Excuse me for foisting a split infinitive on you this early in the morning, but that particular thought popped into my head last night, and it’s a curious one.  I was walking home from Black Bo’s in the centre of town and it was pissing down with rain (I assume 2am, half cut, walking in the rain is usually when this sort of cod-profundity pops into people’s heads) and I walked past two or three flats Mrs. Toad and I nearly moved into, before buying the place we’re in now.

I think I’ve mentioned before that this house is the longest I have ever lived anywhere in my whole life.  My previous record was three years when we lived in Singapore as kids, and three years in the same place in Glasgow, albeit split over two spells, but Mrs. Toad and I have been in the place we’re in now for as long as we’ve been married which is a little over four years now.  This, in itself, is a slightly strange thought.

Anyhow, we bought a couple of years before the housing bubble really burst, and at that time in Edinburgh most things sold through a blind bidding process in which a house was listed at an ‘Offers Over’ price, everyone interested made a bid, and the highest bidder got the house.  It was a massively frustrating process, not least because the actual Offers Over premium over and above the listed price seemed to be over twenty percent on everything we bid on, and we ended up making something like fifteen unsuccessful offers before we finally got the place we did – and even then we only got that because we whisked it out from under someone else’s nose.

Anyway, being in this house has allowed us to do so much that the other places would not, not least recording sessions in the living room which have, on a few occasions, included live drum kits.  Also, as much as we have shaped the house very much to suit our own personalities, there are many ways it has shaped the way we live in return.  The garden, the layout of the kitchen and dining room, the big, dark, North-facing living room… it’s always an oddly symbiotic relationship when you live somewhere, so it was strange to walk past two or three places we so easily (for want of another five or ten grand – so not that easily, but you get my point) might have lived.

It’s funny to walk past and look up and imagine that that might be your living room window, for example.  And funny to think how shit some of the places look to me now, in comparison to where we are – or indeed how some of them still look really inviting, too.  I would personally have chosen Leith, I think, if choosing an area – it’s scruffier and a bit more like what I am used to, I guess – but where we are is a lot swankier than that and I do wonder how that shapes things too.  Funny.

So yes, de-lurking amnesty day as per usual.  And I am going to play 5-a-sides this evening and then repair to the King’s Wark for scran.  Splendid.  Fuck the pissing rain, who cares!

1. What is your favourite antidote to torrential rain?
2. Name a good rain experience.
3. And a shit one.
4. Which place have you lived which least represented your personality?
5. Wettest you have ever been, not counting baths or swimming.

Fleetwood Mac – Farmer’s Daughter

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The Everley Brothers – Be Bop a-Lula

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Jens Lekman – Shy Phenomenon

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Taken By Trees – Watch the Waves

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David Bowie – Oh, You Pretty Things

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This is a not entirely accurately-titled podcast, in that the whoring only takes place over a couple of songs at the tail end and does not at all influence any of the rest of the playlist.

What am I talking about, you ask?  Well when I played a few trendy songs a few months back the listership of the podcast doubled over the course of a few weeks.  I noticed this back when I was a bit more rigorous about the blog in the early days: if I reviewed high-profile new releases in the week of release it generated a large spike in readership.

So I’ve dropped a couple of very hype-friendly songs into the end of this podcast to see if that actually has any influence on anything at all.  I found nice ones – ones I actually like, I mean – so don’t worry, your normally glittering listening experience will not be tarnished one bit.  But bear in mind that this week we are all the guineau pigs in a silly internet hit-whoring experiment.  Sorry.

Toadcast #125 – The Whorecast

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01. Burnt Ones – Sunset Hill (03.46)
02. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – The Mercy Seat (09.34)
03. Girls Names – You Should Know by Now (18.32)
04. Pagan Wanderer Lu – Banish Negative Thoughts (20.26)
05. The Cure – Pictures of You (28.01)
06. Echo & the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon (35.37)
07. Taken by Trees – Watch the Waves (42.12)
08. Wild Nothing – Summer Holiday (49.21)
09. The Beets – What Did I Do (53.20)
10. Silver Columns – Warm Welcome (56.17)
11. Velvet Underground – Venus in Furs (62.41)

Yes, it’s Fresh Air time again, and Ruth is back from the bring of death and ready to chatter away once more.  This week we have Russell from Mammoeth playing live in session for us.  He has an album out on Mini50 Records some time in the relatively near future, so we may try an weasel a preview out of him if we can.

We’ve also got some interesting new stuff – Eels released a new song from their forthcoming album just the other day, and we’ll be playing the phenomenal new eagleowl single as well.  We are recording a Toad Session with them in December, which is also really fucking brilliant news.

On air 7pm-8.30pm GMT – listen live here.

This week’s playlist:
1. Modest Mouse – Float On
2. Taken By Trees – Anna
3. Mammoeth – Latin Scribe (Live in Session)
4. Dr. Dog – The World May Never Know
5. Mammoeth – Scramble Eggs (Live in Session)
6. Brian Eno & David Byrne – Strange Overtones
7. Belle & Sebastian – She’s Losing It
8. Arthur Russell – Love is Overtaking Me
9. Mammoeth – Writing on the Walls (Live in Session)
10. Fleetwood Mac – Everywhere

And as always we have last week’s session below the fold – it was with the Pineapple Chunks, and we have downloadable mp3s, and interview podcast and four live videos for you to check out. (All our videos can be found on our Vimeo page.) Read the rest of this entry »

Hello You.

This Wednesday 24th December (Christmas Eve, naturellement), at or around abouts 10pm GMT (USA: 2pm PST + 3pm MST + 4pm CST + 5pm EST; Europe: 11pm CET), splashed all over the interwaves via the usual birdshit splatter pattern, for your listening consideration, will be The Waiting Room Christmas Eve 3hr Best Of 2008 Round-Up Show.

On this very (quite, in this case, literally) Eve we, one half of Drunk Country & The Woman of The House, will be dishing out thoughtfully considered Gold Guitar Pick of Excellence ‘Awards’* to the lucky Nominee(s) what is found to be the Best Of in their particular category.

It’s almost like a real end of year music award’s show but with less drinking & no Gallagher brothers.

Below, then, is the list of Categories & Nominees, 34 Artistes + 34 Songs. We have rather cruelly (although this is clearly a cynical attempt at injecting some tension into the proceedings) refrained from listing the Nominees in the last 2 Categories. Those will be revealed on the night. Mwah, I believe, Ha Ha, indeed, Ha.

So, there you go.  This took us AGES to compile from thousands of songs listened to & playlisted over the whole of this past year. *PHEW* just does not cut it. 2008 was simply awash with brilliance, surprises, genius & plain old breathtaking musicalisation. Oh, & singing.

The list, then:

Best “What The Fuck Was That?!”

1) Celebrity Chimp – Celebrity Chimp

2) The Just Joans – Hey Boy… You’re Oh So Sensitive

3) Aidan John Moffat – Cunts

4) Eagleowl – Motherfucker

5) The Theatre Fire – Coyote

6) Joe Rodger & The Velcro Quartet – Suddenly They Realised…

Best Cover Versions

1) Robin Grey – There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis (Kirsty MacColl cover)

2) Erlend Ropstad – 7 (Prince cover)

3) The Miserable Rich – Over & Over (Hot Chip cover)

4) Taken By Trees – Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns ‘n’ Roses cover)

Best Contenders for a Bond Theme

1) Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan – Come On Over (Turn Me On)

2) The Last Shadow Puppets – In My Room

3) Get Well Soon – You/Aurora/You/Seaside

4) Hour Of The Shipwreck – Unclouded Eyes

Best Emotional Blackmail

1) Porlolo – Turning On Heels

2) Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers – Beloved, We Have Expired

3) The Dø – Stay (Just A Little Bit More)

4) Meaghan Smith – 5 More Minutes

5) Ane Brun – Don’t Leave

6) Plants & Animals – Bye Bye Bye

Best Pound Down The Back of The Sofa

Nominees 1-8 = a big fat question mark

Best Song of 2008

Nominees 1-6 = a bigger, fatter question mark

The podcast will be available, as we say, sometime tomorrow around 10pm (we have very limited access where we are headed for the holidays, so bear with us).

It remains only for us to wish every one of you all the very best this Christmas holiday & to remind you that our 3hr New Year’s Eve 2008 Jukebox show will be on (just like the title reads) Wednesday 31st December, from 10pm-1am GMT. See the New Year in with us, why don’t you?  (Yah, fucking right…).

Thanks for tuning in & listening. It’s been a heck of a year.

MC & a HNY,

½DC + TWoTH

*when we say ‘Awards’, what we really mean is  we will email a picture of a solid Gold Guitar Pick of Excellence – we’re not that unhinged that we’d actually fork out for 6 solid gold plectrums. Jesus, no.