Song, by Toad

Allow me to introduce the latest release on Song, by Toad Records: Maxwell Panther’s debut album Do You Feel Different Yet?

I know we are more known as a grass roots label who try and nurture local talent (assuming we’re ‘known’ for anything at all, that is), but before the eminently Scottish and highly anticipated releases from Cold Seeds and Meursault later in the year I have two album by non-Scots whose work deserves a lot more than to be lost in the more immediately local focus we tend to engender.

One of those albums is the stunning He Was Such a Quiet Boy by Trips and Falls, and the other is this.  The first time I heard Maxwell’s music I described it as being “rough as a bear’s arse, but fucking ace” and that is still about as good as I can do.

I was a little concerned about how to release this, frankly.  It is indeed rough as a witch’s tits, and so I know it’s not exactly going to become a runaway commercial success, and I know a lot of people will basically just hate it.  I do not care, however.  I love it, and so we’re releasing it, it’s as simple as that.  Maxwell may not record in a polished style, but that’s never been something which has bothered me: basically he is a really bloody good songwriter and that’s the only important part.

We’ve had some really nice reviews so far (from Chris at the Skinny, Aye Tunes, The Devil Has the Best Tuna and Radio Exile) and they all seem to feel the same thing I do: it just somehow works.  This music has charm, wit, warmth, just enough bitterness to be interesting and just enough self-deprecation not to be too self-absorbed.  Music like this either connects with you, or it doesn’t, and from the first time I heard Maxwell Panther’s stuff it just felt right to me.

The other thing about Maxwell is that to judge him on this album is kind of missing the point.  These songs exist in different guises, he records things here and there all the time, kind of like sketches.  As such his music kind of exists all together as a single entity, more than in the kind of defined chunks we would call EPs and albums, and maybe that’s why this music connects with me so much.  Maybe it just feels like more of a conversation, and maybe the recording style actually helps that, in that it is pretty obvious there is no barrier between the musician and the listener.

So Maxwell Panther may not be bothering the charts any time soon, but his idiosyncratic, observational meanderings have a kind of awkward charm which I find completely compelling and I think they really deserve to be heard.

Maxwell Panther – My Ex-Identity

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Maxwell Panther – Lost Soul on a Roll

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Maxwell on: MySpace | Bandcamp | Buy from Song, by Toad Records

We have a clear few days to get some work done this week, before the weekend’s flurry of giggery. There are some devious Austrians sneaking about Scotland this week, partly having a holiday, and partly shooting sessions for They Shoot Music.  Apart from Mrs. Toad and I recording our annual anti-Valentine’s day festival of hate, we will record a podcast with them while they’re here, and then leave them to go off and do some stuff with Jesus H. Foxx, Meursault, Withered Hand, a trip up to Fife to see the Fence Records chaps, and then some time in Glasgow where I am not honestly certain who they are recording – hopefully some Yusuf Azak though.

Anyhow, apart from the gigs mentioned below, there’s also the rather intriguing listing at Sneaky Pete’s where a certain band called Toad appear to be playing on Friday with The Ritalin Kids and Be Like Pablo.  I assure you it has nothing to do with me performing music of any sort, so feel free to attend in perfect safety.

Thursday 11th February 2010: eagleowl, Hailey Beavis & The Stormy Seas play Leith Tape Club at the Iso Lounge.

One of Edinburgh’s most enjoyable low-key gig nights, The Leith Tape Club, has a really good lineup this month.  I think eagleowl will be playing as a somewhat reduced lineup: after their recent four-piece gigs, I think they will be back to two for this gig, but for those of you who missed their Vic Galloway session on Radio Scotland last week, here’s their cover of I Am Nothing by Withered Hand from that session.  It’s all about sharing out the PRS money apparently, because Dan covered one of their songs when he played the show a while back.  All about the money, eh?  Typical.  I knew them when they used to have integrity, man.

eagleowl – I Am Nothing (Withered Hand Cover – Live on BBC Radio Scotland)

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Friday 12th February 2010: The Late Call, The Last Battle & Emily Scott at the Wee Red Bar.

The Gentle Invasion have been awfully quiet of late, so without knowing anything at all about The Late Call, I’ve got to be pretty confident that they’re good, to drag them out of semi-retirement.  The Last Battle’s stock is rather high at the moment, and I’ve not seen Emily Scott play since last year’s Homegame, so I think I’ll be along at this one for sure.

The Last Battle – Oh Best Beloved

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Friday 12th February 2010: FOUND, Three Blind Wolves & Over the Wall play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.

FOUND are teetering on the verge of a new album (I think) and are somewhat reduced in number these days.  Judging by Versus a couple of weeks ago this isn’t going to hold them back though, and I am really looking forward to hearing their new stuff.

Over the Wall – Floods

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Saturday 13th February 2010: Kid Canaveral, BabyGod & Cancel the Astronauts play Trampoline at the Wee Red Bar.

It’s all about the indie-pop at Trampo this month.  Euan already previewed this gig extremely well in his Sunday Supplement, so no need to go on about it here again.  Kid Canaveral have nearly finished work on their debut album though, which is good news.

Kid Canaveral – Good Morning

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Erm, really sorry that this is so very, very late, but life rather caught up with me this week.  So I never quite managed to find time to get my shit together until this evening, unfortunately.

It’s surprising how much of my time these weekly podcasts seem to take up – it can be quite hard to find an evening every single week to record these things.  What I find amazing is that I don’t run out of blather.  I don’t recall ever saying anything profound or all that intelligent either, so this little collection must represent hours and hours of inconsequential rambling.

On Friday a nice young lady in the pub asked me “Has anyone ever told you that you talk loads and loads.”  I suppose, looking back at a hundred and some podcasts the miracle is that actually the answer to that question is ‘no, not really, not that I can remember’.

Oh, and yes, that is Tina Turner and Kim Carnes you see there.  Suck it up, hipsters.

Toadcast #107 – The Tardicast

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01. The Walkmen – This Job is Killing Me (03.30)
02. Grandaddy – Hey Cowboy, the Phone’s For You (09.57)
03. Comaneci – Satisfied Girl (15.51)
04. Tina Turner – Private Dancer (17.50)
05. Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou – England (27.33)
06. Ruth Theodore – False Alarm (34.09)
07. The Waterboys – Sweet Thing (40.54)
08. Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes (48.04)
09. R.E.M. – Half a World Away (53.55)
10. Radiohead – Creep (Acoustic) (59.59)

[Welcome back to the first Sunday Supplement of 2010, with Euan from the Steinberg Principle, amongst other things, returning to his regular slot.  Next week will see the return of Campfires and Battlefields]

So I might as well us this blog as the place to announce that The Kays Lavelle’s debut album entitled ‘Be Still This Gentle Morning’ will be released through Wiseblood Industries on 17th May this year. Or that is the intended release date. It may get pushed back, but we are definitely hoping to stick to our targets and make it happen. Anyways, lead of single ‘The Hours’ is now ready to go and attached to this article. It will be a free digital download on the Wiseblood site shortly. Two album launches are planned for 8th and 9th May, keep an eye out on my blog and the Kays lovely new MySpace page for more information about this. In the meantime, hope you enjoy ‘the hours’ which was recorded by Neil Pennycook of Meursault and mixed by Alex Fenton (Fentek Audio).

The Kays Lavelle – The Hours

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[Welcome back to the first Sunday Supplement of 2010, with Euan from the Steinberg Principle, amongst other things, returning to his regular slot.  Next week will see the return of Campfires and Battlefields]

Trampoline this month is going all pop on your asses. The shimmering guitar sounds will be out in full force. Matthew [the Astronaut, not the Toad] has organised this month’s show, so I will use his very words to describe what’s happening. Why write something myself when somebody else has done so for me:

This month’s Trampoline, Saturday 13th February, is a poptastic treat; headliners Kid Canaveral are supported by Babygod and Cancel the Astronauts, and it promises to be a real treat. As usual, doors are at 7 and it’s £5 pounds entry, unless you’re a student in which case it’s £3, and unless you’re a flirt, in which case it’s free.

Here is some blurb:

Fence affiliated Kid Canaveral have long been one of Scotland’s finest indie bands, and their joyously melodic punkpop has won high praise from Scotland’s blogging community and the mainstream press. Four single releases over the past few years (self released on their own label Straight To Video Records) has seen their popularity and profile steadily increase, and the band are currently adding the finishing touches to their hotly tipped debut album, out, well, soon hopefully. The band recently released a free download, Good Morning, as a teaser for the record, as it sounds bloody brilliant. 2010 looks set to be a big year for Kid Canaveral.

Babygod are simply the most exciting and original band in Scotland right now. Led by Gerry Campbell (who played on Belle and Sebastian’s first record) their intelligent, literate and inventive art pop (they list Talking Heads, David Bowie and The Associates as influences), and superb (though sadly only occasional) live performances has led to national recognition from Mojo and The Guardian, as well as radio play on Stuart Maconie’s BBC Radio 6 show. They deserve to be enormous, and I expect they will be. The band have rather enigmatically hinted that they are soon to to release new material. Huzzah!

Edinburgh’s Cancel the Astronauts are the hairiest indie pop band in Scotland. Hairier even than The Stormy Seas. Fact. The do have probably the handsomest frontman in Scotland though. Support slots with Frightened Rabbit, Attic Lights and Marina and The Diamonds, as well as last year’s well received release of their debut EP has seen the band grow in stature and popularity in Edinburgh and beyond. They are working on a new EP which they hope to release in the next few months.

So do go along and support the night. I actually won’t be there myself as I will be in Glasgow seeing Fionn Regan at King Tuts. Don’t worry though, I wasn’t there last month and it was more efficient with more people than any month in the past 3 years, so it should be a cracker.

[Welcome back to the first Sunday Supplement of 2010, with Euan from the Steinberg Principle, amongst other things, returning to his regular slot.  Next week will see the return of Campfires and Battlefields]

So I was sitting thinking the other night about what I could write about for my monthly soirée here on Song By Toad when, as if by magic, my train of thought collided with an article that I was reading over on Nick Mitchell’s blog. Whilst a really good article, it was not Nick’s words that struck me most but those of his fellow Under the Radar writer and all round top bloke Billy Hamilton. It all stemmed from Milo over at Product of a Gaseous Brain having produced his first ever fanzine. Yes, a blog actually producing a physical fanzine, and a bloody good read it was too. Anyways, before I get accused of hijacking that particular thread, that is not my intention and I would encourage you to go to Nick’s blog and check out the article because it’s a really interesting read and discussion. Anyways, as I was saying, some of Billy’s words caught my eye as it was something I’d be thinking about that very evening and I quote:

“Bloggers seem to justify their existence on comments and google analytics.”

There’s more, but it was this particular sentence that caught my eye, for I’ve been amazed recently, and if I’m honest, slightly confused, by the stats on my blog, The Steinberg Principle, of late. What I mean by this is that in January 2009 I had 540 people view my blog. In January 2010 it had risen to 17,245. This approx a 3000% increase in readership in a year. If my output at work went up 3000% I think I’d be the boss by now. I’m really not sure where these people came from though. Honestly, it kind of happened over night and took me massively by surprise! Thing is. I don’t care. Billy may well be right that many bloggers justify their existence on comments and google analytics, but it’s not something I have ever or will ever base the existence of my blog on. Of course, I am proud and delighted that my readership has increased so greatly who wouldn’t be.

But wanting people to read what I write was not the main reason for me starting a blog. I started a blog because I love to write. I love to write my thoughts down. I love to write about things that make me happy. I love to write, specifically, about music. And I loved writing as much in January 2009 as I do in January 2010. If my readership drops to the low thousands or hundreds by January 2011 it really does not mean that I will stop writing. Cause I write for me. Just like I write songs for me. It’s a wonderful feeling when people contribute. Just like it’s a wonderful feeling when people take notice of your band or like your music. However, I will always write for me and me alone. If you like it great. If you don’t. Nevermind. And whilst I am sure Billy’s words are actually very true, for me, I hope I never adopt such a frame of mind.

One drink, home early, not staying out, want to take it easy tonight… it’s just never going to bloody happen, is it.  Pure fantasy.

Last night’s escapades mean that I had far too little sleep last night, and something of a hangover this morning.  This puts me in no fucking mood to piss about with my cunting colleagues, who seem to have decided that answering the fucking phone is beneath them.  Our receptionist is off today, which means that we all have to take turns answering the phone, but apparently ‘taking turns’ needs to be explained in really big letters, and preferably with pictorial aids.  Apprently some people simply don’t hear and some people ‘have a deadline’.

To put you in the picture, there are only about twenty of us in our office in the first place, and we are a consultancy – every single fucking one of us is working to a fucking deadline, because that’s what our damn clients pay us for: to do their panicking for them.  I actually had to reach over some cunt’s desk this morning in order to answer the incoming call on his fucking phone.

“Hi, SuperdesignCo…  yes just a moment, who’s speaking please… yes I’ll put you through.”  Hardly enormously time consuming or intellectually fucking challenging you would fucking well think.  It reminds me of those cunts who are forever boasting about how many emails they bloody well have.  Yes, don’t worry, we all know how jolly clever and important you are.  There’s time for a chat, time for a coffee, time to fanny about pissing and moaning about how fucking busy they are, but not enough time to spend a minute answering the fucking telephone.

So for the rest of the day, I am far too busy and have decided that I am going to be pointedly too important to answer the damn phone.  Fuck it, it isn’t going to be for me anyway, so if anyone wants me I am going to be having a nap in the loo.

1. Name the worst violation of workplace etiquette which regularly gets your goat at your job.
2. And confess to the one you are most guilty of yourself.
3. Which office charicature is most prevalent in your place of work.
4. You have one bullet, and the world has promised to turn a blind eye… who’s for the chop?
5. How many hours of actual work do you tend to accomplish on hangover days?

The Sequins – Let’s Go Drinking in the Morning

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Clem Snide – Don’t Be Afraid of Your Anger

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The Divine Comedy – A Drinking Song

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John Cooper Clarke – Twat

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The Notwist – Pick Up the Phone

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Braden J McKenna is an interesting character.  I’ve never had an email from him which was much longer than a single sentence.  Even after naming his Navigator album in my top two favourite albums of 2009, all I heard from him was a one line ‘thanks very much, here’s something new we just released’.

There’s absolutely no need to say any more than that, of course, and in fact any sort of thanks is really nice, but I’m not just talking about emails.  Look at the MySpace pages of both Navigator and Weighted Pines, and there’s not exactly a surfeit of information.  The label on which all of this brilliant music is released is called Magic Goat, and their website has recently been redesigned to actually include less information.  Have a look at that site and try and imagine anything more minimalist.

This music is described as being inspired by nineties US indie bands, and it’s certainly a different animal to the fuzzy full band setup of the Navigator record. The guitar here is more pecked at, often producing quite a staccato sound, compared to the distorted background of noise which characterised Bad Children.  The percussion seems to have a little more rattle to it as well.

In general, though, this, for all I love an awful lot of it, does need something of a health warning: it really, really is fucking rough.  Some of the tracks, like Twentyfive and Small Town, for example, are extremely lovely, and show that McKenna’s voice has the capacity to be tremendously sympathetic when he chooses it to be, but there’s still an awful lot of cacophonous fuzz on this album which will probably put all but the most rapid fans of confrontationally messy recording off completely.

A couple of songs get close to being two minutes in length, but only a couple.  The rest last roughly a minute or so, and that’s yer lot so, for all you might think that some of the more abstract pieces are a bit frivolous, there is absolutely no buggering about here at all.  None.

So if you are starting to feel like you want to run a million miles from the attention whoring on things like the X-Factor, or from the polished tedium of Vampire Weekend, or the desperate cackling of T4, or the appalling smugness of Jules Holland, then this is about as far from anything even slightly commercial as you can get.  Everything’s downloadable for nothing from the label site: Magic Goat Music, a bizarre oasis of talent from Bone Valley, Utah, one of the most unexpected labels and unexpected places and unlikely groups of people I could possibly imagine.

Weighted Pines – Small Town

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Weighted Pines – Grow Old

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MySpace | Download from Magic Goat Music

As has been the trend recently, I have been very, very slow to post about these lads, despite having first heard and liked their stuff bloody ages ago.  I honestly don’t know why, either, because I liked them from the very first time I heard them.  Sometimes these things just happen, I guess.

Anyhow, they have a single out already, a double a-side of Love’s Dart and Storm, which I picked up at Pure Groove last week, and a new one out very shortly containing two songs: Wor and Skies Over Cairo, both of which can be previewed at their MySpace page, should you be so inclined.

You can talk about the combitation of electronic beats with something akin to a Spaghetti Western-inspired acoustic feeling, and whilst that does describe the style, it doesn’t really get across what’s good about this stuff, from my perspective anyhow.

Basically, for me, it’s about the rhythm.  Whether it’s the constant thumping of drums, or the skittish clicks of the electronic persussive sounds, all this stuff has a really insistent, infectious rhythm, which purely and simply makes you want to dance (even a wooden-backed, stand-at-the-bar toe-tapper like me).

These lads are playing Homegame in March (sold out, sorry) with a night in Edinburgh at the Wee Red on Friday 12th March – the same weekend.  I am really looking forward to seeing them actually, and finding out what this stuff is like live, because I have a hunch it could be absolutely superb.

It’s funny – for all the talk about indie-folk at the moment, some of the bands which excite me the most for the coming year are actually the heavily rhythmic ones with a really good beat to them – whether than be the eccentricity of Jesus H. Foxx or the Tapeheads, the glitchy electronics in evidence on the new Meursault album or the eminently danceable stuff like this or Findo Gask.

Django Django – Love’s Dart

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MySpace | Django Django Webshop

I don’t know why I don’t hate this album, but I don’t.  I’ve seen it given a right slagging, and I can’t argue with any of the reasons – it’s just like the last one, but without the incredibly infectious tunes, there’s no real progress, no ambition, just a fairly straightforward reproduction of a previously successful recipe with pretty much nothing added to really merit us spending our money on something which they basically did better about three years ago.

I don’t hate this, however, because the above comments may lessen my objective regard for this album, but they don’t seem to have much impact on my subjective enjoyment of it.  One of the benefits of not pushing on from the Van Occupanther template is that this retains a lot of the charms of the previous record, so it’s lush, dreamy and has that lovely vocal and electric guitar sound.  The whole thing just lulls me into a relaxed and comfortable frame of mind, and where often that would annoy me in a record, in this case I rather enjoy it.

I can’t honestly recommend anyone buy this.  It’s enjoyable and all, but if you already have Van Occupanther you don’t need this, and if you have neither you should really buy Van Occupanther.  Nevertheless, I find it difficult to harbour any real grudge against The Courage of Others because it’s just a good listen.  I can, however, entirely understand why some people are so irritated with it.

Oh, and Bring Down has a rather surprising patch of Radiohead in it for some reason.  Which is nice.

It’s been an odd week on Song, by Toad, for me surprisingly liking some very ‘pleasant’ albums.  Maybe it’s just the mood I’m in, or maybe it’s a case of early-onset middle aged listening habits, but recently I seem to have been surprisingly welcoming of music which is just plain nice, without being all that challenging, or in some cases even all that interesting.  Oh well, probably nothing in it, just don’t think I’ve gone all Radio 2 on your asses, I promise it’s not permanent.

Midlake – Acts of Man

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Midlake – Core of Nature

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