It may be getting dark now, but this morning was one of those days where I began to question my decision to put the office in a North-facing room.  Really, when it’s this sunny I just want to be able to enjoy the sunshine.  Mind you, I wouldn’t be able to read my computer screen, but that strikes me as a very small price to pay.

I am getting ready to go to Austin this week, leaving the house, the cats, the label and this weekend’s Ides of Toad gig in the hands of young Ian.  What, I hear you wondering, could possibly go wrong?

Actually, just getting ready to be out of the country for a couple of weeks is a major headache.  A lot of label and blog stuff can be done from foreign parts easily enough – they do have the internet in America after all – but there are a lot of practical things which I need to wrap up before I leave, so the next couple of days are going to be bloody mental, I fear.

And also, I miss all these fine gigs, which is annoying:

Thursday 8th March: Born to Be Wide Music Journalist Seminar at the Electric Circus.

If you’re in a band and you don’t want to know more about how music journalists think, what they like and don’t like, and stuff like that then frankly you’re an idiot.  At this month’s seminar will be: Claire Sawers (Music Editor, The List), Gary Flockhart (Evening News), David Pollock (Everyone) and Sue Wilson (Sunday Herald, Songlines, The Scotsman).

Friday 9th March: The Ides of Toad, with Adam Stafford, So Many Wizards & LeThug at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

I am really looking forward to this one.  Or at least, I would be if I weren’t going to be in Austin instead.  Instead, I leave this rather excellent lineup in the hands of Ian and yourselves, and I trust none of you will let me down.  So Many Wizards are touring from the States, Adam Stafford was one of my favourite performers I saw all of last year and LeThug are a highly, highly promising new droney, electronic pop band from Glasgow.

Lose Your Mind by so many wizards

Saturday 10th March: Loch Lomond & Frances McKee from The Vaselines at Sneaky Pete’s.

It’s highly frustrating that, given I was responsible for getting Loch Lomond over here in the first place, I have found it impossible to get to any of their gigs ever since they signed with Chemikal Underground.  After a stripped back tour earlier in the year, this is apparently a full band show, and their lush, orchestral pop is bloody gorgeous, so get down to it.

Loch Lomond – Wax & Wire

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Sunday 11th March: Lach at the Third Door.

Lach is finally legal and can finally legally work in the UK, and to celebrate he has booked a UK tour for April, and to warm up his musical muscles after a couple of spoken word sets, he’ll be playing at the Third Door this weekend.

Lach – Blue Overcoat by Song, by Toad

Well after a weekend of total mayhem in Scotland’s capital city, what the fuck are we in for this time around?  Well there’s a few things actually, although one of my personal choices is pretty much sold out, I do believe: that being Withered Hand & the Pictish Trail at the Caves on Thursday. If there are a few tickets left I suggest you turn up at the door pretty promptly in order to score one.

The other stuff, as usual, is listed below:

[Meanwhile, in the now traditional 'Matthew is an idiot and has left something out' slot we have the following: on Thursday 1st March Thomas Truax is playing in a rather surprising choice of venue - Opium nightclub on the Cowgate.]

Tuesday 28th Feb: The Cast of Cheers & Theme Park at the Electric Circus.

I think ‘sprightly guitar pop’ best sums this up.  It’s cheerful, upbeat and bouncy – perhaps not entirely my kind of thing at the moment, but I reckon those of you who like your music a little less growly might enjoy this.

The Cast of Cheers – Goose

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Friday 2nd March: Wet Nuns, Fat Goth & Hagana at the Electric Circus.

If you fancy a bit of pantomime villian blues rock (to coin the stupidest genre designation I’ve heard in a while) then you might well like this.  Despite being tipped by the NME, Wet Nuns sound pretty good, and there’s a sort of over-the-top camp to this bill which looks like great fun.  The names alone are worth going for.

Saturday 3rd March: The Machine Room, Blank Canvas & Zed Penguin at the Wee Red Bar.

This gig is the launch night for the Machine Room’s new EP, which you can preview on the Bandcamp embed below. I am reserving judgment on the band for the time being, but it’s certainly very promising and contains lots of individual moments I do like.  The support bands are pretty varied too, with bluesy screech from Zed Penguin and rollicking piano pop from Blank Canvas.

Sunday 4th March: Adam Stafford, Radio Trees & Loch Awe at the Third Door.

I am such a latecomer to the Adam Stafford Appreciation Party that I am probably really annoying everyone who’s been banging on about him for ages. Nevertheless, the way he builds his songs out of looped vocals and guitar is nevertheless something to behold.  I confess I know nothing about Radio Trees, but Loch Awe have been recording in Chem19 recently and the one song I’ve heard from those sessions sounds bloody great.

Sunday 4th March: A Hawk and a Hacksaw at the Filmhouse.

A Hawk and a Hacksaw’s last visit to Edinburgh brought them to the Caves, if I remember, but this occasion will be rather different: they are here, I think, to play a live soundtrack to the Russian film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.  I am a bit sketchy on the details I have to confess, but this looks rather fascinating.

Well, what a productive morning I’ve had, being all domesticated.  As Mrs. Toad and I have said before, we really need a wife for all this shit, because we’re both awful at it. Laundry just piles up in the corner of the bedroom until we literally have not one single item of clean clothing left.  Dishes just sit and stare accusingly at us from the sink.  Minor domestic DIY has been ignored for six years now, and counting.  Although I suppose DIY is supposed to be a Man Job, rather than a Wife Job, if we’re respecting our stereotypes here.

Anyhow, Brian, El and myself will be back on Fresh Air Radio this afternoon at 3:30pm with Song, by Toad’s Friday Fives, so please do tune in for some fine tunes, interspersed with tedious bickering. We’ll be adding to the playlist at the bottom of the page live as we go along.

Listen live here: on air from 3:30pm UK time.

And I appreciate the affection, but the cats have been showing an inordinate interest in my working day recently.  I don’t mind when they want to sit in my lap as I’m working through emails, although my legs do go to sleep eventually, but the trampling back and forth across the keyboard does get a little tedious.  I might as them to fill in this week’s Friday Fives themselves. Question 1: orwhgw90382509l;\’a/[g, Question 2: wgm9ic2i2p98p;q/ etc etc etc…

Nah, not really, it’ll be my job as usual.  So de-lurk, fill in your fives and then fritter away the rest of the afternoon talking shite.  Hey, if you’re typing you must be working, right?  They don’t know you’re just talking bollocks on the internet.

1. What is the worst touring band you’ve ever paid to see?
2. Which support band was so bad you couldn’t even enjoy the headliner?
3. How often do you arrive in time and actually pay attention to the support band?
4. Who are the most incongruous/later to become massive support band you’ve seen?
5. Who would you like to see being forced to support whom, as a lesson in humility?

Song, by Toad’s Friday Fives Fresh Air playlist:
1. Rob St. John – Domino (Acoustic Demo)
2. Rob St. John – Domino (Live at Retreat)
3. John Knox Sex Club – In the Ditch
4. SAUNA – Glitter Party
5. Elton Motello – Jet Boy, Jet Girl
6. Beirut – Elephant Gun
7. Beastie Boys – Body Movin’
8. Now Wakes the Sea – Propranolol
9. Adam Stafford – Shot Down You Summer Wannabes
10. Dead Prez – Hip Hop
11. LCD Soundsystem – Someone Great
12. Rob St. John – Domino (Album Version)

PUB!

Here’s the first installment of the Song, by Toad Festive Fifty for 2011 – a collection of the fifty songs I have been enjoying the most this year.  The fifty themselves and the precise order can hardly be described as definitive of course, because you know how fluid things like ‘favourite’ songs can be, but roughly speaking this is the stuff I have been enjoying the most in 2011.

Just as a note, in order to make it a broader representation of the bands I’ve liked the most, I have made it harder and harder for bands to have a song featured on the list the more they already had on it.  So a band’s second song got a relatively free pass, but their third would be nudged down a wee bit, to try and encourage variation and stuff like that.

31.Anna-Anna – Mirrors of America I’m aware there are very few women represented on this list, and a lot of those who are seem to share the ghostly, incredibly still delivery, albeit in a more folky setting, with Anna-Anna.

32.Sonny and the Sunsets – Home And Exile I could have half of this album on here, but this one always stood out, as a gem of retro, slightly woozy pop.

33.Quiet Americans – Summer House Straightforward lo-fi garage stuff this, but a hugely, hugely hummable tune.

34.TV Girl – Benny and the Jetts Simple and enjoyable summery pop, but another one so hugely infectious you simply can’t stop humming it.

35.Yoofs – Sidewalk I love the guitar effect, the riff, the energy, everything.  Keep an eye out for this lot on the brilliant Art is Hard Records in the new year.

36.Zed Penguin – This Town A bit of a departure for an Edinburgh band, this. I think my favourite part might be the gorgeously tremulous guitar sound Matthew gets from his hand-built amp.

37.David Thomas Broughton – River Lay On an album as good as Outbreeding it takes an awful lot to stand out, but this does.  For someone who can be a little obtuse, this is such a warm, welcoming record and this track epitomises it as well as most.

38.Evil Hand – Returned In Time These guys don’t exactly push themselves forward, and their releases can be a little erratic, but when they nail it their songs are as good as anyone in Scotland at the moment.

39.Powerdove – Sickly City Ghostly, slightly disorientating, and hypnotic.  This is possibly the finest song on an album which makes a gorgeous job of using minimal instrumentation and glacial pace to turn those three characteristics into a truly beautiful album.

40.Emit Bloch – Dorothy (New Version) Given how much I loved the gorgeous acoustic version of this song which I heard last year, it’s almost inconceivable that I should then also love a big glossy pop version too.  But I do.  Good songwriting, it seems, trumps even my lazy habits.

41.The Honey Pies – Hair of the Dog Boisterous and enormous fun, this album is a gleeful romp through rock ‘n’ roll cliches, but done with such verve that you can’t help but enjoy it.  This is a bit of a Clash throwback, the most raucous song on the album and probably my favourite.

42.The Low Anthem – Ghost Woman Blues After the genius of Boeing 737, The Low Anthem show they can have just as much impact at the opposite end of the spectrum with this gorgeous ballad.

43.Loch Awe – I Will Drift into 10,000 Streams For a band who do things I like and things I don’t, this demo came out of nowhere a few months ago, and I love it.  The slow drum beat, the really sparingly used electric guitar, the way the two voices work together… fine work!

44.The Blue Runes – Stream For me to get into a classic/psych rock EP made by a band from Puerto Rico wouldn’t have been a particularly great bet at the start of the year, but The Blue Runes released a brilliant EP, and this track is probably the biggest track on it.

45.Adam Stafford – Shot-down You Summer Wannabes A cracking song by a guy whose music I only got into embarrassingly late in the day, considering how long ago his debut solo album was released.  Nevertheless, a couple of storming live performances did the trick, and I am now entirely converted.

46.Horsecollar – Christopher A jaunty little piano line stands out immediately, but the rest of this song is bloody great too – a presumably unheard monologue delivered to a friend, and a stand out on a fine album.

47.Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin’ On A gorgeous song on a gorgeous album.  This record is a little more approachable and a little less creepy than the last, and lush, lovely songs like this one are the reason.

48.Lady Lazarus – Nazarite Oath Ghostly, unsettling and lovely at the same time, this has a lot in common with the excellent Powerdove.

49.Silverbacks – Atta Boyz Simple this one: a cracking pop tune, good riff, and extremely hummable.

50.Pet – What You Building Another song which came as a bit of a surprise, given Edinburgh doesn’t generally do this kind of music all that well, but this is lovely.

Zip file download: right-click, save as.

1-10 | 11-30 | 31-50

 Firstly, a big, big thank you to everyone who came out to see Withered Hand, Samantha Crain and Mike MacFarlane (who now goes by the name of Flash Jr.) last night.  It was bloody amazing.  I want to start a campaign to get more big bands to Henry’s to play a wee sweatbox gig with the crowd standing mere inches away from them.

Anyway, due to Thanksgiving dinner and parental visitation reasons, I didn’t get the chance to record the podcast this weekend, so I shall do it this afternoon, once I have posted this.

And God help our livers, there is a fuck of a lot going on this week in Edinburgh.  Mind you, it’s the same next week too, so I guess we’re going to have to just batten down the hatches and wait for January!  And I haven’t even done my end of year lists yet either.

Monday 28th November: Dems & Luxury Car at Sneaky Pete’s.

A Fresh Air-hosted return to Edinburgh for a Fresh Air alumnus, in the form of Dems’ Dan Moss.

Tuesday 29th November: Blank Canvas, the Dill Dolls, Kith & Kin and Anthony Stickings at Sneaky Pete’s.

I have to confess to knowing nothing about any of the bands on this bill bar Blank Canvas, who finished on the shortlist for this year’s Radar Prize. They play a very promising interpretation of the eighties indie sound, more as channeled via Bloc Party, and are well worth checking out.
By the Fire by Blank Canvas

Thursday 1st December: Loch Awe, Adam Stafford & Reverieme at Sneaky Pete’s.

You should all know how impressed I am with Adam Stafford’s solo stuff by now, but Loch Awe are sounding very promising at the moment too.  A new song of theirs sort of mooched its way onto the internet recently, and it’s absolutely fucking lovely.  And done with the kind of restraint and subtlety I tend (perhaps a little unfairly) not to associate with relatively young bands.

Loch Awe – I Will Drift into 10,000 Streams

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Thursday 1st December: Born to Be Wide Recording Studio Seminar at the Electric Circus.

After another excellent series of seminars, this is I believe the last one of the year for the Born to Be Wide team.  This time around they’ll be concentrating on making the best use of studio time, from preparation before you go in there, to how to best make use of your time once you’re up and running.

Friday 2nd December: Gerry Loves Records Christmas Party at the Banshee Labyrinth.

As far as I am aware, tickets for this are verrrrry nearly sold out, so go here now if you still haven’t got one.  The lineup is a great big multi-headed fun beast, with Lady North, Paws, Trapped in Kansas, Field Mouse, The Japanese War Effort & that old stand-by ‘special guests’ on the bill.  The gig also serves as a launch night for a Japanese War Effort/Field Mouse split tape, which I can tell you has me all sorts of excited.  The Japanese War Effort actually forced me to buy my first tape player in years by putting Snowbird on cassette.  I had a whole stereo system, and then this one big shiny silver machine just to play that one album.  And it was worth it!

The Japanese War Effort – Sophie Says

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Friday 2nd December: Meursault, Sparrow & the Workshop & Collar Up at Cabaret Voltaire.

This will be a fine, loud end of year blowout, as well as the chance to see new band Collar Up play, which will be rather intriguing.  Meursault are, I believe, going into hibernation in the new year, as we get ready for the release of their third album which will be out in (roughly) May 2012.

Sparrow & the Workshop – Snakes in the Grass

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Saturday 3rd December: Beard of Truth Christmas Party with The Spook School & Calypso Brown at the Wee Red Bar.

Pop fun to end the week, with excellent Edinburgh newcomers The Spook School joined on the bill by Calypso Brown, who is another artist I saw for the first time at this year’s Antihoot.  Pet have had to pull out, so the Beardmeister will be working frantically this week to find someone to step in and fill their shoes.

The Spook School – Hallam

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 Having been sick all week it is a bloody miracle there’s been anything written on this blog at all, never mind the fountain of insightful commentary we have seen since Monday.  Pulitzers, here we come!

“And the Nobel Prize for Gin and Swearing goes to…”

Anyhow, I am having one of those ‘what the fuck kind of a world do we fucking live in?’ weeks, which I generally dismiss as the indulgence of old people who forget how shit things actually were in their youth.

But this week we have seen the forcible suppression of peaceful protesters in the States, the criminalisation of the equally peaceful Fortnum & Mason’s protesters in the UK, the classification of pizza as ‘a portion of vegetables’ in the guidelines for providing balanced meals in US schools, Sepp Blatter suggesting that racist abuse can be laughed off with a handshake (to howls of outrage from the English press, whose own national football captain was caught on film recently calling someone a ‘fucking black cunt’) and our government subsidising the private sector by sending them slave labour in the form of the jobless, whose benefits will be withheld if they don’t obey.

My taxes may well be spent on some dubious projects, but damned if they should be spent paying the wages of fucking Tesco employees, thank you very fucking much.

So, swearing over with.  As I will be on the radio later I needed to get that out of my system now, lest I sully the ears of Edinburgh’s sensitive student population with naughty words.  I will be joined, of course, by El Parks and Brian Pokora on Fresh Air radio at 3:30pm, and for those of you who are out and about on Saturdays when our pals from Live From the Latin Quarter are broadcasting, then you can always listen to them again on Mixcloud here.

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

And in the meantime, here are five silly questions for those of you with an afternoon to waste.  Friday is of course de-lurking amnesty on Song, by Toad, so if you’ve been reading for a while but never quite been arsed to chip in and say hello, why not do it today.  Let’s face it, nothing you say can possibly be as inane as what the rest of us will be coming out with for most of the afternoon.

1. What would you set the jobless to do, if you had them at your disposal?
2. Most spurious ‘portion of fruit or veg’ claim you can imagine.
3. Most hateful athlete.
4. Worst old people moan.
5. Worst old people moan you find yourself letting slip occasionally.

And the playlist for the radio show will appear live below from half three.

1. Yo La Tengo – Tom Courtenay
2. Adam Stafford – Shot Down You Summer Wannabes
3. P.S. I Love You – Facelove
4. The Twilight Sad – That Summer at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy
5. Jonnie Common – Hand-Hand
6. Phoenix – Fences (Friendly Fires Remix)
7. Weird Era – Garage Honeymoon
8. The Pixies – Where is My Mind (Bass Nectar Remix)
9. Wounded Knee – Hares on the Mountain
10. Sugar Baby – Dock Boggs
11. Clarence Ashley – Cuckoo Bird
12. The Black Keys – The Only One

 I remember the first time I saw the Twilight Sad.  They played in Bannerman’s in August 2007, with Popup and Dumb Instrument, and I remember bumping into at least half a dozen people from different bands, all excited to hear this new Scottish band who most of us happened to have heard about first from American blogs, oddly enough.

It was similar last night actually, in the sense that having gone along with Ian, we ended up bumping into loads of local music people. Clearly something about the Twilight Sad excites music people.

Before we get into that though, fucking hell, Adam Stafford! Now, I enjoyed his latest album Build a Harbour Immediately, but live was something else. And, without wishing to hurt anyone’s feelings, I can’t understand how it wasn’t utter shit.

This is a man building up his songs with looped and layered beatboxing.  He adds just a little guitar here and there, but for the most part the actual substance of the music is built from layer upon layer of… and I am going to have to say it again here… beatboxing!  To explain myself, beatboxing is a little like rapping, in the sense that the mere mention of it gives me the fucking twitches. I am sure that in the right environment, done by the right people in the right context, it can be awesome, but it is very much Not For Me.  I even get the cold shakes when Tom Waits mentions beatboxing, and he is a musical deity who can do exactly what he pleases, as far as I am concerned.

So if you had described a man in a shirt and tie layering (and I kid you not) bow-chkka-wow-wow and deedy-n-dee-diddy and stuff like that, there is nothing I can picture being made with those ingredients that isn’t utterly embarrassing, unlistenable shit.

But he was brilliant.

As I said, looking at the actual mechanics of what Stafford does, it shouldn’t be great, but it really was.  It helped that he played it absolutely straight, but more than anything, despite what they were assembled from, the songs themselves were absolutely great. The performance was fantastic too.  The whole thing was fucking awesome.  I have no idea how he did it. I have got to go back and listen to that record again.  And I am damned if I am not going to see him again tonight, with Jonnie Common at the Electric Circus.*

Adam Stafford – Shot Down You Summer Wannabes

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Anyhow, now for the Twilight Sad.  A new bass player and the added keyboard ensure that they sound a little different these days, but the cacophonous wall of ear-blistering noise hasn’t changed.  Neither has James Graham’s impassioned howl.

Watching Graham front this band is wont to give you the impression that songs were written by the devil, and the only he could think of sneaking them into heaven is to send them up through the soles of Graham’s shoes, twisting round his spine until he is so possessed he tilts his head back and bellows them into the heavens.

His tortured convulsions and menacing, delirious and yet oddly blank stare embody the effect on the listener.  This isn’t dance music, obviously enough, but it has a spiritual side to it.  It’s hypnotic, visceral and overwhelming.  Tonight, like the first time I saw them, all I could do was stand directly in the path of the deluge and accept the impact, tilt my head towards the sky and let them do their thing.

I do have to confess however that when, towards the end of the set, they played a handful of songs from their incredible debut album Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, I was reminded of the fact that they have yet to really do anything that has thrilled me quite as much as those early songs.  Mind you, live is often not really the right setting to judge new material, and with their promises that the new album is going to be unlike the previous two I find myself genuinely intrigued to hear what they are up to now.

The Twilight Sad – That Summer at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy

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The Twilight Sad – I Became a Prostitute

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The Twilight Sad – Kill it in the Morning

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*Cue much I Told You So-ing from Peenko and Ayetunes.

Sorry about the delay getting this post up, but today has been the day of bureaucracy.  Magnificent, steaming bureaucracy.

Anyhow, apart from the momentous occasion of my birthday, there’s actually quite a bit going on in Edinburgh this week. If you’re really quick, and really keen you can nip down to the Liquid Room tonight and catch Wild Beasts.  Their latest album may be a little tepid, despite the frantic fluffing from Drowned in Sound, but Two Dancers was incredible and they are a cracking live band.

Also, Yuck are playing Cabaret Voltaire on Saturday, but I think that might be sold out as I can’t seem to find tickets.  Besides, you should be at the Wee Red Bar instead anyway.

In the meantime, a flu has come down pretty hard over the course of the day, so I feel like shit.  I will now proceed to spit out these gig blurbs as fast as I possibly can and scarper for the bed toot sweet.

Thursday 17th November 2011: Vic Galloway presents… Remember Remember, Jonnie Common & Adam Stafford at the Electric Circus.

The second in the ongoing series of ‘Vic Galloway Presents’ gigs at the Electric Circus, with the awesome Jonnie Common, the Christ-I-can’t-believe-I’ve-yet-to-see-him-live Adam Stafford, mastermind behind Wiseblood Industries, and the I-don’t-really-know-much-about-them-at-all-sorry Remember Remember.

Friday 18th November 2011: An Evening with Wounded Knee – “House Music” album launch show with Kittens & The Wee Rogue at the IsoLounge.

Gerry Loves Records are launching their next tape release, Wounded Knee’s House Music, with a night at the cosy Iso Lounge, former home of the much-missed Leith Tape Club.  Drew will be joined by the whispers of The Wee Rogue, and a band called Kittens, who are apparently one part of 7VWWVW and a chap from The Divine Comedy, which sounds as odd as it does fascinating.

Friday 18th November 2011: Liz Green, Emily Scott & Caro Bridges at the Electric Circus.

This, I think it goes without saying, will be stylish and lovely.  Emily Scott was excellent at her recent album launch at the Third Door, and Liz Green is always bloody marvellous.

Liz Green – French Singer

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Saturday 19th November 2011: Gummy Stumps, Weird Era & Battery Face play the Ides of Toad at the Wee Red Bar.

Without doubt *cough cough* the gig of the week will be at Wee Red Bar on Saturday, on the day I just coincidentally happen to turn thirty-six and intend to celebrate with copious amounts of bevvy.  This will be loud and dirty, and honestly I could have happily put any of the three bands as headliners.  Come along, clap the bands, point and laugh at the Toad!

Weird Era – Summer Heights

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Battery Face – Lurch

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Gummy Stumps by winningspermparty

Saturday 19th November 2011: An evening with Richard Youngs at the Canon’s Gait.

I know next to nothing about Richard Youngs, I must confess, but anything with the joint seal of approval of Braw Gigs and Tracer Trails will be at worst interesting and at best absolutely fucking amazing.  As I said, I feel like shit, so forgive the laziness of pasting a wee bit of the press release below:

“With hundreds of solo and collaborative releases on countless labels (including his own “No Fans” label) Richard’s music has been heaped with accolades since the 1990’s. Whether through his collaborations with the likes of Simon Wickham-Smith, Jandek, Neil Campbell or Makoto Kawabata, or in his solo work encompassing the starkest minimalism, lush acapella and acoustic balladry, Richard adds a touch of humanity to any project he’s involved with – a rare thing in the sterile surroundings of the experimental scene.”

The above photo is of the Palm House in Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens, and was taken and passed on to me by Dylan, of Blueback Hotrod legend.  And given that the weather outside is all kinds of shit I thought there would be a sort of bitter irony in using it today.  See – that’s how nice Edinburgh can be, so what the fuck is this pissing rain all about?

Anyhow, traditional British whingeing aside, it’s going to be a pretty bloody mental week this week. Thursday is going to be a particular swine, what with the awesome David Dondero going up against the Fruit Tree Foundation night in Leith, as well as the Travelling Band/Jonnie Common show at the Electric Circus.  Then it’s Oxjam takeover time on Friday.  Then Rob St. John’s album launch on Saturday.  Fucking hell, I’m going to have a liver like a cricket ball  by Sunday.

Wednesday 19th October 2011: This is Music presents Denis Jones & Adam Stafford at Sneaky Pete’s.

My pal Howard, who runs Humble Soul Records down in Manchester, absolutely raves about Denis Jones, as does Jonnie Common, and I can’t imagine two people whose recommendations I would take more seriously.  Apparently Mr. Jones does a lot of looped vocal stuff, but everyone who has told me about it has qualified that with ‘yeah, but it’s nothing like you’d expect’.  Intriguing.

Denis Jones – Elvis

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Thursday 20th October 2011: David Dondero at the Scottish Storytelling Centre.

David Dondero is kind of under the radar, I suppose, but from the relatively little I know about him, he can be fucking spectacular.  Rothko Chapel was one of my songs of the year a couple of years ago, and his sparse, acoustic Americana is really gorgeous.

David Dondero – Rothko Chapel

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Thursday 20th October 2011: The Fruit Tree Foundation presents James Yorkston, Rod Jones & Withered Hand at Nobles, Leith.

The Fruit Tree Foundation was set up by former Idlewild gentleman Rod Jones and former Delgado Emma Pollock to raise awareness for the Mental Health Foundation. My personal knowledge is a little sketchy, but I think musicians have volunteered to act as mentors for young songwriters, and together to create new music, and I think it is this which will be performed in Nobles on Thursday. Given the calibre of the musicians involved, it should be really good.

Thursday 20th October 2011: The Travelling Band & Jonnie Common at the Electric Circus.

Jonnie Common actually worked on a track by Adam Gorman of the Travelling Band for his recent Deskjob project, so this pairing makes plenty of sense from that perspective.  As to how the rousing Americana of the band and Jonnie’s idiosyncratic electropop will go together musically, erm… well, remains to be seen.

Adam P. Gorman – Hitchhiker (from Jonnie Common’s Deskjob)

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Friday 21st October 2011: Oxjam Edinburgh Takeover (Facebook link).

This is a beast of an event, with gigs happening at the Electric Circus, Cabaret Voltaire, Sneaky Pete’s, The Banshee Labyrinth and the (recently resurrected) Left Banke.  The full list of bands thus far confirmed as playing is as follows: As In Bear, Black International, Broken Records (solo), Citizens, Dead Boy Robotics, Endor, Esperi, FOUND, French Wives, i build collapsible mountains, The Last Battle, Letters, Loch Awe, The Machine Room, Meursault, PAWS, Sebastian Dangerfield, The Spook School, Trapped in Kansas, Trapped Mice, Vasquez and Verse Metrics.  It’s going to be a beast of a night, I suspect, but you’re own your own with this one, I am not digging out links for all those bands, nor attempting to describe them.  Just go.

Saturday 22nd October 2011: Rob St. John album launch with Meursault, eagleowl & Viking Moses at Pilrig St. Paul’s.

Personally, I think this is damned close to being the lineup of the year.  I’d like to see anyone else top it, in any case.  This is also, the header implies, the launch show for Rob St. John’s gorgeous debut album Weald, out on 12″ gatefold vinyl at the end of November. We have partnered with John Truckasaurus to add Viking Moses to a bill already bursting with goodness. Tickets are available at Avalanche Records and online, here.

Rob St. John – Your Phantom Limb by Song, by Toad

Saturday 22nd October 2011: Patrick Wolf at the Liquid Room.

Alright, alright, a few of you might well raise an eyebrow at this one, but I remember when Patrick Wolf first broke through.  His brand of flamboyant, baroque pop was a bit over the top perhaps, but it certainly had a certain element of fascination.  So I may of course be personally endorsing Rob St. John’s album launch, but this one still kinda caught my eye.

This podcast was recorded – not a word of a lie – on a deserted mountaintop in Corsica in the shadow of a ruined castle.  Not an especially enormous ruined castle, I’ll grant you, but the shadow of a ruined castle nevertheless.

I will try and show you this as clearly as possible when I choose the picture for the mp3 tag and all that stuff, but I honestly doubt it will be all that easy.  Vast panoramas of rocky mountains don’t really come across all that well in photos, particularly when the only device you have with you with which to take them is an iPhone.

Anyhow, having recorded this, the challenge is going to be to find somewhere to upload the fucker.  Bank machines and shops which let you pay by card are pretty scarce commodities in the interior of the island, never mind a decent internet connection.

Direct download: Toadcast #180 – The Corsicast

01. Kate & Anna McGarrigle – Come a Long Way (00.09)
02. Yusuf Azak – Lay Me Down (05.36)
03. The Black Tambourines – Better Off Dead (09.54)
04. Fog – 10th Avenue Freakout (18.42)
05. Six Organs of Admittance – Saint Cloud (23.19)
06. Adam Stafford – Fire & Theft (33.20)
07. Neil Young – Old Man (Live at Massey Hall 1971) (38.45)
08. Girls Names – I Lose (46.53)
09. Mavis the Dog – End of Our Day (50.55)
10. Jenny Reeve & Jill O’Sullivan – Tooth & Claw (56.59)