Poor old DanDanDan probably thought I’d either ignored their email or hated their music, when in actual fact I was just being a disorganised twat buried under a pile of promo submissions.  Because I like this.  Not all of it, but there’s some really great stuff on this album, and when it’s really good it is pretty fucking awesome.

Originally formed in Edinburgh, two of the band are now resident in Manchester, and there’s a lot of the Fall/John Cooper Clarke era Manchester indie in the sound.  They remind me a little of the excellent Monster Island, although less firmly rooted in that particular sound.

Instead, DanDanDan have that sort of thing at one end of their spectrum, and full-on howling rage at the other, with a little bit of nineties U.S. indie guitar rock thrown in for shits and giggles.  There are times when the melodies get a little lost in the mess, but mess in general is good for me, and generally these guys wield it really, really well.

This opens really strongly, with the brilliant riff of Match of the Day Background Music, and just as my expectations of melodic-yet-nasty garage rock settle in they are enthusiastically kicked in the nuts and told to pull their heads of their arses.

The EP then lurches into that slightly Fallesque territory I mentioned earlier, before fucking off in a rather different direction on Everything’s Just Peachy, one of the EP’s more epic tracks, and following into the far briefer Sexual Freedom of Cats.  I don’t personally have enough familiarity with the reference points here to give you particularly great comparisons, but there is tuneless screeching, indecipherable lyrics and all sorts of guitar battering all going on at once, and it’s… well, it’s bloody good actually.

It took me a while to get into, I have to confess, I think because the first song repeatedly skewed my expectations of the EP, no matter how aware I was of what was going to happen.  By the time I managed to adjust my relationship with Happy Happy Joy Joy to the point where it depended more on the rest of the songs than the first, I began to really enjoy it. Nice work lads.

DanDanDan – Match of the Day Background Music

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DanDanDan – The Sexual Freedom of Cats

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Most live scenes tend to peter out a little from late June/early July onwards as the Festival season starts to cannibalise what remains of the audience after the students have gone home, and people tend to take what little chance they get to be outside in the sun, if it ever appears, rather than in a sweaty basement listening to pale young men complaining about their feelings.

The Edinburgh live scene, on the other hand, tends not to be as dependent on students, not to have to fear too much from oft promised but never delivered good weather, but nevertheless to peter out for a different reason: the lumbering behemoth that is the Edinburgh Festival.

Now I don’t hate the Festival as much as a lot of locals, but I am nevertheless a little ambivalent.  Yes it’s awesome, yes it brings all sorts of cool stuff to the city for a month, but there are obviously some drawbacks.

Firstly, the practical.  If you are ever trying to get anything done in August, it’s a fucking nightmare.  People and shit everywhere, and everyone making the smug plea of those with nothing pressing to get done: ‘Just chill out man, it’s the festival dude, we’re on vaykayshun, relaaaax!’  No. It is Tuesday, and I have shit to do.  Get the fuck out of my way before I make you massively grateful for the Communist oppression of a functioning National Health Service.

Secondly, local music really does just have to stop.  There is no point a Scottish label or band releasing anything in August, as the local press simply haven’t a sliver of column space to devote to it.  Also, gigs tend to stop as well, because the Edge Festival won’t let any local bands they book play at all, anywhere else in August, venues are near-impossible to come by, local fans often turn their eyes and wallets to the more exotic imports and advertising against the maelstrom of confetti generated by the Festival is basically impossible.

Did I mention that I’m putting on four gigs at the Electric Circus in August?  What a dick.

Anyhow, Acoustic Edinburgh and The Retreat Festival have been brilliant over the last few years, and Electric Circus are following their lead this year: booking lots of local stuff and offering amazingly good deals on drinks too, so we can all afford to actually go.

This week, however, due to what I assume is pre-Festival wind-down, there is really not that much, except for the ever-reliable awesomeness of The Ides of Toad.  Yes, really, for once I am not joking.

Tuesday 12th July 2011: Out of the Bedroom at the Montague Bar.

Of the (admittedly relatively few) open mics I’ve attended in Edinburgh, Out of the Bedroom has been my favourite, and this week Lach will be playing.  Lach is the man who invented Antifolk and whose Antihoot open stage in New York launched the careers of the like of Beck, Jeffrey Lewis and Kimya Dawson.  He is moving to Edinburgh and releasing an album with us in a week or so (which should absolutely delight some people).

Lach – Stunned

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Thursday 14th July 2011: Papi Falso at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

This isn’t a gig, and I’m not sure I could even call it a club night really, more a late night drinking opportunity where some distinctly odd and distinctly excellent people will play distinctly odd and distinctly excellent music.  I wanted a night like this all through my twenties and have had to wait until I am thirty fucking five to actually find it.

Friday 15th July 2011: The Deadly Winters, Plastic Animals & The Oates Field at The Electric Circus.

Since Tallah and JP took over the booking at the Electric Circus they have really started to book some good stuff, including Live Lounge, which seems to be a lineup of good live music every Friday.  I don’t know the Deadly Winters, I have to confess, but the other two bands are very good indeed.

The Oates Field – Nae Luck (Jonnie Common’s Deskjob version)

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Saturday 16th July 2011: The Ides of Toad present Jesus H. Foxx, The Second Hand Marching Band and Pet at The Wee Red Bar.

Jesus H. Foxx have finished their album!  Yes, finished their fucking album, I kid you not!  This means that they will be out and about playing an awful lot more from now on, and that singles will be starting to appear in the Autumn.  Get in!  It sounds fucking great, too.  Add to this the beast that is The Second Hand Marching Band, and brand new Edinburgh popsters Pet and we have a great wee lineup for you.  Better get down early though, because there’s so many musicians in these bloody bands that they could end up pretty much filling the venue by themselves!

The Second Hand Marching Band – Paper Year (Demo)

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 The Raincast is so called because we have had three days of sporadic, but at times absolutely torrential rain here in Edinburgh this week.  The leak in our ceiling has sprung back into action with some vigour, although this time it manifested itself in a manner which didn’t ruin all sorts of my vinyl, which was generous of it.  We really must get that looked at before the whole bloody ceiling comes crashing down.

The rest of my day will be spent sticking things into envelopes to publicise the Lach release, which is really, really soon, as well as the new album by Trips and Falls, which isn’t out until the end of September.  I will be back on the gocco printer hand printing the artwork for that one though, which isn’t something I’ve done for a while, so rather looking forward to it.

Anyhow, in the meantime, have a wee listen to this. It’s an interesting mix this week, from the utterly obscure, to the borderline famous, to the might almost have been nearly famous five years ago, but not really likely to crack it now.  And then Radiohead. Yes, I’ve finally listened to King of Limbs.  At last.

Direct download: Toadcast #182 – The Raincast

01. Barry Adamson – Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis (00.29)
02. DanDanDan – Match of the Day Background Music (08.47)
03. Anna-Anna – Mirrors of America (13.17)
04. Clem Snide – Ice Cube (21.56)
05. Lambchop – Up With People (24.29)
06. Public Dims – Lorimer (31.09)
07. Rollor – Energies are Dead in the Mind Constellation (40.17)
08. Camera Phone – Artifacts (43.44)
09. Radiohead – Lotus Flower (50.55)
10. I Like Trains – Sirens (Remix) (57.19)

 News International (I do not need to tell you) is one of the most repellent organisations in the world, but this whole business might just end up working out to their advantage, in a twist of supremely Machiavellian achievement.

NI decided to close the News of the World a long time ago, as you can see from this Guardian article detailing the plans being set in place to deal with its disappearance, dating from weeks ago. The sunonsunday.com URL was registered before any of this even kicked off.

As much of a right wing, darkie-hating, shit stain of a wank rag that the NotW has always been, this might turn out to be a masterstroke by the Murdoch empire. They have been caught out in some of the most disgraceful acts of both illegality and moral offence in the history of the press, and they have managed to actually turn it to their advantage.

They close the NotW to show how serious they are about this sort of legal transgression, they reduce their market share of the UK press, and as a result they might just manage to persuade people that they are neither a monopoly concern, nor a dangerous blight on political discourse, and in doing so secure the kind of domination over the UK press and hence UK political debate which could turn us into the next United States – forever having to pander to the latest reactionary retard wheeled out on Fox News to agitate the bigots and the racists.

Because let’s face it, NI are not weakened by this event, they are consolidated. The Sun and the NotW basically catered to the same market: ignorant, unpleasant, narrow-minded racists. Closing one just strengthens the other, but if this PR stunt enables the BSkyB takeover to take place we will still be faced with one of the most conservative, racist, morally repellent organisations in the modern world owning a scarily large chunk of UK media.

Day-to-day journalists have all been fired (although given they work for the NotW in the first place I have no fucking sympathy), but the people who actually engineered and implemented all the craven, corrupt and utterly illegal actions we’ve learned about recently will all continue to work within Murdoch’s empire of sleaze.

In other words, what was potentially one of the greatest PR disasters in corporate history might just end up being turned into the kind of publicity stunt which turns the British media into a shameful mirror of the hatred, bigotry, and outright lies which is Fox News, by consolidating the power of a group of people who treat the world like their own fucking puppet show and care for nothing but insulating their own twisted version of reality to the point where a writer of dystopian science fiction simply couldn’t make this shit up.

Anyway, and breathe…

Here are your five questions for this week.

1. Your number one news media hate figure.
2. Compare someone in the news to a movie or cartoon villain.
3. Whose phone would you hack if you could?
4. Cameron and Murdoch is a predictable terrible twosome.  Pick a less predictable one.
5. What will your lunch be today?

This week’s five songs are from a tape called ‘Cheerful Choons, Innit’ which I found in the van recently.  I was living in Cambridge at the time, which was home to a surprising number of mockneys, hence the title.

Clem Snide – Ice Cube

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Lambchop – Up With People

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Eels – Jungle Telegraph

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The Pernice Brothers – Shaken

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Barry Adamson – Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis (with Jarvis Cocker)

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Right, this is the last of this week’s spam, I absolutely promise.  I am caught up now anyway, so there’ll no need to keep bombarding you with stuff after this.

Anyhow, what you see above is the most eye-meltingly gorgeous thing we’ve released to date: a clear, colour-streaked 10″ vinyl record of Surrender to Summer by The Japanese War Effort.  It even comes with a packet of the custom made rock sweets you see photographed there on the cover, as well as a free download of the EP itself and a fully remixed version, with reworkings by the likes of Jonnie Common, Fox Gut Daata, Tennis Shoes, Fieldhead and FOUND.

It’s only eight quid plus shipping, and an absolute fucking bargain at that price.  If you don’t like this then you probably just don’t like life very much, and I pity you. Buy it here.

Summer Sun Skateboard by Song, by Toad

When I posted this on my Tumblr site the other day I simply added the following comment: “The band sound a bit like they’ve had a stroke, but I like it.”  That rather glib remark was made having only listened to the song in the video above, but its conclusion remains pretty much valid even after having heard the whole of Vent Somewhere Else, an EP which you can download for free from their Bandcamp page.

With the exception of the absolutely brilliant Crystal Swells, this might be the closest to completely unravelling of all the lo-fi stuff I’ve been so into recently.  It’s not quite as ear-meltingly ace as Goethe Head Soup, I have to confess, and at times doesn’t quite manage to keep its head above the general sludge of de-tuned noise, but there are nevertheless some great things going on here.

The EP starts out as woozy blues and slides into rock ‘n’ roll before almost petering out altogether in the narcotic stupor of Suave’s Next Door. Lorimer just about wakes it up again, but the descending guitar progression in that song still sounds much like the fading of the light as you gradually drift into an alcoholic coma.  Or like trying to talk when you’re absolutely hammered and only managing a mumbled slur, no matter how hard you try and focus.

As long as, on future recordings, they can pierce the general fug created by their actual recording style with enough nimbleness then I reckon this lot could turn out to be a pretty bloody promising band.

Public Dims – Head Cold Letters

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 For a band who sound so heavily indebted to Black Tambourine to call themselves The Black Tambourines is a slightly baffling move, I have to confess. Is it a tribute, or just an accident?  Either way, it doesn’t really matter, because this lot are good whatever you call them – even though they have been featured in the NME.

For all this is quite surfy garage pop with a heavy slacker bent, there is actually a bit of Edwyn Collins about some of the vocals, and even a tiny smidge of that stylised croon of the New Romantics – maybe a cross between that and the lazy drawl of the classic indie era.

In general, though, what you get here is what you get a lot on this site at the moment, which is a bunch of relatively straightforward pop songs drenched in reverb and with all sorts of muck in the guitar sound.  And because the pop songs are good and hummable, it works really well.

They have a couple of freely downloadable EPs available from their Soundcloud page, and a split 7″ with a band called New Year’s Evil which is available here.

Personally, I think I prefer the Hombre EP, the second of the two.  I’m not sure why, but I think it just feels like like just an upwelling of rawness energy and perhaps a little more controlled… maybe a little more focussed, perhaps.  Generally my taste would go the other way, but in this case these guys seem like a band who are starting to properly find their voice.  Very promising.

The Black Tambourines – I Don’t Wanna Be Yr Lover
(from self-titled EP)

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The Black Tambourines – Who You Talkin’ To?
(from Hombre EP)

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The Black Tambourines on.. Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Facebook | Blogger

 Well, as you all know I try and avoid spamming you with label stuff during the week – generally leaving that to Sunday if at all possible – but this week you are going to get spammed off your tits, sorry.  I blame the fact that we have just been on holiday for a fortnight, so I am horribly behind with pretty much everything as a result.

Meursault Waiting Room Session.  So, first up, whilst on their recent tour with Sparrow & the Workshop, Meursault dropped in to see DC from The Waiting Room.

They recorded an interview and recorded something like six songs for the show, all with the tour lineup of two electric guitars, bass and drums – basically, the garage rock version of Meursault.  Both the interview and the recordings themselves have turned out amazing well, and the lads said they had a great time in Cardiff and were incredibly well looked after by DC and The Woman of the House, so we owe them both a very big thank you.

You can listen to the session below, and to The Waiting Room’s archive shows here.

Me on the BBC. If you have a Twitter or Facebook account then there is absolutely hee-haw chance you aren’t sick of hearing about this by now, but yesterday on BBC2 Scotland there was a one-hour documentary about the Scottish bands at this year’s SXSW festival.

As you know, Mrs. Toad and I were along as well, and on the Sunday after the madness subsided I recorded a podcast with Vic Galloway, Peej from Dear Scotland and Stuart from Creative Scotland.  The BBC crew happened to film this, and that footage pretty much filled up most of the last ten minutes of the documentary.  That may not sound like much, but believe me, ten minutes of screen time is actually fucking ages.

Anyone who missed it can see it again on the BBC iPlayer here, and I absolutely promise you that the strong language warning on that page is NOTHING TO DO WITH ME WHATSOEVER!

 Well, it may tail off a little, and I think I’d probably say the album as a whole is just a little too long, but there is some absolutely blinding stuff on this record.

Even those of you entirely used to how long I can sit on albums before getting on with it and finally bloody reviewing them will be impressed at just how long it’s take me to get my shit together and write this. I can’t put a number to it, but the term ‘fucking ages’ pretty much covers it.

Anyhow, what are we listening to here?  Well, it’s basically some straightforward singer/songwritery stuff, augmented with a relatively simple band as and when required.  Even when the songs incorporate piano, strings and horns they still retain the knack of sounding incredibly simply arranged, which is a really nice touch.

The songs are touchingly personal.  Two of my favourites are He Once Was a Friend of Mine, which is rather brutally literal (I assume), and the slightly more enigmatic Miles Away. Lyrically, though, there is little artifice here, and the songs are more or less the stories you could imagine Miles telling you quite late at night when you are both tired and feeling a bit morose.

I think the reason it took me so long to get into this album was that all the lo-fi garagey stuff I am into at the moment has kind of caused me to unintentionally tune out this sort of acoustic music to some extent.  This kind of happens I suppose.  For the previous few years my ear for loud guitar music kind of atrophied as well, but it does mean I was in danger of skipping over this record a little too quickly.

This would have been dumb, because for all the second half of the album doesn’t entirely match the engaging charm and pathos of the first, in my opinion at least, it is still really lovely stuff, and a fine piece of work in general.

Jarad Miles – He Once Was a Friend of Mine

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Jarad Miles – Miles Away

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Bandcamp (buy here)

Well well, this sounds rather good.  I heard about Pet because Matthew who plays guitar in the band also records as Zed Penguin, who are something of a baffling, confrontational Toad favourite at the moment, making the kind of distortion and reverb-soaked guitar music which has more than a few people putting their fingers in their ears, and me cackling with glee.

Pet, however, are an entirely different proposition altogether.  This is dreamy guitar pop music – perhaps a bit quirky and certainly not entirely straightforward, but pop music nevertheless. And very good pop music too.

The actual song What You Building? is not exactly slap-in-your-face stuff for a single, but the way the vocalists interact, the lazy guitar lines and shimmers of keyboard give this single a really fantastic sense of space.  Second song, Magnetic, is a lot more urgent and pacy, and then What You Re-building? a dreamier-still instrumental reworking of the title track.  There may only be three songs here, but this is a really good introduction to a band I knew next to nothing about.

For those of you (like me) who are now very keen to hear them play, to see how this translates as live music, you can catch them at the next Ides of Toad night on Saturday 16th July, at the Wee Red Bar, with Jesus H. Foxx (whose album is finally, finally finished!) and The Second Hand Marching Band. Tickets here or in Avalanche on the Grassmarket. But before that, follow Pet’s Bandcamp link to pick up a copy of this rather excellent single.