I seemed to forget why this was called the Fallcast until the very end, so it clearly isn’t a very central concept to the podcast itself.  Basically, I just rattle on about some new music for a bit, which means there’s hardly an excuse to call this bloody podcast anything, really.

Still, next week we have the Inspector Tapehead Toad Session, which is nearly finished, and then after that I was thinking about doing podcasts from vinyl.  I reckon I can probably just run a lead into to the microphone jack of the computer, straight from the Tape Out RCA connection on the back of the amp, although that may well not work I guess.  I could just get myself an mp3 turntable, but that’s expensive.  Still, doing the podcasts straight from vinyl seems like a good idea to me for the future.

For now, though, it’s just me sitting and talking shit to my computer, sorry.

Direct download: Toadcast #145 – The Fallcast

01. Broken Records – Modern Worksong (00.17)
02. Kurt Vile – In My Time (09.09)
03. Twin Shadow – When We’re Dancing (12.28)
04. Husband – Feelings (20.39)
05. Houses – Endless Spring (27.00)
06. Laku Noc – Sleep (29.53)
07. Brown Brogues – Treet U Beta (37.22)
08. Shapers – Virginia Reel (41.29)
09. FOUND – String Theory (44.33)
10. Ravens & Chimes – Division Street (54.31)

I was out quaffing lagers with a pal last night and once again Friday arrives with that faintly queasy, furry-tongued sensation we all know so well.  Blech.  Still, nothing a fine meal of fish and a couple of pints at the King’s Wark can’t solve I am pretty sure.  I have yet to meet the hangover their fine lunches can’t defeat.

Tonight I am off to act as arm candy for Mrs. Toad at a client dinner with the Dastardly Finance Corp for which she works.  Me, my black eye, a scruffy beard and a grudgingly-worn suit – not quite like the braying public school fat-tongues who tend to dominate these sort of events.  Maybe if I act arty enough they’ll think I’m some sort of creative genius.

We’ve already had some interesting situations with this sort of thing actually, because a lot of the posh Edinburgh people we’ve met seems to have a very acute awareness of which school one attended and what job one does and therefore which of you needs to kiss the other’s arse.  Because Mrs. Toad and I don’t seem all that posh they tend to start out quite optimistic, too.  Then they find out we met at school in Vienna, which both worries and confuses them – it sounds posh but they don’t know the school, so they can’t be sure – oooh, what to do?

And then my job confuses them too.  They know the company Mrs. Toad works for, and that’s quite legit, so they can kind of peg that one to their ladder, but of course they tend to assume that her wage is probably about two thirds of mine or less because that’s how these things tend to work in the world of finance.  So when I tell them that I’m an industrial designer and that I actually make fuck all they get really confused.  Am I just lying?  Am I a maverick creative guru and just playing it down?  Can they actually condescend to us like they sort of want to?  Or am I from such a wealthy family that I simply don’t have to work?    But what if they misjudge it and act superior to the wrong person?  Aaagh, too many options, does not compute…  head explodes!  It’s quite funny.

Although to be fair, Mrs. Toad’s worky social events aren’t really like that actually; in fact they tend to be pretty friendly, to be fair.  I got distracted and started nattering about another occasion entirely just there, sorry.  Umm… so er, please do take advantage of the Friday de-lurking amnesty and chip in with your Friday Fives.  As Christmas gets closer and closer I would imagine that less and less work is being done in the offices of the nation anyway, so you might as well.

1. Your worst-behaved plus-one moment.
2. The worst plus-one moment your other half has inflicted on you.
3. How do you subversively rebel when asked to scrub up to impress folk?
4. Do you love or loathe your other half’s colleagues? (And are you free to answer that question honestly?)
5. In the company of people you are supposed to behave in front of (colleagues-in-law, the other half’s family, your parents friends etc..) how scooshed do you actually get?

The five songs this week are new things which have found their way into my inbox recently.  That’s a new Eels song from a recently announced album, which is good news, and ditto for Stanley Brinks.  Tune Yards is someone just signed to Matador, and of whom they have high hopes in the new year.  It’s weird, but I like it.  Naughtily, I’ve had that Ravens & Chimes song for ages, so their album might actually be out already – if it’s as good as the last one that is very good news.

Eels – Little Bird

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.

Ravens & Chimes – Hearts of Palm

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.

Tune Yards – Hap-B

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.

Stanley Brinks – End of the World

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.

The Chord & the Fawn – Love, Sex and Rock ‘n’ Roll

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.

Christ that whinge of depression about our electoral system was a bit of a damp squib thrown onto our weekend plans wasn’t it.  Fuck that for a game of soldiers, this is a bloody great weekend and I am bloody looking forward to it and there is going to be plenty of fun to be had, so enough sulking and time to be cheerful.

Tonight there’s cutting and pasting and putting together the samplers for the launch party tomrrow.  I also get the first samples of the Nightjar album, getting us within a week or so of our first official release. Tomorrow is seeing a couple of old mates for the first time in ages, and trawling charity shops for some first class silliness for the launch night itself.  Then Sunday is calming down, sleeping off a monumental hangover and generally relaxing.

The sun is out, things are fun, and in general the only worry is that I fight off the temptation to go out and drink too much beer and never get my samplers put together for tomorrow.  Sunshine, booze, music.  It’s a simple recipe but nevertheless and completely infallible one and today it promises a fine weekend of inebriation, joy and Toadery.

Neko Case – Star Witness
Elk City – Los Cruzados
Ravens & Chimes – General Lafayette!  You are Not Alone!
R.E.M. – Fall on Me

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

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.

* 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

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. 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)

We are bloody well homeless, which is making it very tricky to record podcasts at the moment, so I apologise for the enormous wait since the last one.  I promise I’m not losing interest, it’s just been a logistical nightmare to find the time and space to actually sit down and record of late.  It takes a few hours, not least because my computer is depressingly slow, so please bear with me.

I’ve got a couple of new singles by The Indelicates and The National, as well as a couple of groups I’ve seen live recently, and then some more esoteric stuff towards the end including the highly uncharacteristic Nicole Atkins and a potentially naughty sneak preview of the new Raveonettes album.  Enjoy, Toadlings, enjoy yourselves all to pieces.

Toadcast #15 – The Homeless Podcast

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. Dragons – Here Are the Roses (01.50)
02. Killing Joke – Eighties (08.28)
03. The Indelicates – Sixteen (13.42)
04. The National – Apartment Story (18.30)
05. Arcade Fire – Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels) (21.51)
06. The Parish Music Box – Heavy Drinkers (30.40)
07. Rick Redbeard – Dreams of the Trees (35.45)
08. Loch Lomond – Tic (41.49)
09. Over the Rhine – Don’t Wait For Tom (48.10)
10. Ravens & Chimes – The House Where You Were Born (52.10)
11. Siberian – Islands Forever (59.27)
12. Ice Cream Socialists – Mr Crazy (65.42)
13. 586 – Rags & Tags (71.47)
14. Nicole Atkins – Brooklyn’s On Fire (75.03)
15. The Raveonettes – Aly Walk With Me (82.22)
16. The Sugars – Monsters (88.27)

I was in two minds as to whether or not to actually review this record, but I think I’m going to.  See, I don’t actually think I like it, as a whole… not entirely.  Or, to put it another way, despite the fact that I am yet to really click with Reichenbach Falls, there has been something oddly compelling about it that has kept me coming back again and again to this album to try and figure out just what it is that I seem to find so strangely intriguing.

The music is good, but I was expecting something else.  Perhaps it was the sample mp3s I was sent by the promo company, or perhaps I was just in Never Never Land, but whatever it was I was quite taken aback when I heard this album for the first time.  Instead of the delicious Americana I had oddly anticipated, I was hit by a direct and enigmatic pop album owing more to the New Pornographers than anyone else.  There’s elements of that gorgeous chiming piano in there too, a little like White Rabbits use.

It’s a real album too, not a collection of songs.  It urgent, it’s emotional.  There’s something I love but I just can’t quite put my finger on it.  It’s almost like those hidden picture things that were so popular in the 90s, but in this case the core of the album drifts in and out of your field of vision.  There’s a dark unhappy soul flitting around in there, difficult to pin down, and the moments of musical clarity are almost as elusive.  The interludes and atmospheres break occasionally into superb pop songs, then switch just as quickly back into something more painful and introspective.

It’s odd, I can’t decide if I really don’t like it at all or if I love it, but one thing is for sure: it is genuinely intriguing and there are some great moments here.  Peculiar.  More listens needed I guess, but I’ve thought that for a while and I’m still no clearer.  So, back to the beginning, why do I say I don’t think I like it?  Well maybe that’s a bit false.  I somehow get the impression there’s something beautiful to embrace in there, but that I frustratingly keep seeing it out of the corner of my eye and not quite ever laying eyes on it directly.

What an utterly uninformative and unhelpful review for you all – sorry about that.

Ravens & Chimes – Eleventh St.
Ravens & Chimes – General Lafayette!  You Are Not Alone

website | hype | amazon