Mrs. Toad has been away in China for the last week or so and, frankly, I am jealous.  I am wedded to Edinburgh now, for fairly obvious reasons, but I have always been something of a gypsy, as have my parents, and as such China has held a pretty significant fascination for several years now.

I spent three years in Singapore between the ages of eleven and fourteen and I absolutely loved the place.  Not just Singapore, but all the travelling we did in South East Asia – I was absolutely captivated.

Honestly, if it were not for you musical muppets I would be pestering Mrs. Toad for us to move to China already.

Toadcast #106 – The Sinocast

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01. T’Pau – China in Your Hand (5.12)
02. I Am Oak – Ohayo (10.49)
03. Django Django – Love’s Dart (13.27)
04. Django Reinhart – China Boy (22.49)
05. Clem Snide – Wal-Mart Parking Lot (31.22)
06. Frightened Rabbit – Fun Stuff (33.51)
07. The Shop Assistants – Somewhere in China (41.07)
08. David Bowie – China Girl (46.26)
09. Lincoln – Great Wall of China (51.47)
10. Snapline – S2 (65.31)

Instead of being at a friend’s stag do in Berlin I am stranded in Edinburgh.  Even more frustrating, this stag do was going to involve going to a football match and indie clubs instead of strip bars and nightclubs, so would almost certainly have been excellent fun.  Given my general terror of stag nights, I was actually rather looking forward to this one.

I actually didn’t bother to have a stag do, largely because I couldn’t be bothered, but also I have never had enough of a predominance of male friends to make it seem anything other than awkward.  Contrary to the suspicions of the feminists I have outraged on these pages, I have always got along very well with women in general.  Presumably this is because I tend to judge people entirely on whether they irritate the shit out of me or not, so despite being an offensive bastard, I’m not all that prejudiced really.  So erm, how do you decide to head off with all your male pals and leave the women behind, especially when, like myself, you would have no intention of doing anything especially blokey in the first place.

My brother had an excellent stag do actually (more of that later), and Mrs. Toad got absolutely wrecked with her family and ended up dancing around the kitchen with her sister-in-law and niece bellowing pop classics into mop-head microphones.  There are pictures and no, no they aren’t good.

The reason I am not in Berlin an hammered off my tits at this precise moment in time is because we are having something of a mental panic at Proper Job, motivated by our most incredible client.  They should give up on medical devices and turn their attention to a perpetual motion machine, because the sheer inexhaustible power of their knee-jerking just never seems to run out.  It’s not even a complicated product, but there you go.  The decision paralysis that descends upon large groups of people is a powerful force indeed.

Ach, so take pity on me and de-lurk.  Last weekend lots of new London people de-lurked at the Meursault shows and said hello, which was rather nice.  And just last night Jesus H. Foxx de-lurked as well, opening their new blog to the public, where they are going to post news on the recording of their new album as well as demos and works in progress from the recording sessions, so I recommend you keep an eye on that one.

1. Ideal stag/hen do.
2. Stag/hen do from hell (anecdotal or imaginary).
3. Most dubious place you’ve ever allowed a partner to go, unsupervised.
4. Marriage: is there really any point (this is not a loaded question; I am married myself, remember, and I still don’t think I have an answer).
5. Proportion of your life you’ve known your current/last partner.

Billy Bragg – The Marriage

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Tom Waits – Better off Without a Wife (Yes, I know I always play this one.)

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Mark Lanegan – Wedding Dress

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Clem Snide – Forever, Now & Then

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Snow Patrol – Make Love to Me Forever

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Little Matthew, who helps us out with the record label and filming of Toad Sessions and guzzling of gin and whatnot, wrote about a band called Glaciers a little while ago, the musical and artistic project of a Mr. Nicolas Burrows.  And here is a little more news.

Burrows recently recorded a session with The Golden Owl, which is one of the loveliest looking music blogs I’ve happened across in a long time.  The results included a long interview, which I highly recommend reading here, and three lovely new recordings.

The performances are very simple – just an acoustic guitar, the gentlest of vocals, and lots and lots of empty space – but they really are lovely.  His voice reminds me a lot of local gentleman Thomas Western, actually – there’s just something in the inflections and slightly glutinous nature of it which sounds rather similar to me.

In any case, both of these projects look really interesting to me, both The Golden Owl and Glaciers.  Both seem to pay incredible attention to detail and put great love into their work.  I tend to be more focussed on giving myself as much work as possible, so it’s probably only natural that I end up nursing a sort of envious admiration for people who slow it down a bit and really do things properly – Kilter Records here in Edinburgh spring to mind as well – but it really does warm my heart to see this kind of wonderfully considered and beautiful work being done.

There are three mp3s to download from the session, including a splendid cover of Paper Planes by MIA, of all things, but you are going to have to go to The Golden Owl to find them.  Trust me, it is well worth your time to do so.

Glaciers – Meeting of Tides (Live for The Golden Owl)

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Bear Claw are a band from Austin, Texas with a distinctly Irish-sounding (that’s not just me, is it?) lead vocal and a bloody excellent line in low-fi acoustic pop.

The recording is pretty basic as well.  I may not be an audio expert, but the drums sound pretty raw to me, and there is very little more to the instrumentation than simple guitar, vocals and a little melodica from time to time. The female backing vocals add an awful lot of depth and prettiness, but in general this is a really basic, no-frills record.

When it’s used this well, though, the low-fi nature of it and the uncomplicated arrangements really don’t matter; in fact I’d say they add to the charm.  The tunes are invariably good, and the rhythm rolls nicely, lulling me into that sort of satisfied headphones head-nod you get at work when listening to something that tickles you.

This EP was originally self-released on cassette, but it is now being repressed on 10″ vinyl, I believe, by the really rather intriguing-looking Monofonus Press, a DIY Austin record label and art collective in whom fans of Song, by Toad Records should find an awful lot to love.

There’s not a lot of info out there on the band, but if you check their MySpace page and their profile page on Monofonus you’ll see an awful lot of seminal Scottish bands name-checked, including Edinburgh’s own Shop Assistants, as well as The Vaselines and The Pastels.  This stuff doesn’t really have the harsh edge which defined much of the output of those bands, but there’s definitely a flat, deadpan delivery to their recordings which is evocative of that era of indie music.  More like this please!

Bear Claw – Warm Winter/Cold Fall

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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Monofonus Press

It’s been a little quiet recently because, as I explained on the Monday post, I have been down in London for the last few days. Whilst there I took my parents to see Nico Muhly at the Roundhouse. Nico Muhly is apparently something of a bright young thing as far as the world of classical music is concerned, and of course with my rather less than encyclopaedic knowledge of that particular field of music, I am no position to argue. He was certainly a charming compere for the evening, and came across as a genuinely warm and witty guy. What drew me along to this, however, was not Mr. Muhly himself but Sam Amidon, who was also on the bill.

Essentially, there were six parts to the evening’s performance. Before the interval Muhly performed a Philip Glass piece on the piano, which was absolutely gorgeous, then the Britten Symphonia played a piece by Muhly himself, and then Muhly conducted Britten Symphonia in accompanying Sam Amidon singing three American folk songs. After the break there was something else by Muhly, followed by a twenty minute piece which butchered American folk classic The Only Tune, chopping it up with not just classical parts but also samples and electronic noise performed by Valgeir Sigurðsson (the head of Amidon and Muhly’s record label, Bedroom Community). Finally, Muhly conducted Britten Symphonia playing a Steve Reich piece called City Life. Read the rest of this entry »

After Sunday’s Virgin of the Birds videos, these are the Broken Records songs from the New Year’s Eve house gig.  The stunning Aleko, above, is an exclusive (ZOMG!!!1!), and will be the b-side to their next single.

The lads have also begun work on their second album, which will be out on 4AD some time this year, presumably, and we were treated to an exclusive preview of a song from that album, but I am not allowed to show you that on the internet because it’s a secret.  See – that’s why you should come to the house gigs.

This performance reminded me an awful lot of Broken Records’ rather gorgeous Toad Session (the first ever Toad Session, in fact) because it’s not often you see Jamie with no more than violin to flesh out the sound.  In fact, they played If the News Makes You Sad and Wolves on New Year’s which also featured on that session, and I had a lovely little nostalgic moment all to myself.

For those of you who are interested, the rest of our videos (and there are an awful lot of them these days) can be found here.

I am writing this week’s post from a dining room in Ealing, where I have come to visit my parents, and also to pretend to be a proper record label for a couple of days – courting publishers and getting European releases and tours sorted out and that sort of thing.  It’s kind of fun, and sort of weird in a sense.  It’s also strange explaining to my folks that this is actually what I do in my spare time, too.

Anyway, due to the incomparable glories of the internet age that should be no impediment to me shamelessly insisting that you do what I tell you this week, when it comes to entertainment.

Oh, and my friend Billy has written an article for The Line of Best Fit about the Scottish music scene.  In it he tells us what I tell every band we work with – that it’s all well and good to play comfortable venues back home surrounded by people who you already know like your music, but if you want to make any kind of breakthrough you’ve got to get out.

Of course, I have no objection to working with bands who don’t want to do this, but I always tell them that if that’s the case they’ll have to accept that this will make it very challenging indeed to make any kind of impact on a wider audience, but if they can accept that then so can I.

Wednesday 27th January 2010: Chew Lips, Boycotts & My Tiny Robots at Sneaky Pete’s.

Chew Lips are awfully fashionable and have haircuts and everything, but of course that doesn’t always have to mean that a band aren’t good.  In this case, I’ll confess to being a little ambivalent, but curious.  I was tipped off about the band a little over a year ago, but I didn’t end up writing about them because for all I kind of liked it, I wasn’t all that convinced.

They’ve gone from strength to strength however, and their album looks very upmarket, and frankly I’m curious to see what they’re up to these days and whether or not I might like them any better than I did before.  And it’s very good to see My Tiny Robots back playing again.

Friday 29th January 2010: Andrew Vincent, Sebastian Dangerfield, Andrea Marini at Sneaky Pete’s.

This one actually looks like being really good.  I don’t know much about Andrew Vincent, but his MySpace page sounds rather promising, and after months of prevaricating I finally put Sebastian Dangerfield on a podcast just this week.  So this is one of those ‘curious’ sorts of gigs – the bands sound good, but I know very little about them, and so this lineup sounds rather intriguing.

Saturday 30th/Sunday 31st January 2010: Hidden Door Festival at the Roxy.

Lots of very Toad-friendly bands (Foxxes, Broken Records, etc..) are peforming at this one, but it’s not going to be a gig per se.  Actually, I’ve not much idea what it’s going to be like, but the publicity material describes something like an multi-disciplinary art exhibition, with the stated goal of being “more party than gallery”, where visual artists, musicians and so on all interact and try and do something a bit different.  Sounds brilliant to me, frankly.

Sunday 31st January 2010: Sick Kids Sunday at the GRV.

Charities seem to put on some of the best gigs in this city, and Sick Kids Sunday is no exception.  Held at the GRV (who are thankfully, finally getting their pretty enough but practically useless website updated) this one has all sorts of good stuff in the lineup, from Meursault to James Yorkston and Adrian Crowley performing the songs of Daniel Johnston.

On New Year’s Eve 2009, instead of fighting the crowds in the centre of Edinburgh, we decided to take it a little bit easier and stay back in the house.  By sheer coincidence Jon Rooney from Virgin of the Birds got in touch to say that he would be visiting Edinburgh and to ask if there was any possibility of doing something, like a live show or a Toad Session while he was over.  We were somewhat restricted by the fact that Mrs. Toad and I were only getting back from visiting the Toads -in-Law on New Year’s Eve itself, so we thought that a house gig would be the perfect solution.

Jamie and Rory from Broken Records also agreed to play, giving us a really strong lineup, and their videos will be going up later in the week.  We actually broadcast the gig itself live on the internet, and have now figured out how to do it using the really posh camera we use for the Toad Sessions, so in future the live stream should genuinely be worth watching.

These are the four videos we made of the Virgin of the Birds set.  The photos used for the titles were taken by Dylan from Blueback Hotrod, and the full set can be viewed over at his site.  Virgin of the Birds’ last two (brilliant) EPs can be downloaded from Abandoned Love Records, and their previous album can be bought there as well.  Enjoy.

This podcast is slightly kinda somewhat about about the myopia of the London media, in particular as to how it pertains to Scotland and Scottish music, and slightly about the Glasgow media.  There are a number of different triggers for this, starting with this article in the Scotsman’s Under the Radar blog last year about the rejection by the editor of a London glossy of an article on four up-and-coming Scottish bands, made even more offensive by the fact that said editor had requested the damn article in the first place.

Of course, anyone who reads the London glossies knows they don’t half cover an awful lot of shite themselves, so they really are in no position to pass judgment, but these things are about personal taste at the end of the day and you really can’t force anyone to like stuff.

Then of course there was a wee bit of chatter about the Glasgow focus of the media in Scotland – like an endless set of Russian dolls, this kind of thing really can go on forever – particularly focussed on the remarkable Glasgow-centrism of The List’s Hot 100 list and then some stupid woman on BBC radio sneering at the Edinburgh music scene despite knowing no more of Glasgow than Mogwai or Franz Ferdinand.

So yes, there’s a bit of that going on as well, but for the most part it’s surprisingly non-confrontational given the level of annoyance I felt with both the BBC lady and the List list at the time.

Toadcast #105 – The Myopiacast

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01. James Yorkston – A Man of My Skills (04.26)
02. Frightened Rabbit – The Greys (10.22)
03. Orange Juice – Blue Boy (16.02)
04. The Pogues – Rake at the Gates of Hell (18.53)
05. Fang Island – Life Coach (27.56)
06. Her Name is Calla – Long Grass (30.51)
07. Fire Engines – Get Up and Use Me (37.59)
08. Last Battle – Ward 119 (47.44)
09. Sebastian Dangerfield – Morris (49.53)
10. Sigur Ros – Gong (58.05)

I posted a spot of video yesterday, which I don’t normally do.  Not that I don’t get sent videos by people, more that… well, I don’t know why, really.  I guess I spend enough time trying to figure out what I want to write about albums, I don’t really make time to think about videos much.  Besides, at the level of music I am generally interested in most videos are just a vehicle for the song anyway.  And I can listen to albums whilst doing my proper job, which also hel… you’ve dozed off haven’t you?  Sorry.

Anyhow, this week I have posted a massive THREE videos.  Three!  How ’bout that.  And this weekend there will be another eight going up, from the New Year’s House Gig, including something of an exclusive: a new Broken Records song.  So there you go, we’ve turned into some sort of multimedia news-whore hipster haven in the new year, shocking isn’t it.

So, on yesterday’s posting of the new OK Go video, Bart suggested that I ask about favourite music videos for this week’s Friday Fives.  I thought I answered him politely enough, but the poor fellow’s gone completely off the rails.  I tried to get to the bottom of what he was burbling on about in that inscrutable ginger way of his, but all he said was this:

And erm, tee hee, sorry!  Gingers – the last ethnic minority it’s okay to ritualistically make fun of.  Anyhow, minor mentalist distractions aside, I thought this was an excellent idea, so this week’s five will all be about music videos.  This should be as good an opportunity to de-lurk as any, and of course, that’s what the Friday Fives are for – getting people out of the woodwork and onto the page – so have a go at these five.  the easiest way to answer is probably to just link to the YouTube videos where appropriate, I guess, but please don’t try and embed them in the comments.  I have no idea if it would work, and it will make the whole thread an ungodly mess – just paste in the URL and the link will be added automatically.

1. Favourite music video
2. Favourite laughably dated music video.
3. Favourite massively DIY music video.
4. Strongest memory of MTV.
5. Favourite band-related moment in an actual motion picture.

Clem Snide – Made for TV Movie

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Ben Folds Five – Video

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Nirvana – Dumb (MTV Unplugged)

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Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road (MTV Unplugged)

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The A-Team Theme (Okay, the movie looks awful, but I couldn’t resist posting this)

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