Mon, 24 September 2007
My what a splendid festival. You’ve read what I had to say about the thing (overview, day one, day two & day three), now here’s the ‘downloadable in one easy to digest chunk’ version, with more tunes. I had a splendid time at this, I really did. The line-up was spectacularly good and, despite being not much more than a well-executed variant on the standard festival format, I would highly recommend it to those of you sick of the exercise in cattle-herding and aggressively intrusive marketing that the modern festival has become. Anyhow, I’ve gone through the festival in chronological order, playing songs from artists in the order in which I attended them over the weekend. Hopefully I give you a decent overview of the festival itself as well as a taster of the quality of the lineup, from the indie legends to the connoisseur’s selection of emerging acts that made this such a quality bill. No ranting in this one either, or at least, very little. What a relief for you all. Toadcast #12 - The End of the Roadcast 1. Midlake - Young Bride (02.08) |
Mon, 17 September 2007
There’s no real theme to this week’s podcast, but there’s plenty of
splendid new music. Basically I felt so guilty about the crazy rant
that the Pink Podcast descended into that I have tried to say as little as possible in this one.
I’m off to the End of the Road Festival this weekend, which is why I recorded an advance post, so you’ll be enjoying this while I’m away getting rained on. The lineup is just phenomenal actually, so it should be really quite a splendid weekend. Tim from the Daily Growl will be there, as will Jamie from the Runout Groove and I believe possibly Sweeping the Nation as well, so it may turn into quite a blog-in. Tragically, however, I will be without my Midget Companion. Mrs. Toad is away in Australia (jammy bitch) with work and doesn’t get back in time to come along, so I will be taking a book and enjoying the pleasure of my own company as best I can. There was at least one inevitable balls-up though - when describing the Catherine Howe song I said ‘I can’t believe this is current - it sounds so old-fashioned!’ and I have since discovered that in fact it is a 2007 re-release of a 1971 record which may just explain that. In the process I also discovered that I am something of a fucking idiot. So, End of the Road, and in the meantime, enjoy the podcast - Toad on his very best behaviour! Toadcast #11 - Not Sure What This One’s About 01. A.A. Bondy - Vice Rag (00.52) |
Tue, 11 September 2007
The tenth Toadcast is a Pink Podcast, celebrating all things gay in indie music, but trying to steer well clear of any sort of annoying Graham Norton stereotypes. So, in avoiding anything that might have seen this lapse into the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert podcast I enlisted the help of my friend James, who was Mrs. Toad’s best man at our wedding. As well as being gay, James is a real indie fan so I though he’d be perfect to consult with on the playlist and most of these songs are his choices.It’s surprising actually, just how indie this ended up being.I left off quite a few things I really wanted to play and it’s still the longest ever Toadcast. Ultimately, I’ve tried to explore the relationship between the gay community and indie music, but needless to say there are times where it descends into slightly angry ranting. Hopefully not too much to allow you to enjoy the music though. It’s also not really ended up being as much of a discussion of gay culture as I’d hoped and that is almost entirely down to my own ignorance. I should probably have got James round to help actually present, but that would have been a right pain the arse logistically, as well as technically in terms of capturing both voices on one shitty little webcam microphone. On a technical point, there is a bit of an echo on the vocal recording. This is because I we have moved out of our house for a couple of months while builders tear it to pieces and I am having to rather make do in terms of recording location. I’ll try and sort this out by next week. Also, I at one point described the Book of Ruth as being in the New Testament, which is also wrong. What a muppet. Toadcast #10 - The Pink Podcast 01. Pet Shop Boys - It’s a Sin (01.20) |
Tue, 4 September 2007
I'm trying to kill two birds with one stone with this podcast. Firstly, I am throwing in a couple of songs that I wanted to put on the Contrast Podcast episode entitled Young a few weeks ago. I was away at my brother's wedding at the time, and I never got the chance so here they are. Secondly, a good while ago a regular reader of mine called Allen Lulu tagged me with one of these internetty meme thingies whereby you write about the music that was in the charts the year you turned 18. Well for me that year was 1993, but the chart music was abysmal, so I couldn't possibly do that to you. Instead I had a look at what I was listening to myself from that year and came across so many excellent old songs I haven't heard for ages that a quick post turned into an entire podcast. And this is that podcast - me at age 18. Toadcast #9 - The Folly of Youth 2. Stereo MCs - Connected (09.08) 3. Radiohead - Anyone Can Play Guitar (13.41) 4. Stone Temple Pilots - Plush (17.30) 5. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Loverman (25.12) 6. Levellers - This Garden (31.29) 7. James - Five-O (38.24) 8. The Long Blondes - Once & Never Again (6Music Acoustic Session) (43.12) 9. Gogol Bordello - Never Want to be Young Again (49.48) 10. The Mathletes - Linger (Cranberries Cover) (55.27) 11. Pearl Jam - Daughter (57.45) 12. Blind Melon - No Rain (63.19) 13. Soul Asylum - New World (67.57) 14. The Lemonheads - If I Could Talk I'd Tell You (71.50) 15. Portishead - Mysterons (75.24) 16. Engine Alley - Song For Someone (82.26) Song, by Toad |
