The Toadcast - the weekly podcast from Song, by Toad

The Stallcast you ask?  Yes indeed the Stallcast, because my brain is still stuck in neutral after the Christmas break and seems annoyingly resistant to being asked to function properly at the moment.  I've had half a week back 'at work', if I can really call it that, and I still feel like the the old grey custard is still spluttering a bit, rather than firing on all cylinders.

The playlist reflects this in many way too, because it's a bit all over the place.  Good tunes though, although I suspect those amongst you with Haircuts might not be as impressed as others.

Anyhow, the mission for this week is to get fucking moving, clean out the foostiness in the brain and properly embark upon 2011.  A jump start may be needed, however.

01. R.E.M. - It Happened Today (00.23)
02. Sin Fang - The Only Living Boy in New York (09.24)
03. Jamie Cameron - When You're Almost Done, Run (15.14)
04. Johnny Hawaii - The Lonely Smurfer (20.10)
05. Speak & the Spells - She's Dead (26.51)
06. Beth Gibbons & Rustin' Man - Tom the Model (35.34)
07. Future Bible Heroes - A Thousand Lovers in a Day (39.09)
08. Kurt Vile - Jesus Fever (43.15)
09. Charles Latham - Hard On (48.25)
10. FOUND - Machine Age Dancing (55.39)

This is my annual World of Song, by Toad Records podcast, where I prattle on a bit about the stuff we have coming up in the new year.  I play a couple of things we released towards the tail end of the year, and some stuff by some of the new bands we're going to be working with for the first time in 2011.

I also prattle on at immensely tedious length about the ins and outs of running a record label, which may or may not actually interest you at all, but it's there whether you like it or not. 

We've got plans for some changes for the new year as well, with a new imprint for the label being launched, and a partnership with the Brothers Grimm for the creation of new lines of merch to go with every release.  It's going to be a bit exhausting, I think, but immense fun nevertheless.

01. King Post Kitsch - Eggshells (00.21)
02. Animal Magic Tricks - Heavenly Bodies (06.31)
03. The Savings and Loan - The Virgin's Lullaby (18.45)
04. Inspector Tapehead - Sugar on Your Sheets (22.00)
05. Rob St. John & the Braindead Collective - The Whites of Our Eyes (28.11)
06. Loch Lomond - Elephants and Little Girls (41.36)
07. Trips and Falls - This is All Going to End Badly (52.37)
08. Jesus H. Foxx - Plans (Alt. Version Demo) (54.59)
09. Meursault - Another (61.34)
10. Lach - I Want to Be With You (65.56)
11. Yusuf Azak - Lay Me Down (Demo) (76.49)

It's Christmas Day, we have had our breakfast of smoked salmon and poached eggs, and I decided I might as well settle down with a bottle of fizz and talk shite on the internet.  Given we opened all our presents and had a big meal when my parents were visiting last week, I figured I was obliged to do no more than get pissed and slowly waste away the day today, stopping only to gorge myself on roast lamb and some indeterminate point in the evening - whenever Mrs. Toad gets over last night's hangover I suppose.

I am lining up my stupid movies for tonight, as well, because that is all I intend doing this evening: watching intellectually vacant films whilst lolling about on the couch like a beached whale.  This, as far as I am concerned, is the True Meaning of Christmas (TM).

01. Stephen Malkmus - Baby C'mon (00.16)
02. Sylvain Chomet - L'Illusioniste (05.02)
03. Bloody Cassette Boy - Nigella's XXXmas (12.03)
04. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Cold White Christmas (13.50)
05. Kung Nai vs. Cambodian Space Project - Women (22.16)
06. King Koyote - La La La (27.33)
07. LY and SO - One Day This'll All be Fields (33.55)
08. Tommy Perman - Drive My Car (36.19)
09. Stoney & Meat Loaf - Jessica White (42.30)
10. The Wind-up Birds - In a Yorkshire Call Centre I Knelt Down and Wept (49.19)
11. The Mountain Goats - Tyler Lambert's Grave (54.35)

I am not personally going to bother doing a 'Best of 2010' podcast based around my own choices.  Over the next couple of weeks you're going to get more than enough of that in text form anyway, so I think we can all live without a podcast as well.

What I thought I might do, though, was just do a quick rundown of the Song, by Toad Readers' song and album of the year voting because… well, why the fuck not, I suppose.  As much as anything I felt like doing it because there were a couple of surprises in there, a couple of omissions and a couple of disagreements, so I guess  it gives me something to whinge about when introducing the songs, eh.

01.The Japanese War Effort - Summer Sun Skateboard (00.21)
02. The National - England (06.05)
03. Foals - Spanish Sahara (11.17)
04. Broken Records - The Motorcycle Boy (24.31)
05. Kid Canaveral - Her Hair Hangs Down (29.06)
06. Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (33.51)
07. Micah P. Hinson - My God, My God (41.13)
08. David Tattersall - The Typewriter Ribbon (43.44)
09. Meursault - What You Don't Have (52.46)
10. eagleowl - No Conjunction (60.54)

Video: Vimeo - YouTube
Photos: Flickr
Audio: download links below

This Toad Session is something a little different, in that instead of setting up a studio environment in the house, we actually just recorded the songs at a house gig.  The gig was in fact also the band's first live appearance in four or five years.  So the whole atmosphere of the session is massively different to the usual ones we record. The interview took place all at once before the gig, rather than in and around the songs like it usually does, and for the podcast I have just spliced bits of it into the podcast as and when it seemed suitable.

We also webcast this live, which was kind of fun.  I am not sure how brilliant the image and sound were for everyone, but it was an extremely fun thing to do and something we'll be looking to do more of in the new year I hope.

It was a little tricky to ask people to take pictures in the middle of a performance, so we have a few photos by Anneli and Fiona but not very many.  As per usual we have videos of four songs, over and above the main video above.  Martin actually read some of his poetry before the gig started, so there's a little of that in the main video as well.  The session tracks are all downloadable for free below, as is the main interview podcast, with the full tracklist for that at the bottom of the page.  A large thank you to Fiona Buckle and Anneli Kuukka for their pictures, to Neil Pennycook for recording and mixing the songs and to Ben Clarke for helping with the filming.

The Savings and Loan - Met (a Storm) (Toad Session)

The Savings and Loan - The Ropes (Toad Session)

The Savings and Loan - Her Window (Toad Session)

01. The Savings and Loan - These Hands/Catholic Boys in the Rain (Toad Session) (02.07)
02. Evan Crichton - Holiday Time (12.27)
03. Palace Brothers - Stable Will (17.16)
04. The Savings and Loan - Met (a Storm) (Toad Session) (27.24)
05. Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta - The Ragged Garden of Your Eye (32.46)
06. Otis Redding - That's How Strong My Love Is (37.34)
07. The Corries - Loch Tay Boat Song (40.04)
08. The Savings and Loan - The Ropes (Toad Session) (50.11)
09. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Darker With the Day (53.23)
10. Codeine - Broken Hearted Wine (60.22)
11. The Savings and Loan - Her Window (Toad Session) (69.52)

The Treecast is so named because we purchased and decorated our Christmas tree this afternoon.  It is an incoherent mess of all sorts of shite, stupid garish baubles, a weird peacock thingy and some foolish attempts at being tasteful which have been utterly overwhelmed by the utter cack which surrounds them.

My parents always did seriously tasteful trees actually, so I would imagine they will be downright ashamed of the half-arsed mess we have managed to create.  Actually, my dad is the world's biggest Grinch, so he won't give a shite, but my mum might be silently disappointed.

Nevertheless it now feels like Christmas has properly started.  We have orded a keg of beer for our Christmas party (our own one, not the label one) and for the New Year's piss up as well.  We'll have Jonnie Common, The Japanese War Effort and Neil fae Meursault playing a house gig that evening, and there will, it now appears, be shitloads of very tasty beer too.  Why the fuck would anyone bother with town?

01. Grandaddy - Now It's On (00.21)
02. Jason Lytle - D.U.I. BBQ Checkpoint (07.39)
03. Twilight Hotel - Mahogany Veneer  (12.25)
04. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Heart in Your Heartbreak (18.44)
05. Wolf Parade - Semi-precious Stone (22.36)
06. That Ghost - Older (30.17)
07. Grandaddy - Band Synergy (A Peek Inside the Magic) (35.34)
08. Grandaddy - You Know You're Fucked Up (38.50)
09. Crystal Stilts - Shake the Shackles (43.54)
10. The Monochrome Set - Jetset Junta (Remix) (48.19)
11. Gobble Gobble - Wrinklecarver (51.20)

On the drive back from Glasgow yesterday, after the second of Yusuf Azak's three album launch gigs, the snow started absolutely horsing it down, to the extent that all the traffic slowed to a sensible single file at about thirty miles an hour, and all you could see was little red tail-lights in the white.

It was, if I am being entirely honest, pretty cool. Although of course that's easy to say when you're no more than twenty miles from home and in no actual danger.

Anyway, this morning it's all turned icy outside and Mrs. Toad is complaining about the heating not being up to the job, so I think we can safely say that the rituals of Winter have begun! Hence, the Coldcast.

01. The Mountain Goats - You or Your Memory (00.28)

02. The 63 Crayons - Devils (07.02)
03. The Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant (15.50)
04. Brown Brogues - I Just Don't Know (19.07)
05. The Beatles - Dear Prudence (25.16)
06. Girl Problems - Sancho (31.49)
07. Thirty Pounds of Bone - A Lesson in Talking (41.21)
08. Willy Mason - Carry On (44.33)
09. Y Niwl - Dau (52.42)
10. Songdog - A Life Eroding (So Much Sorrow) (61.26)

Cotes du Rhone is our default red wine of choice in this house, and after yesterday's birthday celebrations being cut rather short due to my feeling shitty, we are having a quiet evening in with a couple of bottles of red wine, a bacony, beany stew and we are going to light the fire for the first time this Winter as well.

There is nothing remotely related to that on this podcast of course, but then these titles have become increasingly unrelated to the actual podcasts themselves recently so I doubt that'll surprise anyone.

In fact, given I've been talking about how when the weather gets cold I tend to listen to less new music and less raucous music, the lo-fi, rackety nature of this playlist is probably a total self-contradiction, but then, this is the fucking internet, what do you really expect?

01. Cerebral Ballzy - Insufficient Fare (00.12)
02. Crooked Scene - Male Bonding (05.53)
03. White Wishes - Hold Your Hand (13.36)
04. Johnny Reb - Nine on the Line (21.11)
05. The Dead Kennedys - Kill the Poor (25.03)
06. The Louche FC - Back Bedroom Casualty (32.14)
07. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Destroy the Evidence (38.49)
08. Carnivores - Dressed for the Rain (42.26)
09. Waylon Thornton & the Heavy Hands - Sixteen Dreams (48.17)
10. Heavy Hawaii - Teen Angel (56.36)

 It's not going to surprise anyone at all that I am being an absolute slob today, is it?  Mrs. Toad got back from Australia around lunchtime, and after a few hours of pottering about she crashed out with jetlag, so I snuck off to record the podcast.  I am sure that soon enough she will wake and start demanding attention and general servitude soon enough, so I better get this over with quickly.

After that I am going straight back to bed to watch stupid films while my sweetheart dozes by my side, awaking occasionally to tell me off for not being comfortable enough, or to send me to fetch her things, or to just swear at me for taking all the covers or some other such sweet nothings of the kind she is wont to come out with from time to time.

01. Elvis Perkins in Dearland - Shampoo (00.21)
02. Elvis Costello - Couldn't Call it Unexpected No.4 (06.24)
03. Billie Holiday - Good Morning Heartache (13.17)
04. Smog - In the Pines (16.22)
05. My Tiny Robots - Ballad of the Mapmaker's Daughter (23.17)
06. Randolph's Leap - Going Home (32.19)
07. The Japanese War Effort - Face Like a Lemon (Ivor Cutler cover, live on Fresh Air Radio) (36.50)
08. Grass House - Lazy Bones (43.01)
09. Bob Dylan - I'll Keep it With Mine (49.23)
10. Bettye Swann - Don't Look Back (54.47)

This is er… well, "one of those podcasts". You know, the ones where you're half pissed before lunch and basically mumble your way through an hour or so of incoherent rambling?  Yes, one of those.

I even try and do something of a Cloud Sounds tribute by playing two songs available on 7" single from Cloud Sounds Records and then by playing two songs from bands I got into by listening to Cloud Sounds' podcast but unfortunately the fact that I am joined in this podcast by Andy and Paddy from Gerry Loves Records means that more or less any attempt to keep things on-topic, or indeed to have a topic at all, are pretty much doomed.

It's been a while since I did a proper train wreck podcast so all I can really do it apologise in advance and urge you to sit back and enjoy it!

01. The Generalissimos - The Men Behind the Man (00.04)
02. Onions - I Want to be a Dancer (06.07)
03. Sufjan Stevens - Vesuvius (12.36)
04. Tidy Kid - Smell (Bibio Remix) (23.32)
05. Roy Robertson - Icing (27.34)
06. Pregnant - Wiff of Father (35.09)
07. Sweet Baboo - I'm a Dancer Pt. 2 (46.48)
08. The Maladies of Bellafontaine - Black Biro (50.31)
09. James Yorkston - Lovely to be Here (Excerpt) (60.19)
10. Ringo Deathstarr - Imagine Hearts (69.43)