Song, by Toad

Yes, this weekend I am a superstar DJ, or at least I get to kid myself that I am one.  Apart from full-on dancey, mixey, beat-matching stuff (and even then I have my doubts) I have never thought of DJing as much of a skill, I have to confess.  As I said in the comments section of a thread discussing this ages ago, however, if it’s possible to do it badly, which it clearly is, then it must be a skill.  Still, irrespective of not really knowing what I am doing, and the dubious merits of my presence to everyone else, someone like me is always going to enjoy forcing their music taste on other people and that is exactly what I am going to do: relax, get pickled on gin, and play a lot of tunes.

First a Cabaret Voltaire tonight as part of the excellent Oxjam Take Over Edinburgh night (which will sadly prevent me getting to see lots of bands I would like to see, but there you go).  I might play more raucous stuff at this one – the situation seems to call for it, what with Friday night drinking and so on.  The the following day I am popping down to the Bowery to play some tunes at MarchéMarché, a craft fair which will have some live music and things going on as well, and generally sounds like a lovely day.

Other than that, my friend Andrew is visiting from London this weekend, which is excellent.  I remember from living in London that it’s all too easy to expect people in the provinces to come to you, albeit for no better reason that laziness.  Mind you, if you had to make an hour’s journey just to have a pint with a mate then you’d bloody well expect other people to make an effort, I suppose, wouldn’t you.  In any case, Andrew and Natalie aren’t really like that because they’ve come to see us twice since we’ve been here, which is more than anyone else from down there.  London: about twelve million people; Scotland: about six.  Weird, when you think of it.

So here we are once again, at the end of a very talkative week on Song, by Toad.  But it’s not all about the big-mouths remember, Friday is as ever a de-lurking amnesty and a chance for the quiet people who just potter by and marvel at the madness to get involved themselves and see just how much of an embarrassment they can make of themselves.  Let’s face it, the rest of us are pretty good at that already.  And remember, Fives first, then pish, not the other way around.

1. If you were a DJ, what would be the most inappropriate song you would like to play and the most inopportune moment?
2. Song for your funeral.
3. Song you’d like to sneak onto the record player at your worst enemy’s funeral, just to ruin it.
4. Name a fantasy cover version you’d love to hear.
5. Name a fantasy duet you’d love to hear.

And here, after all the moaning I’ve done about cover songs this week, are some covers I really like, for various reasons:

The Gourds – Gin & Juice (This may be the best cover of all time.)

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Hawksley Workman – Bankrobber (Just weird, but good.)

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Heather Nova – I’m on Fire

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The Specials – Guns of Navarone

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The Dead Kennedys – Viva Las Vegas

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Okay, not so much a podcast this week, more my effort to recreate a mix tape sent to me by my Mum’s cousin when I was far too young to appreciate its brilliance.  On the plus side though, despite my failure to really understand how lucky I was, they leaked more indelibly into my consciousness because I was so young that it all went beyond ‘music I remember’ and became something more fundamental than that.

I played this tape quite literally to death.  I think it finally gave up the ghost some time when I was about thirteen or fourteen – about 1988 or 1989.  I forgot about it for some time after that, and it was only some ten years later, about the time of Napster, that it occurred to me to finally try and reassemble all these brilliant songs together again.

Well, I tried but I failed.  The biggest problem was remembering what was on the thing.  I mean, a tape I last listened to ten years ago, what are the chances?  Still, aided by perseverance and some good fortune I prety much managed to as best I could.  Some I remembered immediately, others took a while, and still others took the discovery of songs on the tape itself to trigger the memory.  Easily the best playlist of any Toadcast to date, I’m only ashamed that it’s me talking about this music instead of someone more knowledgeable.

Toadcast #45 – The Stevecast

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01. The Piranhas – Tom Hark (02.06)
02. The Clash – Bankrobber (03.57)
03. John Cooper Clarke – Gimmix (Live) (10.42)
04. The Specials – Why? (18.00)
05. The Piranhas – Boyfriend (21.54)
06. Madness – Baggy Trousers (25.35)
07. The Piranhas – Getting Beaten Up (29.00)
08. The Specials – Ghost Town (32.16)
09. The Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia (37.57)
10. The Beat – Stand Down Margaret/Whine & Grine (46.37)
11. Adam & the Ants – Antmusic (52.39)

It’s teh next Great Depreshun oh noes!  Or maybe we’re just moaning like a bunch of fucking girls.  After the doom and gloom in the papers it seems time to actually compare the current financial tantrum to the Great Depression and tell anyone who makes that comparison to fuck right off and stop being so self-indulgent.

It’s even ridiculous when compared to the rough times in the fucking eighties when Margaret Thatcher eviscerated everywhere in England outside the M25.  She destroyed the country.  Annihilating nationalised industries which were no longer economic makes sense, but completely destroying the industries that keep a town alive at the same time as you destroy the support networks provided by the state and also refusing to do anything to encourage industries to grow that might replace the thousands of jobs you have just made vanish is just slash and burn social policy.

There may be a little too much opinionated political opinion and general drunken rambling between myself and my darling girl Mrs. Toad, but erm, well, fuck it you’re own your own.  Listen if you think you can face it.  But you must understand, we were vewy bewwwy drnk.

Toadcast #44 – The Whingecast

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01. Woody Guthrie – Do Re Mi (04.20)
02. Ray’s Vast Basement – Black Cotton (12.52)
03. The Specials – Ghost Town (15.31)
04. The Clash – Career Opportunities (25.33)
05. Billy Bragg – To Have and to Have Not (36.04)
06. Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealing (36.03)
07. 4 or 5 Magicians – Forever on the Edge (39.25)
08. The Men They Couldn’t Hang – The Ghosts of Cable Street (52.29)
09. The Willard Grant Conspiracy – Evening Mass (62.44)
10. Phil Ochs – No Christmas in Kentucky (68.29)

Final score: Bottles of wine: 5.  Bottles of beer: 3.  Night night bitches.

We all have a musical mentor. Our parents always play a big role I think, and I’ve already given my pal James Strath quite enough praise on these pages already, so it’s time to mention someone else: my cousin Steve.

Steve is quite a bit older than me – about twelve years or so, I think – and when I was a toddler I couldn’t really pronounce Steve very well so I called him Beebie, which rather stuck. He was my hero when I was very young and when we moved away from England when I was five he would send out tapes to us in Vienna and Singapore to aid my folks in my embryonic musical education. Steve introduced me to The Smiths, Billy Bragg, The Clash, The Specials, The Dead Kennedys and all sort of other legends, so you can imagine why I am so grateful for his early influence.

Anyhow, before I hit my teens I remember he sent me one legendary mix tape that stands out above all others and was on an old, grey TDK cassette almost identical to the one pictured. This tape had all sorts on it – Bankrobber by The Clash, Ghost Town by The Specials, Antmusic by Adam & the Ants, and then some lesser known stuff like Stand Down Margaret by The Beat and Getting Beaten Up by The Piranhas.

It was such a brilliant tape that we inevitably wore it out completely and until the dawn of the digital age I never really thought about tracking down all the songs and resurrecting this legendary compilation. Well I have done now and, although it’s not quite the same as a playlist rather than a lovingly crafted cassette, it’s amazing to hear how incredibly well all the music has aged. So, Beebie, I salute you, and here are a couple of songs from that mythical mix.

The Beat – Stand Down Margaret
Adam & the Ants – Antmusic
The Piranhas – Boyfriend
The Specials – Why?

Yes, another one. Mwah hah haaa. Lock up the kids, Campfires & Battlefields, because the Song, by Toad musical cuss-o-rama is back on air for more blethering, swearing, slurring and first class tunery.

Actually, I don’t think this one is anything like as good as the first, if I’m honest. It’s a bit over-long at fifteen songs so I think in future I’m going to limit myself to ten or twelve at the most, not least because my shitbox of a computer starts having a panic once I’ve stuffed that many audio files into a single project. So, fifteen songs then, with a bit of an emphasis on late 80s jangly indie guitar and containing one of the most brilliant ever drunken fuck-ups about three-quarters of the way through. Beware the horrors of letting your children turn into indie kids, people! So a bit too long, and occasionally too much inconsequential chatter, but we live and learn and the next one will be better, I promise.

Toadcast #2, the 80s English Indie One

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1. My Teenage Stride – Terror Bends (01.00)
2. Honeytrap – Let’s Do Naked Dancing (03.37)
3. The Mutton Birds – The Queen’s English (09.38)
4. The Veils – The Wild Son (17.38)
5. The 63 Crayons – Devils (21.40)
6. The Smiths – I Started Something (26.05)
7. Honeytrap – Death Before the Silver Screen (31.03)
8. Lloyd Cole & the Commotions – Morning is Broken (36.14)
9. The Indelicates – New Art For the People (41.57)
10. The Indelicates – Stars (45.51)
11. MJ Hibbett & the Validators – The Lesson of The Smiths (50.32)
12. The Specials – Guns of Navarone (55.02)
13. Echo & the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon (57.20)
14. Honeytrap – Mussolini’s Son (66.06)
15. Frank Turner – Heartless Bastard Motherfucker (73.25)