Yes, that’s right, it’s Blue Peter weekend at Toad Hall this weekend.  Not in the kiddie fiddling, coke snorting, hard drinking sort of way (well, not all of them anyway) but in the stickyback plastic, here’s one I prepared earlier sort of manner.

What crafts, you ask?  Well the Meursault singles are being recorded in the living room for starters.  But while all that’s happening, the rest of us will be in the dining room with felt tips and hot glue guns doing the following things: painting and folding the Jesus H. Foxx EPs, which arrive today; painting, shading and titling the next run of Nothing Broke, which sold out last week; adding a little colour to the Builders & the Butchers/Loch Lomond Split 12″ vinyl covers; and finally, folding the inlays for ninety Song, by Toad Records Samplers for the Avalanche Album Club.  They are going to look brilliant, so it’s a shame we’ll be giving them all away.  I’d like to sell them on the site, but divvying up the money between twelve bands would be a pretty considerable pain in the arse, so I don’t think I’ll bother.

So, I am still up do my puckered anus in Proper Job, but there is a fine meal down at the Shore waiting for me this evening, with the light of my misspent and wayward life, the beautiful Mrs. Toad.  I am very much looking forward to that.

This weekend’s podcast and Sunday Supplement will be coming from Ruth, who runs the Bowery with her friend Jane.  After being turned into a Magner’s trough during the Festival, The Bowery is reopening on Monday 7th, so this is rather good timing.  I for one will be grateful to have it back, not least because the Jesus H. Foxx EP launch is being held there on Saturday 12th September, assuming the paint has dried on all the covers by then!

1. Last really Blue Petery handcraft thingy you did.
2. Did you make your own Christmas cards when you were a kid too?
3. Favourite kids TV programme which encouraged you to do things other than TV (and no, teenage pregnancy and experimenting with hard drugs do not count, so Grange Hill is forbidden – let’s maintain some innocence here please, people).
4. Most surreal kids’ TV programme you watched.
5. At what stage in the computer revolution did your childhood generally occur?

Jay Farrar – Cahokian

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Howe Gelb – Felonious

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Jim White – Christmas Day

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Kelly Joe Phelps – Taylor John

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Bonnie Prince Billy – Wolf Among Wolves

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Dan of Green Gables is a project by David Tatersall and Franic Rozycki from the Wave Pictures, and a fellow called Dan Mayfield. I think, but I’m not absolutely certain, that Dan played that gorgeous violin part on Now You Are Pregnant. Here he plays violin all the way through, accompanying Franic on mandolin and David on guitar.

The songs are all Tatersall’s, so in a sense I suppose you really could call this a Wave Pictures side project, although I presume they must have their reasons for keeping the things separate.

Certainly it doesn’t sound much like the Wave Pictures. What it does sound like, however, is a natural progression from the all acoustic If You Leave it Alone, their last album.

The lyrics are distinctively Tatersalian – powerfully evocative and, whilst not flowery and always couched in plain English, surreal enough in their choice of image and detail to have a wonderfully artful feel. I always admire people who can do that: manage to write in natural language, but pick out sufficiently particular fragments of a scene that the effect is nevertheless that of poetry.

Musically this really isn’t an insistent record, so please do give it some time. The first time I listened to it was in the van on the way down to Wickerman, with four boisterous passengers, and that really was the wrong way to try and appreciate it.

I amost think that the gorgeous violin on this might be providing what was missing from If You Leave it Alone. It brings something of a flourish to the emotional expression, whereas Leave it Alone was just a little flat, in my view. I won’t go and recommend this entirely without qualification, but near as dammit I think. A couple of the tracks are a little soft, somehow, and perhaps the whole thing could do with a little shaking up in places. As a whole piece of work it perhaps need a little bit of a jump-start at some point, although I couldn’t tell you where. Walk the Back Stairs Quiet isn’t really my cup of tea, so perhaps something a little livelier or more tortured (in the Warren Ellis style perhaps!) might have just shaken the rest of the album up a little; thrown it into relief, perhaps. It doesn’t really matter though, because this is still really good.

Dan of Green Gables – Notes for a Book on Buster Keaton

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Dan of Green Gables – Goodbye John Andreas

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The Wave Pictures – Now You Are Pregnant

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Buy from the Wave Pictures site

[This review was very kindly written by Dylan from Blueback Hotrod.  He was initially down to photograph the show, but I just couldn't get there in time so he ended up being there by himself and was nice enough to review the gig for us.  Thanks very much!]

I’m starting this review at the end of the show, because, for me the defining moment of the evening’s entertainment was watching the faces of the security staff standing at the back of the stage turn increasingly thunderous as Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard crashed through Cabaret Voltaire’s 10pm curfew and gleefully played an extra half-hour of encores, much to the delight of the genuinely adoring crowd.

I honestly believe that, before they finally left the stage in a howl of feedback, the band were mere moments away from having the power pulled and being physically carried from the stage by the burly bouncers.

And that, for me, was quite a nice little allegory for the anti-folk movement which Jeffrey Lewis spearheads, and the regard in which it seems to be held by the public at large. The non-initiated will look on in frustration; confused and even occasionally annoyed, while the true believers respond rapturously to the performers’ harmless and playful naughtiness.

I should make it clear that I’m not an expert on Jeffrey Lewis and his work, but I’ve picked up bits and pieces here and there. What I’ve heard so far has been perfectly pleasant while never really setting my world on fire; and I must admit that I find my opinion hasn’t really changed much following the Cab Vol show.

Don’t get me wrong, it was good fun and a great performance from a tight and entertaining band. Lewis might seem an unlikely showman, skinny as a rake, shaggy hair thinning under the spotlights, and apologising for wearing one of his own promo t-shirts for the show (apparently it was laundry day and he couldn’t find a “laund-o-mat”.) but he worked his audience like an old stager. The short snappy songs, of which there seemed to be dozens, leapt unpredictably from acoustic folk numbers, to acappella rap, to garage rock wig-outs, Lewis’ jumbo-bodied acoustic guitar sounding remarkably raucous and grungy with the pick-up turned way up.

On a couple of occasions during the set, Lewis took the opportunity to narrate some of the surreal yet witty comic books he famously writes, flicking through the pages of oversized hand-drawn comics, holding them up for the audience to see, in what seemed to be something of a tradition judging by the dog-eared and sellotape-patched condition of the books. It was a nice touch and served to highlight the narrative quality to Lewis’ lyrics, the imagery in his songwriting also described in short detailed vignettes which seem to reflect a comic-book style of story-telling.

There was a lot to like about the gig, but I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed that I haven’t walked away from the venue eager to investigate Jeffrey Lewis’ work with more urgency, considering the renown in which he’s held. I’m left admiring his talent as a wordsmith and storyteller, but those words don’t really hold much emotional resonance for me. I’ll no doubt happily enjoy whatever might drop into my lap from this likable troubadour in future, but – with a twinge of regret – I find I’m not really excited enough to rabidly chase down every last morsel of his work that I can..

Jeffrey Lewis – Don’t Be Upset

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Jeffrey Lewis & the Junkyard – Whistle Past the Graveyard

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Website | Buy from Amazon

There’s not been a Big Famous Album reviewed on this site in bloody ages.  Partly I’ve become so focussed on what’s going on locally that I have somewhat taken my eye off the ball with regards to bigger releases, even just those which are big relative to the small world of indie music.  And partly there have been very few which have tickled my fancy in the slightest for quite a while.

There are some bits and pieces coming along though which suggest that this might change in the immediate future.  And about time too, all this navel-gazing is no good for anyone.  Look outwards, I say, cast off the Tunnel Vision of the Toad and embrace the wider world.  Alright, sorry, but sometimes I get so deeply into my own stuff I do kind of forget that from time to time.  So what do we have?

The Twilight Sad: I have a naughty copy of this, to which I am not going to confess, and have only listened to it a few times through.  It’s out on the 5th October though and is currently sounding rather promising.  I wouldn’t say I was all that into it just yet, but then I only really embraced their last album a song or two at a time, so I am prepared to take it slowly with this one.

The Avett Brothers: Their sound hasn’t changed much, but then it never did, really.  Out on the 29th September, the title track from I and Love and You has been slipped out in to the world for us to enjoy and it is full of the exact same understated warmth which I love about this band.  I know I am morally obliged to hate them because they are on Columbia these days but if the whole record sounds like this then I may find my indie snobbery very difficult to maintain.

The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You

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The Mountain Goats: Alright, I’ll say it: I thought Sunset Tree was their best album abd I have yet to hear anything by this band that I like anything like as much, despite their considerable back catalogue.  Heretic Pride was okay, and the new song Genesis 3:23 is also… okay.  Not at all bad by any means, but I would not describe it as any better than pleasant.  This one’s also out on the 5th October.

The Mountain Goats – Genesis 3:23

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Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs is out on Monday, which somewhat makes up for the fact that they seem to have been a little less generous with preview mp3s than everyone else.  But then, with a cast-iron reputation like theirs, why would they need to?  This sounds a lot like “…I Will Beat Your Ass” and I would say that I am enjoying it, but am yet to be blown away.  There are a few more moody, quiet numbers on this record as well, perhaps a little more in line with the likes of Summer Sun and the like than the previous record was.

Flashy Python: This is a solo project by a certain hand-clapping, yeah-saying gentleman by the name of Alec Ounsworth.  He, like Julian Plenti before him, is rather keen to keep his solo project free from associations with his band stuff, and has put the whole album up for preview here.  It’s less driven than early CYHSY stuff, and generally a bit more weird, but it sounds pretty interesting to me.

Flashy Python – Skin & Bones

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Micah P. Hinson: This just dropped into my inbox this morning, and I know nothing about it bar two things: firstly, that Micah P. Hinson is fucking amazing; and secondly that the artwork, pictured above, is bloody lovely.

Langhorne Slim: His new album Be Set Free isn’t being released until 26th October, but the new song sounds brilliant.  It’s called I Love You, but Goodbye and is a little plusher and more elaborate than his earlier recordings, but unusually, I rather like this.  The piano is especially gorgeous – a times eleborate, at times rich and sonorous and at times deft and twinkly.  This augurs very well indeed – I am excited.

Langhorne Slim – I Love You, But Goodbye

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It’s about time the big(ger) boys fought back a little, frankly, but it looks like there could be some very promising recordings from some relatively high-profile artists coming our way this Autumn.

Generally when we describe something as good enough, there’s an air of resigned disappointment about the phrase.  A weary shrug of the shoulders, as if all the lofty ambitions had failed to be achieved and we were somehow settling for something which, contrary to the literal meaning of the term, was inadequate.

I suppose it’s a language thing, but ‘good enough’ rarely seems to actually mean ‘good enough’.  It tends to mean ‘not as good as we expected’.  There’s an interesting article on Wired at the moment describing this exact phenomenon.  They cite a number of example, from the Flip camera to unmanned combat aircraft, and online alternatives to Microsoft Office (Google Docs being the most obvious and successful).  The term they use as a catch-all for this general trend, whereby high-quality, high-fidelity and feature-rich products are suffering at the hands of their bare-bones brethren is “The mp3 Effect”.

I have heard countless arguments amongst audiophiles about labels using high-quality mp3s or FLAC or AIFF files to reclaim territory lost to illegal downloaders and I really think they are making a mistake.  Some people will care about that, but most simply do not give a shit.  There are studies, albeit somewhat off-the-cuff ones, referenced in that article which show users are actually growing to prefer the lossy, compressed sound of an mp3 file to its higher fidelity cousin.  Personally, I really don’t give a shit 95% of the time, either.

The whole Meursault album has been released on (not-particularly high bitrate) mp3s.  Neil’s rationale: it was never supposed to be a high-fidelity record.  It wasn’t recorded like that, so why should it be released like that?  He’s right of course, but there is always the more practically expedient question – had he pushed for something more high-quality, requiring more expensive equipment, maybe studio time… well, it all just makes it increasingly unlikely to happen, doesn’t it.  What’s more important to you, that it be perfect or that it happen.

I often ask myself this question with this blog.  Is a timely review of a live show more important than the writer figuring out exactly what they want to say?  Are the Toad Sessions much better – in terms of production values, depth of content and so on – than they need to be?  Would you rather twenty quicker, easier, more cut-and-shut Toad Sessions in a year or eight ones with a lot more work put into them?

Now, I do appreciate a high quality recording played on shit-hot equipment, but honestly, the vast, vast majority of the time I just wouldn’t notice.  I also appreciate quality writing and great production values on internet video, I appreciate all kinds of very very nice things, just not very often.  Most of the time, and I doubt I am alone here, I just want good enough.  It’s fair enough to blame idiots for the rise in reality TV or mediocre chick lit or banal blockbusters or poor sound recordings or crappy convenience food or low quality pictures posted on the internet or pretty much any proliferation of ‘not as good as we expected’ in a field we care about, but I think we are all like that most of the time.  When you watch telly do you wait for something good, or do you just fancy emptying your brain for a bit and just make do with whatever you can find, most of the time?

I really can’t face the idea of convenience food… doesn’t mean I never eat it though.  How much time, in all honesty, do any of us have to appreciate real quality most of the time?  I love music, and I am perfectly happy with mp3s 98% of the time.  I love eating well and we cook a really decent meal no more than a couple of times a week.  Real quality generally needs a degree of attention to be truly appreciated and how much of our life can we really devote to that kind of proper indulgence?  Kids, jobs, admin, chores, there just isn’t room enough in everyone’s lives for ‘good enough’ not to make up 97.36%* of our requirements for pretty much everything.

Like all good ideas, it just seems so bloody obvious when someone points it out to you, but the idea of making something just good enough rarely gets past the drawing board in most places because people always seem to take it mean slightly less than good enough.

Bruce Springsteen – My Best Was Never Good Enough

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*Warning: Approximately 88.6% percent of statistics in this post were made up on the spot.