See that image on the right, there?  That’s the egg of what is known as a cowbird, a bird which, a little like a cuckoo, tricks other birds into raising its young and therefore is able to avoid doing any fucking work itself.

I hope you can see how I would think this a suitable image to illustrate a rant about fucking remixers.

I was actually intending to use a picture of a parasite to illustrate this particular post but, honestly, I couldn’t stomach the Google image search.  It would have more accurately illustrated how I feel though. I also did a search for ‘attention whore’, but the results were almost as unpalatable.  Perez/Paris Hilton or a fucking tapeworm, which would you rather gaze at a picture of?  You see why I went for the eggs.

To make matters even worse, as much as I have been driven to despise the epidemic of cack-handed, attention-whoring remixes which infest the fucking internet like a nasty dose of the crabs, remixes are not something I think are inherently bad.  In fact, there may not be many, but there are at least some remixes which I think are brilliant.  Read the rest of this entry »

 The Raincast is so called because we have had three days of sporadic, but at times absolutely torrential rain here in Edinburgh this week.  The leak in our ceiling has sprung back into action with some vigour, although this time it manifested itself in a manner which didn’t ruin all sorts of my vinyl, which was generous of it.  We really must get that looked at before the whole bloody ceiling comes crashing down.

The rest of my day will be spent sticking things into envelopes to publicise the Lach release, which is really, really soon, as well as the new album by Trips and Falls, which isn’t out until the end of September.  I will be back on the gocco printer hand printing the artwork for that one though, which isn’t something I’ve done for a while, so rather looking forward to it.

Anyhow, in the meantime, have a wee listen to this. It’s an interesting mix this week, from the utterly obscure, to the borderline famous, to the might almost have been nearly famous five years ago, but not really likely to crack it now.  And then Radiohead. Yes, I’ve finally listened to King of Limbs.  At last.

Direct download: Toadcast #182 – The Raincast

01. Barry Adamson – Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis (00.29)
02. DanDanDan – Match of the Day Background Music (08.47)
03. Anna-Anna – Mirrors of America (13.17)
04. Clem Snide – Ice Cube (21.56)
05. Lambchop – Up With People (24.29)
06. Public Dims – Lorimer (31.09)
07. Rollor – Energies are Dead in the Mind Constellation (40.17)
08. Camera Phone – Artifacts (43.44)
09. Radiohead – Lotus Flower (50.55)
10. I Like Trains – Sirens (Remix) (57.19)

So, erm, yes, this podcast should really have happened on Sunday, but it was so unspeakably bakingly hot (alright, in all honesty it was only about 28 degrees, but it felt much fucking hotter, okay) that there was basically no fucking chance it was going to happen.

I’ve also been adjusting to not having a day job, which in its own way made this easier.  I’d write posts when I could during the day, but at the moment my only job is Song, by Toad so I have focussed entirely on the important jobs, not on the day to day business of posting on the site.

Also, this is late and it may be (early) Thursday, but there will still be a podcast on the weekend, but I thought this was an opportunity which should not be passed up.  It’s Glastonbury for fuck’s sake, and it really did need its own podcast pretty sharpish, even if just to wonder why on Earth Glastonbury needs its own podcast when there are so many better festivals out there!

Toadcast #128 – The Glastocast

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01. Radiohead – Idioteque (06.55)
02. Flaming Lips – God Walks Among Us Now (19.26)
03. Eels – Looking Up (24.06)
04. The Avett Brothers – Murder in the City (39.57)
05. The National – England (42.57)
06. The Books – A Cold Freezin’ Night (57.02)
07. Devendra Banhart – The Charles C Leary (70.57)
08. Broken Social Scene – 7/4 (shoreline) (73.34)
09. Wild Nothing – Your Rabbit Feet (81.06)
10. LCD Soundsystem – All Your Friends (96.59)

Instead of prattling on about whether or not early Bonnie Raitt was heavily influenced by the Arcade Fire, this week we shall be doing something extremely constructive with our time.  Thomas Western, shortly to be unveiled as half of Edinburgh’s answer to the Silver Columns (I’ve not heard it yet, but all I have to say is woo hoo!), is actually a highly studious gentleman (see pic) in his spare time and has asked if I wouldn’t mind posting five questions to help him with his research.  Quite what he thinks the nonsensical bollocks we talk here on a Friday is going to do for his academic ambitions I don’t know, but I thought we might as well humour him.

He’s actually studying something to with the sociological aspects of live music, which anyone who has ever seen the queue outside a Hadouken gig (yes okay, it was some time ago, but it was still hilarious) will know is a rather interesting topic. I’ve always been kind of fascinated by the social dynamics of gig-going, from the tribal self-identification to the impact of the crowd mood on the show itself, so I’m looking forward to finding out a bit more about this.

Until then, however, here are five questions for you from Thomas.  And once you’ve de-lurked to help push forward the boundaries of academia, feel free to talk utter shite with the rest of us all afternoon.

1. What is the best thing you’ve ever seen live? Including where and when this took place.
2. Why was it so good? Try and keep this answer as open as possible – it can cover factors such as the music being played, the performance, some kind of cultural significance, or just people having an ace time together.
3. Is familiarity with material a prerequisite for a great gig? Or has anyone been to a gig to see the headline act, only to be blown away by an unknown support band?
4. How important is a venue when we go to gigs? Do they have their own aura that can contribute to our enjoyment of a performance?
5. And do people go to gigs because folks like me tell them to? This is about the idea of blogs and online critics as cultural tastemakers – Pitchfork being the most obvious example. In other words, when you read a positive preview of something in my Monday listings, are you more likely to attend, and perhaps more likely to enjoy the gig as a conequence?

Now, some great live recordings, including a song from Nick Cave’s Live Seeds, possibly the greatest live album of all time.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – John Finn’s Wife (Live)

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Eels – I Put a Spell On You (Live)

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Radiohead – No Surprises (Live Acoustic)

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Frightened Rabbit – Poke (Live)

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Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band – Thunder Road (Live)

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Erm, really sorry that this is so very, very late, but life rather caught up with me this week.  So I never quite managed to find time to get my shit together until this evening, unfortunately.

It’s surprising how much of my time these weekly podcasts seem to take up – it can be quite hard to find an evening every single week to record these things.  What I find amazing is that I don’t run out of blather.  I don’t recall ever saying anything profound or all that intelligent either, so this little collection must represent hours and hours of inconsequential rambling.

On Friday a nice young lady in the pub asked me “Has anyone ever told you that you talk loads and loads.”  I suppose, looking back at a hundred and some podcasts the miracle is that actually the answer to that question is ‘no, not really, not that I can remember’.

Oh, and yes, that is Tina Turner and Kim Carnes you see there.  Suck it up, hipsters.

Toadcast #107 – The Tardicast

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01. The Walkmen – This Job is Killing Me (03.30)
02. Grandaddy – Hey Cowboy, the Phone’s For You (09.57)
03. Comaneci – Satisfied Girl (15.51)
04. Tina Turner – Private Dancer (17.50)
05. Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou – England (27.33)
06. Ruth Theodore – False Alarm (34.09)
07. The Waterboys – Sweet Thing (40.54)
08. Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes (48.04)
09. R.E.M. – Half a World Away (53.55)
10. Radiohead – Creep (Acoustic) (59.59)

I’m not sure why the end of the noughties should necessarily lead to any kind of retrospective of the nineties, but it has.  I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that I just feel it’s way too early for me to figure out what I make of the noughties.

So, given that it must be about time for the nineties revival (actually, probably best give it another year or so) and given that the nineties are now quite a long way away and given that, erm… well I dunno. Given I was poking around at that stuff recently and listening to some Pulp and Gene and Blur and stuff I figured I might as well pop the whole bloody lot into a podcast.

Toadcast #97 – The Nineties

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01. Pearl Jam – Even Flow (Unplugged) (4.16)
02. The Stone Roses – (Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister (12.23)
03. Belly – Untitled & Unsung (18.37)
04. Echobelly – Insomniac (22.13)
05. Blur – Yuko & Hiro (29.00)
06. Gene – Wasteland (36.14)
07. Ben Folds Five – Underground (38.49)
08. Blur – Country Sad Ballad Man (44.56)
09. REM – Parakeet (52.03)
10. Radiohead – Everything in its Right Place (59.30)

This is called the Slowcast because there are so many songs and, more commonly, whole albums out there which I took ages and ages to get into, and for no really obvious reason.

There are several reasons, I guess: how familiar a sound is, your emotional state at the time, what your mates are listening to, how popular something is and stuff like that.  I know I’ve admitted plenty of times in the past that I have a habit of refusing to like things if they get too popular.  That sounds ludicrous, but it’s not exactly a conscious decision, more an instinctive recoiling.  I never have liked much popular stuff, although I do certainly go through phases.  Maybe that’s one of the reasons that, with the label, I am not looking to sign or work with the modern equivalent of a Top 40 band – I have never much liked Top 40 music.

Anyway, that’s not really the point of the podcast.  This is dedicated to those albums which for some reason you have to hear about a million times before you eventually, out of nowhere, realise that you love them.

Toadcast #72 – The Slowcast

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01. Billy Bragg – Honey I’m a Big Boy Now (04.36)
02. Tom Waits – Goin’ Out West (08.37)
03. Radiohead – My Iron Lung (14.14)
04. The Mutton Birds – Envy of Angels (23.42)
05. Mancino – Definition of an Accident (32.26)
06. The Mabuses – I’m the Greatest (36.09)
07. Interpol – Obstacle #1 (43.31)
08. My Latest Novel – Wolves (49.30)
09. The Wedding Present – 2, 3, Go! (55.29)
10. Yo La Tengo – Big Day Coming (59.56)

After a week spent debating it, how about a podcast embodying the discussions we’ve been having about production values I thought a podcast which sort of pulls all the disagreements and moans and whingeing and so on into one big mp3 of joy would be a good idea.

So we’ve got some Big Production, some demo scratchy stuff and a few bands who have dabbled with both.  I fart on about production values as if I have the faintest idea what I’m talking about, which of course I don’t.

I’m not sure how well it works as a playlist – it might be a bit disjointed – but in general I like it.  I like the debate in general, I like the thought process we’ve all gone through together this week, and in general, by association, I like this podcast.

Toadcast #57 – Production Values

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01. Bruce Springsteen – Born in the USA (Original Nebraska Sessions Demo Version) (04.31)
02. Radiohead – Everything in its Right Place (11.13)
03. Enfant Bastard – Vessel (20.19)
04. Half Man Half Biscuit – 1966 and All That (22.37)
05. U2 – Red Hill Mining Town (29.56)
06. Snow Patrol – Last Ever Lone Gunman (37.40)
07. The Divine Comedy – Life on Earth (42.10)
08. Yann Tiersen – Geronimo (Black Session w. Neil Hannon) (46.07 )
09. The Wave Pictures – A Long Way Away From Me (53.34)
10. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (Live at Hammersmith Odeon, 1975) (57.35)

Ah, mates.  Can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em.  Mrs. Toad’s best friend from her reckless yoof is visiting us here in Edinburgh with her gentleman friend, and consequently I got to thinking about my own old friends, and all the people who, over the years, have introduced me to so much brilliant music.  So I started to patch together a playlist of all the important friends who have added a lot of music to my life.  The problem is that it became way too long for my one hour restriction, so for this week I cast that aside, and allowed myself an extra ten minutes.

Honestly though, old friends are so important, this could have gone on for two hours, easily.  Every one of the people I mention here has a whole story of their own, and it was quite difficult to resist telling all of them in proper detail.  It seems such a shame, actually, to reduce all of these people to a two-minute link.  I could almost do a whole podcast for any one of these scenarios really, and maybe I’ll do that in future.  For now, though, you’ll have to make do with this.  It may be shabby, but it really could have been so much worse.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Toad is fucking plastered.  Oh good.  Enjoy!

Toadcast #50 – The Friendcast

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01. Pink Floyd – On the Turning Away (02.27)
02. Pearl Jam – Black (11.23)
03. The Tragically Hip – Wheat Kings (18.30)
04. Gene – Her Fifteen Years (25.23)
05. Radiohead – Black Star (28.04)
06. Verve – Lucky Man (34.41)
07. Weeping Willows – Eternal Flames (39.19)
08. Billy Bragg – Days Like These (DC Remix) (45.41)
09. Bob Dylan – Po’ Boy (49.42)
10. Elbow – Newborn (55.46)
11. Blanche – Do You Trust Me? (63.19)
12. Maximo Park – Apply Some Pressure (69.07)

By the time this is published I will be lying in bed in Toad Hall with a hangover like a nasty case of death warmed up.  The Song, by Toad Christmas Party was on Friday 5th December, and given how exhausted I am at the moment I would imagine that about two or three gins into the evening I will be whistling Waltzing Matilda out my fucking ears.

Still, the Meursault album will be out, the party will be sorted, the Song, by Toad Records publicity juggernaut will be chuntering along comfortably and I will be able to begin the gentle slide into Christmas relaxation.  Finally finally finally.  I am so fucking exhausted from all the bloody time I’ve thrown into this since the Summer, and over Christmas there will be two weeks off with little to do but move this site all over to self-hosting and tinker a little with the design.

I’ll be trying to make the sessions and Toad Records things a little more prominent, and generally poking about in general.  The problem is that my CSS is so piss-poor that I really am limited in what I can do, so I’ll just have to hope it turns out okay.  I am loath to pay someone to redesign the thing for me though, because that seems to be somewhat contrary to the Spirit of All Things Toad.

The Spirit of All Things Toad, of course, being gin.

Toadcast #49 – Hangovers

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01. The National – Fake Empire (01.30)
02. Doveman – Teacup (06.05)
03. Samamidon – Wild Bill Jones (12.53)
04. Phil & the Osophers – High Art (22.43)
05. Miracles of Modern Science – MR2 (26.15)
06. Radiohead – Idioteque (32.49)
07. Chopps Derby – Down the Dogs (41.22)
08. The 1900s – Age of Metals (47.01)
09. Alela Diane – White as Diamonds (50.12)
10. The Wave Pictures – Leave the Scene Behind (58.07)