Slow Down, Molasses are from Saskatoon, which is apparently a thriving town, but to my mind is for some reason just marginally more glamorous than Cumbernauld, but I am open to being corrected by anyone who actually knows.

We’re putting them on at Henry’s in Edinburgh next week, so I really shouldn’t have come to see them here as well, but umm… well, I didn’t have any better plans before my label panel and I happened to meet Tyson from the band the night before in London as well, so why the fuck not.

Anyway, they were excellent, so without wishing to be too much of a used car salesman, I strongly recommend you come to the gig next week.  And if you don’t live in Edinburgh, they’re touring the UK at the moment, so have a look and see if you can go and see them, because I recommend you do.

With three guitarists, two drummers and a keyboard player they can make a right racket when they’re in the mood. For all their songs have a sort of characteristic ‘Canadian alternative music’ vibe (and don’t worry, I honestly don’t know what that means either, but you’ll know what I mean if you see them play) but they build to rather splendidly epic crescendos.  Not all that proggy per se, but is nevertheless quite euphoric in a sense.

As much as the percussion is great, and the drummer and the keyboard player look like they are having The Most Fun Ever, I think the guitars draw me to this band the most.  They interact really well, and alternate between subtle, dreamy effects, and thumping away like bastards as the songs build and build.  Nice.  Sometimes you take a chance putting a band on, not knowing that much about them, and that’s kind of what I did here.  Seems to have been a really rather excellent decision.  Well done me!

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 I’ve heard bands complain about Glasgow crowds in the past.  In much the same way Glasgow bands tend to find Edinburgh audiences eerily quiet, a lot of Edinburgh bands can find gig-goers in Glasgow inattentive, particularly when the music in question is quiet.

Well, if you want quiet, brittle music, you won’t find much that is more so than Josh T. Pearson or Perfume Genius.  I have seen both in Glasgow in the last year and with both performers the audiences have been absolutely, completely and utterly silent, absolutely in thrall to the fragile music being played for them.

It can be a difficult thing, I assume, playing intense songs with quite difficult, personal subject matter to an audience of strangers.  One of my friends at the Perfume Genius gig at the Captain’s Rest said that she kind of wished he had played alone, instead of with a couple of extra players to add some minimal backing.  I can see what she means, but that would of course mean stripping away what little remains of the cushion between performer and audience, and whilst I can imagine that would make for a captivating show, I am not sure I could really ask any musician to open themselves up that much that regularly for the purposes of my entertainment.

As it is, you can tell Mike Hadreas is not at his most comfortable on stage.  His performance is absolutely excellent, but his one attempt to chat with the crowd showed that it wasn’t something that came all that naturally. It might have been a feeble attempt at chat, strictly speaking, but it was honest and without artifice, so however meagre, it still helped us connect with Hadreas as a performer a little better.

That was a relief, because given he was sitting down to play the piano at a venue with a very low stage, it was actually quite difficult to get much feel for him as a person.  Unless you were right up the front you really couldn’t see him at all, so the night felt just a little bit like a bunch of people standing in a crowded room to listen to the same record.

A little paradoxically, one of the other strange things to contend with was the very existence of performers playing the music.  Given how ethereal and elusive the Perfume Genius albums are, it seemed almost shocking to see three normal guys there in front of us playing, as if it were entirely unremarkable for them to be doing so.  And the Captain’s Rest seemed like an odd place for this all to be happening.  I can imagine the band playing an intimate house gig or in some stunning old edifice in Edinburgh for example, but a run of the mill, workaday gig venue in Glasgow just seemed a little incongruous.  Too normal, somehow.

And having said all that, you’d think I wasn’t that into the gig wouldn’t you, but that’s really not the case.  I really noticed these odd little things, but in general it was a cracking show.  The band may have numbered only three but they fleshed out the songs beautifully, and their restraint was a pleasure to witness; never trampling over songs which need air to breathe and silence to break.

I can easily imagine this being difficult music to translate to a live setting actually, but in this case it was gorgeous.  Perhaps less icy and mysterious than on record, but that was replaced by a warmth which I will confess I hadn’t quite seen there before.

Perfume Genius – Lookout, Lookout

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Perfume Genius – All Waters

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I struggle enough to put on gigs in a venue with a PA, a professional sound engineer and a bartender, so I am nothing short of in awe of the kind of madness it would take to put on a whole festival.  That’s just what my pal Baz has done though.  Most of the time he puts on gigs in Wigan (and I complain about Edinburgh being a tough sell!) but last Summer he started The Imploding Inevitable Festival up in the Lake District.

The Lake District is one of the most beautiful parts of the UK, in my opinion, and I used to go up there quite a lot when I was living in Manchester.  I didn’t go last year, but I will be there in June this time around because I am DJing at the festival this year.  Don’t worry though, Toad heroes Jonnie Common, The Pictish Trail and Rob St. John will all be playing too, so you won’t just be stuck up a mountain with just me, my record collection and no way to escape.

The Imploding Inevitable also chimes nicely with my new policy of boycotting the tedious identikit festivals you tend to find once the attendance goes much into the thousands.  I just prefer these smaller ones, frankly.  And you can buy tickets here if you so choose, and so choose you bloody well should.

The Nightcast.  Yes, night.  I am recording this at about two in the morning for the simple reason that for all I aim to do these once a week, on the weekend, once again it has been just plain impossible to actually get the damn thing done on the weekend just gone, so here I am squeezing it into the ungodly hours of Tuesday night.

Well, Wednesday now.

And of course I am off to The Great Escape in the morning.  Actually, it already is the morning.  Oh all right then, by the time this is uploaded and ready to go and I can actually get some sleep, I think I might be due to get out of bed in two hours time.  Cock and balls.  I thought the night time was supposed to be a little more glamorous than this.

Direct download: Toadcast #225 – The Nightcast

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01. The Pictish Trail – Of Course You Exist (FOUND Remix) (00.26)
02. Plastic Animals – Ghosts (07.56)
03. Playlounge – Boner Hit (Keel Her cover) (15.24)
04. Yoofs – Love at 140 (18.17)
05. Dead Rat Orchestra – The Geshin & the Guga (23.15)
06. The See See – Fix Me Up (30.24)
07. Meursault – Flittin’ (36.26)
08. Woody Guthrie – So Long, it’s Been Good to Know You (40.37)
09. PAWS – Misled Youth (46.20)
10. Blank Canvas – Golden (53.53)
11. The Eighteenth Day of May – Cold Early Morning (59.04)

 I know it tends to happen a couple of times a year, when you suddenly stop and think ‘Christ, is it May already’ but umm… well, fuck, May?  Already?  How the hell did that happen?

It’s been an amazingly busy year so far, and recently I have had so much stuff going on even on the weekends – be it gigs, recording, trips to various events and so on, that even sticking to the podcast schedule has been an enormous challenge.

It’s odd to think that a lot of the things I am doing for the blog seem to get in the way of me actually writing it, but that is the case at the moment. Going down to The Great Escape this week, for example, is mostly blog-related in that I’m on a panel about new broadcasting models and podcasts, and another about running DIY record labels, but it is likely to play havoc with the posting on the site.

Also, blogging is itself changing as well.  A lot of the music chatter I find myself engaged in is finding an outlet on my Tumblr site and through Twitter as well, so suddenly my insistence that the entire internet agree with me about music is being spread across those two forms of social media, as well as Facebook, this site, the record label and the now-regular gigs we host.  And I don’t even make Spotify playlists yet, or use This is My Jam.  It means Song, by Toad is certainly changing, but I am buggered if I know what it is turning into.

I suppose it will always be little more than a slightly different incarnation of the same thing: me going on and on and on about music I like, so no real change, if you look at it sensibly.  But the new formats and new channels are kind of fascinating, in that very twenty-first century way: it’s obvious that things are changing, but not particularly obvious how.

The same bloggers who once had journalists cursing at the general public’s lack of appetite for thoughtful, intelligent writing, are now making the very same complaints themselves, as short-form, quickfire media like Tumblr and Twitter become more prominent.  I am not sure how much I agree with them, though. I mean, we all have our natural formats in which we are the most comfortable communicating, but a good writer should be a good writer, be it over ten paragraphs or 140 characters. I certainly find a lot of merit in all these new formats, but I am not always entirely certain what content I think belongs on the Tumblr site, say, instead of this one.

The reason I am going on about this at such length is partly because there is bugger all happening in Edinburgh this week, as far as I can see, in terms of live music, so I started a post and then found I had nothing to put in it.  And also, as I mentioned, I am about to start redesigning the site, to make sure the gigs are better represented, to make sure the label is more prominent, and to better integrate Twitter and Tumblr.

It’s a bit of a tricky task this time around.  The last time we redesigned the site was about three years ago or so, and back then it was simple: blog + label.  Now there is so much more going on, and frankly I am not sure where I should best be placing the emphasis.  It’s interesting though.  So yes, just warning you.  You might see some more changes around here soon.  I’ve absolutely no fucking idea what kind of changes, but definitely changes!

 Not to imply that I ever give this blog any less than my full attention, but today’s fives are going to be a little rushed.  There are two very good reasons for this, which I shall explain.

Firstly, I am currently writing this out inbetween doing bits of recording with Rob St. John, who is working on a couple of odd but lovely projects at the moment.  So our living room is festooned with microphones, and full of musicians, and of course two very, very curious cats.  Well, one of them is curious.  The other is asleep.

And secondly, this evening I will be going back to the venue where The Leg held their brilliant album launch party (for those who missed it, you can read a rather nice review on MusicOMH here) to film a music video for An Eagle to Saturn, their next single.  In keeping with their eccentric splendidness, they are bringing three giant origami eagles, to erm… well I’m not sure why actually.  But it sounds like a good idea to me.

For the rest of you, however, I assume that this afternoon is one to be wasted on the internet because that’s pretty much what Friday afternoon is for.  Well, until it’s time for the pub of course. So in the meantime, why not answer these silly questions:

1. What would you make if you had infinite paper and black belt origami skills?
2. Have you ever actually tried any kind of complicated paper folding trick?
3. What difficult but pointless skill makes you wonder why the fuck people ever bother putting in all the time necessary to master it?
4. Which band would you like to see soundtracking a particular movie?
5. Who would you nominate as mayor of your town if you had the choice?

[Before anyone reads this and thinks I am a total dick, I promise to write the same email from the other perspective next week, because whilst I do get inundated with incoming PR for the blog, I also have to send out lots of PR material myself, for the label, so I do know how frustrating it is for both sides, and promise to make this an even-handed whinge.]

PR is, I think it’s fair to say, just about the closest you get at this level of the music industry to the grasping of nettles.

It’s something you have to do, you have to do it well, and it is almost impossible to get right.  I have the misfortune of having to, erm, grasp this nettle at both ends as well, because not only am I subject to a flood of PR emails and press releases from people wanting coverage on the blog, but of course I also have to write all the stuff we send out for Song, by Toad Records as well.

I don’t really know where to start on this one, because it was receiving all the promo emails for the blog which pretty much provided the grounding for me to write my own for Song, by Toad Records when the time came, and yet I am meaner about PR people than pretty much anyone else in the music industry.

There’s a simple reason for this of course, and that is that a worryingly large percentage of them seem to be complete fucking idiots.

For example, when I first started getting promo emails from Sony they were so threatening about what I could and couldn’t do with the music they were sending me that I was actually too scared to even download it in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »

 I’d be a lot more inclined to be patriotically English if all our national traditions weren’t as fucking lame as prancing about the Maypole and nonsense like that.

Actually, that’s a lie.  I’m not English enough to be patriotically English, and patriotism gives me the fucking creeps anyway, in all its guises. Not that this has anything to do with the unavoidable fact that the Maypole is still just a little bit silly, of course.

We aren’t really getting the Spring weather up here in Scotland, although it’s been threatening it here and there.  Still, it would be nice to be able to get out into the garden again without a coat on.

Wednesday 2nd May: Cashier No.9 & Homework at the Electric Circus.

Cashier No.9 have been much discussed over the last year or so.  I declined to review their album because to be honest I thought it was no more than pretty good – the kind of thing the popular press described as being rough and ready and bristling with energy when it was nothing of the sort.  Nevertheless, as a smooth, rather more polished incarnation of that description they do have some pretty decent stuff so this should be worth popping along to if you have no other plans this week.

Friday 4th May: Ute Lemper at the Queen’s Hall.

This is a bit of a strange one for me to be listing, you might justifiably think, given that we are talking about a cabaret singer here who, while she has a great voice, is bordering on caricature.  Nevertheless, she released an album a few years back with songs by the likes of Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Neil Hannon and Elvis Costello, so she’s an interesting artist and this might make a nice change of pace from the usual stuff I recommend.

Ute Lemper – Little Water Song (written by Nick Cave)

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Saturday 5th May: The Machine Room, Thank You So Nice & Reverieme play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.

This is a solid lineup of three really quite new Scottish bands.  I have to confess to not knowing all that much about any of them, honestly, although if pushed I think I would say that The Machine Room probably have the most promise – to my ears anyway, for whatever that’s worth.

 You know those albums where you pop them on in the background, fail to pay attention properly and then end up thinking you don’t like them for no better reason than that you weren’t really listening in the first place?  This was sort of the opposite.

In this case I had a friend round for a gin and tonic, and I was actually cooking at the time, so I just thought I’d throw on pretty much any old thing from my inbox, asking my friend not to blame me if it was shit, because it was straight out of my inbox and I didn’t really have any idea if it was going to be any good or not.

Not the most auspicious of circumstances in which to take your first listen of an album, you might think.   But unlike those records which get cruelly underestimated because people weren’t listening properly, this did the reverse: it managed to stand out as being good, despite the fact that we very clearly weren’t listening properly and pretty much only put in on as background music.  Despite that, after a couple of songs, I found myself thinking ‘hang on, this is really good’, and turning it up.

It’s not the sort of music to stand out, either, in the sense that it’s kind of slowish, the arrangements are fairly modest, and it doesn’t really resort to clever tricks to grab your attention.  There are a couple of mental moments, where the music seems to have a brief meltdown, and songs like the excellent Shining are just a bit odd in general, but those are pretty few and far between; for the most part this is middle of the road, nice sensible music.  And it’s really, really good.

Generally the music is simply enough assembled, unhurried acoustic pop songs backed with a little drums, bass and the occasional, usually quite basic keyboard parts. This simplicity and the generally casual atmosphere does lull you into a slightly false sense of security, and it takes ‘hang on, wait a minute, what did he say?’ realisations, such as that song titles like D.S.O.T.B. actually stand for ‘dog shit on the breeze’, to prod you into listening a little more closely.

The songs are brief, too, and the album moves along at a fair lick.  It’s one of those that despite its undemanding attitude rewards closer listens, as there are some really nicely turned lyrics.  And for some reason, despite the setup being pretty standard and the music seemingly content to abstain from anything too contentious, this album has real character.  While it can deliver relatively smooth acoustic pop numbers, it can also slow into more idiosyncratic, stumbling stuff which reminds me of some of the better loved and more awkward acoustic weirdos around at the moment.

It’s disarming, and may not grab you immediately, but I think this is a really good album, and one which I fear will end up being criminally underrated by the world at large.  Listen.  Listen closely.  And enjoy.

Niilo Smeds – Animal

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Niilo Smeds – I Don’t Need You

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This is called the Repeatcast because I sometimes wonder that the constant flow of new music I fire into these podcasts might just passing you by.  I know I struggle to stay on top of things sometimes myself, so maybe you just listen when you can be bothered and sometimes things just go in one ear and out the other.

I’ve been considering doing an artist of the week thing, like Ted from Cloud Sounds where he plays two tracks from an artist one week (well, one month now that the show’s monthly) and then one from the same artist the next week as well, so there is a degree of reinforcement

Knowing me, I doubt I’ll ever get round to it, honestly, but you know, it seems like a good idea.  Or something vaguely like it seems like a good idea, because it would be a shame if all this music just vanished into the ether.  So this week we have a lot of repetition of bands already played on the podcasts, just to make sure you’re paying attention properly.  Like you should be.

Direct download: Toadcast #224 – The Repeatcast

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01. Easter – Damp Patch (00.21)
02. The Spyrals – Long Road Out (06.40)
03. Mac DeMarco – She’s Really All I Need (11.40)
04. Apostille – Journal (17.42)
05. Apostle of Hustle – National Anthem of Nowhere (28.26)
06. The Babies – My Name (35.46)
07. Islet – A Warrior Who Longs to Grow Herbs (41.17)
08. Niilo Smeds – Summer Air (45.26)
09. Kalle Mattson – Miles (51.35)
10. Slowcoaches – We’re So Heavy (58.19)