Song, by Toad

Oh deary me.  A somewhat slurred podcast this week.  I recorded this on Friday night after coming home from sharing about seven pints with my boss at Proper Job, who is a thoroughly decent chap and doesn’t get out for beers as often as he used to due to an unfortunate breeding accident in which his wife had a baby, thus confining him to the house.  The lesson – gentlemen, for the love of god, don’t let them breed!

So I came back to the house and wanted to play some loud music.  I popped a bottle of beer, bought some munchies and mumbled my way through a pile of loud, rambunctious songs that I played far too loud as I sorted out the playlist, and great fun it all was too. I asked about modern rowdy music this week, and Bart kindly recommended some bands, a couple of whom I assume I may have been a little quick to dismiss in the past, so I am going to have another go at them.

Looking through the playlist, I find one thing sticking out more than anything else: how the hell can you tell a Sex Pistols demo from a Sex Pistols recording?

Toadcast #42 – Noise Please

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01. The Libertines – What a Waster (02.56)
02. The Von Bondies – Shallow Grave (08.59)
03. The Bellrays – Blues For Godzilla (12.05)
04. Ian Dury & the Blockheads – Ballad of the Sulphate Strangler (17.49)
05. The Damned – Thrill Kill (23.07)
06. Hoggboy – Left & Right (29.31)
07. Liars – Mr You’re on Fire Mr (35.33)
08. Monster Magnet – Kiss of the Scorpion (37.57)
09. The Sex Pistols – Anarchy in the UK (Demo) (43.24)
10. The Fall – Two Librans (49.47)
11. The Small Faces – All or Nothing (Live) (53.41)
12. The Detroit Cobras – Hey Sailor (59.44)

Pah, arse, minge, bah humbug.  Motherfucking technology.  Whorish inadequate fucking clockwork computers, stumbling blindly through the twentieth century like a fucking homeless card-trick con man at a magicians’ conference.

Over Christmas I tried to record a podcast with the whole family.  I asked everyone to pick a couple of songs that made them think of Christmas – not necessarily Christmas songs you understand, just songs that sprung to mind – and then I dragged them all to the computer one by one and we had a chat and introduced the songs.  It was almost a great podcast: haphazard, incoherent and yet entirely embodying that family atmosphere you get at Christmas where everyone gets jammed together in a wee house and you all have to make do with one another’s foibles as best you can.

The problem?  Well my parents’ stone age fucking computer mostly.  It just couldn’t handle the recording process, so all the conversations to introduce the various songs skipped and jumped, lurched and bleeped all over the place.  And then, every once in a while, when the useless old fucker got really confused, it just replaced five minutes of conversation with deafening static.  How fucking marvellous.

I tried to rescue the raw material on my computer at Proper Job this week, which really is a computer with some bite to match its bark, but no dice.  The files were so corrupted it just wouldn’t export anything, so there is no Song, by Toad Yulecast this year I am afraid.

I thought it would be a lovely idea, and there is a great, if somewhat silly, podcast in there somewhere, but the inadequacies of technology have foiled the best laid plans of turds and toads I’m afraid.  So, erm, here are a couple of really non-Christmassy songs from the podcast.  Fuck.

Better luck next year, wot?

Sex Pistols – God Save the Queen (Mrs. Toad’s choice.)
Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road (Dad’s choice.)
Frankie Goes to Hollywood – The Power of Love (My Bloody Mother’s choice.)

And, erm, yes.  Before we all get too indie and pleased with ourselves, my sister in law dropped this depth charge of cheese into the middle of proceedings and ruined Christmas for everyone.  Pa rup a pum fucking pum David?  I thought you were cool you muppet.
David Bowie & Bing Crosbie – Little Drummer Boy