Righty-ho people, another week draws to a close and by Christ have I been productive. The only person suffering this week has once again been the unimaginably tolerant Mrs. Toad, who has been criminally neglected at the expense of early conference calls a Proper Job, gigs attended, Meursault singles recorded, vinyl packaging finalised, and the pulling together of the final details of the Jesus H. Foxx EP for the launch on Saturday. Last night we finished packing and folding and stamping the last of the run at about one in the morning, and it’s looking bloody lovely. The whole thing is a really nice deep turquoise colour, and I am bloody chuffed with it. Saturday is going to be a fine, fine party, I suspect. There may just be hangovers on Sunday, just maybe.

The Honeytrap Toad Session will be up next weekend as well, which is exciting. It’s taken a while, but it was a genuinely mental session, so I reckon it’ll make for fine entertainment. The podcast might be a little garbled though, because there were four of them and everyone was pished, so trying to stop everyone talking at once was something of a challenge.

I’ve even managed to be extremely efficient at proper job during all of this, possibly related to the fact that the only drinking I have done all week was two beers last night to celebrate the completion of the EP. But there has been a lot of tricky diplomacy to negotiate and slightly panicky clients to deal with and for some reason people have been asking me a lot of advice recently, which seems to be somewhat over-estimating my talents, but hey-ho, it’s nice to feel important I suppose.

On a thread during the week Michael asked which Richmond Fontaine album to start with, and I answered him the best I could – I prefer The Fitzgerald, but it might be a little too quiet, inwhich case the rockier Post to Wire or the more Calexico-esque Thirteen Cities might be better choices. Well, to help him make his decisions I have chosen five Richmond Fontaine songs for this week’s five because they are a criminally underrated band and everyone should like them more than they do. Any fan of Smog’s gorgeous A River Ain’t Too Much to Love is highly likely to love The Fitzgerald as well, so bugger off and start listening.

De-lurking is of course the theme of the day on Friday. I know that the likes of myself and the more regular commenters talk too much and can seem a little bit like a closed shop at times, but I really appreciate it when new people take the time to come out of the woodwork and say Hi. There are more readers on this site every day than commenters by at least an order of magnitude, so it would be nice to get an idea of who some of you are. Just fill in your (stolen from GUT) Friday Five and then join in the festival of pish-talking which tends to ensue. Have fun people, hopefully see some of you on Saturday at the Bowery.

P.S.: I seem to have acquired an excellent troll – go back to some of the old podcasts and check out some comedy remarks. Pictish Session, Ruthcast and Funkcast would be good suggested places to start…

1. How long did you read Song, by Toad before making your first comment?
2. Your Friday lunch.
3. Proportion of pointless admin to time wasting to actual work in your real job, as a percentage (eg: 40:27:33).
4. Suggest a funny website for people to waste their time on this afternoon.
5. What’s the earliest you’ve ever sneaked out of work without permission?

Richmond Fontaine – Harold’s Club (from Obliteration by Time)

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Richmond Fontaine – Polaroid (from Post to Wire)

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Richmond Fontaine – Warehouse Life (from The Fitzgerald)

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Richmond Fontaine – Incident at Conklin Creek (from The Fitzgerald)

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Richmond Fontaine – Moving Back Home #2 (from Thirteen Cities)

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Richmond Fontaine – $87 and a Guilty Conscience That Gets Worse the Longer I Go (from Thirteen Cities)

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Richmond Fontaine on Amazon

Pete Harvey is an interesting fellow.  I first really met him properly when he played cello on the Animal Magic Tricks songs which were recorded at Toad Hall earlier this year.

Those songs were gorgeous, so when I heard that he and Neil from Meursault were recording the Withered Hand album I wasn’t surprised.

Then Neil told me Pete was going to play some Meursault songs with the band.  Then I realised that I had seen Pete playing before, most recently as cellist for Alex Cornish where he plays a particularly spiffing version of Sweet Child of Mine.

Earlier this week I found out that he helps run the Rose Street Quartet and the Rose Street Ensemble, who are playing this Saturday at the Canongate Kirk.  Then last night I found out that he’s actually played cello for the Willard Grant Conspiracy when I saw them at the Queen’s Hall last year.

In short, the man’s a fucking maniac.

Animal Magic Tricks – King

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Anyhow, given the incredibly bad time my brother gave me in the comments section about not really saying that I don’t like classical music during the Funkcast, I thought that it was about time I had another go at starting to come to terms with the stuff, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity, and the timing was perfect.

Alex Cornish – Sweet Child o’ Mine

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Well, almost.  I, of course, have the Jesus H. Foxx EP launch on Saturday, but I didn’t realise this immediately because I was too excited by my imminent desertion of my philistine ways to notice the fucking date on the flyer.  I want to go though.  And on the chance that the Bowery ain’t your cup of tea this weekend, then you should try this.

Saturday 12th September 2009, 7.30pm Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh

Tickets: £10/5 (Available from info@rosestreetquartet.co.uk, or on the door)
Proceeds to WARCHILD

Émigré
Songs, Letters and String Works of Émigré Composers Rose Street Ensemble
Conductor: James Lowe – Leader: Liz Beeston – Readings by: Crawford Logan
Voices: Emma Morwood, Judy Dennis – Piano: Robin Hutt, Simon Smith

Programme:
Gal: Serenade for String Orchestra, Op.46
Gal: 5 Songs for Middle Voice and Piano, Op. 33
Rachmaninov: selection from 14 songs, Op. 34 including Vocalise No. 14 (for Soprano & Piano)
Rachmaninov: Romance and Scherzo
Bartók: Hungarian Folk songs
Bartók: Divertimento for strings

Hmm, I was expecting to like this far more than I actually do.  Murder ballads laced with Americana, a band described in places as Gothic folk… what could possibly go wrong?  Well honestly, there’s just a little too much rock ‘n’ roll in this.  It’s got a seventies feel to it, even to the extent that there’s a little psychedelia in here, and between that and the rolling rhythm, I’m just not enjoying it all that much.

It just annoyed me from the very start, for some reason.  You know when you hear something and just think ‘oh dear, no’ pretty much immediately?  Well that was this record.  The wooby-dooby organ thingy on Preacher’s Sister’s Boy is just rotten, and that kind of style intrudes on the album in quite a few other places.  There are lovely songs here and there – Black Rock and Black River Killer are rather nice – but I can’t really handle the whiff of seventies faffing about which permeates the album.  It really can be like the Eagles cheesier moments when it wants to be, and that is just not my cup of tea at all.

I’m forever amazed at just how specific music taste can be.  I can so easily imagine talking a new acquaintance about music, and they might love Blitzen Trapper, but I might prefer Horsefeathers, and they might like Cold War Kids but I prefer Tapes ‘n’ Tapes and they might like Julie Doiron but I prefer Alela Diane and to all intents and purposes, particularly as far as the rest of the world is concerned, we would like the exact same music, yet agree on nothing.

This is perfect for me, but I just don’t like it at all, and I have no idea why.  It makes no sense to me at all.

Blitzen Trapper – Black River Killer

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Blitzen Trapper – Going Down

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It’s funny to note when you part ways with your gig-going peers. I went along to see X Lion Tamer and the Pineapple Chunks at the Electric Circus on Tuesday, perfectly confident that I would bump into people I knew at the gig. I rarely ever think twice about going to gigs by myself for two main reasons: partly because I am quite happy to be at a show by myself in the first place, because that means not having to apologise if it’s shit; and partly because I am pretty confident that at most shows I am going to bump into someone I know anyway.

That’s not always the case, however. I recently went to see Barry Adamson and was surrounded by a very different crowd than usual, and last night at Sneaky Pete’s the same thing happened: an older crowd, not one of whom I recognised.

That’s no real issue, of course, because that really isn’t why I go to gigs. In this case, I have seen the Willard Grant Conspiracy three times before, and all three times have been drastically different gigs, which sort of makes the songs feel like old friends. You’ve seen them in their garage rock phase, their vulnerable acoustic phase and their grandiose orchestral phase and I really think that helps you get to know a song a lot more intimately than you might otherwise.

The performance at Sneaky Pete’s was happily intimate for a venue which I’d tend to describe as a grungy indie club. The stage lights were out of commission so the only light available was a still image from the projector, which happened to really suit the atmosphere. The band and some of the audience were seated, which further added to the relaxed ambience, and Robert Fisher’s relaxed, friendly way with an audience brought a feeling of calm and contentment to everyone. No-one talked through the performance, either. I liked that.

Given the shifting membership of the Willard Grant Conspiracy you rarely get the same gig twice, and the songs don’t seem to exist in any pre-defined sense, more as a collection of ideas which drift around loosely in one another’s company until they are pulled out out of the ether by a performance, coalescing around whatever arrangement of musicians happens to draw them out at the time.

This setup was based around fiddle, a second guitar and a female backing singer, a couple of whom were drawn from support band The Doghouse Roses, who I unfortunately arrived too late to see. It was a simple arrangement, and one which presented Fisher’s warm, enveloping songs with a satisfying lack of artifice. The band embellished enough to bring depth to the sound, and the fiddle was gorgeous, but at its core this was a very stripped back acoustic performance.

The set was something of a greatest hits collection, closely related to the recent release of Paper Covers Stone, an album of minimalistically re-worked versions of existing WGC tunes, suggesting that there are songs amongst his canon for which Fisher himself has a notable preference. His voice shifts gear dramatically from thunderous to intimate and sitting close up in a small venue it has amazing impact. You can never tell if he is furiously angry with the world, or trying to sympathetically console it for its woes, but the emotion is powerful and unavoidable in a Willard Grant Conspiracy set, whatever the setup.

Between that and the unexpectedly cosy atmosphere in Sneaky Pete’s I found myself split between wishing that some of my other music friends had been there to see it, and quietly pleased to have such a wonderful gig to enjoy by myself.

Willard Grant Conspiracy – Notes From the Waiting Room

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Willard Grant Conspiracy – Fare Thee Well

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This was a low key and extremely welcome return for my favourite Edinburgh venue, after a hiatus enforced by the Festival cider whores.  There’s just something nice about the Bowery, probably because it’s such an unlikely space.  It doesn’t actually feel like a bar or a venue in the way that you might have such places in your head, it’s a little more accidental than that.

Ruth and Jane who run the place have an enduring fascination with all things New York, and their ongoing mission to bring everyone from that city who has ever so much as heard the term anti-folk to play over here must surely be nearing completion.  The latest was a chap called Dan Costello, who I have to confess I had never heard of before this evening.

He was supported by local gentleman Wounded Knee, who uses a loop pedal and a microphone in place of what might more traditionally be called instruments.  There’s no thinness to the sound at all, but Drew’s music is probably what you would describe as being at the experimental end of things, and I have to confess I am yet to really understand it.  I’ve not seen him that often though, and I get the impression his is a sound to which you have to acclimatise a little before you can even tell if you like it or not, so I’ll withhold any kind of opinion until I’m a little less green, I think.

Costello himself was charming and entertaining.  His performance was full of child-like innocence, although his lyrics had more than enough sharp humour to them to suggest that he is more than just a wide-eyed ingenue.  He sang some straightforward anti-folk stuff – a performance somewhere inbetween the likes of Adam Green and Turner Cody, albeit far less arch than either – read a story in which half the room had to pretend to be the wind and half a little yellow cat, sang a rap song imagined in the style of Woody Guthrie and read aloud from a manual on avoiding ambiguous writing.

I think it was these random leaps of attention which made the show, for me.  Too much of any one and I might have begun to weary a little, and started to think of his performance as a schtick of some sort, but the light and breezy way he flitted from one topic, one style, one random thought to another, and the charming sincerity of the man meant that his set never lost its verve.  I enjoyed his music, particularly liked his way with a lyric, and generally enjoyed the show a great deal.  I may not have become an impassioned convert exactly, but this was a good evening, and really nice way to get back on track after the whirlwind of the festival.

Dan Costello – Hey Mister

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I feel a little mean writing this review, but I find this album genuinely irritating and I feel oddly compelled to explain why.  I saw Dent May play live at the Electric Circus here recently, and he and his band came across as perfectly decent guys, so this isn’t supposed to be a personal dig exactly, although I suppose it will be unlikely for this post not to irritate them, should they ever happen to read it.

So why does this record annoy me so much?  Well simple, really: it’s just too sodding arch.  The whole thing is buried under such an avalanche of coy glances, knowing winks and wry humour that there is almost no emotional core to the album whatsoever.  I know that there’s only so much heartfelt confessional we can take in our music, and I am not asking bands to all become unbearably earnest all of a sudden, but I do want some sincerity.

Any album smothered in so much humour manages to deflect the true emotions of the writer so far away from the music itself that I find absolutely nothing to latch onto at all.  It’s all so clever and such a fucking great big in-joke that I’m left thinking ‘well, who the fuck are you then, really?’  It’s impossible to get a read on whether or not you empathise with the music if you don’t ever hear anything resembling an unguarded, honest remark.  And if you don’t empathise with the songs or the lyrics, how do you end up feeling attached to anything?

Ironically arranged ditties about failed parties, attractive girls and smug middle class frat boys are fine.  It’s all stuff I can identify with, but it’s like talking to the smart-arse who sits near the back of the class and appears constantly amused and tolerantly contemptuous of the rest of their classmates: it can be amusing and engaging and actually quite attractive, but if you talk to them further and that veneer never drops, you find yourself asking if there really is any depth there at all.

It just all comes across as juvenile, in some ways.  At some point you have to open yourself up a little to other people, and risk the sneers they might return your way, because otherwise you just come across as a coward and sulky teenager.  Ultimately, sneering is fun, but after you’ve enjoyed yourself you have to actually have something to say.

This is not all aimed at Dent May and his band by any means, but they are certainly symptomatic of what I see as a larger trend.  I am sick of bands who bury themselves beneath these layers of irony, and there are a lot of them.  It’s just not enough – it’s not brave enough.  I admire bands that can do away with the defence of obscure lyrics and arch cleverness, because they are eschewing the protection that brings, and there is only so long you can hide from the world like this before they lose interest and conclude that far from being cool or clever, you are just a tedious dick who doesn’t have the balls to have a sincere conversation in case the scorn you have been heaping on the world actually gets thrown back at you.  Grow a pair.

Dent May & his Magnificent Ukulele – You Can’t Force a Dance Party

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Dent May & his Magnificent Ukulele – The Girls on the Square

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Another day another slightly idiosyncratic voice catching the ear here at Toad Hall (Toad Hall being a slightly misleading way of referring to my desk here at Proper Job, where I listen to tunes on my headphones whilst doing other things).  Cast Spells have produced a very nice, uncluttered EP containing six songs, none of which exceeds three minutes in length.  In fact, only a couple even get all that close.

It’s slightly misleading, in a sense, in that it starts with the splendid and insistently catchy pop song Glamorous Glowing, before settling down to a more low key level for the rest of the record.  It has a very laid back vibe in general, actually, and one which meant it took a little bit of getting into.  That’s the huge problem with starting a record with ‘the catchy one’: I find it can really wrong-foot me when listening to the rest of it.  In this case, every time I’ve played this I’ve found it a bit of a sudden shift after that first track, and it has taken a lot of listens to get to the stage where I understand Glamorous Glowing as the exception in an EP of relatively subtle songs.

In general, I think, the songs which best describe the mood of Bright Works and Baton would be the gently shuffling likes of War Story Hellos or Potted Plant, although it ends on the really satisfying downer of A Badge.  All in all this makes for a nice introduction to a band who I think have a lot of potential, and should be worth watching out for in future.  They may want to be careful to keep the pace varied through their albums – American Quilts can feel a little sluggish, to be honest – but for the most part this is very good.

Cast Spells – War Story Hellos

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The last Yo La Tengo album, the brilliantly-titled I am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, sounded something like a greatest hits album, despite being full of new songs.  It reminds me in that sense of Tom Waits’ Mule Variations, particularly in way that the strange sensation this aspect of the record generated meant that it took me a long time to realise just how good it was in its own right.

Again with this one there is a sense of touching all the more familiar YLT bases, which again makes the album come across just a little as a Yo La Tengo compilation consisting entirely of songs which you rather inexplicably didn’t hear when they were originally released.

The lush orchestration of opener Here to Fall is perhaps the biggest surprise, although the Inspiral Carpets-style organ on Nothing to Hide is also a little queer.  I was just settling down to listen to a cosy, safe and familar album when that kicked in, and it’s pretty subtle so I don’t know why it would have surprised me, but it did.  Having introduced this scratchy organ sound, they continue to play with it for a couple of songs, before switching unexpectedly back into the orchestral pop on sixth song If it’s True.  Then suddenly they’re off to explore the kind of airy, breezy territory of Summer Sun and (some of) And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out.

This kind of shift should indicate why I find this to be an oddly wrong-footing album.  Just as soon as I start to let my assumptions settle, they shift just a little and suddenly I am having to guess again.  This is odd because in no way is this a radical or unusual-sounding album for Yo La Tengo.  If you don’t actually listen it might even sound like them going through the motions, but when you sit down and really have a look at what they’ve done it’s quite a bit more interesting than you might at first realise.

Considering how few bands can really achieve that so many albums into their careers, I think it’s safe to say that we will look back on Yo La Tengo as one of the true greats.

Yo La Tengo – Here to Fall

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Yo La Tengo – Nothing to Hide

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You could drink yourself into a coma going to every interesting gig in Edinburgh this week.  I think I might need a few orange juice gigs, if just to vaguely preserve both liver and waistline.  Although it may be too late for both, I have to admit.  I think I am going to start driving to gigs (tonight is by necessity, but we’ll see how it goes) just as a way of forcing myself to stick to fizzy water or some such beverage.

Maybe Skinny Water, perhaps (thank you Cogstar), a drink so monumentally stupid that I have stared at that ridiculous primary school website for hours trying to figure out if the damn thing is a hoax or not.  It’s so ridiculous I keep thinking that it really must be a piss-take, but it really does appear to be water laced with imaginary weight-reducing ingredients.

As their website claimed*, the water “has been enhanced with a unique combination of ingredients to help you lose weight… suppress appetite, block carbohydrates from converting into fat and increase fat burning”.

This website, on the other hand, claims that this is most ludicrous pile of horse manure to hit the public domain in ages.  Although, thinking about it, this product is so transparently idiotic that I find it hard to blame the manufacturers, or the designers of that comedy website.  Honestly, if you are so fucking stupid as to fall for this sort of infantile idiocy then you deserve to be ripped off and, honestly, you deserve the continuing cycle of desperate, futile hope followed by the despair of inevitable failure and decimated self-esteem that this sort of obsessive weight mania will certainly bring you.  Jesus fucking Christ, if you’re too fat (which I am) then either just accept it and enjoy your life, or get some fucking exercise.

Monday 7th September 2009: The Bowery Re-Opening Party with Dan Costello & Wounded Knee.

I have missed the Bowery over the Festival.  Somewhere sane to go would have been appreciated in amongst all the carnage, but Jane and Ruth are back now and celebrate that fact tonight.

Tuesday 8th September 2009: The Pineapple Chunks & X Lion Tamer at Electric Circus.

How these two rather mental bands are going to complement one another on a bill is anyone’s guess, but I really like both and am definitely looking forward to this – unhinged guitar indie and dancey electro stuff.  And incidentally, X Lion Tamer has a new EP out, called Neon Hearts, which is available in Avalanche Records on Cockburn Street as of right about now.

The Pineapple Chunks – Art Storage

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Wednesday 9th September 2009: Willard Grant Conspiracy & Doghouse Roses at Sneaky Pete’s.

The Willard Grant Conspiracy are one of my favourite bands ever.  Robert Fisher’s voice is deep and rich, and his songs go from the desperate ballad to lovely alt-country to grinding tension, often in the same album.  There is no chance I am missing this gig.

Willard Grant Conspiracy – Evening Mass

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Thursday 10th September 2009: Meursault vs Dead Boy Robotics vs Foundling Wheel at the Voodoo Rooms.

Versus gigs are a bit risky in some senses – how to keep the pace up without garbling things, how to get enough interplay between the bands to stop it simply being a standard gig with a shuffled playlist, all sorts of things – but I love the idea in general.  The styles on show this evening are pretty varied too, which I think is a good thing.

Friday 11th September 2009: Neko Case at the Voodoo Rooms.

Neko Case has, simply, one of the most gorgeous voices around.  I’ve seen her live before and she is lovely – charismatic, charming and a superb performer.  There’s a lot on this Friday, so I don’t know if I’m likely to be able to make it, but I really want to go to this.

Neko Case – Tightly

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Friday 11th September 2009: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Come On Gang & Dupec play This is Music at Sneaky Pete’s.

Totally Enormous what? Fucking hell, you really should go for the name alone.  This is Music nights are brilliant fun, and this is just that kind of carefree, enjoyable lineup which makes them good.

Saturday 12th September 2009: The Jesus H. Foxx EP Launch at the Bowery, with Some Young Pedro & Golden Ghost.

YES, the offical Song, by Toad Records release of Matter, by Jesus H. Foxx!  I don’t know why I ever even wanted to be a record label, but one of the reasons was to be involved with, and make a contribution to, music which I bloody love.  I am absolutely thrilled to have this EP on the label and really looking forward to the launch night.  I’ve never seen either Some Young Pedro or Golden Ghost before either, so even more room to be excited.

Jesus H. Foxx – Trying to Be Good

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*Until people pointed out that it was total bollocks and they decided to change it.

Hello, welcome to the Ruthcast.  Why the Ruthcast?  Because my friend Ruth who runs the Bowery with Jane came round to the house last week to thoroughly upstage me on my own podcast.

Last year Ruth was a guest on my Fresh Air radio show and completely and utterly upstaged me, and in this podcast we agreed that she would come on every week this year.  And that, frankly, sounds like a bloody good idea to me.

I mentioned on the Friday Five a couple of weeks ago that Ellie Greenwich had died, and as this is something which upset Ruth rather a lot, so the podcast is absolutely chock-full of Ellie Greenwich songs

Toadcast #85 – The Ruthcast

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01. The Ronettes – Baby I Love You (05.51)
02. Golden Ghost – If You Are in Love Then Why Are You Asleep? (13.36)
03. The Crystals – Then He Kissed Me (16.07)
04. Parenthetical Girls – A Song for Ellie Greenwich (23.25)
05. The Shangri-Las – Leader of the Pack (34.25)
06. Jeremy Jay – Beautiful Rebel (37.10)
07. The Blank Tapes – Listen to the One (41.41)
08. Dusty Springfield – What Good is I Love You (43.59)
09. Julie Doiron – Last Night (56.52)
10. Mount Eerie – Between Two Mysteries (69.06)