petherton toad

2005-09-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Legenday documenter of the sounds of Britains transport infrastructure, Philip Trimble has a new volume of his series `Trimble On Transport' released this month; `Trimble On Transport, Volume 6 - London'.

No startling innovations here, just Mr.Trimble doing what he does best: simple recordings of transport, either in a vehicle or listening to vehicles from some carbon monoxide befumed layby. That's not to say this CD is all about cars, in fact some its most splendid moments occur when Trimble listens to rail and bus. Particularly delightful are his East End recordings - a brash conductor coughing out safety advice in a 40-Dunhill-a-day voice of some amplitude, East London Line recordings at Wapping which are totally (forgive the pun) whopping and an absolutely sparkling recording of a Silver Link train at Homerton.

Also of note is the center piece, a sequence of recordings made at Hangar Lane, 38 minutes of hypnotic, lull inducing psychedelic monotony. For any serious collector of field recordings Trimble's phonology is indispensable. Metropolitan flaneurs could do worse than use this as the soundtrack to their perambulations, though one imagines that could be quite hazardous.

`Trimble On Transport, Volume 6 - London' is available from Trimble's own label Trimble Tones. Visit www.trimble_tones.dot.co.uk , or check independent stockists.

2005-09-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

Various factions of the Strings Attached Anarchist Puppet Theatre are currently encamped outside West End Theatres performing puppet versions of the following West End hits:

Blood Puppets
We Will Puppet You
The Puppet Always Rings Twice
The Woman Puppet In White
Mary Puppet
Puppets And Dolls
Gone With The Puppets
Singing In The Puppet
The Puppet Trap
Chitty Chitty Puppet Puppet
and in French, Les Marionettes Miserables

Strings Attached explain their motives: "The people who really pull the strings in West End theatre are West End landlords; by being mobile and using the street and bits of string we can defy the homogenisation of theatrical art. Simultaneously, we satirise the mechanics of early 21st Century theatre arts. "

That statement was posted to me written in string and glued to a piece of cardboard. The statement was hard to read since the solvents' bond weakened during the postal process. For instance, the last 9 letters of homogenisation were almost indecipherable, looking more like a flacid sinewave than anything resembling members of the alphabet.

Needless-to-say, keep your eyes peeled for black flag string dangling that makes the wildest, most unkempt fringe theatre look positively coiffured.

Visit www.strings_attached_anarcho_puppets.org.uk for further info.

2005-09-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

The New York Tapes:The Transcripts
2:Soggy Cash - A diner, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NYC.

Adam Bohman (to tape recorder, furtively): The dollar bills are soaked in gherkin juice. Jonathan tries to dry them with a napkin...

2005-09-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

The New York Tapes:The Transcripts
1.The Chinese Eunuch - Lombardi's Restaurant, Greenwich Village, NYC.

Jonathan Bohman: Have you heard about the Chinese eunuch who apparently discovered the Americas and so on... way before the West?

Petherton Toad: No... A Chinese Eunuch!?!

Jonathan Bohman: ...Happened to be a eunuch...

Petherton Toad: A eunuch? Why?

Jonathan Bohman: Oh... a cycling accident, or something.

Dave Mandl: A cycling accident!?!?

Petherton Toad: Oh! `Happened to be a eunuch'. I thought you said:`had to be a eunuch'...

Dave Mandl: I thought you said `had to be a eunuch' too...

2005-08-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

If reggae were a form of sport it would have a cosmic aroma; something like the flesh of a dressed crab nebula or, ink.

Hands clenched as if constraining a furious hornet, Welsh ebonics uttered from a mouth weaned largely on Cornish pasties, I took one look at the place and decided to have a pint in the other pub instead. Trudging off into the Marmite darkness of an autumn evening, I recall D.W saying something to C.W about ditches.

If reggae were a form of sport its closet olfactory cousin would be something like ladybird musk blended with moustache.

Eyes in the other pub were sticky for two girls talking about bereavement. I ordered my usual thimble of generic stout and tried to summon up a viable chat-up line.

No...

If reggae were a form of sport it would utilise organisational strategies and structures based upon the whorls and curlicues of fingerprints and the oscilliscope patterns of larks.

I waltz over to the table at which the two bereaved beauties are sitting... I've had a bright idea... if I were to punch one of the girls in the face I was sure to get their attention.

Tricycle morons weighed down by a third wheel bypass the kid in the ditch. Two full yoghurts will soon be empty when the Trotskyite lunch break is over to the overture of spoon against plastic. Two photographic negatives stuck to each lens of a pair of sunglasses. Just to remind you of where you're not, in stereo.

My fist reached flacidity about 27.5 inches away from the girls mouth. A droplet of milk ran down her thigh.

2005-08-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

A full stomach cannot compare to a full moon
the bagpipes are no substitute for the octopus

my bladder is empty
my fly is open
my foot is wet

you've got a fat face but i like it

2005-08-14T09:03:00.000-07:00

Randolf the paranumismatist was a peculiarity. A gull like head, mad eyes, an aromatic voice and a vark like unit for a body. A body ailed by mild ataxia and fuelled on a diet of lox. Randolf was quite capable of engendering fear and loathing in equal dollops. Not the gonzo`Fear and Loathing' stripe you fool, no actual fear and actual loathing.

Randolf's clay like eyes became mud at the sight of a coin like object. Why, even casino chips, draughts, medals and medallions, bottle tops, buttons and washers could excite a vivid twitching in his physique and a bauxite complexion in his eyes.

Now, some 22 years have sped by and still I cannot quite adequately forget the day I did him in with a ferocious beasting.

Let me explain something first:I have been an owner of a beast for what seems like all of my life. At no point at all can I recollect not having a beast within my charge. My beast mostly appeared at night. On a clouded night it was sometimes quite hard to perceive it but it always came, howling pitifully for nutrition. I would soak a towel in hot potato water and throw that into its jaws. Then it would slide off to some dank lair sucking the last strains of carbohydrate from the cloth. It was on such an evening that Randolf paid a visit.

It was just after 6, I was having my customary post-dinner nine bar, waiting for my dose of Spur-M to kick-in. I had been in a world of my own invention since the afternoon so by this hour notions, recollections and actualities all formed a porridge like miasma in the crescent shaped cuspidor of memory that lay to the right of my feet. I heared a cough and a whistle and turned to see Randolf stood to my left, pretending to study an antique globe. With his finger lilting upon Australasia he turned his head toward me and mouthed an apology. I shook my forefinger at him in mock castigation. He could spy the Thick Disc collection layed out in the pattern on a large 3 colour map of Hobb's End. His eyes grew firm, he twitched at 12 frames-per-second.
I exited to the bathroom.

Urine extracted, 80% fluidity resumed, I made my way back to Randolf. When I entered the room Randolf was still quivering. The discs were not on the map but Randolf was. On elbows, palms and kneecaps. The pattern had not just been altered but utterly destroyed, preventable synchronicities were now unpreventable, serendipity would engulf us like the effluvia at Pompei.It was obvious Randolf had swallowed the Thick Discs. I picked up a chair and smashed it over his head.

It's the early hours of the morning now. I've been sat here, doodling and drinking claret, since at least 9. Feeling very agitated. Can't settle. I'm twitching... Randolf hasn't moved. It is funny until now we had never had that much in common. Randolf lay flat on the carpet, weighty as a land mass. Randolf hasn't moved at all. Not one iota. I can smell smoked salmon.

A bit later I go to the kitchen to fetch a snack. I catch sight of my reflection. I am sucking a towel. Randolf is still inert.

2005-08-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

Jonathan scanned the wall of mutton-finger. Twitching slightly he depressed the button marked with the outline of a tennis racquet. The wall wobbled slowly and quickly, billions of mutton-finger particles shaking in epileptic rapture.

2005-08-07T11:50:00.000-07:00

petherton toad

2005-08-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

Vivien opened the box. Within it a quadruplicity of eggs.One, in the top lefthand corner of the cardboard box wore a wisp of a feather. The other three eggs gleamed. An intense, lilac enthused, radiation illuminated a section of the room. Paul's foot twitched and Vivienne's face became pixilated. Meanwhile, I fumbled a bodkin I had found down the side of the armchair.