Apparently The Honorable Worm used to be a psychedelic folk band, but umm… well, not anymore! This is still folk music I suppose, but the style sounds more like a weird cross between drone and Gregorian Chant and that, in my opinion, is a very good thing.

The Gregorian Chant association might not bother you young ‘uns, but I doubt I am the only person of a certain age who used to fill in those postal album club things (where they sent you five free CDs on an introductory sale or return basis) in a variety of names and get the five free CDs sent to every student flat I ever lived in.

Gregorian Chant was always in there, along with the Utah fucking Saints, and at some point many of us seemed to wonder if we were sophisticated for classical music, took a chance on a couple, and ended up with something by Elgar and Gregorian fucking Chant in the house (I was not the only culprit, I saw this on a few occasions, but was too ashamed to ask about it).  And, it turns out, I am a long way from being sophisticated enough for classical music, although what sort of an idiot starts with Gregorian Chant anyway, you might ask. Well actually you’d be surprised at the sort of shit you could end up ordering from those things once you got to choices number four and five for the third or fourth time.

Gregorian Chant also kind of reminds me of the lamest of post-Lord of the Rings fantasy me-too films (it seems to be to ‘stewards of the land’ what Enya is for elves).  So there are bad associations there, and sometimes this album does trigger them, I have to confess, leaving me just a teeny-tiny little bit uncomfortable.

Don’t take the above ramble seriously though, because it really has nothing to do with the album, beyond a bizarre association it triggered in me for some reason.

So yes, where was I?  Of course, The Honorable Worm. This is a droney album, but not an especially dense one.  What sounds like a harmonium (but could easily be any variation on that squeeze-box configuration) provides a steady buzz in the background, and background vocals wobble slightly above it.  What prevents this arrangement from being all that dense is that the lead vocal is quite light a lot of the time, and there is generally the plucking of a string instrument of a variety of sorts to ensure a little twinkle to lighten up the fug.

Consider the Bees is an album based far more on texture than riff.  The opener Wouldn’t Mind Dying is a gorgeous version of what is apparently a traditional song, slowed to walking pace, like much of the rest of the record. It’s on the following two songs where the above digression was probably triggered, but despite it’s rather silly title “Behind the invisible hedges, into the unimaginable fields…” is nevertheless a wonderfully spooky song.

Sunsick starts out almost a dreamy little acoustic West Coast pop song, although it finishes a good way from that, and it’s moments like this, (Ten Years Ago Today) and the uplifting hopefulness of Russia which break the album up really nicely, making sure the hazy atmosphere never gets oppressive.

Chad Marine, for The Honorable Worm is he, is even donating a dollar from every album sale to Project Apis m. which is investigating the recent decimation of honey bee populations.  I’m not sure how much he is likely to raise, given this album hardly seems to have set the blogosphere alight, but that’s a real injustice if you ask me because Consider the Bees really is bloody good.

The Honorable Worm – Wouldn’t Mind Dying

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The Honorable Worm – Russia

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This is a bit of a multi-nepotism full house plug-o-rama, so apologies but um… well, just tough shit really.  Sorry.

Location Music is a new online music video thing, much like Off the Beaten Tracks and many other similar enterprises, and has been started by a couple of pals of mine here in Edinburgh.  Given they’ve kicked things off with a couple of bands I rate very highly indeed I thought I’d take the opportunity to say hello and let you know they are there.

The first, above, obviously includes a degree of self-interest due to Meursault being on Song, by Toad Records.  I believe Settling is going to be on the new album, but you never know with that lot, and I doubt it will sound anything like the rather nice acoustic version above if it does end up making the cut.

Secondly, below, we have the rather awesome Glasgow face-melters Paws.  I have only seen them once, and I was a little drunk, so I’ll be a little circumspect for now, but from what I saw I was rather excited.  And Teenage Breeding translates surprisingly well to the acoustic format, don’t you reckon?

It has a lot in common with Ringo Deathstarr, this, right down to being almost brilliant, but just a little too much on the patchy side for me to be entirely unreserved in my praise.

It’s not what I had expected, either.  From previous work I think I was expecting a very hipster-friendly wall of fuzzy guitars and buried vocals.  These things are present, of course (I mean, the band do have ‘crystal’ in their name) but there are still quite a lot of elements I wasn’t expecting.

The vocals have an odd touch of flatness about them, which reminds me a little of the cusp of post-punk and indie, with perhaps a little bit of the New Romantic croon here and there too.  It’s not obvious or dominant, but just enough to give the singing a rather strange character of its own, aside from the rather over-popular technique of using massive amounts of reverb.

There’s a lot about this which trips what have become very, very familiar switches these days – fuzzy garage rock with touches of twinkling indie, and the odd dusting of rockabilly and shoegaze – it’s not hard to imagine how the same label that released Black Tambourine would like this album.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, of course, if it’s done well, and often I think Crystal Stilts do it very well indeed.

The standout track, for me, might still be the excellent single Shake the Shackles which has the kind of insistent pace reminiscent of old blog favourites Tapes ‘n’ Tapes and White Rabbits at their best.  But there are others.  The opener Sycamore Tree is cracking, as is Half a Moon, for it could easily have been found on the infamous NME C86 tape credited by some (presumably the NME) as the defining document of the indie genre, back when it was actually still a genre.

I still haven’t decided whether or not I like this album or love it, though.  Sometimes the melodies just don’t quite jump out, leaving the songs no more than the sum of their parts, which in this case can mean they feel a bit predictable.  When it snaps into focus, however, In Love With Oblivion is fucking excellent – sharp, pacey, and pregnant with menace.

Crystal Stilts – Sycamore Tree

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Crystal Stilts – Shake the Shackles

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In a sense Record Store Day reminds me a little of Valentine’s Day or, to be a little more facetious, Don’t Beat Your Wife Day – yes the message is the right one, but what, only today?  What about the other 364 days of the year?

The issue of eBay scalpers is one which came back quite hard this year as well. With so many exclusives, the opportunities were rife, and everything I wanted to buy was already on eBay long before I got to the end of the hour-and-a-half-long queue at Avalanche in Edinburgh.

Thanks to extremely sensible policies by Kevin in Avalanche (a maximum of six items per person and only one copy of any one item) I did manage to get my hands on the two things I came in for (David’s Town by Fucked Up and the Twilight Sad/Frightened Rabbit demos tape, since you asked), so the simmering resentment which builds in me every time I find myself standing in a long queue was diffused and, by the end of the day after a couple of fine live performances, I ended up really enjoying myself.

The problem for me was really this: Record Store Day is a good idea, but I couldn’t help but feel a little cynical about the number of people flocking to shops for that one day and then presumably flocking back to eBay, Amazon or whatever other internet shopping destinations they prefer immediately afterwards – and I’m not criticising either, it’s something I have to confess to doing myself.

Nevertheless, when I am in shops, I do spend money.  In fact, in common with many music fans I would guess, I actually struggle not to spend money.  And with the recent boom (alright, let’s be honest, it’s more of a mini-boom) in cassette and vinyl purchases, I do feel that in amongst the Maelstrom of Infinitely Uninspiring Possibility which is the digital music revolution, there is an increasing counter-revolution amongst the music fetishists which emphasises the physicality and craft of music.

We are people.  We like buying actual shit, and talking bollocks to each other as we do so, it’s that simple.  As such, Record Store Day feels just a little like a missed opportunity.  I reckon that instead of emphasising the exclusive releases, which do so much to benefit the scalping parasites on eBay, Record Store Day should be more about events, performances, and getting people back into shops that way.

But also, maybe more importantly, a record shop should not be just for Christmas.  It occurred to me this weekend that it might be nice to take advantage of the space at the back of Avalanche to do regular tea-and-biscuits events, with the aim of getting people back into shops on a regular basis, and maybe getting people from the disparate Edinburgh scenes to actually spend a bit more time together.

We could get together once a month, on a Sunday afternoon, say, and read the new issues of Loud & Quiet or The Stool Pigeon, we could have tea and biscuits, we could get a couple of bands to play ultra-stripped-back acoustic sets, Song, by Toad Records could take the opportunity to do preview listenings of our future releases – so could anyone, in fact – and just generally make a laid back Sunday afternoon of it.  Football people do it all the time with a beer and a burger and the Sunday matches on Sky, so why can’t music people?

So what do you reckon, does this sound like a good idea?  The first Sunday of the month perhaps, from about 1pm until closing time?  I think it’s worth a go, myself, but if you think it’s shite, just say so!

More Ides of Toad action this week, as Kid Canaveral, Thee Single Spy and Monster Island take to the stage at Henry’s.  I hadn’t been to Henry’s for so long before The Leg, Louis Barabbas and Zed Penguin show, and I’d rather forgotten that it is actually a cracking little grubby indie club.  One of those places whose drawbacks actually seem to add to its charm, so please come down this weekend, and come down early to make sure you catch Monster Island.

And there may be some excellent gigs happening in Edinburgh this week, but there are a couple of ongoing things which also need to be mentioned, so for those of you looking to get out and about, enjoy the sun and indulge in some afternoon pintage, there will be plenty of excuses.

Firstly, Avalanche Records have a few events this week, including an Aberfeldy in-store and a Glasvegas meet-and-greet on the weekend.

Secondly, and pretty much my personal highlight of 2011, there is a Muppets Festival at the Edinburgh Filmhouse. Anyone who knows anything about me at all will know that if I am unavailable this week or fail to respond to your emails as quickly as you think I should, then this is why.

Thursday 21st April 2011: That Fucking Tank, Shield Your Eyes, Battery Face & Mr. Peppermint at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

This will be noisy.  Apparently That Fucking Tank don’t play Edinburgh all that often, so if you like your music to delivery you a good hard slap in the ears then this will be very much up your street I should imagine.

That Fucking Tank – Keanu Reef

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

This is going to be boisterous fun.  Three different takes on indie music, with Kid Canveral’s boisterous pop contrasting with the laconic Americana-tinged Thee Single Spy and the ramshackle, yeah so what delivery of Monster Island.  I am really looking forward to this one.

Monster Island – The Green Room

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Saturday 23rd April 2011: Edinburgh School for the Deaf, Black Heart Generator & Verse Metrics at the Wee Red Bar.

I don’t actually know too much about the other two bands on this bill, but Edinburgh School for the Deaf are fuzzy, shoegazey and loud as balls.

Edinburgh School for the Deaf – Love is Terminal

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Sparrow and the Workshop recorded one of our first ever Toad Sessions.  In fact, they were the first band I ever recorded all on my lonesome and, after a few rather panicked emails to my little brother who knows about this shit, it all seemed to go pretty well.

So, not content with merely asking Meursault to join them on their next tour of England, they upped the level of niceness by offering to come round the house and record a sort of album preview podcast for their next record.

Spitting Daggers comes out in a couple of weeks, and the band came over to get pissed, to talk utter balls and to play a couple of songs from the album and a few others they’ve been listening to recently.  A good, and very drunken, time was had by all.

Direct download: Toadcast #170 – The Sparracast

01. Tegan & Sara – Walking With a Ghost (00.24)
02. Sparrow and the Workshop – Snakes in the Grass (09.53)
03. Brian Jonestown Massacre – Nevertheless (19.07)
04. Fists – Ascending (22.32)
05. John Knox Sex Club – Run William Run (30.27)
06. Meursault – Flittin’ (40.29)
07. Sparrow and the Workshop – Faded Glory (49.44)
08. Roddy Woomble – Work Like You Can (61.47)
09. Lou Barlow – Caterpillar Girl (66.20)
10. Melanie Safka – Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) (76.32)

Do you remember shuttle runs?  They were the single most unpleasant fitness exercise I ever remember being forced to do, and I was quite fit as a young ‘un.

Anyhow, today I am charging back and forth from Carluke, where we are getting some mastering done for the label, to the house, to the printers to collect some promo material, to the house to get them couriered down to London and then back to Carluke once more.  I don’t know if I’ll need a pint or a nap more desperately by the time all this shit is done.

I am also bracing myself for a little bit of trouble with the fearsome Mrs. Toad.  I may have queried Record Store Day a fair bit this week, but that doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to it, and I am most certainly going to be out of bed sharpish to trundle into town on Saturday and see what’s what.

Where this may prove to be a controversial decision is that Mrs. Toad has been away in God Bless America for the last week and only gets back on Saturday morning, and I would guess that she might anticipate a little more love and attention than ‘Hello darling, nice to have you back, but I’m off to the shops and I’ll see you in a few hours’.  Ah well, some people are football widows, and Mrs. Toad is a music widow. Them’s the breaks.

Anyhow, in the meantime, I should stop wasting time and get on with wasting time.

1. Your favourite form of exercise.
2. Your least favourite form of exercise.
3. Which hobby always takes up just a little more of your time than any partner might reasonably be expected to understand?
4. We were too disorganised this year, but what should Song, by Toad Records do for Record Store Day in 2012?
5. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

Luna – Dear Diary

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Pearl Jam – Bu$hleaguer

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Beck – Guess I’m Doing’ Fine

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Yo La Tengo – Upside Down

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Magnetic Fields – Sad Little Moon

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So, like many of the intermediaries in the music industry, I think I’ve established that my feelings about record shops can be a little mixed.  The question of record shops is, of course, a little silly.  It’s like asking whether or not we should try and preserve music festivals, with the obvious answer being: ‘well yeah, but not the shit ones’.

Part 1: Record Shops – The Bad News
Part 2: Record Shops – The Good News
Part 3: Record Store Day

But, wondering about the future of record shops aside, I wouldn’t have even thought to question Record Store Day itself, had it not been for a couple of interesting posts querying it recently.  Friends of mine Knox Road wrote a piece recently being critical of the distribution methods used and, more interestingly from my perspective, the sudden inflation of exclusivity culture. Read the rest of this entry »

This album is bloody ace.  I don’t know what it is with me at the moment, but I seem to be suffering from an epidemic of genuine enthusiasm for one album after another, and it’s been great!

This is another gem from Endless Nest, somewhere I have, spent far, far too much money on records, and somewhere I strongly recommend you explore as soon as you get the chance.

Initially what drew me into this was the gleeful, incoherent wail of songs like Summer of Love and Lightfoot, but by now I think I’ve grown to love the macabre warning of Heaviest Head in the West even more.

There’s something just so over the top about some of this.  That melodramatic, indecipherable wail  is a large part of it, and part of what turns a fascination with old-fashioned girl group music from borderline pastiche into something joyously individual.  The rest of this job is done by the sheer wonkiness of it.

There’s a slight dischord in the piano rhythm occasionally, an electric guitar which gets a bit too snarly there, and always that vocal, as if you were watching a programme on music history in the middle of one of those dreams where something is right in front of you but you can’t quite reach it for some reason.  It’s as if Ulysses’ sirens were actually from some non-specific period of American apple pie and cotton candy nostalgic reverie*.  It’s creepy and eerie in some sense, but despite the inner warnings you can help but disbelieve any misgivings that it is anything other than innocent.

It’s a shame I can’t really make out the lyrics at all, but in many ways it doesn’t really matter.  The slow, gorgeous jangle of guitar and jumps from playful to mournful deliver a record which, for all it has a couple of slightly stodgy tracks, is still one of the most lively, enjoyable things I’ve heard in ages.

The Sandwitches – Summer of Love

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The Sandwitches – Heaviest Head in the West

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*O Brother, Where Art Thou for 1964, perhaps.

British Sea Power playing an in-store in Avalanche Records, Edinburgh

With the amount of vinyl I buy you’d think I’d be an evangelical supporter of record shops, wouldn’t you, and heartily looking forward to Record Store Day 2011. But I’m kind of swithering for some reason, and I think it’s one of these things which merits a bit more discussion than just Awesome! Record shops! Vinyl! Special editions! Yay!

Firstly some caveats, because I might come across as being against both record shops and Record Store Day for the next little while, and I guarantee you I am not. I love record shops and I think that a day reminding us all that yet another crucial part of the independent music infrastructure is a great thing. Not least because we human beings have a rather irritating habit of only realising that we miss something until its gone.

Part 1: Record Shops – The Bad News
Part 2: Record Shops – The Good News
Part 3: Record Store Day

So, to pick up where I left off in Part 1, from the perspective of someone who loves records, there are definitely some things I think do make me want to spend time and money in shops.  I will repeat that I am not so silly as to think that what floats my boat about a place will do the same for everyone else, but that’s what the comments section is for.

In many ways a shop’s biggest disadvantage is probably also it’s biggest advantage: it’s not global, unlike the internet, and it can’t stock everything, unlike the internet.  So if you turn those two things on their heads, what defines a record shop could perhaps be seen as where it is and what it chooses to stock.  Location and curation*. Read the rest of this entry »