Would you believe that this podcast is finished and ready and done and I am ready to go to bed by 10pm.  This is a fucking scarily strange occurrence.  I’ve only had about four beers too, which is also a little unsual. The only organisational task at which I have abjectly failed is keeping the length of this podcast down to an hour.  Basically, having different people co-present is really nice, and I think it makes the podcasts miles better, but I am still coming to terms with the discipline of keeping the talky talky down to a manageable level and sticking to that hour which has made these weekly swear-morsels so digestible in the last few months.

At the Wickerman Festival Callum from Meursault made the highly contentious statement that not all funk music was buttock-clenchingly awful and, whilst I mocked him, I decided that someone with that kind of crazy recklessness must be brave enough to bring a Toadcast full of funky classics to an audience of sulky, morose indie kids with art school fringes.  So good luck to Callum – I am going to be listening to this with the same curiosity as the rest of the audience I would think.  It’s hard to get a handle on what a podcast sounds like as you record it, so I guess if I am going to absorb the lesson of the funk then I will have to have a cup of coffee, put my feet up on the couch and listen to it the same as everyone else.

Toadcast #83 – The Funkcast

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01. Parliament – Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker) (06.23)
02. Shuggie Otis – Inspiration Information (17.21)
03. Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band – The E-Street Shuffle (25.55)
04. My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges (30.15)
05. The Come Ons – Strangelove (37.00)
06. Charles Mingus – Boogie Stop Shuffle (49.39)
07. Bob Marley & the Wailers – Mr. Brown (54.33)
08. Sly Stone – Can’t Nickname the Truth (63.09)
09. Funkadelic – You Scared the Lovin’ Outta Me (74.53)

Maybe it’s because the weekend seems to be within reach, so the idea of slightly overdoing it on Thursday doesn’t seem so bad. Maybe it’s because you don’t get the chance to sleep it off like you do on Saturday or Sunday. Or maybe it’s because feeling a bit shit seems so much worse when you have a deadline and a hell of a lot to accomplish in order to meet it. That, in fact, is probably it.

Mrs. Toad made cheesecake yesterday. Considering that she is the World’s Least Domesticated Woman (TM) this is something of a turn up for the books. Mind, it was for something work related (although I got one out of it myself – mwah hah haaa!) so this morning she was swearing at it and wondering aloud why the fuck she’d bothered when she could have just bought something. It was, after all, just for work.

I love cooking, actually, but I never bake. Mrs. Toad does, but only once in a blue moon. She baked brownies when we did the Meursault Toad Session, and they were fucking lovely, so maybe I have her to thank for getting them signed to Song, by Toad Records. But for such a pair of foodies, we don’t really bake – or do deserts at all, for some reason.

I mean, I do have a sweet tooth. I munch my way through all sorts of biscuits at work – which they provide for us in pretty much limitless quantites for free. At first this seems like a good idea, until you realise that in the fight between self-control and biscuits, the biscuits always win. And I drink enough beer, I don’t need another arch-enemy in the fight against impending obesity.

But yes, deserts are not really my thing. We tend to have cheese if we have anything after a meal. I would have sorbet, but a sorbet is supposed to be icy, not creamy, and served in a portion no larger than that which would fit inside an egg-cup, and so many places treat it like a serving of ice-cream these days I am becoming somewhat disillusioned with the stuff.

So if you can bear that sort of banal, tedious whine of distress, please take the opportunity to de-lurk this Friday and chip in with your Friday Five. The hardcore group of commenters on this site shifts over time, but it would always be nice to meet some new people. Almost a thousand people read this site every day – who are you all? Are you nice? Hopefully not especially.

I like the sound of Lovvers tonight, at Sneaky Pete’s. That, after recording the Funkcast for tomorrow. Yes, you heard me, the Funkcast. Don’t miss it!

1. Favourite kind of cake.
2. What was the last thing you baked, if anything.
3. After a meal – cheese, sorbet, or ‘desert’?
4. What don’t restaurants do like they oughta anymore?
5. Last really domesticated thing you did.

M.J. Hibbett & the Validators – Do More, Eat Less

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Riff-Raff – Sweet as Pie (Billy Bragg’s band before he was just Billy Bragg)

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Morcheeba – Women Lose Weight

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Howe Gelb – Cake Baked in the Sand

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Hey! Elastica – Eat Your Heart Out (Thanks to JC for this one)

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The Retreat Festival and its organisers do not like to be called twee.  They fucking well are though – you can’t have tea and toast advertised on your posters and decorate a hall with bunting and then complain about being called twee, can you?

Then again, the same festival featured mental drummers, garage rock two-pieces, ear-splitting guitar solos, and the frontman of the headline band being sick through his stage mask.  So not all that twee, exactly.  In fact, that’s probably what I like best about Retreat: yes it’s twee, in a sense, but it would be just plain wrong to use that to pigeonhole it in any sense.

In the words of Enfant Bastard’s Cammy Watt, it was just like Wayne’s World 2.

For example, this year’s festival was all about the guitars, for me.  I did turn up late, so maybe I missed some of the early afternoon’s less raucous acts but Enfant Bastard, Meursault (with their new electric guitarist) and the splendidly mental Pineapple Chunks were my highlights.  My Tiny Robots were really good as well, as was what little I could see of Rob St. John over the wall of sweaty backs which faced me when I arrived.  I caught some Come in Tokyo as well, but they are slightly less my cup of tea, in all honesty.

Enfant Bastard

Particularly as a live performer Rob is just getting better and better, so losing him to Oxford is a big shame for the music scene around here.  His electric version of Domino was as excellent here as it was at his recent Electric Circus set, and it will be a real shame to see him go.

After a wee comfort (ie beer) break, My Tiny Robots kicked off the evening schedule.  They’re not a band I have seen before, partly because I think they lost their drummer recently, and subsequently drifted for a bit, but they were really good.  Their guitar sound in particular has an old-style sound, sort of combination of lounge and rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s a sound I really like.

Enfant Bastard played next, although it was more of a Love Gestures set, something Cammy described as ‘like sleeping with an ex-girlfriend’ seeing as how the Love Gestures haven’t really existed for over a year now.  It was fucking brilliant, whatever it was.  Cammy is forever apologising and telling us how under-rehearsed the band are and how shit the music is, but he’s talking bollocks.  This was bloody exuberant, completely ramshackle and fucking great.  He’s more than happy to tease with his ‘just not bothering to sing’ vocals and ‘can barely be arsed to even play this’ guitar style but the man writes great fucking pop songs, it’s that simple.

Enfant Bastard – Michael Jackson

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The Pineapple Chunks were also bloody good.  They make a right bloody noise, their rhythms seem to be all over the place – just barely under control half the time – but there was a real dynamism to their performance on Sunday.  Maybe it’s because I was drunker than the last time I saw them, but for some reason I just seemed to ‘get it’ a  hell of a lot more clearly this time than when I saw them at Limbo about six months ago.  It’s quite melodic indie, to listen to the mp3s, but there’s a hell of a lot more edge to them live, where they play with real aggression.  Fantastic.

The Pineapple Chunks – Look Back in Horror

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Meursault were my headliners because, for domestic reasons, I had to scoot home before the increasingly infamous mask-barfing episode from The Leg frontman, which is gutting.  They were brilliant apparently, chunks and all, and I have still to actually see the buggers play, which is really starting to get on my tits.

Meursault have added a guitarist to their lineup – Debutant guitarist Phil Quirie – and his first show with them was bloody seamless.  I can’t say how impressed I am with how the new material is shaping up.  Some of it is just fucking sensational – Crank Resolutions, Sleet, that song with the duelling omnichords – the new album is going to be really, really fuckin good.

So a massive thanks to Bart and Emily – an absolute triumph, yet again guys.

After complaints on a previous thread about the timeliness of the reviews on this site, I think it’s worth re-stating something of a disclaimer before writing what is another woefully late album review: I write reviews only as and when I feel I have sorted out in my head what I feel about an album.  Somtimes I have to hold off for a while because the review is written before the album is actually released, but more often than not reviews on Song, by Toad are just plain late.  The reason for that is quite simple: it can take me a while to wear an album in properly, but I’d rather do that than rattle out the posts too quickly just to meet some imaginary deadline.

I actually downloaded this record naughtily a little while ago, and have been mulling it over ever since, but it still took a nudge from their label, Domino, to get me to actually write this review.  This is why things are always a little late around here.

This album, a little like Wild Beasts’ last one, has required all that time and more to settle in and allow me to form some semblance of a sensible opinion, although for different reasons.  Usually, when a group makes a big splash with their debut album and releases a follow up with a lot of the more notable eccentricities ironed out I am the first to start complaining.  With Wild Beasts, however, I found their first record just a little too much to assimilate, so I’m actually grateful for the fact that they’ve taken it a little easier this time around.

So how would I describe it?  Well I’m not sure, really.  The guitar work has all the atmosphere of a super-edgy, hipper-than-thou indie band, but the music doesn’t necessarily carry that kind of style with it most of the time.  The album chimes along like an odd cross between Vampire Weekend and early Interpol – at once menacing and jaunty.  They do give you something of a dancey feeling, but there’s definitely something funny going on which I can’t quite pin down.

Maybe it’s just the voice – a swirling, melodramatic croon which I really like – which makes this music seem so unique.  I am sure there are a million out there who would disagree with me, but Wild Beasts seem to have a really distinctive character and, far from blunting their individuality,  this less extravagant approach seems to have given this album more discipline and hence more consistency than their last.  It may tail off a little towards the end, but I like it.  Rather a lot.

Wild Beasts – All the King’s Men

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Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (I)

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This is about as smooth and polished as I have heard Phil & the Osophers sound, I think.  Regular readers will presumably see this statement as a prelude to a negative review, but not in this case.  It’s still a patchy record, but there are moments when it’s bloody brilliant: opener Uses of a Man is fantastic, to begin with.  The next track, Extra Weight, is lurching in a sense, but another cracking pop song, as are the two which follow.

Basically, with this kind of music, no matter how much I enjoy the wailed vocals and scruffy-as-you-like production, it really does come down to whether or not this is a successful bunch of pop songs. Unfortunately it doesn’t retain much of its momentum past the first half of the album.  I’ve always found this band to be a little hit and miss, but in this case after the halfway mark the sheer infectiousness of the songs seems to slide a little, for me, until by the end I am usually struggling to really pay attention at all any more.

The old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll sound is prevalent throughout, to the extent that they sound like an American take on the Wave Pictures at times, albeit with a very different lyrical style.

I’ve liked other work by Phil & the Osophers better, I have to confess, but Staring Down the Sun and Pineapple pick things up in the latter half, to add to a sterling first half, so this is still a pretty good album in my eyes, if a little inconsistent.

Phil & the Osophers – Uses of a Man

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Phil & the Osophers – Mayan Calendar

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I’ve been listening to this a lot in the last month or so and, honestly, it’s fucking gorgeous.  There are plenty of strings, accordion and wonderful male/female harmonies which conjure a wistfully old-fashioned air, without being in any obvious way any sort of museum piece.  There are slight hints of cabaret, of orchestra and of twee pop, but not all that much of anything.  And these may be covers, but none you are likely to recognise, as he has covered songs by his friends, which I like as a concept a great deal.

It just sways gently back and forth in a beautiful, sad sort of a way, which calls to mind a windswept New England deck, an overcast sky and a slow waltz shared by old lovers.  I’m not sure why either, because it’s not the sort of chocolate box schmaltz that sort of image creates – maybe that’s where the sadness comes in.  Instead of evoking the romance of the situation, maybe it evokes the melancholy loves of a long and difficult history shared between two weary people.

The violin scrapes like a clarinet at times – I can almost find myself thinking it’s a set of pipes on occasion – and that adds something of the abandoned music hall to the music, as well as emphasising the whiff of faded grandeur which maintains a sort of defeated dignity throughout the EP.  A Letter to Violet Edison and Flat Ol’ Florida are pretty gorgeous, but the standout for me is Pretty Thing, which is just a gorgeous piece of work: short, evocative, maudlin and fucking lovely.

The vocal interplay bears some mentioning as well.  Bell himself rumbles away in consistent tones on half the songs, with a slightly nasal quality to his voice, and this provides a platform for the lovely female vocal to add flights and flourishes with a much more mobile contribution.  The results are bloody lovely – I’ve said that a lot in this review haven’t I, and I suppose that should tell you all you need to know.

Christopher Bell – Pretty Thing

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The FOUND Toad Session became a little overwhelming last week, especially when the upload gremlins struck some time around midnight on Friday and pig-fucking, baby-abducting bloody Vimeo simply refused to upload anything I sent.  I am not sure whether to blame them or Virgin fucking Media, who do our broadband, and whose connection simply ground to a fucking halt the second I tried to upload anything at all.  Useless fuckers.

Consequently, after six consecutive nights which lasted until around four or five in the morning, I am taking this week almost entirely off, not least to spend some time with Mrs. Toad.  She had been away for something like four weeks of the previous six, returned on Wednesday, and instead of wining and dining her to the best of my meagre ability, I ended up staring at the computer in ever-escalating states of fury for the next five days.  So erm, yes, I’m not married to you ungrateful bastards, I must remind myself, but to my Midget Companion of Infinite Joy.  And this week I better damn well remember it!

Monday 17th August 2009: My Latest Novel & Broken Records at the Queen’s Hall.

I can’t think of a better setting for a band like Broken Records.  The Queen’s Hall is old fashioned and atmospheric, as is their music, in a way I find a little tricky to define.  Support comes from My Latest Novel, who released their second album a couple of months ago.

Broken Records – A Promise (BBC Session)

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Tuesday 18th August 2009: Meursault & Frightened Rabbit at the Queen’s Hall.

From the perspective of Song, by Toad this is Meursault’s biggest gig yet – playing to a sold out Queen’s Hall – and as such is incredibly fucking exciting.  It’ll probably be the largest space I’ve seen them play and I’ll be really curious to see how their sound fills a room that large.  And there’s Frightened Rabbit too.

Meursault – Crank Resolutions (BBC Session)

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Wednesday 19th August 2009: The Phantom Band at Electric Circus.

I was not overwhelmed by the Phantom Band’s big, proggy debut album, released earlier this year, but I saw them at Homegame and they were excellent.  There’s something about that kind of multi-layered guitar sound which I think comes across really well in a live setting, and the Electric Circus has a pretty good sound system for it, so this should be a good ‘un.

The Phantom Band – The Howling

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Thursday 20th August 2009: Sparrow & the Workshop, Ivan Campo & Ross Clark and the Scarves Go Missing at Sneaky Pete’s.

I’m sort of lukewarm on Ross Clark, but Ivan Campo’s last EP was a really nice piece of relaxed folk pop.  And Sparrow & the Workshop are just fucking brilliant – pacy, fiery, low-fi Americana is what I suppose you might call it.

Friday 21st August 2009: Lovvers, Elvis Suicide & Divorce at Sneaky Pete’s.

Lovvers are very, very buzzy as far as music blogs go at the moment, so I am posting this gig here.  I know nothing about them though, so they might be shit.  They’re being talked about an awful lot though.

Saturday 22nd August 2009: Playing With the Past at the Filmhouse, with FOUND, eagleowl & Meursault.

This is actually a Film Festival crossover project, whereby all three bands were asked to write new soundtrack material for silent movies.  Frankly, it sounds like an amazing concept – British Sea Power did an amazing job with Man of Arran last year – and I am hugely looking forward to it.  You couldn’t find more innovative bands to do something like this either.

eagleowl – For the Thoughts You Never Had

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You know what this album reminds me of?  The Kings of Leon.  I actually rather like a lot of KoL stuff, so that’s not as big an insult in my eyes as it might be in those of others.  In fact, I like this album, although I would confess to not being blown away.

There isn’t quite the howl to this record, compared to Invitation Songs – it’s just not quite as impassioned.  I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said this about bands, but this album really seems to lack passion.  I assume it doesn’t, in the sense that the band presumably toiled and agonised over this one just as much as their previous record, but there is a distinct lack of urgency in the music; no howl and no fury.  Without this, some of it seems a little flat, honestly.  Some albums have the feeling of bursting out into the world: a group of songs begging to be born. This feels like an album that was simply made because making a second album is what you do after you have made your first.

Which is not to deny that it is a very good listen and at times genuinely excellent.  In the absence of some of the more driving moments which made Invitation Songs so compelling, here the quieter songs are the ones which really grab me.  Opener Summer Light is lovely, and the gently repeating guitar phrase which permeates Hen of the Woods is really nice as well.  Following that comes Beach House, which may be my favourite song on the album, I think.

Pete Quirk’s vocals are just as plaintive and gorgeous as ever, and the guitar playing is fucking lovely as well.  This drenches the sadder songs in pathos, and really does grip you.  So I suppose this ends up feeling like half a successful album to me.  I love the more downbeat songs, but the snappier ones seem to have lost a little as the band have developed, but there’s a lot of good stuff here so I’d say you can approach this with confidence.

The Cave Singers – Summer Light

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The Cave Singers – Beach House

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The most enormous difficulty with recording this podcast was that it was monumentally, wonderfully, amazingly sunny and hot outside.  So there we were, stuck in our house, trying to play songs and conduct an interview while we were all secretly (and not so secretly) longing to just be out in the back garden.  Mrs. Toad was making burgers, you know.  Gaaaaah!

I remember when FOUND recorded a show with Marc Riley recently and I got plenty of emails saying that they really weren’t very talkative.  Which is odd really, because I didn’t entirely get that kind of impression as we recorded this session or about them in general, but then I listen back to it again and the first few interviewy segments really do take a while to get going.  I guess it took a while for Ziggy (who I’d never met before) and myself to figure out exactly how to talk to one another and whether or not we really got on.  So that whole dynamic makes for a really good podcast, which gets more and more interesting, from my point of view anyway, as the thing progresses.

They even hint at the mighty Cybraphon, their recent creation, but like a fool I don’t really press them on it too much, having no idea what a splendid great behemoth it was going to turn into.

As usual, all the videos are embedded below and can be seen at the Song, by Toad Vimeo on YouTube pages, along with a portfolio of photos by Dylan from Blueback Hotrod, and Fee on Flickr here.  The session tracks can all be downloaded below, and the main interview podcast itself is immediately below.  Have fun Toadlings.  I am going to sleep like a freshly-slaughtered corpse.

Toadcast #82 – FOUND Toad Session

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FOUND – Mullokian (Toad Session)

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FOUND – You’re No Vincent Gallo (Toad Session)

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FOUND – Medley (Toad Session)

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FOUND – Anti-Climb Paint (Toad Session)

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FOUND – Gifted (Toad Session)

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Now we’ve got the main session video below, followed by the videos we made for the individual songs (Vimeo are being fucking useless at the moment, but eventually that main video and Gifted won’t be on YouTube).

01. FOUND – Mullokian (Toad Session) (05.11)
02. Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks (09.27)
03. The Avett Brothers – The Greatest Sum (Acoustic) (13.26)
04. FOUND – You’re No Vincent Gallo (Toad Session) (20.39)
05. Animal Collective – Brother Sport (20.32)
06. FOUND – Medley (Toad Session) (36.00)
07. Phil Collins – In the Air Tonight (44.20)
08. Lambchop – Your Fucking Sunny Day (49.11)
09. FOUND – Anti-Climb Paint (Toad Session) (64.29.)
10. FOUND – Gifted (Toad Session) (72.25)

[This week's Sunday Supplement is written by Matthew, who has kindly volunteered to help out with the label and the blog until he goes back to college in the Autumn.]

I think it’s safe to say Wind’s Poem is Phil Elverum’s third proper studio release under Mount Eerie, though I could be wrong; he has released compilations and various other bits and pieces which I haven’t really been able to keep up with, sadly, but I don’t think they’re albums per se.  Phil had said that this album would be “black metal”, which rather confused me. I thought it might be a joke. I’m still not quite sure really.

The album is just plain weird – great, but weird. It completely deviates from the quintessential acoustic lo-fi genius that everyone knows from No Flashlight and The Microphones albums. It’s dark, mysterious, eerie, quietly loud and foggy. When I say foggy, I mean it’s like looking out into a foggy street and feeling relieved to be inside. I do love when an album can take you somewhere.

It can be divided into two parts: the songs that are discordant and raucous and those that are calm and comforting. I personally prefer the latter, which is thankfully the majority, with it’s soothing ability and strange imagery. The loud songs are probably what Phil meant when he said “black metal”. I don’t know about you, but black metal in my dictionary means awful headache.

Only a few tracks prevent this album from being absolutely fucking fantastic. Shame really.

Mount Eerie – Summons

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Mount Eerie – Between Two Mysteries

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