No, no and once again, no. I was ruined for this album long before I ever heard it, my dear readers. The reason? Well I saw them live, an experience which blows this record clean out of the water.

Live, the monotonous guitars are a glorious wall of noise which provide a perfect counterpoint to the delicate vocals – like Saint Etienne fronting the Wedding Present. On record it loses all the fire and brimstone and as such this is a timid beast indeed.

I think that’s about all I can say really. I don’t like this album very much and if it was all I knew of them then I’d not bother with another one, but given I know what they really sound like I am at once baffled and annoyed. They are a great group capable of great things, but given I actually don’t know that much about the music industry I can only guess at what went wrong. Any band members out there want to set me right? It would be appreciated.

As far as I can tell they may need to cut loose more in the studio. Their sound rocked live, but physically they were quite conservative so maybe when they play in the studio they resemble their own slightly diffident body language a bit more. Let it go, girls, fucking go for it – you are unbelievable when you let go a bit.

Alternatively, maybe their producer is just fucking dreadful. I can’t imagine how the racket I was so captivated by on stage has turned into this meek record. Stop buggering about with them – they have serious balls, let them show it.

Any other suggestions, because I’m stumped.

Electrelane – To the East
Electrelane – In Berlin

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I was writing about bands selling out a couple of days ago and the phrase ‘the anti-popular reflex’ cropped up. Now, there are plenty of instances of bands genuinely selling out that we covered in that post and the subsequent comments, but I thought this particular phenomenon needed a little more idle chatter devoted to it. Hooray, I hear you say.

I have an instinctive and barely controllable anti-popular reflex whereby no matter how much I like something, as soon as it starts to become hugely popular I find it very difficult to maintain my enthusiasm. Sometimes this goes so far as to instinctively hate things simply because they are so popular. I can’t bring myself to watch Lost, for example, despite the fact that plenty of people whose opinions I respect keep telling me how good it is. And if I did watch it, it would be with that wrinkled up nose a little child gets when forced to eat brussel sprouts.

I think a lot of indie lovers suffer from this, and I think there are a couple of reasons, one trivial and one a little deeper.

The trivial one is that we indie lovers care quite a lot about music, and the general public does not. We care about music and form close bonds of loyalty with our favourite groups because no-one else likes them and it can feel that our evangelism on their behalf is important for them. Whether this is true or not is a moot point, but it can often feel that way. When these groups get popular it can be impossible to maintain that intense relationship because, well, if they’re special to several million people then it’s stretching the definition of the word special a little, isn’t it.

The slightly (only slightly though, don’t look so scared) deeper reason is this: most indie lovers are alternative types in general. Virtually none of us were from the cool set in school, nor are we amongst the champagne and martinis set now we are older.

To those not at the beating heart of all things cool, this makes the attribute of coolness something which can be oppressive, condescending, and demeaning, not least because those in the inner circle tend to guard their status rather jealously. Many of us react to this by redefining cool as being the things we ourselves most like, rather than the things that the vagaries of fashion and public clamour tell us we should like, but this is still a slightly defensive position. What is held up to be cool in the magazines and on the telly is popularly defined as being better, at the direct expense of everything else.

The stance – well, my stance anyway – is ‘Fuck off, who the fuck do you think you are to look down your nose at me you vacuous, bovine imbecile. What makes you think I give a shit what your opinion is of my lifestyle, or care the slightest fig for your herd mentality, you hollow, empty shell of a human being, you.’ Or some such. My relationship, and I don’t think I am alone in this, with the world of high cool is a fractious one at very best.

So when bands I love go mainstream this hostility towards things in the upper echelons of the hierarchy of popularity can kick in and overwhelm the actual warmth I may feel for the music. And equally, if I first hear of a band or a TV program or a pair of trainers simply because they are already very cool, it is highly unusual that I will think anything other than ‘Ah right, just more shit the masses venerate for no reason whatsoever. Just like they venerated that stringy transvestite Sarah Jessica Parker. Or those vapid cunts in The OC. Or that self-indulgent idiot Pete Docherty. Or that unbearable shitfest Titanic (Oscars, that film actually won Oscars).’

So it may not always be entirely reasonable, but I don’t think the anti-popular reflex is completely unfair.

The Magnetic Fields – Famous
The Endrick Brothers – Star of the Silver Screen
The Beatles – Honey Pie
Ben Folds Five – Underground
The Extraordinaires – Seeds of Jealousy
And now the kicker. Yes, I am actually going to ask you to listen to Meat Loaf. Yes I own this album and no, I didn’t have to go and buy this song just for this post. Snigger all you want, but if you listen to the lyrics and replace the girl in question with your favourite music and the anti-popular reflex (reason #1) is perfectly described.

Meat Loaf – More Than You Deserve

More Montrealers make their way into the music scene, and they fit very much into the general Canadian dramatic-indie-with-instruments landscape quite neatly.

Given they’re from Montreal I feel I would be neglecting my duty by not mentioning The Arcade Fire, but I can’t really think of much of a comparison, so maybe not.  Who they do remind me of a little actually, is Architecture in Helsinki, with touches of CocoRosie in the slightly unusual, almost hesitant female vocal.  The music is very pop indeed, such that it’s slightly surprising to discover that the whole thing is created mainly by cello and mandolin, albeit surrounded by a varying cloud of accompanists on all sorts of other instruments.

I don’t know what the proper term should be for slightly eccentric indie-pop played with lots of proper instruments and a little helping of anarchy, but it is a definite constellation forming in the musical heavens and this lot sit firmly therein, twinkling happily away at us from the night sky.

The Winks – Guitar Swing
The Winks – Slumber Party Let’s Go

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I can see the indie-police descending on me for this one, but here goes anyway: in all honesty, as much as I loved Good News for People Who Love Bad News, I don’t think I really like Modest Mouse very much. After Good News I went and tried to explore their back catalogue a bit and really didn’t get very far. Neither The Moon & Antarctica nor The Lonesome Crowded West did much for me at all and I pretty much gave up.

This latest one is a bit of a return to earlier territory which, for me, means a boom-boom drum rhythm and far too much shouting. One of the joys of Good News was the variety of sound, from the devil’s carnival stomp of Bury Me With it to the wistful dream of Float On, with plenty in between. We Were Dead has far less of that, which makes it all a bit one-paced most of the time. Most of the songs have trademark shouty bits interspersed with trademark melodic bits, with the result that most of the variety in the album is actually within songs rather than between them. The Fiery Furnaces do this a lot as well, and I don’t really like it.

That said, the overall sound is largely decent, if you’re listening for it then Johnny Marr’s contribution on guitars is clearly in evidence, and there are a couple of excellent songs. Dashboard, for example, is so superior to the pre-release leak it acts as a bit of a lesson to those of us with an ill-advised habit of drawing too many conclusion from sketchy pre-release gossip. All in all though, Modest Mouse aren’t my favourite band and this isn’t really my favourite album.

Modest Mouse – Dashboard
Modest Mouse – Missed the Boat

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I don’t know if there is another group of more low-life lizards on the face of the planet than gaybashers, particularly those who make a song and dance about gay marriage being some sort of issue.

There are more evil and more psychopathic people, for sure, and more cynical and dishonest. Even the Iraq war cheerleaders are responding to the clear and serious danger of terrorism, albeit in the most insane way I can imagine. But at least the issue is real.

Gay marriage opponents who pretend that allowing other people the same rights they enjoy is in some way a threat to ‘families’ are basically using the relentless persecution and alienation of people who have done nothing to them as some sort of whipping boy (Rrowrr!) on which to inflict all their own insecurity, fear and self loathing. They are pathetic and they make me sick.

Mrs. Toad’s best man was gay. I have been to more gay weddings (two) than straight ones (my own) and the idea that this ‘gayness’ can in any way affect myself and my young lady’s desire to spend the rest of our lives together and raise a couple of irritating little gob-shites is so utterly farcical as to barely warrant a response.

So these disgraceful fucking lizards use their religion as little more than a stick to beat other people with and get all het up about the danger posed to families by people wanting to actually make more families. And yet, with a sort of depressing inevitability, there is nary a whisper heard about what our culture of entitlement and instant gratification might do to people’s determination to stick it out through the good times and the bad as their lover grows old and fat and wrinkly. I’m not making any claims, of course, but it seems a little more relevant than sticking your nose into the relationships of people who have absolutely no involvement in your life whatsoever.

What brought this on? Well apparently gay marriage represents a threat to families and children, but this sort of idiotic stunt doesn’t. Right. In the words of Wendy Leach: ‘Well thank you for popping in and protecting us.’

Beck – Sexxlaws Yes, I know, the obvious one.
Fleetwood Mac – Family Man Don’t whinge. I’m not a massive fan, but I heard this quite a lot growing up so I don’t hate it as much as my inner indie snob thinks I should!
Iggy Pop – A Family Affair
The Magnetic Fields – When My Boy Walks Down the Street

Three quick capsule reviews of albums that I no more than kind of like.   They’re all decent, but not stunning and I can’t be arsed writing proper reviews for them given they aren’t famous enough for anyone to be interested unless they happened to be great.  Which they aren’t.  Some decent songs though…

Stone Jack Jones  – Bluefolk Imagine Mark Lanegan without the growl and menace and you’re pretty much there.  It’s got a nice bluesy vibe, this, but it’s frequently a bit bland.

Stone Jack Jones – Vivid
Stone Jack Jones – Bread

Veldt – The Cause: The Effect Nice, cinematic croonery here.  It’s quite dramatic, but I tend to lose concentration half way through.  Some very nice moments though and it’s a bit of a bargain on Amazon Marketplace if you fancy a flutter.

Veldt – The Aviary Hive
Veldt – Good Morning

Pinataland – Songs for the Forgotten Future There’s so much promise in this album, at once old fashioned and pop, a little like the Skybox album I reviewed a little while back.  Unfortunately, it never quite seems to live up to this promise, except in isolated moments.  They seem to be on the verge of having an amazing idea, but it never quite makes it off the tip of their tongue.

Pinataland – Ota Benga’s Name
Pinataland – Sleepwalker

Back in the days of CDs, vinyl and cassettes music collections were nice and neat: you had a collection of albums and singles and a small stack of accompanying compilations. On the occasion you found stray songs from compilations, poor albums, samplers and the like then they ended up on the compilations which became records in their own right, with an identity, an atmosphere and a rhythm.

Now, especially since I have started reading mp3 blogs regularly, I have hundreds of isolated songs which don’t belong with other songs. This is a bit odd. I don’t think it’s a good thing, but I’m not sure about that yet – maybe I’m just taking time to adjust.

So this post is about a few things I can’t honestly fit into a proper, coherent post, don’t really know what to do with, but would like you to hear because you might well like them. Musical pick ‘n’ mix, so to speak – the legacy of the digital age.

The Chaos Emeralds have a song on the Tough Love Records sampler.  I have listened to some of their other stuff and not been as impressed, but I like this one.  They’ve split up now anyway, so this song is rather orphaned.  Give it a home, Toadlings.
The  Chaos Emeralds- Furious Trims, Unhappy Haircuts

Parts & Labour (sunglasses recommended if you follow that link) are a group I read about recently on mp3hugger.com and, having really very nearly stopped the song after thirty seconds, was subsequently so impressed I bought the album.  So far the album has yet to grab me, so this song may also be left a little stranded.  It starts out like a dance nightmare, but the minute that guitar kicks in, I’m converted.
Parts & Labour – Fractured Skies

There is a new Blanche album, Little Amber Bottles, approaching on the 18th of June.  I first came across their brand of ramshackle gothic Americana when they supported the White Stripes at the Alexandra Palace down in London, and was entranced.  Their last album was no better than very good, but their recent EP was excellent and I am looking forward to the new record.  I don’t think I convinced the Loose Records chappie that I was important enough to merit an advance demo copy, so you may have to wait until my finances can afford a legitimate copy to hear more.  In the meantime, this is from the What This Town Needs EP.  Enjoy.
Blanche – Child of the Moon

Another one from mp3hugger, this.   I am not an enormous fan of their EP, but I like Alanalda for the following reason: they write current political protest songs.  Not generic ‘the war is bad’ ones, nor ‘the government are all liars’ ones.  But songs like this one, angry about the surveillance culture and the fact that we can all be tracked twenty-four hours a day, from CCTV to credit card transaction records, to mobile phone bills.  It is surprisingly rare to hear people write these sorts of songs and I think they’re important.  Is there anyone else you can suggest – people who read the news, get angry and write songs about it?
Alanalda – Always Someone Watching

I was on the Fence Records Beefboard the other day and someone mentioned that he had heard The Aliens’ Happy Song on telly being used to advertise the Disney Channel, and said that “a little part of my soul died.” Now, to be clear, he wasn’t criticising The Aliens for the fact that their song had been attached to something so depressingly saccharine, crassly vapid and utterly banal as the Disney Channel. He was just lamenting this being the way of the world at the moment.

Now, this conjured a couple of thoughts in my mind. Firstly, people are slowly developing a marked immunity to a lot of advertising (article, article). And secondly, despite its importance, no-one has quite figured out how to advertise properly on the internet yet either, as evidenced by the slightly comical attempts of spammers, flashing banner merchants and employers of those idiotic pop-up windows. Basically, this sort of idiotic flailing about just alienates people, so what else can they do?

Well, one of the most popular methods at the moment is the removal of the barriers between content and advertising: basically turning all content into a kind of ungodly co-branding exercise whereby the more prominent the usage and the more key the moment, the better. For a band, this means placing a song in that climactic final five minutes where we all realise that if everyone is just ‘there for you’ (whatever the fuck that imbecilic phrase means) then life will be all beer & skittles.

So far so obvious. I think most of us knew that already. So what does this do for bands and the concept of selling out? Well TV and movies are already balls-deep in this particular fatted calf, as anyone who saw the downright embarrassing come-shots of that Audi in I, Robot can testify. Both these media are completely compromised now, and frequently one big advertorial, so in all honesty, fuck ‘em.

Music, on the other hand, will find it very difficult to shoehorn a line about, say, Sony laptops into a song, but plenty of people sing about their favourite shoes and spaff all over iPods and god knows what else which, whether or not they receive any actual cash for doing so, is essentially the same thing – co-branding, brand network curation, whatever punchable buzzword you happen to prefer. The hardest aspect of this kind of thing is the impossible blurring of the lines between someone who is simply being honest, and someone who is being a corporate shill.

Several bloggers, for example, advertise eMusic on their sites with various levels of evangelism. They get money for doing so, assuming people take them up on it, but they are almost all completely up-front about their reasons and almost all being completely sincere – eMusic really is the best music download service out there, and just about the only thing keeping me honest in this digital age.

As a band, money is always involved. If you want to make a living as a band you have to sell your music to people. So it’s all very well for legends like Tom Waits with a cast-iron back catalogue to refuse all commercial use of his music, because he can afford to. But I have seen too many of my friends play shitty gigs in grotty venues where the few people there spend the entire evening talking over the music to begrudge anyone saying ‘oh, sod it, alright’ if a company wants to use their song in a trailer, even for something as meretricious as the Disney Channel.

But as to marketing by association, it is almost certainly something we are going to have to get used to, and I don’t think it will be easy to do so. I detest, absolutely detest, the sort of American TV show that is becoming one of the best sources of exposure for emerging bands. Teeth-grindingly awful programs like The OC, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost and, going a little further back in time, Dawson’s fucking Creek. I don’t know what’s worse, their toe-curling desperation to be so cool they could sprain something at any minute or the need for society to have the empty, passive act of watching the same pointless television programs in common to act as some sort of social glue.

Consequently, if the scabrous marketing departments for these entities alight upon the same things as myself in the search for the new and the interesting then I genuinely feel tainted by association. You may think this is shallow, but I make no apology. It feels a bit less special if it has been fondled by the slippery fingers of the bleeding edge marketeers of this world, and I feel a bit less happy to like it.

That said, one of the best sources of exposure for our favourite bands is increasingly going to be this sort of circle-jerk festival of mutual ego massage which reeks of selling out – it just smells as fishy as hell to me – but I don’t think it really is. I may be aggravated if I were to hear, say, Honeytrap on The OC, because it is a program made about cunts, by cunts for cunts, but it would certainly not be Honeytrap’s fault. Those producers are basically fans, the same as we are. They’re only possibly compromising themselves in doing so, if they are claiming to like bands they don’t just because they thing The Kids will be impressed. But in this case, again, it is not the band, it is them.

So Madonna writing songs to peddle Gap clothes which she may like, but I would put money on her not loving, is selling out. This imbecilic stunt is certainly selling out. But music is still a commercial industry, and selling your music to people is an unavoidable part of the business. So fuck, if someone, even in The OC, mentioned reading Song, by Toad I’d fall off my chair in delighted surprise.

But as soon as money is involved, we need to be very suspicious. Bands may well be honest in their support of products, but it is sincerity that seems to me to be the core of the sell-out. Sincerity is notoriously hard to detect though, especially as we have a nasty habit of conflating a band’s opinions and motives with our own. But I do believe that in the end a consistent lack of sincerity is very hard to keep hidden, so don’t worry about what your band chooses to associate themselves with, worry about how much they seem to mean it. Even Chris Martin, for all his crimes against music, seems sincere.

Honeytrap – Death Before the Silver Screen My favourite song of the year? Quite possibly.
The Clash – Complete Control
Barry Adamson – You Sold Your Dreams

And, for the kings and queens of advertising, I actually really like these two songs. Yes, Moby. Ah fuck off, so crucify me. I like it, alright?

Moby – Run On
Goldfrapp – Paper Bag

Song, by Toad is not the messiah. He is a very naughty boy.

Oh the shame of it all, my dear readers. I have been told off by the hopping mad and eminently justified Mrs. Toad for ‘treating this house like a hotel’ and not doing enough cleaning. Head duly hung in contrition – that poor girl puts up with an awful lot for the very dubious privilege of my companionship, she really does.

The first one comes about from too many gigs and far too much carousing. I had a conversation with two girls at The Aliens’ gig on Thursday who I asked questions I apparently have already asked them and they have already answered. Nothing crucial, mind, just the usual small talk questions you ask someone the first time you meet them, but I just have no recollection of this conversation whatsoever. Maybe I should try actually listening to people when they talk to me. Maybe I should try getting less shit-faced at other people’s parties too.

The cleaning thing is just a laziness problem. I hate cleaning. I keep the house pretty tidy, but I can’t stand the scrubbing the bath part of cleaning and can put these things off forever. And yes it is my turn. And yes I am procrastinating yet again and writing blog posts instead of just getting on with it. It’s just so dismally, depressingly, awfully FUCKING BORING! Please can we get a cleaning lady, darling, pleeeease?

Wasn’t that a thought-provoking and worthwhile post then, eh? Well for crying out loud don’t you whinge at me, people. It’s a huge internets, and there must be something out there interesting for you to read instead of this.

Actually, let’s get intellectual after all – how about some insightful movie criticism? Well, I know Helen Mirren got Oscars this year for some film there is no way I can be arsed seeing. And I know she’s a bit old. What I didn’t know was this: what absolutely fabulous boobs she used to have. Goodness gracious, what perfect orbs of squishy delight those two little puppies are – who’d a thought it? I know she had a reputation for sartorially minimalist art house snooze-fests in her reckless youth, but I’d never been keen enough to see her sans-vetements to actually bother sitting through anything quite so drearily worthy. As I said, there’s a whole internets out there…

The Futureheads – Worry About it Later
The Jam – Mr Clean
Scissor Sisters – Tits on the Radio
Tom Waits – A Good Man is Hard to Find
Tom Waits – I Don’t Wanna Grow Up

Hello all.  I am a bit busy for a proper post today – off to see The Aliens, don’t you know – so I thought I’d rattle up some trivial site news quickly.

Firstly, I am only now getting back up to the level of readership I enjoyed at my old Blogspot address, which has taken just over a month since I moved over to WordPress.  Onwards and upwards, what.  I still haven’t managed quite the same number of Technorati links yet, but I’m getting there.  I’m a little bit surprised how long it’s taken for people to realise I’m here actually, but there you go.  So thanks, in particular to the folk who were so loyal as to make the switch with me immediately and give the new home a good housewarming.

Secondly, plenty of comments recently, and not a single ‘Yeah, dude’ amongst them, so thanks for the interaction.  Given I basically write this blog to hold the conversations with you lot that I can’t have with pretty much all of my mates, it’s splendid that you all chip in, so thanks very much.

Thirdly, and a little off topic, the number of spam comments that the Akismet software has stopped since I moved to WordPress overtook the number of actual comments some time on the weekend, and has since rocketed off into the distance.  On the plus side, hooray for Akismet which has snagged all but two of these comments, and those two it referred to me for moderation.  On the negative side, what the fuck are these idiots trying to achieve?  Do they really think you lot come here for some obscure indie tunes, a bit of viagra and a penis extension?  Is it really worth the effort of generating all this shit?  Do people actually respond with ‘Yes actually, I was considering a penis extension now that you mention it, and instead of a real doctor I thought those retards off the internet who can’t spell anything properly would be the very chaps’? Honestly.

So thanks all, and prepare yourself for even more pompous, ill-thought out proselytising in future.  And in honour of all your contributions we have some Gene:

Gene – Speak to me Someone

And because I went to their gig the other night but couldn’t be arsed writing it up, we have The Wombats:

The Wombats – Patricia the Stripper
The Wombats -  Little Miss Pipe Dream