year.

MC & a HNY,

½DC + TWoTH

*when we say ‘Awards’, what we really mean is  we will email a picture of a solid Gold Guitar Pick of Excellence – we’re not that unhinged that we’d actually fork out for 6 solid gold plectrums. Jesus, no.

I only found this band recently, and I am absolutely delighted with this album.  Delight is probably the right word for the music as well, which simply leaks loveliness into your life as if it had an infinite supply to spread around.  It’s somewhat fitting that the last song should be called Charm School too, seeing as that is a lesson Porlolo could teach you in their sleep.

Porlolo have quite a lot in common with the likes of Laura Viers and other thoughtful, slightly introverted acoustic campfire ladies.  That’s a slightly glib stereotype, but particularly in the vocals I can hear a real ‘type’ here, I just can’t quite figure out how best to describe it.

A month or so ago, when I first wrote about them, I posted two song which I didn’t realise were actually from this album, although Turning on Heels went by a different name back then.  The feel of the record is a little different from the vibe you’d pick up from just those two songs though.  There’s more hush, more tension, more cinema in the record, and less folky prettiniess.  Reverbed guitar undercurrents growl away at the back of songs like I Don’t Know, bringing just a little crunchiness to an album that is otherwise delivered with a very light touch indeed.

This kind of stain on such an immaculately lovely fascia gives the album a bit of depth which I rather like.  Definitely worth investigating.

Porlolo – Turning on Heels
Porlolo – I Know, I Know

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy the album from CDBaby (it’s not live yet, but hopefully will be in the next couple of days).

There’s not much of a unifying theme to this podcast, but there are a healthy number of breaking tracks in the playlist, so I guess calling it the Newcast will suffice for want of anything more inspired.

There’s new tracks from the impending singles by Kid Canaveral and The Left Outsides, a good few new bands you’ve never heard of, a couple of JC’s selections for the Toad Records Launch Night and some of the tracks from the sampler that I gave away at the party itself.

There’s also the first Recorded and Produced by Toad song in the world: Fearing Lothian by Uhersky Brod.  The band are friends of mine and we used the Toad Sessions recording equipment to put togethera demo for them.  It’s the first time I’ve ever recorded anything, so I presume there must be all sorts of issues with it but, well, you’ve got to start somewhere.  It’s a cracking song, whatever I’ve ended up doing to it.

So I hope you enjoy this rather disjointed collection of songs, because for all the lack of any real coherence it’s a good collection of songs nonetheless.

Toadcast #31 – The Newcast

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01. Cinerama – Health & Efficiency (03.57)
02. David Cronenburg’s Wife – My Ukrainian Girlfriend (12.39)
03. The Ukrainians – Batya (Bigmouth Strikes Again) (16.14)
04. The Lucksmiths – T-Shirt Weather (21.34)
05. Porlolo – There is No I in Athens (26.22)
06. Uhersky Brod – Fearing Lothian (33.17)
07. Sparrow & the Workshop – Grizzly Bear (38.46)
08. The Futureheads – The Beginning of the Twist (43.24)
09. Kid Canaveral – Teenage Fanclub Song (47.11)
10. The Left Outsides – The Third Light (53.15)
11. King Creosote – Ear Against the Wireless (61.34)
12. Eagleowl – Blanket (64.50)
13. Rob St. John – Domino (72.22)
14. Les Enfant Bastard – Plastic Bag (79.27)
15. Dinosaur Pile-Up – My Rock ‘n’ Roll Demo (85.43)
16. Computer vs. Banjo – Give Up on Ghosts (95.06)

Because this blog has become a very sociable thing recently, and I have never actually met or spoken to Rich from Atlanta blog Cable & Tweed, I have neglected his site a little bit of late. This is foolish because Rich has is responsible for introducing me to more than a couple of bands that have gone on to become firm Toad favourites (and he has something of an ear for things that Mrs. Toad will like as well, like The Builders & the Butchers and The 63 Crayons).

Well the latest band to emerge from his splendidly comic-strewn pages is called Porlolo. Based around the multiple talents of Colorado-based Erin Roberts, there is sweet, sad indie-folk here that is likely to be about as guaranteed to appeal to Toad Readers as anything I can think of. She’s got a wonderfully lovelorn voice, and the whispers of trumpet and violin are just gorgeous, so I honestly don’t think you can go wrong with this.

There’s a new album out in the middle of July, and I’ve asked for a promo copy to review. It feels a bit mean, begging freebies from small artists, but that label launch wasn’t cheap, believe me! Anyhow, I am really looking forward to hearing it, and you can buy her previous record Storm & Season from CDBaby if you, like I, find you can’t bring yourself to wait.

Porlolo – There is No I in Athens
Porlolo – Firehouse

MySpace | Buy Storm & Season