Song, by Toad

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

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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)

Because of moving around an awful lot in my life, I have rarely voted.  Now that I’m in Edinburgh I am settled enough to have voted in the last couple of elections and, now that I’ve done it, I find myself asking what the hell the point is.

That reflex response “Well if you don’t vote, you can’t complain” has always struck me as a load of old bollocks.  In fact, never mind that, it is a load of old bollocks.  When I first decided to cast my own vote, no matter how hopeless the party for whom I was voting, my reasoning was this: I didn’t want the slippery fuckers to be able to get away with it so easily.  I knew I was wasting my vote in most ways, but I just wanted to head off that criticism, that smug “Well if you didn’t vote…”

Ultimately though, voting is bordering on pointless.  Labour have moved so far to the right that the Tories are now fighting them on green issues and civil liberties – in other words, they have almost had to move to the left of Labour in order to differentiate themselves.  It’s ridiculous.  How the fuck does choosing between those two sets of snivelling lickspittles constitute any sort of meaningful choice?  How does the election of Cameron or Brown make even the tiniest difference to our day-to-day lives?  Tony Blair was essentially a Tory prime minister.  And given it makes no difference whatsoever, why are we voting?

A vote is supposed to be a choice, a statement of belief and principle, your chance to make a declaration of political allegiance and attempt to influence the way in which the country is governed.  Does anyone seriously believe that the current system, which is effectively two-party, offers us a choice in how the country is run?  Does it bollocks.  The influence of lobbyists, and hence wealth, in politics is so colossal that unless you promise to govern in a particular way, to play the game obediently, then the chances of your name even appearing on the ballot paper are basically nil.  As Tony Blair so brazenly demonstrated in the buildup to the war in Iraq, they are absolutely not accountable to us; not in the slightest.

So when we vote, what are we doing, legitimising the status quo?  It certainly feels that way.  We are basically giving the impression that we genuinely believe that choosing one special interest sock-puppet over another represents a meaingful choice for us and one which we are willing to take seriously.  Surely voter turnouts dropping to record-low levels makes more of a political statement than dutifully making an appearance and marking your box like a good little boy.  How, after all, can they claim legitimate mandate to govern when a mere twenty percent of the populace endorsed them?  They will claim it anyway of course, and blame us, but it feels like a stronger, more meaningful statement than simply choosing one bunch of toadies over another identical bunch of toadies who happen to wear differently-coloured ties.

The problem, really, is the alternative.  If you refuse to vote, which I think it a perfectly reasonable decision and one with which I am seriously toying at the moment, then how do you remain politically active?  I guess you join activist groups, participate in message boards and sites that debate political issues, and generally cherry-pick your participation in terms of single issues rather than sign up to any one morally bankrupt political party or another.  It’s politics by aggregate rather than partisan allegiance, which seems dead in the water at the moment.  Here anyway.  Look at The States and partisan tribalism has more or less engulfed the political process, and why?  I guess because they genuinely feel that picking Obama or McCain or, until recently, Clinton over the others will produce genuinely difficult outcomes for the country.

Over here, does anyone seriously believe Cameron, Blair, Brown or any of these twits are significantly different from one another?  The great success of the Scottish National Party this year has been their mediocre inoffensiveness, allowing them to play the nationalist card, which in much of Scotland translates as borderline racism, and thus mobilise the bovine masses without seriously threatening to do anything meaningful which might upset anyone.  Or, more significantly, make them give a shit one way or another.

So what are we left with?  I am increasingly finding myself in a situation where I can barely justify voting.  I would rather a pathetically low turnout, as political statements go, to pottering along voting for this or that identikit besuited mannequin and continuing to give the impression that they are actually doing their jobs.  They are not.  We are not being listened to.  Our votes are fucking meaningless.  And what can we do, spoil the ballot?  Maybe.  Not vote?  I don’t know.  I wouldn’t be happy with that at all, it just doesn’t feel right, and of course it is impossible to differentiate between the indifferent non-voter and the pointed non-voter.  So it may be difficult to make a statement that way, but it is very close to being the only real statement we can make as an electorate.  Is this too disillusioned for a Friday?  Sorry.  Have some gin and forget I ever said this.

Fela Kuti – Government Chicken Boy
Billy Bragg – NPWA
Radiohead – Electioneering

I was catching up on DC’s excellent and not-at-all-airport-related Christmas podcasts yesterday when I found myself thinking ‘fuck me, that Abba song sounds like Creep’.  After the song, DC was kind enough to explain that it wasn’t Abba at all it was The Hollies, and that there was a well-known school of thought linking the two songs.

Given how slow I am picking up on this sort of thing, probably because I don’t listen to the radio all that much, I wouldn’t be at all surprised for this post to raise a deafening chorus of ‘Well yeah, like duh, like where have you been dude, like everyone knows that’ or something else equally well-phrased and cutting.  But honestly, this is the first I’d ever heard of it and the similarities are uncanny.

I never cease to be amazed by this sort of thing, but why it should surprise me is a mystery.  In my own field, industrial design, it’s entirely common for someone to like the proportions or the surface transitions or the material finishes of any number of other products and then incorporate them, sometimes quite directly, into their own work.  Look at the rise of the secret-to-lit screen, or the ‘one black version, one white version’ approach and things like that.  Look what the iPod did to popularise really basic geometry in handheld products, something that led almost directly to the storming success of the SonyEricsson T610.

Switching these kinds of ideas back and forth isn’t copying as such, but it does exist on the same spectrum.  At some point drawing inspiration does become outright copying, but I think at the moment we are inclined to draw that line too soon, in a great many fields.  Human ingenuity is a cumulative process, as tiny improvements build on thousands of other tiny improvements – the Eureka! moment is largely a myth.

I’ve ranted this rant before, so I’ll shut up now and leave you to compare The Air That I Breathe by The Hollies with an acoustic version of Radiohead’s classic Creep. And never mention airports ever again.

The Hollies – The Air That I Breathe
Radiohead – Creep (Acoustic)

Sometimes promo people send me stuff so mismatched to my tastes I really shake my head at the waste of plastic, packaging and postage. Save yourselves the time and just sling it straight in the trash yourselves, for fuck’s sake. Sometimes, instead of just to me, this happens to the whole world at once. Meet the Hoosiers. If ever an album needed to go straight in the bin it is this garbage. It makes Athlete and Hard Fi seem like serious bands. It even suffers when compared to the scrotum-shrivellingly awful Maroon 5.

And it is Maroon 5 who perhaps are the most interesting comparison. Just look at the comments under this BBC review of the Hoosiers’ album. Poking about the internets, these lads just can’t buy a good review, and for very good reason: they’re rubbish. Limp, lifeless, criminally derivative and absolutely devoid of the barest scrapings of charm needed to moisten even Paris Hilton’s gusset. But look at those comments on the Beeb, and check out that other everyman review site, Amazon. This is a popular album. It’s even – *gulp* – in the charts.

The Guardian wrote a piece recently about Maroon 5 which opened with the following line: “They’ve sold 2m albums in the UK, 10m in the US. But they can’t get a good review.” Again, perhaps this might have something to do with the fact that they peddle a sort of spineless, neutered Argos Catalogue pop that carries all the emotional impact of a half-eaten Pot Noodle. But it is popular, and so are the Hoosiers.

It is easy in our insulated internet world of like-minded folks – who, let’s face it, we would never have found were it not for the wonders of the Information Super-cul-de-sac – to forget that things are popular because lots of people like them. Lots and lots of people. Remember how XFM used to be a really good radio station? Well since they were bought out and had the sperm drained from their testicles they have simply become more and more popular instead of, more deservingly, being dropped like a ginger step-child.

Basically, people like utter garbage and the general population’s taste is woefully bland. People are fucking shit. They shop at WalMart and Morrison’s, they buy Supermarket Pop like this dross, they watch Big Brother, and I’m a Celebrity, Tuck an Angry Hornet Under My Foreskin*. They buy a Ford Focus and drink in the Hogshead and All Bar One. They shop as a pastime, not as an obligation. Most people are fucking dismal, boring, dead, spiritless fucking ghosts.

And to communicate with them in a cool an unpretentious manner, record label marketing people write shite like this, from the Hoosiers’ RCA label page:

For those of you who have only just discovered The Hoosiers I will start at the start, for those who claim prior knowledge of The Hoosiers, I suggest you skip this bit and join us at the next paragraph. Deal?

Quickly, for I have little time as I must pop to the shop to pick up some milk: The Hoosiers (formerly The Hoosier Complex) are a triumvirate of odd-pop from Exeter, Reading and Stockholm. Before they were a three piece, they were a two piece and before that they were three one pieces. Its simple maths really, not rocket surgery – which, ironically, is where Irwin, (vocal “assaultist”) met Alfonso – formerly Alan (stick-ferret/drums) – ten years prior, in a local school band named Ronnie Rocket and the Rocket Surgeons.

No, no fucking deal. You make this deal with what remains of the empty shell of achingly meaningless tedium that you call a life if you so please, but only if you truly have not one last spark of spirit or dignity left in your dead soul.

What depresses me the most is that in most people’s view, the title of this album is entirely accurate. The Trick to Life for most people, it would appear, is to aspire to this sort of hellish existence, sound-tracked by, erm, whom, I wonder? Well at the bottom of the Hoosiers’ RCA page it recommends that, if you like the Hoosiers, try the following: Backstreet Boys, Kelly Clarkson, Natasha Bedingfield, Sandi Thom, Lil’ Chris and The Fray. These people do their research depressingly well.

The Boo Radleys – Wake Up Boo!
Johnny Boy – You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve
Radiohead – No Surprises
Dave Matthews Band – Ants Marching

*The actual program may be called something slightly different.

Never mind the fuss over the business model, this album just isn’t very good.  I have all sorts of things to say about the way they are actually selling the record to the public, but I think I may have to digest a little before they become coherent enough to write down.  I do, however, have to say that I have nothing but applause for their efforts to find Another Way.  It appears bands are going to have to go it alone in this way in order to force the recording industry to actually address the 21st Century instead of just sticking their fingers in their ears and hoping it will go away.  Radiohead are to be seriously applauded for this.

Unfortunately, the album itself represents no semblance of a return to form in the wake of horribly disappointing recent fare such as Hail to the Thief (soft) and Eraser (beige).  In fact, this album is very much what you would get if you ground those two records together, stirred them up, and sprinkled ten new tracks out of the mix.  The sound comes pretty clearly from these two records and, lamentably, so does the lack of spirit.

Radiohead used to have urgency, don’t you think?  I mean, even the more downbeat electronica of Kid A and Amnesiac still had a direction.  They were moving forward, at pace, straining slightly to go faster, twitching nervously at the reins.  The last three albums, if you include Eraser, have been so lacking in any kind of nervous tension or drive that they seem to me to be lifeless, unengaging records that bring no emotion at all to the listening.  It’s a shame really, but it seems churlish to complain about a group responsible for two or possibly three albums that I am pretty sure history will view as era-defining classics.

I paid £7.

Radiohead – Nude
Radiohead – Weird Fishes/Arpeggi

website | hype | buy it