For those unfamiliar with the term, this is the offhand dismissal used to describe the sort of mawkish, clichéd tourist tat which masquerades as Scottish heritage and culture for those with woefully little imagination.  Alternatively, I suppose you could say that Tartan Shortbread is a blanket term for Scottish heritage as a sort of motorway service station take on national identity.

Anyhow, given I work very much at the coalface of the DIY music world in Scotland, I find that I have been oddly unsupportive of a large number of Scottish bands who have emerged in the last couple of years to considerable enthusiasm from the Scottish music press, both professional and amateur.

For some reason, the recent bands who have shown some likelihood of cracking an audience wider than the relatively narrow confines of the five million or so people in Scotland itself just haven’t appealed to me, with a few notable exceptions.  However, sitting down to assemble the playlist for this week I noticed that there were something like seven of the ten songs which happened to be by Scottish bands.  Oh, I thought to myself, I appear to be Scottish again.  How nice.

Direct download: Toadcast #212 – The Tartan Shortcast

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01. Django Django – Default (00.17)
02. Andrew Bird – Eyeoneye (08.41)
03. Lower Dens – Brains (12.47)
04. Randolph’s Leap – Bile (26.17)
05. Clean George IV – XP Avenue (32.51)
06. Dumb Instrument – Reverse the Hearse (35.57)
07. The Occasional Flickers – When the Sky Looks so Grey (41.11)
08. R.M. Hubbert – Sunbeam Melt the Hour (with Marion Kenny & Hanna Tuulikki) (50.20)
09. The Twilight Sad – Don’t Move (55.49)
10. Brown Brogues – Anyone But You (62.04)

Video: Vimeo – YouTube
Photos: Flickr
Audio: zip download: right-click, save as

This session was recorded in Glasgow before Josh’s performance at Oran Mor on 22nd November last year.  The first attempt to record a session with him was at Stereo, but recording in a venue really didn’t work out, so this time we decided to take up the kind offer of Phil from PAWS to record it in his bedroom instead.

Again we were a little pressed for time, because Josh had a marathon day, recording a session with the BBC and conducting an interview before doing our session, and then having the gig to play afterwards.  So we only recorded three songs, and for simplicity’s sake we did the interview in one chunk and I have just chopped bits of it into the podcast where appropriate.

Given the incredibly punishing schedule he tends to have I really do appreciate Josh taking the time to re-record this session, as well as the infallibly good humour and cooperative nature showed by both himself and Peter and Tom, his management team.  It may have been tight to get done, but this is a really, really nice session if you ask me.

As usual, the videos can all be found on our Vimeo and YouTube pages and the photos, which were jointly taken by Stephanie Gibson and Dylan Matthews, are collected on our Flickr page.  The session mp3s can be downloaded below, or in a zip file here, the session podcast can be played or downloaded below too, and the tracklisting for the podcast can be found at the bottom of the page.

Direct download: Toadcast #211 – Josh T. Pearson Toad Session

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Josh T. Pearson – Woman When I’ve Raised Hell (Toad Session)

Josh T. Pearson – Country Dumb (Toad Session)

Josh T. Pearson – Covers Medley (Toad Session)

01. Josh T. Pearson – Woman When I’ve Raised Hell (Toad Session) (02.54)
02. Lift to Experience – To Guard and to Guide You (12.30)
03. Perfume Genius – All Waters (19.06)
04. Josh T. Pearson – Country Dumb (Toad Session) (25.26)
05. The Dirty Three – Some Summers They Drop Like Flys (31.43)
06. Papa M – The Lass of Roch Royal (38.17)
07. Judy Collins – Wild Mountain Thyme (53.03)
08. Howe Gelb – Can’t Help Falling in Love (55.37)
09. Josh T. Pearson – Covers Medley (Toad Session) (61.54)

Recording for our upcoming split 12″ with Manchester bands Waiters and Sex Hands has seen pals recommend I have a good listen to The Meat Puppets too, if that’s the kind of stuff I’m into – particularly if that’s the kind of guitar sound I am enjoying at the moment.

So that’s what this podcast is loosely about.  As I explain, despite growing up at the perfect time to have been into all this stuff the first time around, I ended up being only vaguely aware of it, due to being almost entirely insulated in the bubble of the international expat community in Vienna at the time, and hence only really having MTV to introduce me to new music, beyond what I happened across by accident in the record shops around town.  Which generally wasn’t Dinosaur Jr.

Direct download: Toadcast #210 – The Slackercast

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01. Nirvana – Love Buzz (Shocking Blue cover) (00.26)
02. Feel Right – She’s No Good (08.47)
03. Shudderpulps – Time (10.46)
04. Spectral Park – Colours (16.13)
05. Dinosaur Jr. – Repulsion (24.24)
06. Shift-Static – Sky Burial (Waskerley Way remix) (30.20)
07. The Meat Puppets – Lake of Fire (40.54)
08. Sparklehorse – My Yoke is Heavy (42.57)
09. Narrow Sparrow – Spooky Head (47.40)
10. The Magnetic Fields – Andrew in Drag (52.00)
11. Pavement – Spit on a Stranger (59.40)

Dolfinz played a pretty big drum kit – three toms, three ride cymbals, a double bass drum pedal, and the result was an absolutely frightening racket which must have been shaking the bloody pictures off the walls next door.  We’re recording the PAWS songs for the split in about ten days’ time, and after that I think we’ll have to give the neighbours  a good long break from the kind of noise we make in here from time to time or they’ll go fucking mental.

In the meantime, we have some songs chosen by the Dolfinz lads, some new stuff from my inbox and a couple of things I should have really got into ages ago but for no good reason at all, just didn’t.  Shame on me.

Direct download: Toadcast #209 – The Fishcast

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01. Fuck (00.20)
02. Cum Stain – Broke My Dick (03.27)
03. Smackvan – Black Eyes (07.59)
04. Keel Her – Enid Coleslaw (16.23)
05. The Distillers – Dismantle Me (20.04)
06. LeThug – Swam (25.47)
07. Benjamin Shaw – How to Test the Depth of a Well (36.57)
08. The Leg – A Rat’s Health (42.43)
09. Flight – Witch Hunt Town (48.57)
10. Coolrunnings – Spirit of the High (53.20)
11. The Divine Comedy – A Seafood Song (60.27)

We’ve got a couple of our more recent releases, like Rob St. John and Lil Daggers, as well as some of our confirmed and ready new albums for next year, by the likes of The Leg, Jesus H. Foxx and Yusuf Azak.

I’ve also got a couple of tracks from bands we’ll be releasing on a split 12″ in the Spring.  We’ll be recording that stuff in our house next week, so the songs we chose to represent those bands are for obvious reasons not the final ones we’ll be releasing, just tracks by the bands so you can get a bit of a flavour of what we’re up to.

With Ian on board and based on the good press we managed last year I am hoping we can really kick on with the label this year and make a decent impression.  Obviously the third Meursault album will  help, what with them being our most established band, but we have a good spread of stuff, from bands like Dolfinz with only a few demos to their name, to the likes of Yusuf Azak and The Leg who people know already and then the Foxx album, which has been ‘much anticipated’ for a while now.

So all in all it should be an exciting year, I reckon.  Enjoy!

Direct download: Toadcast #208 – Song, by Toad Records 2012

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01. Mongrels – I’m Gonna Murder Justin Bieber (00.21)
02. King Post Kitsch – The Make the Same Faces Whether Fuck or Fight (02.46)
03. Meursault – Flittin’ (locationmusic.tv Piano Version) (08.49)
04. Rob St. John – The Acid Test (17.59)
05. Lil Daggers – Dead Golden Girls (22.05)
06. Paws – Bloodline (Toad Session) (31.52)
07. Jesus H. Foxx – This is Not a Rental Car (40.31)
08. The Leg – Twitching Stick (43.00)
09. Sex Hands – Jinglebitch (51.56)
10. Dolfinz – Blowhole (55.36)
11. Yusuf Azak – Lay Me Down (63.12)

I remember getting in trouble at my former day job a couple of years ago for writing something rather negative about that awful sensation of being back at your desk after the excesses and indolence of Christmas.  I am not feeling negative about it now, which is good given I am self-employed, but I am certainly struggling to spark my brain back into something resembling life at the moment.

So yes, I have two new releases to get moving, by Jesus H. Foxx and The Leg, and I have five Toad Sessions to get edited and published, and a split 12″ to record (starting in about a week), so whether or not it proves to be a challenge, the old grey matter has to be brought back to life somehow, be it kicking and screaming or otherwise.

Direct download: Toadcast #207 – The Sparkcast

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01. Jesus H. Foxx – So the Wind Won’t Blow it All Away (00.13)
02. The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop (07.47)
03. Post War Glamour Girls – Suburban Barbarian (14.40)
04. Now Wakes the Sea – Another Pair of Hands (18.32)
05. Orienteers – Do You Hear What I Hear? (23.23)
06. Damon Moon & the Whispering Drifters – Seasonal Suite No. 62 (32.40)
07. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Is This Love? (41.27)
08. The Specials – Gangsters (44.30)
09. Simone Felice – New York Times (48.59)
10. Spectral Park – The Thief’s Journal (57.04)

I actually take a lot of this podcast from my recently-published albums of the year list, and from my as-yet-unpublished Festive Fifty, so it’s a bit of a yearly roundup as well.

And in fact, seeing as Christmas is a Sunday, I won’t actually be posting until Boxing Day now, so this will be the last post before Christmas so umm, in the off-chance I don’t bump into you on Facebook, Twitter or down the pub, I better wish you Happy Christmas now, hadn’t I.

Direct download: Toadcast #206 – The Scroogecast

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01. Tom Lehrer – A Christmas Carol (00.23)
02. The Black Tambourines – Bad Days (05.09)
03. The Low Anthem – Boeing 737 (10.42)
04. Timber Timbre – Woman (13.31)
05. Sons of Joy – Pig (20.25)
06. The Japanese War Effort – Our Land Could be Your Life (24.51)
07. Jonnie Common – Hand-Hand (31.37)
08. Earth Girl Helen Brown – Girls of My Dreams (35.39)
09. Weird Era – Garage Honeymoon (41.37)
10. The War on Drugs – Your Love is Calling My Name (47.46)
11. Sons of Joy – In the Bleak Midwinter (58.07)
12. Sons of Joy – Coventry Carol (60.00)

Firstly, the Song, by Toad readers are awarding their own baubles for the year’s musical endeavours, both in terms of anointing their song and their album of the year.

And secondly, the very second I post this I am heading up into town to Kid Canaveral’s Christmas Baubles, their second of what I assume will become an annual Christmas knees-up, this time hosted at Edinburgh’s rather amazing Summerhall.

This week on Song, by Toad I will be publishing my own top twenty albums of the year, and then moving on to the Festive Fifty – basically your average predictable blogger’s December rituals.  If you don’t like it I guess you’re a bit stuck until the new year I’m afraid.

Direct download: Toadcast #205 – The Baublescast

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01. Mongrels – Massive Cunt (00.25)
02. Tom Waits – Face to the Highway (06.14)
03. Waiters – Tomorrowland (14.27)
04. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Bats in the Attic (Unravelled) (24.03)
05. Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – The Copper Top (27.33)
06. Hookworms – Medicine Cabinet (34.56)
07. Grant Lee Phillips – Josephine of the Swamps (45.21)
08. The Dears – Lost in the Plot (50.49)
09. Warpaint – Billie Holiday (60.27)

Nevertheless, The Leg album, the Jesus H. Foxx album and the second album by Yusuf Azak are all on the menu for early next year, so those need to be nudged into motion, so it’s not exactly like my feet are going up and my hands reaching for the remote control and a bag of popcorn.

Well maybe, but mostly between Christmas and New Year, I can’t really bring myself to work then!

Next week I’ll be going through the Song, by Toad readers’ top five songs and albums of the year vote, so if you want to chip in then just fill in your top albums of the year on this week’s Friday Five.

Direct download: Toadcast #204 – The Phewcast


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01. Coolrunnings – Rusk (00.04)
02. The National – I Need My Girl (09.35)
03. Islet – This Fortune (15.44)
04. Saintseneca – Acid Rain (20.45)
05. Doe Paoro – Can’t Leave You (25.46)
06. Mark Lanegan Band – The Gravedigger’s Song (32.47)
07. Micah P. Hinson – My God, My God (40.30)
08. Liars – Scissor (43.17)
09. Jackson C. Frank (51.43)
10. Monster Rally – Creeping Ghost (58.22)
11. Monster Rally – Sahara (59.57)
12. Monster Rally – Crystal Ball (62.09)

Also, to make matters worse, we ordered pizza, which is something we hardly ever do and something which we absolutely always regret.  So here we sit on a Friday evening feeling bloated and slightly soiled and wondering whether at this time of the night there’s any point really trying to redeem the day, and perhaps it’s best just to forget it and wait for tomorrow.  Bleuch.

Direct download: Toadcast #203 – The Lardcast

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01. Joanna Gruesome – Madison (00.27)
02. The Mutton Birds – Anchor Me (06.36)
03. Monster Island – Pilot Whales (14.42)
04. Former Bullies – It Might Be Okay (17.36)
05. Video Thrills – Our Plush Selection (21.05)
06. The Jesus & Mary Chain – Some Candy Talking (Peel Session) (25.16)
07. Bottle of Evil – I Can See Your Face (31.20)
08. The Black Tambourines – White Album (39.37)
09. Dolfinz – Teenage Doom (42.47)
10. The Ramones – Psycho Therapy (48.50)
11. Samoan Punks – Everyday (51.42)
12. Waiters – Black Stuff (59.27)