Song, by Toad Festive Fifty 2009 – 21-35
21.FOUND – Enough About Human Rights
I’m not sure if anyone, not even the band themselves, likes Enough About Human Rights best from their excellent Let Fidelity Break EP, but I do. There’s just something unexpected about this song, for some reason. The fact that it is in fact a Moondog cover probably has a lot to do with that, but the hectic, percussive energy FOUND pile into their version just makes me grin every time I hear it.
22.Timber Timbre – Demon Host
The ‘ohs’ in this song take the spectral folk of Timber Timbre and give it a pleading, forlorn quality which imbues it with just a little more pathos than some of the others on the album, and this makes it extra special, in my view.
23.FOUND – You’re No Vincent Gallo – Toad Session
Honestly, I could put pretty much their entire session in the top ten of this list quite easily. It was one of the best things I have ever seen, I think it’s fair to say. Without all the stuff added by the full band I found myself so much more impressed with Ziggy’s voice, with the gorgeous tones he got from his banjo… with pretty much all of it, honestly. Gorgeous.
24.Broken Records – Lessons Never Learnt
This may have been on an earlier release, but it was on this year’s(ish) Out on the Water EP, so I am putting my foot down and saying that it counts. In any case, a really surprising song to come from a band like this, and I think that little down-up of the cello absolutely makes it.
25.Trips and Falls – Breaking Up With My Mormon Missionaries
These guys were pretty much the revelation of the year for me, in all honesty. So much so that we’ve offered to release He Was Such a Quiet Boy on Song, by Toad Records, and it should be coming out in early March. Their music is just fucking creepy, to be honest, and the male/female vocal interplay on this track in particular really is odd. Add that repetitive descent on the strings and this really is an unsettling song. And a brilliant one.
26.Jesus H. Foxx – Elegy For the Good Times
It didn’t grab me as my favourite track from Jesus H. Foxx’ debut EP Matter right off the bat, but I think it is. The cornet, the harmonies, and that simple, repetitive rhythmic underpinning for the whole thing… it all just works incredibly well together, and there’s a sophistication to it which never ceases to surprise me when I think that this is the band’s first release, with their current lineup that is.
27.The Pictish Trail – You Covered the Earth With Your Thumb (Toad Session)
I love the Toad Sessions. They really can provide some amazing recordings, and with Neil so kindly recording and mixing all of the ones we’ve done so far this year we really have had some incredible stuff. Johnny Pictish is about the nicest guy ever to set foot in our house, and his session really was good. The slow build of this, and the prominence of his vocal really are gorgeous.
28.Navigator – Change
An oddly melodic tune from one of the most belligerently low-fi albums I think I have ever heard. It took a while for the sense of ‘whoooah, what the fuck?’ to subside when I first heard this record, but it is absolutely brilliant. Fuzz or not, this is just a stone-cold pop gem and one of the most catchy riffs of the year.
29.The Builders and The Butchers – Golden And Green
Mental and ferocious brilliance. When these guys hit their stride their ramshackle old jalopy threatens to shake loose its wheels altogether and crash into a ditch, and those are almost without fail their greatest songs. This is just like that.
30.Titus Andronicus – Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ
I don’t know whether I just like how raucous this song gets, or whether I like how quiet it is half the time, compared to how raucous it gets when it cuts loose. Either way, this is one of the best play it loud soungs of the year.
31.Sparrow & the Workshop – Into the Wild
I heard this EP so close to doing this list that Horse’s Grin could as easily have been here instead, but such is the slightly arbitrary nature of these things that you’re getting this one. Maybe it’s something about the storming ending which gets me – Nick is getting to really have a right bloody go on his guitars these days, and Jill is proving that her voice is easily powerful enough to step up and match it. This is full on rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s superb.
32.Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (I)
Yes, more Wild Beasts. I don’t know how this happened – it wasn’t exactly deliberate, I just kept ordering and re-ordering my list and their songs kept on sticking in there, often at the expense of stuff I thought I liked better. This one’s more downbeat, but again that guitar sound and gorgeous voice produce something atmospheric and yet still insidiously infectious.
33.Alela Diane & Alina Hardin – I Have Returned
This whole EP is simple and absolutely gorgeous. Again, I could have picked pretty much any of the songs from it, but there’s something about this one which seems to have captivated me just that little bit more. The vocal interplay between the two is as lovely as with any song on the EP, but maybe there’s something in the roll of the verses which does it. Then again, maybe it’s just arbitrary and I might pick a different one this time next week.
34.Meursault – Nothing Broke
A different version of this was on the band’s MySpace page the first time I ever heard them and it made a really strong impression on me. They recorded it for their Toad Session back in August last year, and now this gorgeous piano and harmonium version for the truly stunning Nothing Broke EP. If anything, the only reason this song is so low on this list is down to the fact that it’s so familiar by now.
35.Timber Timbre – Lay Down in the Tall Grass
This song shows just how simple most of this album is – the barest hint of percussion doing nothing very complex, a simple organ riff repeating throughout the song, and vocals. There’s other stuff there too, but really very little of it, and that kind of subtle touch is what makes this such a special album.
some more nice choices. did you happen to put up what the result of everyones top 5 voting? don’t know if I missed that or not.
I have to go buy me some Withered Hand. Really digging all that I hear from them.
Withered Hand are a fucking amazing band – the album is sold out for now, but they’re getting more made up asap. Honestly, you won’t spend your money better this year.
As to the public vote, I think I’ll end up announcing that sometime between Christmas and New Year. I need time to sit down and count them all at some point.
I know I said I would stop stalking but I cant resist…
Today I had the pleasure of an EXTENDED viewing of Toad and his returning beardy trampy face. He was beside the conical strut at the bus stop…..AGAIN. What a character! He was on the phone…..probably phoning his work to tell them he will be late due to the snow. But what makes this special folks, is that ….our Toad was wistfully making footprints in the snow beside the conical strut. Over and over again. Making a new footprint or making an existing one even deeper. No doubt flashes of his childhood were coursing through his dazed head – perhaps memories of Xmas’s past? Perhaps thoughts of schoolyard snowball fights?….we can never be sure. I have never seen Toad more serene and happy. Genuine.
Toad then took to looking across the bridge to see if his bus was coming. It wasn’t. Then he looked through the Pizza Express windows…..dreaming of hot pizza perhaps. But Pizza Express isn’t for the likes of our Toad. Too trampy by far.
It was at this point the traffic FINALLY moved and after at LEAST 5 minutes of very secret Toad viewing I came to work satisfied and moist. I cant ask for more.
News just in….through my stalker network I have been informed that approximately 20 or so minutes after my initial sighting Toad made his way all the way to the garage down at Canonmills and bought himself a coffee.
i think the toad sightings deserve a blog all of thier own. maybe in time be published in a nice box set. for christmas and that.
“through my stalker network”
Jesus fucking Christ on a bike.
Did you make it into work, Toad? Was that coffee good? What WERE you thinking about making those footprints? Perhaps that you are making your mark but it is fleetingly temporary and then musing on that for a while in relation to personal achievements and so forth….I bet that’s what it was. I know you so well Matthew. I see you. I see you always.
i’m a little scared!
Oi. Whats with the moist chat?
There will be no Toad inspired moistness on pain of slow and interesting death involving a fondue set, hot cheese, several kirby grips and a rubber truncheon.
She’s hot.
moist is a bad word!
I want answers, still!
it’s like foreplay MC, toad is just teasing you up at this moment in time…
…just wait
I too have questions, is Toad too trampy for Pizza Express or is Pizza Express too trampy for Toad?
I disdain the Pizza Express and all who eat in it.
Toad is too trampy for Pizza Express was the original sentiment. Although beardless he would probably gain entry. But we now know he will never set foot in that place as Mrs.Toad will reprimand him in the most colourful of ways!! I’ve only been in a Pizza Express once. it was nowt special. In fact, it was pish. Give me a triple decker chicken bacon mayo sandwich at the Bailie any day….yum yum yum yum yum. With a pint and a half of iced Coca-Cola. One pint is not enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf9wHkkNGUU&feature=player_embedded
The club sandwiches at the Baillie are the stuff that legends are made of.
I like Pizza Express
Dylan, you eat brown cheese. I’m not saying that you would eat anything but that brown cheese is right up there with lapping up cold sick in most peoples eating preference list.
Mmm… Brown cheese pizza…
I am the extended stalker network.
I am omnipresent.
I see all bearded things;especially those immersed in smiley, stompy, shoe/snow related activities..
I’d like to thank you for the ride in the Toadmobile and the ice cream you fed us earlier this year, as sugar plus dairy makes me see the future… and by all accounts, its quite lovely.
Merry Christmas!
Bloody hell. It seems running a bloody record label is a lot like doing charity work in a mental hospital. Can’t I get some sort of grant for this shit?
I grant you one wish.
I will hear of no such wizardry; now hurry up and make my dinner.
Fucking hell, they’re multiplying!
Multiplying? One was already too many.
BRIGHT LIGHT!
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