Mrs. Toad and I are currently in Toronto for a cousin’s wedding, leaving young Ian in charge of the cats and the house and the lab… OH NO WHAT HAVE I DONE…!

Christ.  Suicidal house-sitting choices aside, we’ve been on aeroplanes a LOT today, and I am feeling sleepy as fuck, but we did see some interesting things.

I love flying into Newark airport actually, over the industrial wasteland that is New Jersey, riddled with lakes and what looks like marshland, and seemingly all held together by filaments of rail lines, roads and endless bridges.

Today we flew over the Great Lakes into Toronto, and accidentally happened across Niagara Falls from the air. It was odd, because the general landscape down there looks largely featureless, and then suddenly there is a weird dislocation and one of the biggest waterfalls in the world.  Flying over Toronto was sort of interesting as well, in that it was one of those typical, featureless American cities*, divided into neat grid patterns, with these straight roads that went on perfectly undeviating for miles and miles and miles.  To a European, that just looks odd.

So yes, by the time most of you are sitting at your desks wishing Friday would hurry up and trundle on to pub time, I will probably only just have woken up from sleeping off my jetlag.

1. What’s the coolest place you have flown over in a plane?
2. What’s your total wedding attendance score so far?
3. Last new place you visited.
4. Worst jetlag you ever had.
5. Most irresponsible person you’ve ever left in charge of anything important.

*Disclaimer: yes, I know Toronto isn’t actually in America.  But it’s more American than any other Canadian city I know – in fact maybe more like American cities than Canadian ones altogether.

 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?

Yep, tomorrow is both the lifeboats collection in Stockbridge (turn up at our house between noon and five if you want to help – there will be free champagne and Mrs. Toad might actually bake.  Don’t worry though, there’s a very posh patisserie indeed downstairs in case she fucks it up) and The Leg’s album launch for their fantastic new album An Eagle to Saturn.

The Leg album launch is going to be brilliant.  I have wanted to put on one of these slightly more unusual shows for a long time, actually.  You know, one in a cool location, where the music isn’t just a three-band rock ‘n’ roll bill and all the usual stuff – the kind cool people like Tracer Trails used to put on before they most unkindly buggered off to Glasgow.

Anyhow, these things take time and effort, and frankly I have neither to spare most of the time, so I am grateful to the band themselves stepping in to make this a rather brilliant-sounding night.  Well, in theory anyway, it could yet all go horribly, horribly wrong of course. But it won’t.  Promise.

Anyhow, for those meeting us at The Wash tomorrow, remember that if you go to Papi Falso with your Leg invite tomorrow you’ll get a pound off both gigs, and ours will even finish in plenty of time to get to Henry’s in time for their special super secret musical guest performer. So there you go, that’s your Saturday spoken for.  You can do what you want on Sunday if you like, but your Saturday is MINE!

So, given it’s sunny out, I fully expect those of you who can to skive off early and go find a nice beer garden somewhere nearby, and to spend the afternoon getting slowly pickled and then falling asleep – it just feel like one of those days.  In the meantime, though, why not waste your time answering the following five stupid questions.  Hooray for the internet.

1. Which was your favourite Ghostbuster?
2. Favourite kind of cake.
3. Most trivial injury you’ve had.
4. Kevin Costner or Mel Gibson?
5. What style of music do you fancy this afternoon?  Acoustic, poppy, loud, something else?

Record Store (shop, shop, it’s called a fucking SHOP!) Day is always bad news for my cash reserves.  I am not, I have to confess, all that enticed by the exclusives, as honestly I find that all a bit gimmicky and pointless, but I do like the idea of encouraging people back into shops and reminding people what a pleasure it is to spend hours poking around through racks of records.

Music is a personal, physical thing for me – it involves the sense, of course it’s physical! – and gigs and community events like Record Store Day help to reinforce that, and therefore despite the needless exclusives and the exploitation of artificial scarcity, I still like the social side of it, as well as the cooperation between shops, labels, bands and venues it seems to encourage.

We have a good few things happening in the next week or so actually, starting with RM Hubbert, Yusuf Azak and Rory Sutherland at Henry’s tonight.  Then tomorrow, the RSD festivities kick in, with Withered Hand and Ballboy at Avalanche, and Neil from Meursault and PAWS down at Voxbox in Stockbridge.

Then, next weekend, we have The Leg’s album launch.  We are going to be meeting in The Wash between 6-8pm, and then walking up to a secret venue in the Old Town for a free private party.  And if, say, you were to pay a £5 non-refundable deposit for a copy of their new album (by using the button below), then we will almost certainly be touched enough to invite you.  *cough*

Anyhow, enough business, it’s Friday, and that means fucking about on the internet.  Answer these five stupid questions and I shall be happy to fuck about on the internet with you:

1. If you could re-colour an animal, what would it be?
2. What’s the first pop music you really remember being aware of?
3. What do you really enjoy shopping for?
4. And what do you hate shopping for?
5. Are you going to buy anything special on Record Store Day?

 Cock and balls I am running behind! Apologies for the lateness of this post, but Wide Days kind of caught me out.  By the time Mrs. Toad and I awoke from our excessively boozy Wednesday night at the Wide Days Reception, which we hosted (and which marked the first time people have ever had to leave our house because we ran out of alcohol – oh the shame!), and by the time we’d cleaned up the mess and got the house vaguely back ship-shape, there really was little time to do anything else productive with yesterday at all.

So, I’ve written up the A&R Seminar like a good little boy, and now I am going to rattle out a rather shamefully late Friday Fives.  To make sure this hits the Information Superhighway a little quicker… actually now there’s a term which has kinda vanished, eh?

Do you think that once we realised that the internet was basically going to be 99% dominated by porn, lolcats and people buggering about on Facebook, the term ‘Information Superhighway’ basically just became too much of an embarrassment for anyone to use anymore.  Once that particular penny had actually dropped I suppose using the term began to sound more like an admonishment than anything else.  ‘We gave you the fucking internets, the greatest thing man has ever invented, one which completely changed all of society almost overnight, and this is what you’ve done with it?  Jesus fucking Christ, people.’

Information Suprocrastinationwankstain just doesn’t have the same ring, does it.

Anyhow, I was intending to just get these fives written and published, wasn’t I, and thereby declare the end of the productive working week once and for all.  So here you go:

1. It’s Friday the 13th today.  What is your daftest superstition?
2. Are you much of a one for horror films?
3. Last bit of good luck you had.
4. Last bit of bad luck you had.
5. I’m going to Eye of the Dug (that’s Dog, for you non-Scots) this weekend.  That sounds like an ingredient for a witch’s potion.  What else would you include?

 It took me about five minutes to twig why the roads were so quiet this morning, before I remembered that it was Easter and that every other cunt but myself was on fucking holiday.  Bastards.

Of all the meaningless holidays we have, I think Easter might be the most pointless.  Although I have to confess that when I lived down South, where the whole company shut on bank holidays, pretty much forcing you to take the day off, there was something rather good about having a compulsory long weekend at the start of Spring.

Anyhow, as soon as my hangover wears off tomorrow morning (well, let’s be honest, mid-afternoon is probably more realistic) I shall be pootling down to Henry’s for the Ides of Toad.  Not only do we have an excellent lineup on Saturday (Palms, Plastic Animals and North American War), but we also have another fine gig on Wednesday, with United Fruit, Shudder Pulps and Fat Bicth.

Anyhow, it may not look like I’ve been doing much this week, but I’ve actually been most productive.  I’ve finished all the artwork and layout stuff for the split 12″, ordered the Meursault promo material and their two singles, and in general have been a very hard-working little bunny.  Not that it’s always that obvious, from the other end of the internet of  course.

Anyhow, today is Friday, and a holiday Friday at that, so there will be no more productivity today.  The rest of today is, as per tradition, wasting time on the internet day, so answer the following five questions as flippantly as you please, and of course take the opportunity to delurk, if you haven’t commented before.

1. Instead of chocolate eggs, what should the Easter Bunny deliver?
2. What is your favourite kind of chocolate?
3. Which country would you like to visit on your next holiday, balls to expense/practicality?
4. Weird sport you’ve always fancied giving a try.
5. Today I am listening to a Mojo covermount CD from the classic ‘indie’ era of the mid-eighties (see songs below). What’s your favourite freebie compilation?

The La’s – Son of a Gun

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Monochrome Set – He’s Frank (Slight Return)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

McCarthy – Keep an Open Mind or Else

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Wild Swans – The Revolutionary Spirit

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Teardrop Explodes – Reward

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 Considering how incredibly brilliant they are at so many things (like becoming epoch-definingly rich, for example) Google is remarkably awful at email spam.  Awful to the point that their spam folder is an active nuisance, and the messages they divert into the damn thing seem to be entirely random.

Senders I have marked as spam don’t always go in there, personal emails – even those sent to one recipient only – occasionally do end up in there, and the rest of them seem to be just a random selection of stuff people send me, with no rhyme or reason to the choices whatsoever.  They would honestly be more helpful if they just let every damn thing into my inbox and let me sort it out myself.

Anyhewww… if it stays this nice for the rest of the day I may open a beer in the back garden and spark up the barbecue for the first time this year.  Mrs. Toad will be out on the piss with her colleagues, so it will be peaceful enough – well, at least until I get a bit too pished that is. And then I think I’ll head up to Neu Reekie at the Scottish Book Trust.

So there, that’s my day planned out, now to find a nice way to waste time until say, oooh, 4pm when I can reasonably commence weekend funtimes. Those who can’t join me in the back garden this afternoon can certainly join me in frittering away the time until then by de-lurking, answering the five silly questions below, and then generally wasting time on the internet until the working week is well and truly over.

1. The oddest things you’ve received spam email about.
2. An old fashioned preserved foodstuff which seems as anachronistic as spam,
3. What does a sunny day most make you feel like doing?
4. Some sunny day music.
5. It’s time for an ice-cream – what would you choose?

Beck – Deadweight

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

REM – Leave

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Elvis Presley – Always on My Mind

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Alabama 3 – Peace in the Valley

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Squirrel Nut Zippers – Put a Lid on It

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 So, after the giddy nonsense of SXSW and then returning to the rather intense preparations for the third Meursault album, I managed to write a couple of posts last night, I have a gig on Saturday, and things seem more or less back to normal.

In random label news we have now – with the exception of a few copies left with our distributors, so you might be able to request one at your local record shop – sold out of the Rob St. John vinyl, but to balance this the CDs have arrived, and I’ll get those up for sale on the site asap.

In terms of the Meursault album, for those of you who care about the inner machinations of a record label, we’ve got two weeks to get everything locked down, including artwork, PR company, radio pluggers, manufacturing, launch night and all sorts of other shit, and once that’s done we are absolutely committed to a release date, there’s no turning back, we’ve turned off our targeting computer and some sanctimonious old man is whispering ‘Use the Force, Luke’ in our ears all the way to mid-July. Gulp!

Anyhow, all that stuff is being forgotten about until Monday (well, sort of – there’s our gig on Saturday at Henry’s, the podcast and some recording to do this weekend) and tonight I am going to the Fresh Air Festival at the Teviot to see some bands and drink some beers. So if I don’t see you out on the lash tonight, then I might see you at Henry’s tomorrow.

So, before pub o’clock at about five – actually, that reminds me, anyone fancy a pint this evening? – I am going to be addressing our recent sales and getting some new stuff up on the label site and generally scratching ma baws futtering about on the internet.  Yep, we’re a serious operation here at Song, by Toad. Join me!

1. What’s the first car you remember being in?
2. Worst attempt at an accent you remember hearing?
3. It’s time for a website redesign for Song, by Toad.  Are there any websites you’ve seen recently which deliver a lot of different information really well?
4. When should I give up on being productive and have my first pint of the day?
5. Favourite cocktail.

Five Jacques Brel covers for you today:

Dusty Springfield – If You Go Away

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

David Bowie – Amsterdam

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Divine Comedy – Jackie

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Jimmie Rogers – The Lovers

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Ann Watts – Amsterdam

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 I’ve always felt weird whenever I’ve been asked to cat-sit as I’ve always been a dog person. I’m not sure if it’s because of their doe-eyed obedience, endearing stupidity or general loyalty but I really do love dogs. I’ve never been the type of person who hated cats either, they just seemed to hate me. Now this has proven to be a challenge whilst looking after Mr and Mrs Toad’s cats (Marvin and Mildred). At first they seemed weary of me, with Marvin being the more ‘dog-like’ of the two due to his craving of attention, whilst Mildred would silently sit in the corner and look as though she was plotting my downfall. After a wee while I’ve really grown to love the wee guys, and they seem to kinda like me back too. Mildred is far less weary and has started wanting cuddles, whilst Marvin has now promoted himself to chief head-sitter. It’s kind of weird as I would always think cat folk were daft when they spoke about their cats having such unique personalities, but it’s true. So here is to my two new pals. De-lurk please, and all that shite.

1. Cats or dogs or neither or both?
2.Which animal can you absolutely not stand?
3. Do you think animals have personalities or is that a load of all bollocks?
4. Cat Stevens or Cat Deeley?
5. Which animal are you most frightened of?

Christ on a bike, is it that time already?  So much to impart and so little time in which to do it!  First up, a raging hangover and an incomplete Toad Session may have prevented me getting my gig listings sorted this week, but there are loads of things happening this weekend which you will enjoy, so I figured I might as well do a quick preview for you now, before the fives and the radio show.

Tonight:
- The Ides of Toad present: The Pineapple Chunk, Brown Brogues and Zed Penguin at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
- Sparrow & the Workshop and Bwani Junction at the National Museum of Scotland.
- Lach and Catherine Brogan doing spoken word performances at Neu Reekie, at the Scottish Book Trust.
- Rod Jones & the Birthday Suit at the Electric Circus.

Tomorrow:
- The Ides of Toad present: Louis Barabbbas & the Bedlam Six, Skeleton Bob and Lee Patterson at the Third Door.
- PAWS, Edinburgh School for the Deaf, Sebastian Dangerfield and Broken Records solo acoustic at the Wee Red Bar.
- Michael Kiwanuka at the Electric Circus (I think this is sold out, but it’s feasible there are tickets on the door if you’re really determined).

Anyhow, as per usual El, Brian and myself will be back on Fresh Air at half three, and this week El is picking the entire playlist so it should actually be some fun to listen to for a change.  There might even be enjoyable music.  And possibly some remixes. In fact, probably some remixes. But I’ll fill in the playlist at the bottom of the page as we go along so

On air from 3:30pm UK time – listen live here.

And in the meantime, Friday is de-lurking day on Song, by Toad of course, so come out of the woodwork and say hello by answering, as frivolously as you please, the following five silly questions:

1. Any festivals you’re looking forward to this year?
2. Suggest a movie mashup of two films you’d like to see combined into one.
3. Give us a good colloquialism you’ve been enjoying recently.
4. If you make a piece of toast for a snack, what do you spread on it?
5. Instead of ‘this vehicle is reversing’ what should we be teaching our vans to say?

Playlist for our Fresh Air radio show this afternoon, as chosen entirely by Miss El Parks.
1. Selector Dub Narcotic – Distorted Cymbals
2. Y’All is Fantasy Island – With Handclaps
3. Dum Dum Girls – Play With Fire
4. El Mato a un Policia Motorizado – Un Million de Euros
5. Louis Barabbas & the Bedlam Six – Away in a Manger
6. Brown Brogues – Don’t Touch My Hair
7. Dead Rabbits – I Think I Know
8. Mount Kimbie – Maybes
9. Bull Moose Jackson – Big Ten Inch Record
10. The Coasters – Down in Mexico
11. Mongrels – Massive C*nt
12. Plastic Animals – Ghosts (Demo)
13. Franz Ferdinand – Lucid Dreams