The Toadcast - the weekly podcast from Song, by Toad

The Toadcast - the weekly podcast from Song, by Toad

By Mr. ToadMusic
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The Toadcast - the weekly podcast from Song, by Toad episodes

  • Toadcast #45 - The Stevecast

    Okay, not so much a podcast this week, more my effort to recreate a

    mix tape sent to me by my Mum's cousin when I was far too young to
    appreciate its brilliance.  On the plus side though, despite my failure
    to really understand how lucky I was, they leaked more indelibly into
    my consciousness because I was so young that it all went beyond 'music
    I remember' and became something more fundamental than that.

    I

    played this tape quite literally to death.  I think it finally gave up
    the ghost some time when I was about thirteen or fourteen - about 1988
    or 1989.  I forgot about it for some time after that, and it was only
    some ten years later, about the time of Napster, that it occurred to me
    to finally try and reassemble all these brilliant songs together again.

    Well,

    I tried but I failed.  The biggest problem was remembering what was on
    the thing.  I mean, a tape I last listened to ten years ago, whatare the chances?  Still, aided by perseverance and some good fortune I prety much managed to as best I could.  Some I remembered immediately, others took a while, and still others took the discovery of songs on the tape itself to trigger the memory.  Easily the best playlist of any Toadcast to date, I'm only ashamed that it's me talking about this music instead of someone more knowledgeable.

    Toadcast #45 - The Stevecast

    01. The Piranhas - Tom Hark (02.06)

    02. The Clash - Bankrobber (03.57)
    03. John Cooper Clarke - Gimmix (Live) (10.42)
    04. The Specials - Why? (18.00)
    05. The Piranhas - Boyfriend (21.54)
    06. Madness - Baggy Trousers (25.35)
    07. The Piranhas - Getting Beaten Up (29.00)
    08. The Specials - Ghost Town (32.16)
    09. The Dead Kennedys - Holiday in Cambodia (37.57)
    10. The Beat - Stand Down Margaret/Whine & Grine (46.37)
    11. Adam & the Ants - Antmusic (52.39)

    Song, by Toad


    57 min
  • Toadcast #44 - The Whingecast

    It's teh next Great Depreshun oh noes!  Or maybe we're just moaning

    like a bunch of fucking girls.  After the doom and gloom in the papers
    it seems time to actually compare the current financial tantrum to the
    Great Depression and tell anyone who makes that comparison to fuck
    right off and stop being so self-indulgent.

    Even compared to the rough times in the fucking eighties when

    Margaret Thatcher eviscerated everywhere in England outside the M25. 
    She destroyed the country.  Annihilating nationalised industries which
    were no longer economic makes sense, but completely destroying the
    industries that keep a town alive at the same time as you destroy the
    support networks provided by the state and also refusing to do anything
    to encourage industries to grow that might replace the thousands of
    jobs you have just made vanish is just slash and burn social policy.

    There may be a little too much opinionated political opinion and

    general drunken rambling between myself and my darling girl Mrs. Toad,
    but erm, well, fuck it you're own your own.  Listen if you think you
    can face it.  But you must understand, we were vewy bewwwy drnk.

    Toadcast #44 - The Whingecast

    01. Woody Guthrie - Do Re Mi (04.20)

    02. Ray's Vast Basement - Black Cotton (12.52)
    03. The Specials - Ghost Town (15.31)
    04. The Clash - Career Opportunities (25.33)
    05. Billy Bragg - To Have and to Have Not (36.04)
    06. Jane's Addiction - Been Caught Stealing (36.03)
    07. 4 or 5 Magicians - Forever on the Edge (39.25)
    08. The Men They Couldn't Hang - The Ghosts of Cable Street (52.29)
    09. The Willard Grant Conspiracy - Evening Mass (62.44)
    10. Phil Ochs - No Christmas in Kentucky (68.29)

    Song, by Toad


    1 hr 12 min
  • Toadcast #43 - The Fightcast

    The Fightcast?  Yes, the fucking Fightcast.  Why?  Well because mp3

    bloggers have been taking it in the arse with some force over the last
    week.  Posts are being deleted left right and centre, so presumably the
    major labels have decided to declare all-out war on blogs.  This is
    because they are scabby old unwashed cheesy penises.  This is not
    slander, I can prove it with charts and graphs.

    Ultimately this

    is about corporate control of culture.  I don't want to sound like a
    ranting conspiracy theorist, but put simply, this is how it works. 
    People pay for things they feel passionate about.  People feel
    passionate about art, the creation thereof and the participation
    therein.  Consequently any company vaguely engaged in cultural
    endeavours desperately wants to own the loyalty and devotion of as many
    people as possible, and anyone participating in this arena is a
    threat.  Because grassroots art has more emotional resonance with
    people it is an ever bigger threat and must be exterminated.

    They

    want blogs to exist inasmuch as we provide free market research and
    free A&R, but if we think we have any influence, any rights, or
    indeed any genuine loyalty, they wish us dead.  Fuck them, fuck their
    little games and fuck the horse they rode in on, they are whores.  If
    they don't want to play with normal people then let them withdraw.  Let
    them take REM and U2 and fuck off.  I would rather form a massive great
    list of small independent record labels that do want to play
    nicely and only ever cover them and unsigned bands, and let the big
    boys compete with the X-Factor, if they think they can.  Fuck them, let
    them drown in their own greed.

    Toadcast #43 - The Fightcast

    01. The Love Language - Lalita (02.20)
    02. Honey Claws - Shout Out (07.14)
    03. Findo Gask - One Eight Zero (10.56)
    04. The Avett Brothers - Murder in the City (23.25)
    05. Yusuf Azak - Ursa Major (28.02)
    06. Miracle Fortress - Have You Seen in Your Dreams (30.53)
    07. How To Swim - From Here to Dundee/Eternity (33.55)
    08. Jib Kidder - Flip Flap (45.09)
    09. Situationists - Onwards & Upwards (46.17)
    10. Yusuf Azak - 19.19 (53.45)
    11. The Avett Brothers - The Greatest Sum (Acoustic) (62.02)

    Song, by Toad

    1 hr 6 min
  • Toadcast #42 - Noise Please

    Oh deary me.  A somewhat slurred podcast this week.  I recorded this

    on Friday night after coming home from sharing about seven pints with
    my boss at Proper Job, who is a thoroughly decent chap and doesn't get
    out for beers as often as he used to due to an unfortunate breeding
    accident in which his wife had a baby, thus confining him to the
    house.  The lesson - gentlemen, for the love of god, don't let them
    breed!

    So I came back to the house and wanted to play some loud

    music.  I popped a bottle of beer, bought some munchies and mumbled my
    way through a pile of loud, rambunctious songs that I played far too
    loud as I sorted out the playlist, and great fun it all was too. I
    asked about modern rowdy music this week, and Bart kindly recommended
    some bands, a couple of whom I assume I may have been a little quick to
    dismiss in the past, so I am going to have another go at them.

    Looking through the playlist, I find one thing sticking out more

    than anything else: how the hell can you tell a Sex Pistols demo from a
    Sex Pistols recording?

    Toadcast #42 - Noise Please

    01. The Libertines - What a Waster (02.56)
    02. The Von Bondies - Shallow Grave (08.59)
    03. The Bellrays - Blues For Godzilla (12.05)
    04. Ian Dury & the Blockheads - Ballad of the Sulphate Strangler (17.49)
    05. The Damned - Thrill Kill (23.07)
    06. Hoggboy - Left & Right (29.31)
    07. Liars - Mr You're on Fire Mr (35.33)
    08. Monster Magnet - Kiss of the Scorpion (37.57)
    09. The Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK (Demo) (43.24)
    10. The Fall - Two Librans (49.47)
    11. The Small Faces - All or Nothing (Live) (.)
    12. The Detroit Cobras - Hey Sailor (.)

    Song, by Toad

    1 hr 3 min
  • Toadcast #41 - The Soulcast

    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

    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)

    Song, by Toad


    59 min
  • Toadcast #40 - The Birthcast

    Hello people, more podcastenfun once again.  Having done the Deathcast

    recently, I thought it might be nice to do the polar opposite - the
    Birthcast.  This week's podcast is all about the birth of Song, by
    Toad.  I'll tell you about how I started writing about music,
    how I discovered blogs, how I discovered that what I was writing was in
    fact a blog and how I ultimately ended up on Wordpress writing what you
    are now reading.  r casually skimming over, depending on your bent.

    It has also ended up being something of a 2004 retrospective,

    because that's when this all started, however slowly, and that side of
    it has been nice.  I had met Mrs. Toad by this point, and I was all
    excited, and despite the fact that my job was bollocks, living in
    London was great fun.  I was on a narrowboat at Nine Elms Pier at this
    point, which was an amazingly brilliant place to live, and I used to
    cook myself kettle noodles because I couldn't be arsed firing up the
    stove.  I'd boil some water, throw it over some noodles and some stock
    and chuck in lots of fresh veg - bloody delicious.

    Toadcast #40 - The Birthcast

    01. Modest Mouse - Bury Me With It (01.39)

    02. The Fiery Furnaces - Chris Matthews (07.57)
    03. The Innocence Mission - I Have Not Seen This Day Before (Live) (17.54)
    04. American Music Club - Only Love Can Set You Free (22.57)
    05. Brian Wilson - Cabin Essence (28.40)
    06. Andrew Bird - Lull (35.30)
    07. Jim White - Static on the Radio (42.52)
    08. Tom Waits - Trampled Rose (49.09)
    09. The Dears - Lost in the Plot (54.36)
    10. Giant Sand - Anarchistic Bolshevistic Cowboy Bundle (59.43)

    1 hr 2 min
  • Toadcast #39 - Orphaned Songs

    This podcast contains a large number of songs from albums which I

    didn't really enjoy enough to want to review, but which nevertheless
    contained some excellent songs.  I never want to give a small or
    emerging band a shitty review because it just feels mean.  For me
    there's a certain threshold to be reached, after which you are fair
    game for anything I feel like saying because, frankly, why would you
    care, but smaller bands are never going to get a really hard time on
    this site.  Unless they behave like dicks of course, but I digress.

    A lot of these albums contain songs I really like, but only one or

    two, and I really wanted them to be heard.  Also, give that your music
    taste and mine probably only partially overlap anyway (otherwise it
    would just be creepy) I think it's quite possible you might disagree
    and want to explore further.  It always amazes me how seriously people
    can take even my opinion, as some sort of self-appointed arbiter of
    musical worthiness, when neither I nor any other critic is any better
    placed or more worthy to judge than any random fanny off the street. 
    The only thing that sets us apart is not musical judgment, it's the
    slightly dubious compulsion to constantly be writing or talking about
    it for some unknown reason.

    Anyway, that's only about half a dozen songs on this list, the rest

    are just there either because they don't entirely belong anywhere else,
    hence the Orphaned Songs title, and partly because I just felt like
    it.  Enjoy...

    Toadcast #39 - Orphaned Songs

    01. Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers - Let the Fever Out (HearYa Live Session) (02.40)

    02. Passion Pit - Sleepyhead (07.30)
    03. The Hurricanes - Down Below (13.46)
    04. Simon Bookish - Dumb Terminal (21.30)
    05. Adam & the Amethysts - Bumble Bee (23.49)
    06. KiNo - Won't Do (29.29)
    07. Rags & Feathers - Silent Movie Starlets (33.04)
    08. Woodpigeon - Home as a Romaticised Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always & Forever (37.39)
    09. Eagle Seagull - I'm Sorry but I'm Beginning to Hate Your Face (44.56)
    10. Meursault - Westward, Ho (51.53)
    11. Sun Kil Moon - Carry Me Ohio (57.26)

    Song, by Toad


    1 hr 4 min
  • Toadcast #38 - The Deathcast

    Yes, another podcast dedicated entirely to the End of the Road Festival. 

    I did the very same last year because I do rather love this festival,
    and the sheer quality of the lineup easily merits a podcast to itself.

    Unlike last year, Mrs. Toad actually came with me this time around. 

    We drove this stupid old 1960s VW camper van down there, and Christ
    knows how we didn't die in the process.  The fucking thing steered like
    a bathtub full of water, there were no brakes at all and the only
    crumple zone was us.  The other disconcerting thing is the fact that VW
    campers are something of a community, so everyone who passed us in one
    would flash their lights and wave with the sort of sincere enthusiasm
    that made us mortally ashamed to be mere renters - mere passengers in a
    club full of such obviously devoted members, Christ we felt like
    charlatans.

    Anyway, ignore our guilt and enjoy the podcast.  There's some

    fucking great music on this one.  And why is it called the Deathcast? 
    Because that blasted camper van we drove down in was an absolute death
    trap.  Honestly, want to die in a nasty accident?  Try driving a 60s VW
    camper van around the English countryside in the middle of the night in
    the pissing rain.

    Toadcast #37 - The Oddcast[audio http://media.libsyn.com/media/songbytoad/ToadcastNo38.mp3]

    01. Micah P. Hinson - Patience (03.17)

    02. Nick Cave & the Dirty Three - Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum (09.41)
    03. The Young Republic - Shiloh (20.19)
    04. Over the Wall - Thurso (23.22)
    05. British Sea Power - Carrion (29.40)
    06. The Pictish Trail - All I Own (36.50)
    07. Shearwater - Levithan, Bound (41.31)
    08. Jeffrey Lewis - Do They Owe (45.50)
    09. The Wave Pictures - Leave That Scene Behind (50.39)
    10. Richard Hawley - Coming Home (53.21)
    11. Calexico - Minas de Cobre (For Better Metal) (59.55)

    Song, by Toad


    1 hr 3 min
  • Toadcast #37 - The Oddcast

    Bill Oddie, for those of you who don't know, is a legendary British television birdwatcher - twitcher as they're known.  He is also the subject of one of the most famous of all mondegreens: Madonna's "Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie, put your hands all over my body". 

    Anyhow,

    as a legendary feather flutterer it seemed only appropriate that his
    name should adorn a podcast entirely made up of bands with
    ornithological names.  We have everything here, from the albatross to
    the gull to the guillemot to the owl to the sparrow to the pigeon. 
    Honestly, this podcast could have been twice the length that it is,
    there were just so many appropriate bands - no Flock of Seagulls, for
    example, no Sparrow & the Workshop, no Sheryl Crow.

    So I hope

    you enjoy it.  While you're listening to this, Mrs. Toad and I will be
    enjoying the End of the Road Festival, and hopefully getting a few
    interesting interviews in for you all.  It'll be my first ever
    attendance as a legitimate press person, so I am feeling very full of
    myself at the moment, but with a bit of luck I'll justify the inflated
    sense of self-importance and bring back some fine bits and pieces for you to enjoy in the next week or two.

    Toadcast #37 - The Oddcast

    01. Hate Beak - Feral Parrot (02.27)

    02. The Eagles - Outlaw Man (04.52)
    03. Eagleowl - Motherfucker (10.55)
    04. Woodpigeon - Knock Knock (15.22)
    05. The Lovely Sparrows - Department of Foreseeable Outcomes (19.45)
    06. The Bowerbirds - In Our Talons (23.47)
    07. Doves - A House (35.30)
    08. Counting Crows - Start Again (38.12)
    09. Andrew Bird - Why (Live) (46.32)
    10. Guillemots - Take Me Out (Live Lounge) (50.43)
    11. A Hawk & a Hacksaw - Portlandtown (56.07)
    12. Gossamer Albatross - Held Hands (59.57)
    13. The Housemartins - Me & the Farmer (63.26)

    Song, by Toad


    1 hr 7 min
  • Toadcast #36 - The Domesticast

    Well, no gin, no misbehaviour (except the mandatory foul language),

    Christ you'd be forgiven for thinking I'd sold out on you and actually
    grown up at last.  No fear of that actually, just a bit of liver
    protection.  We're trying to guzzle just that little bit less midweek,
    and save the beer tokens for when we really need them, so it's tea and
    slippers this time around.  In fact I thought I was being exceptionally
    tame until such time as I realised that I hadn't reigned in the
    swearing one little bit.  Fuck, I thought to myself.

    Thematically,

    erm, you're on your own I'm afraid.  I've no real idea if you can think
    of anything that holds all these songs together as a coherent whole,
    but damned if I can.  There's quite a bit of new stuff and quite a few
    stray songs that I didn't know how to cover because I didn't want to
    review the whole album, but there was a song or two that I liked.  You
    know what I mean.  And thirteen songs in just under an hour - fucking
    hell that's efficient.

    Toadcast #36 - The Domesticast[audio http://media.libsyn.com/media/songbytoad/ToadcastNo36.mp3]

    01. Christian Williams - 30 Minutes (00.17)

    02. Calexico - The News About William (05.03)
    03. Crystal Stilts - Crippled Croon (07.42)
    04. Glasvegas - Flowers & Fitba Tops (14.39)
    05. Fishboy - Half Time at the Proper Name Spelling Bee (20.12)
    06. From - One Spring Away (23.21)
    07. Eef Barzelay - Make Another Tree (28.19)
    08. Michael Zapruder - Ads For Feelings (34.23)
    09. Okkervil River - Singer Songwriter (37.37)
    10. Marc Farre - La Plaie et le Couteau (42.42)
    11. Adam Balbo - Big Kid Now (48.14)
    12. Christian Williams - Judas (50.24)
    13. Micah P. Hinson - Throw the Stone (57.00)

    1 hr

About The Toadcast - the weekly podcast from Song, by Toad

From the publisher's feed

Every couple of weeks I sit down with a couple of gins and talk you through the new music that's caught my ears in the last fortnight. There'll be a few classics and a few mainstream bands but the…