Dear God I never thought of what I do as an endurance sport before – after all, it’s really just a case of endlessly farting on about some tunes which I happen to like – but this year’s Festival is going to become just that.  This week has been punishing enough already, and next might be even heavier going.

This week so far I have been to a fucking superb performance by Jesus H. Foxx on Tuesday at Electric Circus, supported by my first real experience of Art Fag, who tortured songs by Meursault and Enfant Bastard with considerable enthusiasm.

Then on Wednesday I witnessed a shambolic performance by the sound guy at the Forest Cafe, presumably determined to ensure that the White Heath EP launch would be dominated by his own World Championship levels of incompetence and indifference, and fuck those arrogant bands and their ridiculous notion that people might actually have turned up to hear them play songs.  Someone should point out to him that just because Debutant is only a bloke and a guitar doesn’t mean no-one wants to listen to his music or that a sound guy can necessarily spend the entire gig with his head wedged firmly up his own arse as his sound system totters and staggers around him.  Oh, and White Heath have a pianist and a violin player in the band for a reason: because what they are doing is supposed to actually make a contribution to the sound they are trying to make – if they were just there to be like Bez they wouldn’t bother miming away on instruments, would they?

At least he couldn’t ruin the Meursault solo set.  With a voice like Neil’s that would be a challenge for even the most determinedly ham-fisted sound guy, and proved to be beyond even whichever distant relative of Coco the fucking Clown had turned up that night.  Mind you, the  monumentally pig-ignorant pseudo-hippies who seemed to fill half the place were clearly determined to raise their dreadlock-sporting, oatmeal-knitting, soap-dodging, dismally joyless conversations above any and all bands who thought that they might try and play some tunes, their slightly desperate, vacant faces grimly clinging to the last vestiges of the illusion that their particular hollow brand of bovine conformity represents something even mildly alternative.  It doesn’t.  You’re just another bunch of sad cunts in need of an identity to submit yourselves to in a pitiful bid to avoid having to face your lack of anything much to contribute to the world.  Sorry, welcome to real life, we all have to face it at some point.  And no matter how fucking loud you try and talk, Neil is louder than you, which makes me feel good about the universe.  And presumably cheered the front half of the audience too, who were brilliant, lest it seem that I am trying to tar everyone with the same brush.  I assume there are plenty of good people who both run and use the Forest Cafe; unfortunately there also seem to be some pretty bloody depressing ones as well.

Anyhow, the talky hippies and the clod of a sound guy clearly put Neil in a mood, which meant his set was confrontational and fucking brilliant.  I am starting to realise that the best way to make Meursault really famous might be to send them on a Hostile Venue Tour of the UK – fuck we’d get some good shows, although we might have to keep the engine running in the Toad Van out the back.

Oh, and yesterday was FOUND vs Cybraphon, which was ace.  Most of it was a presentation about the genesis of the moody musical wardrobe, followed by it accompanying the band on about four songs.  It was a great talk actually, as witty and whimsical as the project itself.  And being in an actual art gallery made me feel like a more worthwhile person for a little.  Support the arts and all that, jolly important stuff.

Tonight, Shenandoah Davis is playing at Carter’s Bar on Morrisson Street, and I will be going along to sample her live set in advance of recording a Toad Session tomorrow.  And on the subject of Toad Sessions, the FOUND one goes up this weekend too, which is why I was up until 5.45 this morning working on it.  Which is why I may be just a little more grouchy than is entirely reasonable this morning.

Then it’s Trampoline on Saturday night, after the Toad Session.  Then Retreat the following day.  Then Broken Records, Frightened Rabbit, Meursault and so on at the Queen’s Hall next week, and Playing With the Past.  And… oh never mind, my body has just given up on me.  By the time the Festival ends I may have to sleep through September just to get over it.  My Latest Novel have been added to the Broken Records bill on Monday, incidentally, which is good news as I haven’t seen them live for quite a while.

Apparently there are things on at the Festival which are Not Music.  At this rate it looks highly unlikely that I am going to be found at any of them.

De-lurk.  Oh stop it, just fucking de-lurk, alright?  I’m too tired to ask nicely, but I’ll secretly be happy if you do, even if I don’t realise it until I’ve had a good sleep.

Fucking hippies, honestly.  SHUT UP – no-one came to listen to your tedious excuse for a conversation.

1. Last proper art thing you went to.
2. Favourite grown up art form.
3. Most under-rated form of art which still isn’t treated as being as bloody clever as it is.
4. Most boorish arty attitude you have.
5. Most intellectual and highbrow arty attitude you have (pseudo or otherwise – we’re all pseuds to one extent or another).

Art Brut – Modern Art Just listen to the lyrics – this song is a work of genius.

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Shenandoah Davis – These Rocks

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The Pogues – Lorca’s Novena

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Enfant Bastard – Landscape Painting is Easy

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Sleepy Jackson – Acid in My Heart

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It’s fucking Friday, three hours from Beer O’Clock, bloody marvellous! Mrs. Toad is away for over a week in Australia, which is quite frankly disastrous news. I’ll have a wanking hand like a fucking Fiddler Crab by the end of the week. Still, on the plus side I will have loads of time to do worky things. Not Proper Job worky things obviously, no, Toady worky things like getting promo copies of the first couple of Toad releases off to the music magazines, writing up interviews and editing the video, and publishing the Sparrow & the Workshop Toad Session.

So it’s another week in my underpants, glued to a computer screen and eating gherkins out of the jar for me I’m afraid.  Think of that while you’re out leading your exciting, exotic lives, snorting coke and banging hot babes.  Yeah, yeah, it’s fine for you lot you bunch of fly-by-night flibbertigibbets, but just you mind who puts in the real work around here.

This week’s splendid Five for Friday is as follows, and as usual please do take this opportunity to come out of the closet and spit your penny’s worth into the communal bucket.

1. A band none of us have mentioned but who we really should love (MySpace link might help).
2. Book that most reminds you of your childhood.
3. Worst thing you’ve ever said about an ex (no names, obviously).
4. Percentage of your day not spent doing what you are being paid to do.
5. Percentage of your internet usage that would qualify as being too porny to comfortably share with your other half.  If you have no shame about sharing that sort of thing with your other half, then pretend you do for the purposes of this list.

The Raincoats – Balloonacy
Jake Flowers & the Carol-Anne Showband – Rosalie
Eva Cassidy – Kathy’s Song Is there a more heartbreakingly lovely line in all of music than “There but for the grace of you go I”?
My Teenage Stride – The But for the Grace of You Go I
Art Brut – Emily Kane

I just do not understand blokes. Last night in the pub, I was having a nice quiet chat with Mrs. Toad and Alex Cornish, and this chap who was sitting at the bar turned around and started swearing at her. More to the point, given Mrs. Toad was bemoaning her recently-disclosed Irish ancestry, he started swearing at her. After a bit I inevitably did the protective male thing and told him to shut the fuck up and not to speak to her like that again, that we were sorry if we offended him, hadn’t intended to do so and apologised if we had, but that he was out of line and should shut his trap. Firm and to the point, with a little bit of macho bluster, I think you’d describe it.

Anyway, he continued to scowl at us and on two more occasions tried to spark something off again, although with me this time. It was all very typical ‘Do you want to take this outside’ versus ‘No, not really, but if you’re really feeling confident come over here and have a go and stop fucking talking about it’ sort of stuff. It was infantile, but what the fuck do you do in such situations, back down and apologise?

Anyway, after the latest bout of ‘my dad could take your dad’ bollocks he buggered off to the toilet and then, when he came back, made a not entirely unfriendly comment about the fact that Mrs. Toad had The Sun open on the bar next to her. From this, he sort of started talking to us and quickly became incredibly friendly. I don’t think Alex or Mrs. Toad were all that keen on fisticuffs to begin with, and I certainly had no real desire for a punch-up so we pretty much reciprocated and ended up talking to the guy for a couple of hours.

He was a decent enough bloke, under all the nonsense. An English teacher with a real passion for literature, particularly American, and particularly their simple, economical novellas. I thought he was going to hug me when I asked if he liked Paul Auster. By the end of the evening when he went home because he had to be up early for school it was as if we were all the best of friends.

Fucking bizarre. And the weird thing is that this sort of thing has happened to me on numerous occasions – picking fights with opposing players on the football pitch, nose to nose shouting matches with kitchen porters in the Glasgow Hilton who just got out of fucking Barlinnie earlier that afternoon, pissing contests with alpha male cool types during my uni years – it seems to be an established way for blokes to make friends. As Mrs. Toad said, had that happened between two women there would have been a long and simmering grudge that both of them would have happily waited years to settle. With blokes, if I see that bloke the next time I’m in the same pub, I guess we’ll share a few pints as if nothing ever happened.

What the fuck is going on there? Attempted bullying? PIssing contest? Emotional retardation trying to reach out and make friends, just going about it in a strange way? I fucking do not understand male bonding, I really don’t.

Alex Cornish – Scotland the Brave
Art Brut – Fight!

What a frustrating week in gigs – both Monday and Wednesday have overlapping shows I would love to go to, and sadly I can’t do both. Although according to Rob himself I could perhaps nip from the Wee Red Bar just in time to catch him onstage at 10.30 at Henry’s. Depends on your priorities of course.

Monday 11th February: Monkey Swallows the Universe at Cabaret Voltaire.
The Casket Letters was a low-key masterpiece, and this will be the last chance to see these guys play as they have called it quits for reasons as yet unknown. Lush, gorgeous, folky indiepop and absolutely not to be missed.
Monkey Swallows the Universe – Chicken Fat Waltz

Monday 11th February: Art Brut at The Hive.
Fucking arse. MStU on the same day and unfortunately something had to give, and it was Art Brut. Their slightly bizzare brand of fit-pop is oddly fascinating, deeply patchy and occasionally brilliant. I’d be there in a heartbeat if not for the bloody clash with the above gig. Arse.
Art Brut – Bang, Bang, Rock & Roll!

Wednesday 13th February: Broken Records at The Wee Red Bar.
Who? I hear you ask? Broken Records? Why’ve you not mentioned them before? Okay okay, I get the picture. But they’re great, they’re playing live and they have a single on the way – what’s not to love? Thanks again to Euan and Bart from Trampoline for another great lineup too – I don’t know anything much about support acts The Sweetheart Revue or Dead Beat Club, but I will be there early and make sure I find out!
Broken Records – Slow Parade

Wednesday 13th February: Rob St.John at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
There are a few others playing as part of the Hollow Heart Parlour monthly acoustic night, which I know nothing about, but really think I should investigate. Rob’s gorgeous EP of hush-folk was one of the highlights of (late, late, late) 2007 and there are only a couple of copies left. Because of the dash from the Broken Records gig I will miss the support, but if you are more acoustically minded get there early for Lindsay West, Ainslie Henderson and Anna K. Jarosz (who is, with all due deference to my glittering princess Mrs. Toad, rather fit. Sheesh sometimes I wish I wasn’t quite so shallow and predictable. Unfortunately I don’t wish it quite enough to actually stop being shallow and predictable, it seems.)
Rob St.John – The Acid Test

Thursday 14th February: The Phantom Band at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
I know nothing about The Phantom Band apart from the fact that they have just been signed by legendary Glasgow label Chemikal Underground, and that acoustic genius Rick Redbeard plays guitar for them. They sound nothing like him unfortunately, so here’s a wee reminder of how bloody great his music is. That’s his sister on backing vocals – what a bloody gorgeous voice.
Rick Redbeard – Blood

Saturday 16th February: The Low Miffs at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
You have to see these lads. Literate (very literate in fact) spiky, ambitious, and a wee bit retro. I have very, very high hopes for The Low Miffs this year.

The Low Miffs – Cressida

If a week like this doesn’t get me a fucking divorce then nothing will – especially when you factor in the fact that I am dragging Mrs. Toad through to Glasgow on Friday to see Frightened Rabbit and Popup, and then trying to talk her into recording an anti-Valentine’s podcast on Tuesday evening. Oh yes, that reminds me: apparently it’s bloody Valentine’s Day on Thursday. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

Oh yes indeed it does, Toadlings.  For someone who loves painting and illustration, I really never go to art galleries.  I have no good reason why, it’s just not something I think to do.

Well tonight all that changes.  Our next door neighbour, the splendid septuagenarian Peter, has invited us to the opening of his son’s exhibition, which sounds like excellent fun.  I paint, myself, from time to time and I draw constantly at work so it’s something I think I will enjoy, because I don’t go to anything like enough exhibitions.

And of course, Peter is a world class lush, and Guzzleur du Vin Rouge Extraordinaire so it won’t be all culture and sophisticated chit chat.   Thank fuck for that! More podcast joy for you little angels this week.  I have no theme, so I am quite looking forward to just firing whatever I feel like onto it for a change.  No Mrs. Toad though, I’m afraid, but I will rope her in again in future, as long as she promises not to upstage me again!

Art Brut – Modern Art
Maximo Park – Postcard of a Painting
Architecture in Helsinki – Tiny Paintings

A girl I went to school with, who is a bit of a star-fucker, has been moping around all things rock ‘n’ roll since god was a boy. Mrs. Toad’s boyfriend when she was 16/17 always used to make her feel bad about not being as ‘cool’ as this girl, because she was so hip and trendy and he had a thing for her. I am a defensive bastard so my relationship with this lass has gone from a casual tolerance to vitriolic malevolence because she IS NOT HALF THE WOMAN MRS TOAD IS AND NEVER FUCKING WILL BE. I hate the bloke for daring to make my darling girl feel inadequate, and I detest this girl for any feeling of inferiority Mrs. Toad may ever have mistakenly harboured.

It’s all the bloke’s fault, I hear you saying, how can you blame this innocent lass? Well it may be all the bloke’s fault, but this girl is the sort that whenever you talk to her you get the impression she is looking over your shoulder every once in a while to make sure there’s no-one cooler she might be talking to instead. Now, when we were casual acquaintances this is the sort of thing I just didn’t care about, because her approval didn’t matter a jot to me, and she was generally nice. But when this sort of status-merchant is compared in any way favourably to someone as utterly superior to her in terms of brains, wit, strength of character, appearance, and just plain desirability as my young lady, then my blood fucking boils.

So imagine my delight at finding out that having hung around second-rate wannabe rock stars her whole life because she thought they were cool, she is now in a band herself. And they’re absolutely woeful! Ah hahahaha hah haaaa! Embarrassingly, amusingly bad. Tremendous! It gladdens my heart, it really does.

Art Brut – Formed a Band
Ben Folds Five – Underground

I am not going to link to any of this, because I think that would be hugely mean and I don’t really want to make this personal. I do, after all, know I am being totally irrational here. That said, I will email you a link if you are really desperate…

Given the long list of sophomore failures that 2007 has disappointingly plopped into our laps I had the inkling a while back, when a few of their songs leaked naughtily into the internets, that this might just be the album to crack the nut for the highly anticipated, who have thus far been comprehensively outplayed by those very squarely on the fringes.

Not so, I’m afraid, but it’s still pretty good. In one sense it reminds me of the patchiness of Maximo Park’s second album which packed the spaces between its superb stand-out tracks with suspiciously mealy filler songs that sound too similar in pitch and pace to the good stuff to let the best material really jump out at you. In another sense it’s a lot like The Futureheads’ second as well, in that it takes something so spiky and idiosyncratic that the first few listens are little more than a dramatic acclimatisation process, and smoothes it out into a more mainstream indie sound.

Ultimately this is the problem with the record. Eddie Argos’ lyrics are just as sharp as ever, jumping so quickly from pathos to smart-arsery that you are never quite certain where you stand. The tunes are often just as catchy as their earlier material too, but the music is hugely more predictable guitar-based indie pop and this can lead to their weaker songs sounding really quite ordinary. There’s plenty to like here but as an album it’s a little disappointing overall.

Art Brut – Nag Nag Nag Nag
Art Brut – I Will Survive

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There have been such a lot of highly anticipated albums in the last few months that I have been complete let-downs. I’ve been all childishly excited about at least half a dozen albums, mostly sophomore efforts, and they have proved to be almost without exception to be massive disappointments:

Bloc Party – Dismal
The Killers – Predictably shit
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Tense & nervy
The Good, the Bad & the Queen – Patchy
Willy Mason – Just not quite there
Andrew Bird – Struggling, but growing on me, so I may end up changing my mind

Fortunately, The Arcade Fire is excellent and Grinderman is absolutely blinding, or I’d be crying into my cornflakes like a 5-year-old girl wondering why Flopsy has decided to go to Wabbit Heaven and doesn’t want to play with her anymore. Surprisingly though, after being let down by the high-indie-cred sorts such as Bloc Party, it looks like the year for the big boys might be rescued by a couple of highly unlikely sources: Maximo Park and Art Brut.

As much as I liked their debut, I pretty much wrote off Art Brut as being a borderline novelty act. Lines like ‘we’re just talking to the kids’ seemed so hackneyed that either they were shit or the levels of archness were just unbearably high – I’d always imaged poor old Emily Kane cringing into a grotty glass of warm pub Chardonnay whenever her song came on the jukebox. And as for Eddie Argos’ singing voice, well it just never seemed serious. Amazingly though, despite my assumption that they would promptly vanish without trace, they are back and looking in the rudest of health. The knack for a tune that brought us gems like ‘modern art makes me want to rock out’ has been refined a little since we saw it last, and a couple of the pre-release tracks have been seriously, seriously good. Direct Hit isn’t great, but when you aren’t expecting anything at all, who cares? Nag Nag Nag and Pump Up the Volume are excellent, catchy, bouncy and infectious and, better still, they are about people who love listening to music. Art Brut are one of us, people!

Art Brut – Nag Nag Nag Nag
Art Brut – Pump Up the Volume – Sorry guys, verboten. But the record company asked me to remove them in such a nice way that I think it needs to be mentioned, given what a bastard I am to record companies most of the time. Basically I got an email with a pleasantly worded request and a tip off about another new band, Assembly Now, who I’ll post more about later in the week. Dear Record Industry, please see ReverbXL for tips on how to interact civilly with human beings.

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Then there’s Maximo Park (no, I’m not even going to bother with the stupid fucking typography) whose debut, A Certain Trigger, was so infectiously enjoyable that I just lazily assumed they’d be a group who captured the mood of the time and made a successful album because of that rather than any merit of their own. A little like The Killers. That was a bit casual, it seems. I was first tipped off that they might actually be good when I saw them live and they were absolutely smoking. I’ve subsequently heard reports of posturing and faffing about, but when I saw them they were great, and that is always a really good sign for a band. Listening to their own pre-release leaks it seems their infallible knack for an irrepressible tune is completely intact, their sound is becoming slightly more aggressive (Mr. Toad always likes this.) and if they serve up another helping of songs as infectiously hummable as the last lot then I think we might be in for a surprise treat.

Maximo Park – Girls Who Play Guitars This one is really, really good. We all used to talk about girls who play guitars.
Maximo Park – Our Velocity

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