Song, by Toad

Whilst up in Fife at Homegame this year pretty much everyone crashed on the floor of the two cottages Mrs. Toad and I rented in Pittenweem, and this is also where we all ended up retreating to finish off the day’s drinking after the pubs of Anstruther finally got sick of all the folkies and closed their doors.

My old pal DC from the Waiting Room had intended to get a quick interview with Neil from Meursault all weekend, but they never quite managed to make it happen, unfortunately.  Consequently DC had to settle for a couple of songs performed at the end of Sunday evening in the cottage after everyone had spent the best part of the day pouring beer down their gullets.

These videos and the accompanying mp3s may be just a tiny little bit shonky, but they are rather funny and do give you something of an idea of the weekend .  For those who were there, this particular evening turned into something of a carnival of offensive and spectacularly inappropriate humour, pretty much all of which I’ve edited out.  Sorry people, but it’s best for everyone this way.  The only way to find out just how bad it got is to come next year.

The episode of the Waiting Room on which these recordings appear, and which includes the overall wrap-up of Homegame in general, can be found here.

Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt.1 – Waiting Room Session (The ‘Dylan Gives Everyone the Clap’ Version)

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Meursault – Hard On – Waiting Room Session (Charles Latham Cover)

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Well, well, well, here’s a bit of news for you all.  My – well, really, our – good friend DC will shortly be leaving us for some very swanky new shores indeed.  The Waiting Room has been commissioned by WOXY, one of the few remaining really top quality independent* radio stations.

For those of you who don’t know the details, DC had an almighty falling out with his old host, Error FM, back towards the tail end of last year and quit the station in the mother of all snits.  He started looking around for a new station, and I told him that he was welcome to put his show out on Toad until he found something a little more suitable, which is why he has been gracing our Wednesdays (usually) with his blethering for the last couple of months.  The WOXY deal has been a long time in the pipeline, and there have been a lot of sealed lips for the last little while, but it has now been formally announced at last.

It can’t be overstated how impressive a result this is.  WOXY really is a very cool station indeed.  And it also can’t be forgotted how important people like DC have been to this site over the last couple of years.  I love having readers and so on, but the people who make such active and (largely) intelligent contributions in the comments mean that Song, by Toad is able to be way better than I alone could ever make it.  So go to that WOXY thread and leave gushing comments to make him look good.  They’ll be as sick of him as we are before too long, no doubt, so it might as well at least start out as positively as possible.

Well done, mate.  You and the Lady of the House really deserve this, and I am bloody chuffed for both of you.  Best of luck to you two and to the show itself.

Twentymen – The Waiting Room

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The Magnetic Fields – Famous

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*Although they’ve just ‘joined Future Sounds‘, about whom I know absolutely nothing.  Is this a good thing?  Enlighten me, please.

Why is The Waitsing Room a Muslim? Because it’s all covered up of course! Get it, get it? Fuck me that was poor, apologies to absolutely everyone involved – shambolic rubbish. What prompted that garbaggio? Well this week me old mate DC (who has taken somewhat obscure exception to my post about Eaten by Monsters – I don’t understand it, but then he is Welsh) has done something I don’t think I would have the courage to do: tackle a whole show based on covers of Tom Waits songs.

The Waitsing Room – Cruel Variations

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Why wouldn’t I have the courage? Well to paraphrase Bill Hicks, I’m like a kid with a sore tooth with Tom Waits covers – it hurts, but I can’t quit pressing. Any cover of a Tom Waits song, I just have to hear. I’m fascinated, compulsive, I just can’t stop myself, despite the fact that almost without fail the only emotions they inspire in me are a mild frustration and immediate desire to go and listen to the original. I don’t know why, exactly, maybe he’s just too idiosyncratic, maybe my relationship with his music is just too close to pedestal-based worship, maybe I’m being a blinkered idiot, and maybe a little of all three.

What is it with cover versions anyway? So many are so incredibly poor, and yet we’re fascinated by them. Is it a traditional thing, where people used to cement communities by playing songs and trading stories and such-like, or is that just far too Oprah fucking Winfrey for everyone’s taste?

I’m downloading the show as I type this, and will be playing it all afternoon at work, to take my mind off the tedious grind of Proper Job and I am sure that by this time tomorrow the Tom Waits score on my last.fm count-o-meter will have jumped by another hundred or so. So toddle on over to The Waiting Room and download this week’s episode of his show, which airs live on Error FM on Wednesdays at 10pm, mostly, or nine sometimes.

A.A. Bondy – Hang Down Your Head (Live)
The Wedding Present – Red Shoes by the Drug Store

Despite the fact that Akismet has unilaterally decided to filter all DC’s comments to the spam dump, we are nevertheless looking forward to the next Waiting Room here at Toad Hall.

Mrs. Toad and I featured a truly hilarious Gourds cover of Snoop Dogg’s Gin & Juice when we participated in the recent Drunk Covers show. It’s one of our favourites but I’ve never explored The Gourds any further, perhaps because the amusement of that cover version gave me the impression they were something of a novelty act. Well they’re not, apparently, and tonight DC is dedicating a whole show to them on Error FM because he is more than just a little bit of a fan it seems.

The Gourds – Gin & Juice

Most interestingly, The Gourds have recorded all sorts of little bits of silliness and some new ditties for the show itself, to go alongside DC’s usual over-excited rambling. If, like me, you know nothing about this band I can’t think of a better way to discover them.

Tonight, 9pm-Midnight (BST) on Error FM.

And here are a couple of Gourds tracks to get you in the mood.

The Gourds – All the Labor
The Gourds – I Come Up

Well I didn’t appear in this particular episode of The Waiting Room, and somewhat amazingly the whole thing didn’t go instantly to the dogs, as you might have imagined.

The Waiting Room – Wednesday 30th April 2008

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In fact, DC has sent me a couple of excellent tracks to use in my traditional plug for the show seeing as I can’t do my usual ‘I nearly chose these’ thing.

The first is by a group called Heathers who I’ve never heard of at all, but the real highlight for me was the Fleet Foxes song.  There’s been a fair bit of blog whispering about Fleet Foxes for quite a while now, and I’ve never quite got round to tracking them down and having a listen.  This, it seems, was a mistake.  Just listen below – what a fine song indeed.

Fleet Foxes – Tiger Mountain Peasant Song
Heathers – Bloodpact

Yes, my darling Mrs. Toad, the acid-tongued misanthropic centre of my world, has put in a bit of an appearance on The Waiting Room this week. Needless to say we consequently had far too much fun, talked far too much and DC had to take the shears to our segment to make the whole thing fit. No discipline, these new UGC stars, honestly. It’s all covers in this week’s episode, and we put that splendid Richard Godwin in there, some William Shatner and a hillbilly reworking of Snoop Dogg’s Gin & Juice. Splendid!

The Waiting Room – Drunk Covers – Wednesday 23rd April 2008

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Anyhow, as there was no time to throw in half the covers I know, I thought I’d post a couple here just for fun. Generally I refuse to post covers on this site because, for all many people do it with total sincerity, there is a distinct whiff of hit-whoring about it – sort of like constantly posting fucking Hot Chip and Radiohead remixes. Anyhow, time for a bit of an exception because I have three very good Divine Comedy covers, to go with the one we played in the show itself. I know The Divine Comedy have been both piss-poor and hopelessly unfashionable for quite some time now, but their early stuff was brilliant, and even now ol’ Mr. Hannon still produces the odd gem from time to time.

The Divine Comedy – Famous (The Magnetic Fields)
The Divine Comedy – Oh Yeah (Bryan Ferry)
The Divine Comedy – Radioactivty (Kraftwerk)

My weekly appearance on The Waiting Room included a very scant intro to The Fence Collective this week, and was entirely overshadowed by DC’s lovely missus, and also his interview and live recordings with Peter & the Wolf.  In fact, my bit on Fence was by necessity so cursory and superficial that I may actually do my whole podcast on them this weekend, and give a full review of the weekend at Homegame in the process.  Yes, why not, let’s do that.

There’s a bit of a competition going on as well, because apparently there is a unique, hand-drawn copy of Peter & the Wolf’s new CD The Ivory Palms up for grabs. To enter all you have to do is listen to the podcast, answer the following question: What’s the name of the war photographer Red Hunter (ie the P&tW chappie) cites as his major influence? and email DC at thewaitingroom AT btinternet DOT com by Sunday 13th April.

The Waiting Room, Wednesday 9th April 2008

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As a further act of generosity DC has emailed me a couple of technically almost* flawless live recordings from that very night to share with all you lovely people:

Peter & the Wolf – My Gray Overcoat
Peter & the Wolf – Anna Maria

Also, I found this song which seemed incredibly appropriate – DC, you’re welcome mate!
The Twentymen – The Waiting Room

And as a salute to DC’s frankly silly assertion that Barack Obama is in fact a Muslim, I have a couple of other songs that seemed, erm, well about as appropriate as anything on this farce of a website:
The Muslims – Extinction
The Muslims – Right & Wrong

*By almost, he means may contain all sorts of pops and crackles and things like that.

Me? Hip-hop?  A genre I know absolutely nothing about, and can barely tolerate most of the time?  Well yes, actually, this week on The Waiting Room I have a go at hip-hop.  I fucking hate hip-hop with a passion for the most part, but this is basically due to the fact that it is a genre I don’t understand and know very little about.

Imagine if all you knew of indie was Coldplay, Kasabian and dickheaded antics of Pete Doherty – you’d dismiss it as empty cock-waving by middle class white cunts, wouldn’t you?  Well all I really know of hip-hop is the exact equivalent – the awful, awful commercial side of the industry with bitches, hoes and that peculiar form of homophobia that is just a bit too passionate to be entirely above suspicion.  Anyone who looks at the modern commercial hip-hop industry and doesn’t find it to be pathetic, contemptible and utterly disgusting is a cunt, simple as that.  It’s grotesque, infantile and insulting to everyone involved.

That said, the original rap scene from which hip-hop evolved was a serious underground movement, full of intelligence and subversion.  And a movement can’t be that big without having a significant number of really thoughtful, artistically inclined bands in there somewhere, so I know it is just my ignorance of the scene that keeps me from finding them.  There are a couple of things in my library that are vaguely that way inclined and so I thought I’d throw them into The Waiting Room this week.  Change being as good as a rest and all that.

So have a listen to this week’s Waiting Room, and see how DC and that Fisk character react to my choices:

The Waiting Room, Wednesday 26th March 2008

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And here are a couple of songs I didn’t put into my selection this week, but could have:
Roots Manuva – Witness
Jazzy Jeff – For Da Love Of Da Game

Oh, and DC has discovered the wonderful Art Pedro.  Huzzah!  Listen to this and then go and buy his albums from Fence Records.
Art Pedro – You’re a Twat

I’ve invaded The Waiting Room, DC’s show on Error FM, once again, with familiarly disastrous results.  It’s all quite British folky this week.  This is a movement I’m really, really enjoying at the moment, and have been for some time, so I thought I’d go all lovely this week in preparation for a bit of a departure next.  He’s even thrown on some of my favourite local bands, The Byrons and Down the Tiny Steps, as a peace offering for hating Billy Bragg.  It’s too late, DC mate, I’m going to hate you forever now!

So, if you’d like to hear me put my best foot forward, only to have it ungratefully stamped upon by that horrible Welshman and his drunken sidekick-du-jour, then head over here and have a listen.  Alternatively, listen here:

The Waiting Room, with English Folk From the Toad[audio http://crack.podbean.com/medias/web/aHR0cDovL21lZGlhMS5wb2RiZWFuLmNvbS8xOTkzL3UvMTkwMzA4Lm1wMw/190308.mp3]

Actually, I liked the one with The Woman of the House last week.  She was far kinder about my choices, mate, so can she come back?  And isn’t it annoying to be upstaged by your wench on your own turf?  Anyone who introduces herself with lines like: “Who do I have to fuck around here to get a cup of tea?” is alright by me.

Here are some songs I could have picked for this episode, but didn’t:

Jake Flowers – Take Me Home
Art Pedro – Hangover Blues

I think it’s fair to say that some of my selections didn’t go down especially well on this week’s Waiting Room. By which I mean they whinged like neglected stepchildren. Don’t like Billy Bragg, for fuck’s sake!

The Waiting Room, 5th March 2008

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This week I chose a couple of tracks by Honeytrap and The Sequins, two, as you know, of my favourite groups, before throwing in a little Billy Bragg and Mark Lanegan. The first two groups come from one of my favourite labels in the country, Tough Love Records, and the second two are old legends with new albums approaching.

Lanegan is releasing one with long-time collaborator Greg Dulli under the name of the Gutter Twins, and if I’m honest with you, I don’t think it’s very good. I love Lanegan’s solo work and his voice in particular – it’s like a simmering volcano – but a lot of his collaborative work leaves me cold.

Billy Bragg on the other hand is a bona fide legend. I certainly can understand why people take against him, and I will also admit that some of his recent stuff has been pretty weak, but on his game there’s no better lyricist and no better guitarist.

Lyrically, there’s no argument – his early work contained at least one line per song that every one of us who deals in words wishes he could have written. He may be direct and overtly political, which isn’t terribly cool nowadays, but in terms of his ability to turn everyday conversation into a single line that sums up a situation with wit and sympathy, there may actually be no-one better in all of music.

Musically, it’s a little different. DC and that Fisk character lay into his guitar playing, which is pretty distinctive. But it is also brilliant: emotive, evocative and raw. Now there may be questions of technical skill that I don’t have the knowledge to answer, but in terms of the whole point of music – making something both easy on the ear and emotionally communicative – he, at his height, was one of the best guitarists around.

I won’t deny that his approach has softened a lot in recent years, but back at his best there aren’t many people who could put so much anguish, so much sadness or, when needed, so much anger into guitar work that was actually quite basic.

He never played a lot of notes, he often wrote songs that were too high for his voice to actually reach, and nothing he did ever seemed that complicated, but ultimately Billy Bragg is one of deftest, most gifted songwriters we’ve had in this country.

So needless to say I was quite perturbed to hear DC and Fisk dishing out such disapproval for one of my all time favourite artists. And then I found out the following things. DC likes Prince and Mr. Fisk has yet to realise that the Happy fucking Mondays were a talentless shower of sub-literate pikeys. And then I felt okay about it after all…

It’s not with unbridled enthusiasm that I greet his new album though. England, Half English had redeeming features, but was pretty poor on the whole. William Bloke was similar, although it had a little more going for it. The one thing that gives me hope is the superb single he released in the meantime under the name of Johnny Clash, called The Old Clash Fan Fight Song. Old school Bragg, and offering a real glimmer of hope that this album might just be alright after all. It’s another album recorded with The Blokes, who I can quite frankly do without, but if you order early you get a bonus CD of all the album songs recorded by Billy by himself. Brilliant.

Billy Bragg – Old Clash Fan Fight Song
Billy Bragg – The Myth of Trust
Billy Bragg – St. Swithin’s Day