That there finely crafted piece of graphic art is the flyer for the Toad Night happening on Sunday at Sneaky’s. Beauticious, isn’t it – took me almost fifteen minutes. It should be a fun night though, particularly if you get lubricated at the Shipping Forecast Garden Party at the Pear Tree beforehand.
I was a guest DJ at Born to Be Wide last night, which was rather fun. My assignment was to play about half an hour of unsigned Edinburgh bands, so it was a fine opportunity to make a club crowd listen to tunes by the likes of The Leg, Enfant Bastard, the Pineapple Chunks and eagleowl. I can’t imagine there are many clubs where that sort of stuff is on the playlist, so that made me smile a little on the inside – particularly when I was approached by someone during eagleowl, demanding to know who was playing this wonderful song. Score one for the wol.
The other comedy about last night was the lineup of guest DJs. Born to Be Wide is a good night anyway, but last night Derek and Olaf truly excelled, getting porn director Ben Dover, actor and former Fire Engines singer Tam Dean Burn, and Orange Juice/Josef K/Low Miffs guitar hero Malcolm Ross to do sets at various points during the evening. So yes: me, Ben Dover, Tam Dean Burn and Malcolm Ross. I might as well retire now.
To make matters even more surreal, Malcolm did his Postcard Records set after my Unsigned Edinburgh one, and didn’t know how to use the DJ stuff, so I had to show him. Talk about the blind leading the bloody blind – me with my almighty two sets of DJ experience having to show someone else how to use the equipment. In future, of course, I am going to simply refer to this incident as ‘that time I taught Malcolm Ross to DJ’. If any of you let slip the fact that this is a gross exaggeration to the point of pure fabrication, then I’ll kill you.
“What did you do last night Toad?”
“Oh the usual… played some tunes, had a couple of gins, taught Malcolm Ross how to DJ. You get up to much?”
Not sure where I was going with that, actually. Apart from trying explain the fact that it’s Friday and once again I have a massive hangover. If only the day was 30 hours long I could sleep this shit off quite happily – curse you, Earth, and your excessively hasty axial rotation! The only real consolation is that Mrs. Toad went on one of those corporate circle jerk team building buzzword bingo tossathons last night, staggered in so pished she didn’t even turn out the light in the bedroom and is now probably feeling far worse than I am.
Although knowing her, she’s probably curled up on the floor of the disabled loo having a crafty nap, the cheeky little minx.
1. Best ritual to get you to sleep.
2. Best tip for getting ready for work and out of the house fast with a stinking hangover.
3. Best hangover treat.
4. Best comfort food your mum made.
5. Best drunken debacle which happened to someone else and was hence very amusing instead of mortifying.
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Josef K – Sorry For Laughing (Vinyl Version)
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Fire Engines – Get Up and Use Me
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The Shop Assistants – It’s Up to You
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Parenthetical Girls – A Song For Ellie Greenwich (Who is dead. Ruth from the Bowery and I recorded a podcast yesterday, which will go up next Saturday, which goes into this in much more detail, but for now just look her up and marvel at quite how many truly legendary songs the woman wrote. I genuinely had no idea.)
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I’ve been itching to do this podcast for a while, but only now got my arse in gear to do it: record a podcast straight from vinyl. It’s a bit of a nuisance, because I have to switch back and forth from the mic, for the chatty bits, to the USB input for the records… oh never mind, you don’t care about my logistical hassles do you.
