After reading Vic Galloway’s rather nice article in today’s Herald on the rise of bands in Scotland influenced by both grunge and lo-fi slacker indie rock.

Recording for our upcoming split 12″ with Manchester bands Waiters and Sex Hands has seen pals recommend I have a good listen to The Meat Puppets too, if that’s the kind of stuff I’m into – particularly if that’s the kind of guitar sound I am enjoying at the moment.

So that’s what this podcast is loosely about.  As I explain, despite growing up at the perfect time to have been into all this stuff the first time around, I ended up being only vaguely aware of it, due to being almost entirely insulated in the bubble of the international expat community in Vienna at the time, and hence only really having MTV to introduce me to new music, beyond what I happened across by accident in the record shops around town.  Which generally wasn’t Dinosaur Jr.

Direct download: Toadcast #210 – The Slackercast

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01. Nirvana – Love Buzz (Shocking Blue cover) (00.26)
02. Feel Right – She’s No Good (08.47)
03. Shudderpulps – Time (10.46)
04. Spectral Park – Colours (16.13)
05. Dinosaur Jr. – Repulsion (24.24)
06. Shift-Static – Sky Burial (Waskerley Way remix) (30.20)
07. The Meat Puppets – Lake of Fire (40.54)
08. Sparklehorse – My Yoke is Heavy (42.57)
09. Narrow Sparrow – Spooky Head (47.40)
10. The Magnetic Fields – Andrew in Drag (52.00)
11. Pavement – Spit on a Stranger (59.40)

 This is called the Barfcast because I feel like utter, unmitigated shite this morning, after another awesome evening with Mrs. Toad getting scooshed and playing records.  I think I had Weald on at the maximum volume our amp can actually manage.  Which, for the record, is pretty fucking loud.

So now I am off to get ready for not one, but three gigs.  Firstly the Ides of Toad at Henry’s, then Lach and Viv Albertine after that, and then Flamin’ Hott Toadzzz! in Anstruther tomorrow.  When the chance to have a good sleep comes, I think I will have earned it!

Sometime this week I will figure out what the fuck to do with the 200th podcast. Or at least, I’d better!  There have been a good few calls to get Mrs. Toad back on, which is a lovely idea, but will depend very much on whether or not she can possibly be arsed, which I wouldn’t take for granted.

Direct download: Toadcast #199 – The Barfcast
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01. Bobby Fuller Four – I Fought the Law (00.26)
02. Evan Dando – $1000 Wedding (Gram Parsons) (04.41)
03. Easter – Damp Patch (07.39)
04. Preston School of Industry – So Many Ways (13.52)
05. Sparklehorse – Piano Fire (18.57)
06. The Black Tambourines – A Lot of Friends (26.31)
07. Ghost Outfit – Tuesday (30.47)
08. Loch Awe – I Will Drift into 10,000 Streams (35.33)
09. Lil Daggers – Dada Brown (42.32)
10. Rob St. John – Sargasso Sea (44.45)
11. Dan Mangan – About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help at All (55.56)

This podcast is all about our week’s record shopping in Austin, although I promise I am done going on about SXSW, so those of you bored to tears by the whole business are entirely safe, I promise.

We did buy a fair bit of vinyl while we were over there though, whether it be directly from the bands at their shows (usually whilst still pished and giddy from enjoying the gig) or on one of our particular excursions to either End of an Ear or Waterloo Records.

There is such pleasure to be had from poking through rack upon rack of vinyl, and whilst I have no real quibble with digital music, I think the sheer ritual and physical relationship it sacrifices can’t really be matched in the digital realm.

Direct download: Toadcast #167 – The Shoppingcast

01. X-Ray Eyeballs – Crystal (00.22)
02. The Magnetic Fields – All the Umbrellas in London (08.15)
03. Sparklehorse – Homecoming Queen (11.33)
04. The Coathangers – Chicken 30 (17.35)
05. Lost in the Trees – Walk Around the Lake (24.30)
06. Kurt Vile – My Sympathy (32.44)
07. Pavement – Range Life (35.15)
08. Warm Ghost – Open the Wormhole in Your Heart (43.57)
09. The Books – The Future, Wouldn’t That be Nice (50.19)
10. Deerhunter – Earthquake (58.27)

So, I may be jetlagged to all fuck, but why not get on Fresh Air Radio and pass my incoherence onto you.  Hell, what could possibly be more entertaining than listening to me almost fall asleep whilst introducing songs?

Actually, it will probably work in everyone’s favour actually, as rather than the usual bollocks talking, I will probably end up playing more songs and chattering far less in between, which will presumably be much more entertaining for those of you actually listening.

I will also be joined by Olaf Furniss of Born to be Wide, who will be introducing us to lineup for Wide Days, which takes place on the 7th April 2011 at Teviot House.

Live from 8pm UK time: click here to listen.

As per usual, feel free to chip in in the comments below, and I will be adding the playlist as we go along.

1. Pavement – Spit on a Stranger
2. Preston School of Industry – Straits of Magellan
3. Sparkelhorse – Happy Pig (Live)
4. The National – Think You Can Wait (with Sharon Van Etten)
5. Lady Lazarus – Fighting Words and Fists
6. New Animal – All I Want is Gone
7. My Teenage Stride – The Genie of New Jersey
8. Dolfish – Digitised Love Letters
9. Dolfish – I’m Proud of You Joanna
10. The Zincs – Rich Libertines
11.

Hello.  Sorry for the lack of preparation here, but Homegame rather fucked with my ability to get anything done in an orderly and organised fashion this week.

Listen Live Here

Listen to us! We’re super duper and we have the very very lovely Love. Stop.Repeat with us for some post Homegame fun….

1.  Matthew and The Atlas – Deadwood
2.  Trips and Falls – We Were Like Strangers Today
3.  Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now
4.  Love.Stop.Repeat – Song For Mary (live in session)
5.  Mimicking Birds – Cabin Fever
6.  Love.Stop.Repeat – Tail Lights (live in session)
7.  Au Revoir Simone – We Are Here
8.  Love.Stop.Repeat – Storm Song (live in session)
9.  Jonnie Common – hand-to-hand
10.  Fanfarlo – Finish Line
11.  Sparklehorse – Maria’s Little Elbows
12.  Love.Stop.Repeat – Pillow (live in session)
13.  Cold Seeds – Perfume of Mexican Birds

Welcome back to the Song, by Toad Fresh Air show, with the lovely Ruth.  This week we have Russell from Mammoeth live in session, although the poor bugger’s already done a brilliant session for us before Christmas which was unfortunately swallowed by the Fresh Air computers, which are a bit like a suspiciously special needs version of Hal most of the time.

Last week’s Session with The Last Battle can be found at the bottom of the page, in the form of downloadable session tracks, a podcast of the interview and session videos.  The sound is really nice considering there were six of them and we only have two microphones.

Live on Air 8pm-9.30pm – Listen live here.

I’ll fill in the playlist live below from 8pm onwards, so please come and say hello, shout mindless abuse or whatever else it is you internet people spend your time doing.

1. The Besnard Lakes – Chicago Train
2. Liars – Scarecrow On A Killer Slant
3. Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse – Revenge
4. Bjork – Generous Palmstroke (Live)
5. Mammoeth- Scrambled Eggs (Live in Session)
6. Dirty Projectors – Two Doves
7. Mammoeth – Trigonometry (Live in Session)
8. Berzilla Wallin – Conversation with Death (Oh Death)
9. Sparklehorse – Heart of Darkness
10. Mammoeth – I’m Glad That I Died Today (Live in Session)
11. Mammoeth – Lap Dog
12. Fleetwood Mac – Honey Hi
13. Mammoeth – Wendy House (Live in Session)
14. Blur – Out of Time
15. Joanna Newsom – ’81

Last week’s session can be found after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

I recorded this podcast marooned in the middle of France at my parents’ house, with no more musical resources than the compilation CDs I’ve been taking them constantly since I left home. It was quite weird to poke through all the old songs I’ve sent home over the years, actually.

There’s something unavoidably honest about the mixes you make for other people. Look back on the year or the decade yourself and you apply hindsight, selective memory and all sorts, but if you look at the stuff you send to other people then you don’t get the chance to quietly forget the shite because it looks a little unfashionable in hindsight.

Of course, due the benefits of hindsight and making sure I save face I am not playing you any of the shite because my ego is fragile and couldn’t stand the mockery if I told you the absolute and honest truth. So here is a version of the music I used to send to my parents, handily sanitised so I don’t make a total tit out of myself.

Right, happy Christmas, I’m off to watch Back to the Future…

Toadcast #101 – Boxing Day

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01. Sparklehorse – Eyepennies (02.48)
02. Evan Dando – Hard Drive (11.57)
03. Jay Farrar – Fool King’s Crown (14.57)
04. Lucky Jim – You Stole My Heart Away (21.31)
05. Mark Lanegan – Wedding Dress (29.39)
06. Grand National – Boner (32.34)
07. Arizona Amp & Alternator – Baby, it’s Cold Outside (41.29)
08. The Zincs – Finished in This Business (46.50)
09. Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel (54.10)
10. Tom Waits – The Part You Throw Away (61.23)

The In the Fishtank series is something I think is great, something I wish I could emulate and yet nevertheless, and rather oddly, something I rarely like the results of all that much. Dutch label Konkurrent book out a studio for a couple of days and invite two bands who happen to be around to take advantage of the time to record… well, whatever they want, really.

There are a lot of things I hugely admire about this project. Firstly, I generally do not like covers at all, but I love collaborations for some reason. Not rubbish like Monsters of Folk (that’s getting a review this week, and it’s fucking awful), but musicians getting together and genuinely experimenting together in a loose sort of manner like this. They only have two days after all.

Secondly, I love the attitude the label take – we’ll bring you together, you guys do what you want. No pressure to record pop songs, singles, skew the collaboration towards certain styles, divvy the writing up equally, or even to produce anything listenable at all. The results may not always work, but projects like this, at the edge of what we’d call pop music, are important for pushing everyone forward, be it labels, the audience or musicians themselves.

Sparklehorse are one of my favourite bands, but I don’t really know much about Fennesz. Listening to this there’s none of the fairly traditional song structure I am used to on a Sparklehorse record, so I assume a lot of that came from Fennesz, but you can certainly hear an awful lot of familiar sounds so Linkous’ involvement is clear enough.

The experimental nature of a lot of this – Shai-Hulud is, er, a little much for me – means that this is another of those collaborations which I love to hear of but at times don’t exactly like to listen to. I am, for all the readers of this site make fun of my taste for low-fi noise, still pretty much a song-based music fan and there’s a fair bit of this collaboration which is simply too lacking in traditional song structure for me to be able to really relate to it.

Nevertheless, there are a few gems, and when Fennesz fuck with Linkous’ songs, bringing all sorts of mess to the recording, then I really do enjoy it. Some of this is really, really good. It’s another In the Fishtank record I guess I would classify as something I admire and something I find interesting rather than something I necessarily would always listen to for pleasure. But then, that’s how I’d describe Joseph Conrad’s books as well, so it’s no insult.

Sparklehorse + Fennesz – Goodnight Sweetheart

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Sparklehorse + Fennesz – Shai – Hulud

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Fennesz website | Sparklehorse website | In the Fishtank website | Buy from Boomkat

Well this podcast has been recorded from my sick bed, given my current immobility.  Actually, recording the Toadcast from bed was quite pleasant, once I got over the slightly unusual surroundings.  Imagine me in my pants and scratching my balls whilst talking to you and you’ll pretty much have the ambience down pat.

I sort of intended this to be a selection of poppy little tunes from my inbox, because all the last podcasts have been so heavily themed, but instead it’s ended up a little bit on the experimental side, through no real intent of my own.  Nevertheless, if you’re happy to listen to the growl of Polvo, the monologues of George Pringle and the peculiar electro-experimentalism of Mark Linkous and Fennesz all in one podcast then, fuck it, you’re in the right place.

Toadcast #86 – The Paincast

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01. Langhorne Slim – I Love You But Goodbye (03.11)
02. Cast Spells – Glamorous Glowing (07.39)
03. The Pineapple Chunks – Art Storage (13.02)
04. The Leg – A Rat’s Health (17.04)
05. Polvo – Fractured (Like Chandeliers) (22.40)
06. Vandaveer – A Might Leviathan of Old (29.22)
07. Sparklehorse & Fennesz – If My Heart (from In the Fishtank #13) (40.13)
08. George Pringle – SW10 (45.03)
09. X Lion Tamer – Tugboat (52.40)
10. Kurt Vile – Blackberry Song (59.54)

Oh Christ I’m fucking tired.  The videos from the Broken Records gig at the Bedlam Theatre ended up just kind of  hijacking my attention and I couldn’t bring myself to stop tinkering until some time around four o’clock this morning.  Consequently wit and entertainment will be in very short supply indeed on Toad today, and if you want to be entertained then you will have to do so yourselves.  I will try my best to be funny, but the chances of it working would appear to be slim, to say the least.

We got onto the topic of food snobbery a little while back, so this is what I would like to make the subject of this week’s five – except backwards.  None of your shaved truffles marinaded in larks’ tears this time, me hearties.  It’s all about the shite.  Yup, junk food, shit food, dismal food, boring food, all to be celebrated and enjoyed and written down in lists.  Because for all I can certainly come across as a food snob, in many ways quite rightly, I am also as prone as everyone else to hangover munchies where pretty much anything goes, and sitting around the house watching movies eating a bizarre assortment of supermarket oddities simply because they all for various reasons struck my fancy at the time.

Last week’s five was a superlative success, with all sorts of black belt de-lurking going on and lots of new victims people joining in the fun, so lets see more of that please, that was splendid.  And as soon as I get a picture of a mouse foetus brain spoon there will be a new t-shirt available, that I promise!

1. Most bizarre hangover item/combo you’ve ever enjoyed.
2. Favourite pickled thing (‘me’ – ha ha, yes, very funny).
3. Nastiest junk food for which you just fucking love anyway.
4. Oddest junk food you’ve spotted in exotic parts.
5. Really bland, unimaginative meal you find kind of satisfying.

Sparklehorse – Little Fat Baby

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James Yorkston – Midnight Feast

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Ben Folds – All U Can Eat

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Morcheeba – Women Lose Weight

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Rich Amino – Chicken ‘n’ Chips

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