The Toadcast - the weekly podcast from Song, by Toad

I honestly thought I was done with politics.  Watching us commit genocide in Iraq despite the protests across the entire country, and then watching the Lib Dems spinelessly capitulate to the rapacious, craven Tory lizards once they got their little sniff of power just sickened me.

Right, I thought, I am done with this shit, it is just a gigantic waste of everyone's time.

However, the Tories haven't just been shit, they've been a repellent disgrace, governing with a sort of vindictive, cackling glee generally reserved for people in plastic armour in the Star Wars movies.  Between that and the SNP deciding that forcing all minor cultural events to require a financially prohibitive and bureaucratically obstructive license, I find my simmering rage for politics to be reinvigorated.  There's no fucking point voting whatsoever, but that doesn't mean you can't get stuck the fuck into these cunts.

01. Aidan John Moffat - Dear Donald (00.25)
02. Speck & the Specktones - Fruitcakes (01.37)
03. Galaxie 500 - Tugboat (09.57)
04. Big Deal - Chair (14.02)
05. Youthfall - Goodbye Horses (Q Lazzarus Cover) (25.09)
06. Barna Howard - Horizons Fade (32.00)
07. New Fabian Society - Lost in Berlin (49.21)
08. Fry & Laurie - Police Privatisation (55.32)
09. Hookworms - Medicine Cabinet (58.33)
10. Barton Carroll - Those Days Are Gone, and My Heart is Breaking (71.20)
11. Beat Happening - Indian Summer (79.36)
12. Lana Del Duck (82.37)

Welcome to Toadcast number 215.  This is called the Kingcast because I have been on a bit of run promoting gigs recently, with three in the last eight days or so.  Given almost none of my friends or music associates came to these gigs and that the list of attending guests on the Facebook event pages made for pretty grisly reading, I was grimly expecting the gigs to be absolutely awful - barely attended wastelands of funlessness - but every single one was brilliant.

The people who came were almost all people I didn't know, with a few welcome exceptions, and the gigs themselves were absolutely immense fun.  There was probably more dancing this weekend that at anything Toad-related in history.  

So today I have been looking through the forthcoming gigs and getting my ticket links live and stuff like that, and realising that we have some absolute stonkers coming up.  So with a bit of luck, and rather depending on whereabouts in the world you're listening from, I might well see you there.Dancing!  At a Toad gig!  I know!

01. Withered Hand - Heart Heart (00.26)
02. Willy Mason - Restless Fugitive (07.57)
03. Robert George Saull - One Sugar Day (16.47)
04. Narrow Sparrow - Joe Meeks Dream (22.59)
05. The Dirty Three - Sometimes I Forget You've Gone (28.41)
06. Jad Fair, Hifiklub & KPT Michigan (32.20)
07. Jonnie Common - I'll Be Back (38.17)
08. Shudderpulps - Time (45.10)
09. Honeyblood - No Spare Key (48.33)
10. The Soft Walls - Black Cat (54.06)

Video: Vimeo - YouTube
Photos: Flickr
Audio: zip download - right click, save as

I am rather embarrassed to confess that we recorded this session absolutely bloody ages ago. First the Festival, then the mixes, then intervening sessions, and finally just the sheer amount of time these take to edit managed to delay things. But now, finally, at long, long last here it is: the Kid Canaveral Toad Session.

This was another relatively messy, drunken one I'm afraid. We were nice though - we made them dinner and supplied them with a beverage or several, and it happened to be a nice day too, so we were even able to sit out in the garden for a bit.

The team this time around consisted of Neil from Meursault, who recorded the session (and I hope I've not offended him with my mixes!), Fiona and Dylan who took the photos, and Dylan also did a lot of the video work as well. And cooked. Whereas I just sat around, drank beer and swore at people mostly.

01. Kid Canaveral - And Another Thing! (Toad Session) (06.44)
02. The Shivers - Irrational Love (14.45)
03. Sleeper - What Do I Do Now? (18.33)
04. Kid Canaveral - Homerun and a Vow (Toad Session) (31.46)
05. Washington Irving - SiSi (38.47)
06. Popup - A Year in a Comprehensive (43.16)
07. Kid Canaveral - You Only Went Out to Get Drunk Last Night (Toad Session) (52.57)
08. Built to Spill - Carry the Zero (59.42)
09. Hall & Oates - Maneater (65.13) 10. Kid Canaveral - Her Hair Hangs Down (Toad Session) (78.02)

Don't worry, this podcast really isn't about football.  I might have been tempted, but in all honesty, but I can't really think of all that many good songs about football and if I am being truthful with myself I can't imagine you lot really enjoying a podcast about football all that much.

More to the point, I am back playing football myself now, after something like two years out with back problems.  Two years really is a long time to miss out on something you love doing, and even more so when you're past your mid-thirties and every year you miss is one of the last you'll get the chance to play at all.

So, in amongst the new songs and all the usual things you would expect from a Toadcast (i.e. mostly swearing) there are a couple of songs which represent my reaction to getting back to playing football again, and my reaction to some of the more newsworthy moments of the footballing week as well.

01. Morris Major - Seymour Grove (00.17)
02. Chris Devotion and the Expectations - A Modest Refusal (07.27)
03. Billy Bragg - A Lover Sings (20.13)
04. Bob Dylan - Oxford Town (24.07)
05. PAWS - Bainz (30.17)
06. Coast Jumper - Lawless (37.49)
07. That Ghost - Morning Now (42.09)
08. Now Wakes the Sea - Propranolol (50.31)
09. Smackvan - 4am (54.19)
10. Mark Lanegan Band - Bleeding Muddy Water (64.01)

Ah, Tartan Shortbread, that most wonderful of sardonic Scottish put-downs. 

For those unfamiliar with the term, this is the offhand dismissal used to describe the sort of mawkish, clichéd tourist tat which masquerades as Scottish heritage and culture for those with woefully little imagination.  Alternatively, I suppose you could say that Tartan Shortbread is a blanket term for Scottish heritage as a sort of motorway service station take on national identity.

Anyhow, given I work very much at the coalface of the DIY music world in Scotland, I find that I have been oddly unsupportive of a large number of Scottish who have emerged in the last couple of years to considerable enthusiasm from the Scottish music press, both professional and amateur.

For some reason, the recent bands who have shown some likelihood of cracking an audience wider than the relatively narrow confines of the five million or so people in Scotland itself just haven't appealed to me, with a few notable exceptions.  However, sitting down to assemble the playlist for this week I noticed that there were something like seven of the ten songs which happened to be by Scottish bands.  Oh, I thought to myself, I appear to be Scottish again.  How nice.

01. Django Django - Default (00.17)
02. Andrew Bird - Eyeoneye (08.41)
03. Lower Dens - Brains (12.47)
04. Randolph's Leap - Bile (26.17)
05. Clean George IV - XP Avenue (32.51)
06. Dumb Instrument - Reverse the Hearse (35.57)
07. The Occasional Flickers - When the Sky Looks so Grey (41.11)
08. R.M. Hubbert - Sunbeam Melt the Hour (with Marion Kenny & Hanna Tuulikki) (50.20)
09. The Twilight Sad - Don't Move (55.49)
10. Brown Brogues - Anyone But You (62.04)

Video: Vimeo - YouTube
Photos: Flickr
Audio: zip download: right-click, save as

This session was recorded in Glasgow before Josh's performance at Oran Mor on 22nd November last year. The first attempt to record a session with him was at Stereo, but recording in a venue really didn't work out, so this time we decided to take up the kind offer of Phil from PAWS to record it in his bedroom instead.

Again we were a little pressed for time, because Josh had a marathon day, recording a session with the BBC and conducting an interview before doing our session, and then having the gig to play afterwards. So we only recorded three songs, and for simplicity's sake we did the interview in one chunk and I have just chopped bits of it into the podcast where appropriate. Given the incredibly punishing schedule he tends to have I really do appreciate Josh taking the time to re-record this session, as well as the infallibly good humour and cooperative nature showed by both himself and Peter and Tom, his management team. It may have been tight to get done, but this is a really, really nice session if you ask me.

As usual, the videos can all be found on our Vimeo and YouTube pages and the photos, which were jointly taken by Stephanie Gibson and Dylan Matthews, are collected on our Flickr page. The session mp3s can be downloaded below, or in a zip file here, the session podcast can be played or downloaded below too, and the tracklisting for the podcast can be found at the bottom of the page. Player

01. Josh T. Pearson - Woman When I've Raised Hell (Toad Session) (02.54)
02. Lift to Experience - To Guard and to Guide You (12.30)
03. Perfume Genius - All Waters (19.06)
04. Josh T. Pearson - Country Dumb (Toad Session) (25.26)
05. The Dirty Three - Some Summers They Drop Like Flys (31.43)
06. Papa M - The Lass of Roch Royal (38.17)
07. Judy Collins - Wild Mountain Thyme (53.03)
08. Howe Gelb - Can't Help Falling in Love (55.37)
09. Josh T. Pearson - Covers Medley (Toad Session) (61.54)

After reading Vic Galloway's rather nice article in today's Herald on the rise of bands in Scotland influenced by both grunge and lo-fi slacker indie rock.

Recording for our upcoming split 12" with Manchester bands Waiters and Sex Hands has seen pals recommend I have a good listen to The Meat Puppets too, if that's the kind of stuff I'm into - particularly if that's the kind of guitar sound I am enjoying at the moment.

So that's what this podcast is loosely about.  As I explain, despite growing up at the perfect time to have been into all this stuff the first time around, I ended up being only vaguely aware of it, due to being almost entirely insulated in the bubble of the international expat community in Vienna at the time, and hence only really having MTV to introduce me to new music, beyond what I happened across by accident in the record shops around town.  Which generally wasn't Dinosaur Jr.

01. Nirvana - Love Buzz (Shocking Blue cover) (00.26)
02. Feel Right - She's No Good (08.47)
03. Shudderpulps - Time (10.46)
04. Spectral Park - Colours (16.13)
05. Dinosaur Jr. - Repulsion (24.24)
06. Shift-Static - Sky Burial (Waskerley Way remix) (30.20)
07. The Meat Puppets - Lake of Fire (40.54)
08. Sparklehorse - My Yoke is Heavy (42.57)
09. Narrow Sparrow - Spooky Head (47.40)
10. The Magnetic Fields - Andrew in Drag (52.00)
11. Pavement - Spit on a Stranger (59.40)

The Fishcast is so called because Dolfinz are here recording for our split 12", and erm, well dolphins aren't fish are they, but umm... well it sounded better than The Aquaticmammalswhichlookabitlikefishbutaren'tcast.  

Dolfinz played a pretty big drum kit - three toms, three ride cymbals, a double bass drum pedal, and the result was an absolutely frightening racket which must have been shaking the bloody pictures off the walls next door.  We're recording the PAWS songs for the split in about ten days' time, and after that I think we'll have to give the neighbours  a good long break from the kind of noise we make in here from time to time or they'll go fucking mental.

In the meantime, we have some songs chosen by the Dolfinz lads, some new stuff from my inbox and a couple of things I should have really got into ages ago but for no good reason at all, just didn't.  Shame on me.

01. Fuck (00.20)
02. Cum Stain - Broke My Dick (03.27)
03. Smackvan - Black Eyes (07.59)
04. Keel Her - Enid Coleslaw (16.23)
05. The Distillers - Dismantle Me (20.04)
06. LeThug - Swam (25.47)
07. Benjamin Shaw - How to Test the Depth of a Well (36.57)
08. The Leg - A Rat's Health (42.43)
09. Flight - Witch Hunt Town (48.57)
10. Coolrunnings - Spirit of the High (53.20)
11. The Divine Comedy - A Seafood Song (60.27)

For this podcast I am joined by Ian, who is now a member of the Song, by Toad Records team, to go through a bit of a run-down of what's going to be happening on the label this year.

We've got a couple of our more recent releases, like Rob St. John and Lil Daggers, as well as some of our confirmed and ready new albums for next year, by the likes of The Leg, Jesus H. Foxx and Yusuf Azak.

I've also got a couple of tracks from bands we'll be releasing on a split 12" in the Spring.  We'll be recording that stuff in our house next week, so the songs we chose to represent those bands are for obvious reasons not the final ones we'll be releasing, just tracks by the bands so you can get a bit of a flavour of what we're up to.

With Ian on board and based on the good press we managed last year I am hoping we can really kick on with the label this year and make a decent impression.  Obviously the third Meursault album will  help, what with them being our most established band, but we have a good spread of stuff, from bands like Dolfinz with only a few demos to their name, to the likes of Yusuf Azak and The Leg who people know already and then the Foxx album, which has been 'much anticipated' for a while now.

So all in all it should be an exciting year, I reckon.  Enjoy!

01. Mongrels - I'm Gonna Murder Justin Bieber (00.21)
02. King Post Kitsch - The Make the Same Faces Whether Fuck or Fight (02.46)
03. Meursault - Flittin' (locationmusic.tv Piano Version) (08.49)
04. Rob St. John - The Acid Test (17.59)
05. Lil Daggers - Dead Golden Girls (22.05)
06. Paws - Bloodline (Toad Session) (31.52)
07. Jesus H. Foxx - This is Not a Rental Car (40.31)
08. The Leg - Twitching Stick (43.00)
09. Sex Hands - Jinglebitch (51.56)
10. Dolfinz - Blowhole (55.36)
11. Yusuf Azak - Lay Me Down (63.12)

Sparkcast? Spark?  YES, any kind of fucking spark whatsoever will do the trick. 

I remember getting in trouble at my former day job a couple of years ago for writing something rather negative about that awful sensation of being back at your desk after the excesses and indolence of Christmas.  I am not feeling negative about it now, which is good given I am self-employed, but I am certainly struggling to spark my brain back into something resembling life at the moment.

So yes, I have two new releases to get moving, by Jesus H. Foxx and The Leg, and I have five Toad Sessions to get edited and published, and a split 12" to record (starting in about a week), so whether or not it proves to be a challenge, the old grey matter has to be brought back to life somehow, be it kicking and screaming or otherwise.

01. Jesus H. Foxx - So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away (00.13)
02. The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop (07.47)
03. Post War Glamour Girls - Suburban Barbarian (14.40)
04. Now Wakes the Sea - Another Pair of Hands (18.32)
05. Orienteers - Do You Hear What I Hear? (23.23)
06. Damon Moon & the Whispering Drifters - Seasonal Suite No. 62 (32.40)
07. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Is This Love? (41.27)
08. The Specials - Gangsters (44.30)
09. Simone Felice - New York Times (48.59)
10. Spectral Park - The Thief's Journal (57.04)