You know, the only things in my Facebook events thingy for this week are my own gig, a friend’s birthday piss-up and some club night or other.  Three items.  In the days before Facebook events became an invite to bury our inboxes in spam it used to be fucking useful, but now… sheesh!

Still, even having investigated a little further, this really does seem to be it.  Am I right?  Is this it?  Are we going to have to do something intellectually valid with our week instead, like read a book or go to the Cameo and see some Romanian film with Cantonese subtitles or something like that?  I’m not sure I can handle that type of highbrow shit anymore.

Friday 16th September 2011: Indie Funday at Henry’s Cellar Bar with Night Noise Team, The Spook School, Thank You So Nice, Little Love, Alex Foottit and Coral Brierley.

Indie Funday looks to be extremely aptly named.  I assume with so many bands on the bill that this will be going on late, and from the looks of the bill the term ‘indie’ applies as much to the aesthetic usage – as in a blanket term for guitar pop – as it does to the ethos of the bands. Should be a highly enjoyable night.

Spook School – Hallam

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Saturday 17th September 2011: The Japanese War Effort, Animal Magic Tricks & Yusuf Azak at the Wee Red Bar.

This will be our first post-Festival Ides of Toad night.  Most of the rest of them are booked up already, so we’ll have a full schedule between now and Christmas.  All three of these artists have the ability to be as obscure as they do melodic, and I think that ambiguity is a large part of what attracts me to them.

The Japanese War Effort – Surrender to Summer

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So, after the chaos of the Festival, we are back to normal service here in Ides of Toad HQ (which looks suspiciously similar to Song, by Toad HQ and bears a more than passing resemblance to Song, by Toad Records HQ).

Actually, I thought I managed to get myself horribly waylaid by the Festival, but it turns out I have most of the Autumn’s lineups already filled and ready to go, with only a few gaps here and there.  This level of organisation rather shocks me, I have to confess, but I am sure I will find some way to have a last-minute panic in the end.

Anyhow, apart from next week’s Japanese War Effort, Animal Magic Tricks and Yusuf Azak gig, on Saturday 17th at the Wee Red Bar, we have the following:

Saturday 1st October, just confirmed: John Knox Sex Club, Plank! and Easter at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
This is going to be a cracker.  JKSC have a new album to promote, which sounds amazing, and Plank! and Easter are coming up from Manchester.  It’s going to be one of those evenings where none of the bands have that much in common exactly, but I still think the lineup will work really well.

Saturday 22nd October: Rob St. John album launch, with Meursault and eagleowl.
The venue is TBC on this one, but we are looking for somewhere a bit interesting, rather than your usual gig club bar venue thingie.  And I would imagine that readers of this site need little introduction to eagleowl or Meursault, but as Rob plays in both those bands as well, I do find myself wondering if he’s given any thought to just how much work he’s going to have to do on the night.

Saturday 5th November: Dad Rocks! and Shoes and Socks Off, with one more TBC, at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
This will be an evening of smart acoustic pop, and we have one more band still to add to the bill. I may try and add a full band to the headline slot though, just to make sure everyone stays on their toes.

Saturday 19th November: at the Wee Red Bar, and it’s my fucking birthday as well!
The whole lineup for the 19th is TBC, because I am trying to get Manchester’s Weird Era and Glasgow’s Battery Face onto the same bill, but we are just in the process of juggling dates, so none of this is confirmed yet. I am confident it will work out though, because everyone involved is keen to make it happen.

Sunday 27th November: Withered Hand, Samantha Crain and Michael McFarlane at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
I think Withered Hand will be playing solo acoustic, although I’m not sure, and I am absolutely thrilled to get Samantha Crain here for a gig, some three years after regular commenter and sometime contributor Campfires and Battlefields introduced me to her music. And finally, Michael McFarlane is someone I knew absolutely nothing about, but he’s a local lad who played Lach’s Antihoot this Summer and I thought he was bloody excellent, so I asked him to open.

Saturday 10th December: Song, by Toad Records Christmas Party.
This entire thing is TBC, but I think this is the best date for it.  It should at least give us time to clean up the house in time for the New Year’s House Gig, in any case.

So, umm… there you go.  I have to confess I never thought ‘putting on the odd gig’ would lead to this, but er, they should be really, really good shows.  And it would be nice if you all came to them too, otherwise I am going to be in all sorts of money trouble!

This is fucking great. To say that I am chuffed to be working with Animal Magic Tricks is an understatement. ‘Nuff said. New album coming in Spring, and the one that this might be on… well, hopefully soon after, I reckon.

Apparently no-one visits websites anymore, because it’s all about the social media and so on and so forth, so I suppose most of you have already seen this.

In case you haven’t, however, I have uploaded a free Song, by Toad Records sampler to Bandcamp, with songs from some of our more recent releases, as well as a healthy dose of new material from the releases we have planned for the rest of the year.

Our release schedule is slowly filling up, as well.  Before a brief break for the Edinburgh Festival we have four-song 7″ releases by King Post Kitsch and Lil Daggers, we have Surrender to Summer by The Japanese War Effort on 10″ vinyl, and we have albums by Lach and King Post Kitsch.  It is going to be very fucking busy indeed.

So, before all that excitement starts I figured I might as well give away some free sweeties to get people excited.  And here it is, downloadable for free from Bandcamp.  Enjoy!

This is my annual World of Song, by Toad Records podcast, where I prattle on a bit about the stuff we have coming up in the new year.  I play a couple of things we released towards the tail end of the year, and some stuff by some of the new bands we’re going to be working with for the first time in 2011.

I also prattle on at immensely tedious length about the ins and outs of running a record label, which may or may not actually interest you at all, but it’s there whether you like it or not.

We’ve got plans for some changes for the new year as well, with a new imprint for the label being launched, and a partnership with the Brothers Grimm for the creation of new lines of merch to go with every release.  It’s going to be a bit exhausting, I think, but immense fun nevertheless.

Direct download: Toadcast #155 – Song, by Toad Records 2011

01. King Post Kitsch – Eggshells (00.21)
02. Animal Magic Tricks – Heavenly Bodies (06.31)
03. The Savings and Loan – The Virgin’s Lullaby (18.45)
04. Inspector Tapehead – Sugar on Your Sheets (22.00)
05. Rob St. John & the Braindead Collective – The Whites of Our Eyes (28.11)
06. Loch Lomond – Elephants and Little Girls (41.36)
07. Trips and Falls – This is All Going to End Badly (52.37)
08. Jesus H. Foxx – Plans (Alt. Version Demo) (54.59)
09. Meursault – Another (61.34)
10. Lach – I Want to Be With You (65.56)
11. Yusuf Azak – Lay Me Down (Demo) (76.49)

Having weaselled out of our Fresh Air show yesterday because I was too busy trying to get Loch Lomond sessions edited and generally ready to go away on holiday, so Ruth missed out on her weekly opportunity to take the piss out of me, which must have been a shame for the poor lass.

Anyhow, we decided to remedy this by recording a podcast for publishing while we’re away, so Ruth came round with a CD of twenty songs and we bumbled our way through an evening chattering nonsense (as per usual).

We’re a teeny-tiny bit short of cutting edge new tunes for this week, but I think we can live with that for a week, eh.  As Ruth would insist, her choices are all better than things I would have chosen anyway…

Toadcast #139 – The Comfortcast

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01. Animal Magic Tricks – Pinkening (05.04)
02. Eurythmics – Love is a Stranger (11.21)
03. Iron & Wine – Upward Over the Mountain (19.11)
04. Mountain Man – Mouthwings (25.54)
05. Yo La Tengo – Take Care (28.04)
06. Fred Astaire – Top Hat, White Tie & Tails (35.42)
07. Gomez – 78 Stone Wobble (41.43)
08. The Everley Brothers – Be Bop a-lula (49.21)
09. Edith Piaf – Non, Je ne Regrette Rien (51.37)
10. Pulp – The Boss (Demo) (58.23)

Recorded for you from the sunny, blazing hot mountains of Andalucia, this one is a little late being uploaded because we only just got back to Scotland and I decided I might as well wait until we got home before uploading it rather than charge all around Spain trying to find somewhere to upload from and then sitting around for ages waiting for the damn thing to… well, you get the picture.

I actually spent much of the week editing Toad Session videos, which seems just a tiny little bit pathetic, even to me.  Still, editing video whilst sat on the terrace with a beer, overlooking spectacular valley scenery isn’t exactly a hardship, but nevertheless, a holiday should be a bit more holiday-y than that I suppose.

I also think I may have happened to accidentally teach Mrs. Toad’s oldest friend’s kids some truly fucking appalling language too.  Honestly, who lets a retard like me anywhere near kids?

Direct download: Toadcast #135 – The Spaincast

01. The Japanese War Effort – Summer Sun Skateboard (02:20)
02. Benni Hemm Hemm – Shipcracks (06:15)
03. Hobart Smith & Texas Gladden – Down in the Willow Garden (13.39)
04. Blind Willie Johnson – I’m Gonna Run to the City of Refuge (16.24)
05. The Beach Boys – Sloop John B (21.02)
06. Sebastian Dangerfield – The Sycamore Tree (24.49)
07. Animal Magic Tricks – Heavenly Bodies (30.57)
08. Keaton Henson – Oliver Dalston Browning (36.27)
09. Fists – Ace is the Way (40.23)
10. Honeytrap – Little Johnny Winter (45.02)

Time again for bit of a Song, by Toad Records and Various Other Bollocks update, because there are several little bits of news in which you may all be interested.  No, make that very interested.

I’ll start with the tour stuff, I think.

Meursault get back from their European tour this weekend, and I am generously going to give them about half an hour to rest and recuperate, before getting the lazy fuckers’ noses back to the grindstone.  They are playing a homecoming gig at next Friday’s (21st) This Is Music birthday party at Sneaky Pete’s.  This will be packed, noisy and sweaty, so I recommend you get your tickets early because Sneaky’s just ain’t that big.  Tickets here.

The following night, Neil will also be playing some solo acoustic bits and pieces to open Toad and Ruth’s Toad and Ruth Gig With Toad and Ruth and Sam and Ritchie and Leif and Neil (which is a damn snappy title, if you ask me).  That night will take place in the brilliant Queen Charlotte Rooms in Leith, and is also part of Loch Lomond’s Night Bats EP launch tour.  Leif Vollebekk is playing as well, the amazing Sam Amidon is headlining, and because this is a Bowery night there will also be poetry readings and crafts.  There are only eighty tickets available, so I’d get them in advance if I were you – from here.  If everyone from the Facebook thingies actually comes, we’ll need the room twice.

Loch Lomond‘s Night Bats tour has been fleshed out with a couple of London dates.  As well as playing the first ever Song, by Toad Night in Glasgow (Mono, Wednesday 19th May, tickets here) they will be playing:
Tuesday 18th: Electroacoustic at the Slaughtered Lamb, London.
Wednesday 19th: Mono, Glasgow, with Meursault.
Thursday 20th: The Tunnels, Aberdeen, with The Tim and Sam Band.
Friday 21st: The Barrels Alehouse, Berwick, with The Tim and Sam Band.
*Saturday 22nd: Avalanche Records instore, Edinburgh, 5.30pm* – TENTATIVE.
Saturday 22nd: Queen Charlotte Rooms, Leith, with Sam Amidon.
Sunday 23rd: The Black Heart, Camden, London, with The Ghost Bees.

Loch Lomond – Tic

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Next, we have three definite releases scheduled before the end of the year, and two slightly more uncertain ones.

Inspector Tapehead‘s debut album, Duress Code was scheduled for release in Summer 2008 and is, er, finally finished. I’ve been a fan of theirs for ages so I am bloody thrilled that they want to release it with us, and the album itself is fucking great.  They’ll be booking a bit of a tour for September to promote it, with the release date currently down as being August 17th, if I remember correctly.

Inspector Tapehead – Sugar on Your Sheets

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Yusuf Azak has also finished his album, which he has rather unimaginatively titled ‘Yusuf Azak’s Album’.  I don’t know if that’s final or not, but in any case, it too is bloody gorgeous, and is scheduled for release in September/October or so.  I’ve been hassling Yusuf about this record for ages now, and I think I may have finally bored him into submission.

Yusuf Azak – Eastern Sun

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The Savings and Loan album was due out around Christmas last year, and will now be out at Christmas this year.  I reckon early December, it’s that kind of album.  Anyhow, Andrew and Martin have been tinkering with their original EP and have now fleshed it out to a full album.

The Savings and Loan – Her Window

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As well as those three, we have Animal Magic Tricks in the studio*, recording an album with Neil Meursault, and Jesus H. Foxx working on their full length debut.  Until this stuff is actually finished I can’t really give you much more detail, but they are both going to be on Song, by Toad Records and I am really excited to hear both records.

Further to that – yes, there’s more – Rob St.John has written an album’s worth of new songs, and we are trying to find a good time to get him up to record with Neil in the Summer some time.  Whether he wants to release it with us, as a self-release, or with someone else I don’t think he’s decided just yet, but as far as I am concerned that album has to happen, so anything we can do to make sure it does will be done, irrespective of how he wants to release it.  Oh, and you can bet your arse that Meursault will come up with some stupid project or other before the end of the year, knowing them.  There are rumours of another collaboration in the offing, but that’s all still up in the air.

Jesus donkey-fucking Christ I am going to be fucking busy in the second half of the bloody year.  It hurts just to look at that bloody list.

* By ‘studio’ I really mean our living room.  It sounds better if I say studio though.

I do try and avoid shilling for the label on this blog, because no-one wants to read a twice-daily sales pitch, but I reckon it’s okay to have a look forward at what we’ve got planned for the year.  That’s what the new year is for, really, isn’t it?

So I’ve got a nice big release schedule drawn up, just like real record labels do, and honestly it scares the shite out of me.  I can pretty much plan out my free time for the whole of the next twelve months just looking at it, but there are some great releases in there.

By the end of 2010 we are going to have a back catalogue to be bloody proud of, honestly, especially when you consider that we had only been a record label for about a month at this time last year.

That picture, incidentally, is a somewhat butchered (sorry Annie) version of one of four gorgeous photos on this blog taken of the two new Meursault 7″s.

Toadcast #102 – Song, by Toad Records

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01. Trips and Falls – We Were Like Strangers Today (05.30)
02. Maxwell Panther – My Ex-Identity (09.02)
03. Cold Seeds – Leave Me to Lie Alone in the Ground (17.19)
04. Jesus H. Foxx – This is Not a Rental Car (26.43)
05. Animal Magic Tricks – Smallish Hooves (29.35)
06. The Savings and Loan – Virgin’s Lullaby (36.36)
07. Inspector Tapehead – Sugar on Your Sheets (40.02)
08. Loch Lomond – Holiday (48.25)
09. Meursault – What You Don’t Have (Live on Fresh Air Radio) (58.34)
10. Nightjar – Sweet Annie Lee (66.56)

[Well, I couldn't exactly review this gig myself, could I? So Dianna has very kindly volunteered to write this for me for this week's Sunday Supplement.  Click on the images to enlarge them, and go to Blueback Hotrod to see Dylan's entire set from the night, and to read Dianna's own blog (shockingly, it's not about music) click here.  The next house gig will be in November for the Maxwell Panther album launch.]

Somehow I’ve been roped into penning this Sunday Supplement. Which, I have to admit, is a bit daunting as I’m a neophyte, comparatively, to this whole scene. As a bit of a preface and a warning, I’ll just say that this in no way is a very good musical review. I’ll leave that to people who know what they’re talking about – or barring that, are much better than I am at pretending that they do.

I didn’t go to the first Toad House Gig. I wasn’t in the country, so I was at a bit of a disadvantage. If it was anywhere near as pleasant as the second was, these things might just have a bit of staying power.

My friend and I managed to arrived unfashionably early, despite the fact that my iPhone conspired with my iBook and iPod to erase any trace of the address from my iCal. That’s a bit of a lie, I actually have a MacBook. I just liked the whole iCrap trend I had going there. But, on the bright side of that, I had a mini tour of Stockbridge, which is surprisingly cleaner and brighter than Leith. Which, on second thought isn’t surprising at all, but I’m still completely charmed by its trash-free streets and shiny, shiny lights.

After running into Dylan who helpfully pointed the way, Rebecca and I found ourselves in the fabled residence of the Toad family – consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Toad, and their cohabitant, Floyd, who made several comedic appearances throughout the evening. I have to say, that cat has remarkable timing. His accompaniment with Animal Magic Tricks was nothing short of inspired.

It’s rare that one gets to sit on a comfy sofa three feet away from the performer in a close, intimate setting. For Animal Magic Tricks, this was enchanting. During Men Daimler, this was more borderline startling – I think we all witnessed first-hand the power of a singer who really knows how to project. It took me back to the days early in my college/undergrad/underage days when I’d go to house parties, have one beer, and then feel extremely nervous because I was positive the cops were going to come because of the noise, give me a MIP (minor in possession for those of you not from the States) and I’d never become the senator/astronaut/doctor I’d alway dreamed of becoming.

Anyway. Besides the appeal of comfy places to sit, and the ability to have any beverage that I wanted (because I had to bring it myself), the true appeal of the night was the informality of it all. It was much like an extremely large dinner party without any dinner – or almost like a feast in some sort of king’s court replete with minstrels for our entertainment. An example which, in one fell swoop, completely bashes that whole ‘informal’ thing that I said and adds an air of pretentious fatuousness that I really feel was lacking from this post. Which just doubled with the use of the term ‘pretentious fatuousness.’

Perhaps I should actually talk about the music. As this is, primarily it seems, a music-type blog. Both sets were well suited to the small venue, especially Animal Magic Tricks as you got to see all of the things she was doing with the interesting little gadgets she had with her. She was, by the way, absolutely beguiling. I didn’t really know either of these musicians – except by virtue of their Myspace pages – but I was genuinely delighted by what I heard. Floyd’s interruptions, Matthew’s interjections on equipment use and misuse, and Men Daimler’s occasional lyrical slippage only added to the sense that we were all just a group of friends (friends who may not have actually ever met in real life) who were enjoying the talents of a couple of their more gifted friends (also whom they had never actually met before).

Unfortunately, my friend and I had to be horribly responsible postgrad students and got home before midnight, so I’m unable to fill you in on any gin-soaked shenanigans that may have taken place later. I might be able to extrapolate and make something up, but I’m not really all that bothered. So, instead enjoy the lovely photos from Blueback Hotrod from that night and just make them up yourself. If you were watching the live webcast, it won’t be that hard – unless we’re talking about anything that happened anywhere that wasn’t the 6 feet or so of stage.