To say that I absolutely love Stephen Malkmus’ solo work would be an exaggeration, but to say that I only like it would seem to be badly understating the matter.  What’s in the middle then?  Well I’ll try and explain.

For some reason, I love listening to Stephen Malkmus’ solo records.  I was never a Pavement fan, although I haven’t looked into their stuff as much as I perhaps should have.   Somehow, though, The Jicks do it for me.  I know I said that I hate prog, and there are massive proggy whiffs emanating from all of Malkmus’ solo stuff, but for some reason I just don’t find it objectionable.  Imagine a sort of laid back West Coast rock ‘n’ roll that casually slips into those meandering prog solos I mentioned before.

What is it about this musical wanking that is somehow really enjoyable to listen to as opposed to other proggy muscial toss?  Well I genuinely couldn’t tell you – perhaps, like the more meandering moments from Wilco’s past, there’s a little more direction to it.  I couldn’t tell you exactly what I mean, but the music always seems to be moving forward, somehow.

Whilst as yet I can’t claim to love this album quite as much as Face the Truth, I’d say this is another fine bit of work from a bloke who is slowly becoming one of the mainstays of my music collection.  I don’t get the impression he’ll ever ascend to legend status, but he is right in there with the good ‘uns.

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – Baltimore
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – Gardenia

website | hype | amazon

IT disasters in Toad Hall meant that this podcast was delayed so long that I ended up posting pretty much all of it on the blog before I got to record the thing and all the news was so outdated that I had to find some more news. Fortunately we have some pre-release splendidness from Elbow, Goldfrapp and Stephen Malkmus to make up for it.

There’s also some excellent unsigned music to be had as well, from Maxwell Panther and Meursault, as well as some splendid new singles from Elle S’Appelle and Operahouse. So it’s late, but some of this stuff is really quite excellent. And then there’s LCD Soundsystem who have taken me so long to get into that I am only starting to even enjoy the album now, some eight months or so after its release. What a fuckwit.

There’s a fairly detailed explanation of what is going to be happened with Song, by Toad Records in the new year as well, and how I am going to move these podcasts onwards and upwards. Unfortunately it takes the longest bloody link in recorded history to actual explain it all, but explain it I do. There’s always the track timings listed at the side of the songs if you want to skip it altogether though! Have fun, chaps.

Toadcast #20 – The Late, Late News

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1. Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – Gardenia (01.27)
2. Elle S’Appelle – Little Flame (06.49)
3. Operahouse – Born a Boy (09.40)
4. LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends (14.54)
5. The Hollies – The Air That I Breathe (24.50)
6. Goldfrapp – Little Bird (28.51)
7. Maxwell Panther – Too Many Magazines (35.47)
8. Meursault – The Furnace (39.37)
9. The 4Qs – Pieces of a Puzzle (48.03)
10. Kid Harpoon – Riverside (50.42)
11. Dubious Ranger – Slow Day (56.18)
12. Roger McGuinn & Calexico – One More Cup of Coffee (68.29)
13. The Heavy Circles – Henri (72.45)
14. The Brute Chorus (feat. Tiggs) – The Cuckoo & the Stolen Heart (80.15)
15. Elbow – Grounds For Divorce (88.13)
16. The Cave Singers – Seeds of Night (94.51)

It’s time for some proper, quality, intellectual debate here at Song, by Toad and I have to admit that the chances of that ever issuing from the Pen of Toad are vanishingly small so I am going to do what every work-shy career weasel on the planet would do: exploit the work of others.

I would like to invite you to write a post for Song, by Toad. My brother has written a couple of excellent ones already, and I think this makes the whole thing a bit more interactive, and I’ve been trying to think of ways to get folk involved a bit more anyway. There have been some excellent discussions on this site and they often get a bit buried in the comments section so I think it would be excellent to bring it all up to the front page where it belongs.

I would like anyone interested to write a post about movie soundtracks (a few hundred words, I guess) and send it to me, along with the mp3s you have in mind, and I will publish the best ones on the site. Then we can argue about them as usual. I don’t care what you want to write – be creative. I have written two things that might apply already, which might qualify: a review of the Nick Cave/Warren Ellis soundtrack to The Proposition and a bit of a whinge about the complete lack of relation of the Spiderman 3 soundtrack to the actual movie. Anything along these sort of lines would be perfectly suitable. DC may wish to consider the soundtrack to Airport actually, now that I think about it.

So there we go, I’ll publish everyone’s stuff in about two weeks, if you’re up for it. I may even have a celebrity contribution from Ian of Broken Records if I ask nicely, as he’s been threatening to send me a soundtrack rant for a while now. And I shall, of course, have a stab myself.

So, to kick things off, two of my favourite tracks from the recent Dylan biopic I’m Not There, all involving much-adored indie heroes. Excellent – if slightly cynical – stuff.

Charlotte Gainsbourg & Calexico – Just Like a Woman
The Hold Steady – Can I Please Crawl Out Your Window
Stephen Malkmus & the Million Dollar Bashers – Maggie’s Farm

Buy the soundtrack to I’m Not There.

(Oh, and if you think this is a stupid idea and you’d far rather I stick to the writing and you to the reading, then feel free to say so.)