The Procast is so called because this week has been an awfy professional one. The third Meursault album is approaching, and because there are publishers, managers, bookers and all sorts involved in this one we had to have a Serious Meeting about it and make sure the planning was all being done properly.
We did all the grown-up stuff like minute the meeting, assign people deliverables and all sorts of stuff. It was the closest to being back at my old job that I have experienced since I left, in all honesty – lists, management, timescales, budget discussions and all sorts.
That sounds dismal, I know, but it was quite fun actually. I know I like releasing under the radar, awkward releases, but at the same time, if a band starts doing well and achieving things I don’t want them to have to necessarily leave our label in order to do so, and it’s quite satisfying (and actually quite interesting too) to be involved in a project on a slightly larger scale to usual.
01. John Knox Sex Club – Above Us the Waves (00.17)
02. Interpol – Obstacle #1 (10.44)
03. Elbow – Any Day Now (15.07)
04. Hiva Oa – Badger (26.47)
05. The Soft Walls – Black Cat (34.00)
06. King of Prussia – Your Graduating Hours (38.11)
07. British Sea Power – Oh Larsen B (45.07)
08. iLiKETRAiNS – The Beeching Report (50.40)
09. Unknown Artist – Bird Cage (56.09)
10. eagleowl – Into the Fold (62.11)
Well if there’s any shit going down in Edinburgh this week I am not going to be there to enjoy it. Not out of shame at having just used the term ‘shit going down’ as if I was a teenager in the nineties, but because my gigfuns will be happening in London and Glasgow this week.
Tomorrow I am in London to see Rob St. John and Neil from Meursault play at the Vortex, and then on Thursday I’ll be in Glasgow for the Fence Records Christmas party. And funnily enough, with Detour, Frightened Rabbit and Jill O’Sullivan coming through to Edinburgh on the same night as the latter, it seems the two cities will be swapping musical populations for a week.
Then on Sunday we have a gig by three of the most promising lo-fi garage rock bands I’ve come across this year – Dolfinz, Joanna Gruesome and The Black Tambourines. This will be a bit messy, but also really fucking loud and (mostly) tuneful!
Anyhow, I have a pile of things to tell you about this week, including something rather good on tonight, assuming you can get down to Leith in time…
The Shebeen is in what used to be the Old Dock bar down near Commercial Quay in Leith, and this is the first of a series of nights of free music, which promises good things. Leith has needed something like this since the Leith Tape Club went quiet at the start of the year. Taperecorder also sound really interesting too, like either an indie, an experimental or a techno band, depending on what moment of what song you happen to catch.
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Papi Falso is the perfect club for people who aren’t that into clubs. The music is fucking awesome, and you can either go nuts on the dancefloor or lean at the bar and have a pint. Guess which one I tend to favour?
This is another all-day Christmas shindig, with performances from the Canaverals themselves, eagleowl, Slow Club, Josie Long, Sweet Baboo and a pile of others, and is being held in pretty much Edinburgh’s most charismatic new venue: Summerhall. I’ll be there. You’ll spot me easily because I’ll be the really drunk one.
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With Kid Canaveral already sold out, this is a fine alternative for those too slow to get tickets. Fuzzy Star were excellent at the Ides of Toad earlier in the year, although I suspect this is likely to be a full band set, fleshing out the awkward acoustic introspection with a somewhat fuller sound. The Oates Field make a cracking racket, and the Occasional Flickers do swoonsome indie-pop as well as anyone in Edinburgh.
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I am really looking forward to this one. All three bands play rough and ready, lo-fi garage stuff, but still keep enough tunes in there that you aren’t just battered with a racket. This should be messy and loud though, and might well be my final gig of the year.
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 Okay, angry mob of the Toad readership, do your very worst. Today, as promised, is the day we vote on our five favourite songs of the year so there will be no foolish questions as per usual, but what there will be is the chance for you to write down your favourite songs, in no particular order, and I will count them up and find out which songs the readers of Toad have enjoyed the most this year.
There aren’t any real rules, although the song should have been released in 2011. And also, just to help me count, I’d appreciate it if you could write in in the form Artist – Song Title please. Other than that, umm… well, do your worst, I suppose.
And, as per usual, El, Brian and myself will be live on Fresh Air Radio from about half three in the afternoon. We have special guests this week, but they were invited by El and I have no idea who they are, what they do or why they are there. I guess I will find out when I get there.
Live on Fresh Air Radio from 3:30pm UK time – listen here.
Now, to get you in the mood for voting for your top five songs, here’s a quick recap of last year’s winners, as well as a link to the thread itself where the voting took place.
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And the playlist for this week’s show shall appear live below, as we play the songs:
1. Whirling Pig Dervish – Bawjaws
2. The Cure – The Love Cats
3. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – John Taylor’s Month Away
4. Ringo Deathstarr – Do It Every Time
5. Twin Shadow – Slow
6. Hooray for Earth – True Loves
7. DZ Deathrays – Teeth
8. Joanna Gruesome – Lemonade Grrl
9. Class Actress – Weekend
10. Shirley Ellis – The Clapping Song
11. Blondie – Hanging on the Telephone
12. Rob St. John – Sargasso Sea
13. Foals – Spanish Sahara
14. The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio
15. Diana Ross – Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
Malky from eagleowl asked if a friend of his could come along to Rob St. John’s album launch the other week and take some pictures. Well he did, and despite the lighting being a bit of a challenge, they’ve turned out beautifully. The gentleman in question is Iain Stewart, whose website is here, and here is a small selection of pics from Pilrig the other week. Thanks – they look fantastic!
 There will be a bit of a change to the format of the Friday Fives for the next few weeks, as I combine it with my radio show on Fresh Air, which is the student radio station here in Edinburgh.
I will be joined by Brian Pokora, who plays guitar for The Last Battle, Loch Awe and Trapped Mice (and probably three or four others), and was selected for this role by virtue of having been stood next to me in the pub when I decided that Friday afternoons would be the best time for the show.
To reduce the middle-class white boy/tedious blokey pub banter factor just a little we are looking for someone else to join the team. Specifically, someone who is not a nice, polite middle-class white boy. You’d need to be available from 3-5pm on Fridays, and have a rough, but please not exact, agreement with the kind of music we are likely to play. Get in touch if you’re interested.
As for the rest of the Friday Fives, well they will hopefully proceed very much as per usual I would think. Five stupid questions, an afternoon to waste by answering them and then talking pish with everyone afterwards, and only one rule: fives first, pish-talking after.
So, for starters, this week’s Friday Five:
1. Which muppet best represents you (Fraggles and Sesame Street ones count too – Yoda does not).
2. What one thing best represents the really early days of the internet to you?
3. Technology you could happily do without.
4. Do you cross the road at the lights or absolutely wherever the fuck it occurs to you?
5. Say you were in a coffee shop trying to get some work done. Say a sprawling infestations of yummy mummies and copious living evidence of their inability to keep their legs clamped shut came spilling into the place and proceeded to turn the whole fucking cafe into a writhing, squealing, cavorting cacophony of horror. How many of the little fuckers do you think you could cheerfully batter to death with a fucking cricket bat before it stopped being fun?
Sneaky bonus research question: did Song, by Toad or Fresh Air bring you to these parts?
The playlist will appear live below from 3:30pm:
1. Bon Iver – Bloodbank
2. Rob St. John – Sargasso Sea
3. Tom Lehrer – Bright College Days
4. Randolph’s Leap – Cassie O’Tone (Fresh Air Session)
5. Cub Scouts – Evie
6. eagleowl – Sleep the Winter
7. Bob Seger System – 2+2=?
8. PAWS – Winners Don’t Bleed (Toad Session)
9. The Ukrainians – Polityka
10. The Moth & the Mirror – Fire
11. Evan Dando – $1000 Wedding (Gram Parsons Cover)
12. Yoofs – Sidewalk
13. We Were Promised Jetpacks – Medicine
The above photo is of the Palm House in Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens, and was taken and passed on to me by Dylan, of Blueback Hotrod legend. And given that the weather outside is all kinds of shit I thought there would be a sort of bitter irony in using it today. See – that’s how nice Edinburgh can be, so what the fuck is this pissing rain all about?
Anyhow, traditional British whingeing aside, it’s going to be a pretty bloody mental week this week. Thursday is going to be a particular swine, what with the awesome David Dondero going up against the Fruit Tree Foundation night in Leith, as well as the Travelling Band/Jonnie Common show at the Electric Circus. Then it’s Oxjam takeover time on Friday. Then Rob St. John’s album launch on Saturday. Fucking hell, I’m going to have a liver like a cricket ball by Sunday.
My pal Howard, who runs Humble Soul Records down in Manchester, absolutely raves about Denis Jones, as does Jonnie Common, and I can’t imagine two people whose recommendations I would take more seriously. Apparently Mr. Jones does a lot of looped vocal stuff, but everyone who has told me about it has qualified that with ‘yeah, but it’s nothing like you’d expect’. Intriguing.
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David Dondero is kind of under the radar, I suppose, but from the relatively little I know about him, he can be fucking spectacular. Rothko Chapel was one of my songs of the year a couple of years ago, and his sparse, acoustic Americana is really gorgeous.
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The Fruit Tree Foundation was set up by former Idlewild gentleman Rod Jones and former Delgado Emma Pollock to raise awareness for the Mental Health Foundation. My personal knowledge is a little sketchy, but I think musicians have volunteered to act as mentors for young songwriters, and together to create new music, and I think it is this which will be performed in Nobles on Thursday. Given the calibre of the musicians involved, it should be really good.
Jonnie Common actually worked on a track by Adam Gorman of the Travelling Band for his recent Deskjob project, so this pairing makes plenty of sense from that perspective. As to how the rousing Americana of the band and Jonnie’s idiosyncratic electropop will go together musically, erm… well, remains to be seen.
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This is a beast of an event, with gigs happening at the Electric Circus, Cabaret Voltaire, Sneaky Pete’s, The Banshee Labyrinth and the (recently resurrected) Left Banke. The full list of bands thus far confirmed as playing is as follows: As In Bear, Black International, Broken Records (solo), Citizens, Dead Boy Robotics, Endor, Esperi, FOUND, French Wives, i build collapsible mountains, The Last Battle, Letters, Loch Awe, The Machine Room, Meursault, PAWS, Sebastian Dangerfield, The Spook School, Trapped in Kansas, Trapped Mice, Vasquez and Verse Metrics. It’s going to be a beast of a night, I suspect, but you’re own your own with this one, I am not digging out links for all those bands, nor attempting to describe them. Just go.
Personally, I think this is damned close to being the lineup of the year. I’d like to see anyone else top it, in any case. This is also, the header implies, the launch show for Rob St. John’s gorgeous debut album Weald, out on 12″ gatefold vinyl at the end of November. We have partnered with John Truckasaurus to add Viking Moses to a bill already bursting with goodness. Tickets are available at Avalanche Records and online, here.
Alright, alright, a few of you might well raise an eyebrow at this one, but I remember when Patrick Wolf first broke through. His brand of flamboyant, baroque pop was a bit over the top perhaps, but it certainly had a certain element of fascination. So I may of course be personally endorsing Rob St. John’s album launch, but this one still kinda caught my eye.
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!
It’s the Gigpocalypse! Gigmageddon! A gigantic week-long party of musical funz! The final kick in the balls your exhausted, fading liver can’t quite handle before it gives up the ghost and implodes altogether.
After a pretty lacklustre musical showing thus far, the Edinburgh Festival finally earns its spurs this week with what can only be described as the inevitable descent of total and utter carnage.
Lach’s one-man show is back on (after illness) at Cabaret Voltaire, free every night this week at 8:45pm, and of course the Antihoot will be on every night this week except Tuesday from midnight to 3am in the Gilded Balloon.
Then there’s also the next two Toad at the Circus gigs, firstly an acoustic strummer affair, and then on Friday a thumping racket. I will be DJing at these gigs, but don’t let that put you off, they might still be quite fun.
As well as conventional gigs, Avalanche Records have a full list of really rather excellent in-stores this week too, featuring the likes of Emily Scott and Edinburgh School for the Deaf – full details here. Oh, and of course the week finally stumbles to an alcoholic close with the return of the fantabulous Retreat Festival. It will be awesome, and my liver will be begging for mercy long before the end.
This will be a carnival of electro loveliness. I know less about Mr. Schnauss, but Jonnie’s album is pretty damn close to being the best Scottish album of the year, for my money.
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It’ll be an all-acoustic affair for our third Toad at the Circus gig. Apart from Meursault’s Neil Pennycook performing solo, we have the amazing Benjamin Shaw coming up from London and the equally excellent John Egdell from Newcastle.
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This is a bit straightforward isn’t it. Sebadoh are lo-fi indie rock legends (to paint with the broadest of brushes) and they are playing in Edinburgh. I think this might be sold out though, so there might be little point listing it but umm… it’s Sebadoh, y’know.
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Something of an Edinburgh all-stars gig this one. If you aren’t from here and want to know why those of us in Edinburgh have been so excited by our homegrown music scene recently, then this and Retreat are the ones to show you.
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Willy Mason has sort of slipped off the critical radar since the pop smash (relatively speaking of course) of Oxygen back in about 2005 or so. I saw him live back in London before moving up here actually, and it was absolutely brilliant.
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Let’s see the babbling hen sluts talk over this. Fuck you, motherfuckers, tonight is going to be loud! Brown Brogues are a clattering racket and according to The Pigeon Post Ghost Outfit are the best live band in Manchester at the moment.
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As the Antihoot has been taking place this year Lach and myself have been selecting, with the help of the audience, the favourite act of each night and we’re inviting them all back this weekend, where we’ll be recording the performances to release as The Best of the Antihoot on Song, by Toad Records. It’ll also be a fantastic way to have a big fuck off party to celebrate the end of an awesome run at this year’s Festival which has, of course, seen me make my stand-up comedy debut. But the less said about that the better.
Continuing the excellence of their Festival booking, Sneaky Pete’s have three excellent new Edinburgh bands on on Saturday. Â I’ll be at Retreat, but if it happens to sell out then this looks like an excellent alternative.
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There are a couple of events which define my musical calendar. Most Fence events would pretty much be included in there, and the other would be Retreat. The best bands in Edinburgh, fucking lovely people and the nicest atmosphere at any music even I’ve been to in the city. Bart Owl is a hero. A sarcastic, ginger hero.
This is the post-Homegame, ‘dear Jesus please just let me sleep for a week, good god someone please fetch me a green vegetable’ podcast.
I can just about keep my head together enough to get through this, but then I have the Monday listings to write and the bloody Francois/This is the Kit/Babe gig to organise tonight as well. Aargh!
I also have all sorts of other things to do this week, but after the sort of mind-boggling battering your mind and your liver get at Homegame I am not sure I can face any of it. I am going back to sleep, wake me up in June.
01. FOUND – I’ll Wake With a Seismic Head No More (00.34)
02. Randolph’s Leap – Counting Sheep (7:57)
03. Josh T. Pearson – Country Dumb (Piano Version) (13.57)
04. The Singleman Affair – If I Only Fell in Love When I Was Young (21.16)
05. eagleowl – Into the Fold (Toad Session) (29.00)
06. The Last Battle – Ruins (35.07)
07. King Creosote & the Earlies – Bats in the Attic (Live on 6Music with Mark Riley) (40.23)
08. Sweet Baboo – Girl Under a Tree (45.37)
09. David Thomas Broughton – Ain’t Got No Sole (54.57)
MOOOOR-ning! Having kicked off our own monthly series of gigs this weekend just, with an excellent gig at the Wee Red Bar, I feel very much ready to start properly going to gigs again, after an extremely quiet January.
It was an excellent night actually, so a massive thank you to everyone who came out, and thanks a lot to the bands as well, who all made an effort to bring their friends down, which as a new promoter is something I am extremely grateful for.
We’ve got something like five more gigs in the pipeline by now, including bands like Rob St. John, Ziggy Campbell, Thirty Pounds of Bone, Louis Barabbas and the Bedlam Six, Zed Penguin, Husband, Miaoux Miaoux, Jonnie Common’s Desk Job, and hopefully also The Leg, eagleowl and Orchestra Elastique, assuming we can make them offers they can’t refuse.
If it weren’t for the fact that Homegame isn’t until May this year, I would have described this as the perfect warmup. It’s been ages since Gummi Bako has brought his rock ‘n’ roll band (wonkytonk, in his own words, apparently) down from Fife, and for all I know a lot of people see them as an acquired taste, I can tell you they are awesome fun to watch.
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I haven’t seen Broken Records play live since the release of their phenomenal second album Let Me Come Home, so I am hugely looking forward to this. The new material sounds a lot more like a guitar-based indie rock band than earlier stuff, but I can’t imagine their live impact has been anything other than enhanced by this change.
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This looks like a night of hypnotic, crunchy, experimental electronica. Not the wibbly, noodly stuff though, but proper, in your face racket. It’s a kind of music which is doing quite well around here at the moment actually, but not one I feel I have properly given a chance and made an effort to get into yet. Shame on me.
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The Procast is so called because this week has been an awfy professional one. The third Meursault album is approaching, and because there are publishers, managers, bookers and all sorts involved in this one we had to have a Serious Meeting about it and make sure the planning was all being done properly.
