This, boys and girls, is pretty fucking awesome.  And it helps you be a better person too, which is awfy nice of them.  A little while back Rob St. John was joined by The Braindead Collective (a droney, krauty bunch of London musicians, about whom I have to confess I know practically nothing) to record what is nominally a Christmas single, I think, although I am struggling to make out the Christmassy aspect.  Rob’s vocals never were very distinct.

Anyway, the texture and drama the Braindead guys bring to this song is fucking amazing.  This was recorded live in a church in Oxford in early December, I think.  So when I said to Rob that I might be tempted to take a little reverb off the main vocal his response was this might be a little tricky, under the circumstances.  Still, the final result is bloody good.

But before I forget, how does this make you a better person?  Well, the whole thing was recorded to support Shelter (you can imagine that Winter is a pretty taxing time for a homelessness charity) and can be downloaded from Bandcamp here, for the price of a donation.  Quite apart from the importance of supporting Shelter, this song is in and of itself more than worthy of a chunk of your cash.

Last year Lloyd from Peenko set up what he rather amusingly called the Scottish BAMS, a collection of people who write Blogs And Music websiteS which are kinda Scottishy – in the sense that these sites must either be based in Scotland, or written by Scots abroad, such as Tim from the Daily Growl or Peej from Dear Scotland.

As with many excellent ideas, it’s not so much the originality which deserves praise, more the fact that he just got on and bloody well did something which presumably loads of us had been talking about in pubs for ages.  That’s music for you: so much chat, so little action.

Anyhow, the results of this year’s poll are now in, and it is highly unsurprising to see The National atop the pile.  Admiral Fallow, I have to confess, genuinely did surprise me with such a high placing, so congratulations to them as well.  For their part the National were so utterly overwhelmed with joy at such a prestigious award that they almost managed as many words as the title of this post in response.  Awesome.

“That’s great news. Thanks for the support!”

Gosh yes, you too.

1. The National – High Violet
2. Admiral Fallow – Boots Met My Face
3. Meursault – All Creatures Will Make Merry
4. Frightened Rabbit – The Winter of Mixed Drinks
5. Kid Canaveral – Shouting at Wildlife

6. The Phantom Band – The Wants
7. The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
8. The Last Battle – Heart of the Land, Soul of the Sea
9. Broken Records – Let Me Come Home
10. Bronto Skylift – The White Crow

11. Beach House – Teen Dream
12. The Fire & I – Stampede Finale
13. Sufjan Stevens – Age Of Adz
14. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
15. Best Coast – Crazy For You
16. Mitchell Museum – The Peters Port Memorial Service
17. Teenage Fanclub – Shadows
18. The Scottish Enlightenment – St Thomas
19. Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
20. Jonsi – go do

21. RM Hubbert – First & Last
22. Errors – Come Down With Me
23. Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
24. Sleigh Bells – Treats
25. The Boy Who Trapped The Sun – Fireplace
26. Micah P Hinson and the Pioneer Saboteurs
27. Bruce Springsteen – The Promise
28. How To Swim – Retina (Or More Fun Than A Vat Of Love)
29. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach
30. Silver Columns – Yes and Dance

It’s funny.  I know this is just a bunch of amateurs who fanny about on the internet in their spare time, but I would bet an awful lot of money that we collectively command a much larger, more loyal and more financially generous audience than any music magazine out there, although I very much doubt we’d have the same capacity to get you on Jools Holland.

It’s obvious from even a cursory glance at the final standings that it is a highly parochial selection; Bronto Skylift and the Last Battle have barely made a scratch outside of Scotland as yet, and both are in the top ten here.  For my part, only one Scottish band made my personal top five, although that would have been very different if I had allowed myself to vote for Song, by Toad Records bands, but nevertheless I think this strong Scottish bias makes it more interesting rather than less so.  Do we really need another identikit list of hipster staples?  Because if that’s all this is going to be then there’s really no point, is there, so I actually applaud the Scottishness.

Either way, an interesting wee exercise, this, I think.  If Lloyd has the determination to keep it together I reckon it’s something which deserves to grow in significance, as there isn’t really a unified Scottish voice in alternative music anywhere.  Mind you, the idea of a unified voice in music at all is a bit silly, I suppose.  If you wish to investigate a little further, then Ian from Have Fun at Dinner has compiled a Spotify playlist, which can be found here.  And many thanks to Struan Teague for the excellent logo.  A full list of participating sites can be found below:

Timothy London, Jock N Roll, The Daily Dose,Resound Scotland, The Steinberg Principle,Dauphin, Hercules Moments, Argos Barks, The Web Is Not A Cold Dead Place, The Tidal Wave Indifference, Ed Rock, Off the Beaten Tracks, Found In Sound, Elba Sessions, Kowalskiy, Have Fun At Dinner, Ayetunes, Edinburgh Man, 17 Seconds,Scots Whay Hae, Open Till Midnight, Products of a Gaseous Brain, The Spill, Last Years Girl, Is This Music, JockRock, Dear Scotland, Manic Pop Thrills,Favourite Son, Peenko, Jim Gellatly, My Portis Wasp says, Never Make Friends, Detour, Jenny Soep, Net Sounds Unsigned, Listen Before You Buy, Song By Toad, The Daily Growl, Earz Mag, Glasgow Podcart,Rokbun, The Pop Cop, Pin Up Nights, Traffic Cone Music, Radar and Blueback Hotrod.

So, a day late with this, sorry.  I blame a combination of Virgin Media and vast amounts of drinking.  I woke up yesterday, still slightly hungover, and found that Virgin have managed to break our internet.  Here I am today a day and a half later and it is still fucking broken.  They offered us a fiver refund without me even asking for it, so I assume they must have fucked up something pretty significant, but I felt too shitey to venture out to find an internet cafe to write this, sorry.

All of this meant that I missed the chance to plug the Withered Hand gig at the Wee Red Bar last night, sorry.  He is playing tonight at the Captain’s Rest in Glasgow though, with the excellent Japanese War Effort, so I recommend getting along to that if you accidentally find yourself on the wrong side of Scotland this evening.

It’s funny, I remember a couple of years ago the mere fact that there was one music based Christmas party was enough to pique my interest.  This year it seems that every cunt in fucking Scotland is having on, ourselves included.  After the awesome Gerry Loves Records one a couple of weeks ago, this week is the week it all kicks off proper like:

Thursday 16th December 2010: Song, by Toad Records Christmas Party at the Queen Charlotte Rooms, Leith.

We’ll have six bands, and two stages, with Jesus H. Foxx, Inspector Tapehead and Meursault on the noisy stage, and Yusuf Azak, Rob St. John and The Savings and Loan on the quiet stage.  We’ll stagger the bands, but whilst we can sell 180 tickets, only eighty or so people can fit in to the upstairs acoustic room at any one time, so please be understanding if you can’t get in – and prepared if there’s something you really want to see.  Tickets are shifting rather quickly, so I’d recommend getting them in advance (or turning up rather early – but we’ll be starting promptly to get all six bands on, so that might be wise anyway) from either Brown Paper Tickets, or the new Avalanche Records shop down on the Grassmarket.

Friday 17th December 2010: Stars in Their Eyes Christmas at Pilrig St. Paul’s.

This is going to be magic.  Broken Records, eagleowl and Toad Records superstars Jesus H. Foxx and Meursault will be performing as their favourite bands.  Tickets are very, very nearly sold out for this though, so act very sharpish if you want to go along – available here and from Avalanche.  There will be a couple left on the door, but this is not something I recommend you count on.

Saturday 18th December 2010: Tentracks at the Forest Cafe.

As part of the ongoing efforts to save the Forest Cafe from closure, Tentracks are hosting a night there, featuring Not Squares, Foxgang, Logikparty and Fueldiva.  Given that Kid Canaveral has already sold out Saturday’s Christmas party this looks like the perfect place for all you lost and wandering souls in search of a gig this weekend.

Video: Vimeo – YouTube
Photos: Flickr
Audio: download links below

This Toad Session is something a little different, in that instead of setting up a studio environment in the house, we actually just recorded the songs at a house gig.  The gig was in fact also the band’s first live appearance in four or five years.  So the whole atmosphere of the session is massively different to the usual ones we record. The interview took place all at once before the gig, rather than in and around the songs like it usually does, and for the podcast I have just spliced bits of it into the podcast as and when it seemed suitable.

We also webcast this live, which was kind of fun.  I am not sure how brilliant the image and sound were for everyone, but it was an extremely fun thing to do and something we’ll be looking to do more of in the new year I hope.

It was a little tricky to ask people to take pictures in the middle of a performance, so we have a few photos by Anneli and Fiona but not very many.  As per usual we have videos of four songs, over and above the main video above, all of which are also available on Vimeo and YouTube.  Martin actually read some of his poetry before the gig started, so there’s a little of that in the main video as well.  The session tracks are all downloadable for free below, as is the main interview podcast, with the full tracklist for that at the bottom of the page.  A large thank you to Fiona Buckle and Anneli Kuukka for their pictures, to Neil Pennycook for recording and mixing the songs and to Ben Clarke for helping with the filming.

Direct download: Toadcast #152 – The Savings and Loan Toad Session

The Savings and Loan – These Hands/Catholic Boys in the Rain (Toad Session)

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The Savings and Loan – Met (a Storm) (Toad Session)

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The Savings and Loan – The Ropes (Toad Session)

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The Savings and Loan – Her Window (Toad Session)

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01. The Savings and Loan – These Hands/Catholic Boys in the Rain (Toad Session) (02.07)
02. Evan Crichton – Holiday Time (12.27)
03. Palace Brothers – Stable Will (17.16)
04. The Savings and Loan – Met (a Storm) (Toad Session) (27.24)
05. Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta – The Ragged Garden of Your Eye (32.46)
06. Otis Redding – That’s How Strong My Love Is (37.34)
07. The Corries – Loch Tay Boat Song (40.04)
08. The Savings and Loan – The Ropes (Toad Session) (50.11)
09. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Darker With the Day (53.23)
10. Codeine – Broken Hearted Wine (60.22)
11. The Savings and Loan – Her Window (Toad Session) (69.52)

Okay, so today we start our lists.  I have made my own list of my top twenty albums of the year, but in all honesty I am still struggling to pare down my Festive Fifty to, er, fifty.  At the moment it’s more like a Festive three hundred and seventy six, which won’t do at all.  It is, as my father (and W.C. Fields) used to say, no use to man nor beast.

This is your chance, however, to put your five favourite songs of the year into the comments, and we’ll see who the readers of Song, by Toad have been loving the most over the course of the year.

And for those of you preparing for the Weekend of Alcoholic Annihilation next week, you might be interested to hear about something just a little bit classier happening tomorrow night, to which my pal Pete Harvey has asked me to give a quick plug.  And he’s a nice chap, so why not.  Besides I still nurture an intellectual inferiority complex about classical music which presumably stems from my traumatic childhood.

Saturday 11th December 2010, 7.30pm at the Canongate Kirk – Macmillan: Seven Last Words from the Cross & Byrd: Motets.

The Rose Street Ensemble with the Calton Consort – Conductor: Jason Orringe.
The Facebook event is here if you would like to investigate further, and a nice handy Google Maps link here.  And no, I doubt it’s that Jason Orange.  And no, of course he’s never heard that joke before.

So, we are all doing our five favourite songs of the year vote this week.  Last year I was quite bad about adding it up, but this year I promise to keep a running total (at least, of everything with more than one vote, anyway).  I can’t add mine because obviously I don’t want to jump the gun on my own Festive Fifty, but I thought I might revisit my top five songs from last year, and then sit back and do my sums while you let me know what has been exciting you the most in 2010.

Looking back at my top five from last year, I do notice a couple of Song, by Toad Records bands in there, and that is one thing which will be different this year: I am banning Song, by Toad Records bands from any of my lists.  It was fair enough to include them when we hadn’t released that much, but we’ve had a very busy year and so there would be a definite danger of the label swamping the list this year, and besides, I could hardly put one of our bands’ debut albums in the top five while another barely scraped the top ten, now could it?

So just take it as read that I love our bands the most and that if it weren’t for this ban, everyone else would be scrapping over tenth place at best.  So anyway, ladies and gentlemen, nerds and nerdettes, your votes please…

Elvis Perkins in Dearland – Shampoo

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Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt.2 (Single Version) (Buy on clear vinyl 7″ here)

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Navigator – Work is Done

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Trips and Falls – And In Real Life He Wears Corduroy Pants (Buy here)

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FOUND – Mullokian (Toad Session)

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Sort of?  Yeah, only sort of.  Back in March last year, having just been signed to 4AD, Broken Records put on a small gig in the Bedlam Theatre in Edinburgh.  The place only holds about ninety people or so, and they barely advertised it, so it really did just end up being a chance for them to celebrate their record deal and the imminent release of their debut album with a small group of their friends, family and local fans.

The band invited us to film the show, and we edited together a load of live videos and Kas, their sound guy, mixed the audio and the whole lot went up around the release of Until the Earth Begins to Part last year.

One song which didn’t, however, was this one: an early version of A Darkness Rises Up. This song had only just been written back then and the encore at the Bedlam Theatre is the first time they ever performed it, so it was far from finished and had very different lyrics to the version which finally made it onto their second album Let Me Come Home.

Now that album’s been out for a while, however, I asked the band about this video and they agreed that there was no harm in letting people see it – provided it was clear that this version of the song was an early, unfinished version of what people will recognise from Let Me Come Home.  So there, I think I’ve made it clear.

Dreams?  Sixteen hellish nightmares more like (although I suspect that rather facile joke has been made in just about every damn review of this album so far – it’s just too easy too avoid).  But yeah, this is rough as fucking balls this is, and fucking awesome with it.

Sixteen songs, under twenty minutes long, this is an album which doesn’t fuck about it just gets on with making a stinking racket, slapping you around the face a bit and then buggering off.

Songs like Barf City might seem a little much in isolation, but oddly enough, in the context of the album itself, surrounded by its slightly less full-frontal neighbours, it actually seems to make sense.  Certainly the acoustic strum of Moldy Spectre which follows it seems like a blessedly soothing balm when it arrives.

In some senses this is just a massively lo-fi version of swampy blues rock, with a few stylistic nods to metal thrown in here and there.  But it’s just so fucking rough and loud and furious that I find myself really enjoying it, almost as if every time I think they’ve gone as far as they’re going to go down this particular road they nudge it just a little bit further.

The songs are short as hell, and so is the album, and by the end of it I have to confess my head is rattling just a little bit.  But it’s fucking ace, this, and if you’re looking for something to blow the alt-folk cobwebs out of your ears for some time to come then this will do the trick with bells on.  It’s ludicrous, over the top, and great.

All their albums are released as free downloads, which can be had from their website here.

Waylon Thornton & the Heavy Hands – Tropical Lover

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Waylon Thornton & the Heavy Hands – Two Dead Rats

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I was talking to Andrew Eaton (of Swimmer One, Seafieldroad and The Scotsman) yesterday and the topic of The BBC Sound of 2011 came up, which reminded me of a comment on Twitter the other day which roughly paraphrases thus: I bet none of the people slagging off the BBC’s Sound of 2011 list are actually going to make one of their own.  It had fewer characters, but the sentiment was the same. And it’s a pretty fair point.

Now, partly, if you publish something like that then you can expect to take some stick for it, in much the same way that any band releasing a single is going to have to take a critical kicking if it’s shit. But partly my anonymous Twitter pal is right: could I myself go about drawing up this kind of list? Because I really don’t think I could.

Let’s not beat about the bush here, though: personally, I think the list is awful.  Which is to say that I do not enjoy the music of any of the bands on it.  But really, who fucking cares?  That’s not the point of it.  This is aimed at a different kind of person, and for me to criticise it is as meaningless as someone from the Radio 1 chart show criticising our record label.

In any case, what I found more interesting was the act of prediction itself, and once I actually thought about it, my utter inability to even attempt it.  I really have no idea what I would say if anyone ever asked me if I had any tips for the new year.

Partly this is because of the relationship of what I like with what makes an impact on the wider audience for independent music – in other words, we all have our own opinion on these things and we all tend to think we’re right.  So I could make my ‘ones to watch out for’ list, I suppose, and barely one of those bands would achieve anything in any broader sense, and I would still think the list was right and almost everyone else would point at it and laugh at how hilariously out of touch it was.  And they would be entirely right and utterly wrong at the same time.

Even allowing for the variety of tastes, however, I still couldn’t make predictions really, and I think it’s because I react more to actual material than imagined material.  So, so many bands out there have a few good songs that I very quickly learned not to get over-excited about anything until I had heard enough to have an opinion which I felt was at least based on something real.  Consequently I have no idea who I think might have a masterpiece brewing away somewhere, because I tend not to think about it until the work is actually finished.

Am I more excited about whether or not Allister Izenberg ever releases anything, or about the debut album by Li’l Daggers, for example?  I dunno.  They could be great, but if neither of those bands ever quite gets around to finishing something then by the end of 2011 I’ll probably have largely forgotten them and will be wondering the same thing about another band with barely a song or two to their name.  How about Warm Ghost?  They have an excellent EP, but will it translate to anything more?  And if it doesn’t, will I be content to just enjoy what I have without worrying about what else there might have been?

And maybe that’s the core of it.  I just don’t care who anyone, myself included, thinks is ‘going to be big’ in 2011, which is why I don’t really have any criticism to make of that Beeb list. What I am looking forward to is not being right or wrong about predicting this that or the other, but waiting for the bands out there, who I may or may not have already heard about, to surprise me with what they actually do.

I am not really familiar with a lot of the bands to whom I think I should probably be comparing Monster Island, which would I suspect be bands like The Fall and suchlike, so I am going to have to hold off drawing what for other people might seem like quite obvious parallels.

Simply put, this music is generally best summarised as wonky guitar and stuttering drums accompanying a lot of atonal shouting.  And it’s really, really good.  Well, perhaps good isn’t the word.  I really like it though.

It’s also really quite old, for a site which nominally specialises in new music.  This actually came out in July 2009, and can be downloaded from their Bandcamp page for free, along with more recent EP The Green Door.

I often wonder what it is I like about this kind of thing.  After all, it’s hardly what you’d call a pleasant listen. I don’t know. I think it just appeals to my sense of discord, in much the same way that I have always had a taste for music which seems just slightly on the verge of losing all shape whatsoever, but somehow never quite seems to.  These guys always seem one slip or hesitation away from everything completely going to shit, but it never quite happens.

Also, The Anchor is quite nicely assembled.  It’s not just a wall of discordant noise, and they do mix it up quite well over the course of the album, varying the pace and the intensity in such a way that the whole business never becomes too overwhelming.  Tracks like Open Collar, for all they are pacy and quite raucous, are still comparatively melodic (at least until the guitar outro) and for all this is an album with something of a loose attitude to pleasing its audience, there are times where it certainly eases into more straightforward indie rock territory, just to remind you that they do actually know what they are doing, thank you.

It’ll never be one for the post dinner party coffee this one, but I like it.

Monster Island – The Anchor Age

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Monster Island – Push the Bullet In

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Yes, it’s me wheedling for assistance again, sorry.  Next week, as you know, is the Song, by Toad Records Christmas Party, down at the Queen Charlotte Rooms in Leith on Thursday 16th December.  As we have two stages to take care of, both in terms of sound and in terms of being door monitor, and a merch table full of goodies as well, I am not going to be able to cover it all myself.

So, if any of you would like to volunteer to help out then I would be only too happy to waive tickets in exchange for spending some time either minding the door or the merch table – and I might even make you a nice compilation CD as a present too.  Ideally, we will end up with six volunteers and you can do half the night on whichever job you choose – door upstairs, door downstairs or merch table.  You won’t miss out on the music in your room if you do the door, but bear in mind who you might not want to miss up- or downstairs before you volunteer to help in the other room at that time.

And for those of you with no intention whatsoever of doing any work and who simply want to get pissed and have a good time, tickets are now available at Avalanche Records down on the Grassmarket, as well as online here.  We’re probably about halfway through our allocation of tickets, so I wouldn’t want to confidently assert that you can get them on the door.

And just as a bit of general information, we can fit about 180 people into the venue as a whole, but probably only about eighty or so into the acoustic room upstairs, so if there is anything up there you are particularly determined to see, it might be worth staking out a spot early.  We are going to stagger the bands as best we can, to try and give people a chance to see as much as possible, but I am going to have to ask for a bit of understanding on that count, sorry.