So August is almost upon us. Traditionally –  or at least for as long as I’ve been living here – most bands and promoters in Edinburgh tend to just take the month off and make way for the festival. It’s a bit of a monolith. Every available venue (and most non-venue) space is booked up months in advance, and with so much happening every single day in August, it becomes rather difficult for smaller operations putting on shows. Of course there are exceptions – a lot of the bigger clubs just keep on trucking, and nights like Acoustic Edinburgh embrace the Fringe and put on shows as part of the official line-up.

This year, though – more so than any I can remember – seems to be bucking that trend. There’s a lot of activity going on outside of the festival – and lots of local bands and promoters putting on shows regardless. Which is great to see – another indication of the strength and confidence of the city’s musical community at the moment. I thought I’d give a run down of what’s caught my eye – as with so much on, it’s entirely possible for an amazing show to slip by un-noticed.

The Edge

Firstly, the musical leg of the Fringe – the Edge – has some really great shows this year. The Mum show may have been moved to Glasgow, but we still have David Byrne, Woodpigeon, Andrew Bird, Frightened Rabbit, Malcolm Middleton, and Jeffrey Lewis. And judging by the website, the festival seems to have just absorbed all the shows at Sneaky Pete’s – including Sleeping States (who I can’t recommend highly enough), Monotonix, Sparrow and the Workshop, the usual This is Music night and the mysteriously titled ‘Songs By Toad night’. It’s also great to see some Edinburgh bands forming part of the Edge line-up – with Broken Records at the Queens Hall, a double header from Unicorn Kid and Young Fathers at Cab Vol, and support slots from Meursault (at Frightened Rabbit), the Kays Lavelle (the Lost Brothers) and Withered Hand (Jeffrey Lewis). It’s something that I’ve felt was lacking in previous line-ups, and it’s a step in the right direction.

www.theedgefestival.com

Retreat!

Then, of course, there’s the ‘other’ festival. Retreat! is an all day event at the Bristo Hall on Sunday the 16th. 15 acts (Meursault, Withered Hand, Rob St. John, Tissø Lake, the Leg…), and DJs till 3am. Free entry. I can’t think of a better line-up. But then again, I did help pick it.

www.myspace.com/edinburghretreat

Trampoline

Trampoline are also putting on four shows over first two weekends, and really great line-ups including Adam Stafford (Y’all Is Fantasy Island), Jonnie Common (Down The Tiny Steps), Animal Magic Tricks, Conquering Animal Sound, Golden Ghost and Woodenbox.

www.myspace.com/trampolineuk

Bang Bang Club

Normally at the Speakeasy in Cabaret Voltaire, the Bang Bang Club is hosting a series of shows upstairs in the Teviot Hall. Highlights include Clinic, the Pineapple Chunks, Paul Vickers and the Leg, and a series of soundtrack events from Steven Severin.

www.myspace.com/bangbangclubedinburgh

Playing With The Past

There’s also an exclusive second screening of the Playing with the Past event from this year’s film festival on 22^nd August, with eagleowl, FOUND and Meursault performing live soundtracks to old Scottish films. Tickets are available now from the Filmhouse website or box office.

www.myspace.com/playingwiththepast

Cybraphon

FOUND – not willing to give up their ‘hardest working band in Edinburgh’ tag to Meursault just yet – also have a residency at InSpace (a gallery space – part of the new University building) with their Cybraphon project, including a live band performance on the 13^th (which is free but ticketed). It seems to be some kind of automated musical cupboard, containing a series of musical instruments, which reacts to online activity about the project in real time. Or something. For a more coherent explanation, try the Cybraphon site:

www.cybraphon.com

Leith Tape Club

Okay, strictly speaking not an Edinburgh show – but a nice trip out of the city is normally always welcome around the third week in August. Leith Tape Club at the Iso Bar continues in August on the 20^th, with a rather special all-star line-up including the Kays Lavelle and Meursault (solo, I think).

Leith Tape Club

National Portrait Gallery

There’s also a series of rather exclusive shows at the National Portrait Gallery, whilst the gallery is closed for a refurbishment. These include Rob St. John and Emily Scott on 8^th August, X-LionTamer on 21^st August, St Jude’s Infirmary and Zoey Van Goey on 22^nd August, and Withered Hand and Meursault on 29^th August.

National Portrait Gallery

Electric Circus

There’s been some great gigs in Electric Circus since it opened earlier this year, and they don’t seem to be losing any momentum in August, with shows from FOUND, Dent May, White Heath and Rob St. John (1st), Jesus H. Foxx (11th), The Phantom Band (19th), and Trembling Bells and Ben Reynolds (25th), amongst others.

Electric Circus

The Golden Hour

A blend of poetry, music and live visuals at the Forest Cafe on 19th August, with performances from Billy Liar and Withered Hand.

The Golden Hour

Shipping Forecast Garden Party

And I think there’s another shipping forecast garden party scheduled for 30^th August, with Come On Gang!

No details yet, but I’m sure Dave will keep us posted.

It is all pretty exciting. Please spam the comments with anything I’ve missed, as I’m sure there’s loads, and if any more are announced or come to light over the course of the month, it’ll no doubt make it’s way into the weekly listings.

Sleeping States – September, Maybe

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Woodpigeon – In Praise of the West Midlothian Bus Service

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Zoey Van Goey – City Is Exploding

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Well, only if you are Nicolas Cage.  And actually, if you were Nicolas Cage, then some of the films you have made in the last ten years or so might well merit a rampaging witch-hunt by some of the more embittered members of the acting community as you comically jam your two facial expressions (grim determination and spastic incomprehension) into one tedious, one-dimensional character after another for millions of dollars in reward, while they subsist on the breadline only by waiting table and selling their tender little chocolate blossoms in the backstreets for an insulting pittance.

Actually, maybe Song, by Toad should be looking to start some sort of ‘Burn Nicolas Cage campaign’.  It would be a righteous mission and I think we could get a lot of people on board.

Erm, not sure how that started.  Oh yes, Wickerman.  Myself, Mrs. Toad and several of Scotland’s finest young bands will be heading down to the Wickerman Festival this weekend (that’s why I was thinking of burning Nicolas Cage).  I am trying not to work too hard, so I haven’t arranged an awful lot of interviews, and I will not be taking the video camera with me.

What I will try and do though is record a podcast, or maybe two, while we’re there.  I’ll be taking our wee Tascam voice recorder and my Blue Snowflake microphone and will try and get some bits and pieces from the bands and some chat and so on and upload it all on Saturday and Sunday mornings.  I have no idea about the press facilities though, so god knows how successful this little plan is likely to be.  If it all fails, I will simply upload a podcast on Sunday afternoon when we get back.  So you’ll have to wait, but it will happen, promise.

In the meantime let’s get Five-tastic… no, sorry, that’s a disgraceful turn of phrase, I can’t countenance that sort of garbage.  Come on then, spit out your Friday Fives and remember that Fridays are de-lurking amnesties, open to all and sundry and especially encouraged for those who have never commented before.  Could this be your day?  Go on, there’s nothing to be afraid of.

1. Most hated pointless remake of a classic film.
2. Mostly guiltily loved pointless remake of a classic film (no, Star Wars as a remake of The Fortress does not count).
3. Favourite Nic Cage film.
4. Most abysmal Nic Cage film.
(I’ll even help you with those – no need to know much, or even to care, just click here.)
5.Name another wooden beefcake actor who irritates the living shit out of you.

Is this post sexist?

Bonnie Prince Billy (fuck his fucking quotation marks) – You Will Miss Me When I Burn

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Sargasso Trio – It’s Hot in Hell

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Bruce Springsteen – I’m On Fire

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The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Hellfire & Damnation

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Fortunately, the festival will be over by Sunday, but rain is never a bad bet in Scotland:
The Groove Farm – It Always Rains on Sunday

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1. Knives and Forks.

Apparently sales of knives are half those of forks in the UK at the moment.  This has been attributed to the rise in ready meals, which come chopped into nice easy little bits, presumably because they think you’ve got flippers for fucking hands and can’t cut up your own food.  Either that or they have no confidence in your ability to use utensils properly and fear lawsuits from people who accidentally stab themselves in the back of their hand with a fucking fork whilst trying to eat their dinner.

But it’s not the prevalence of shitty, poisonous ready meals which is getting on my tits, it’s basic table manners.  You see it in movies all the time: people who are actually eating normal food doing so with only a fucking fork.  They cut using the edge, and then turn it upside down, with the curve facing towards the plate like it was a fucking spoon, and then stab everything up into one great big kebab and shovel the resulting abomination down their fucking cakeholes.

Someone sitting leaning on their left elbow shovelling food in in this manner simply has no table manners.  You cover your mouth when you yawn, you hold the door open for people and you USE A FUCKING KNIFE WHEN YOU EAT.  Who were you fucking raised by, goats?

Beirut – Forks & Knives

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2. The Rain.

It’s fucking July for fuck’s sake.

The Builders and the Butchers – When it Rains (Daytrotter Session)

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3. Copyright on Stupid Things

I am trying to sort out the artwork for our vinyl releases and the company I’m dealing with have templates for the artwork which I can download and print, but can’t open in a graphics package because they are fucking copyright protected.  So I can print them off and waste my fucking time copying out the bastarding things, but I can’t actually just open them and drop in my artwork, which would be a million times easier.  And from their perspective, it helps their customers and virtually guarantees they get artwork to the correct fucking specifications.  Whose damn life does it make any easier to have this fucking shit locked, for Christ’s fucking sake, and how can anyone lose any money by making them freely accessible?  It’s just a series of dimensions and a list of basic instructions for fuck’s sake, locking it off is just a massive and pointless fucking waste of everyone’s time.

Dead Kennedys – Stealing People’s Mail

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4. Trees.

Actually trees are not pissing me off today.  I had a long walk to the bank at lunchtime when it was pissing it down, but I was able to walk under the trees and stay dry, so today I like trees very much.

Eef Barzelay – Make Another Tree

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5. Toilet Brushes.

Seriously, my colleagues seem not to know what they are for.  I would be only too happy to fucking demonstrate – with some vigour.

The Coathangers – Don’t Touch My Shit

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Generally, though, I think you would agree that I am not an angry man.

The new Jesus H. Foxx EP is being given a full release on Song, by Toad Records in about a month’s time.  By full release, I mean that we will be making a run of five hundred copies, with hand-painted artwork and I will be doing my best to publicise it around the various magazines and radio stations and blogs out there.  It also implies that they are Song, by Toad Records’ latest signing, I suppose, in the sense that anyone is signed to Song, by Toad Records, which is something I am really pleased about because the stuff I’ve heard from them in the last year or so has been truly excellent.

I’ve not emailed bloggers yet, but we’re getting a little traction with radio it seems, with I’m Half the Man You Were appearing on both Gideon Coe’s 6Music show (my favourite show on the station, which makes it even nicer) and Jim Gellatly’s New Music show on Radio Magnetic.  And apparently I got hammered on the Toad night last Saturday and gave BBC Radio Scotland’s Mr. Vic Galloway a big sloppy kiss, so if that doesn’t get them some airtime on his show I don’t know what will.

That picture above is how the artwork is shaping up so far.  It will be printed on natural card, so there will be a texture to the flat areas of colour which should look really nice.  So, in general, I am really excited about this.  Publicising EPs is harder than albums in many ways, because a lot of magazines don’t cover them, but I am going to try to get through to as many online and community radio stations as possible and see if we can’t make up for it that way.

Any suggestions appreciated, and in the meantime, please enjoy Elegy For the Good Times from the Matter EP.

Jesus H. Foxx – Elegy For the Good Times

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Jesus H. Foxx on MySpace

The Builders’ debut is still one of the most loved records in our house.  I love it, Mrs. Toad loves it and everyone we play it to loves it.  So, erm, where the hell does a band go from there?

Well, to be frank, I don’t like this as much as their first record, but then that was never going to happen.  But after listening to it plenty of times through now, I do still think it’s an excellent album.  The Builders & the Butchers started off thinking of themselves as a funeral band, and those themes are all over their songs – Down in This Hole, Vampire Lake, Devil Town, you get the picture.

The music matches this kind of perverted folk apocalyptica, with the rabid funeral march thumping of dual drummers, mandolin and banjo played as if they were percussion instruments, and, finally, waves of brass and strings bringing swelling grandeur to add the icing to the cake.  It’s big, yet ramshackle and unbalanced enough to feel like a three-wheeled cart runaway down a hill, just waiting to veer tragically off course and smash into a million pieces.

So where does the album fall slightly short of its predecessor?  Well there are a couple of things I would point out.  Firstly, there are very few changes of pace on this record to match the slow-clap, oddly jolly funeral march of Down to the Gallows and others, like The Night Parts 1 & 2, from their debut.  The Wind Has Come is a brilliant exception, but a bit more of this kind of shift of atmosphere would perhaps have been a good thing.

Secondly, while there’s energy, there isn’t as much venom as before.  Bottom of the Lake and Spanish Death Song brim with so much overflowing rage that you get the impression the band performed them whilst chained up in a basement just to keep the public safe.  There are songs on this which have a similar air to them, but the recording hasn’t quite captured that reckless fury which made the previous album so intoxicating.

Anyhow, nit-picking whingeing aside, this is still a fucking great album.  They aren’t exactly a folk band as such, but I’m not sure how else you would describe them.  And they could blow the fucking wigs off almost any folk-related band I could name – in fact the only group I can think to compare them to, in terms of hell-for-leather excitement, would be the Pogues.  And there are few higher accolades than that, in my view.

The Builders & the Butchers – Barcelona

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The Builders & the Butchers – The Wind Has Come

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Website | More mp3s | Buy from Amazon mp3

I like Slow Club.  I love them live, I love their previous single and EP releases, and they are truly lovely people, but unfortunately I just don’t like this album very much.  It’s just sort of… sluggish, I think.

It’s taken me ages to review it because I just don’t know entirely what to say.  Large portions of the album have the full rock ‘n’ roll treatment and in doing this they seem to have lost a lot of the quirks which made them such a charismatic and idiosyncratic band in the first place.  Their sound does tempt this sort of approach.  Charles’ guitar has always seemed like it was stuck in the 50s (in a good way) and the whip-crack beat of the drumming and the use of boy-girl vocal harmonies makes the kind of music which can be added to pretty much ad infinitum.

This doesn’t really seem to benefit most bands, though, especially not when faced with their first full album and often their first proper, full-on studio project as well.  This is where a sympathetic producer who understands the music and who understands and gets on well with the band becomes crucial, particularly on a debut album where the band are often still inexperienced and in need of a little guidance.

Basically, I think this album should have been de-tuned slightly.  Having spoken to the band at Homegame, I get the impression they have perhaps thrown a bit too much at the recording, simply because toys were there to use rather than because they were compellingly necessary, and I also think the producer – or maybe not the producer, but someone at least – should have reigned them in a little.

The main issue though – and this might be the harshest criticism of all and I do not like making it – is that I am not all that convinced by the songwriting.  The highlights of this album for me are still the older songs like When I Go and the brilliant Because We’re Dead.  It Doesn’t Have to Be Beautiful is a cracker as well, and a couple of the slow songs are lovely.  But this just feels like an album which never quite gets going, one which lacks a real catalyst somehow, and never really catches fire.  I am really sorry to say it, but I think Yeah So is very disappointing.

Slow Club – When I Go

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Slow Club – It Doesn’t Have to Be Beautiful

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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Moshi Moshi

Imagine if you didn’t want to punch Adam Green for every stupid, facetious, cleverer-than-thou lyric which ever ruined one of his songs.  I know, it’s tricky, but I think I can help: meet Member of the Wedding.

Although Rory’s vocal delivery sounds for all the world like Green’s cocky, disinterested baritone on this debut EP by Member of the Wedding there is none of the lyrical wanking about which makes the latter’s stuff so unlistenable.  It’s less anti-folk, too and more a sort of wayward leper, cut loose from the world of old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll for dressing too sharply and drinking too many martinis.  So maybe Adam Green meets Richard Hawley then, with a little bit of Jonathan Richman thrown in to muddy the waters.

Lyrically this is really strong.  It’s witty and acerbic, without being smart-arsed.  No Idea is downright mean, but enjoyable with it, a character assassination delivered with splendid relish.  Friend of a Friend is similar, albeit more of a mixed volley, and laced with a little less venom.  In fact, this kind of musical ranting gives the impression of a band annoyed and disappointed with large parts of the world – the sort of people who shout at the TV and throw crisps at the news. And yet I get the strange impression they’d describe themselves as optimists underneath it all.

Biting cynicism, flat, suave delivery, and grumbly, unpolished guitars – this really is right up my street, isn’t it.

Member of the Wedding – Leave the City Behind

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MySpace | Buy from Cosy Recordings

Okay, criticisms first for this one, I think.  Firstly, fabric covers for CDs put me off: they reek of the twee to such an extent that they make my buttocks clench.  That’s not a rational criticism, obviously, just a personal prejudice, but it’s true nevertheless.  Secondly, a little like the cover, when this EP is at its worst is when it is just a bit too pretty for my taste: not that it ever needs to be aggressive exactly, but there are times when Love.Stop.Repeat can be a little watery for my taste.

That second criticism applies more to the band’s entire output than particularly to this EP, however, where only A Busy Heart Beating Strong and New York Song really fall into that category; the rest is genuinely excellent.

I don’t know what to say about why I like this so much other than that it’s just lovely.  Wistful, oozing with dreary melancholy, it’s an EP which sounds like it was mostly written whilst gazing sadly out the window on a rainy day.

At their best, the interplay of the male and female vocals and the minimal instrumentals are simple and beautiful.  The arrangements are really sparse, which is something I very much like.  Depth tends to come from the harmonium, with tambourine and ukulele filling out the higher registers.  It’s all so sparingly used, however, that you get the impression they would rather have a couple of minutes of silence rather than make any sort of noise at all which they weren’t absolutely certain they wanted.

I like this careful touch, and it means that when they really nail it Love.Stop.Repeat really are an excellent band.  A lot of their Radio Sessions EP is them doing just that – really nice.

Love.Stop.Repeat – Sunday Strolls & Miracles

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Love.Stop.Repeat – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

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MySpace (They appear to be sold out of everything at the moment, but there are gigs listed on their MySpace page, so go and see them if you can.)

Ever since we moved into our house – almost three years ago now – we have only had one properly working bathroom: upstairs.  When I say ‘properly working’ though, I do exaggerate somewhat.  Not much, but a little.

You see, the shower thermostat had been set badly by our incompetent buffoon of a plumber and the range of available temperatures was somewhat narrow: from uncomfortably hot to scaldingly hot.  Seeing as we are magnificently lazy people, that was just about good enough that we haven’t had it sorted for nearly three years – instead resorting to that most British of complaints: death by a thousand weary sighs.  In the Summer or when I’d come back from football or when we were going out and I didn’t want to put on clean clothes with just a slight sweat on was when it was at its worst.  It was never bad, just vaguely uncomfortable and slightly irritating every single fucking day.

Until yesterday.

Now it’s fixed, it’s finally fucking fixed and this morning I had a LUKEWARM SHOWER for the first time in three fucking years!  It may seem like nothing to you, but it’s like relief from Chinese Water Torture for me, honestly (ha – see what I did there).  You’ve no idea what a massive difference something so trivial made to my morning.

So much so that I’ve now wasted six minutes of your life telling you about it.  Six minutes that, no matter what you do, you will never get back.

And I’m not sorry.

Tom Waits – Cold Water

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Saturday’s gig was, I think it’s fair to say without excessively blowing my own trumpet, fucking outstanding.  What fun!  There were flowers everywhere – thank you for those of you who made an effort, and didn’t leave me alone to look like a pillock by myself – the music was great and the gin flowed in epic quantities.

The open mic stuff at the beginning was great fun, so a big thank you to everyone who played.  We had two lovely songs by Alison and Tom from Aurora Stands in Snow, and then a couple from Scott Renton of Uhersky Brod, easing himself back into gigging after spending eight months gadding about the world (the total bastard).  If anything I think it’s probably Scott’s lyrics which make him stand out as a songwriter – has that very Scottish gift of being able to sprinkle his gloom and cynicism with enough wit to make you laugh, but never so much as to make you miss the point.

Next up we had a Jesus H. Foxx/Meursault mix, with an omnichord version of A Few Kind Words, an improvised percussion version of Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues, some Pavement and an acoustic version of Matter, the title track to the Foxx’s debut EP.  Then we finished up with some most un-Byrons-like acoustic stuff from Ed Stack.  Shorn of the thumping racket of his usual drummer Sam, he went altogether bluesier to close out the open mic part of the evening with real humour.

I know gig nights are supposed to be about the gigs, but personally I absolutely fucking love the open mic parts of Toad nights, and the Bowery really is the perfect place for that kind of thing, seeing as there isn’t actually a stage as such.

Yusuf Azak was the first of the evening’s main sets, setting up as usual with just himself and an acoustic guitar.  His recorded stuff – two free downloadable EPs available here – includes all sorts of looping and buggering about with things, so you can imagine why I like it so much, but live there is absolutely nothing but his amazing voice and his somewhat amazing way with a guitar.  There’s something mesmerising about his voice; it’s almost a surprise to find out that, yes, what you hear on record is almost exactly what he sounds like in real life.

He’s working on an album at the moment, something I will be waiting to hear with bated breath.

Yusuf Azak – Ursa Major

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Found’s set followed Yusuf and was, frankly, stunning.  It’s one of the perils of growing a band as you explore a bigger sound: how do you then go backwards and ask some of them just to not bother playing on some songs.  In particular the opening two songs of the Found set were just fucking lovely.  The banjo is probably my favourite instrument at the moment, and these two tracks were basically Ziggy playing solo on the banjo with just enough accompaniment from Kev and Tommy to add a bit of depth to the sound, and it was brilliant.

But if you’re Found, what do you do?  Do you integrate a couple of these more pared-back numbers into your full set at the risk of underemploying a couple of your band members for a bit, or do you take the approach they seem to have selected: to play some stripped-back sets and some full ones and let regular fans explore their range that way.  I honestly don’t know what I would prefer, but this was certainly my favourite Found set since the first time I saw them at Fence Club a couple of years ago.

Found – When You Fall (Live)

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So a big thank you to everyone that turned up to make this a most memorable night indeed, and cheers to Ruth and Jane and the staff at the Bowery for all their hard work since November – this was a great way to sign of for a month or so.