Erm, really sorry that this is so very, very late, but life rather caught up with me this week.  So I never quite managed to find time to get my shit together until this evening, unfortunately.

It’s surprising how much of my time these weekly podcasts seem to take up – it can be quite hard to find an evening every single week to record these things.  What I find amazing is that I don’t run out of blather.  I don’t recall ever saying anything profound or all that intelligent either, so this little collection must represent hours and hours of inconsequential rambling.

On Friday a nice young lady in the pub asked me “Has anyone ever told you that you talk loads and loads.”  I suppose, looking back at a hundred and some podcasts the miracle is that actually the answer to that question is ‘no, not really, not that I can remember’.

Oh, and yes, that is Tina Turner and Kim Carnes you see there.  Suck it up, hipsters.

Toadcast #107 – The Tardicast

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01. The Walkmen – This Job is Killing Me (03.30)
02. Grandaddy – Hey Cowboy, the Phone’s For You (09.57)
03. Comaneci – Satisfied Girl (15.51)
04. Tina Turner – Private Dancer (17.50)
05. Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou – England (27.33)
06. Ruth Theodore – False Alarm (34.09)
07. The Waterboys – Sweet Thing (40.54)
08. Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes (48.04)
09. R.E.M. – Half a World Away (53.55)
10. Radiohead – Creep (Acoustic) (59.59)

[Welcome back to the first Sunday Supplement of 2010, with Euan from the Steinberg Principle, amongst other things, returning to his regular slot.  Next week will see the return of Campfires and Battlefields]

So I might as well us this blog as the place to announce that The Kays Lavelle’s debut album entitled ‘Be Still This Gentle Morning’ will be released through Wiseblood Industries on 17th May this year. Or that is the intended release date. It may get pushed back, but we are definitely hoping to stick to our targets and make it happen. Anyways, lead of single ‘The Hours’ is now ready to go and attached to this article. It will be a free digital download on the Wiseblood site shortly. Two album launches are planned for 8th and 9th May, keep an eye out on my blog and the Kays lovely new MySpace page for more information about this. In the meantime, hope you enjoy ‘the hours’ which was recorded by Neil Pennycook of Meursault and mixed by Alex Fenton (Fentek Audio).

The Kays Lavelle – The Hours

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[Welcome back to the first Sunday Supplement of 2010, with Euan from the Steinberg Principle, amongst other things, returning to his regular slot.  Next week will see the return of Campfires and Battlefields]

Trampoline this month is going all pop on your asses. The shimmering guitar sounds will be out in full force. Matthew [the Astronaut, not the Toad] has organised this month’s show, so I will use his very words to describe what’s happening. Why write something myself when somebody else has done so for me:

This month’s Trampoline, Saturday 13th February, is a poptastic treat; headliners Kid Canaveral are supported by Babygod and Cancel the Astronauts, and it promises to be a real treat. As usual, doors are at 7 and it’s £5 pounds entry, unless you’re a student in which case it’s £3, and unless you’re a flirt, in which case it’s free.

Here is some blurb:

Fence affiliated Kid Canaveral have long been one of Scotland’s finest indie bands, and their joyously melodic punkpop has won high praise from Scotland’s blogging community and the mainstream press. Four single releases over the past few years (self released on their own label Straight To Video Records) has seen their popularity and profile steadily increase, and the band are currently adding the finishing touches to their hotly tipped debut album, out, well, soon hopefully. The band recently released a free download, Good Morning, as a teaser for the record, as it sounds bloody brilliant. 2010 looks set to be a big year for Kid Canaveral.

Babygod are simply the most exciting and original band in Scotland right now. Led by Gerry Campbell (who played on Belle and Sebastian’s first record) their intelligent, literate and inventive art pop (they list Talking Heads, David Bowie and The Associates as influences), and superb (though sadly only occasional) live performances has led to national recognition from Mojo and The Guardian, as well as radio play on Stuart Maconie’s BBC Radio 6 show. They deserve to be enormous, and I expect they will be. The band have rather enigmatically hinted that they are soon to to release new material. Huzzah!

Edinburgh’s Cancel the Astronauts are the hairiest indie pop band in Scotland. Hairier even than The Stormy Seas. Fact. The do have probably the handsomest frontman in Scotland though. Support slots with Frightened Rabbit, Attic Lights and Marina and The Diamonds, as well as last year’s well received release of their debut EP has seen the band grow in stature and popularity in Edinburgh and beyond. They are working on a new EP which they hope to release in the next few months.

So do go along and support the night. I actually won’t be there myself as I will be in Glasgow seeing Fionn Regan at King Tuts. Don’t worry though, I wasn’t there last month and it was more efficient with more people than any month in the past 3 years, so it should be a cracker.

[Welcome back to the first Sunday Supplement of 2010, with Euan from the Steinberg Principle, amongst other things, returning to his regular slot.  Next week will see the return of Campfires and Battlefields]

So I was sitting thinking the other night about what I could write about for my monthly soirée here on Song By Toad when, as if by magic, my train of thought collided with an article that I was reading over on Nick Mitchell’s blog. Whilst a really good article, it was not Nick’s words that struck me most but those of his fellow Under the Radar writer and all round top bloke Billy Hamilton. It all stemmed from Milo over at Product of a Gaseous Brain having produced his first ever fanzine. Yes, a blog actually producing a physical fanzine, and a bloody good read it was too. Anyways, before I get accused of hijacking that particular thread, that is not my intention and I would encourage you to go to Nick’s blog and check out the article because it’s a really interesting read and discussion. Anyways, as I was saying, some of Billy’s words caught my eye as it was something I’d be thinking about that very evening and I quote:

“Bloggers seem to justify their existence on comments and google analytics.”

There’s more, but it was this particular sentence that caught my eye, for I’ve been amazed recently, and if I’m honest, slightly confused, by the stats on my blog, The Steinberg Principle, of late. What I mean by this is that in January 2009 I had 540 people view my blog. In January 2010 it had risen to 17,245. This approx a 3000% increase in readership in a year. If my output at work went up 3000% I think I’d be the boss by now. I’m really not sure where these people came from though. Honestly, it kind of happened over night and took me massively by surprise! Thing is. I don’t care. Billy may well be right that many bloggers justify their existence on comments and google analytics, but it’s not something I have ever or will ever base the existence of my blog on. Of course, I am proud and delighted that my readership has increased so greatly who wouldn’t be.

But wanting people to read what I write was not the main reason for me starting a blog. I started a blog because I love to write. I love to write my thoughts down. I love to write about things that make me happy. I love to write, specifically, about music. And I loved writing as much in January 2009 as I do in January 2010. If my readership drops to the low thousands or hundreds by January 2011 it really does not mean that I will stop writing. Cause I write for me. Just like I write songs for me. It’s a wonderful feeling when people contribute. Just like it’s a wonderful feeling when people take notice of your band or like your music. However, I will always write for me and me alone. If you like it great. If you don’t. Nevermind. And whilst I am sure Billy’s words are actually very true, for me, I hope I never adopt such a frame of mind.

One drink, home early, not staying out, want to take it easy tonight… it’s just never going to bloody happen, is it.  Pure fantasy.

Last night’s escapades mean that I had far too little sleep last night, and something of a hangover this morning.  This puts me in no fucking mood to piss about with my cunting colleagues, who seem to have decided that answering the fucking phone is beneath them.  Our receptionist is off today, which means that we all have to take turns answering the phone, but apparently ‘taking turns’ needs to be explained in really big letters, and preferably with pictorial aids.  Apprently some people simply don’t hear and some people ‘have a deadline’.

To put you in the picture, there are only about twenty of us in our office in the first place, and we are a consultancy – every single fucking one of us is working to a fucking deadline, because that’s what our damn clients pay us for: to do their panicking for them.  I actually had to reach over some cunt’s desk this morning in order to answer the incoming call on his fucking phone.

“Hi, SuperdesignCo…  yes just a moment, who’s speaking please… yes I’ll put you through.”  Hardly enormously time consuming or intellectually fucking challenging you would fucking well think.  It reminds me of those cunts who are forever boasting about how many emails they bloody well have.  Yes, don’t worry, we all know how jolly clever and important you are.  There’s time for a chat, time for a coffee, time to fanny about pissing and moaning about how fucking busy they are, but not enough time to spend a minute answering the fucking telephone.

So for the rest of the day, I am far too busy and have decided that I am going to be pointedly too important to answer the damn phone.  Fuck it, it isn’t going to be for me anyway, so if anyone wants me I am going to be having a nap in the loo.

1. Name the worst violation of workplace etiquette which regularly gets your goat at your job.
2. And confess to the one you are most guilty of yourself.
3. Which office charicature is most prevalent in your place of work.
4. You have one bullet, and the world has promised to turn a blind eye… who’s for the chop?
5. How many hours of actual work do you tend to accomplish on hangover days?

The Sequins – Let’s Go Drinking in the Morning

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Clem Snide – Don’t Be Afraid of Your Anger

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The Divine Comedy – A Drinking Song

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John Cooper Clarke – Twat

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The Notwist – Pick Up the Phone

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Braden J McKenna is an interesting character.  I’ve never had an email from him which was much longer than a single sentence.  Even after naming his Navigator album in my top two favourite albums of 2009, all I heard from him was a one line ‘thanks very much, here’s something new we just released’.

There’s absolutely no need to say any more than that, of course, and in fact any sort of thanks is really nice, but I’m not just talking about emails.  Look at the MySpace pages of both Navigator and Weighted Pines, and there’s not exactly a surfeit of information.  The label on which all of this brilliant music is released is called Magic Goat, and their website has recently been redesigned to actually include less information.  Have a look at that site and try and imagine anything more minimalist.

This music is described as being inspired by nineties US indie bands, and it’s certainly a different animal to the fuzzy full band setup of the Navigator record. The guitar here is more pecked at, often producing quite a staccato sound, compared to the distorted background of noise which characterised Bad Children.  The percussion seems to have a little more rattle to it as well.

In general, though, this, for all I love an awful lot of it, does need something of a health warning: it really, really is fucking rough.  Some of the tracks, like Twentyfive and Small Town, for example, are extremely lovely, and show that McKenna’s voice has the capacity to be tremendously sympathetic when he chooses it to be, but there’s still an awful lot of cacophonous fuzz on this album which will probably put all but the most rapid fans of confrontationally messy recording off completely.

A couple of songs get close to being two minutes in length, but only a couple.  The rest last roughly a minute or so, and that’s yer lot so, for all you might think that some of the more abstract pieces are a bit frivolous, there is absolutely no buggering about here at all.  None.

So if you are starting to feel like you want to run a million miles from the attention whoring on things like the X-Factor, or from the polished tedium of Vampire Weekend, or the desperate cackling of T4, or the appalling smugness of Jules Holland, then this is about as far from anything even slightly commercial as you can get.  Everything’s downloadable for nothing from the label site: Magic Goat Music, a bizarre oasis of talent from Bone Valley, Utah, one of the most unexpected labels and unexpected places and unlikely groups of people I could possibly imagine.

Weighted Pines – Small Town

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Weighted Pines – Grow Old

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MySpace | Download from Magic Goat Music

As has been the trend recently, I have been very, very slow to post about these lads, despite having first heard and liked their stuff bloody ages ago.  I honestly don’t know why, either, because I liked them from the very first time I heard them.  Sometimes these things just happen, I guess.

Anyhow, they have a single out already, a double a-side of Love’s Dart and Storm, which I picked up at Pure Groove last week, and a new one out very shortly containing two songs: Wor and Skies Over Cairo, both of which can be previewed at their MySpace page, should you be so inclined.

You can talk about the combitation of electronic beats with something akin to a Spaghetti Western-inspired acoustic feeling, and whilst that does describe the style, it doesn’t really get across what’s good about this stuff, from my perspective anyhow.

Basically, for me, it’s about the rhythm.  Whether it’s the constant thumping of drums, or the skittish clicks of the electronic persussive sounds, all this stuff has a really insistent, infectious rhythm, which purely and simply makes you want to dance (even a wooden-backed, stand-at-the-bar toe-tapper like me).

These lads are playing Homegame in March (sold out, sorry) with a night in Edinburgh at the Wee Red on Friday 12th March – the same weekend.  I am really looking forward to seeing them actually, and finding out what this stuff is like live, because I have a hunch it could be absolutely superb.

It’s funny – for all the talk about indie-folk at the moment, some of the bands which excite me the most for the coming year are actually the heavily rhythmic ones with a really good beat to them – whether than be the eccentricity of Jesus H. Foxx or the Tapeheads, the glitchy electronics in evidence on the new Meursault album or the eminently danceable stuff like this or Findo Gask.

Django Django – Love’s Dart

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MySpace | Django Django Webshop

I don’t know why I don’t hate this album, but I don’t.  I’ve seen it given a right slagging, and I can’t argue with any of the reasons – it’s just like the last one, but without the incredibly infectious tunes, there’s no real progress, no ambition, just a fairly straightforward reproduction of a previously successful recipe with pretty much nothing added to really merit us spending our money on something which they basically did better about three years ago.

I don’t hate this, however, because the above comments may lessen my objective regard for this album, but they don’t seem to have much impact on my subjective enjoyment of it.  One of the benefits of not pushing on from the Van Occupanther template is that this retains a lot of the charms of the previous record, so it’s lush, dreamy and has that lovely vocal and electric guitar sound.  The whole thing just lulls me into a relaxed and comfortable frame of mind, and where often that would annoy me in a record, in this case I rather enjoy it.

I can’t honestly recommend anyone buy this.  It’s enjoyable and all, but if you already have Van Occupanther you don’t need this, and if you have neither you should really buy Van Occupanther.  Nevertheless, I find it difficult to harbour any real grudge against The Courage of Others because it’s just a good listen.  I can, however, entirely understand why some people are so irritated with it.

Oh, and Bring Down has a rather surprising patch of Radiohead in it for some reason.  Which is nice.

It’s been an odd week on Song, by Toad, for me surprisingly liking some very ‘pleasant’ albums.  Maybe it’s just the mood I’m in, or maybe it’s a case of early-onset middle aged listening habits, but recently I seem to have been surprisingly welcoming of music which is just plain nice, without being all that challenging, or in some cases even all that interesting.  Oh well, probably nothing in it, just don’t think I’ve gone all Radio 2 on your asses, I promise it’s not permanent.

Midlake – Acts of Man

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Midlake – Core of Nature

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Maybe it’s something about a Scandinavian accent singing Americana, but this really does remind me of A Camp, Nina Persson from the Cardigans’ solo project.  The similarity is pretty superficial, so don’t think I am comparing the two, exactly, one just reminds me everso slightly of the other for some reason.

There are also fairly strong similarities to Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins and elements of Neko Case, and that is definitely a happy comparison to be able to make.  But where Lewis in particular favoured the plump and the lush in her arrangements, this seems to lean more towards the unfilled acoustic, giving it a little more of a back-room gig attitude than the more sumptuous Rabbit Fur Coat.

A little like yesterday’s Erland and the Carnival review and this afternoon’s Midlake review, however, it’s a lot more pleasant than it is gripping, but I am not complaining about that. Whilst the songwriting itself may flirt slightly with being a little too easy on the ear, the arrangements and recording have not really been glossed over at all, which means that this never sounds like it’s been smoothed out in order to make it palatable to easily startled ears.

Thematically, there’s a slightly surreal juxtaposition of magical fairytale imagery with lyrics which are overtly atheist.  This simultaneous embracing and rejection of fairytale is kind of interesting, because music of this style brings so much with it in terms of common metaphor, lyrical style and subject matter.

There is something quite strange, even for a fairly unforgiving atheist such as myself, to hear the thoughts of the unbeliever couched in the musical style of the devout.  The oddest thing about it is, I think, the fact that I assumed I had slowly ceased to notice the biblical (or older) references in a lot of traditional music (particularly from the States – it tends to be more pagan and magical in Britain).  It appears not, however, because I certainly do notice when the same subject matter is given a treatment which is the polar opposite to what I am used to.  Maybe this stuff sinks in more than we realise.

Anyhow, slight digressions aside, this is quirky, but not particularly challenging album which I am finding thoroughly enjoyable.

First Aid Kit – Hard Believer

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First Aid Kit – Heavy Storm

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Website | More mp3s | Buy from Wichita Records

Hmm, well, this is jolly nice isn’t it.  Erland and the Carnival really does live up to its name, not in an ostentatiously proficient circus music sort of way, just in having a slightly cocked hat and a pleasant spring in its step.  This is essentially a largely acoustic (well, gentle, anyway) album of indie-pop, but it has been assembled with energy and a confident sprightliness, so it ends up having a definite, highly approachable personality of its own.

There’s a touch of hippy psychedelia about it at times, flavours of Hendrix and the Doors even, but they aren’t really all that prominent, and there’s really no edge to this record at all.  The zip comes not from the bite but from the pace of the thing, but certainly if you like your music to have a certain uneasiness or tension to it then you are listening to the wrong album.

It really doesn’t fade either, continuing its parade of short, clever, infectious melodies right to the very end.  In a sense I shouldn’t really be crediting the band all that much here as a lot of these songs were written by other people, but still, assembling a good record is a hugely underrated skill, irrespective of where the songs come from.  Some of these songs are old folk songs, some are covers (mind you, the likes of Jackson C. Frank, who wrote My Name is Carnival, is receding far enough into the past that the line between ‘trad. arr.’ and a straightforward cover starts to lose any real meaning), but some of it is original material too, and it’s all pretty seamlessly integrated into what is a very coherent, unified album.

The band themselves are something of a super-ish group, too.  The details are to be found on their Wikipedia page, and there’s no point repeating it all here, because it doesn’t really matter.  It does interest me, however, in the sense that I am forever prattling on about musicians losing something of their edge, or a little bit of dynamism, as they get older and more well-established but, for all this is a fairly polished piece of work, you certainly wouldn’t accuse it of being excessively clinical or uninspired – pretty much the opposite in fact.  It’s something I am very happy to be wrong about.

It’s a funny one though, this album.  It’s not a record I am going to become excited or passionate about, but it is still really good, and I am really enjoying it.  In fact, maybe that’s what’s confusing about it – how much I like it, considering the fact that for some reason it just doesn’t quite generate that feeling of buzz in me.  So, strangely contradictory, but a really enjoyable album nevertheless.

Erland & the Carnival – My Name is Carnival

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Erland & the Carnival – Tramps and Hawkers

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