Mrs. Toad has been stranded in God Bless America by that infernal cloud of Icelandic ash, so I am home alone for the last week and all of the next one.  This is very much Not Fun, because as much as she’s a mean old bitch, I do seem to have developed a grudging affection for the silly old mare so a fortnight apart is very much unappreciated.  It’s about time those Icelanders re-established some bloody discipline, honestly.

Anyhew, there is some excellent stuff on this podcast, even though it really doesn’t hang together around a particular theme as they sometimes do.  In actual fact, I don’t think I’ve done a themey one for a while – might give that a go next week.

Toadcast #118 – The Ashcast

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01. Johnny Flynn – Kentucky Pill (4.11)
02. Burnt Island – A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (10.51)
03. Draw Me Stories – Becomes the Hunted (18.25)
04. Haunted Stereo – Lock the Doors (22.29)
05. Ragged Claws – Lamed Wufniks (30.44)
06. Fleet Foxes – Silver Dagger (36.07)
07. Hezekiah Jones – I Love My Family (40.13)
08. Cocorosie – Lemonade (42.14)
09. Br’er – Crocus (50.41)
10. Devolver – Promise (56.24)
11. Giant Sand – Anarchistic Bloshevistic Cowboy Bundle (58.44)

Well, kids, it’s been a strange old sleepless week & a bit. Of course, what with the Presidential pageant all a hoo-ing & a hah-ing at every turn, I managed to mince about pretty much unnoticed for the most part.

The weather has been atrocious to say the very least. Did I pack for ground frost? Torrential rain? Near hurricane-strength winds? Like fuck I did. Added to that, I’ve been averaging 2am to bed (a foldout in the livingroom of the rented space – sharing with 4 others) & 5.30am wake up calls.

Ed, my (un)usual USof travel companion, has insisted on cooking breakfast for us every morning at 5-cunting-am. The smell of slowly charring bacon has gagged me awake every fucking day – including my one & only day off. On Monday, at 6am, he set the smoke & fire alarms off in the whole apartment complex as he set fire to the electric oven hob with another of his dodgy homegrown concoctions.

The cooker was ruined &, as the rental is billed to my credit card, I’m expecting a sizable bill in the near distant to repair or replace. I’ll go into the finer details of our latest adventure on next week’s show.

So, then, to this week’s show, which has been done on the hoof, via laptop, as I flitted about the States like a ninny. There’s not so much chatter – I was knackered most of the time & the mic I had wasn’t up to much & I am to much of a tight arse to buy another just for one show – but the music more than makes up for it. Some of it, in my humble, is nothing short of astonishing.

Expect, then, many brand new tracks from as yet unreleased albums by the likes of: hillary & the democrats, brooke waggoner, little boots, anna kramer & the lost cause, pete & the pirates, meursault, babian, the welcome wagon, hurray for the riff raff, the cotton jones basket ride, andrew bird, plants & animals, raise high the roof beams, jolie holland, bobby bare jr., hari & aino, the kazoo funk orchestra, warpaint, climber, alela diane, anya marina, the decemberists, basket of figs, miss emily brown, ragged claws, clem snide, & samantha crain & the midnight shivers.

You know what to do.

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 21st January

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This is just an overspilling of all the shiny new things I have in my inbox this week.  It’s so fabulously up to the minute that there are songs in here which only landed in my inbox yesterday.  There’s a slightly sneaky legend making an appearance as well, in the shape of Jason Lytle.  Jason was the lead singer of Grandaddy, a legendary group who disbanded back in about, erm, 2006 or so, leading to Jason moving to a house out in Montana and apparently giving up on the idea of making a living out of music altogether.

The thing is, music is an art form, and no-one makes a fucking living out of making art.  The only exceptions are deplorable cunts like Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and fucking Bono, so please can we dispel the idea that art is a profession.  It’s not a job, nor a career, it’s a fucking calling; an obsession.  Of course, the good news for us fans is that, because it’s a calling rather than a job, Mr. Lytle was never likely to stay away forever.  If you care about something it’s almost impossible to stop yourself doing it.  Believe me, I know – I feel the same way about masturbation (sorry, not that funny, I know).

Oooh, by the way, I was very macho this evening.  I got home and I opened the gate to find some random chump sitting on our steps drinking beer.  So I bellowed with rage, grabbed him by the lapels and flung him out into the street, shouting angry man things like ‘get the fuck out of my fucking house you cunt or I’ll fucking batter you fucking senseless’ and other well known aristotelian arguments.  Unfortunately, as is often the case with fighting, one proved vastly less capable than the other, and he apologised and asked for the rest of his beer back and acknowledged that he was in the wrong.  Christ that made me feel like a prick and a bully.  So I ended up pointing out that my wife was small and that if she came home and found someone sitting on our steps drinking beer she’d have been scared, and that I was sorry for being so violent and please just bugger off etc etc.  He agreed and apologised and basically took all the fun out of being an alpha male, the bastard.  Christ, I might have to wait ten years to be that macho again, why did he have to ruin it for me?

Toadcast #53 – Shiny!

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01. Orouni – A Greased & Golden Palm (05.47)
02. The Gillyflowers – Country Boy (09.25)
03. Trips & Falls – And in Real Life He Wears Corduroy Pants (16.45)
04. Ragged Claws – On the Death of an Emperor (25.00)
05. Findo Gask – Wrapped in Plastic (Live) (32.00)
06. Enfant Bastard – Landscape Painting is Easy (36.23)
07. Scuff – Sailing Three Sheets to the Wind (40.56)
08. Jason Lytle – Birds Encouraged Him (Live at Maps) (47.34)
09. Auld Lang Syne – Where My Fortune Lies (51.01)
10. Scott Pinkmountain & the Golden Bolts of Tone – Abyssinia (58.24)

Just how I like an EP: very small scale, very home-made and very good.  I call it an EP, but actually it’s one of these increasingly common and very welcome mini-albums – six songs long – so to call it an EP is to underestimate it slightly.  It’s been sequenced like an album, as well, with a nice, rewarding emotional trajectory and the feeling that everything is in it’s right place.

If I were to try and call up a comparison, I would probably lean towards what Pale Young Gentlemen might soound like if they had gone in a slightly tweer, sadder direction than the more rich, orchestral one they chose.  Basic layers of guitar and vocal duets are supplemented by gentle waves of cello and plucked strings, which bring a lush indulgence to a sound already beautifully steeped in sadness.

It’s not quite the finished article yet, or at least it doesn’t quite feel like it, but don’t ask me why.  It’s just an impression I have for no good reason, but if they can build on this very promising start indeed then I think it’s entirely possibly that Ragged Claws could become a very good band.

Ragged Claws – Lully, Lullay

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