The wait is finally over, ladies and gentlemen, because… *drum roll* …I hereby announce the debut album by Edinburgh’s most elusive pop merchants Jesus H. Foxx.

To celebrate, as is our way because we’re just bloody lovely people, we are giving away a couple of singles to encourage you, largely through the cultivation of guilt, to shell out ten of your finest pounds to purchase the album. Actually, even your tattiest ones will be fine, we’re not fussy. In fact, fuck it, even if you don’t want the album, you could always just send us some money.

Anyhow, we are just looking for a suitable venue for a swanky release party and BOOM, Endless Knocking will officially be loose in the wild.  It’s a gorgeous album too, switching from frenetic to woozy, from rich and melodic to choppy and hyperactive, and it may have been a little bit of a wait, but it was very much worth it.

On the 30th April we will be releasing our first album of 2012: the rather fantastic An Eagle to Saturn by The Leg. I’ve wanted to release this album ever since I first heard Twitching Stick at the beginning of last year, and now we have it, on both fine heavyweight vinyl and CD.

As well as Twitching Stick, which was on the 2012 Song, by Toad Records Free Sampler, we are now offering Bake Yourself Silly as a free download to help you decide whether or not to buy the album (hint: the answer is Yes), which you can do here

Also, on Saturday 28th April we will be holding a very special party to celebrate the launch at a secret venue in Edinburgh’s Old Town. Due to the slightly dubious nature of the space itself we’ll be meeting upstairs at The Wash bar, which is the closest by – between 7 and 8pm, and will then all walk up to the place together.

The Leg will be supplying a little wine and maybe a beer or two – no need to bring your own.

As it’s a private party, you’ll need to be invited. This can happen by putting down a non-refundable deposit on a CD or LP – then if you want to, you can pay the balance on the night and I’ll give you your record. If you don’t, you don’t have to. Either way, if you put down a deposit, I’ll almost certainly be grateful enough to give you an invite. Simple. You can do this here:

Sorry, ticket link down now. A few should be available on the door though, so meet us in The Wash between about 7 and 8pm.

Seeing as that evening also happens to feature the excellent Papi Falso at Henry’s Cellar Bar, we can also inform you that if you wish to attend both you will receive a pound off both tickets, so we can all go and get fannied later on the cheap.

And, as promised, here is the new single which you can download from the Soundcloud player below – enjoy!

Bake Yourself Silly by Song, by Toad

Caring about music is nice, but it’s pretty easy.  We like stuff, we don’t like stuff, we grievously insult people with different opinions from ourselves… the usual tedious carping.

However, once a year we get the chance to do something a little bit more, and to actually make a bit of a contribution to the world: Mrs Toad organises the Stockbridge collection for the RNLI – the lifeboats for you acronymophobes – and on Saturday 28th April we will be asking you for a little help.

Every year we collect for the RNLI between 10am and 4pm here in Stockbridge and every year our friends and various music allies turn out to help us.  We are very grateful for the help, and once again this year we will be asking for it.  Usually the incentives we offer involve roast lamb and plenty of wine, but this year we can add another gentle inducement:

On the evening of the 28th April Edinburgh’s sonic alchemists The Leg will be launching their new album An Eagle to Saturn at a mystery venue in Edinburgh’s Old Town, and if you choose to be so nice as to help us collect for the lifeboats beforehand then Mrs. Toad and I will pay for your ticket to the album launch show.  As well as plying you with roast meat and wine.

So in other words, if you don’t turn up and help out, you must be a pretty dismal sort of fucker; shame on you. Tickets for The Leg album launch can be bought in person from me, from the band, or from Avalanche Records in the Grassmarket.

The PR blurb for this states the following: “BioFresh is a European Union project which is putting together the scattered pieces of information about life in our rivers and lakes, to better understand, manage and protect our freshwaters for generations to come.”

In essence, that’s all you need to know, I suppose.  This is a music blog, so I guess some of you will find this a compelling reason to investigate further and some will not. I hope you do though, because it looks like a very interesting project.

Rob St. John and FOUND‘s Tommy Perman were part of the team which put together the video above, however, and it’s so nice that I really did have to post it.  Click through to either the Vimeo page for the video itself or to the homepage of BioFresh if you want to find out a bit more.  And if you don’t then just admire the animation, the wonderful delivery of the poetry and the lovely grumble of the music in the video.

First up is very simple: Meursault are playing a short-notice show at the Old Blue Last on Tuesday 27th March (yes, this coming Tuesday).  Support comes from Neverest Songs, tickets are a bargain £5.50 and can be purchased here, and the venue is in Shoreditch somewhere and can be found here.

I will be coming along as well, in case any of my London pals are around and fancy a pint.  As for the rest of you, as you were.

Secondly, as we are on the verge of Meursault’s third album, we have decided to invite submissions from people who would like to make a video for the first single from the record, Flittin’.

In order to submit please email me on toad at songbytoad.com with a sample of previous work, and a rough outline of your idea.  A couple of images might help too, if you want to show us a particular graphic style.  We’ll have a look at all the submissions over the next week or so, and then pick the one we like best.  The deadline for completion is going to be the end of April, so don’t pick anything too complicated to be achieved on that timescale.

In terms of cash, well we’re a tiny label and we don’t have much, but there will be a couple of hundred quid in it for you and we will do our best to make it worth your while in terms of promotion as well.

To try and protect ourselves from leaks and not to ruin the surprise of the single itself, we obviously won’t be sharing the finished song with anyone other than the person we ask to make the video, but to help you in your brainstorming, here’s a demo version from last year’s free Song, by Toad Records Sampler:

Shhhh! Sat 4 Feb 2012 – Rob St John from The Local on Vimeo.

Rob St. John’s album Weald was the first thing I ever worked on here at Song, by Toad Records and it’s safe to say we were all pretty chuffed with the response it got, and deservedly so. Rob is a real pleasure to work with as he is the kind of artist who just loves to create and keep busy, the fact he is a nice chap is an added bonus. We are releasing Weald on CD in a couple of months, and from someone who generally hates CD, it looks absolutely amazing. Rob has also been busy writing and recording new material. Here is a version of Stainforth Force he recorded for Shhhh! Festival and The Line of Best Fit.

The sampler is a combination of things we’ll be releasing this year, mixed in with a couple of things from 2011 and interspersed with a few brilliant moments from the late Kenneth Williams’ reading of the Wind in the Willows. Snippets from this reading litter my own weekly podcast, and inspired the name of the label in the first place, so it seemed kind of fitting to pop a couple on here.

You can download this little parcel of digital fun from Bandcamp for free, and we are sending out a few to our favourite record shops to give away as well, so if you want a CD either come to a Song, by Toad gig in Edinburgh or go to a record shop.

Tracklisting:

02. So the Wind Won’t… by Jesus H. Foxx
I’ve been waiting for their debut album through two years of ‘nearly theres’, but it is finally finished, it sounds brilliant and will be ready for release on 14th May 2012.

03. Twitching Stick by The Leg
Formerly Khaya, then Desc, The Leg are veterans of several Peel Sessions and several releases already, but have agreed to release their next album An Eagle to Saturn with us. Coming out on 30th April, this is abrasive as fuck, but definitely still surprisingly poppy, considering.

04. The Acid Test by Rob St. John
We released Rob’s debut album Weald on vinyl last year, and the response was so overwhelmingly positive we’ve decided to give it a wider release on CD too. Rob being Rob, of course, he’s already planning to record his second album, probably in our living room again.

05. Sorry by Waiters
06. Teenage Bloom by Dolfinz
08. Gay Marriage by Sex Hands
On the subject of recording in our living room, the Waiters, Dolfinz and Sex Hands tracks are from a split 12” (which will also include hotly-tipped* Glasgow band PAWS) all of which was recorded almost entirely live in the living room of our house by myself and Rory Sutherland from Broken Records. It’s sort of a compilation of some of my favourite underground, garagey (and frighteningly young) bands, and we’ve just had it mastered, so it will hopefully be ready for release in late March or early April.

09. A Mother’s Arms (demo) by Meursault
It feels like we’ve been waiting quite a long time for the third Meursault album too, doesn’t it. Well it’s finally done, and we are looking at a release date in mid-July, with a release night pencilled in for Saturday 7th July in the Queen’s Hall.

10. School (Toad Session) by The Black Tambourines
We recorded a Toad Session with these guys last year and immediately offered to release something. I’m not sure what it’ll be yet – probably an EP in the Autumn I would guess.

11. Lay Me Down by Yusuf Azak
From his unspeakably gorgeous second album, due out in 2012 sometime, depending on when I get a final master.

12. That is a Big Door! by Trips and Falls
From their second album, People Have to Be Told, released in September 2011.

13. Dead Golden Girls by Lil Daggers
From their self-titled debut album, which we released on vinyl at the end of last year.

14. Pinkening by Animal Magic Tricks
This was recorded just after 2009’s stunning Cold Seeds album, which was a collaboration between Frances from Animal Magic Tricks, Pete Harvey and Neil Pennycook from Meursault and Kenny Anderson from King Creosote. There still isn’t what you could describe as a finished version, but I am not giving up hope because it is a gorgeous album, even just as it stands at the moment.

15. Pool Attendant by The Japanese War Effort
This is from 2011’s Summer Sun Skateboard, and we hope to release another mini-album with Jamie in the Autumn of 2012.

16. Blue Overcoat by Lach
From 2011 vinyl album Ramshackle Heart.

18. Movies and Magazines by King Post Kitsch
A free dowload from kingpostkitsch.bandcamp.com After a year in Glasgow, Charlie has moved back down to London, and after his awesome debut The Party’s Over in early 2011 I am eagerly looking forward to new material.

*Yes, I know I said ‘hotly-tipped’, but honestly, they are, I’m not just copy-and-pasting from The Big Book of PR Clichés.

And to make matters worse, he has just moved to Florida and will therefore get to see Song, by Toad Records band Lil Daggers long before I ever get to.  Which makes me resent him even more.  The bastard.

And apart from all that, he is clearly even nicer than I described because for the second year running Jamie has put together a fantastic compilation of songs, which are now available to purchase with all funds going to benefit the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths.

We at Song, by Toad donated a couple of tracks to the compilation as well, which is a nice thing to be asked to do, so if you wish to contribute four quid or more (it should be more, really, shouldn’t it – go on, cough up, you can fucking afford it) you can hear the recording of Jesus H. Foxx’s This is Not a Rental Car from their forthcoming debut album Endless Knocking, and also PAWS’ brilliant Kill a Familiar, which we’ll be releasing on a split 12″ with Waiters, Sex Hands and Dolfinz later in the year.

You can listen to the whole thing on Bandcamp below, but please do buy the thing.  There are thirty-six songs on there, and it is well worth the money.

 

Soundtracked: Matthew Young by Olivia Rafferty on Mixcloud

I have been away from the internet for the last couple of days, largely due to spending all afternoon in a restaurant with Mrs. Toad on Sunday and then yesterday lying curled up in a ball of tears fending off the ravages of an almighty hangover.  To the untrained eye it might even look like I have been entirely slacking off, but that isn’t entirely true

On Saturday I managed to find time to record three songs with Rob St. John and his band, nip into Fresh Air Radio to do a quick ‘This is Your Life’ style interview except in a musical sense.  I was invited to pick eight songs, and the player above will allow you to listen back to the show, if you’re interested.  Thanks to Olivia for inviting me down, and I hope you enjoy it.

The tracklisting, for those too lazy to even click links, is as follows:

1. Duran Duran – The Reflex
The first song I ever remember being excited about as a child.  My mum and I went out and bought Seven and the Ragged Tiger on the day of release, around my eighth birthday.  Most of my early music taste was pop stuff I got from my mum – Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Bowie, Kate Bush and stuff like that.

2. The Piranhas – Getting Beaten Up
My cousin Steve used to send me amazing mixtapes, and introduced me to The Dead Kennedys, The Specials, The Clash, REM, The Smiths, Billy Bragg, John Cooper Clark, Adam and the Ants and loads of others.  I loved this song as a kid.

3. Pearl Jam – Black
The first time I liked popular music at the time it was actually popular, and probably the first time I got music from my peers rather than my parents, because we moved around such a lot as kids that I tended to get most of my music from my parents’ record collection.  They didn’t like Pearl Jam.

4. Gene – Sick, Sober & Sorry
When I went to university I made friends with a guy called James Strath, and this was the first time I really got into bands before they’d even released their first album.  Bands like Pulp and Blur I already liked, but Strath and I eagerly anticipated (and ended up being disappointed by) both the Gene and Bluetones’ debut albums.

5. Yo La Tengo – By the Time it Gets Dark
After uni I ended up as a bit of a nomad, living in the States, Canada, Manchester and Cambridge before settling in London for about three or four years.  My music collection was all over the place at this point, and I lost loads of CDs because carrying them around was such a pain, but I really remember picking this EP up in Newberry Comics in Hyannis on Cape Cod and playing it lots when I was feeling down.

6. Billy Bragg & Wilco – Hesitating Beauty
I could pick a lot of songs to represent my marriage to Mrs. Toad, including ‘Better Off Without a Wife’ by Tom Waits which happened to be playing, by sheer coincidence, when we got back from the Mairie, having signed all our papers.  This one however is the one which Mrs. Toad likes the most, so it’s the one that sticks most in my mind.  The hesitating part is particularly fitting too, as I asked her to marry me pretty much once a day for two years before she capitulated.

7. Meursault – The Furnace
The first song I ever heard by Meursault, and the first thing we released on Song, by Toad Records.  When I heard Meursault for the first time I genuinely did that ‘sit up and take notice double-take’ thing you see in cartoons.  And now, almost four years later, here I am.

8. Waiters – Brisk
Since doing the Toad Sessions I have started doing a lot of recording as well, and this is the first thing I’ve engineered myself which we’ll actually be releasing, on a split 12″ out in May.

Except I shan’t be mostly mastering because in all honestly I have no fucking idea what that is.  Apparently it is tweaking the teeny-tiniest of things in the final mix of a song and still somehow making the most significant of differences. I’ve heard a good masterer get the most amazing clarity of instrumentation from a shitty, over-compressed mp3 file, to the extent that it sounded amazing on vinyl.

We tend to use Reuben Taylor for our mastering these days.  As well as being a lovely (if slightly mental) fellow, he does an amazing job for a very reasonable fee in a very short space of time.  He was responsible for the Meursault All Creatures vinyl, as well as the gorgeous Rob St. John record and the King Post Kitsch Honeytone EP.

Anyhow, today Rory Sutherland, who helped me record and engineer the record, and I will be off with the final mixes for the split 12″ we’ve been recording with Waiters, Sex Hands, Dolfinz and PAWS and this will be the first time I have witnessed the process first hand.  So I’ll be sure to tell you what unspeakable wizardry takes place in the mastering suite.  Assuming, of course, that I understand any of it at all.

All these photos were taken by the fantastic Nic Rue.  Except the shit one.  That was Rory.