This week’s Toadcast has no theme at all because, erm… well, frankly they’re difficult to come up with and therefore seem just a tiny little bit like hard work.  So given I’m podcasting once a week now, I am not going to be arsed coming up with some immaculately scripted (ah ha haaa!) arrangement once every seven days, so this week it’s really just a brief tour of inbox fodder.

This weekend there are loads of good things happening, not least a performance by Mumford & Sons at the Voodoo Rooms, and a first look for me at what could potentially become an excellent new venue in Edinburgh.  That’s a secret though, so no more details than that.

So, for now enjoy the Soulcast, so named for no better reason than that the first couple of songs have the word soul in the title.  Piss-poor excuse really, isn’t it.

Toadcast #41 – The Soulcast

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01. Nat Johnson – Dirty Rotten Soul (02.39)
02. Maxwell Panther – Lost Soul on a Roll (06.21)
03. Deerhoof – Chandelier Searchlight (11.40)
04. Aberfeldy – Claire (15.01)
05. Hot Lava – Blue Dragon (21.11)
06. Deathbot – The Cold Wind Revival (23.20)
07. Lambchop – Sharing a Gibson With Martin Luther King Jr. (28.41)
08. Wilco – Company in My Back (35.45)
09. Woodenbox – Twisted Mile (39.17)
10. Pale Young Gentlemen – There is a Place (46.33)
11. Japanese Motors – Spendin’ Days (54.52)

No, that doesn’t mean anything, don’t ask. I just think German is a language that excels when you start to insert random nonsense into it, especially if you start saying it all in a really loud, strident voice. “Jawohl! Der is some Schnitzeknodel in mein Uberschittengraben.” Just as an example.

On the subject of German, I remember two conversations with ladies about the German language which make me laugh, and I thought I might share them.

Firstly, when I was in my first year at Glasgow School of Art I remember seducing a girl at a party with my ability to speak German. Honestly. German. It was exactly in the style of Otto from A Fish Called Wanda – I could say more or less anything – niederhopfengruber, for example – and she’d act like I’d just said the sexiest thing in the world. Hilarious, slightly surreal, and so very, very first year of uni, too.

Secondly, the opposite. I was at a party with a girl up here a couple of years ago who actually is (ancestrally) German, and I mentioned the fact that, given I speak English, German and a little Dutch, I seem to speak only the ugly-sounding languages in Europe, apart from a little bit of piss-poor French. Anyhow, it appears I offended her sense of national pride because we embarked on this hour long ding-dong about whether or not German was a beautiful-sounding language, which culminated in her telling me that I just didn’t understand the German language like she did. Needless to say, I let forth I tirade of abuse at this, demanding how she had the right to tell me she understood a language better than I did when she didn’t even speak it – all in German of course – at which point things went a little quiet. Ah, I’m really popular at parties, me.

So, I think the Sarah Palin post may have tempted a great many lurkers out of the woodwork, but as per usual the Five on Friday post (as pinched from GUT) is the best and easiest way for new commenters to say hello. You don’t have to be witty or verbose, just play along with everyone else if you fancy.

1. Good example of a group singing in a language other than their native tongue.
2. Really crap example of the above.
3. Favourite foreign band who write in their own language – i.e. not English.
4. Favourite foreign word you just like the sound of.
5. Favourite country name.

Luna – Slow Song
The Wedding Present – Pourquoi Est Tu Devenue Si Raisonnable
Supergrass – She’s So Loose
Talking Heads – Radio Head
Wilco – She’s a Jar

One of the almighty perils of mp3 blogging (it’s a perilous business I tell you – fraught with danger…. now where was I? Ah yes, forgot to even close my brackets didn’t I. What a muppet… here you go:) So erm, anyway, one of the side-effects of mp3 blogging is that you get so utterly swamped with new music, by zealous promoters, eager bands and your own enthusiasm, that it can be hard to actually remember to listen to old stuff. Not so much the old classics, just the really excellent albums from about two or three years ago which you still love, but which are neither new enough to warrant urgent attention nor legendary enough to have indelibly permeated into your consciousness.

So today I am going to have a little look at my first ever internet Best Of list. I started regularly writing about music back in 2004, long before I even knew what blogs were, and 2004 was my first ever Official List. That was the year Wilco released their masterpiece A Ghost is Born, which was narrowly pipped to the top spot by Nick Cave’s equally stupendous double album The Lyre of Orpheus and Abbatoir Blues. Even Tom Waits released one that year. Real Gone may not have captured me at the time, but it’s one that has a surprising number of excellent songs on it when I take the time to look back.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Cannibal’s Hymn
Wilco – The Late Greats
Tom Waits – Trampled Rose

Looking back at the reviews themselves from that year, I am actually surprised by how steadfast my opinions have been. I can’t say I seriously disagree with anything much I said about those 2004 releases. The Walkmen is still a storming album of fuzzy, guitar and chiming piano-driven brilliance. That Killers album is still an indie-pop classic which, despite whatever failings they might have, caught the mood of the nation perfectly that Summer. And The Dears were one of the first in a new wave of superb Canadian music who, in the track I have chosen, married indie with cabaret, somewhat oddly.

Marianne Faithfull released a record in 2004 too. It wasn’t great, largely because most of it was penned by the dismal PJ Harvey, but Nick Cave wrote a couple of decent tracks for her. The best of the lot though was Last Song, which was written by Damon Albarn who himself recorded a version for last year’s The Good, the Bad & the Queen record. I think I might prefer Marianne’s version, actually. So yes, that’s how I started. It all shifted over to Song, by Toad a year and a bit ago, then I migrated to WordPress in about May and here we are. Let no more albums get lost in the avalanche of newness! I sometimes need to remind myself that I am a fan, not a machine.

The Walkmen – Little House of Savages
The Dears – The Death of All the Romance
Marianne Faithfull – Last Song

Oh you utter bunch of disloyal bastards.

Honestly, I toil away hour after hour for you fuckers, I risk my job, my sanity, by bank balance, my sleep and my marriage to bring you absolutely anything and everything musical I can possibly think of – anything to enrich your drab and pointless little lives with the illuminating joy of a beautiful tune.

I read about it, I listen to it, I accumulate it, I think about it, I track it down, I hoard it, I share it and I love it. And with a gossamer wrapping of that deepest of loves and drop of purest ambrosia (no, not the custard) I pass it on to you, my treacherous band of musical turncoats.

By necessity and due to homelessness there is no internettery in the current Toad residence, and had there been I can promise I would have put a stop to this weekend’s skulduggery post haste. What do I find on returning to work this morning and happily signing in to check the comments and visits of the little brood of musical internet chicks I have so lovingly nurtured through the highs and lows these last years? I find that you have cruelly and wantonly abandoned me for another more fair and who suits your tastes better, that’s what. And who is this harlot for whom you have forsaken your steadfast and devoted Toad? None other than my own erstwhile sweetheart (and now bitter rival) the scurrilous and deceitful Mrs. Toad!

That’s the last bloody time I let her near this blog, it really is. Bastards.

British Sea Power – Remember Me
Shout Out Louds – Oh, Sweetheart
Wilco – I’m the Man Who Loves You
Mark Mulcahy – The Way She Really Is
Buffalo Tom – Does This Mean You’re Not My Friend?

(Not a bad wee podcast, that one, I thought Told you all she was a fox)

How often do you hear some self-obsessed, teeth-grindingly vain F-List sub-celebrity come out with shit like ‘Oh I totally have an addictive personality.’ and have to restrain yourself from throwing the remains of your kebab around the place and swearing at the television screen?

Yes, sweetheart, we’re all prone to addictions and obsessions of one form or another it doesn’t make you special, now fuck right off.  Bloggers, one might suggest for example, are more than just a little addicted to music.  Or so I would have thought, but it turns out this is woefully over-estimating our love for all things musical.  Because yesterday The Register reported on a story about a chap from Sweden who has actually been awarded disability benefit and given special permission to play loud music at work due to being diagnosed with an addiction to heavy metal.

Wow.  Roger Tullgren I bow to your superior levels of fetishistic infatuation.  I am not a fan, I am a mere neophyte – you, Roger Tullgren, are a fan!

In fact, he may be my new hero – employer forced to let him listen to whatever he wants, money and time off to go to gigs, legally enshrined protection for his music obsession – the man’s a legend!

Yukon – Sweden  Look these guys up here.  They’re a bit half-arsed, but really really good.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Heavy Metal
Thomas Truax -  Audio Addiction
Wilco – Heavy Metal Drummer (Live)
Counting Crows – Mercury (Live on VH1 Storytellers)

Between Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, A Ghost is Born and their amazing work with Billy Bragg on the Woody Guthrie material I can safely say that Wilco are one of my favourite bands. So quite where this appalling rubbish came from is an utter fucking mystery.

Basically this album is an utterly rotten, stodgy morass of light prog. It’s actually embarrassing to have on the stereo. All of the lightness of touch from Ghost has completely vanished and in its place is a sort of Thin Lizzy plays the legends of dadrock at a nice gentle pace so as not to offend the vicar.

Now, Wilco aren’t always the most immediately accessible of bands, so if I change my mind on this I promise to come back and write a big retraction and humble apology. I sincerely doubt it though. What the fuck has happened to them I have no idea because honestly, this really is a dreadful album. Straight. In. The. Bin.

Wilco – Either Way
Wilco – What Light

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