Yep, we are off to the Independent Label Market in London this weekend, hoping to get the nation’s movers, shakers and insufferable hipsters to part with their hard earned cash in exchange for Song, by Toad trinkets, and in doing so nudge a step or two closer to that yacht in the Bahamas with which the release and sale of records has thus far signally failed to provide me.

It can surely only be a matter of time, however, as we begin to firm up our plans for next year. Things are taking shape nicely, and we have some very fine releases in the pipeline.  Being a record label is a bit like being a greedy child though; your eyes really do get a little bigger than your stomach.  If we were to release everything I want to release, then we’d need staff, heads of department, visitors’ parking and an absolute shitload more cash than we have, so we’ll have to pass on all sorts of things I would love to do. Nevertheless, the things we definitely are doing are fucking belting. You are going to enjoy yourselves.

Anyhow, for those not trotting down to London to spend far too much money on records, the fantastic Sssh! Festival is taking place in Glasgow this weekend.  Toad Records bands Yusuf Azak and Meursault are playing, as well as other Toad favourites like Woodpecker Wooliams, RM Hubbert and Rick Redbeard (whose new album is fucking awesome, incidentally). The details are all here, and I strongly recommend you go along.

Anyhow, as I drive South with Toad beer and Toad cupcakes (oh, and some records too) why not join Mrs. Toad in talking utter pish on the internet for a bit. She’ll thank you for the entertainment I think, as the other option will be to listen to me talk all the way to London, and frankly no-one wants to have to put up with that, do they.

1. When did you spend the most ill-advised amount of money on music?
2. Silliest merch idea you’ve seen.
3. Favourite band t-shirt.
4. Favourite music you’ve spent way too much money on but don’t regret at all.
5. Next musical purchase you’re eyeing up.

Winter has been slow to arrive this year, but it certainly feels like it’s here now. The last few days have been pretty cold, but more importantly when you live this far North, it’s getting fucking dark. It’s not something I dislike, actually.  We may not get much real cold in Edinburgh, nor indeed very much which anyone else would describe as Summer, but Edinburgh is at a surprisingly high latitude and during the Winter months it really is dark around these parts.

So there I was sitting at my desk at four in the afternoon and it was already really rather fucking dingy outside, and in the absence of an obvious theme it seemed about as relevant as anything else I could have come up with.  And let’s face it, without that this is just a mish mash of new stuff which has been piling into my inbox over the last little while, and where’s the fun in that, eh? Well? Where?

Direct download: Toadcast #251 – The Darkcast

Subscribe to the Toadcasts on iTunes

Subscribe to the Toadcasts onMixcloud

01. Temples – Shelter Song (00.21)
02. Eels – Peach Blossom (06.54)
03. PVT – Shiver (13.01)
04. Milk and Biscuits – White Noise (16.49)
05. Murals – Eyes of Loves (24.32)
06. Lady Lazarus – Lapsarian (31.44)
07. Garden of Elks – This Morning We Are Astronauts (38.47)
08. Palms – Cold (41.07)
09. These Brittle Bones – Anchor Bleed (48.11)
10. Qurious – Gold (55.16)

This is a new song from my old nemesis, Veronica Falls.  Nemesis, you ask? Well yes, this band, as far as I am aware, used to be Sexy Kids, the poster child for the ‘holy shit you don’t want to Google that band name’ generation. Right up there with Young Girls. Veronica Falls is definitely not as snappy, but I am still glad they changed it.

So they’ve made themselves a little more family friendly, and the tunes are still good.  It doesn’t, I have to confess, excite me very much though. There’s a charming retroism to it, sitting in that sort of zone where the tail end of C86 indie turned into Britpop, and that might be why I am not as enthusiastic as I might be.

I can’t and won’t criticise a band for being backward-facing of course, because that would be pure hypocrisy.  My personal flavour of choice when it comes to modern retroism is obviously enough the bands who love early nineties US indie.  But then, that is music I barely listened to at all at the time, so for me it is pretty much new and I am having as much fun going back to enjoy the originals as I am exploring the current offshoots.  So I don’t know if it’s the case that I am just not that smitten by the hummability of Veronica Falls’ actual songs, or if my greater familiarity with the music from which they draw their inspiration means I am inevitably less thrilled by its revival.

Maybe retaining the ability to be excited by music you’ve kinda heard before is the most important aspect to maintaining a lively interest in new music as you get older. Revivalism tends to move in twenty year cycles, hence the 70s revival when I was at university in the 90s, the 80s revival throughout my twenties, and of course the current fascination with the early nineties today.  Consequently, once we ourselves hit our early thirties, musical fashions are almost certainly going to start dallying with music we listened to in our early teens, and I guess a lot of people struggle to be all that bothered the second time around.

Growing up I wasn’t exposed to all that much good music beyond the old stuff in my parents’ music collections.  Austria was a pretty isolated place back then in that respect, so I guess I have been insulated to a degree.  But I moved to the UK in 1993, so from now on the stuff being rehashed by fresh-faced young bands is increasingly likely to be stuff which I know very, very well indeed, and I genuinely wonder how I will take it.  Will I be able to retain my enthusiasm, or will I turn into one of those cantankerous old curmudgeons endlessly harping on about pop music all sounding the same these days.

‘Hey, wait a moment, isn’t that that hairy cunt from Bronto?’

Thus went my thought process when I saw this video for the first time.  And yes, they hirsute gentleman in the video – the tall one doing a lot of singing – is indeed the fellow the popular press refers to as ‘that hairy cunt from Bronto Skylift‘. Niall, I think his mother calls him.  But you never know.

I’ve criticised the Scottish music scene for failing to throw up all that many good, rough, raucous guitar bands in the last few years, particularly given how many great ones were appearing in Manchester and on the South Coast.  And it’s taken a while, but there are definitely a few really good ones around these days.  Dolfinz and Paws you know about already, and Min Diesel and North American War have also been favourably discussed on these pages before.

Now this lot, calling themselves Garden of Elks (and including that hairy cunt from Bronto), have released a song out into the wilds of the internet and I have to say, it sounds very promising.  I’ve heard one more tune than the one they have released and that too was awesome: twitching and raucous. Who knows if they’ll be any good in the long run, but they have the pedigree (did I mention that the hairy cunt is that one from Bronto?) and the two tunes they’ve recorded so far are cracking. So I recommend you do as I do: keep an eye on their Soundcloud page and see what develops.

 Two songs on one 7″ single does not a great band, but I reckon these tunes, by really quite new Kettering band Temples, are easily good enough to start bandying terms like ‘highly promising’ and ‘great potential’ and, even more excitingly, ‘watch this space’ about the place.

And fuck it, why not, these two tunes are cracking.  The only problem is that they tend to lead me into conversations which almost invariably involve people saying things like ‘psyche-rock is back’ (hooray) and ‘just look at Tame Impala’ (boo – they really are fucking shit).

Having just started to explore the awesome Nuggets compilation (I know, where the fuck have I been, etc..) and started to pick out all sorts of fascinating vinyl retrospective compilations, like the brilliant Michigan Meltdown which I found in Action Records in Preston, as well as getting hold of recent reissues by The Zombies and Thirteenth Floor Elevators in Voxbox round the corner… it turns out I really, really like psychedelic rock.

And is it back? I don’t know, but Toy seemed to have a fair bit of psyche mixed in with their Britpop, and bands like The Murals are doing pretty well, and Lil Daggers and The Underground Youth are pretty psyche – and they just released an awesome split 7″ on none other than the *cough cough* incredible Song, by Toad Records!

So, whatever, you’ve all heard my caveats about not being able to tell too much about a band from two songs plenty of times before, but without getting too carried away, I think this is pretty awesome actually and I am rather looking forward to hearing more.  And I am definitely getting hold of a copy of the 7″ at the Independent Label Market this weekend.

This EP will be launched at the Song, by Toad Records Christmas Party on the 7th December, with the first ever full band performance by Glasgow’s King Post Kitsch, over a year and a half since we released the band’s debut album in May last year.

Since then Charlie has moved up to Glasgow, back to London and back to Glasgow again trying to settle on somewhere to dig his heels in, form a cohesive band, and get out and about playing his stuff. Normally a prolific songwriter, this has delayed his recording too, as he didn’t want to put out anything new until he had a band to support it, and Repulsive Sunsets feels a bit like it marks the band’s official release into the wild.

So, at the Christmas Party, held in Edinburgh’s gorgeous Summerhall we will finally get to see King Post Kitsch perform live for the first time – something I am personally so pleased about I am even going to give a free copy of the EP to the first fifty people who come through the door, along with a bottle of limited edition Toad Beer (the beer won’t be free, it will just be awesome). However, if you can’t make it to Summerhall or, just as importantly, can’t make it there punctually, you can always pick up a copy of this wee pop gem (with just a little added bite!) right here.

Happy Christmas!

King DJ is the solo project of a certain Mark from Brown Brogues, although I get the impression calling it a project might be slightly over-stating the level of seriousness with which this stuff is treated.

Not that it’s throwaway or anything, more that having asked him about it, Mark himself replied that it is simply something which he keeps tucked away on the sidelines that he can work on with no pressure, no goals and without the practical restrictions of writing for a guitar-and-drums two-piece. King DJ is something which is intended to work as well either performed solo or with a full band.

Listening to U Gon And Dun It, the second song on this single, available either digitally or on cassette from Haus of Pins, it’s hard to see exactly what is happening beyond the very simple structure mentioned before, although Hold Me Down is definitely denser and fuller than you’d expect from a Brown Brogues tune. They have a sort of dirty malevolence to them, where as Brown Brogues tend to come with a more raucous clatter, and you can definitely hear both the kinship and the differences when listening to these tunes.

I don’t mean to sound like I am putting pressure on a project designed to alleviate it, but I definitely reckon there is some mileage to be had here.  It’s related, clearly, but also obviously different to Brown Brogues’ stuff and I really do reckon it bears a bit more exploring.  Dirty, nasty and awesome.

 So, I’m back from Preston safe and sound, and looking forward to a wee jaunt to London for the Independent Label Market this weekend. It’s all go, here at Toad Hall.

Personally, I am not going to be in Edinburgh that much at all this week, and am popping through to Glasgow to see Sparrow and the Workshop at Nice ‘n’ Sleazy on Wednesday

Also, as Christmas approaches, and everycunt (yes, including Song, by Toad Records) seems to be arranging a Christmas party these days, I think calendars are about to start getting pretty full pretty quickly. This week is still a relatively relaxed affair, however, although the first of the Christmas Parties does show itself, with the awesome Papi Falso happening at Henry’s on Saturday.

As for gigs, however, well there’s a few knocking about. Chad Valley may be a bit too house for me, but I bet there are a good few of you out there pleased to know he’s playing at Sneaky Pete’s tomorrow night.

Again, it’s not my bag, but Tift Merritt (tonight) and Karine Polwart (Friday) are both at the Queen’s Hall this week, although they are perhaps respectively a touch country and a touch trad folk for my taste.

We have the Cancel the Astronauts album launch party at the Electric Circus on Friday, if you’re after a pure indiepop fix, and then two nights of raucous fun at the Wee Red Bar on the weekend. First up, on Saturday there is a four-band bill of Some Skeletons, A Fight You Can’t Win, Black International and Birdhead, and then on Sunday the Lovely Eggs are back in Edinburgh.

 If there is one joke which is wearing irritatingly thin for me at the moment (apart from the recent development of all sorts of fucking idiots reworking Gangnam Style and in doing so making me despise them with a fucking passion) it is the tedious and seemingly endless number of people filling the tat shops of the UK with ‘humourous’ variations on the Keep Calm and Carry On poster.

This particular loathing caught me by surprise, actually. Let’s face it, it’s a brilliant poster, and the slogan so perfectly summarises the British psyche, as well as a healthy dose of nostaligia and aspiration. Graphically it’s fantastic as well.  Simple layout, good font choice, not too fussy, plenty of impact.  I can easily see the temptation to try and join in.

The thing is, they are all terrible.  All of them. Particularly given the part of town in which I live – one riddled with shops selling over-priced, twee and fucking pointless rubbish – I have seen hundreds and hundreds of these fucking things and not one single one of them has been remotely funny.

I don’t know why, either.  Maybe the phrasing of the original was too perfect.  Either way after an initial failure to chuckle, I have slowly become more and more irritated by these endless attempts to appropriate something cool, despite the consistent, abject failure to do so with any success. Now they irritate me like lemon juice on an open wound.  It’s all so woefully lacking in originality – there are millions of these things out there – and all of them are crap, too.

Just give it up people. It is NEVER, EVER GOING TO BE FUCKING FUNNY.

Anyway, I will be spending this afternoon hating stupid slogan-ridden tea towels, arranging courier services, and mostly wasting my time on the internet.  Join me.

1. What is the lamest ongoing attempt at a joke you’ve seen?
2. Keep Calm and…
3. Something from stupid tat shops which annoys the fuck out of you.
4. How much of your Christmas shopping is real presents and how much just some token shit from tat shops?
5. Actually, come to think of it, have you even started Christmas shopping yet? My birthday is over now so, y’know, you’re allowed.

[Yes, Mrs. Toad is at it again.  We have a couple of Christmas parties and our New Year's House Gig looming and I think she felt the need to mentally prepare herself by writing this out.  Good luck, people, you're on your own with this one.]

As we approach the Yuletide season at the usual frightening pace, I thought it might be worth re-visiting the art of feeding fuckwits in the context of a Toad house party.

Now clearly, I can’t aspire to the party planning heights achieved by Miss Pippa Middleton, the celebratory doyenne, albeit one whose bon mots are most easily recalled to mind by thinking of the word “arse”. The words “placement”, “hors d’oevures” and “party favours” will not feature in my party guide and there’s hee-haw chance of £400,000 coming my way.  However, I have hosted a few parties over the years and am generally held to put on a good spread, so here’s my approach to party planning.