The Floydcast is named after that furry fuckwit in the picture: the Song, by Toad house cat and Mrs. Toad’s imbecilic companion of the last seven years.  Last night we had him killed.  I know you’re supposed to say ‘put to sleep’ or whatever, but when the poor wee fucker is looking plaintively at you because you’re the only person at the vet’s that he actually trusts it really does feel like execution.

We think he had lung cancer of some form or other.  His lungs had clouded up, the vet had tried more or less every trick they could, and he was still battling for every breath.  In the end we had him put down because his poor wee lungs were so fucked that even in the off chance we could have found what was wrong and put it right, he would still have been limping his way through what remained of his life on half a gulp of breath.

Anyhow, as much as a nuisance as I found the wee bastard I really will miss his idiotic presence, capering about the house like an arse and getting in the way whenever you try and do anything.  He would come and sit in my lap when I was trying to write this and try and lick my fingers as I typed, and that’s the least of it.  Fucking pain in the arse, he was.  And I really, really will miss the wee fucker.

Direct download: Toadcast #175 – The Floydcast

01. Bombadil – So Many Ways to Die (00.09)
02. Yaj̩ РTrue Love Will Find You in the End (Daniel Johnston cover) (09.24)
03. The Douglas Firs – A Military Farewell (13.31)
04. Sebastian Dangerfield – Morris (22.05)
05. Glass Animals – Drips (28.14)
06. The History of Apple Pie – Tug (33.40)
07. The Twilight Sad – Suck (Wedding Present cover) (39.50)
08. U.S. Girls – If The Walls Could Talk (45.42)
09. BITCHES – Wallet (47.53)
10. Tied to the Branches – Backwards (50.56)
11. Cold Seeds – Leave Me to Lie Alone in the Ground (57.59)

Contrary to what you might suspect from my location this week and the steady stream of silly videos from Anstruther , this podcast is not anything to do with the Fence Collective or Haarfest.

Actually, apart from a few brief intrusions from my pile of audio cassettes (a lot of time in the van, you see) this is generally just the usual stream of music news and new bits and pieces from my inbox.

Actually, I am way behind my inbox at the moment, due to a week of holiday and now a week in Anstruther, and things aren’t likely to get any better either, what with… oh never mind, you hear enough of my whining as it is.  Tunes…

Direct download: Toadcast #136 – The Haarcast

01. Eels – Jungle Telegraph (02.32)
02. Les Shelleys – The World is Waiting for the Sunrise (07.22)
03. Broken Records – A Leaving Song (13.41)
04. Women – Heat Distraction (19.56)
05. Let’s Talk About Trees – Wood of Rassay (23.50)
06. The Tragically Hip – Fireworks (31.57)
07. Grant Lee Buffalo – Testimony (35.48)
08. Inspector Tapehead – Grooming (44.48)
09. Nice Purse – Heart Medley (50.52)
10. Bombadil – Barcelona (54.55)

It’s time for some video fun here on Song, by Toad.  It seems that as well as allowing more and more people to record their own music, the relative affordability of digital equipment has also allowed more and more bands and other enterprises to make surprisingly good videos on their own as well, be it music videos, live sessions, video blogs or whatever else.

Above we have the official (*ahem*!) video for Trips and Falls‘ moment of genius ‘And in Real Life He Wears Corduroy Pants”.  This is from their debut album on Song, by Toad Records ‘He Was Such a Quiet Boy’, which can be bought here and which I absolutely love.  But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I.

When we first saw Bombadil play live it was at Pickathon in 2008, and they were brilliant.  For the most part they played songs from their debut album A Buzz, A Buzz but there was one standout which I had never heard before: Marriage, which ended up on their second record, Tarpits and Canyonlands, which was released last year.  Below is a live session with Scott Avett from the Avett Brothers, who were label-mates of Bombadil’s during their years on the wonderful Ramseur Records, before they left recently to sign to Columbia.

Below we have the official Silver Columns video for their new single Cavalier.  I am really looking forward to hearing this album, because far from being a disco-pop novelty act, their new stuff really sounds like it’s going to be a varied, excellent record.  And a video with Johnny Pictish acting all cool like a pop star is always worth a good chortle.

When we started the Toad Sessions I think I might have had something like this video below in mind, if only we lived somewhere as cool as that.  It’s by Adam Arcuragi, and it just looks so incredibly lush, the sound is good and I envy anyone actually being there.  How dare their lives be so brilliant!

It’ll be back to music and the sharing of illegally pirated copyright material next, but for now I thought a wee visual interlude was in order.  Enjoy!

Bombadil are a fucking lovely group of guys, and they just emailed me through their first music video.  I’ll be honest, I’ve seen more polished productions in the past but frankly it’s such a good song that I just don’t care.  Listen and enjoy.

If you want to hear or read a little more, we interviewed them at the Pickathon Festival a year and a bit ago.

Well I hope you’ve all had your thinking caps on for the last few days, because today is the first of two list days here on Song, by Toad.  This week the Friday Five is going to be your chance to list your five favourite songs of the year.  On the off-chance that enough people do actually vote for the same songs I will then add them up at the end and award some sort of Toadly Prize of Music Achievement to the winners.

And if you all vote for completely different things then I just won’t bother.

The five I’ve listed below are actually five songs which are not in my Festive Fifty, and looking at them I find myself with the inescapable feeling that this might be because in some important way my Festive Fifty is wrong, somehow, because they are all brilliant songs.

Anyhow, as times to de-lurk go, this should be ideal.  No wit or humour required, just chip in with the five songs released this year which have moved you the most.  And encourage your friends to vote as well – the more people chip in the more meaningful the results become.

Next week we’ll be doing the same with albums, so get head-scratching for that one as well, and then I’ll stop being so demanding and go back to my usual job of trying my very best to keep you entertained of an afternoon with minimal participation required.  I hope you actually find these things some fun, and don’t think it’s a bit like that terrible moment when a comedian looks around the auditorium and asks for a volunteer.

And so, without further ado, your five favourite songs of 2009 are…

The Builders & the Butchers – Barcelona

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Samantha Crain – Long Division

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Bombadil – Sad Birthday

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Jason Lytle – Flying Thru Canyons

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The Low Anthem – Charlie Darwin

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I have been mulling this record over for some time, because it is something of a progression from Bombadil’s previous, brilliant album. Consequently it has taken me a little time to adjust, and I didn’t want to rush out a review based entirely on my initial reaction, which was the standard precious music fan’s – “Er, different, why, what have you done?”.

Where A Buzz, A Buzz was mental with stomping folky brilliance, this is more of an eclectic pop album by comparison, ringing with piano, harmonies, handclaps and thumping drums. They are an exuberant band, and this sincere enthusiasm is slathered all over this record. Songs go berserk in the middle, much like their live shows, arrangements have all sort of things thrown at them – big choruses, glittering strings, crescendos of rhythmic shifts and all sorts of other things.

At other times, Bombadil are downright sentimental. Reasons and Marriage are really rather sadly lovely. I remember sitting in the middle of one of the most insane and brilliant live shows I’ve ever seen, at Pickathon last year, when they suddenly stopped leaping and prancing around the place and Daniel sat at the piano to play Marriage. Give the kind of set which the song seemed to stop clean in its tracks, I’ve rarely seen a song make such an impact on an audience.

I think that the only reason I think this album doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor is perhaps because the band haven’t quite hit the heights with the most upbeat songs on this one. One Two Three and Trip Out West have their match on Tarpits & Canyonlands, but Cavaliers Har Hum and Rosetta Stone do not, in my personal opinion. Maybe that comes from the the slightly sprawling nature of this record. It’s only forty-five minutes long, but there are fifteen songs and it somehow feels just a little bit messy, in terms of sequencing. Then again, maybe I’m just being silly, because listening through, this is absolutely full of brilliant songs. So Many Ways to Die, Oto the Bear, Honeymoon, Reasons… so much to love. If you ever get the chance to see these guys live, believe me you’d better not fail to take it. And if after seeing them you don’t want to buy everything they have or ever will release, then I’ll eat my fucking hat, quite frankly.

Bombadil – Sad Birthday

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Bombadil – Marriage

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Website | More mp3s | Buy direct from the band

Well here we go.  The new year is yet to quite take hold or take off, but I promise you that things will kick back into gear this weekend.  There are some fine love shows appearing on the calendar, slowly but surely, and eventually 2009 will get going.  No rush though.

This Toadcast is a bit of a mix.  I’ve got some of this year’s favourites, I look back at some of last year’s favourites, and I also poke away at a couple of the bands I hope will make their mark in 2009.

In that sense, examining last year’s favourites makes a lot of sense.  I’m always curious about how well our fads and fancies bear up to the passage of time.  I’ve not been too fickle in recent years, which is sort of nice, so I don’t mind looking back like this.  There aren’t too many embarrassments to be had, so it’s kind of nice to take the chance to look backwards, look forwards a little and generally just take the opportunity to pause for breath and enjoy the new year.  As should you, toadlings, as should you.  Happy new year, folks.

Toadcast #52 – Let’s Go

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01. Bombadil – Cavaliers’ Har Hum (02.24)
02. Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta – The Ragged Garden of Your Eye (08.57)
03. Aidan John Moffat – The Boy That You Love (12.19)
04. Mitchell Museum – Extra Lives (18.11)
05. The Savings & Loan – The Virgin’s Lullaby (24.36)
06. The Builders & the Butchers – When it Rains (28.06)
07. Elvis Perkins – It’s Only Me (34.30)
08. Mother & the Addicts – Are Others (38.21)
09. The Pictish Trail – Winter Home Disco (46.27)
10. The Low Lows – Dear Flys, Love Spider (54.49)

6. Barton Carroll – The Lost One

I know nothing about Barton Carroll, I wasn’t looking forward to this album at all, and then when it landed in my lap I still refused to quite get it for ages; maybe it’s because it’s stylistically quite unadventurous. The big difference, though, is that absolutely every single song on this album, despite flirting with cliche rather frequently, is compelling. They all have you perking up when they come on in their turn, thinking ‘oh good, this song’.
Barton Carroll – Those Days are Gone, and My Heart is Breaking

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7. Donny Hue & the Colors – Tell Tall Tales

This is another album which rather arrived out of nowhere. I wasn’t even aware it was in the pipeline when the promo copy was emailed through in November or so, when the album turned out to be quite so brilliant it was like an early Christmas present. It’s wry and witty, sad and playful and a simple pleasure from start to finish.
Donny Hue & the Colors – Good Time Happening

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8. Bombadil – A Buzz, A Buzz

I liked this album enough all on its own, but when I saw these guys play live at Pickathon in August I was just floored. I haven’t enjoyed a live performance so much in years – it was just overflowing with fun and zest and exuberance, and only the clinically dead could have failed to be swept away.
Bombadil – Cavaliers’ Har Hum

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9. Pale Young Gentlemen – Black Forest (Tra La La)

This is just a fantastically rewarding album to listen to. It’s delicate at times, wistful at others, and thumping at others. It’s also more instrumentally accomplished than pretty much anything else you’ll listen to for a long time.
Pale Young Gentlemen – Coal/Ivory

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10. The Pictish Trail – Secret Soundz Vol. 1

For someone who I’ve seen on stage so many times, and seen play for other people’s bands so many times, this record still still wasn’t anything like what I expected. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this ever-surprising dance from sad to playful to downright bizarre wasn’t it. It’s a cracking record though, almost because it seems so surprising.
The Pictish Trail – Winter Home Disco

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Part 1: 1-10
Part 2: 11-23
Part 3: 24-36
Patt 4: 37-50

And so we stumble on to the penultimate post in the countdown to the Toad’s favourite song of the year.  At this point the idea of some sort of hierarchy of love is becoming rather ridiculous.  Do I genuinely prefer Make Another Tree to Frankie’s Gun?  No, of course I don’t.  Do I really get more goose bumps or feel more lightheaded with glee when Out on the Water comes on the stereo, compared to, say, Restless?  No, not in the slightest so what am I going on, here?  Well I don’t know, it’s just a gut reaction I suppose, largely dependent on my mood at the time at which I finally turned a ‘bunch of songs’ into some sort of list.

So don’t take it too seriously, just enjoy that fact that there have been this many brilliant songs released this year. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the podcast to accompany all the Portland and Pickathon things I’ve been slowly but surely writing up over the course of the last couple of weeks.  With all the video to edit it may take a while to get it all sorted, but just follow this Pickathon search and you’ll find it all.  My full review of the festival is here.

This is a musical journey through our trip, from the Shaky Hands and The Builders & the Butchers who got us out there, to Eef Barzelay who we saw in Portland, several bands from the Pickathon Festival and even a song from Ray Rude’s Gameboy pop outfit Operation Mission.

It’s rather shorter than usual, but that is part of a new strategy: shorter podcasts more often.  I am going to try and go for once a week, and make them a maximum of an hour long.  I can’t promise anything, but I am going to try, and I think this might be a better approach for all of us, frankly.

Toad’s Pickathon pictures | Toad Vimeo page | Other Pickathon Features

Toadcast #34 – The Portland Podcast

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01. The Shaky Hands – A New Parade (2.20)
02. The Builders & the Butchers – When It Rains (08.47)
03. Eef Barzelay – Numerology (12.21)
04. Operation Mission – Aqueous (19.30)
05. Lackthereof – Choir Practise (23.22)
06. Langhorne Slim – Restless (31.20)
07. Bombadil – Cavalier’s Har Hum (40.47)
08. Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Beloved, We Have Expired (43.26)
09. Oz St. Fossils – Jeweller’s Daughter (53.54)
10. Loch Lomond – Tic (59.49)
11. The Cave Singers – Cold Eye (66.34)