I’ve been in an awful mood this week, for some reason.  Things have been fun, and stuff has been motoring along happily enough, United trounced Schalke and the sun has been shining… and still I’ve been grumbling away without ever really knowing what’s been annoying me.

Anyhow, the centre of Edinburgh is deserted today, which made the trip to and from Penicuik to get the Toad Van serviced relatively painless.  IKEA and Stewart’s Brewery, where we get the kegs for our house gigs, are both out there so I make the journey quite regularly, but on the way back in today I sat on the top deck of the bus, and it was kind of interesting.

With that extra bit of height you get a strangely different vantage point, particularly out in the suburbs where houses are rarely more than two floors high, meaning you can actually see quite a lot. Don’t get me wrong, there were no killer insights to be gleaned or anything, it was just kind of interesting.

And I do hope you are all planning to come and help us collect for the lifeboats tomorrow.  Our house from about eleven am, for those of you intending to chip in.  There will be plentiful booze and food provided.

Anyway, I have a lot of artwork to organise and email to send, so I guess I better get on with the Fives.  As almost everyone else in Edinburgh is out drinking all day, though, I might indulge myself and knock off early.

1. Where on the bus do you tend to sit?
2. What is your most rage-inspiring public transport etiquette transgression?
3. Something that’s irritated you this week.
4. What do your neighbours do which winds you up the most.
5. Give us a happy thought to banish all the rage.

These five are from a collection of pre-war American gospel I found on eMusic this week, tracking down an older version of Wouldn’t Mind Dying from the Honorable Worm’s album, which I reviewed last week.

Blind Willie Davis – I Believe I’ll Go Back Home

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Blind Mamie Forehand – Honey in the Rock

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Rev. I.B. Ware with Wife and Son – You Better Quit Drinking Shine

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Rev. I.B. Ware with Wife and Son – I Wouldn’t Mind Dying (But I Gotta Go By Myself)

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William and Versey Smith – When That Great Ship Went Down

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I never really know how much impact putting songs in a podcast really makes, in terms of introducing them to the actual audience of the blog.  I assume there are loads of regular blog readers who never go near the podcasts for a variety of reasons (no, not the swearing), but they still seem relatively popular in their own right.

Having said that, people have told me excitedly that they have really got into bands from reading about them on the site, but I’ve never really heard the same said about the podcasts.  So, here are three bands whose music I have been enjoying a lot recently, but who I’ve only forced upon you in podcast form so far.  I am not not convinced you were paying attention like you should, so now I am insisting.  So there.

Weird Era (Bandcamp)

This is grungey, shoegazey indie rock, so yes, of course I like it!  I was actually introduced to this band by virtue of their cassette release of Go To Hell on Duck Tapes, but they have what looks a little like a double album available to download from their Bandcamp link above.

Garage Honeymoon, below, is a big awesome pop song, but generally Weird Era’s stuff is a bit more slow burn and textural than that – well worth exploring though.

Weird Era – Garage Honeymoon

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We Are Losers (Bandcamp – blog)

The first time I heard this I thought ‘ah yes, more ultra-lo-fi indie rock’.  By the end of the first song I thought ‘ah yes, some rather excellent ultra-lo-fi indie rock’.

It’s not quite that simple though, because this is actually are rather varied little EP.  The Narcissist may be rough, growling, catchy indie rock, but Empty Head is more of a pop song, and the final track, Windbreaker, much more hazy and dreamy, making this a really nicely varied release with plenty of potential directions which look promising for the future.

We Are Losers – The Narcissist

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Honeydrum (Bandcamp – blog)

There is a lot of The Magnetic Fields in this stuff.  I’d say it was sort of a lo-fi, pop version of The Magnetic Fields, but that’s kinda what The Magnetic Fields themselves already are.  I suppose it’s arguable that there are touches of Casiontone for the Painfully Alone in here as well, but that’s a little more tenuous, as comparisons go.

So, to be more straightforward, this is quirky pop music, with a laid back air and a dreamy feel to it.  The band have all sorts of cassette releases available from the links above, and I recommend you go and have a poke around.

Honeydrum – Dream Eyes

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“Mrs. Toad Approved” is not an official sub-division of Song, by Toad Records just yet, but the way she’s going it might just end up being one.

This is the video for King Corpse, the title track from Miami band Lil Daggers’ EP, which is out on Song, by Toad Records on the 27th June 2011 and can be pre-ordered here.

One of the chief reasons we are able to release this really rather fantastic record over here is because it is, in fact, approved by Mrs. Toad.  We listened to this again and again over Christmas, and I mentioned that Lil Daggers had asked if we would be interested in releasing their stuff over here.  I had my doubts about it, not because I didn’t love the band, but because I was nervous about making commitments we couldn’t afford to fulfill. We only have so much money, basically, and vinyl is expensive to make.

This is where the ‘approved’ bit comes in.  Basically she said ‘fuck it, this is awesome, we have to release this and I’ll pay for it if need be’.  And so here we are.

I so nearly loved this without reservation I actually find it quite frustrating. The Low Anthem’s previous album had some truly outstanding highlights, but there was a lot of uninspiringly conventional alt-country on there which ultimately left me feeling less than entirely engaged.

This album starts with a burst of such gorgeous music that I was ready to eat the largest slice of humble pie I could find and tar and feather myself in the middle of whatever the internet’s equivalent of a town square might be.

By the end of the whole album, though, I found my attention rather frustratingly drifting.  This can happen if you listen to music whilst doing other things, which most of us do, but I went back and tried again and again, and no matter how attentive I was, by the time the spectral instrumental Wire was finished, my love for the album seemed to slip through my fingers like so many grains of sand.

The annoying thing is that songs like Hey, All You Hippies! are really lyrically engaging, it’s just that musically Smart Flesh just can’t seem to spark back into life after the lovely quiet of Wire. And so ultimately my feeling towards this album is one of unfulfilled promise, a little like a teenage prodigy who for reasons unclear never quite cuts it in the big leagues.

It would be completely wrong, however, for me to let this detract from the brilliance of the first half of the record.  Ghost Woman Blues is a spellbinding and bravely sad way to start an album, Boeing 737 is an absolutely blinding, anthemic song, and Matter of Time is haunting and beautiful.  Inbetween them, the other tunes which comprise the first half are no less lovely.

There are times when I think The Low Anthem are closer to being the band Fleet Foxes wanted to be than the Foxes themselves, but there’s a lot more to them than that, in my opinion. They have more ideas, more emotional range and I think they are far superior lyrically.  Nevertheless, as much as I admire the band and as much as there are times when I think they are utterly brilliant, there are still too many occasions when I find myself drifting into indifference to entirely embrace them.  But it was so close!

The Low Anthem – Boeing 737

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The Low Anthem – Matter of Time

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Website | More mp3s | Buy direct from the band

Amongst my friends I am much more known for being a Socialist than a Capitalist, not least because I think that ‘allowing the market to fix stuff’ is an hilarious fiction in social terms.  We can see in the American healthcare system what happens when you expect private companies to perform social functions: the poor people who need the protection the most get fucked, much like in any other third world country.  If there is any more obvious demonstration that a government is needed to provide and regulate certain services, then that is it.

When it comes to the inner workings of business, however, I am pretty hardcore about competition.  I have worked in the creative industries for my whole life and currently the legal obstacles to actual creativity are pretty ludicrous.  The way the concepts of piracy and copying are treated at the moment, they are the biggest impediments to innovation in the world.  It is that simple.

This is the case in almost every industry where creativity and intellectual property are important sources of value, and if you look at the reaction of the record industry to the digital age you’ll see one of the most egregious examples.  Ever since the internet was invented they have been resolutely fighting innovation and ideas, and trying to keep everything tightly under their own control.  And you can bicker about the rights and wrongs of copying or the rights and wrongs of intellectual property, but one thing I think is without doubt is this: if you spend your time fighting legal battles and trying to prevent other people’s ideas existing you are actively harming your own business.

To keep your business healthy you need to be at the cutting edge of technological and marketing ideas, and as Matt Mason points out in his speech (video above, book here), it is often the pirates who provide these ideas.  If the record industry had properly absorbed Napster in 2001 rather than killing it, if they had licensed P2P and participated in it, then just imagine the incredible about of money they would have saved, by not wasting it fighting internet chimeras, and also earned, by generating money from transactions in which they refused to participate for so long.

This speech about the pirate’s dilemma is extremely interesting for a couple of reasons, not least the following point: “If you can’t control it, and people keep doing it … really that’s a market signal that there’s something going on outside your market.”

I have seen a lot of music bloggers recently whinging about the rise of Tumblr blogs, and Twitter personalities, and how people are sharing music amongst themselves on Facebook, and it is almost the exact same whinge which professional journalists whinged when music blogging sprang into being. Who are these people? Who told them they could have a say? They aren’t really adding value.  They can’t write like we can.  Oh woe is the modern concentration span. People have no respect for quality anymore.  Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo.

Which brings me, slightly obliquely, onto the key point I think Mason made: “if someone is copying your stuff, who should you consult first: legal or marketing?” When bloggers whinge about people paying more attention to random fuckwits on Twitter or people chatting about music on Facebook and not reading blogs as much, or when music industry leeches complain about mashups or unauthorised sampling, or even illegal downloading, just from the point of view of maintaining a leading position in any industry, your first question should never be ‘how can we stop them?’

It should always be this: ‘why do people like what they are doing so much more than what we are doing?’

Sweeping the Nation turns six round about, well, now actually.  For a music blog to last that long is highly unusual; most get to about the two year mark and then posting becomes less and less frequent, and eventually the only updates are rather uncomfortable ‘sorry I haven’t posted in ages’ missives spaced an increasing number of months apart until… silence.

For Simon to keep StN going for six years might just be testament to his mentalism, but I prefer to recognise someone with a familiarly psychotic need to constantly tell people what they should be listening to, and can only admire his endurance.

I don’t know what earns respect for music blogs.  Do you end just respecting the ones whose taste you agree with the most, the ones who are firstest and fastest to absolutely everything (twats), the ones who write interesting, in-depth features, or simply the ones who stick it out the longest?  I really have no idea, but I do know that Sweeping the Nation has always had an aura of respect about it, both from bands and other bloggers, and I would like to congratulate Simon on the work he’s done over the last six years.

To mark the event StN are releasing a charity compilation to benefit Macmillan’s Cancer Support.  It can be downloaded from Bandcamp here, for a minimum of £3 and a maximum of whatever you chose to give, and Simon has written a full run-down of the tracks he chose here. There are a couple of Song, by Toad Records band in there as well – it’s nice to be able to support someone who has given our label so much encouragement over the last few years – as well as donations from the excellent Alcopop and Popty Ping labels.  Please give generously.

Mrs. Toad's Lettuce

The above picture shows how our veggie patch is doing, for those of you who give a flying fuck, which admittedly might not be many of you.  Sunday was spent lying about in the garden reading books, which was nice and relaxing after getting pished late into the night with Monster Island, These Single Spies and Kid Canaveral after the Henry’s gig on Saturday night.

This Saturday we will be collecting for the RNLI in Stockbridge, so if you want to help out please do get in touch as we will need all the people we can get our hands on.  We promise to feed you and ply you with booze, and it’s generally a really enjoyable day.

Tuesday 26th April 2011: Golden Grrrls, The Oates Field & Fuzzy Star at the Wee Red Bar.

Fuzzy pop reigns this week at The Gentle Invasion’s latest gig, with The Oates Field performing alongside two relatively longstanding Scottish bands I have to confess, rather shame-facedly, to never having heard of.  A bit of an internet poke-around later and it sounds like the whole lineup should be right up my street.  And, hopefully, yours.
WrldPeace by Golden Grrrls

Wednesday 27th April 2011: Pensioner, PAWS & Pinky Suavo at Sneaky Pete’s.

This is likely to be quite similar, in a sense, to the Gentle Invasion gig the night before, with the emphasis on rock rather than pop, but nevertheless blanketed in a haze of guitars.  It is also the Pensioner album launch – they have a new album out on Olive Grove Records.

PAWS – Miss American Bookworm

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Thursday 28th April 2011: Nan Turner & Enfant Bastard at the Collective Gallery.

WH666 presents another rather interesting lineup.  Nan Turner sings and plays drums in New York anti-folkers Schwervon, but listening to her MySpace page that doesn’t give you much idea what to expect from her music.  Also, Enfant Bastard has started adding more to his chiptune stuff which, if I am being honest, pushes it back much closer to the kind of thing I personally am into.  Come along, it’ll be a good ‘un, this.

Friday 29th April – Sunday 1st May 2011: The Grassmarket Festival (Facebook event).

The Grassmarket Festival is a street festival involving all the traders with shops on and around the Grassmarket, and will involved vintage clothing, tat stalls, book and records as well as lots of live music.
The lineup looks roughly like this:
Friday 29th: 6pm, The Last Battle; 7pm, Ballboy.
Saturday 30th: 5pm, Star Wheel Press; 6pm, The Gillyflowers; 7pm, Burnt Island.
Sunday 1st: 3pm, A Right Royal Open Couch Session (in Red Dog Music); 5pm, Edinburgh School for the Deaf; 6pm, Second Hand Marching Band; 7pm, TV21.

Burnt Island – A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

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Edinburgh School for the Deaf – 11 Kinds of Loneliness

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The Second Hand Marching Band – Don’t!

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No, no, don’t worry this isn’t some sort of chillout special (although we did actually do one of those once upon a time).  The only reason this is called the Chillcast is because on what was a beautifully sunny day for the rest of Scotland, Edinburgh performed its age old trick of drawing a freezing sea mist off the North Sea – the haar, as it’s called – and turning a lovely Spring day into a damp, chilly sulk.  Bastard.

I realised a while back that I don’t actually cover all that much Scottish music, despite the location of this blog being quite a prominent feature of the thing. This week, though, we have something like five Scottish (or Scottish-based) bands on this, and all of them relatively under the radar ones as well.

Anyhow, I am off to play nicely with Mrs. Toad’s colleagues for the rest of the day, in some sort of horrific bonding exercise.  Ah well, it pays the bills I suppose, and it’s not like she doesn’t have to spend an awful lot of time hanging out with my ‘colleagues’.

Direct download: Toadcast #171 – The Chillcast

01. The Sandwitches – Summer of Love (00.11)
02. The Japanese War Effort – Pool Attendant (7.41)
03. King Post Kitsch – Don’t You Touch My Fucking Honeytone (10.42)
04. PAWS – Summer Wipeout (16.22)
05. Marcy Playground – Wave Motion Gun (25.05)
06. The Low Anthem – Boeing 737 (33.40)
07. Horsecollar – Christopher (39.12)
08. Morris Major – In Amongst My Ideas (47.11)
09. Plastic Animals – It Fell Apart (Demo) (50.34)
10. Earth Girl Helen Brown – Girls of My Dreams (59.06)

Dammit, Edinburgh can be frustrating.  Because we’re coastal, warm weather tends to draw a chilling mist off the sea called the haar, which can fuck up the most promising of warm days.  Yesterday, just as things were getting nice, the fucking haar came down, and it’s still bloody well here.

Anyhow, just a little reminder that next weekend (Saturday 30th April) we will be doing the lifeboats collection here in Stockbridge, and would hugely appreciate any volunteers who fancied helping us shake a tin for an hour or two.  We make it worth your while, in that there will be booze and food, and once we’re finished we’ll settle down to a nice big roast dinner and get shitfaced, and it’s generally a really fun day.

The RNLI is staffed by volunteers, and is actually a charitable organisation, rather than being funded by the government, which is mind-bogglingly nuts.  We inherited the Stockbridge collection from our mental-but-lovely next door neighbour when he moved, and it’s nice to make a little bit of a contribution over and above just handing over some spare change once in a while, so if anyone can make it down to our house next Saturday and help out it would be hugely appreciated – just let us know if you’re coming.

And in the meantime, we should really be celebrating the most important chapter in the Bible – the one about the chocolate bunny rabbits which lay eggs and suchlike.  Ah well, I guess it’s about as plausible as the rest of it.

1. Favourite Easter treat (this applies irrespective of religion – an atheist can still enjoy chocolate bunnies and a couple of days off).
2. Chocolate preference.
3. Who really killed Jesus?
4. Closest you’ve been to a boat-related mishap.
5. Things that will never be said in a church (mosque, synagogue, whatever) sermon but ought to.

The Magnetic Fields – Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits

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Broken Records – And They All Fell Into the Sea (Toad Session)

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Blur – Bank Holiday

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Bob Dylan – Green Eggs and Ham

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The Veils – Jesus for the Jugular

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Anyone managed to avoid my relentless plugging of this weekend’s Ides of Toad gig?  No, thought not, there’s nowhere to hide when I start riding the spam train down the middle of the information superhighway.  Or er… something like that, anyway.

Anyhow, the Ides of Toad gigs are now booked up all the way through to the Summer, at which point they will take a break over the Edinburgh Festival as I get a bit more involved in the Festival this year.

So, given the people reading this blog are probably the people most likely to want to come along, I figured I would give you a handy preview list, so you know what’s in store for you over the next few months – all tickets can be bought either at Avalanche Records on the Grassmarket or online here.

Saturday 23rd April 2011: Kid Canaveral, Thee Single Spy & Monster Island at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

I think you already know quite enough about this one so, er, let’s move on shall we.

Tuesday 10th May 2011: Francois & the Atlas Mountains, This is the Kit & Babe at the Bristo Hall.

The Bristo Hall is upstairs from the Forest Cafe, and this is part of the Roofraiser series of events being put on to help save the Forest.  It will also serve as something of a Homegame wind-down for those of us going, and for those who aren’t it is the chance to see Francois, This is the Kit and Babe, the last of which is Gerard from Findo Gask’s new project.

Saturday 21st May 2011: Jonnie Common, Kill the Captains & Enfant Bastard at the Wee Red Bar.

Jonnie is a pop genius hiding behind excessive modesty, Kill the Captains make a face-melting racket and Enfant Bastard is the only person we could think of to make sense of a bill this diverse!

Saturday 4th June 2011: Avital Raz house gig.

This has just been arranged as my friend Baz (who is putting on the excellent-looking Imploding Inevitable Festival to which you should all go) was looking for dates and I was really keen, but with all the gigs we have on at this time I was a bit scared to take on anything else.  So a house gig seemed like the ideal solution, not least because we haven’t had one for ages.

Friday 17th June 2011: Meursault & Inspector Tapehead at The Caves.

Umm, gosh The Caves is a big venue. So you fuckers better all come to this because I have never booked anywhere this size before!

Saturday 2nd July 2011: Edinburgh School for the Deaf, The Louche FC & Spook School at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

This could, and hopefully will, get noisy.  Edinburgh School for the Deaf make a ferocious racket, and The Louche FC may have distinctly innocent-sounding vocals, but the guitar is nasty as hell.  And I know nothing about Spook School bar the song on their Bandcamp page above, but they sound really promising.

Saturday 16th July 2011: The Second Hand Marching Band at The Wee Red Bar.

Alright, this bill might not be entirely finished just yet but I promise it will be excellent when it is.