Frankly, I’ve no fucking idea what Friday is this week.  Between our Electric Circus gigs (yes, good guess, the second of which is indeed tonight, and look, only a fiver in – what value!) keeping up with the blog and the minor matter of actually trying to run a record label I don’t know whether I’m bloody coming or going at the moment.

One of things I like about putting on gigs at the Electric Circus is that I get to DJ inbetween and after the bands.  It’s much like writing a blog, releasing records or putting on gigs – effectively you’re trying to insist to everyone how awesome all the music you like is.  I don’t know if the actual audience enjoys it as much as I do, but umm… well, they were very patient with me at the gig on Wednesday anyway.

I am also just about managing to preserve a sliver of Festival bonhomie, despite the associated bollocks, but it is hanging on by the skin of its teeth.  There is fun, to be sure, but the whole thing is such a carnival of over-priced commercialism I can’t help but wonder if it might start to suffer from the malaise afflicting many of the big music festivals this year.  The Fringe has become such a juggernaut that people felt obliged to start the Free Fringe, just so the Fringe would itself have some sort of Fringe – sort of a festival ouroboros in a sense.

Ah well, balls to that.  Get thee down to the Circus tonight and we’ll have drinks and party like it was early June.

1. If you were DJ what would you insist on playing that no-one would really get.
2. What was the last thing you slept through and shouldn’t have.
3. Name a really pointless album reissue.
4. And a really good one.
5. What’s made you laugh recently?

This week’s five songs are daft cover versions:

Richard Cheese – Rape Me

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Clem Snide – Beautiful

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The Lance Gambit Trio – Barbie Girl

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Me First & the Gimme Gimmes – Stand By Your Man

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The Flaming Lips – Can’t Get You Out of My Head

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So, after work tonight, what to do… there’s James Yorkston at Pilrig St. Paul’s, or the Panda Su EP launch at Sneaky Pete’s, or Ringo Deathstarr at Cabaret Voltaire.  Then tomorrow it’s either the Conquering Animal Sound album launch or Come on Gang’s final gig (and album launch), also at Pilrig St. Paul’s.  It’s almost like living in Glasgow or London.

I’m also – not that I mean to show my age – rather excited about the number of green shoots in the garden at the moment.  Our approach to gardening is more than a little haphazard, but in October we threw piles and piles of bulbs into the ground, and some of them might even bloom!  My mum and my Granddad on her side are very gardeny people, so you may be disgusted at my pipe and slippers domesticity, but I think they’d be proud, bless ‘em.

Oh, and I’m sorry this week’s five is a little late.  I was distracted by The Oatmeal for about three hours.  Damn you, internet! I’m not really sorry though, because The Oatmeal is fucking awesome.

Remember that the Friday Fives were designed as a de-lurking amnesty, so please do take this opportunity to come out of the closet and make up some silly nonsense on the internet.  It’s Friday afternoon, remember, so it’s not like you were planning on being productive for the rest of the day anyway.  And for those of you who care, Mrs. Toad and I will be recording our annual anti-Valentine’s shitcast this weekend.  Good, unromantic, sweary sweary fun!

1. Will you be observing Valentine’s Day this year?
2. First crush you can remember (this need not be either sensible or entirely true).
3. Favourite webcomic.
4. Work avoidance hangover tactic.
5. Inappropriate wedding song.

Five Valentine’s songs for you.  Well, sort of.

Richard Cheese – Rape Me

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The Wedding Present – Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft

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Cherry Poppin’ Daddies – When I Change Your Mind

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Tom Waits – Better off Without a Wife

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Oh alright, one proper romantic one, if you must.
Billy Bragg & Wilco – Hesitating Beauty

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Well the Funkcast was probably about as gentle a ‘tell me about this genre’ podcast as you’re likely to get.  This, on the other hand, is not gentle.  I suppose it was never likely to be – there’s only so gentle an introduction you can give to this kind of music.

Basically, I was becoming increasingly curious about the number of alt-folkies I know who come from heavy metal backgrounds.  Loads of my friends here who I know because we all listen to indie rock or alternative folk or all sorts of things inbetween seem to have been really into metal when they were young.  This doesn’t entirely make sense to me because I see very little connection between the two kinds of music, and for so many people to have made that transition it must be a strong connection.

Then, of course, it turns out that loads of people whose music I listen to – alt-folk, once again – also grew up listening to metal.  The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle, Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie and, more locally, Dan from Withered Hand and Neil from Meursault.  So, having been round at the house doing artwork for their single releases I asked the Neil and Chris from Meursault and Matthew who helps out with the label to put together a metal podcast.  It might not be quite as pleasant to cook your bacon sandwiches to on Sunday afternoon, but erm, well I never made any promises with these bloody podcasts anyway – just deal with it, we’ll probably be back to the alt-folk next week.

Toadcast #91 – The Metalcast

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01. Half Man Half Biscuit – Vatican Broadside (0.00)
02. Withered Hand – Takeaway Food (05.03)
03. AC/DC – Whole Lotta Rosie (13.17)
04. Slayer – Jesus Saves (17.25)
05. Mount Eerie – Wind’s Dark Poem (24.21)
06. Nirvana – School (35.13)
07. Dinosaur Jr. – On the Way (37.50)
08. Lightning Bolt – Ride the Sky (42.59)
09. Richard Cheese – Rape Me (47.47)
10. Children of Bodom – The Trooper (53.50)
11. Meshuggah – Autonomy Lost (57.05)
12. The Mountain Goats – No Children (62.01)
13. Anal Cunt – You’re Old (Fuck You) (73.27)

Hello, more Toadcastery. I’ve, erm, focussed on Dadrock for this one. Not too much of it on the playlist, fortunately, although there’s a couple of well-known names on there. In my defence though, I couldn’t bring myself to feature Coldplay, so I was forced into the compromise of playing an almighty butchering of one of their songs by the splendid Richard Cheese.

Basically I spend most of this podcast trying to justify the presence of so much bland music in the charts and how the hell that came to pass. There’s plenty of chatter about how music is used as a sort of social glue as well, in which case the quality of the stuff becomes almost secondary. There are some really good new bands on this as well – The Velcro Quartet are particularly brilliant, as are the songs by Mumford & Son, Yoshimi! and Honeytrap. Enjoy responsibly.

Toadcast #32 – The Tribecast

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01. Hercules & Love Affair – Hercules Theme (01.32)
02. The Velcro Quartet – Dead Dog’s Hill Replaced with Johnny Cashback, at the band’s request. (07.53)
03. Seabear – Teenage Kicks (11.17)
04. Athlete – Shake Those Windows (21.02)
05. Richard Cheese – Yellow (30.31)
06. ESL – Czarne Oczy (31.59)
07. Emiliana Torrini – Me & Armeni (39.50)
08. Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal (43.24)
09. Snow Patrol – Last Ever Lone Gunman (48.11)
10. The Killers – All These Things That I’ve Done (58.17)
11. The Pictish Trail – All I Own (66.52)
12. Mumford & Sons – White Blank Page (73.01)
13. Honeytrap – Song For Nona (82.17)
14. The Velcro Quartet – How to Kill Your Wife (87.04)
15. Yoshimi! – Song For Suzy (Demo) (94.34)
16. Frank Turner – The Outdoor Type (100.34)

Ah thank goodness. The weekend, beer o’clock, beverage time, whatever – slipping into the welcoming arms of comatose alcoholic oblivion, no knowing where you’ll wake, next to whom or how many tattoos you’ll have. Marvellous.

The Edinburgh International Festival of Unbearably Pretentious Thespian Twattery commences this week some time and suppressing the Toad instinct for homicidal artistic criticism will be extremely difficult. It is a trying duty, but one which I nonetheless take very seriously, to have to reduce one aspiring performer after another to tears of desolation by relentlessly driving home the fact that what they are doing, rather than opening anyone’s heart to the possibilities of releasing their inner beauty, is in fact just some sort of pestilential form of spasmodic social syphilis. In fact, rather than giving people the opportunity to think differently about their lives what you are in fact doing, sweetie darling, is pissing everybody off, distracting them from their pints and making an utter twat of yourself in the process.

Congratulations. Won’t you be proud of your pointless fairying about, come the final reckoning:
St Peter: “And how spent thou thy precious earthly days?”
Eternal Soul 1: “Well, St Peter, I worked tirelessly on a cure for cancer.”
St Peter: “Splendid my son, on ye go. And your hippy friend here?”
Eternal Soul 2: “Erm, well, see I tried to express challenging thoughts through the medium of interpretive dance and bongo drums.”
St Peter: “You silly cunt.”

Who’s worse – the poncing thesps themselves or the fat fucking American tourists and crinkly old British coffin-dodgers who give them just enough financial encouragement that they somehow do not end up sticking their fucking knobs in a blender by the end of the Festival and thus relieving the gene pool of their weak and flabby genetic material altogether. Gah. Well at least there are some decent bands playing in Edinburgh for a change. Not many mind, but a couple.

I console myself with beer, gin, music and fornication. Breathe in with me Toadlets… and out… and relaaaaax!

Ad Astra Per Aspera – Everybody Lets Me Down
Elvis Costello – Clubland
Mayor McCA – I Love the Summer ‘Cause I Love the Women
Richard Cheese – Rock the Casbah I think this may now be the definitive version of this song.
Talking Heads – Radio Head