Having missed most of the first week of the Festival by being in Spain, I am now going to miss large parts of this week by pootling about in Anstruther at Haarfest (tickets can be found in the right hand column of this page).

Mrs. Toad will presumably hate me for this of course, as she has to stay behind in Edinburgh and do a proper job, whereas I can fuck off to Fife, get lashed, and call it work.  Mwaaah hah haaa…!

Given the fact that during the Festival the centre of Edinburgh becomes roughly as welcoming as the picture above I think I’ll appreciate a swift relocation for a few days, ready to come back to the last week of the Festival, go to a couple of shows and pretend I always knew it was going to be fun all along.

Anyhow, for those of you not Fifing themselves all to pieces this week I have some very fine recommendations indeed:

Lach’s Antihoot – from Wednesday at the Gilded Balloon.

I was at the first night, which was great, and apparently this week has been great fun, according to the man himself and according to Dylan’s drunken Facebook pictures of himself, Bart and Jamie and Rory from Broken Records who played there on Saturday.

Tuesday 17th August 2010: Withered Hand & The Last Battle at the Electric Circus.

Dan from Withered Hand is currently working on his second album, although I am not sure how far he’s actually got just yet.  Either way, I’m probably as excited to hear new stuff from Withered Hand as I am to hear new stuff from any band on Song, by Toad Records. Dan’s way with words is as good as anyone I know, and his knack of wrapping them up in simple but effective melodies makes his music both as pleasurable and as rewarding as anything else happening in Edinburgh at the moment.

Withered Hand – Religious Songs

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Tuesday 17th August 2010: John Grant & Rachel Sermanni at the Wee Red Bar.

John Grant used to be in a band called The Czars who had some truly brilliant moments.  I saw him at SXSW, and he stepped up to a piano in a checked shirt and sporting a very alt-country sort of beard and then instead of playing the sort of Bella Union alt country I expected (fairly obvious assumptions based on costume and venue) he played a series of sweet, melodic piano ballads, with just the faintest scent of theatricality about them.  I haven’t heard the album yet, but that was an intriguing show and I’d recommend checking his stuff out.

John Grant – Where Dreams Go to Die

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Tuesday 17th August 2010: The Besnard Lakes, Heart Beats & Penguins Kill Polar Bears at Sneaky Pete’s.

I haven’t seen the Besnard Lakes live, but their sound is really nicely complex and layered, and when their songs are good they are really really good.  If that translates to the live setting as well as I suspect it might then this could be an almighty wall of sound and completely brilliant.  That’s just a guess though, but I would like to think it’s true.  Let me know if you go and find out.

The Besnard Lakes – Chicago Train

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Thursday 19th August 2010: The Scottish Enlightenment, Debutant & Dan Lyth at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

This is something of a stripped back gig for the Scottish Enlightenment, due to the absence of a guitarist, but nevertheless their slow, deliberate sound is a treat I would recommend to anyone.  There is an album due out shortly, which I am heartily looking forward to.

The Scottish Enlightenment – Riverbed

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Thursday 19th August 2010: Sleepy Sun at Sneaky Pete’s.

I’ll be honest with you, I know no more about this than the fact that I had a listen to their MySpace page and thought it sounded interesting.  Interesting it did sound however, so I reckon it might well be worth a chance if you’re looking for something to do on Thursday.

I don’t know if it’s supposed to be taken this way, but this record is great fun.  The otherwordly falsetto vocals and slightly over the top guitar melodrama just give it an air of exuberance.

It also seems to have the right balance between self-indulgence and discipline; it may sound a mite proggy in places, but it’s all still pretty tightly put together, and there’s barely any freeform noodling.  A little like early Interpol and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the rhythm may not seem complicated, but it thumps away consistently through everything, anchoring the whole album extremely well.

Having listened to it a good dozen or so times through I still feel a little ambivalent about the second half of The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night, however.  It seems to lose pace and just a little bit of urgency.  There’s almost a sprightliness to the first half, despite the heaviness of the noise, but later on it seems to become a little leaden, wich is a shame, because every time I listen to it I feel like I am building up to absolutely love the album, only to sort of deflate half way through.

Over the course of an hour this album drifts from boisterous, somewhat epic indie rock to what I suppose I would call a kind of increasingly moody post-rock, if I were forced to try and put it into words.  And consequently it seems to lose its momentum, just at the wrong time.

The Besnard Lakes – Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent Pt.2: The Innocent

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The Besnard Lakes – Glass Printer

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I don’t know what the damn hell it is about dressing formally which makes me feel so uncomfortable, but it does.  Presumably just because I’m such a scruffy fucker for the entire rest of my life, those few hours every year I spend in a (vaguely) ironed shirt and pair of proper shoes just seem so completely out of character as to be really quite discomfiting.

Still, at our age everyone we know seems to be either getting married or breeding (and not infrequently both) so the old whistle is going to have to get used to seeing a little bit more action over the next few years, it seems.  The ludicrous thing is that I actually have a couple of really nice suits, but I never get round to wearing the fuckers because it just all seems too much like hard work.

This weekend, people.  In a suit.  Me!  Would you believe it.  I really should thank all these marrying bastards for saving my investment in suits from being complete waste of money it would be if I actually was left to my own devices.

Toadcast #109 – The Suitcast

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01. Joker’s Daughter – The Bouncing Liquorice (02.22)
02. Lloyd Cole – Undressed (05.52)
03. The Besnard Lakes – Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent Pt.1: The Innocent (11.53)
04. Shearwater – God Made Me (18.52)
05. King Post Kitsch – Alaska (24.52)
06. Cold Lake Flight School – Driftwood (30.16)
07. Dan Sartain – Ruby Carol (32.52)
08. The Japanese War Effort – Lanark (38.01)
09. Oreaganomics – Self-assembled Martyr (45.35)
10. The Stands – Some Weekend Night (53.45)

Mrs Toad and myself went to Bestival on the Isle of Wight last year and, although we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, I must admit that this year I was after something a little smaller. There’s something rather uninspiring about bald fields covered in a sea of broken plastic cups and a two hour queue for warm beer. Once the truly abysmal Bestival lineup for 2007 was announced – Beastie Boys, Chemical Brothers, Primal Scream? Have I gone back in time by ten years or something? – I decided that was it, I was looking for something smaller and far more friendly. Sod the bands, I just want a nice weekend.

Well I’d exchanged a few emails with Simon from End of the Road Records about The Young Republic, who are superb and recently signed to the label. I knew the label had formed from the End of the Road Festival so I thought it might be a good one to take a chance on. There wasn’t much in the lineup that I recognised, but what the hell – a festival full of smaller, less well known bands would be quite fun. And besides, Howe Gelb was on there, so that did it for me and I bought a couple of tickets.

That was something in the region of a month ago. Since then that lineup has just got better and better, as Simon has dropped one gem after another into the mix. This morning they announced Midlake and Yo La Tengo. I can’t believe it! Suddenly instead of just looking forward to this, I am excited as little boy.

Full line-up thus far (I’ve highlighted the ones I think are interesting and provided a few samples – although I haven’t used the little player this time as the javascript would slow the whole page down too much with this many links, sorry):

Alessi (music)
Archie Bronson Outfit
Architecture In Helsinki - Heart it Races
The Bees
Besnard Lakes – Cedric’s War
Brakes
The Broken Family Band
C. W. Stoneking
Charlie Parr
The Congregation
Dan Sartain
Darren Hayman
David Thomas Broughton
David Vandervelde
Devastations
Euros Childs
Findlay Brown
Fionn Regan
Herman Dune
Howe Gelb – Pontiac Slipstream
Hush the Many
Hyacinth House
Indigo Moss
James Yorkston – Someplace Simple
Jeffrey Lewis
Jim White
Joan As Police Woman
Johnny Flynn – Brown Trout Blues
Josh T Pearson
King Creosote – Missionary
Micah P Hinson – I Still Remember
Midlake – Van Occupanther
Misty’s Big Adventure
Monkey Swallows the Universe
My Brightest Diamond
Paris Motel - Entrez Dans la Salpetriere
Pete and the Pirates
Port O’Brien
Reigns
Richard Swift
Seasick Steve
Slow Club
Sons of Noel and Adrian
Stephanie Dosen – Vinalhaven Harbour
Sunny Day Sets Fire
Super Furry Animals
Telegrams
The Twilight Sad – And She Would Darken the Memory
Viking Moses
Woodpigeon – Home
Yo La Tengo – Tom Courtenay
The Young Republic – Your Heart Belongs in Tennessee

Now all Simon has to do is pull off some miracle of scheduling that allows me to see absolutely all these bands, as well as leaving some space for me to check out some of the new ones. Good luck, mate!