Contrary to what you might suspect from my location this week and the steady stream of silly videos from Anstruther , this podcast is not anything to do with the Fence Collective or Haarfest.

Actually, apart from a few brief intrusions from my pile of audio cassettes (a lot of time in the van, you see) this is generally just the usual stream of music news and new bits and pieces from my inbox.

Actually, I am way behind my inbox at the moment, due to a week of holiday and now a week in Anstruther, and things aren’t likely to get any better either, what with… oh never mind, you hear enough of my whining as it is.  Tunes…

Direct download: Toadcast #136 – The Haarcast

01. Eels – Jungle Telegraph (02.32)
02. Les Shelleys – The World is Waiting for the Sunrise (07.22)
03. Broken Records – A Leaving Song (13.41)
04. Women – Heat Distraction (19.56)
05. Let’s Talk About Trees – Wood of Rassay (23.50)
06. The Tragically Hip – Fireworks (31.57)
07. Grant Lee Buffalo – Testimony (35.48)
08. Inspector Tapehead – Grooming (44.48)
09. Nice Purse – Heart Medley (50.52)
10. Bombadil – Barcelona (54.55)

Ruth and I are back on Fresh Air this evening, no guests this time, but hopefully Ruth will remember to bring her music on a USB stick, so you might actually be afforded the privilege of hearing her musical choices, rather than simply having to listen to her sniping about mine.

We’re live from seven until half eight, so I better get my skates on if I’m to be on time, and as per usual we’ll be updating the playlist live as we go along, so feel free to chip in with heckling in the comments section.

Listen live here – from 7pm – 8:30pm UK time.

1. Jens Lekman – The End of The World Is Bigger Than Love
2. James Yorkston & The Athletes – St Patrick
3. Y La Bamba – Monster
4. The Humms – Jesus Lied
5. Talking Heads – This Must Be The Place (naive melody)
6. The Single Spy – OK Corral
7. Inspector Tapehead – Yarvil
8. Au Revoir Simone – Take Me As I Am
9. Kath Bloom – Is This Called Living?
10. Loch Awe – The Ocean in Me
11. Micachu – Turn Me Well
12. Bjork – Like Someone In Love
13. Arthur Russell – The Letter
14. Les Shelleys – The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise

[Following on from his previous Sunday Rant, Matthew's brother Ben returns with his musings on this so-called 'classical' music we've been hearing so much about.]

So a while back Toad mentioned in on of his posts that he did not like classical music.  Now it was clearly partial joke, partial exaggeration and partial truth.  Now, there are a few absurdities here.  Firstly, classical is used as a blanket term for all music that involves an orchestra, including but not limited to all music played in Europe before about 1900 not played with sticks on an upturned tree stump.  This is of course totally absurd.  Classical music is in fact a term that describes a style that was typified by the music or the classical era which fell roughly between Baroque and Romantic.  Obviously to assume Matthew  was making a specific criticism of this one period would also be absurd.  Although given that the classical period began with Hayden, sauntered through Mozart and died around the same time Beethoven did, it’s not a huge stretch say that half of all the music we think of as classical music actually is Classical music.  Anyway, that was not what Matthew was talking about so I will defend “all music written for an orchestra, including but not limited to all music written before 1900 not played on cows bladder stretched across a barrel” because Matthews assertion that he doesn’t like it is, of course, absurd.

If you wish to defend classical nowadays you really have to start with film, as an example of the scope .  This is probably where most people hear the most classical music.  It also provides the best look as to why it is so moving.  Films can tackles big stuff.  War, star-crossed lovers, cancer and the romantic life of Sandra Bullock.   And frankly when you are dealing with emotions that powerful it really is hard to imagine the indie song that really cuts it.  If Humphrey Bogart had walked away to the tune of Walk Away Renee people would have felt cathartically cheated.  This is one of the reasons that Classical and film have made such wonderful bedfellows.  Probably (let’s face it, unquestionably) the most famous classical composer around right now is John Williams.  The reason for this is that he can put a score that describes  ‘oh bugger, my Father is an intergalactic genocidal warlord, who just gave up everything, killed his mentor and sacrificed his life to save to free the galaxy of tyranny’ and it is absolutely appropriate.  There is no sound on earth, not a single one, besides the swell of an orchestra that can achieve that.

Now Mr. Toad once implied that classical music is, in these circumstances, little more than decoration or a side dish.  This of course is not true, however, because most people are only exposed to classical music through film I can certainly see why he would think that.  Let us cast our mind back however to the Deathcast.  Mozart’s Requiem expresses a grandeur that I have never found matched in any form of music other than classical.  Without the ability to add and subtract sounds and build layers there just doesn’t to me seem to be a  way to really establish the depth and range of feelings that a man goes through as he approaches his own end.  The fear, the desire to leave a legacy, the anger and the confusion.  Nick Cave, in the Mercy Seat can express one small facet, in one specific circumstance.  If you go back and search the Deathcast Toad put together you will see that each of these song has a a very narrow scope.  Not so Mozart’s Requiem.  This is a piece of music that Mozart wrote specifically because he felt no one could express how he felt as he approached death, and because he is Mozart he is able to write a piece that without ever getting bogged down in telling a story is able to directly address the emotion of a man in the last days of life.

Even music which falls broadly into the already broadly accepted definition of classical does this.  If you YouTube the ballet ‘In The Upper Room’, you will find a ballet scored by Phillip Glass that is about the joy of dancing.  When asked what the ballet is about the choreographer, Twyla Tharp refuses to be more specific that.  And the music complements that beautifully.  It is just joyful  Nothing more, nothing less.  Movement 9 of this ballet is the culmination of a 45 minute build to a massive crescendo that in the twenty odd times I’ve done this ballet has never failed to draw a standing ovation.  It really is a lot of fun.  I’m fairly sure Phillip Glass would flip his lid if he found it on YouTube but I do strongly recommend finding this music somewhere and listening to it.

So, the question then remains why do people not listen to more classical music.  I can only speculate, but here are some thoughts.

First, classical has a huge dynamic range.  The loud bits are really loud and the quite bits really subtle.  This is wonderful for tugging the heart strings but less good for the office, or other background music venues.

Secondly a pop song lasts three minutes; the average symphony is about ten times that. So we are left listening to our classical while watching Jeff Goldblum gets chased by a tyrannosaurus rex, which at least ties into the the whole Mozart fear of death thing.  However, I really defy anyone to sit and listen to any of the great symphonies in a room for 45 minutes and not be bowled over.  I know most people reading this blog make time to sit and listen.  Listen to film stuff, be it Star Wars, or the Star Trek music (surprisingly good.  The Theme for the Common Man which starts Deep Space 9 is amazing when you sit a listen to the whole thing), or a something everyone knows like Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Mozart’s Requiem or Beethoven’s anything.  But listen to a whole work rather than those best of CDs from Woolworths.

The hardcore of the inner Fence were on the bill tonight, as I once again utterly failed to take part in any of the more emotionally nourishing festivities (apart from drinking and watching bands of course).

The best I managed was a half-hearted wander through to Cellardyke to see the washing line art exhibition, robustly rearranged by someone who wanted to use that particular bit of line to hang up his smalls.

After that, food, beer and tunes. Predictable, but satisfying.

This is my video diary from the third day of the Fence Collective’s Haarfest 2010.

The power was so doubtful in morning that the people repairing it managed to shut down even more houses, so it wasn’t until about five or six that we were confident that the whole evening wouldn’t have to take place under steam or pedal power, but come back on it did, eventually, and things were able to proceed as normal.

The lineup switched around a bit, with eagleowl having to go on a little early because of babysitting commitments back in Edinburgh (yeah, rock ‘n’ roll, bitches!), so eventually Inspector Tapehead ended up headlining their own unofficial album launch at long last.

And it was a fucking beauuuutiful evening in Anstruther.

Yes okay okay, so life is easy for those of us in a remote but lovely Fife fishing village, listening to Gummi Bako rock the place to the rafters and swearing about cunts sitting down at gigs.  Gigs! Honestly!  Get off your fucking arse, it may be alt-folk to you but it’s rock and fucking roll to me, motherfucker.

Anyhew, apart from eating in the Dreel every day I have been mightily enjoying myself here in Anstruther this week, with the only imaginable improvement being the arrival of the bright shining star in the centre of my universe – Mrs. Toad –  tomorrow evening.

Driving back and forth from Edinburgh to Fife, as I’ve been doing this week, has woken me up to the importance of a few songs because they’ve appeared on the tape player in the van on a few occasions, and I am currently very much enamoured with my old collection of mixtapes.  As you well know by now.

So, I heard a fair few songs which I strongly, strongly relate with certain people I suppose because mixtapes are so evocative of certain times and certain places in your life when things were radically different. So this week’s five is about just that – which songs do you relate with whom?  Please de-lurk and chip in, because Friday is the Great De-lurking Amnesty, and I’d far rather chat to someone new on teh Internetz than the same old tedious nutbags I spend the rest of the week talking to.

1. Song which you most associate with your father (or stepfather or father figure – makes no difference).
2. Song which you most associate with your mother (again, or whomever most fits this role).
3. Song which you most associate with a close sibling (a close friend will do if you are an only child).
4. Song which you and your partner (who is allowed to be imaginary) think of as ‘your song’.
5. Song which your partner (real or otherwise) doesn’t realise is ‘their song’, but is nevertheless.

The Forest – Uncredited Serial Killer Blues

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Loch Awe – How it Began

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Graham Repulski – Election Day

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Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

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The Colourful Band – Tell You About

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Well due to the power cut caused by excessive rawking of the alt-folk variety, I couldn’t even try and upload this video for most of the day, so it’s a miracle it’s here at all, really.  Still, it only takes me an hour and a half to edit these in the morning, but then about an hour to export and, due to limited internet connections, about four hours to upload, so I am guessing they are going to be posted quite late in the day irrespective of power cuts.

Last night a combination of Reporter’s ambient soundscapes and The Oates Field’s imminent appearance caused the National Grid to spontaneously disown Anstruther, leaving the festival to candlelight and acoustic cover versions.

After King Creosote and The Earlies did the bulk of the hard work, it eventually turned into an almost-campfire singalong.  Due to being in a church hall, lighting an actual fire seemed a little reckless so all the candles were placed in the middle of the floor and the guitar was passed around.  By this point I’d fucked off to the Smugglers to arrange a fishing trip, however…

This is my video diary from the first day of the Fence Collective’s Haarfest.

This one doesn’t have much beyond me burbling, King Creosote explaining the festival and then some tunes from Adem, Admiral Fallow and Silver Columns.

Following installments will have a bit more Anstruthery atmosphere and so on, just as soon as I can get up there properly instead of coming back and forth from Edinburgh every night.

Inspector Taphead’s debut album, due for release in Summer 2008, has now been completed and can be purchased from Song, by Toad Records, here.

They recorded this video for Pherenzik Tear entirely on VHS, and that big ludicrous tape is going to become a feature of their forthcoming tour, which starts with a Forest Fire support slot in Middlebrough on the 9th September.

There are a couple of preview songs from this album available for free download, so please have a go at those because it’s becoming increasingly tricky for me to review albums on my own label.

I can’t figure out, actually, if this is a typical Toad Records release or a really atypical one.  In one sense, it’s got a playfulness and a light touch to it which nothing else on the label really has.  Even when I asked them to write their bio for the press release they filled it full of puns and smart arse remarks and other nonsense, and that kind of daftness is in the album too, but don’t let that lull you into thinking that it’s lightweight because it isn’t at all.

When you listen to the songs there’s a barely controlled messiness going on across the album which puts it squarely in the Toad ballpark, irrespective of the fact that you might not recognise the mood of the album immediately as being in tune with the rest of our stuff.  There’s layers and weirdness and all sorts in the way the sound is constructed and I have seriously enjoyed listening to this album since it first appeared in its finished form a few months ago.

So feel free to share these songs and the videos and so on and so forth, and I hope you enjoy Duress Code.  It’s all hand-printed and tasty too, if anyone fancies buying the CD… just a thought.

Inspector Tapehead – Yarvil

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Inspector Tapehead – Pherenzik Tear

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Having missed most of the first week of the Festival by being in Spain, I am now going to miss large parts of this week by pootling about in Anstruther at Haarfest (tickets can be found in the right hand column of this page).

Mrs. Toad will presumably hate me for this of course, as she has to stay behind in Edinburgh and do a proper job, whereas I can fuck off to Fife, get lashed, and call it work.  Mwaaah hah haaa…!

Given the fact that during the Festival the centre of Edinburgh becomes roughly as welcoming as the picture above I think I’ll appreciate a swift relocation for a few days, ready to come back to the last week of the Festival, go to a couple of shows and pretend I always knew it was going to be fun all along.

Anyhow, for those of you not Fifing themselves all to pieces this week I have some very fine recommendations indeed:

Lach’s Antihoot – from Wednesday at the Gilded Balloon.

I was at the first night, which was great, and apparently this week has been great fun, according to the man himself and according to Dylan’s drunken Facebook pictures of himself, Bart and Jamie and Rory from Broken Records who played there on Saturday.

Tuesday 17th August 2010: Withered Hand & The Last Battle at the Electric Circus.

Dan from Withered Hand is currently working on his second album, although I am not sure how far he’s actually got just yet.  Either way, I’m probably as excited to hear new stuff from Withered Hand as I am to hear new stuff from any band on Song, by Toad Records. Dan’s way with words is as good as anyone I know, and his knack of wrapping them up in simple but effective melodies makes his music both as pleasurable and as rewarding as anything else happening in Edinburgh at the moment.

Withered Hand – Religious Songs

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Tuesday 17th August 2010: John Grant & Rachel Sermanni at the Wee Red Bar.

John Grant used to be in a band called The Czars who had some truly brilliant moments.  I saw him at SXSW, and he stepped up to a piano in a checked shirt and sporting a very alt-country sort of beard and then instead of playing the sort of Bella Union alt country I expected (fairly obvious assumptions based on costume and venue) he played a series of sweet, melodic piano ballads, with just the faintest scent of theatricality about them.  I haven’t heard the album yet, but that was an intriguing show and I’d recommend checking his stuff out.

John Grant – Where Dreams Go to Die

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Tuesday 17th August 2010: The Besnard Lakes, Heart Beats & Penguins Kill Polar Bears at Sneaky Pete’s.

I haven’t seen the Besnard Lakes live, but their sound is really nicely complex and layered, and when their songs are good they are really really good.  If that translates to the live setting as well as I suspect it might then this could be an almighty wall of sound and completely brilliant.  That’s just a guess though, but I would like to think it’s true.  Let me know if you go and find out.

The Besnard Lakes – Chicago Train

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Thursday 19th August 2010: The Scottish Enlightenment, Debutant & Dan Lyth at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

This is something of a stripped back gig for the Scottish Enlightenment, due to the absence of a guitarist, but nevertheless their slow, deliberate sound is a treat I would recommend to anyone.  There is an album due out shortly, which I am heartily looking forward to.

The Scottish Enlightenment – Riverbed

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Thursday 19th August 2010: Sleepy Sun at Sneaky Pete’s.

I’ll be honest with you, I know no more about this than the fact that I had a listen to their MySpace page and thought it sounded interesting.  Interesting it did sound however, so I reckon it might well be worth a chance if you’re looking for something to do on Thursday.