Sat, 30 January 2010
Mrs. Toad has been away in China for the last week or so and, frankly, I am jealous. I am wedded to Edinburgh now, for fairly obvious reasons, but I have always been something of a gypsy, as have my parents, and as such China has held a pretty significant fascination for several years now. I spent three years in Singapore between the ages of eleven and fourteen and I absolutely loved the place. Not just Singapore, but all the travelling we did in South East Asia - I was absolutely captivated. Honestly, if it were not for you musical muppets I would be pestering Mrs. Toad for us to move to China already. Toadcast #106 - The Sinocast01. T'Pau - China in Your Hand (5.12) |
Sat, 23 January 2010
This podcast is slightly kinda somewhat about about the myopia of
the London media, in particular as to how it pertains to Scotland and
Scottish music, and slightly about the Glasgow media. There are a
number of different triggers for this, starting with this article
in the Scotsman's Under the Radar blog last year about the rejection by
the editor of a London glossy of an article on four up-and-coming
Scottish bands, made even more offensive by the fact that said editor
had requested the damn article in the first place.Of course, anyone who reads the London glossies knows they don't half cover an awful lot of shite themselves, so they really are in no position to pass judgment, but these things are about personal taste at the end of the day and you really can't force anyone to like stuff. Then of course there was a wee bit of chatter about the Glasgow focus of the media in Scotland - like and endless set of Russian dolls - particularly focussed on the remarkable Glasgow-centrism of The List's Hot 100 list and then some stupid woman on BBC radio sneering at the Edinburgh music scene despite knowing no more of Glasgow than Mogwai or Franz Ferdinand. So yes, there's a bit of that going on as well, but
for the most part it's surprisingly non-confrontational given the level
of annoyance I felt with both the BBC lady and the List list at the
time. Toadcast #105 - The Myopiacast
01. James Yorkston - A Man of My Skills (04.26) |
Sat, 16 January 2010
This is all about my beepy-bloopy tendencies and how I got into the stuff in the first place.
I better point out, right at the beginning, that I don't see there being any difference between indie and electronica exactly. Or at least, the dividing line is so blurred and there is so much crossover that the distinction is completely pointless, really. I think the only reason I really make a distinction myself is because I became a music obsessive by listening to the likes of Dylan and Tom Waits and so on, and then moved onto the like of The Pogues and the Waterboys - not a beep in sight, basically. Consequently, when I heard bands like Saint Etienne, although I loved lots of it I didn't explore much further because I just wasn't to electronic noises. In actual fact, by the end of the podcast I think I come to the conclusion that it was actually an electronic beat which I really wasn't used to, mostly, but in any case, I found it quite hard to get into anything vaguely electro for ages. Given that I could barely make a distinction between the two these days, that seems kind of odd, too. Toadcast #104 - The Bleepcast
|
Sun, 10 January 2010
It's freezing outside and (just slightly) covered in snow (about
half an inch) so naturally the entire nation has ceased to function.
Erm, okay, it really isn't that cold and the snow really isn't that big
a deal in all honesty but of course given the worst weather conditions
we usually have to deal with are constant and life-sapping drizzle it
seems that it's all come as a bit of a shock to the nation as a whole.We live in a city by the sea of course, which means that we never get the sunshine which is promised and sadly, during the winter, we never get the snow or the cold either. In the countryside it may occasionally be dangerous, but in the city it's never much more than a stunningly picturesque inconvenience, and the bastard stuff will all have melted by next week anyway, so we might as well enjoy it while we still can. This week the podcast is not themed at all, it's just new and interesting stuff from my inbox.
I tend not to just slap up promo tracks emailed to me by PR chappies on
the blog because, frankly, I really have nothing to say about them yet
and I don't really like firing out posts on the site when I don't
really have an opinion, right wrong or otherwise, to accompany it.
Podcasts, on the other hand, are a bit more spontaneous so they seem
like a more suitable place to put new and interesting stuff before I
have any real chance to figure out whether or not I actually like it
properly. Toadcast #103 - Baby, it's Cold Outside
|
Sun, 3 January 2010
I do try and avoid shilling for the label on this blog, because
no-one wants to read a twice-daily sales pitch, but I reckon it's okay
to have a look forward at what we've got planned for the year. That's
what the new year is for, really, isn't it?So I've got a nice big release schedule drawn up, just like real record labels do, and honestly it scares the shite out of me. I can pretty much plan out my free time for the whole of the next twelve months just looking at it, but there are some great releases in there. By the end of 2010 we are going to have a back catalogue to be bloody proud of, honestly, especially when you consider that we had only been a record label for about a month at this time last year. Toadcast #102 - Song, by Toad Records
01. Trips and Falls - We Were Like Strangers Today (05.30) |
