As the more cunning of you might have noticed last week, Song, by Toad’s Friday Fives is now a radio show on Fresh Air, as well as just a means for you to waste your time on the internet on a Friday afternoon.

This means that from 3:30pm Brian Pokora and myself will be live on the radio, with some sort of attempt made to avoid the dreary old pish I would usually pick, out of respect for the fact that this is officially pre-pub radio and you probably want cheering up rather than bringing down.

Live on air from 3:30pm – listen here.

Also, there are a couple of live gigs to remind you about this weekend, including some late news which will hopefully be rather interesting for you.

Firstly, we have The Last Battle, Dad Rocks and Shoes & Socks Off at Henry’s tomorrow night.  It is only a fiver in, and those who come along will also be able to get into the second show of the night, which is as follows:

Secondly, Lach is opening for Viv Albertine (of The Slits) at Henry’s after our gig there on Saturday, and anyone who is there for the Ides of Toad night will get in for £4.

Thirdly, on Sunday in Anstruther we’ll be hosting a Song, by Toad all-dayer called Flamin’ Hott Toadzzz! at the Hew Scott Hall.  The lineup will be Avital Raz, Dan Mutch, Yusuf Azak, Jesus H. Foxx, Jonnie Common and Meursault, and tickets will be available on the door.

And on Monday I will sleep.

Today’s pointless questions for the internets.  Remember, fives first, pish-talking later.

1. Most shameful album you’ve seen your parents buy.
2. Coolest album you’ve seen your parents buy.
3. Most embarrassing gig you’ve been to.
4. Favourite type of weather.
5. If you had a parrot, what would teach it to say?

Playlist for Song, by Toad’s Friday Fives will appear below as we play stuff:
1. The Piranhas – Getting Beaten Up
2. Dad Rocks! - Aroused By Hair
3. Youth Lagoon – Posters
4. Tom Waits – Goin’ Out West
5. Easter – Somethin’ American
6. Dolfinz – Hot Pants
7. The Twilight Sad – Kill it in the Morning
8. Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia
9. John Cooper Clarke – Gimmix
10. Yuck – Holing Out
11. Lil Daggers – Dada Brown
12. Horsecollar – Christopher
13. Other Lives – For 12
14. Blur – To the End (with Francoise Hardy)

So, this week ends with a massive extravaganza of Toadliness, but it does look like it’ll be relatively quiet along the way as there doesn’t seem to be that much else around until the weekend.  Which is actually alright, sort of, because it gives me a chance to get my shit together in advance of a very busy weekend indeed.

Quite how we’re going to sort the logistics of getting half the bands in Edinburgh to and from Anstruther on Sunday I don’t know, but I am sure we’ll manage somehow.

Anyhow, in the meantime there are obviously good gigs on the weekend of course, but I reckon the dark horse is tonight at Henry’s, where Boston band hearts!attack are playing.

[Edit: fucking hell, what a tool, I managed to miss Kid Canaveral and King Creosote tomorrow at the Liquid Room, and Born to Be Wide Radio Seminar on Thursday at the Electric Circus.  And no-one pulled me up on it - do none of you fuckers read this at all?]

Monday 31st October 2011: Hearts!Attack, The Lovely Eggs & Viennetta at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

Some variations on guitar pop going on here, with rough-around-the-edges hearts!attack coming over from Boston, faux-naif you’ve-got-to-be-fucking-having-me-on indie pop from Manchester in the form of the Lovely Eggs, and new(ish – I think!) Edinburgh/Glasgow band Viennetta, who have apparently emerged from some sort of fragments of The Ray Summers and The Damn Shames. Intriguing.

Hearts!attack – If You Were Dead

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Saturday 5th November 2011: The Last Battle, Dad Rocks! & Shoes and Socks Off play the Ides of Toad at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

Our next Ides of Toad night features the ever-changing lineup of Edinburgh band The Last Battle, along with touring Icelander Dad Rocks! and touring partner Shoes and Socks Off.  Dad Rocks! have a new album out around about now as well, so this’ll be your chance to get hold of a copy.

Dad Rocks! – Aroused By Hair

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Saturday 5th November 2011: PET single launch, with Conquering Animal Sound and Pumajaw at the Voodoo Rooms.

I was fully intending to pretend this gig wasn’t happening, what with it clashing with the Ides of Toad and all, but it’s too good a lineup.  So if any of you are misguided enough not to be at Henry’s for our gig, then this is where you should be. But you’ll all be at ours right.  Right?

PET – What You Building?

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Sunday 6th November 2011: Flamin’ Hott Toadzzz! in the Hew Scott Hall, Anstruther.

Alright, maybe this is in Anstruther rather than Edinburgh, but Fence asked me to put together the lineup for this all-dayer, so it is full half with Toad favourites and half with Fence crowd-pleasers. There will be bangers and mash being served upstairs at the AIA Hall as well, apparently, just to add to the splendidness.

Sunday 6th November 2011: King Charles at Sneaky Pete’s.

King Charles is a bit of a weird one, part acoustic smart-arsery, part spiky, lively pop. I don’t know that much about him, but he was a big favourite of a friend of mine called Chris Imlach who used to do an excellent new music show on Fresh Air when I first started, so it’s nice to see him playing here again – and more excellent booking from Sneaky Pete’s.

King Charles – Love/Lust

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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!

Video: Vimeo – YouTube
Photos: Flickr – Blueback Hotrod
Free mp3 downloads: zip file (right click – save as)

The more I read about Johny Lamb from Thirty Pounds of Bone before this session, the more nervous I became.  The internet seemed to be full of all sorts of tales of him being reclusive, antisocial and very, very hard on interviewers.

Now, the press can be a little unreliable at the best of times, and personality-based reports of this nature can vary from person to person, but it almost comical how completely different this session was to my expectations.  Johny was friendly, perhaps a little shy, genuinely chatty and a lovely guy.  In fact, in terms of the interview podcast I think this is probably the most interesting one we’ve ever had.

Thanks are due to Mrs. Toad for the splendid bacon sarnies, to Dylan and Fiona who took the pictures, and to Matthew who did a lot of the filming.  As per usual we have the podcast below, the freely downloadable session mp3s underneath that, followed by the videos we made for all the individual songs.  The tracklisting for the podcast is at the very bottom of the page.  Enjoy!

Direct download: Toadcast #169 – Thirty Pounds of Bone Toad Session

Thirty Pounds of Bone – The Maritime Line (Toad Session)

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Thirty Pounds of Bone – A Lesson in Talking (Toad Session)

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Thirty Pounds of Bone – The Jonah Shanty (Toad Session)

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Thirty Pounds of Bone – Uyeasound (Toad Session)

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01. Thirty Pounds of Bone – The Maritime Line (Toad Session) (11.02)
02. Birdengine – Scarecrow and the Longpig (19.00)
03. Dad Rocks – Aroused By Hair (23.36)
04. Thirty Pounds of Bone – A Lesson in Talking (Toad Session) (37.19)
05. Le Reno Amps – You Must Remember (42.47)
06. Mary Hampton – Ballad of the Talking Dog (44.56)
07. Thirty Pounds of Bone – The Jonah Shanty (Toad Session) (57.37)
08. Diamond Family Archive – I Have Forgotten (66.16)
09. Men Diamler – Waiting for the Snow to Thaw Pt. 2 (68.22)
10. Thirty Pounds of Bone – Uyeasound (Toad Session) (82.44)

Ruth and I were back on Fresh Air Radio last night, but due to all sorts of massively annoying database problems with the site, I couldn’t put up one of those live playlist updatey things like I usually do, which was really kind of frustrating.

After spending last term more or less missing one another every single show I must confess I am looking forward to getting things right in 2011 and the chance to spend an hour and a half every week bickering with the old trout about music.

So given you had no opportunity to agree with Ruth about how fucking awful my taste in music is, I thought I would at least post the actual playlist online so you can see what we played and have a think about whether or not you can really be arsed tuning in next week, by which time my Toady IT problems should be well and truly behind me.

01. Mountain Man – How’m I Doing
02. Ringo Deathstarr – Do it Every Time
03. Rob St. John – Whites of Our Eyes (Toad Session Sneak Preview)
04. P.S. I Love You & Diamond Rings – Leftovers
05. Fleet Foxes – Hopelessness Blues
06. Active Child – I’m in Your Church at Night
07. Francoise Hardy – This Little Heart
08. Dad Rocks! – Nothing Keeps Up
09. Lach – I Won’t Miss You
10. Nana Grizel – Blackbox
11. The Good Ones – Sara
12. The Honorable Worm – Wouldn’t Mind Dying
13. Owen Pallett – Lewis Takes off his Shirt
14. Black Tambourine – Throw Aggi off a Bridge

Band names can be a little misleading.  I am not sure what the name ‘Dad Rocks!’ particularly led me to expect, but I don’t think it was this.  Mind you, Snævar Njáll Albertsson is not English, and it’s easy to forget that words create subtly difference impressions to different people, no matter how flawless their grasp of the language.

Coincidentally, the rolling, lovely Language actually touches on this, about two thirds of the way through the EP.  It, like the rest of the lyrics on this, has the character of a tangential train of thought, remarkably matter of fact and just slightly off-topic for some reason.

If the lyrics feel a little like a digression that just keeps on moseying onwards, then the music feels much the same.  It just rolls along at an unhurried pace, a beautifully picked acoustic guitar holding everything in place, and swells of strings, horns or harmonies weaving in and out as and when called upon.  As such, the whole EP does indeed have a very Scandinavian dreamy folk-pop feel to it, but despite the crescendos of instrumentation which appear here and there, it nevertheless has a very gentle, unassuming character.

Every time I try and pick out a highlight I get to the next song and end up changing my mind.  The piano in the opener is beautiful, the guitar in Kids is beautiful, the choral harmonies in Nothing Keeps Up are really lovely… this EP is just a gorgeous piece of work.  It is also quite an old record – mid-2010 I think – and there’s a full-length being worked on at the moment apparently, which is good news.

Dad Rocks! – Aroused By Hair

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