Song, by Toad

Hello again, Ruth and I are back on air tonight on Fresh Air, Edinburgh’s student radio station.  As per usual we’ll be having some live session stuff, this time from The Japanese War Effort.  Jamie is a bit of a band-whore actually, and plays in the Occasional Flickers and Conquering Animal Sound as well as ploughing his own solo furrow.  It’s this stuff, however, which is my favourite.  I haven’t much idea what it will sound like, stripped back to the extent that it will need to be in order to be played in the Fresh Air studio, but I am certain that it will be good.

The tracklisting will be filled out below live as we go along, and it would be nice if you would use the comment thread to chip and have your say during the show.  Believe me, it’s a hell of a lot easier than me trying to man Facebook, Twitter and bloody emails all at the same time as working the desk in the studio and the camera to record the session.  Still, Ruth’s back this week and so I should be a little calmer this time than last!

On air 7pm-8.30pm GMT – Listen live here.

Tonight’s playlist:
1..Tom Waits – The Part You Throw Away (edinburgh)
2..The Cave Singers – Belmar
3.. The Japanese War Effort- Winning Eleven (Live in session)
4.. Dan Mangan – Robots
5.. The Silver Columns – Brow Beaten
6.. The Japanese War Effort – Lanark (Live in session)
7.. Yusuf Azak – The Key Underground
8.. Rob St John – December & Whisky (Live)
9.. Doveman – Angel’s Share
10.. Hudson Mohawke – Fuse
11.. Helen Love – Debbie’s Joey
12.. Tune Yards – Hap-B
13. The Japanese War Effort – Face Like A Lemon – Ivor Cutler (Live in session)
14. Bruce Springsteen – Born in the U.S.A
15. Japanese War Effort – Punk’s Not Dead (Live in Session)
16. Leonard Cohen – Lover Lover Lover

Here is the podcast of last week’s session with the excellent Candythief, along with the session tracks and video of the performances.

Candythief Fresh Air Session

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Candythief – Bargains (Live on Fresh Air)

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Candythief – Pass it On (Live on Fresh Air)

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Candythief – Amnesty (Live on Fresh Air)

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Candythief – Junk (Live on Fresh Air)

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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 tell us funny stories when they occur to him, and it’s not like he avoids the topic, but I’ve never heard him tell any kind of tale about the war which I would describe as all that harrowing.  It’s possibly because he’d rather not bring it up because the memories might be a little hard to face, but I suspect it might be because, for all we would listen attentively, we actually would not be able to truly understand what the tales he would be telling actually, deep down, mean to him.

The world moves incredibly fast.  The things my Granddad does tell us which do make an impact are the tales of living in Wales and Manchester immediately before and after the war.  He talks about trying to get fired by his foreman at the steelworks just to prove he could face the man down.  He talks about his own Dad, and not in a particularly fond way.  He talks about how they tried to keep the house warm, and he would steal coal from work to put on the fire in the evening.

It’s difficult enough to know what the people who fight in modern wars really experience, despite some excellent films which try and get it across, but as much as anything when I think about my Granddad and his role in the Second World War and in particular the combination of that war and the society in which he lived at the time, it really strikes me that increasingly no-one understands what these guys went through, not properly.  Apart from a desire to fight Germans, one of the reasons he was so keen to get into the forces, in whatever division, was because working in the steelworks in Manchester was so incredibly shit.

The perception of the threat of someone bent on ‘taking over the world’, which in itself seems like a quaint concept these days, the lingering strength of the concept of England or Britain as an Island Empire, the overwhelming industrialisation, family life being so massively different and social standards radically so… it’s amazing how quickly people forget what life used to be like, even in their own childhoods.

For the best part of six years my Granddad fought in the British army against someone trying to conquer the nation, and indeed the whole continent.  Six years.  I don’t think that it would be possible for me to truly grasp that and more than anything else on Remembrance Day, that’s what I find myself thinking.

The Men They Couldn’t Hang – The Green Fields of France (No Man’s Land)

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The Waterboys – Red Army Blues

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This is the second of today’s introductions to other projects by people in Song, by Toad Records bands.  Nightjar’s The Moth Trap, Toad Records’ first full release, was the work primarily of Andy McKay of the now sadly deceased Celebrity Chimp, and an Edinburgh gentleman by the name of Jack Richold.  Nightjar itself was just a one-off project, but Jack of course has continued to work on his own things since Andy moved to London.

One such project is The Sea is Salt, which is a partnership between Jack and a young lady called Faith, whose voice I found so incredibly beautiful on Jack’s own recording of Lady of the Calico, which I originally knew as a Nightjar song.  She sang backing vocals on that particular song, but with The Sea is Salt her voice is front and centre, and fucking hell she can bloody sing.

The musical backing is so spare as to be barely there half the time.  There is a little acoustic guitar, some piano, a little fiddle, but not much else really.  Jack accompanies on harmonies as well, but again, not all that much.  In general this music takes things out, rather than leaving them in there, to leave Faith’s vocal as by far the dominant feature.

For someone who is as talented a violin player as Jack there is surprisingly little violin on The Sea is Salt stuff, but I always like a band who can resist the temptation to throw the kitchen sink at recordings.  I’ve included Bears below, because it’s really rather different from the rest of the songs on their MySpace.  I’ve heard earlier recordings on there which were also quite abrupt departures from the dramatic vocals of the likes of Deloris and Kennoway and Star, so I thought I’d pop it in here to give you more of an idea of their range.

If I were to look for slight caveats to my enthusiasm, it would be that there are times when they threaten to become just a little too dramatic for my personal taste, but I don’t know enough about their wider repertoire to really say.  It’s not the most significant of quibbles though, because even at their most grandiose I still really like their songs.

Whatever way you look at it, this is a very long way from Nightjar, but it’s really good, and I am somewhat surprised not to see these guys on a few more bills around the capital.  But then, to do that bands often need to be a bit pushy and forward and I don’t know Faith all that well, but Jack is such a quiet, easy-going guy that I can’t see him exactly being a master of self-publicity.  It’s a shame though, because I think a lot of people would like this.

The Sea is Salt – Vinegar Hill

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The Sea is Salt – Bears

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And for those of you who have forgotten the version of Lady of the Calico mentioned above, it’s here.  And fucking gorgeous it is too:

Jack Richold – Lady of the Calico

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Today I’m going to introduce you to a couple of under the radar projects which are both related to Song, by Toad Records bands.  In both cases I don’t really know what the future of the respective projects might be, because I don’t know how far either is going to be pushed, but they are both very good and I thought they needed sharing.

Firstly we have The Douglas Firs.  This is a side project of Jesus H, Foxx drummer Neil Inch, and has been bubbling under for years.  He’s been working on this album for ages, but his work hasn’t really seen the light of day outside a small circle of his friends, in part because he really isn’t all that up for performing live.

It sounds, on the face of it, like quite experimental music.  You might call it math-folk if you wanted a bodged mental shortcut for getting a picture of it.  You can hear a lot of the bursting harmonies and repetitive percussion of Jesus H. Foxx’s music, but the sounds are not really all that similar.

This has more of an atmosphere of experimental, almost ambient electronica a lot of the time, but there are surprisingly traditional Scottish folk influences in the fiddle and some of the rhythms which I wouldn’t expect from a leather-jacket-sporting drummer who batters the shite out of his drums in quite the way Neil does.

The nice thing about both the use of vocal harmonies and the more traditonal folk influences is that they are really beautifully used to bring the songs into focus.  The more experimental aspects drift and rumble along, and can become quite meandering until these details emerge, sometimes quite suddenly, to bring everything into relief.

These mp3s are just rough-cut demos, so not yet the finished article, but they give you a flavour of what’s going on here.  It’s no pop album though, and but if you have patience for your music and like to sit down and absorb it then this all looks like it could be very good indeed.  If he ever finishes the bloody thing!

The Douglas Firs – The Quickening

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The Douglas Firs – Grow Old and Go Home

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Oh, and it appears that there are a couple of other Douglas Firses on MySpace, which might complicate matters, should this ever come to fruition.

This is something of a departure from the first couple of Loch Lomond records – the sublime Lament For Children EP and full length Paper the Walls – despite the fact that nothing has changed all that much.

There’s been a shift of tone, only a slight one mind, but one which has nevertheless had a big effect on the overall impression of their sound.  The best way I can describe it is to say that the slightly macabre fairytale atmosphere, which was only present in the subtlest of shades before, has pretty much gone now, and with it the slightly disturbing, dark undercurrent of their music.  This is no criticism however, just an attempt to rationalise the significantly different impression I get from this record, compared to its ostensibly quite similar-sounding predecessors.

The title track bridges the gap the most for me, more so then even a re-recording of Spine, which is a relatively old (and brilliant) song. Even the name Night Bats has that old dark mystery about it, and the rather other-wordly falsetto emphasises that point with some impact.

The new version of Spine is perhaps the most telling song on the record for me.  It’s been recorded at what feels like a marginally quicker tempo, but whether or not it actually is faster, it certain feels it: there’s real purpose and urgency to the new recording, and a much fuller sound which doesn’t change the song that much in a literal sense, but in overall feel makes a big difference.

The subtle shift in emphasis is just enough to take the character of their sound from dark folk to
slightly distressed pop. It is in many ways a big pop record this; here the crescendoes are generated by swells of instrumentation, whereas before it was a keening of the emotion of the delivery.

It’s really bloody good though, because despite this change, none of the emotional impact of the music has gone.  It’s bigger, sure, and definitely a little bolder, but it really gives the impression that this incarnation was lurking in their music all along and they are just starting to let it out.  That same combination of euphoria, sadness and introversion is intact, but there is just a bit more confidence added to the mix which gives this EP a sense of real strength and integrity – it all just clicks nicely into place.

Loch Lomond – Wax & Wire

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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Hush Records

Given that this band has its roots in the lovely, borderline gospel, old-time Americana of the Cotton Jones Basket Ride, I’d say that Rio Ranger was a bit of a surprise, as an EP.

I don’t know if I’m just being perverse, because a lot of the same elements are still there, but this atmosphere seems a little different now.  Maybe that was the reason for the name change – maybe they felt they’d settled on the kind of band they wanted to be after the demise of Page France, and the sound had kind of fallen into place for them, rather than being a loose collage of elements familiar from other places.

Reverby vocals, omnichord (I think) and some rather tribal drumming on Nicotine Canaries make for a definite break from older things I’ve heard by these guys, whilst still retaining enough atmospheric mystery that it sort of feels related, somehow.  The keyboards have a touch of the doom-prophesying street preacher about them, creating an atmosphere which holds the EP together really nicely.

I’m finding this a really tricky EP to pin down actually – it’s just rather hard to describe.  There are old-fashioned elements (slightly gospel, slightly country, stuff like that) in the arrangement, but the production style is still quite modern, in that the vocals are shimmering and distant.

It’s not soaring or grandiose like you might imagine from the above description; instead it feels quite clipped and restrained.  At no point do they really cut loose and go for it, and that might be where I get the feeling of tension from.  I almost find there to be a feeling that the band are tied down in a sense, somehow held back from really attacking the songs.  That sounds like a criticism, but it really isn’t – quite the opposite in fact.

So yes, an enigmatic little record to have to try and review, but definitely one which I rather like and would recommend you have a look at.

Cotton Jones – Nicotine Canaries

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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Quite Scientific

After attending a birthday party which involved the scarfing of five pig’s heads yesterday I still don’t feel capable of eating anything. I may have to fast for the next few days before that little lot gets digested, in fact. Fucking hell that was a meal and a half.

There will be no giggenfun for me this week, unfortunately, despite a couple of natty lineups on the horizon. The label is going to require an absolutel shitload of admin work this week and if I go out gallvanting there is no way I am going to be able to get all of it done. We have Meursault single promos to do, Foxx promos, Split 12″ numbering, Maxwell Panther printing and label sampler cutting and folding. Then there’s the Fresh Air show on Wednesday with the Japanese War Effort, which I’m looking forward to.

Did everyone see that FOUND’s musical cupboard of magnificence won the BAFTA for Best Interactive Thingumajig? Well done lads, brilliant, and thoroughly deserved. Must have been a bit depressing for the others shortlisted though – how the fuck do you compete with something like the bloody Cybraphon?

Anyway, on with the task at hand. What should you be doing while I’m in the house folding paper, cutting out inserts and stuffing CDs into slip-cases? Well if you’ll hang on, I’ll tell you:

Wednesday 11th November 2009: The Pineapple Chunks, Ruthelise Snowe & Andy Brown at the Bowery.

I know little about this gig, so if anyone knows anything about who’s supporting please let me know in the comments. I’ve linked to an Andy Brown MySpace page, but I really don’t know if it’s the right one and, er, I can’t find Ruthelise Snow at all. The Chunks themselves however make, erm… mental guitar music basically. It’s off-kilter, surprisingly melodic and brilliant fun.

The Pineapple Chunks – Dark Halo

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Thursday 12th November 2009: Graham Coxon at the Queen’s Hall.

Most people I know absolutely love Graham Coxon, and cite his departure from Blur as the moment they became shit. That’s bollocks of course, because Think Tank is a great album, but that’s a whole new argument. Anyhow, here I am pootling along in my ignorance, with little real awareness of Coxon’s solo work and no more than a fairly casual liking for what little I have heard. The last album was really quite folky though, and I believe this is an acoustic setup, so that’s about all I can tell you.

Graham Coxon – All Has Gone

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Thursday 12th November 2009: The Leg, Your Loyal Subjects and Lipsync For a Lullaby play Versus at the Voodoo Rooms.

Apparently I sounded a little lukewarm on the concept the last time I mentioned the Versus gigs, but I really didn’t mean to be. All three bands will play separately, together and everything inbetween, and there will be inter-set entertainments as well. Basically it is going to be a gigantic musical mish-mash. The last one was apparently brilliant, so if Ted and his minions can pull that off again this should be a brilliant night.

Saturday November 14th: Riley Briggs from Aberfeldy at Carter’s Bar.

This is a free gig (Riley also plays alternate Thursdays down at the Shore in Leith, I believe) and will be a solo acoustic performance, but the band’s breezy indiepop should be perfectly suited to this kind of setup.

Aberfeldy – Love is an Arrow

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Saturday November 14th: Trashcan Sinatras, Brother Louis Collective & the Seventeenth Century at Cabaret Voltaire.

The Trashcan Sinatras are something of a blast from the past for me, I have to confess. I remember absolutely loving A Happy Pocket when I bought it back in my universoty days. I have to confess to having barely a clue what they’re up to these days, but I’d be really curious to see them. I don’t know Brother Louis Collective really, but the Seventeenth Century are excellent.

Trashcan Sinatras – The Therapist

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Saturday 14th November 2009: Panda Su, John B McKenna & the Last Battle play Trampoline at the Wee Red Bar.

The Last Battle are what happened when Thieves in Suits called it a day and I’ve heard very good things about them, without having had the chance to see them myself. Panda Su seem to be drawing all sorts of praise, and John B McKenna also sounds rather interesting. It’s a low-key lineup this one, but Euan has definitely found a really good spread of underground artists I’d personally like to see, and then kindly put them all in the same place on one evening for me.

I know I promised the Notcraigcast last week, but it didn’t happen I’m afraid.  After last week’s amazing Craigcast Neil and I were intending to introduce Craig to all sorts of modern music which we thought continued some of the traditions of the blues music he was describing to us, but circumstances have rather conspired against us unfortunately.  Neil is off on tour with Meursault playing his songs, and Craig is off on tour with his liver, taking it around the watering holes of Edinburgh and giving it a good, hard kicking in each one.

Consequently I’ve sort of cobbled together a podcast from fragments of the Pantscast and the stuff I’d intended to play for Craig.  It’s largely folky, but that wasn’t wholly by design, more to do with the fact that listening to the really early blues stuff Craig played for us sent me back to listening to old Smithsonian Folkways stuff and so there are a couple of songs from there, as well as a couple of modern things which those recordings brought to mind.

Smithsonian Folkways, incidentally, is a non-profit record label run by the Smithsonian Institute to preserve and support a truly epic amount of our musical heritage.  Just go and have a browse through their archives – it’s amazing how much incredible stuff these guys are looking after on everyone else’s behalf.

Toadcast #94 – The Not-Notcraigcast

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1. Micah P. Hinson – She Don’t Own Me (02.57)
2. Hem – The Cuckoo (11.13)
3. Saint Etienne – Like a Motorway (16.52)
4. White Antelope – Silver Dagger (22.15)
5. The Boggs – Plant Me a Rose (28.00)
6. Willard Grant Conspiracy – River in the Pines (31.47)
7. Berzilla Wallin – Conversation With Death (Oh Death) (39.22)
8. Samamidon – O Death (44.26.)
9. Dock Boggs – Sugar Baby (49.21)
10. Alela Diane – White as Diamonds (Daytrotter Session) (54.09)
11. Sandy Denny – By the Time it Gets Dark (59.07)

I don’t mean to irk the purists in the first sentence, but I am not quite the slavering Daniel Johnston acolyte I might be.  I went because I find his stuff intriguing, because loads of bands I love hold him in such high regard, but largely because I was curious about how someone quite so halting, awkward and, lets face it, weird ended up being such a cult hero for so many people.

I arrived late, due to radio commitments, so I missed pretty much everything up until Laura Marling’s support slot which was… decent.  Whenever I see someone like her who is, if not actually famous at least indie famous, I find myself wondering ‘If I didn’t know who she was and this was the first time I saw her in some ropey club or other, would I be falling over myself to release her records?’  In this case the answer is definitely no.  She seemed nice, she can certainly write a tune, but I am left pretty much entirely unmoved by her music I am afraid, and the solo acoustic setting did nothing much to improve on my impression of the album, which was equally indifferent.

Johnston on the other hand is a different prospect entirely.  He seems comfortable enough in the presence of the crowd, even reassured by it, which is slightly contrary to the (admittedly arbitrary) picture I’d managed to build in my head of him.  The first few songs are just him and an electric ukulele, and I don’t know enough to say for certain, but it seemed very much like he could barely play it.  I don’t know if this is simply a skill he has been unable to acquire despite what must be tons of hours of practise, or whether he’s actually really good and just plays in fumbling style, which I suppose is possible.  It seemed a lot like the former to me though, I have to confess.

These songs, despite the playing, and maybe because of the more basic sound, are the ones I like the most.  There’s something captivating about his stumbling musicianship and uncertain delivery which resonates so perfectly with his lyrics that it makes the songs seem all the more true in this format, something which the more polished band numbers can’t ever quite achieve.

When the Wave Pictures come on to play as Johnston’s backing band the results are a little patchy.  It’s not the fault of the band at all, but I personally just felt that some songs worked better than others, and there were defintely times when the plain vanilla bass and drums simply eroded the individualism of Johnston’s songwriting.  It could be a little smothering, basically.

Then again, maybe that’s how he sees himself.  For someone who seems to utterly disregard most basic songwriting axioms when he sits down to write, the three Beatles covers in this set seem to imply that he does harbour more straighforward pop instincts in there somewhere.  Even with their weird structures, his own songs are often successful because they do still contain a lyric simple yet so honestly, obviously true that it has the same impact as a memorable rhyming couplet.  And for all he can barely play them, he can certainly write guitar hooks.

Maybe that’s why the Beatles covers get such a cheer – maybe that kind of sudden statement of unselfconscious joy is at the heart of his popularity.  It’s a weird kind of shotgun marriage: the awkward, uncomfortable, vulnerability which is broken here and there with the musical equivalent of a sunny smile.  He has the shakes something rotten, and his lyrics are raw and unflinching, and he sounds like his voice will crack at any moment, and yet when he decides to hold a note he obviously can do, and he seems genuinely cheered by the love coming from the crowd.

So for all I don’t know his music that well, I can see from this gig how people get so engrossed in Daniel Johnston.  It really is all just out there for you to see: there seem to be no barriers at all between him and his audience.  And despite the age of Johnston himself, all the awkward but nevertheless very hip teenagers in the Queen’s Hall seem to be beside themselves in rapture.   But I think by the end of the night, that I just about get it. It was an odd gig though – really good, but almost more of a social experience than a musical one in many ways.  For me anyway.  For a good proportion of the people there it was as damn near a religious experience as they are likely to get.

Daniel Johnston – Life in Vain

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Daniel Johnston – True Love Will Find You in the End (His only encore – now that was a privilege!)

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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Amazon

This week’s disaster theme came from a conversation I had with Blueback Birthday Boy Dylan last night, but for the life of me I can’t remember how we got onto the subject of total cock-ups.  I was DJing later though, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Actually, I know I’ve had an uneasy relationship with DJing in the past, but last night’s effort was brilliant fun.  It’s all rather dependent on the occasion with me – too much of a dancefloor and it doesn’t suit the general miserablism I’m into, whereas if it’s supposed to be background music then my stuff can be a bit weird at times as well.  Last night was spot on though.

The event was a Oxfam night at Born to Be Wide in the Speakeasy at the Voodoo Rooms.  The basic premise was that the DJs (myself, Jane from the Bowery and Jamie from the Oxfam music shop in Stockbridge) would go into Oxfam, pick out a pile of vinyl, and then if people liked what they heard they could buy it on the spot.  We did really well, too, I think – certainly I saw about twenty or thirty records get sold, which is good going if you ask me.

The benefit of that kind of charity shop DJing is straightforward: your choice is really restricted.  So I went through the old jazz stuff and picked out a load of that, from the really early stuff to the likes of Piaf and Billie Holiday through to big band swing.  I did look for some blues actually, after Craig’s sterling efforts on last week’s podcast, but there was absolutely none.  Really, none at all, not even nasty eighties blues, which was sort of odd.  Presumably people don’t find their old blues records as disposable as their old jazz ones.

Anyway, I went from a couple of swing versions of Crazy ‘Bout My Baby (classic!) and I Want to Be Like You into Goldfinger by Shirley Bassey, then some Johnny Cash.  That brought on a bit of a country spell, with Willie Nelson and something of a childhood classic of mine: Me and Bobby McGee by Kris Kristofferson.  My dad would have been so proud.

Anyway, then it was Michelle Shocked, Cat Stevens, Bennie & the Jets by Elton John and then into the likes of Squeeze, The Jam and Ian Dury.  I finished it off with Modern Love by Bowie and a spin of A Few Kind Words by Meursault, at which point some hammered fellow came staggering over saying ‘Oh this is brilliant, I’m having this, I love this one, it’s..  it’s…   ah, it’s by I don’t know.. it’s…  but it’s fucking brilliant.’  Weird.  But fun.

I like that kind of DJing because you’re so restricted that the eclecticism becomes a real positive, you can play whatever the hell you like, and it just makes it better; you can play swing, Willie Nelson, Elton and Half Man Half Biscuit as part of the same set without anyone batting an eyelid.  And Jane, it has to be said, was just as bad: the theme to Flash Gordon, Laurie Anderson, Jerry Lee Lewis, moog versions of pop hits, Donna Summer.  All in all a splendid night – good work Olaf!

1. Worst DIY disaster.
2. Stupidest thing you’ve said on a first date.
3. Total cooking failure.
4. Stupidest thing you’ve said to your boss.
5. Comedy falling down moment.

Jacques Brel – L’age Idiot

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Grandaddy – Broken Household Appliance National Forest

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Frank Sinatra – Somethin’ Stupid (With Nancy Sinatra)

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Andrew Bird – Natural Disaster

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Tom Waits – Falling Down

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