Sat, 26 September 2009
Right, given we've come down to Manchester for the Meursault gig, I
thought I might make a podcast based around the two years I spent
living here. As I mentioned on this week's Friday Five, however, those
were really not very happy times so basically this podcast is just a
great big hour-long whinge about how shit my life was a couple of times
a few years ago.
Nah, not really. I mean, I do describe why life was tough then but it really isn't just a great big moan, I promise. For some reason the music in my life at those times seems to have really stuck in my head and become incredibly strongly associated with the period in question. Partly, I suppose, because the emotional succour you get from music when things are a bit rough is something you're grateful enough for for it to really form an important connection. The other aspect is that on both those occasions I had so little music with me that the stuff I did have got played over and over again, so a really small amount of stuff really dominated my listening habits at that point, and became incredibly strongly intertwined with all of my memories of the time. So, er, yes. Here you go: The Manchester Podcast. Toadcast #88 - The Manchester Podcast 01. Pearl Jam - Dissident (03.16) |
Sat, 19 September 2009
Well this podcast has been recorded from my sick bed, given my
current immobility. Actually, recording the Toadcast from bed was
quite pleasant, once I got over the slightly unusual surroundings.
Imagine me in my pants and scratching my balls whilst talking to you
and you'll pretty much have the ambience down pat.I sort of
intended this to be a selection of poppy little tunes from my inbox,
because all the last podcasts have been so heavily themed, but instead
it's ended up a little bit on the experimental side, through no real
intent of my own. Nevertheless, if you're happy to listen to the growl
of Polvo, the monologues of George Pringle and the peculiar
electro-experimentalism of Mark Linkous and Fennesz all in one podcast
then, fuck it, you're in the right place. Toadcast #86 - The Paincast
|
Sat, 12 September 2009
DO NOT WORRY! This is not a podcast stuffed full of tedious
moralising and empty pontificating and generally depressing garbage
about a subject far too weighty and philosophical for this sort of
half-arsed internet enterprise. In fact, towards the end it really
gets quite chipper.
Basically, there are so many extraordinarily good murder ballads that that particular aspect could so easily have entirely overtaken a podcast ostensibly about prison, crime and criminal justice. This week, however, I have still managed to marginalise the role of the murder ballad, because the concept of death incorporates so many disparate emotions and aspects that simply doing a whole podcast about murderous folk tales and their musical counterparts seemed unnecessarily narrow. So you get this. Which starts out a little heavy but becomes positively gleeful by the end, I promise you. 01. Willard Grant Conspiracy - Painter Blue (03.01) |
Sat, 5 September 2009
Hello, welcome to the Ruthcast. Why the Ruthcast? Because my friend Ruth who runs the Bowery with Jane came round to the house last week to thoroughly upstage me on my own podcast. Last yearRuth was a guest on my Fresh Air radio show and completely and utterly upstaged me, and in this podcast we agreed that she would come on every week this year. And that, frankly, sounds like a bloody good idea to me. I mentioned on the Friday Five a couple of weeks ago that Ellie Greenwich had died, and as this is something which upset Ruth rather a lot, so the podcast is absolutely chock-full of Ellie Greenwich songs 01. The Ronettes - Baby I Love You (05.51) |
