Song, by Toad

Found & Down the Tiny Steps – Live, Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Thursday 28th February 2008

I love these two bands, absolutely love ‘em, so tonight was a bit of a special day in the gig calendar of Toad.

Down the Tiny Steps are a sort of folky, electro, Scottish almost-hip-hoppy-at-times group based around the fantastic songwriting of Johnnie Common. The group has had a rough time recently, losing the drummer and bass guitar player (in Johnnie’s words, ‘probably the two best musicians in the group’) because it was drowning out the rest of the music a little too much. I’ve seen them as a six-piece a couple of times and, although I really liked the sound, I can understand Johnnie’s decision, although it was clearly one he really didn’t enjoy making.

Anyway, what are they like now? Well this was only their second gig as a four-piece, so there must have been some nerves, but I didn’t notice any. And ultimately, I think Johnnie was right. With a less overwhelming sound the eccentricities of the electronica and the rambling monologues of the vocals take a more prominent position, taking them slightly out of the guitar-based indie sphere whose fringes they inhabited, and into more quirky, individual territory.

They’re playing at this year’s Homegame Festival up in Fife, so I’ll get another chance to see them quite soon, which I’m really looking forward to. The new songs sounded excellent, and old favourites like Aye Spy and Photosynth sounded brilliant with the new setup. Onwards and up the Tiny Steps!

Down the Tiny Steps – Photosynth
Down the Tiny Steps – Aye Spy
Down the Tiny Steps – DtTS @ The Movies Part 2: Nightmare On Renfrew Street

Found are a different proposition altogether. Instead of juggling their setup they are honing it. You may remember my review of their album This Mess We Keep Reshaping being a little bit ambivalent. On one hand I loved what I was hearing, but on another I’m not sure I’d quite ‘got it’ yet. Well I have now. And so, it appears, have they. The first time I saw them was at their album launch, at last year’s Halloween Fence Club. There they were inventive and unpredictable, ramshackle and energetic. Here, although the energy was by no means diminished, they were as tight as and twelve-year-old altar boy. The brilliance of their album, which took me a little too long to discover, was delivered with joyous precision. Ziggy Campbell is turning into a fucking terrific front man too – energetic and charismatic, but with characteristically Scottish self-mocking humour as well.

The songs are brilliant, and it’s amazing how much of this album is acoustic. When I listen to their record I hear something that sounds really rather electronic, but Campbell doesn’t put down his acoustic guitar all night. So it’s not folky at all, but it’s not exactly electronica either. Whatever it is, it’s a show these guys have tuned to perfection over the last year and if there’s much more of this to come from them, then Scottish music might just have yet another gem to celebrate and gloat to their Southern cousins over.

Found – See Ferg’s In London
Found – Reshaping
Found – Closed Time Like Loops

website | buy from fence

Kid Harpoon – Live, Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, 27th February 2008

(Image pinched from Gregory Nolan)

I’d heard all sorts about Kid Harpoon’s much-vaunted live performances, so I was really looking forward to this gig and for the most part he didn’t disappoint.

Support came from new Scottish group We See Lights who seemed decent, although I didn’t get there in time to catch enough of their set to say anything sensible about them. Second support were The Kays Lavelle who were shit*.

As for the Kid himself? Well he fucking loves playing, that much is obvious. Greeting a slightly tepid crowd with a beaming ‘I’m just so chuffed to be here’ he launched into opener, the brilliant Milkmaid, with a bouncing, wild-eyed enthusiasm that even a sulky Edinburgh crowd couldn’t help but be drawn into.

All throughout the gig this kind of boundless, child-like enthusiasm was just spilling out of him. He’s one of the most mobile performers I’ve seen in a while, bouncing around the stage with joyful abandon, and throwing himself heart and soul into the performance and generally acting like playing this one gig was the most fun he’d ever had doing anything, ever.

Now, I am a sucker for this kind of passion and I absolutely loved the amazing enjoyment that spilled from Kid Canaveral all the way through the show, but I have one small quibble. Some of his finest songs are the quiet ones, and there was no room for them in this set. Now, I can see him wanting to play the upbeat, energetic ones in a live setting, but actually a slight change of pace might have been good once or twice. So he was terrific, but you didn’t really get the full impression of what his music is like and I for one would have loved to hear songs like As it Always Was performed live.

Kid Harpoon – Riverside
Kid Harpoon – As it Always Was

website | hype | get yo bitch ass some vinyl

*Haha, of course they weren’t. They were dead good actually. The only reason I did this to their review is because Euan – regular commenter on this site, frontman for the group and main man for gig promoters Trampoline – said during the gig that they’d supported half a dozen top groups recently and never once got a mention in the reviews. So naturally I took this as an opportunity to be a smart-arse. Yes, fucking hilarious, I know. I crack me up too.

Anyway, The Kays Lavelle. Well it’s always terrifying when you go and see a friend’s band, but fortunately they were excellent. Rather dark, and sailing close to the other side of the Atlantic at times, I really enjoyed their stuff. They were that sort of group whose guitar sound is sort of threatening – like they’re about to kick off and go absolutely mental any second now, but never quite do. Instead, Euan’s piano paints grey laments as the band sort of growl around him – excellent stuff.

Catch the Waiting Room?

Well you should’ve.  It was a splendid show featuring a handful of Toad favourites, and a four song section introduced by my good self.  I thought I’d throw up a quick post of a song DC played, which I think you deserve to hear.

I was emailed this ages ago and, even though I always intended to either use it either in a post or a podcast, it somehow drifted to the back of my mind.  Anyway, DC played it yesterday which reminded me of the thing, so here you go.  It’s by a German group called Mikrofisch and pretty much lays into every XFM hero whose fame could ever fill you with dismay.  Honestly, it’s a tinny little tune but the lyrics are a masterpiece of misanthropy, which you can imagine I would appreciate.

Secondly, the show closes with a cover of Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Sweet Child o’ Mine recorded by Taken by Trees, who are what has become of The Concretes.  When DC introduced it I thought for a moment he was building up to the rather less lush and rather more spectral Luna version of the same song which is also brilliant.  So here it is, because I love this version.  I actually like the original too.  In fact, I like most of Appetite For Destruction.  As DC says, no matter how much of a prat Axl Rose is, he still wrote some good songs, and that album was a bit of a high point.

Mikrofisch – The Kids Are All Shite
Luna – Sweet Child o’ Mine

And here’s the entirety of The Waiting Room podcast in full (assuming it allows me to hotlink):
The Waiting Room – The Toadcast  27/02/08

Rumbled!

This is a truly hilarious story: Maxim have been rumbled writing a review of an album they’ve never even heard. Superb!

What happened was that they printed a review of the new Black Crowes album, and weren’t especially generous, and they did it before the actual album was sent out to anyone for review – only the single was in circulation. Maxim’s excuse? They kind of, erm, just made it up.

“Of course, we always prefer to [sic] hearing music, but sometimes there are big albums that we don’t want to ignore that aren’t available to hear, which is what happened with the Crowes. It’s either an educated guess preview or no coverage at all, so in this case we chose the former.”

What a wonderfully high falutin excuse for basically being lazy, lying publicity whores. Needless to say The Black Crowes are a bit miffed, but honestly – Maxim? Is anyone even mildly surprised that a sphincter-tighteningly pretentious shandy rag has sloppy, arrogant standards of journalism? If you are surprised, have you actually ever read Maxim? I know it’s tough to take your hand out of your trousers, look beyond the over-cooked pictures of empty, desperate slappers and actually read the shit, but have you? It is unbearably facile, lazy, smug, misogynistic, borderline xenophobic, playground garbage. I’d rather be caught on dogsandteens.com than with a copy of that shit on my coffee table.

Anyhow – two possible explanations I suppose. Firstly, the limp, self-righteous one above basically masquerading a case of laziness and a total absence of integrity. No surprise there then. Secondly, perhaps they downloaded an illegally leaked copy beforehand and felt that the legal connotations of admitting to that would be too dubious so they were left with so few options that was the best they could come up with.

Either way, I couldn’t really care less. The Black Crowes really are rubbish and I reckon Maxim, lazy as they were, were probably just about on the money: another album of turgid, derivative sludge was so inevitable you could bet your sister’s virginity on it with total confidence. That said, Maxim is such an awful little rag that it really is enjoyable to see them getting a big fat slap with the wet fish of comeuppance. Everybody wins, and I go to bed sniggering and happy.

Reminds of that reporter in Glasgow who wrote and published a fairly condescending review of a Meat Loaf gig she was too pickled to attend, only to find out after the fact that the gig was cancelled.

Paul Weller – Instant Karma
Smog – The Morning Paper
Billy Bragg – It Says Here

The Waiting Room, With Added Gin & Toads.

Well folks, tonight I get my revenge. You all know DC -One Half of Drunk Country – the foul-mouthed miscreant who is forever coming on this site and ruining my thoughtful and sophisticated analysis with vulgar outbursts and showers of obscenity and invective? And the one who did THAT!!–> to my lovely drawings? Well tonight it’s my turn to chuck a spanner into his works for a change.

DC, as well as being an International Man of Mystery, presents the splendid radio show that is The Waiting Room. He’s done it with Hope, he’s done it with Mr. Fisk, he’s done it with The Mouse, and now he’s doing it with, erm, no… perhaps this sentence isn’t quite going where I’d intended. Well, tonight I am making the first of what will hopefully become regular appearances on his show with a little segment called Song, by Toad Presents… where I pick four tracks and tell DC’s horrified listeners about what I’ve chosen to oil their eardrums with and why. Given the distinctly cool reception that Fisk character has given my selections when DC has presented them himself, my little slot may be met with a chorus of boos, but we’ll see.

In any case, those of you of an internet radio bent can catch the show tonight from 10pm to midnight GMT on Error FM, and those of you who prefer to your music cast in pods can download the show from here as of some time tomorrow. This is pencilled in to be a weekly feature and, although this week I’ve mostly used Song, by Toad tracks, I will try not to duplicate songs I have posted here or used on my own podcasts in future, so please do stop by and have a listen.

In other news, the Contrast Podcast turned 100 this week. Tim has a celebratory episode up, to which I have contributed Carlton Rees’s version of 99½ Won’t Do. It’s an amazing job that Tim does, pulling all that together so please pop over and have a listen. People giving their time to other folk in that sort of way is one of the best things about the internet, and Tim’s project is one of the best and most well-loved going, so swing by and give it a go.

Here’s another version of 99½ Won’t Do, this time by Detroit’s throatiest warblers, The Detroit Cobras:
The Detroit Cobras – 99½ Won’t Do
The Detroit Cobras – Insane Asylum Seemed appropriate for The Waiting Room
The Detroit Cobras – He Did It

Music 2.0 – Jeremy Warmsley & His Mates

Song, by Toad is the future of music.

So are Fence Records. So is Welcome to Our TV Show.

This is neither as serious nor, actually, as facetious a statement as it seems. Song, by Toad? The future of music? Ah hah hah haaa, what vainglorious hubris! Well actually I’m not being serious, but it’s not completely silly. In the world of music 2.0 what we’re doing here, especially as we move into session podcasts, with added video and pictures and mp3s of session tracks, and again as we start to release collectors’ 7″ vinyl and as we form links with the local music community, may be an insignificant part, but it is a part nonetheless of what is happening to the music industry.

Now, I am obviously not talking about replacing Sony BMG or MTV or anything so silly. I am saying that music is turning from a one-dimensional – i.e. just a tune and a story – into a multi-dimensional enterprise. Old music existed just as a song. Then it added particular recordings by particular artists. And now what appears to be happening is what I am talking about here: it’s adding everything.

You can experience this blog in numerous ways: you can stream the mp3s via The Hype Machine; you can listen to the podcasts; you can read and interact on the posts; you can be part of it by being involved in the Edinburgh music scene; you can be part of the interactive cluster of people who participate in each other’s stuff, like the Contrast Podcast, the series of soundtrack posts, or the ‘cultural’ exchange that’s about to happen between myself and The Waiting Room (DC, to regular commenters). Soon there will be live sessions with interviews, exclusive session mp3s, Dylan – one of my regular readers – is pencilled in to do some really good photos of the sessions and I may even start filming them, once I’m up and running. It’s called vertical integration, if you can stomach such terms, and it means I will be providing everything – editorial and review on one hand, social forum on another, local community node on another, record production and release on another, and then multimedia content on another. This may be a small and insignificant embodiment of this phenomenon but it is squarely ‘Music 2.0′.

They may not thank me for saying it, but Fence Records are a sterling example. They’re a record label, a community and, to an extent, gig promoters. People feel part of what they do, and they can get everything from Fence: they can play, attend gigs, make artwork, buy and listen to music, take part in the demo process through the Picket Fence series or just exchange obscure smart-arsery on the message boards.

Now to the point of this post: Jeremy Warmsley. I must apologise to him actually, because he emailed me ages ago wondering if I’d be interested in writing about Welcome to Our TV Show and I ended up unintentionally ignoring it because I didn’t have an easy box to fit it into, which was lazy of me. Welcome.. is a project whereby Jeremy and his mates invite a bunch of musicians round to the house and put together a kind of live recording session where they play songs, try out new stuff, collaborate, and generally just enjoy themselves with music. They film the whole enterprise, they release the session mp3s, they photograph it to bits and what you have at the end is ramshackle and slightly amateurish, but such a massively important antidote to XFM-friendly stadium indie that it fills me with joy to see it happening.

So, for their second episode they had Lightspeed Champion, Emmy the Great and Laura Groves – a really superb mix – and the videos are up on their MySpace page. They also have a presence on YouTube, Facebook and are currently working on their own website. The major labels won’t innovate, so the musicians have had to. Ultimately I assume that The Future of Music is going to end up being owned by a small handful of massive corporations because, well that’s just life isn’t it. But the turmoil at the moment is giving real opportunity for grass-roots innovation, and it is the approaches being pioneered by the likes of these guys that shows us where this industry is ultimately going, if you ask me.

Emmy the Great – 24
Laura Groves – I Wish I
Lightspeed Champion – Hooker Song
Jeremy Warmsley & Emmy the Great – The Boat Song

And here’s a sample segment from the show itself:

The, erm, Bum Clocks

Remember Mrs. Toad’s review of the brilliant Low Miffs a little while back? Well she mentioned that the gig was opened by a rather mental act called The Bum Clocks. Who, you will almost certainly be asking yourselves, the fuck are The Bum-Clocks?

Edinburgh indie royalty is the answer: they are Tam Dean Burn on vocals, Malcolm Ross on guitar and Russell Burn on drums. If you don’t know who they are then don’t worry – a couple of weeks ago I wouldn’t have either.

Back in the early eighties, at the very birth of indie, Edinburgh enjoyed possibly the pinnacle of its fame as a hotbed of brilliant music. Of the groups regarded as the founding fathers of the indie movement, Fire Engines, Josef K and to a lesser extent Orange Juice were all either largely from Edinburgh or at least had strong Edinburgh connections. With the help of my internet pals I am only just starting to come to terms with this particular scene, but even I know that a group comprising the guitarist from Orange Juice and Josef K, the drummer from The Fire Engines and the actor who fronted The Fire Engines in their earlier incarnation as the Dirty Reds is something a little bit special.

A little bit mental too. For the Bum Clocks are self-described as the collision of Rabbie Burns and Iggy Pop. Now, like Mrs. Toad, I had always found Burns immensely tedious but I suppose that is primarily because the Tartan Shortbread crowd got their hands on his output years ago and so all you hear from the guy is his most saccharine, dismal rubbish. Seeing his words spat out with such venom was like witnessing a rebirth of poetry as an art-form. I almost feel a podcast coming on…

Anyway, see what you make of this lot. And listen to the guitar. Mr. Ross hasn’t lost it!

The Bum Clocks – Nine Inch Will Please a Lady
The Bum Clocks – Green Grow the Rashes (Someone else has a brilliant version of this poem to their name – is it Eddi Reader perhaps? I don’t quite remember but an ex-girlfriend put in on a compilation tape for me many years ago and it was gorgeous.)

With particular thanks to JC from the ever-brilliant Vinyl Villain for the mp3s. He sent me over a miniature avalanche after my last post pleading ignorance about these bands. The man’s a gent.

Josef K – It’s Kinda Funny (I see what they mean, JC, those 80s ‘pyoo pyoo’ sounds aren’t doing anyone any favours – see comments.)
Fire Engines – Candyskin (Peel Session Version
Orange Juice – Felicity

And just in case you were wondering: “BUM-CLOCK, A humming beetle, that flies in the summer evenings. (from Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary -Edinburgh 1867)”

Ukelele Splendour!

Erm, I don’t usually talk about any non-music related products on this site, unless I’m venting my spleen at something trivial or other, but I thought I’d make an exception on this one.

I was so delighted by silliness of the idea – in a good way, not a sneer in sight – that I thought you should all know about the lovely Miss Sugar Kane (that has got to be a stripper’s name) and her quilted ukulele bags.

Now normally even the idea of beautifully quilted uke bags wouldn’t be enough to earn you a slot on these hallowed pages, but this is how Sugar introduced herself in the comments section of one of my posts about getting drunk and playing music far too loud:

Ha! Same here. Although these days when I get carried away by music and vodka and lofty feelings I tend to grab my ukulele and Rolling Stones songbook. And I always sound fantastic, would you believe it.

And the email sheepishly suggesting a quick plug on the site:

Obviously you don’t blog about needlework but I just thought I’d let you know, in case you know of any ukes up there in Scotland who are suffering from the cold.

So I hope you understand quite why I was so tickled. A vodka-drinking, Stones-playing, uke-bag embroiderer. What could be more rock ‘n’ roll than that?

Jolie Holland – Darlin’ Ukelele (Apparently both the ‘u’ and the ‘e’ spellings are fine, so no pedantic quibbling.)

Black Mountain – In the Future

Another thumbs down I’m afraid – what a negative, misanthropic day I am having with my reviews.

I read too many blogs. I’d not really heard of Black Mountain and didn’t know much, if anything, about them, so on the strength of the general internet excitement I went out and availed myself of a copy, much to my disappointment.

I know prog is supposed to be enjoying something of a renaissance at the moment, but it is a trend I personally could well do without. I mean, influenced by prog is one thing but actually, literally reproducing the stuff is really not called for at all. Stephen Malkmus might be the only person I can think of who actually gets away with this sort of thing.

At its best this album recalls ballsy, psychedelic West Coast rock ‘n’ roll and when it does this it produces some really good moments. There are bits of this album I really enjoy. But when push really comes to shove it is dominated by bombastic drumming, stodgy, interminable guitar solos and a kind of grandiose, apocalyptic hubris which quite frankly fails to float my boat.

I’m not denying their skills, nor would I be shocked to hear that many of my readers like this stuff. I think perhaps it’s a sound to which I have yet to really acclimatise, so perhaps once this revival is in full swing and we all want to write rock symphonies again I will be able to discern the, ahem, ‘good’ prog from the bad, but for the time being all I hear is music for the most part best left behind in the seventies. The thing is, lots of it obliterates songs with some really really good bits as well, which is frustrating. Maybe I’m just being conventional, but this just isn’t doing it for me at all – quite frustratingly so.

Black Mountain – Angels
Black Mountain – Stay Free

website | hype | amazon

Beach House – Devotion

Well Gila, the promotional track, is excellent but I’d really hesitate to recommend the rest of this. As with a large amount of atmospheric, slow-down music, this struggles to resist drifting placidly off into the realm of muzak and is for the most part no more than pleasant.

The problem with this kind of stuff is that there are millions of albums out there that could all, interchangeably, serve the self-same purpose: dark, intimate, warm evenings when you want something lush and beautiful to which the pace of your life can slow to a crawl. So whilst this would make a lovely evening’s listen, or even a lazy Sunday afternoon one, I am not sure if I would be hugely fussed if it were exchanged with a slightly different evening’s listen, without my being informed. I doubt I’d even notice.

It is definitely a step up from Goldfrapp’s recent let-down, but nevertheless even records that rely on atmosphere and the gentle mixing of emotional eddies could benefit occasionally from a few more memorable hooks. It doesn’t need to be overt – just a chord change here or there, or slight change of pace at an unexpected moment – but without it this sort of album can really often just drift inconspicuously into the background, becoming no more essential than a nice choice of emulsion for your walls or a pair of comfortable jeans.

It’s not bad, but I won’t remember this record by the end of the week.

Beach House – Gila[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/Gila.mp3]
Beach House – Holy Dances[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/HolyDances.mp3]

website | hype | amazon