Song, by Toad

21.FOUND – Enough About Human Rights
I’m not sure if anyone, not even the band themselves, likes Enough About Human Rights best from their excellent Let Fidelity Break EP, but I do.  There’s just something unexpected about this song, for some reason.  The fact that it is in fact a Moondog cover probably has a lot to do with that, but the hectic, percussive energy FOUND pile into their version just makes me grin every time I hear it.

22.Timber Timbre – Demon Host
The ‘ohs’ in this song take the spectral folk of Timber Timbre and give it a pleading, forlorn quality which imbues it with just a little more pathos than some of the others on the album, and this makes it extra special, in my view.

23.FOUND – You’re No Vincent Gallo – Toad Session
Honestly, I could put pretty much their entire session in the top ten of this list quite easily.  It was one of the best things I have ever seen, I think it’s fair to say.  Without all the stuff added by the full band I found myself so much more impressed with Ziggy’s voice, with the gorgeous tones he got from his banjo… with pretty much all of it, honestly.  Gorgeous.

24.Broken Records – Lessons Never Learnt
This may have been on an earlier release, but it was on this year’s(ish) Out on the Water EP, so I am putting my foot down and saying that it counts.  In any case, a really surprising song to come from a band like this, and I think that little down-up of the cello absolutely makes it.

25.Trips and Falls – Breaking Up With My Mormon Missionaries
These guys were pretty much the revelation of the year for me, in all honesty.  So much so that we’ve offered to release He Was Such a Quiet Boy on Song, by Toad Records, and it should be coming out in early March.  Their music is just fucking creepy, to be honest, and the male/female vocal interplay on this track in particular really is odd.  Add that repetitive descent on the strings and this really is an unsettling song.  And a brilliant one.

26.Jesus H. Foxx – Elegy For the Good Times
It didn’t grab me as my favourite track from Jesus H. Foxx’ debut EP Matter right off the bat, but I think it is.  The cornet, the harmonies, and that simple, repetitive rhythmic underpinning for the whole thing… it all just works incredibly well together, and there’s a sophistication to it which never ceases to surprise me when I think that this is the band’s first release, with their current lineup that is.

27.The Pictish Trail – You Covered the Earth With Your Thumb (Toad Session)
I love the Toad Sessions.  They really can provide some amazing recordings, and with Neil so kindly recording and mixing all of the ones we’ve done so far this year we really have had some incredible stuff.  Johnny Pictish is about the nicest guy ever to set foot in our house, and his session really was good.  The slow build of this, and the prominence of his vocal really are gorgeous.

28.Navigator – Change
An oddly melodic tune from one of the most belligerently low-fi albums I think I have ever heard.  It took a while for the sense of ‘whoooah, what the fuck?’ to subside when I first heard this record, but it is absolutely brilliant.  Fuzz or not, this is just a stone-cold pop gem and one of the most catchy riffs of the year.

29.The Builders and The Butchers – Golden And Green
Mental and ferocious brilliance.  When these guys hit their stride their ramshackle old jalopy threatens to shake loose its wheels altogether and crash into a ditch, and those are almost without fail their greatest songs.  This is just like that.

30.Titus Andronicus – Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ
I don’t know whether I just like how raucous this song gets, or whether I like how quiet it is half the time, compared to how raucous it gets when it cuts loose.  Either way, this is one of the best play it loud soungs of the year.

31.Sparrow & the Workshop – Into the Wild
I heard this EP so close to doing this list that Horse’s Grin could as easily have been here instead, but such is the slightly arbitrary nature of these things that you’re getting this one.  Maybe it’s something about the storming ending which gets me – Nick is getting to really have a right bloody go on his guitars these days, and Jill is proving that her voice is easily powerful enough to step up and match it.  This is full on rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s superb.

32.Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (I)
Yes, more Wild Beasts.  I don’t know how this happened – it wasn’t exactly deliberate, I just kept ordering and re-ordering my list and their songs kept on sticking in there, often at the expense of stuff I thought I liked better.  This one’s more downbeat, but again that guitar sound and gorgeous voice produce something atmospheric and yet still insidiously infectious.

33.Alela Diane & Alina Hardin – I Have Returned
This whole EP is simple and absolutely gorgeous.  Again, I could have picked pretty much any of the songs from it, but there’s something about this one which seems to have captivated me just that little bit more.  The vocal interplay between the two is as lovely as with any song on the EP, but maybe there’s something in the roll of the verses which does it.  Then again, maybe it’s just arbitrary and I might pick a different one this time next week.

34.Meursault – Nothing Broke
A different version of this was on the band’s MySpace page the first time I ever heard them and it made a really strong impression on me.  They recorded it for their Toad Session back in August last year, and now this gorgeous piano and harmonium version for the truly stunning Nothing Broke EP.  If anything, the only reason this song is so low on this list is down to the fact that it’s so familiar by now.

35.Timber Timbre – Lay Down in the Tall Grass
This song shows just how simple most of this album is – the barest hint of percussion doing nothing very complex, a simple organ riff repeating throughout the song, and vocals.  There’s other stuff there too, but really very little of it, and that kind of subtle touch is what makes this such a special album.

To download all these songs in one big zip file, click here.

1-10 / 11-20 / 21-35 / 36-50

[Welcome back to Euan's monthly column on Song, by Toad.  After (sort of, not really) telling me off for weaseling out of doing a Favourite Albums of the Decade list, here he presents his own.]

You know, I was planning to reveal my top 10 albums of 2009 on my own site, then I decided, where better a place to post my top 10 than on Matthew’s page. Given the indifference that my top 50 of the decade seemed to spark amongst his readers, I thought it would be worth doing my top 10 on Matthew’s page for one simple reason. I don’t think they will be 10 records that either Matthew or you as readers would choose. Maybe I’ll introduce you to something new. Maybe not. But I really do see a point to these lists. Just like I see a point to music journalism in general. As I said, to dismiss an exercise like this with comments like “I just don’t care” would seem foolish given the blog you are using in the first place. I care about Matthew’s top 10/20. And that applies to most lists. I even read, in its entirety, the NME top 50 of the decade.

Top 10 lists for a particular year perhaps have less significance? I don’t know. I was just thinking the other day that what’s so appealing about a top 50 or 100 of the past decade are the personal reasons for the choices. Why was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot my number 1? Why will it not be Matthew’s? It’s fascinating. And something I really do enjoy at this time of year.

Anyways, you can check out my top 50 of the past decade over at www.thesteinbergprinciple.wordpress.com if you can be bothered. In the meantime, my top 10 records of 2009 would be, in no particular order:

Withered Hand – Good News
J Tillman – A Year In The Kingdom
Fieldhead – They Shook Hands For Hours
The Antlers – Hospice
My Latest Novel – Deaths and Entrances
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson – Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
The Builders and The Butchers – Salvation Is A Deep Dark Well
Sufjan Stevens – The BQE
Wilco – The Album
Peter Broderick – Music For Falling From Trees

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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Yes, we’re back on the air with a somewhat hastily arranged programme.  I somehow managed to only realise on Monday that this show would be going out today, so we haven’t been all that big on preparation this week, I’m afraid.

There’s a slightly new format to the show this year, in that I will be joined on every broadcast by Ruth from the Bowery, and that there will be a live session performance from a band of our choice every week as well, with the video of this performance going up in the post for the following week’s show.

On air 7pm-8.30pm GMT – listen here.

This week we will be joined by Edinburgh newcomer Thomas Western, who has only just moved up here and is just starting to introduce himself to the local music scene.  He’ll be playing a few songs – maybe three or so, depending on time – picking some tunes and talking pish with Ruth and myself.

The tracklisting will appear below and be updated live during the show, so feel free to add abuse and nonsense in the comments.  Like you ever need asking…

1. The Walkmen – The New Year
2. Thomas Western – Live session track so new it’s not been named yet!
3. Jesus H. Foxx – Elegy For the Good Times
4. The Builders & the Butchers – Down to the River
5. Bonnie Prince Billy – The World’s Greatest
6. Thomas Western – The Worm Forgives the Plough (Live in Session)
7. Diamond Rings – All Yr Songs
8. The National – Fake Empire
9. The Douglas Firs – Grow Old and Go Home
10. Daniel Johnston – Walking the Cow
11. Thomas Western – Don’t Talk (Put Your Hand On My Shoulder) (Live in Session)
12. The Oldham Brothers – Wouldn’t It Be Nice (Beach Boys Cover)
13. Thomas Western – Your Front Door (Live in Session)
14. Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt. 2 (Vinyl Version)

It’s been a while since we had an update on exactly what on Earth is going on at Song, by Toad Records, so I thought I might let you all know what our plans are for the rest of the year.  Partly for shits and giggles, partly because I am really excited, and partly as a desperate marketing ploy to wear you down by constant repetition into accepting that everything we ever release will be the best thing you have ever heard in the world.

It will be, you know.

So, in chronological order, here’s an brief outline of our release schedule for the rest of the year, although some of it is still a little undefined and a couple of things are still being negotiated.  We’ll be popping a label sampler in the Avalanche album club soon, so anyone subscribed to that will get a nice CD taster of what we’re planning to get up to between now and Christmas.  For the rest of you, that taste will come in digital form, below:

Jesus H. Foxx – Matter

We are planning a release party for their Matter EP on the re-opening of the Bowery in mid-September, but I told you all about this quite recently, so that’s all I’ll put in here.
Jesus H. Foxx – Trying to Be Good.mp3

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Loch Lomond & The Builders and the Butchers – Split 12″

This is being released in partnership with Matt from Bladen County Records.  We love both these bands anyway, and they were the most amazingly lovely people to hang out with when we were in Portland last year, and even offered to allow us to release this over here.  The muppets never sent me the artwork though, so I’ve used one of my own drawings, which I also really like.  And it’s our first vinyl release, which is just fucking exciting in itself.  The vinyl itself is just being made now, so it will be out in a month or so.
Loch Lomond – Elephants & Little Girls

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Maxwell Panther – Do You Feel Different Yet?

Maxwell’s recordings are rough as hell, but his songwriting is bloody great.  I genuinely don’t know what people are going to make of this, but I love it, so I decided not to second-guess myself too much.  I like it, so it’s being released.
Maxwell Panther – Tip of the Tongue (The Quiet One)

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Meursault 7″ singles.

We’re releasing two double a-side singles on white vinyl in the Autumn, with William Henry Miller Parts 1 and 2 paired with The Furnace and The Dirt & the Roots respectively.  The band are just putting the finishing touches to the new versions of the Williams Henry Miller, and we’re looking at release dates in October for these.  Meursault vinyl.  Fucking yes!

The Savings and Loan

The Savings and Loan are my friend Martin Donnelly and former De Rosa pianist Andrew Bush, and they self-released an EP of gloomy Scottish Winter music last year.  Currently they’re fleshing it out into a full album, and have specifically decided to release it in mid-November as that’s the season they think it suits the best.  And I think they’re right.
The Savings and Loan – The Virgin’s Lullaby

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Inspector Tapehead – Duress Code

The band are still working on this, but Jonnie has news to deliver when he plays his Trampoline gig on Saturday – which is where I first heard Inspector Tapehead, funnily enough, and Meursault come to think of it.  They don’t exactly work at pace, these lads, but I love the results so I don’t really care how it all comes to pass.  I can’t tell you much about artwork or release dates or anything like that, but I reckon this should be out by the end of the year too, hopefully.
Inspector Tapehead – I am Your Pedigree (There are supposed to be naughty words in this song.  Where have they gone, boys, eh?)

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Trips & Falls – He Was Such a Quiet Boy

This is far from certain just yet, and I don’t want to jinx anything, but I am talking to Jacob and the band about a UK release for what is pretty much my favourite album of 2009 so far, give or take a best guess here and there.  We’ll see what they say, but I would be fucking chuffed if they wanted to release this on Song, by Toad because I think it’s weird and brilliant.
Trips & Falls – How Do You Do

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Enfant Bastard

Cammy is erratic, I suppose, and I don’t love everything he does, but I do love a fuck of a lot of it.  In general though I reckon the moments of clarity far outweigh the times it doesn’t quite come together, and anyone who’s prepared to let the times when they don’t quite get it pass them by and wait a little for it to click is going to be rewarded. As with Trips & Falls, this is hardly a done deal, but I’ve told Cammy I’d love to release the next album he wants to really put out there, so I just have to wait and hope he takes me up on it.
Enfant Bastard – Landscape Painting is Easy

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I am going to be a busy, busy boy, it appears.

The Builders’ debut is still one of the most loved records in our house.  I love it, Mrs. Toad loves it and everyone we play it to loves it.  So, erm, where the hell does a band go from there?

Well, to be frank, I don’t like this as much as their first record, but then that was never going to happen.  But after listening to it plenty of times through now, I do still think it’s an excellent album.  The Builders & the Butchers started off thinking of themselves as a funeral band, and those themes are all over their songs – Down in This Hole, Vampire Lake, Devil Town, you get the picture.

The music matches this kind of perverted folk apocalyptica, with the rabid funeral march thumping of dual drummers, mandolin and banjo played as if they were percussion instruments, and, finally, waves of brass and strings bringing swelling grandeur to add the icing to the cake.  It’s big, yet ramshackle and unbalanced enough to feel like a three-wheeled cart runaway down a hill, just waiting to veer tragically off course and smash into a million pieces.

So where does the album fall slightly short of its predecessor?  Well there are a couple of things I would point out.  Firstly, there are very few changes of pace on this record to match the slow-clap, oddly jolly funeral march of Down to the Gallows and others, like The Night Parts 1 & 2, from their debut.  The Wind Has Come is a brilliant exception, but a bit more of this kind of shift of atmosphere would perhaps have been a good thing.

Secondly, while there’s energy, there isn’t as much venom as before.  Bottom of the Lake and Spanish Death Song brim with so much overflowing rage that you get the impression the band performed them whilst chained up in a basement just to keep the public safe.  There are songs on this which have a similar air to them, but the recording hasn’t quite captured that reckless fury which made the previous album so intoxicating.

Anyhow, nit-picking whingeing aside, this is still a fucking great album.  They aren’t exactly a folk band as such, but I’m not sure how else you would describe them.  And they could blow the fucking wigs off almost any folk-related band I could name – in fact the only group I can think to compare them to, in terms of hell-for-leather excitement, would be the Pogues.  And there are few higher accolades than that, in my view.

The Builders & the Butchers – Barcelona

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The Builders & the Butchers – The Wind Has Come

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Website | More mp3s | Buy from Amazon mp3

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)

It can be a little difficult to interview a band in the absence of the main songwriter, so certain questions about the slightly arcane, grotesque nature of the subject matter can’t really be put. Other rather brilliant ones can, though.

Like how on Earth the band ended up guerilla gigging the lines for other people’s shows early in their days. Apparently they’d just rock up to group of people queueing to get into a gig and play for them, and when I ask them about it they just shrug it off.

“We’d been practising for a while and we didn’t have any shows booked, so we thought ‘we wish we were playing this show’ so we would crash the show. And when there’s tons of people standing in line for a show, they’re already there for music and you can see what kind of a response you would get.”

I can’t quite imagine that sort of habit working very well in the drizzle of Scotland, but The Builders & the Butchers seems to have a pretty relaxed attitude to what constitutes a performance. The fourth wall barely seems to be there at all.

“We ended up playing on the street a lot in downtown Portland. Mostly just practising, we were just kind of playing, seeing what would happen with it.” 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)

DC is giving away all sorts of goodies on The Waiting Room this week. In fact, he’s giving away all sorts of things that I would rather like to win myself, bar a couple of things which I have already. I was supposed to write this last week, but given it appears I have some sort of Black Belt in Fuckwittery, I managed to miss it by a week. Idiot.

Anyhow, all you have to do is listen to last week’s episode and email DC with the weight, pounds or kilos, of his suitcase when he flew back from the States the other week. The podcast itself is mostly about that trip and the bands he encountered there, so there should be bags of good things to listen to. I’m just downloading it myself, so I’ll be listening in a wee while.

Last week’s Waiting Room – the one with the competition.

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Anyway, the goodies to give away are as follows:

The Builders & Butchers / Loch Lomond split 12″ – signed by The Builders & The Butchers
The Builders & Butchers Debut CD Album – signed by The Builders & The Butchers
Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers T-Shirt – size Adult Medium (US)
Anni Rossi CD Albums Scandia + Insects Kissing
Parethetical Girls 7″ Picture Disc + CD Album Safe As Houses
The Jones Street Boys CD Album Overcome
Or, The Whale CD Album Light Poles & Pines

I can promise you, that Builders & the Butchers album is still the best thing I’ve heard since I tiptoed in to the blogosphere a couple of years ago, and Loch Lomond are brilliant. Samantha Crain is bloody marvellous too, and I’m really looking forward to seeing her at Pickathon in a couple of weeks, and to hearing her new album. When Mrs. Toad and I get drunk, The Builders & the Butchers is pretty much the first thing we reach for in the evening. The only row is whether to play Black Dresses or Spanish Death Song first.

The Builders & the Butchers – Bottom of the Lake
Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Bananafish
Loch Lomond – Nothern Knees, Trees, and Lights