Song, by Toad

There Goes the Species

My company just gained our BS13485 accreditation… and there was much rejoicing. There is a reason I mention this but it isn’t, in all honesty, a very good one.

It occurred to me, as one of my colleagues was appointed to make sure that our calipers were always properly calibrated, that we have come an awfully long way from the first moment that man invented tools. I’m not even criticising it: we work in medical device design, so the traceability and rigour of these sorts of standards is actually fairly self-evidently important.

It’s more the surreality of the whole thing, I suppose. A few thousand years ago: man with a bit of stick. Today: calibrated calipers. I can’t imagine that the first human users of tools could ever have imagined the kind of crazy explosion that they were initiating.

And of course, I know they weren’t ‘initiating’ anything, because while we look at history in a narrative fashion and evolution as something being done by an entire species, that’s just not accurate. It’s more like an aggregated collection of the behaviours of individual animals, but it’s sort of funny to look back on it as if we had some sort of collective plan.

“If I just get this right, within the blink of a geological eye my grandsons and granddaughters will know the unparalled privilege of performing their work with the aid of some finely and carefully calibrated calipers.”

Dave Bartholomew – The Monkey Speaks His Mind

Barrett’s Privateers

I’ve just recently heard a couple of versions of an old folk song called Barrett’s Privateers, and neither quite captured my imagination.  Two groups I know – The Men They Couldn’t Hang, whom I love, and the now defunct Australian band Weddings, Parties, Anything, whom I quite like – have covered the song, and presumably there are countless more.  Neither recording really captures the experience I once had hearing it live, and both are live recordings themselves.

The first time I actually heard the song was when The Men They Couldn’t Hang performed it at King Tut’s in Glasgow back in about 1995.  They, as is generally the way, sung it entirely unaccompanied (acapella just sounds a bit gay, I can’t call it that) and it was absolutely spine-tingling.

The song itself was written by Canadian Stan Rogers back in the 70s and tells a pretty convincing tale of a young man lured away to the sea and piracy, only to end up broken and crippled at the age of twenty-two after a brief and disastrous expedition to plunder American trading vessels in the Carribean.  The venom with which the Men They Couldn’t Hang snarled it out brought the bitterness of the song vivdily to life in a way, I suppose, that a studio recording would find it nigh on impossible to capture.

Their live recording isn’t bad, it must be said, but hearing it live was something else.  Have a listen and see if you can quite imagine what I mean:

The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Barrett’s Privateers
Weddings, Parties, Anything – Barrett’s Privateers

Yoshimi!

No, nothing to do with The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi! is bedroom electronica from a lovely chap in the Netherlands called Niek who sent me some stuff a month or so ago.  He first contacted me some time last year actually, and I wasn’t particularly keen on what he’d done so I told him so and wished him luck.  Well, a few months stewing away and we have three more tracks to listen to and I would say there’s definitely a big improvement.

The thing is, I say ‘improvement’ and of course all I really mean is ‘I like it more’.  I know I don’t state this often enough, although I hope those of you who know me will have assumed it anyway, but I’ve never thought of the opinions voiced on this site as representing any sort of Universal Truth.  I mean, truth in my world perhaps but, never mind Rhianna or Kanye West, I don’t even like Hot Chip and nearly everyone I know does, so I can hardly claim to have the handle on some sort of elusive Zeitgeist or anything like that.

The other thing is that beyond ‘I like this, but I don’t like that’ I actually know nothing at all about music.  So when Niek kindly asks if I have any feedback or advice I start to feel a little uncomfortable, because I am not sure if what I manage to come up with should be taken at all seriously by an artist who is experimenting and trying to find his voice.  It’s his journey, I guess, not mine and as such I am not sure I really should be interfering because I doubt it would be helpful.

He asked though, so here goes, I shall do my best.  Firstly, I think it’s a big improvement and there is definitely stuff in there that I like; in fact some of it is excellent.  It’s a sort of scratchy, ramshackle electronica which stutters on, and occasionally weaves in a pure pop hook which is just enough to pull the music out of the meandering and borderline impenetrable and into something you can imagine singing along to.

Song For Suzy in particular has the core of an excellent pop song if you ask me.  It’s sprightly and instantly catchy, despite retaining a really nice DIY atmosphere.  Philosophy For Fans is a little dreamier and has a touch of twee.  The female vocal is a nice touch too, although I would be tempted to make her voice a little more dominant and full in the mix.  It’s slower-paced as a song, and counterparts nicely with the more skittish energy of Suzy.

The one I’m less sure about is perhaps Ow.. because I think it starts a little sluggishly.  The music itself is kind of slow, so the deep, lethargic tone of the ‘Ow’s seem to make the whole thing a little stodgy.  I’d be tempted to put some sort of element in there somewhere that is perhaps a little peppier, somehow.  I’m not sure what that is, though.  Once the male-female vocal interplay gets going, however, we have another pretty good song on our hands, I think.

In any case, it’s really nice to see Niek getting better (in my eyes) and pulling together a nice collection of songs.  It reminds me of something I read on a blog ages ago about how the immediacy of music these days can be damaging for a band – it’s possible to get the first, roughest, crappest bedroom recordings out on MySpace and be heard, judged and condemned on the strength or lack thereof of the first thing you ever recorded.

Broken Records have a couple of really quite crap songs back from when they were starting out as a band and still pulling together what they wanted to become.  Had these been the songs that made their way out there, then I can imagine it might have made breaking through quite a bit harder.  Every band and every musician needs the time and space to make their mistakes, experiment a little and to crystallise what it is they are trying to achieve.  Yoshimi! are taking that time, and I think it’s paying off.  So thanks, Niek, I am liking these and I’ll be interested to hear what else you come up with.

There’s plenty of other stuff to download from his website, incidentally, so go along and help yourselves to some free downloads.

Yoshimi! – Song For Suzy (Demo)
Yoshimi! – Philosophy For Fans (Demo)
Yoshimi! – Ow… (Demo MIXIE)

Website | MySpace

I Do Not Currently, Nor Will I Ever, Understand Male Bonding

I just do not understand blokes. Last night in the pub, I was having a nice quiet chat with Mrs. Toad and Alex Cornish, and this chap who was sitting at the bar turned around and started swearing at her. More to the point, given Mrs. Toad was bemoaning her recently-disclosed Irish ancestry, he started swearing at her. After a bit I inevitably did the protective male thing and told him to shut the fuck up and not to speak to her like that again, that we were sorry if we offended him, hadn’t intended to do so and apologised if we had, but that he was out of line and should shut his trap. Firm and to the point, with a little bit of macho bluster, I think you’d describe it.

Anyway, he continued to scowl at us and on two more occasions tried to spark something off again, although with me this time. It was all very typical ‘Do you want to take this outside’ versus ‘No, not really, but if you’re really feeling confident come over here and have a go and stop fucking talking about it’ sort of stuff. It was infantile, but what the fuck do you do in such situations, back down and apologise?

Anyway, after the latest bout of ‘my dad could take your dad’ bollocks he buggered off to the toilet and then, when he came back, made a not entirely unfriendly comment about the fact that Mrs. Toad had The Sun open on the bar next to her. From this, he sort of started talking to us and quickly became incredibly friendly. I don’t think Alex or Mrs. Toad were all that keen on fisticuffs to begin with, and I certainly had no real desire for a punch-up so we pretty much reciprocated and ended up talking to the guy for a couple of hours.

He was a decent enough bloke, under all the nonsense. An English teacher with a real passion for literature, particularly American, and particularly their simple, economical novellas. I thought he was going to hug me when I asked if he liked Paul Auster. By the end of the evening when he went home because he had to be up early for school it was as if we were all the best of friends.

Fucking bizarre. And the weird thing is that this sort of thing has happened to me on numerous occasions – picking fights with opposing players on the football pitch, nose to nose shouting matches with kitchen porters in the Glasgow Hilton who just got out of fucking Barlinnie earlier that afternoon, pissing contests with alpha male cool types during my uni years – it seems to be an established way for blokes to make friends. As Mrs. Toad said, had that happened between two women there would have been a long and simmering grudge that both of them would have happily waited years to settle. With blokes, if I see that bloke the next time I’m in the same pub, I guess we’ll share a few pints as if nothing ever happened.

What the fuck is going on there? Attempted bullying? PIssing contest? Emotional retardation trying to reach out and make friends, just going about it in a strange way? I fucking do not understand male bonding, I really don’t.

Alex Cornish – Scotland the Brave
Art Brut – Fight!

Oh For Fuck’s Sake

Someone here just isn’t thinking.

I was just sent a promotional email by someone acting on behalf of Sony BMG, one of the most clueless and technologically retarded megacorps that the world has ever seen. I have never know any marketing department be more stupid than Sony’s, and their tentative little tippy-toes into the world of online viral publicity show they have lost none of their flair for Gold Medal levels of bone-headed and almost comically obtuse attempts to deal with the evolving nature of communication. Bless ‘em, it’s hilarious:

If you should encounter any difficulties or have any questions regarding this download, please feel free to contact your RCA Label Group Representative and we will be happy to assist you further. Please find attached a hypertext link to a digitally encoded file of the above-referenced music, which you may reproduce for the sole purpose of publically performing such music on your radio station. Any other use, including, without limitation, the reproduction, distribution, modification, display or transmission of the music or file without the prior written consent of Sony Music is strictly prohibited. It is our understanding that you will delete the digital file in its entirety from your computer hard drive or such other storage medium employed by you within thirty days of the date stamp of this electronic mail. Digital song distribution is not intended to replace current physical music deliveries you may receive now. Its simply another option available to you for convenient access to our music. If you are currently on our radio promotion mailing list, you will also be mailed a physical copy of this material.

What the fuck are they on about? I don’t even have a radio station for fuck’s sake.

So, I assume they’ve clued onto the fact that blogs are a major way to share music, generate word of mouth and generally publicise emerging artists, because we have built up quite large networks and we share and talk about things we like. Cool. So they’ve sent some blogs some stuff so that they can have some of that word of mouth thing that we give them, because that sounds like a Good Thing. But The Internet is also where all these Bad Things happen, right? Like sharing, and stuff, and terrorism and other definitely Bad Things. So we’d better make sure these internet guys don’t share our music because that’s like Bad, as we’ve already proved with charts and graphs, so we’d better tell ‘em we’re not taking any shit on that one. Can’t have these guys sharing our music for free because that stops people buying it, and when they buy it, it’s Good, right?

So we generate word of mouth because we share and we encourage and we talk, so they want some of our action. But we’re also bad because we share, and we can’t have that. “Gnnnn… *Sony person’s head explodes* would someone please tell me what this internet thing is because I JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!1!”

Brilliant.

David Thomas Broughton – Circle is Never Complete
Fiona Apple – Never is a Promise

[Disclaimer: Before anyone asks, this is not directed at the PR person who had to send this shit out. They didn't write anything themselves, so I am guessing they knew as well as anyone that this email was just getting deleted immediately without any attempt to even listen to the song. I've learned my lesson on that one, so stop laughing, this is entirely dedicated to the lawyers at Sony BMG and the marketing department who holds their collective leash. Brilliantly remedial lunacy. So stupid I almost sprained something just reading it.]

King Creosote – They Flock Like Vulcans to See Old Jupiter Eyes on His Home Craters

Albums with preposterously long titles, hmm. Have we learned nothing from Fiona Apple, people? It’s a genuine surprise release, this, with KC’s recent album still warm on the shelves of the nation’s record shops and the squeals of the betrayed folkies still ringing in our ears.

He’s always been a prolific little minstrel, has Kenny, and I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that this record follows so hard on the heels of the previous one (it was probably half-written before that one even came out). In the sense that Bombshell came across as a release from the shackles of years of home-recorded low-fi releases, this one can’t help but give the impression of a similar reaction to the Big Pop Record that was Bombshell.

We have returned to the more low-key sadness that I am guessing most Creosotians love, so I would guess that this will be more popular with the KC orthodoxy than the last record was. The fact that the songs themselves are bloody brilliant should help too. That familiar meandering introspection has returned, but in this case the eccentric touches tend to be provided by the sounds of early-90s dance music that is being played a little bit too loud on a cheap stereo in the basement of the house next door. It’s a bizarre sound, and oddly enough it works superbly with Kenny’s songs and, inparticular, his rather distinctive voice.

It’s perhaps less focussed an album I suppose, which is why it comes across as something of a reaction, or maybe an antidote, or maybe just a leftovers album when compared to Bombshell. The peculiar way that the Fence Collective seem to have of finding an idea and being able to pursue it, even if it leads nowhere in a way that makes for lovely music, is very much the heart and soul of this record. KC seems to just pick it up, play with it, tease out the good bits and then that’s that. If that results in a minute and a half of fuzz with a peculiar melody behind it then fine, if it’s a three-minute, verse-bridge-chorus pop song then fine too, but nothing is forced to be something that it isn’t.

I can’t recommend this album highly enough, as you can probably tell, but you won’t be able to buy it for a bit. From September it will be on sale in the Fence Records Shop on their website, but for now the only way to get your grubby little hands on one is to go along to a show and buy one there. It’s a funny approach in some ways, but I like it because you should be going to the shows – it’s just a nice, non-sulky way of giving something to the people who really support the band. Frustrating for those of you that live in Melbourne, Miami or Malmo I accept, but fear not. September just isn’t that far away.

King Creosote – Ear Against the Wireless
King Creosote – A Might Din of ‘What If’s

Website (Fence Records) | More mp3s | Buy… erm, oh no, you can’t – go to a show instead, then

The Futureheads – This is Not the World

And no, the world it is not, but it is another decent album of punchy, bouncy, punky indie pop from the Futureheads.  They were kind of forgotten about after their second album News & Tributes, which is a bit of a mystery to me because I thought the song on that were almost universally enjoyable.   In terms of idiosyncracy, it was a significant step back from their debut, but if anything I think the sheer stickiness of the tunes was stronger.

Perhaps this drift towards a less individualistic mainstream sound was what caused their label to can them, who knows.  Maybe they just weren’t selling, because News & Tributes wasn’t very well received as far as I remember, no matter how much I liked it myself.  Anyhow, in this day and age there was only one solution: become your own record label, and that is exactly what they did.

The vinyl releases Beginning of the Twist and Radio Heart come on beautifully designed vinyl; real effort was being made to produce things worth buying.  Also, Irrespective of who wrote them, the phrasing of their mailing list emails was sincere and personal, despite obviously being mass mailouts.  Basically, they seem to have done a really nice job of the whole business.

Musically then, where do we find ourselves?  Well it’s punkier – more driven than News & Tributes, and less spasmodic than their debut album.  The capacity to write incredibly infectious hooks seems to have suffered just a little, I would say, resulting in a record with a bit of a sludgy middle.  That sounds bad, but there are some truly brilliant songs on this album.  Broke Up the Time and Beginning of the Twist are just exceptional – boisterous, punchy and angry.  There are others too, and the b-sides to the singles are good as well, so there’s obviously healthy productivity in Futureheads Towers these days.

That said, the slightly less than captivating title track and the three or four songs after it rather let this down.  It’s good, and there are some great bits, but my feelings about this album are mixed, I’m afraid.

The Futureheads – The Beginning of the Twist
The Futureheads – Think Tonight

Website | More mp3s | Buy the album & singles direct from the band

Kid Canaveral – Live, Henry’s Cellar Bar Edinburgh, Friday 20th June 2008

Ah Kid Canveral, one of the very few successful purveyors of spiky indie pop in a city so devoted to its agit-folk that you’d think there was something in the water. Their last single Smash Hits is a slice of bouncy indie pop so perfect it could more or less define the genre.

I fact, that’s kind of what Kid Canaveral do. They are pretty much a perfect incarnation of indie pop – you don’t need to use any more words to describe them. They are supported at what is the launch party for their new single by a local band pretty much everyone I know has seen and they all seem to rate them very highly. This, however, is the first time that I have caught Come On Gang live.

It’s definitely a tentative thumbs up for the punk-poppy three-piece, I’d say. Sarah, the lead singer, suffered a little from having to play the drums at the same time, perhaps not quite having the puff to set about both tasks with the gusto to which her instincts compel her. It’s some set of lungs she has on her though, reminding me a little of Sonya Madan of the late Echobelly in some ways. As a friend of mine said, you can definitely hear the record in there, and their single release party is approaching, so that’ll definitely be one I stretch my pocket money to buy.

The main event didn’t disappoint either. They don’t do anything clever, Kid Canaveral, and there’s not much I need to say bar let you know that what they do, they do very well indeed. There’s nothing particularly ground-breaking about the music, but in every single song they manage to find that hook – the sticky bit that worms its way into your head and makes you hum a song for weeks afterwards. The self-same reason that, even from amongst a music collection thousands of songs deep like my own, every time a Kid Canaveral song come on, you always know it and you always know who sings it. No matter how rarely you’d heard the thing.

It’s brilliant fun watching them play, too – the fun in the music evident in the cheek of the lyrics. It’s so Scottish: they just can’t ever, ever be entirely, one hundred percent serious: an infectious, happy joy in a city full of dour miserablists. The single can be bought from Fence Records here, and so can the previous one, here. Don’t expect to be surprised, but I’d be downright amazed if you were at all disappointed.

Kid Canaveral – Smash Hits

MySpace | Buy from Fence Records

Live in Edinburgh This Week – 22nd June 2008

There’s pretty much fuck all going on this week.  I get the impression everyone’s packed in in advance of the Festival, whose lineup is pretty fucking thin this year, and we may be in for a barren few weeks before things kick off in August.  If kick off is the right word.

Bart has spotted some gigs that he likes the look of, so maybe you should check Magic Marker.  Bart’s taste, barring a tendency to love everything in the world, is reliable but I don’t know enough about most of the bands he recommends this week to actually recommend them myself.  And there’s a Meursault gig virtually every night for some reason:
- One accompanied by The Kays Lavelle at the Ark on Wednesday the 25th.
- One with fellow Bear Scotlanders Les Enfant Bastard and Withered Hand at Henry’s on Thursday 26th.
- And another with Y’All is Fantasy Island on Friday 27th, also at Henry’s.  Neil will be sick of the sound of his own voice by the end of that little run.

That apart, there’s a Duty Free gig at Cabaret Voltaire on Sunday 29th June, with some Yoof Rock: Cats and Cats and Cats, Edgar Prais and Over the Wall.
It’s a lineup I have a few reservations about, but an interesting one nevertheless and definitely my pick of the weekend’s entertainment.  Hopefully next week with find some more fertile fields to plough.
Cats and Cats and Cats – You’ll Never Make it Home

Toad: Completely and Utterly Pwn3d!

Oh for fuck’s sake. It just wouldn’t be a normal week without me making a colossal dickhead of myself would it? Well never fear, it may be late but it’s happened. I’m more reliable than the fucking sunrise in this respect, it would seem.

What have I done this time? Oh just gone and put my foot in my mouth again. Or, more accurately, clad myself in moonboots and jammed both feet in as far as they would go. The other week I was sent a PR email by a company called Sneak Attack, promoting the merits of a group called Computer vs. Banjo. It’s an odd name for a band, but the song was a good ‘un, so I asked for a copy of the album to review. I always ask for digital copies, because it seems more sensible in case I don’t like them. Deleting some files seems a lot better than throwing a CD in the bin, or even bunging it to your local charity shop.

Anyway, what I was sent, instead of a zip file or the much less common but occasional rar file, was something with an .sitx file extension. Eh? Well it’s frustrating, but what I had to say about it in the last podcast was perhaps just a teensy-tinsy bit over the top. Just maybe. Listen below:

Toad Being a Dick

Materially, it is true: if you send a song, send it as an mp3, if you send a compressed file send it as a zip file because these things open on any system, pretty much irrespective of software or setup. But I wasn’t, erm, charming was I? And what arrives in my inbox today but the following email from the poor lass in question:

I just listened to your podcast where you featured Computer vs. Banjo. First off I’d like to thank you for featuring them!
I have to say I’m a bit confused because the format we use to send music out in our emails is an MP3 link. And I didn’t send you a compressed file for the album — I offered to send you a physical copy and one is on the way to you, if you haven’t received it yet.
But I’m glad you like the track — and please let me know if there is anything I can do in the future to improve things.
Happy Friday!

Not a single remark along the lines of, say, ‘you fucking supercilious prick’ or anything even remotely admonishing me for, erm, well, acting like a complete penis, basically. In fact to read that email you’d think I’d got in touch by way of a polite phone call wouldn’t you? Don’t I feel like an arsehole. And, let’s face it, don’t I deserve to.

The Smiths – Bigmouth Strikes Again

So, given my ranting tirade and her gracious-above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty reply, I think it is safe to say that I have had my arse handed to me on a plate on this occasion people. Ah well, time for a pint. And an absolutely enormous slice of humble pie. You, on the other hand, should be listening to the song that started all this off in the first place. Rather good, isn’t it:

Computer vs. Banjo – Give Up on Ghosts