The Excast is so named because I am playing a lot of people’s former bands.  There’s Shane MacGowan’s Nipple Erectors, Phil Chevron’s Radiators, Shilpa Ray’s Beat the Devil and Billy Bragg’s Riff Raff.

I concentrate so much on new music these days that I often decide whether or not I like a band on the basis of a handful of demos, maybe a single, sometimes a debut EP, stuff like that.  And of course, bands don’t stumble into the world fully-formed, it takes some of them ages to become brilliant, and a lot of the time the initial forms of a band can be really strange, presumably because the people in question were still casting around a bit for their sound.

So there’s a bit of that here, but it’s not all that rigid a theme, and the playlist is a bit messy but, erm, well never mind.  There are some great songs, so enjoy!

Toadcast #96 – The Excast

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01. Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers – Beating St. Louis (04.07)
02. Beat the Devil – Plea Bargain (11.09)
03. Bright Eyes – Neely O’Hara (19.56)
04. Richard Hawley – Naked in Pitsmoor (26.16)
05. The Young Republic – The Alchemist (33.20)
06. Construction & Destruction – The Signal (41.24)
07. The Nipple Erectors – Nervous Wreck (48.34)
08. The Radiators – Walking Home Alone Again (50.39)
09. The Pogues – Lorca’s Novena (56.37)
10. Riff Raff – You Shaped House (63.33)

Maybe it’s because the weekend seems to be within reach, so the idea of slightly overdoing it on Thursday doesn’t seem so bad. Maybe it’s because you don’t get the chance to sleep it off like you do on Saturday or Sunday. Or maybe it’s because feeling a bit shit seems so much worse when you have a deadline and a hell of a lot to accomplish in order to meet it. That, in fact, is probably it.

Mrs. Toad made cheesecake yesterday. Considering that she is the World’s Least Domesticated Woman (TM) this is something of a turn up for the books. Mind, it was for something work related (although I got one out of it myself – mwah hah haaa!) so this morning she was swearing at it and wondering aloud why the fuck she’d bothered when she could have just bought something. It was, after all, just for work.

I love cooking, actually, but I never bake. Mrs. Toad does, but only once in a blue moon. She baked brownies when we did the Meursault Toad Session, and they were fucking lovely, so maybe I have her to thank for getting them signed to Song, by Toad Records. But for such a pair of foodies, we don’t really bake – or do deserts at all, for some reason.

I mean, I do have a sweet tooth. I munch my way through all sorts of biscuits at work – which they provide for us in pretty much limitless quantites for free. At first this seems like a good idea, until you realise that in the fight between self-control and biscuits, the biscuits always win. And I drink enough beer, I don’t need another arch-enemy in the fight against impending obesity.

But yes, deserts are not really my thing. We tend to have cheese if we have anything after a meal. I would have sorbet, but a sorbet is supposed to be icy, not creamy, and served in a portion no larger than that which would fit inside an egg-cup, and so many places treat it like a serving of ice-cream these days I am becoming somewhat disillusioned with the stuff.

So if you can bear that sort of banal, tedious whine of distress, please take the opportunity to de-lurk this Friday and chip in with your Friday Five. The hardcore group of commenters on this site shifts over time, but it would always be nice to meet some new people. Almost a thousand people read this site every day – who are you all? Are you nice? Hopefully not especially.

I like the sound of Lovvers tonight, at Sneaky Pete’s. That, after recording the Funkcast for tomorrow. Yes, you heard me, the Funkcast. Don’t miss it!

1. Favourite kind of cake.
2. What was the last thing you baked, if anything.
3. After a meal – cheese, sorbet, or ‘desert’?
4. What don’t restaurants do like they oughta anymore?
5. Last really domesticated thing you did.

M.J. Hibbett & the Validators – Do More, Eat Less

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Riff-Raff – Sweet as Pie (Billy Bragg’s band before he was just Billy Bragg)

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Morcheeba – Women Lose Weight

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Howe Gelb – Cake Baked in the Sand

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Hey! Elastica – Eat Your Heart Out (Thanks to JC for this one)

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The Spacecast is yet another podcast dreamed up in the pub, this time between myself and Dylan, the official Song, by Toad photographer.  And again it’s one of those podcast which could have gone on for over two hours quite easily, but we don’t do that anymore, not around here, we’re disciplined these days goddammit.

So I’ve missed off about a million other suggestions and come up with a combination of songs genuinely about space, and few that use space as some sort of metaphor and then a few which just stick a few spacey words in the title.  And of course, it starts with something rather splendid… but you’ll have to listen to find out what it is.  Alright, it’s not that special.  Just mildly amusing.

Toadcast #54 – The Spacecast

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01. Me First & the Gimme Gimmes – Rocket Man (03.52)
02. David Bowie – Space Oddity (07.06)
03. Bob Geldof – Thinking Voyager 2 Type Things (15.09)
04. Inspiral Carpets – Saturn V (24.49)
05. The Only Ones – Another Girl Another Planet (28.30)
06. Shirley Bassey – In Other Words (Fly Me to the Moon) ( 32.36)
07. Yann Tiersen (Black Session w. Neil Hannon) – Life on Mars (36.04)
08. Riff-Raff – I Wanna be a Cosmonaut (41.34)
09. The Holy Modal Rounders – Mr. Spaceman (42.59)
10. Tom McRae – 2nd Law (48.29)
11. Blur – Far Out (51.46)
12. Queen – Flash Gordon Theme (57.30)

I am still so boiling with a combination of rage and digust after yesterday that I can barely think of anything fun at the moment. You know when you’re in the kind of mood where you get really irritated because your bus was on time and you might have missed it because the bastard thing has been so late so consistently for the last two months that you never for a second thought it would actually appear when it was actuall timetabled to appear. Fucking bastard bus.

I am out of money, too. The reason? Banking crisis? Credit crunch? Unusually expensive month? No, I’ve been out on the sauce too much and I’ve spent it all. And now I am angry at the world because of it.

On the plus side, Sam Amidon will be playing Edinburgh on the 10th November, which is amazingly exciting. I am trying to talk a couple of mates of mine into supporting him, but we will see. There’s also a secret show at a party next week, taking place in a gorgeous old Edinburgh venue that is being brought back to life by a couple of lovely girls. One of them, Ruth, comments on this site from time to time. The official launch party is going to be in early November, but this will be an amazing warm-up, and the chance to have a look around the place as a work in progress. So any curious Edinburgh types should email me (address on the contact page) and we should be able to get you in, provided there aren’t loads and loads of you.

Now for the fun bit: de-lurk and say hello, people! This is the time of the week where no wit, no specialist knowledge and no old in-jokes matter: everyone is encouraged to chip in. Respond to the question with five words or five paragrahs, it’s up to you, but please do feel free to respond and end the week with something trivial, silly and enjoyable. Oh, and anyone who wants to suggest next Friday’s five should email me at the usual address – it’s harder than you’d think.

1. What single item would you like to shove up the collective arse of Columbia Records?
2. Cover Columbia Records in jam and throw them to the…
3. Suggest something relaxing to help me get over my Columbia Rage.
4. How many units of alcohol tonight, and which sort?
5. Name something banal you’re going to do this weekend.

Deer Tick – Ashamed
Lincoln – Great Wall of China
Just for Tart, we have three rough old bastards:
Riff-Raff – I Wanna Be a Cosmonaut Billy Bragg before he was Billy Bragg.
The Nipple Erectors – So Pissed Off Shane MacGowan before he was in the Pogues.[
The Radiators – Television Screen Phil Chevron before he became the Pogues’ rhythm guitarist.

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

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* 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

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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)