While we're not great ones for themed mixes on MM, Halloween is one of the exceptions we like to make. Here is a perfect mix for whatever ghoulish event you've got lined up today! Fifteen corking tunes, from the skewed new wave pop of XTC and off-kilter indie of the Mountain Goats to the trashy surf rock of The Cramps and from the folk-stomp of the Men They Couldn't Hang and the gothic drive of Ghost Dance to the pounding blues rock of the Scissormen and 22-20s . Enjoy. [...]
We moved MM to WordPress in April 2010, after being one of the many blogs to get screwed by Google Blogspot. We noticed that this is our one thousandth post since that time and so we have marked the occasion (for such that it is for us) with an appropriately themed mix for your enjoyment. So, from the classic sound of Tenpole Tudor's new wave power-pop via The Men They Couldn't Hang's protest cow punk to the folk of Joe Pug and the Floydian prog-rock of The Silver Machines [...]
The alert reader might have noticed that one William von Saxe-Coburg und Gotha is going to marry his blushing bride Catherine on Friday. Perhaps young William is better known by his family's stage name Windsor, the name of one of the joints his family owns, chosen in order to distance the family from its German provenance during World War I. This blog likes a good wedding, and in the spirit of the nuptial celebration would like to offer Wilhelm and his Frau a few sincerely selected party tunes for the reception, to be played when the wedding band [...]
The thing I hate the most about Satnavs is that although they do find wherever it is you're going, but you tend to have absolutely no idea how you got there. So you are no less lost, in a sense, you just happen to be in the right place. Well, I am getting a bit like that with my calendar. I write so much in my calendar that I tend to assume I put everything in it, which I don't. The only problem with this is that I make no effort to memorise appointments or events anymore, assuming [...]
We're very impressed with Shuffler FM , the new music blog internet radio that plays randomly selected tracks from different blogs based on your preferences of genre. Then if you like the song you can download it from the blog before moving on to the next track and the next blog. It is brilliantly simple, no registrations or log-ins, and is a great way to discover new music (and new blogs) you might like. Check out Shuffler FM and get started by clicking here or using the link on the right. [...]
Having spent the week driving Loch Lomond around the country I figured that some sort of driving-themed nonsense would be in order for this week's podcast. Driving music (NOT in the Top Gear sense) tends to stick in your head, probably because when listening to it there is nothing else to do but sit and absorb the whole album. I know most musicians would probably blanche somewhat at the idea of having their work enjoyed over the thrum of wind noise, tyre noise and a grumbling engine, but a long drive is still probably one of the best [...]
[Mrs. Toad has very kindly contributed this Friday's Fives, as I am busy being mounted like a five-dollar hooker at Proper Job. Enjoy.] I am in the middle of a secondment at Proper Job which basically means that instead of rushing around trying to get new clients or speak to existing ones about what is going on in the world of stocks and shares, I am undertaking company analysis and have time on my hands to contemplate the mysteries of the future. So at the moment, I am mulling what cars will be like [...]
I get more than a little jumpy writing things about stuff like this, because I am far from knowledgable and, as someone who is almost always against the wars that 'we' have fought recently, it can seem a bit rich to me, writing about the people who fought in them. My Granddad was a marine in WWII though. He drove a landing craft in the D-Day landings, he pitched up in Singapore and Madagascar, fought in the Pacific and, erm... I don't know much else to be honest, because he doesn't really talk about it. He'll [...]
Sooo... the BNP are going on Question Time are they? That should be interesting. I know there's been some complaining from Anti-Fascism sorts and other parties about this 'legitimising' the party in some sense by actually bothering to engage them in debate, but I think I am in agreement with the broader consensus which says that you really have to get their opinions out in the open and debate them in public. I was raised in Austria and the general refusal to engage with the somewhat euphemistically-named Freedom Party* led to their ideas and [...]
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 [...]
Well, only if you are Nicolas Cage. And actually, if you were Nicolas Cage, then some of the films you have made in the last ten years or so might well merit a rampaging witch-hunt by some of the more embittered members of the acting community as you comically jam your two facial expressions (grim determination and spastic incomprehension) into one tedious, one-dimensional character after another for millions of dollars in reward, while they subsist on the breadline only by waiting table and selling their tender little chocolate blossoms in the backstreets for an insulting pittance. Actually, maybe [...]
Nah don't be daft, of course it doesn't. Friday loves you. It loves your Mum too. Does your Mum have great tits? I reckon she probably does. Today technology is King. I remember my first few days being properly employed and how far away the things we take for granted really are. I was working on concepts for this kind of stuff years ago, and it may not have ever come into production, but it's amazingly exciting to see the future actually happen, right before your eyes. Yesterday I saw my silly old folks on Skype. [...]
Couple of new releases that have caught our ears this week.Based in Durham, North Carolina, Megafaun was built by brothers Brad and Phil Cook and fellow Eau Claire, Wisconsin native Joe Westerlund. The trio, plus longtime friend Justin Vernon (a.k.a. Bon Iver), made the cross country move together from WI to NC as the band DeYarmond Edison, ultimately splitting in 2006. Megafaun was born from
This week we've played cricket for the vicars of Coventry (and lost), had lunch at the Cinnamon Club in London and been to Childish Things 5 - a comedy benefit for Helen And Douglas House Hospice.The song for this week though is about our sponging, money-grabbing, deceitful, and contemptible snouts-in-the-trough politicians whose (expensive) chickens have hopefully started to come home to
Robin Pecknold is more widely known for his Fleet Foxes stuff, but he appears to have a solo project as well, covering folk songs. To call it a solo project may be exaggerating things slightly, because there's little evidence of this being much more than a name given to a MySpace page so he can post a couple of solo versions of stuff he just fancied recording. Maybe not, of course, there could be more to it than that. I'm no great Fleet Foxes fan, I have to confess. I think they have a few utterly [...]
Well as you read this I will be in a day-long meeting with one of Proper Job's most important clients. The product, about which I really can't divulge all that much, is a really interesting one. It's one of those things which may well in some form be essential in about five years time but at the moment is really rather embryonic and still basically on the drawing board. It makes for a very interesting day's work however, albeit a very argumentative one. So whilst I am choking on shit sandwiches and bursting with excessive coffee intake, please [...]
Set a mere 65 kilometres away from Mr. Eavis' Worthy Farm, with every last race horse in the stable Cheltenham Racecourse is set to open the starting blocks for its fifth annual bash and this year's event draws predominantly on the past in its quest into the future. Surrealist mess-head survivors Super Furry Animals head up the Friday night, showcasing recent return to form record Dark Days/ Light Years, proving themselves to still be light years ahead of skinny jeans and floppy fringes in a kaleidoscopic land where measures of time and space have been dismantled. They are joined by [...]
Set a mere 65 kilometres away from Mr. Eavis' Worthy Farm, with every last race horse in the stable Cheltenham Racecourse is set to open the starting blocks for its fifth annual bash and this year's event draws predominantly on the past in its quest into the future. Surrealist mess-head survivors Super Furry Animals head up the Friday night, showcasing recent return to form record Dark Days/ Light Years, proving themselves to still be light years ahead of skinny jeans and floppy fringes in a kaleidoscopic land where measures of time and space have been dismantled. They are joined by [...]
For those of you coming along to help collect for the Lifeboats tomorrow, that you so much. If you know where we live, then just swing by and we'll give you a tin to shake for an hour (or more if you like) and then you can stick around for tea and cake (or beer as the hour grows later) or go about your business, as you please. If you don't know where to come along to, then just drop me an email and I'll tell you. I'm not too keen to just type our address out in the middle [...]
Apparently you can still read a sentence quite easily if the letters in the words are completely jumbled up, as long as the first and last letters in each word remain where they belong. Isn't that nice. I am nearly at the end of the unspeakable ordeal that is generating the Toad Records blog spam list. This entails going to the Hype Machine's blog list , looking at what every single blog is posting and if they post stuff I like, emailing them with links to the Toad Records releases with a nice note saying [...]
Mad Mackerel's Blog
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