Song, by Toad

Archive for April, 2010

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Toadcast #116 – The Dead Calmcast

It’s been a very, very long time since we had a nice simple podcast of me just chattering about music without extraneous distractions of various drunken people babbling to one another over the top of it.

Last week was Ruth, Michael and Dylan, the week before that was Vic and Peej, then me and Mrs. Toad and then there was the one from Homegame, which was nuts, so this one is just calm and sensible and plain vanilla and basically just me playing some songs, wondering how to pronounce names like Borcherdt, and talking pish like usual.

Next week will be the Mumford & Sons Toad Session, which is nice.

Toadcast #116 – The Dead Calmcast

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01. The Van Allen Belt – The Way You Look (02:14)
02. Songdog – Gene Autry’s Ghost (08.50)
03. Over the Wall – Settle Down (16.56)
04. Deathpodal – Squirrel and the Fox (20.55)
05. Brian Borcherdt – While I was Asleep (28.27)
06. Emit Bloch – Dorothy (34.34)
07. David Thomas Broughton – Perfect Louse (40.49)
08. Mat Riviere – FYH (43.09)
09. Member of the Wedding – New Century (51.37)
10. The Sequins – Offside & Beautiful (57.09)

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Friday Has Slept off a Crucifying Hangover

Unlike Jesus I am actually feeling quite sprightly this Friday – at least I only have a sore head.  Last night, instead of being a nice sensible boy and doing some work and getting up for proper job in the morning, I realised that Mrs. Toad was off doing nothing today and I thought I might take advantage of it.  So I was kindly given a last minute holiday and we proceeded to get absolutely hammered and listen to Song, by Toad Records bands far too loud until the small hours.

Seeing as this five is going up incredibly late I assume it will be a pretty quiet one, with those off work not being anywhere near a computer and those actually at work being five minutes from fucking off down the pub, to drink with the kind of determined malice that only a day at work while the whole rest of the country puts their feet up can give you.

Well to start with, a spot of pressy news – firstly, The List featured an article by Laura Ennor about the Edinburgh music scene yesterday, which included plenty of Toady things, including a big ugly picture of a pair of Foxxes at the very top.  They also liked He Was Such a Quiet Boy by Trips and Falls, which you can buy here, as did The Skinny.  In addition to that, The Skinny have also just published a track-by-track preview of the new Meursault album, written by the bald man himself, so it’s been a very press-friendly week here at Song, by Toad.

Not really on the subject of that at all, Dylan and Mrs. Toad and myself were in the pub last night discussing Roman Abramovich’s yacht.  Can you imagine being the sales clerk in the Shiny Boat Shop when he came in for a bit of a browse?

Roman: Hello, I’m looking for a boat.  A very big shiny one.
Clerk: Splendid sir, we have lots of big shiny boats.  We are in fact a big shiny boat shop.
R: Excellent.  As I am a Rich and Important Gentlemen of Consequence I would like a boat which makes an appropriate statement to that effect to the world at large, do you think you can do that?
C: Why yes, sir I like to think that we should be able to meet sir’s needs.
R: Well I want lots of stuff on this boat to make it cooler than all those pesky Emirs boats, because that’s how important a fellow I am.  Do you have a pen and paper?  Take some notes, boy.
C: Yes sir, go right ahead sir.
R: I want a cinema in my boat.
C: A cinem…?
R: Don’t interrupt, boy, just write it down.
C: Sir.
R: A cinema, and an aquarium.
C: Very good sir.
R: And a discotheque for when I wish to do some disco dancing.
C: Certainly sir, a discotheque.
R: And a hospital.
C: Yes sir, one hospital.
R: And a swimming pool.
C: Yes sir, one swimmin…
R: No, everyone has a swimming pool these days, I want THREE swimming pools!
C: Three swimming pools, certainly sir.
R: And a helipad – no, make that two helipads, that’ll show those Emirs.
C: Two helipads, certainly sir.
R: And a submarine.  I want an escape submarine which launches from underneath the boat!
C: And, erm, yes, a submarine.
R: And, and, and I want bulletproof glass, armour plating and a missile battery!
C: *splutters tea everywhere* Er, just one moment sir, I may have to have a quick word with my supervisor.

Roman Abramovich actually is a Bond villain, isn’t he.  The man’s so ludicrous he actually makes an awful lot of Bond villains look downright unimaginative, don’t you think?  If only he’d start turning up to Chelsea games stroking a white cat, he’d finally complete the transformation.

Clerk: Sir, I’ve asked my supervisor about the missiles and he asks you to step this way so he can show you the arsenal.
Roman: Arsenal??  I fucking hate Arsenal, you impudent nincompoop!

Boom-tish!  Thank you very much, I’ll be here all week.

So instead of doing a Friday Five this week, those of you still around can simply help me design a Roman Abramovich yacht.  I want a petting zoo!

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Drink Up Buttercup – Born and Thrown on a Hook

I find myself rather enjoying this, despite a million reasons not to.  I find my rational self (stop sniggering) pointing out stuff I usually don’t like, and my instinctive self just laughing and saying ‘yeah, but so what, it’s good‘!

I’ll qualify that slightly.  I am not blown away by this album, and I doubt it is going to set my world alight; it tails off a fair bit towards the end, and it contains quite a few elements I usually don’t like at all.

It sounds, for example, just a little close to that Hard-Fi/Ordinary Boys* axis of evil at times, but never enough that it really gets my back up.  It sounds very, very Beatlesy here and there too, but never so much that I find myself writing it off as some sort of Britpoppy pastiche.  There’s a touch of rawk in the guitars at times as well, something else which usually puts me off a bit, but somehow doesn’t.

So what is it that I do like so much about this then?  Well it’s exuberantly good fun, for starters.  It may be Beatlesy, but there’s a reckless garage aspect to it as well, which verges to the edges of CBGB’s punk at times (Heavy Hand springs to mind), before veering sharply back to sunny pop on the next song.  That kind of musical ADHD keeps the album from getting at all sluggish, and keeps the listener on their toes pretty much throughout.

If I’m being honest, I think they run just a little short of tunes towards the end of the record, in the sense that my compulsion to sing along and drum on my desk here at Proper Job with my thumbs does wane somewhat.  The last three songs in particular lack the sprightliness of the first half of the album, and kind of end things on a downer for me, but this is nevertheless a really promising debut album.

Drink Up Buttercup – Seasickness Pills

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Drink Up Buttercup – Doggy Head

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*In my second excessive use of asterisks moment of the day, I must confess that I did and do actually quite like some Ordinary Boys songs, I jsut despise the idea of them, particularly since that Celebrity Big Brother debacle which was so painful it made my teeth hurt, even though I never actually watched a moment of it.

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Mat Riviere – Follow Your Heart

There is a certain shambolling self-deprecation to an awful lot of home recorded material, almost as if in some sense it felt it had to apologise for itself.  Mat Riviere’s new album may have a lot of the home recorded aesthetic about it, but it doesn’t feel like it has to excuse itself.

I think this is related to the presence of his voice, which has solidity and character, lending an air of gravitas to an album full of kitchen percussion and wonky piano.  The slow, steady rhythms also bring an air of surprisingly relentless purpose, making Follow Your Heart the kind of record which feels like it’s disquietingly staring you down across a crowded bar.  You wonder if continuing to meet its gaze will result in a fight you don’t want, then you wonder if looking away will do the same thing, and you end up frozen and slightly panicked, but unable to turn away.

I don’t have the ear to tell, of course, but this album sounds like it was recorded entirely in someone’s front room* with an electronic backing track humming and popping along, overlaid with handclaps, what sounds like a melodica, and some rather portentous organ sounds. It’s an odd mixture of the rickety and the robust, which might be at the heart of its appeal.

I can easily imagine people finding Follow Your Heart a little bit one-paced after a couple of listens, but once you’re more into it I think you’ll find the shift of the underlying rhythms, from skittish to sad to bordering on industrial, brings with it subtle but important changes of mood.  Curse These Eyes and Evening Drive are quite foreboding, Godless Girl more enigmatic and ethereal, and early songs like Castroeale desperately looking for a bit of optimism somewhere.  The changes in instrumentation and emotional foundation may not be huge, but they keep the feel of the album shifting on slightly uncertain sands as it progresses, which stops it ever slipping into a rut and becoming boring.

It’s taken me a little while to get into this, though, I must confess.  I knew I liked the sounds from the very first listen, but it took a few more goes to develop an emotional attachment to the individual songs.  Initially I think the latent menace in a couple of them perhaps kept me at arms length, and it took a little while for the intimacy of tracks like Lamplight to extend a more welcoming hand.  Since that has happened, however, I have been really enjoying this.

Mat Riviere – Evening Drive

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Mat Riviere – Godless Girl

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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Brainlove Records

* Just have a look at his MySpace page and it would appear that this guess is not far from the truth.

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