Mrs Toad and myself went to Bestival on the Isle of Wight last year and, although we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, I must admit that this year I was after something a little smaller. There’s something rather uninspiring about bald fields covered in a sea of broken plastic cups and a two hour queue for warm beer. Once the truly abysmal Bestival lineup for 2007 was announced – Beastie Boys, Chemical Brothers, Primal Scream? Have I gone back in time by ten years or something? – I decided that was it, I was looking for something smaller and far more friendly. Sod the bands, I just want a nice weekend.

Well I’d exchanged a few emails with Simon from End of the Road Records about The Young Republic, who are superb and recently signed to the label. I knew the label had formed from the End of the Road Festival so I thought it might be a good one to take a chance on. There wasn’t much in the lineup that I recognised, but what the hell – a festival full of smaller, less well known bands would be quite fun. And besides, Howe Gelb was on there, so that did it for me and I bought a couple of tickets.

That was something in the region of a month ago. Since then that lineup has just got better and better, as Simon has dropped one gem after another into the mix. This morning they announced Midlake and Yo La Tengo. I can’t believe it! Suddenly instead of just looking forward to this, I am excited as little boy.

Full line-up thus far (I’ve highlighted the ones I think are interesting and provided a few samples – although I haven’t used the little player this time as the javascript would slow the whole page down too much with this many links, sorry):

Alessi (music)
Archie Bronson Outfit
Architecture In Helsinki - Heart it Races
The Bees
Besnard Lakes – Cedric’s War
Brakes
The Broken Family Band
C. W. Stoneking
Charlie Parr
The Congregation
Dan Sartain
Darren Hayman
David Thomas Broughton
David Vandervelde
Devastations
Euros Childs
Findlay Brown
Fionn Regan
Herman Dune
Howe Gelb – Pontiac Slipstream
Hush the Many
Hyacinth House
Indigo Moss
James Yorkston – Someplace Simple
Jeffrey Lewis
Jim White
Joan As Police Woman
Johnny Flynn – Brown Trout Blues
Josh T Pearson
King Creosote – Missionary
Micah P Hinson – I Still Remember
Midlake – Van Occupanther
Misty’s Big Adventure
Monkey Swallows the Universe
My Brightest Diamond
Paris Motel - Entrez Dans la Salpetriere
Pete and the Pirates
Port O’Brien
Reigns
Richard Swift
Seasick Steve
Slow Club
Sons of Noel and Adrian
Stephanie Dosen – Vinalhaven Harbour
Sunny Day Sets Fire
Super Furry Animals
Telegrams
The Twilight Sad – And She Would Darken the Memory
Viking Moses
Woodpigeon – Home
Yo La Tengo – Tom Courtenay
The Young Republic – Your Heart Belongs in Tennessee

Now all Simon has to do is pull off some miracle of scheduling that allows me to see absolutely all these bands, as well as leaving some space for me to check out some of the new ones. Good luck, mate!

I recently picked up a copy of an album that takes me very precisely back in time to a specific year, a specific place and a specific girl.

I was raised, for the most part, in Vienna and only came to the UK at age 17 to go to university. Because my Mum is from Manchester that is where I went to do my Foundation Course in Art & Design, despite having been offered a place at Wimbledon School of Art which, with crystal clear 20/20 hindsight, would have been a far better choice. After Vienna where I was, compared to the people of all sorts of nations with whom I went to school, extremely English, it was a massive shock to find out quite how English I actually wasn’t, in reality. I also didn’t have the saving grace of being obviously foreign, which gets you quite a lot of slack cut for odd behaviour.

Consequently, it was a pretty horrendous year of rather merciless culture shock. Once I was offered my place at the Glasgow School of Art, in early January, I packed in the course, which I hated, and took a job in one of the local 5 Star hotels (at least my BBC accent, otherwise a liability in Manchester, was good for something). There I met a very intelligent and very prickly and rather pretty Irish girl who I spent the next two and a half years of my life with. She was easily the most musically interested of any of my other girlfriends and we got into all sorts of really good bands together.

She also, as my only ex to actually own any music, took a fair bit with her when we split up. Generally I replaced this stuff pretty immediately, but this one I never got round to buying again until last week. This enforced break meant that when I heard the music again, for the first time in oh, about ten years, all these incredibly vivid memories came flooding back, as it will with music.

So I thought I’d share some songs from Michelle Shocked’s 1988 album, Short Sharp Shocked. It’s a singer songwriter affair with heavily Southern country, gospel and folk influences. One of my favourite songs on the album is Anchorage, if just because of Michelle’s relationship with her friend’s husband: ‘Leroy says send a picture/ Leroy says hello/ Leroy says keep on rocking girl.’ There’s something so generous and real about the picture of friendship she paints, it really has me choking a little and having to hastily remember the aloof, macho image of cool indifference I have so carefully constructed for myself. Ahem.

Have a listen though. It’s interesting: in the light of Jenny Lewis and Neko Case’s recent success with a very similar sort of music it is interesting to hear some of their precursors. And have a little covert sniffle at the loveliness of the songs as we do so!

Michelle Shocked – Anchorage
Michelle Shocked – The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore
Michelle Shocked – Black Widow

I honestly kid you not, yes they are sneaking back into fashion, I am pretty certain of it.  The evidence?  Well, the surprising number of relatively trendy people I have seen sporting them recently and, of course, the simple fact that they have been so hugely out of fashion for so long.

The Hold Steady’s Franz Nicolay has had one at various points, the bass player for Elvis Perkins had one last night, and I saw a big picture of some chap from Interpol with a great big bloody moustache on the first page of the NME the other day.  Now, this is hardly a tidal wave of  underground fashion swelling up into and overwhelming the mainstream, but bear in mind that this kind of alternative scene is often how these things start.  The Hold Steady and Elvis Perkins is one thing, but Interpol?  They’re cool, aren’t they?  Too cool for a ‘tache I would have assumed, unless of course…

The other thing is that once something has been that unfashionable for that long some amusing wag is bound to have a stab at resurrecting it.  I get the impression there may be something in this one, Toadlings.  If you notice the banner at the top of the page you will find that a certain discerning green gentleman has been sporting a rather fine and most elegantly waxed example for some time now.  If you want to be at the croaking edge of fashion, keep an eye out for chaps sporting the only real choice of face furniture suitable for a true gentleman.  It’s the future I tell you!

Man Man – 10lb Moustache
The Monochrome Set – Man With the Black Moustache

These chaps will be pleased.

When Willy Mason played The Borderline in London a few years ago he produced one of the best, most utterly magnetic live performances it has ever been my privilege to witness. I was looking forward to this one, and reading The Daily Growl this morning I realised there was a good chance of seeing Elvis Perkins as well, so I made sure I dragged the unfortunate Mrs. Toad there nice and early.

I was pretty complimentary about Elvis Perkins’ forthcoming album (recent album, if you’re in God Bless America) but maybe not as complimentary as I may have been had I seen this performance before I wrote that post or heard the album for the first time.

If you read Tim’s Review on The Daily Growl you’ll see he calls Perkins substantial. This is a good way to describe it. He’s not showy, not all that forceful even, and you don’t come out of the gig feeling that you know much more about the music than you did before. What you do come out of it thinking is that you have just seen the real deal.

In the place of the showboating, the drive or the unhinged passion of many groups that do a great live set, there’s something understated, confident and utterly certain about Elvis Perkins. It gives his music tremendous gravitas and makes sure it hits home calmly but surely. He even cut loose and unleashed a bit of marching band trombone action for his penultimate number before closing with the opener from his album, the quiet and completely wonderful While You Were Sleeping. I will be keeping a far closer eye on him in years to come, that is for certain.

Buy his album, my little Band of Toads, you really won’t be disappointed.

Elvis Perkins – All the Night Without Love
Elvis Perkins – While You Were Sleeping

Willy Mason, after this, was a bit of a disappointment, but by the end demonstrated exactly why: he had a band with him and he really, really didn’t need one. His recorded music benefits very well from having his simple, sad acoustic songs filled out with upright bass and some guitars to add to the texture. Live, on the other hand, it is just a distraction.

When I saw him at The Borderline he filled a room completely with just him and his acoustic guitar. He is talented guitarist indeed, and I have rarely seen anyone create so rich a sound on his own. Add the soulful sadness of his voice and, honestly, the effect was just phenomenal.

Here his playing was disguised by too much accompaniment and the effect on Willy himself of having a band was that it seemed to encourage him to hide. He played almost his entire encore solo and the difference was like night and day. He was talking to us again, and his shy charisma shone through almost immediately. Suddenly there were silences in the music as well – he would play a note or strum a chord and just let it sit there, diffusing into the room.  I never thought I’d notice the gaps between the notes make such a profound difference – it always sounded like the sort of pretentious bollocks grown up music reviewers say because they can’t think of all that many ways to say something was good.

Basically, instead of an indeterminate ‘band noise’ fuzzing over the subtleties, suddenly every note counted. You could hear them fade, you knew why he played so few at times, and it led you through the music making it so much more poignant and direct. His encore earned more applause and more affection that the whole rest of the set put together. I can’t imagine how lonely and boring it would be to tour an entire continent by yourself, but Willy Mason needs to be heard by himself to really be heard, I think.

Willy Mason – All You Can Do From Where the Humans Eat
Willy Mason – Not Lie Down B-Side to Oxygen
Willy Mason – World That I Wanted Live on KCRW
Willy Mason – We Can Be Strong From If the Ocean Gets Rough

This is not a post about Clem Snide, I just thought the album title was highly appropriate and I love the artwork.  What this post is really about is that precise moment you see the fashion train about to leave the station and instead of running to jump on before the doors close you give a wry smile, slow to a stroll and calmly watch it pull away and head off into the distance.  Ah well.

Most people aren’t all that fashionable between the ages of say, ooh, about one and perhaps eighty-five anyway, but I am referring more to that point at which you suddenly realise that fashion is for the Yoof and you are no longer young enough.  Most of us, especially the indie types likely to be reading this, rejected large portions of the current fashion all the way through our youth anyway, either for reasons of modesty, taste, curmudgeonly refusal to join in, indifference, or myriad other reasons.  Famous one-line smart arse Oscar Wilde did, after all, brilliantly say that “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”

But even as kids, not being fashionable was a choice we made based on what the cool people were wearing – it was a current choice.  This 80s revivalism is actually rehashing fashions I already rejected nearly twenty years ago.  So suddenly, for the first time in my life, they are reviving fashions which I didn’t even like the first time around.  And that, my dear readers, is when you know that fashion has passed you by one final, irretrievable time.

Ben Folds – There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You
Billy Bragg – The Busy Girl Buys Beauty
Squirrel Nut Zippers – Flight of the Passing Fancy

And one more thing: Song, by Toad will NEVER wear skinny jeans.  Ever. Unlike virtually 98% of the people who do wear them I am well aware of the fact that I am the wrong build and my arse is far too big and I would just look like a total prat.  Do you wear skinny jeans?  If the answer is yes, please be aware of the fact that there is an empirically undeniable 98.3% chance that they make your arse look either too big or just not there at all and your legs look like carrots.  None of these are flattering.  You’re welcome, just thought you should know.

Pulp – Pencil Skirt Now these are sexy.
The Clash – Just the Right Profile

I never know what I think of the Arctic Monkeys. The first album didn’t really grab me, although I loved the lyrics, until a good friend told me to go back and listen again because it was brilliant. I duly did so, loved it for a good while, and then slowly cooled again.

The first couple of tracks from this one had me all excited, thinking this could be really brilliant. I heard the album, was disappointed, changed my mind to think it was brilliant and now I’m not so sure again. I think they’re like this, the Arctic Monkeys: sort of a permanent oscillation. They’re way better than a good band, but nothing like as good as a great one, and as soon as Unbridled Rock ‘n’ Roll Joy Toad has a few beers and starts to get too full of himself, Sensible Worldly Toad arches a quizzical eyebrow, sips a gin and takes an ironic draw on a big fat Cuban. That said, if Worldly Toad gets a tad too ironically superior for his own good, Rock Toad turns up the stereo, pisses on his shoes and dances all night with the prettiest girls in the joint.

So, expect more of Alex Turner’s genuinely superior lyrical talent. Expect more choppy, joyful guitar melodies that pep up their classic indie rock sound with funky changes and danceable bounciness. Expect a few more melancholy introspective numbers. Expect to be able to play this at virtually any party and have people love it. But don’t expect to be blown away by the brilliance.

I wish I could remember where I read it, but someone recently said that Oasis were the death of indie because you had White Van Man and introverted indie obsessives in love with the same music. I can’t quite articulate why this meant indie was dead, but it feels right nonetheless. The Arctic Monkeys have a similar problem – I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor was a perfect embodiment of this phenomenon. Please don’t tell me these lads are the new Oasis.

So to, erm, recap that rather incoherent collection of random thoughts, do not expect an unprecedented maelstrom of indie genius, because for all the Arctic Monkeys are really good, they definitely aren’t great. I sometimes find myself blaming them for this, because they’re so close it can be frustrating that they seem to never quite take that last step, but ultimately if you ignore the hype and fuss surrounding them then you can really enjoy a solid, enjoyable and intelligent addition to any true indie kid’s record collection.

Arctic Monkeys – Brianstorm Alright, confession time: who else out there instinctively changed the name of that song to ‘Brainstorm’ when it first came out, assuming that the person who ripped the first surreptitious copy off the radio had made a typo? Just me then? Arse.
Arctic Monkeys – Balaclava

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I am not a historian (yes, I know it’s ‘an’ historian but it really does sound pretentious) or a patriot, so I am not going to go on about this, but there are two things that bug the living shit out of me when wars are mentioned, and World Wars in particular. I think these points need to be made because they address the two most irritating misconceptions I tend to find people have about the World Wars, in particular WW2. The songs are really, really fitting too so please don’t just pop them on. Actually listen.

1: Surrender Monkeys

I hear this said about the French all the time by both Brits and Americans and it really annoys me. Germany invaded and overran France in WW2 and their advance ground to a halt there in WW1. In fact in WW1 the extent of the slaughter was unprecedented in the world, and the battles in Northern France are legendary for their brutality and loss of life.

We have a house in France, and in every village there is a war memorial. On every war memorial is a list of names. The list is so long, for both world wars, that it beggars belief the town could have been even half that big in the first place. In most cases families lose numerous men. Over the course of both wars which were, let’s not forget, only twenty years apart, many families suffered double figure losses, and this is in every single tiny little village for miles and miles around.

The UK and the US have no idea what it is like to resist an actual invading army – the Spanish Armada in 1588 is, I believe, the last time Britain has come even close – so we quite simply have no right to judge what we do not understand. Can you imagine German officers in your home town? Can you imagine almost every single man between the age of about 17 and 45 being killed defending his home – literally too, none of this ‘defending our country against Tourism’ bullshit? No you bloody can’t, so if you want to talk Surrender Monkeys do it well the fuck out of my earshot because you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

Leonard Cohen – The Partisan Lyrics (gut-wrenching)
The Men They Couldn’t Hang – The Green Fields of France Lyrics

2: We saved your goddam asses in the Second World War

You think so do you? Well, I am not about to deny that the Americans played a hugely important role in the Second World War because that would be stupid. But you want to know who ‘saved everyone’s asses’? Well, do you remember what happened to the Grande Armee de la Republique in 1812? What happened to the Germans in the First World War? The Nazis in WW2? I’ll tell you what, they all stupidly invaded Russia and their armies were slowly ground into submission in one long, horrific war of attrition after another.

How many Americans died in WW2? About half a million. British? Roughly the same. It sounds a lot doesn’t it. Well it’s peanuts – the Greeks lost a similar number. If you want to know who ‘saved our asses’ in WW2 consider that current estimates put Russian casualties of that war at about 26 million, split roughly in half between civilian and military deaths. Hitler was stupid enough to invade Russia before he’d polished off Britain and his army was ground down in one of the hardest, bitterest and most miserable campaigns imaginable. Over a third of all deaths in the Second World War were Russians. That’s who saved our asses in WW2.*

Funnily enough, the second on the casualty list? China, with 20 million, roughly 16 million of whom were civillians. Browsing that list I also notice that the Poles lost 20% of their population. Russia lost 13.4%. America lost 0.32% and Britain less than 1%. Sobering, isn’t it.

Billy Bragg – Think Again Lyrics
The Waterboys – Red Army Blues Lyrics

*Dear proper historians – no, I am not claiming it was that simple, just making a single, isolated point. And yes, I do know there was a war in the Pacific as well, but that’s a whole different story.

I know that Alligator was supposed to be The National’s big breakthrough album but I never bought it. I had a quick couple of listens, decided I wasn’t really all that grabbed, and moved on. You can’t buy everything, no matter how obsessed you are, there just isn’t enough time in the day or money in the piggy bank.

Listening to Boxer I was pretty much immediately onside because of the pre-release leak of the excellent Fake Empire. No matter how objective and pure you claim to be, it always helps to listen to an album for the first time when you’re in the right frame of mind.

If The Willard Grant Conspiracy were shuffled with the Jesus and Mary Chain, you might be dealt The National. They are deep, morose and dark, with layered textures of piano, guitar and horns building a sort of emotional atmosphere around the song that fits perfectly with the deep thick voice of lyricist and singer Matt Berninger.

The first reaction of one of my colleagues here at Proper Job was ‘Christ, that’s depressing’ until he heard a single song by itself on a playlist, and asked me who this excellent band were. This sums the album up nicely, I think. It may be a bit much all at once, at least the first time through. But as you listen more the glittering piano and hopeful horn sections drag a bit of optimism out of the music, and suddenly the morose atmospheres have a subtly uplifting quality to them that you never expected.

You can actually preview the entire thing on their MySpace page if you want to, but make sure you take the time to let it sink in, because it’s worth it. A really lovely, intimate album.

The National – Start a War
The National – Ada

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Marcy from the rather wonderful Lost in Your Inbox has inspired me to write a post I’ve been intending to scribble out for a wee while now; one about an exotic visitor I used to have, and hope I still do. Back when this site was on Blogger I used to have an almost daily visit from someone in French Polynesia. Now that Song, by Toad has moved to WordPress I don’t get anything like the quality of stats I used to, so I have no idea if my Polynesian friend is still a regular visitor here. If you are: hello there, delighted to have you with us, and do say hi in the comments section.

Anyhow, as Mrs. Toad observed, this is a small example of one of my favourite things about the information age. Only very recently, it would have been unimaginable for someone living on an island that is part of a remote Pacific archipelago to maintain any sort of an active, everyday interest in obscure indie music, but now it is not just possible, but really rather easy. I sort of like that. Why someone living in a tropical island paradise would want to waste part of his day reading my dithering cynicism is rather beyond me, but it’s a nice thought.

So in honour of my visitor from French Polynesia I am going to post some French songs. Or some with bits of French in them. The poor bastard may be utterly sick of the sound of the French language by now, so this might be irritating as hell, but it seemed sort of appropriate.

Blur w. Francoise Hardy – To the End One of the best b-sides of all time by anyone, ever.
The Wedding Present – Pourquoi Est-tu Devenue Si Raisonnable? Splendidly shit French accent from Mr. Gedge.
Francoiz Breut – Si Tu Disais Excellent, sultry French girl indie.
Calexico – Si Tu Disais An English version of the same song. Brilliant.
Calexico – The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Marianne Dissard – Merci de Rien du Tout Marianne’s lovely voice sang the French part in The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Her solo stuff is truly lovely stuff.

This album feels like the ultimate, powerful indie-rock template.  As The Daily Growl says, it takes a few listens to perhaps come to love the whole thing, but fortunately there are enough instantly compelling songs on the record to make those repeat listens a genuine pleasure.

It’s simple to describe this record really: a big, powerful blast of confident indie: bombastic and ambitious.  All the really classic tools of the indie rock trade are here: truly heartfelt vocals, moody atmospheric guitars that build and build into a cacophonous frenzy of noise, and a kind of unselfconscious mission to revel in these cliches at their feral best.  James Graham has a phenomenal voice – one that is emotional and sincere when at its quietest and ragged and brutal when unleashed.  At his best he has one of the best devastated indie howls I’ve heard.

It’s not all angry racket, mind you.  They are dab hands at the moody, crackling atmospherics as well, and the way the songs morph from one to the other is an absolute joy.

Most notably, there is a grandiose element to the music.  When the guitars really get going they’re like an overwhelming wave of gut-wrenching anger and heartbreak.  Maybe if The Wedding Present had written Interpol’s first album and David Gedge was from Glasgow you might get something vaguely akin to this, but otherwise I’m at a bit of a loss to describe it.  But it’s a forceful, unabashed marvel of impassioned guitar noise and excoriating indie emotion, this one, and one that will definitely be featuring heavily on my late night drunken turn the volume up all the fucking way and pour me another gin playlists in future.  Bloody marvellous.

The Twilight Sad -  That Summer at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy
The Twilight Sad – Walking For Two Hours

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