So umm… much happening in Edinburgh at the moment?  There seem to be an awful lot of people about, so you’d have to assume something was going on.

It was actually the T on the Fringe (what the Edge Festival used to be called) lineup which gave me a significant nudge into the world of DIY music, when I first moved up here, just before the Festival in 2005.  I really wanted to go and see Yo La Tengo at the Liquid Room, Mrs. Toad wasn’t going to come with me, I didn’t know anyone else who might be interested.

I decided I most certainly wasn’t going to not go and see a band I really wanted to see, just because of not having anyone to go with, and thus was born my habit of solo gig-going.  And when you go to a lot of gigs by yourself, you start to recognise people, and so you slowly get drawn more and more into the ‘underground scene’ or whatever you want to call and Boom – six years later you’ve started a record label, quit your job and made an office in your spare room.

The Edge Festival is supposed to be the music side of the Edinburgh Festival and it’s generally pretty good, but this year is absolutely appalling – almost entirely devoid of interest and with a lineup comprising little more than one or two gigs I want to see over the course of the entire month.  I suppose sometimes things just don’t click for whatever reason, but this year’s Edge Festival has an absolutely awful lineup. Good thing we have Retreat! and my four gigs at the Electric Circus, or things really would be rotten.

Anyhow, if it’s music you want, rather than the Festival, there are two things this week which look interesting:

Friday 12th August 2011: The Occasional Flickers and The Japanese War Effort at the Forest Cafe.

The Occasional Flickers make swoonsome, gentle indie-pop.  The Japanese War Effort, whilst he too makes pop music, tends to bugger about with it a bit more, using loops, effects and electronics to bend his creations into shape.

The Japanese War Effort – Pool Attendant

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Sunday 14th August 2011: Admiral Fallow & Kid Canaveral at the Liquid Room.

Pop.  The first with added folk and the second with added indie.  Easy.

Kid Canveral – Smash Hits

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And that is about that, although I will remind you (*warning – spam approaching*) that Lach’s one-man show, The Waitress, the Walls and the Weirdos is on every night at 8:45 at Cabaret Voltaire as part of the Free Fringe, and the Antihoot is on every night apart from Tuesday at the Gilded Balloon (The Teviot Underground, for those of you who live here).  To play the Antihoot, and for the chance to be on the Best of the Antihoot album we’ll be releasing after the Festival just get in touch with Lach on info@antifolk.net

Apologies for the lateness of this week’s podcast, but inevitably the chaos of SXSW nudges schedules into the background a little.

Last year, several margaritas the worse for wear, we sat down with Ben from Instinctive Racoon, Stuart from Creative Scotland, Vic Galloway from BBC Radio Scotland and Peej from Dear Scotland, and recorded a ramshackle, lurching podcast about the fun of the week.

This year, perhaps goaded into something bordering on professionalism by the presence of the BBC camera crew who have been following Vic around all week, things were a little smoother.  Although this may also have been related to the fact that the margarita-hoovering didn’t actually start until afterwards this time. Ben wasn’t here this time, but we did have myself, Peej, Vic and Stuart sharing a beverage on Peej’s back porch and talking something approaching the usual gubbins.

Oh, and the Detour Scotland Big Walk video we mention in the podcast can be found here.

Direct download: Toadcast #166 – The Tequilacast

01. Admiral Fallow – Squealing Pigs (00.37)
02. Withered Hand – Religious Songs (10.40)
03. Menomena – Taos (23.02)
04. Clock Opera – A Piece of String (28.13)
05. Ringo Deathstarr – Imagine Hearts (35.32)
06. The Twilight Sad – Cold Days From the Birdhouse (48.50)
07. Josh T. Pearson – Sweetheart I Ain’t Your Christ (62.27)
08. Erland & the Carnival – My Name is Carnival (74.19)
09. King Creosote – Grace (Jeff Buckley cover) (82.49)

This is my video diary from the first day of the Fence Collective’s Haarfest.

This one doesn’t have much beyond me burbling, King Creosote explaining the festival and then some tunes from Adem, Admiral Fallow and Silver Columns.

Following installments will have a bit more Anstruthery atmosphere and so on, just as soon as I can get up there properly instead of coming back and forth from Edinburgh every night.

Well, apart from the usual gigs, we have a couple of ongoing Festival specials this week to add to the general level of giddy excitement.

Firstly, the Acoustic Cafe is running all week downstairs at the Roxy Art House featuring this week, amongst others, The Pictish Trail and Wounded Knee.

Secondly, Lach’s Antihoot is an ongoing, late night, at the Gilded Balloon, and is an open mic night in which Lach brings his legendary New York institution, and initial nurturing ground of so many artists we love, to Edinburgh for the duration of August.

And if that little lot isn’t enough to keep you busy, we have a wee list below.  And if you see a Home Counties ex-public schoolboy on a unicycle at any point (and face it, the odds are pretty good) feel free to poke a stick in his fucking spokes.  ‘Zany antics’ – the bane of the Edinburgh fucking Festival.

Wednesday 11th August 2010: Mitchell Museum & White Heath at Electric Circus.

The Electric Circus continues their hugely appreciated policy of giving as many opportunities to emerging Scottish bands during the Festival as possible.  Mitchell Museum’s new album, on lovely, heavy 12″ vinyl, will hopefully be available for purchase at the gig too.  I wish we could afford to release more stuff on vinyl, but it really is fucking expensive stuff, and a right nuisance to store as well.

Thursday 12th August 2010: The Oates Field, The Memory Band & The Pictish Trail play Leith Tape Club at the IsoLounge.

Festival schmestival, Leith Tape Club is one of the best alternative nights in Edinburgh, and Leith should be a nice place to get away from all the hurly-burly of Edinburgh in August.  There may not be tickets left for long though, so follow the link above sharpish if you want to attend.

The Pictish Trail – Winter Home Disco

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Saturday 14th August 2010: Pantha du Prince & Brothers Grimm at Sneaky Pete’s.

Strictly speaking, Brothers Grimm are a graphic design and illustration team, so I can’t imagine how well those skills will translate to the realm of haircutty electro music.  Still, Chris is the Bleepmaster General in Meursault and his brother Michael is better know for his work in Dead Boy Robotics so despite the fact that I am probably not indie enough, well dressed enough or even slightly cool enough to attend their debut gig I shall style my hair as well as I can and hope for the best.

Pantha du Prince – Lichten

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This is another chatty podcast, recorded in the hostel room of the lovely (and somewhat creepy) Lloyd from Peenko and Ian from Have Fun at Dinner on Friday afternoon at GoNorth.

In terms of creepy, we were all kind of  creeped out by the industry reacharounds which seemed to be going on left right and centre though.  Who do you know, who likes who best blah blah blah blah blah.

I think that me and everyone I know have all decided to just fuck all this industry bollocks and do what the fuck we please.  Honestly, it’s all just far far too much eating of crow for me.  Fuck.  Right.  Off.

Toadcast #126 – The Schmoozecast

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01. Woodenbox With a Fistful of Fivers – Draw a Line (03.49)
02. Fiona Soe Paing – Deep Song (14.45)
03. The Seventeenth Century – Roses in the Park (17.40)
04. Kid Canaveral – And Another Thing!! (24.58)
05. Miaoux Miaoux – Snow (34.23)
06. Admiral Fallow – Subbuteo (38.18)
07. Mitchell Museum – Tiger Heartbeat (48.45)
08. Randolph’s Leap – Squeamish (57.53)

Never mind fucking jetpacks, SPRING is what I was fucking well promised.  A few weeks ago I awoke to a pleasantly mild morning and strolled into work without ducking the head or turning up the collar and genuinely believed that Spring was on its way.

It wasn’t, of course, it was just Mother Nature fucking with my head.  I remember last year the crocuses and snowdrops were out in January, it was that warm, whereas this year it is pretty much April and they are still not out in the shadier parts of the garden.

A couple of other things blooming, to stretch a metaphor slightly, are the venues of Edinburgh.  After taking a while to get their new regime into place, the newly rechristened Roxy Rooms seem to have started to get some interesting bookings again.  The Liquid Rooms, which burned to a crisp when the Indian restaurant above them caught fire something like a couple of years ago, are on the verge of being ready for reoccupation.  I don’t know how soon, but hopefully in the next few months.  And having been used quite heavily during Sunday’s Haddowfest it looks possible that Maggie’s Chambers might be considering booking a few more gigs.

Given that a music scene cannot thrive without venues to house it, and given that we’ve been really rather stretched not just for good venues but for people willing to book them in recent months, this all seems to be good news for local bands and labels.  So it might be Springlike in a sense, even if it’s still fucking miserable and cold outside.

Monday 29th March 2010: Benni Hemm Hemm, Tisso Lake & Skeleton Bob at the Roxy Room.

Benni Hemm Hemm was excellent at Homegame, with a three-piece brass section adding depth to his sound, and the last time I saw Tisso Lake I was really impressed both with Ian’s voice and his guitar-playing, which had a really nice sound to it.  Tisso Lake will be in band rather than solo format tonight, with Skeleton Bob rounding off a really good lineup.

Tuesday 30th March 2010: Race Horses at Sneaky Pete’s.

I had a quick listen to these guys and ‘fucking mental indie-pop’ is probably the only expression which springs to mind.  It has a very 90s vibe to it as well, which you might either consider woefully unfashionable or on the verge of becoming the next big thing, depending how far along the invent-hate-rehash cycle you are with that particular decade’s aesthetic.

Race Horses – Cake

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Tuesday 30th March 2010: Beneath Us, the Waves, The Japanese War Effort & Euan McMeeken at the Wee Red Bar.

Something tells me that between the sounscapes, the glitchery and the balledry of these three bands there will not be a mosh pit at this gig.

The Japanese War Effort – For the Backroads

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Friday 2nd April 2010: Conquering Animal Sound & Debutant split 7″ launch at the Roxy Room.

This is not just the launch night for the CAS/Debutant split 7″, but also for the brand spanking new label which is releasing it: Gerry Loves Records, from the team which brought you OfftheBeatenTracks.tv.  They are apparently going to be focussing on releasing beautiful artefacts, which sounds like a terrible way to make money, but a splendid way to release music, as far as I am concerned.

Debutant – Definition

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Friday 2nd April 2010: My Tiny Robots, Cancel the Astronauts & Lovers Turn to Monsters play This is Music at Sneaky Pete’s.

There will be indie-pop, and afterwards there will be drinking and dancing.  Lots of it.

Sunday 4th April 2010: Admiral Fallow & Baby Bones at Sneaky Pete’s.

All I know of Admiral Fallow is that they are either the re-born, re-jigged or simply re-named Brother Louis Collective.  The stuff on their MySpace page sounds quite promising and this might well be worth a punt.