Song, by Toad

This, a little like Eels’ last album, is going to be a slightly difficult one for me to review, because my relationship with The Meat of Life is about my relationship with an entire back catalogue and the last ten years of my life, rather than just my relationship to a single album of new Clem Snide songs.

Musically, Clem Snide pretty much stopped surprising me with End of Love, back in 2005 or so.  That was a great album, but it wasn’t particularly varied in texture, and took me a long time to get into.  Eef Barzelay’s phenomenal solo debut, Bitter Honey, stripped everything back to the barest of bones, but his follow up, and subsequent Clem Snide stuff has been very uniform of pace and mood.

That sounds like a criticism, and I suppose it is, in the sense that I can’t imagine someone who is new to Clem Snide being as excited by this album as I was by Your Favourite Music and Ghost of Fashion.  Given that it’s not exactly riff- or hook-heavy music, which is the most common fall-back position for bands with a very straightforward sound, you could be forgiven for finding their recent stuff a bit stodgy and lacking in a certain spark, I suppose.

That probably sounds like an almighty slagging off to deliver about an album which I actually like an awful lot, but I suppose I’m just trying to say this: I can understand people finding this musically very plain vanilla, and in a sense I would agree, but that’s not really why I think Clem Snide have been one of the best bands on the planet for the last ten years, and why I go back again and again to listen to their music.

It’s not just the obvious stuff: that the lyrics are fucking brilliant.  Barzelay does have an inspired way with the language – cutting and sympathetic at the same time; devastated and yet bitterly amused; vulnerable and defiant – but I think it might be the actual delivery which does it for me.  Because for all the music may not offer a lot of innovation in the way it is put together, it does put across the emotion of the songwriting with tremendous impact.  I don’t know many bands who can make you feel what they are feeling with anything like the clarity and compulsion of Clem Snide.

Songs like BFF, Denver and Please are as good as anything these guys have written, and Song For Mary, for all it sounds like a song they’re already recorded half a dozen times already, still has that ability to take exactly what the song is trying to express and just embed it directly into your psyche.  There may be a couple of songs on this which I’m not so keen on, and particularly if you’re new to the band it may take you a while to get into, but this really is a very good record.

Clem Snide – Denise

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Clem Snide – Denver

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I am back on Fresh Air Radio this evening, although unfortunately not accompanied by the lovely Ruth, as she’s not feeling well. However, to keep the loveliness quota nice and high, the extremely lovely Diana de Carrabus from Candythief will be playing live in session for us this evening.

She may be named like a dastardly Bond villainess, but Diana’s music is theatrical pop joy.  A somewhat stripped-down set is required in the tight confines of the Fresh Air studio, however, so it will be just herself and an acoustic guitar, accompanied by violin.

On air 7pm-8.30pm GMT – listen here.

The tracklisting will be updated live below, so feel free to add your comments in as we go along.

1. Eef Barzelay – Make Another Tree
2. Elbow – Station Approach
3. Candythief – Bargains (Live in Session)
4. Son Volt – Sultana
5. Alex Ward – Sounds Like Someone We Know
6. Timber Timbre – Magic Arrow
7. Candythief – Pass It On (Live in Session)
8. Betty Harris – Mean Man
9. Seasick Steve – The Letter
10. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (I)
11. Candythief – Amnesty (Live in Session)
12. King Charles – Beating Heart
13. REM – Disturbance at the Heron House
14. Felix Lighter – The Rational Pedestrian
15. Candythief – Junk (Live in Session)

And here, for those who missed it, is last week’s session with Thomas Western.  The sound is rather scratchy unfortunately, but I am still getting used to the desk.  To those who care, I think it’s his guitar mic which was clipping, not the vocal one, because the two were very close together:

Thomas Western – Fresh Air Session and Interview

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Thomas Western – The Worm Forgives the Plough (Live on Fresh Air)

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Thomas Western – Your Front Door (Live on Fresh Air)

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And the accompanying videos:

1. Knives and Forks.

Apparently sales of knives are half those of forks in the UK at the moment.  This has been attributed to the rise in ready meals, which come chopped into nice easy little bits, presumably because they think you’ve got flippers for fucking hands and can’t cut up your own food.  Either that or they have no confidence in your ability to use utensils properly and fear lawsuits from people who accidentally stab themselves in the back of their hand with a fucking fork whilst trying to eat their dinner.

But it’s not the prevalence of shitty, poisonous ready meals which is getting on my tits, it’s basic table manners.  You see it in movies all the time: people who are actually eating normal food doing so with only a fucking fork.  They cut using the edge, and then turn it upside down, with the curve facing towards the plate like it was a fucking spoon, and then stab everything up into one great big kebab and shovel the resulting abomination down their fucking cakeholes.

Someone sitting leaning on their left elbow shovelling food in in this manner simply has no table manners.  You cover your mouth when you yawn, you hold the door open for people and you USE A FUCKING KNIFE WHEN YOU EAT.  Who were you fucking raised by, goats?

Beirut – Forks & Knives

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2. The Rain.

It’s fucking July for fuck’s sake.

The Builders and the Butchers – When it Rains (Daytrotter Session)

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3. Copyright on Stupid Things

I am trying to sort out the artwork for our vinyl releases and the company I’m dealing with have templates for the artwork which I can download and print, but can’t open in a graphics package because they are fucking copyright protected.  So I can print them off and waste my fucking time copying out the bastarding things, but I can’t actually just open them and drop in my artwork, which would be a million times easier.  And from their perspective, it helps their customers and virtually guarantees they get artwork to the correct fucking specifications.  Whose damn life does it make any easier to have this fucking shit locked, for Christ’s fucking sake, and how can anyone lose any money by making them freely accessible?  It’s just a series of dimensions and a list of basic instructions for fuck’s sake, locking it off is just a massive and pointless fucking waste of everyone’s time.

Dead Kennedys – Stealing People’s Mail

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4. Trees.

Actually trees are not pissing me off today.  I had a long walk to the bank at lunchtime when it was pissing it down, but I was able to walk under the trees and stay dry, so today I like trees very much.

Eef Barzelay – Make Another Tree

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5. Toilet Brushes.

Seriously, my colleagues seem not to know what they are for.  I would be only too happy to fucking demonstrate – with some vigour.

The Coathangers – Don’t Touch My Shit

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Generally, though, I think you would agree that I am not an angry man.

Rampant Chutney Consumerism and Tart, two of the most entertaining and appreciated commenters on this site, have both just discovered Clem Snide.  This is fucking amazingly good news, as far as I am concerned because both Clem Snide themselves and Eef Barzelay, their front man, have produced some of my favourite music of all time.  Consequently, I have dedicated this Friday’s Five to helping people find even more Clem Snide which they might love.

Clem Snide, after roughly a five year hiatus, are back together again and released Hungry Bird earlier this year.  So what better way to celebrate a Biblical holiday than by celebrating the work of a nice Jewish boy who has recently, in a manner of speaking, been reborn.  I mean, it’s more appropriate than the way Christians insist on celebrating it.  In the words of Bill Hicks: “I’ve read the Bible.  I can’t find the words bunny or chocolate anywhere in that fucking book.”  Still, given that we are slowly divesting ourselves of the boring Christian festivals (When actually is Lent, anyone?  Actually, don’t answer that, I really don’t care.) and trying very hard to pretend that the fun Pagan ones were actually Christian all along (Christmas – Yay! for pressies and massive over-indulgence) I figure that the eggs and bunnies and all that shit might as well be suffered to hang around a little bit longer.

Besides, I have a menstruating woman’s taste for chocolate.

Erm, quite how that leads us onto a five for this Friday is beyond me.  On the subject of things that come in fives, incidentally, this weekend we are putting together the new five song Meursault acoustic EP.  It is morose as hell, fucking unbelievably good, and will be available at live shows and from the Toad Records site, starting at Homegame next weekend.

Please de-lurk and say hello.  Rhian, Corrie and Becky have been very welcome additions to the fountain of inane blather in which we indulge on a daily weekly basis around these parts, so if you’ve never commented before, why not make today the day to start.  After all, it’s Easter, so this week’s five are likely to be a little quieter than usual.  Is that a good thing?  I’m not sure. Oh, and no talking nonsense until you’ve filled in your five either, that’s just cheating.

1. Eggs – pickled, chocolate, scrambled, hard-boiled, devilled…?  Name your poison.
2. What’s cuter, bunnies or kittens?  Should we start a campaign for the Easter Kitten?  The Easter Mongoose?
3. How many Easter eggs does it take to make you feel just that little bit sick.
4. You know, they’re making salmon fish fingers these days.  Salmon really is too cheap.  I remember when it used to be a treat, now it’s everywhere.  What’s your example?
5. Favourite moment in Life of Brian.

Clem Snide – Nick Drake Tape (From You Were a Diamond)

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Clem Snide – The Dairy Queen (From Your Favourite Music)

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Clem Snide – Let’s Explode (From Ghot of Fashion)

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Clem Snide – All Green (From Soft Spot)

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Clem Snide – Tiny European Cars (From The End of Love)

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And, just for shits and giggles and because ‘five’ is more of a guideline than a rule, here’s some of Eef Barzelay’s solo stuff, for your enjoyment.

Eef Barzelay – Ballad of Bitter Honey (From Bitter Honey)

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Eef Barzelay – Make Another Tree (From Lose Big)

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Well, not me obviously, because the answer to that is no-one.  But Mrs. Toad and I were purchasing a little wine on our way home from the pub tonight and instead of going into some sort of warehouse off-license we ventured into the Edinburgh Wine Shop, which is small, friendly and, I suppose, slightly dorky.  It’s the sort of place where the staff know about wine, where they sell lots of real ale and no fucking Fosters whatsoever and where, generally, they play classical music.

Classical music has always kind of baffled me, not out of general dislike or anything, more out of pure ignorance.  I don’t know it, understand it, or anything.  Nor could I hope to intelligently critique it.  However, I wonder sometimes about what causes stuff to stick in the memory, or to stand the test of time.  Great classical musicians, once they achieved fame, found their music performed to royal courts; to the largest audiences available at the time.  A bit like Britney Spears.

So was Mozart really the best available to his time, or was he just Madonna – some pushy, stringy old lady whose thirst for celebrity and knack for manipulating the press far outweighs any measurement of talent.  I don’t, as I’ve said, have the knowledge to really answer that question, but the people who read this blog are all fans of alternative music.  Not alternative in the sense of being NME readers rather than MTV fans, but in the sense of genuinely loving really alternative music.

Even fucking Celine Dion has performed to royal audiences.  Britney Spears, Take That, Madge, all these people have achieved something akin to the twenty-first century equivalents of patronage – the barometer for the best and best-remembered classical composers.  So, without wishing to enter into an argument about which classical composers truly deserve to be remembered at the expense of which others, what have we actually lost?

Where are the Nick Caves of that era, compared to the Coldplays?  Do we really need to remember Eric Clapton?  I mean, his politics are fucking detestable, but was he good enough to deserve immortalisation?  And even if you take the attitude that might means right – that being that popular is justification enough in itself – then what of the bands who would be the equivalent of Jeffrey Lewis.  Or the Wave Pictures.  Or even Wilco.  How long will these guys live in human memory without that massive groundswell of popular approval which ends up sanctifying an artist for all time.  And what of the likes of Daniel Johnston, for example, who is barely known in his own era and might so easily disappear within a couple of decades, once he passes on, because apparently All fucking Saints were invited to perform at the fucking Royal fucking Variety Show and he was not.

Pearl Jam – Jeremy (Yeah yeah, Nirvana, yadda yadda…)

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Giant Sand – Flying Around the Sun at Remarkable Speed

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Eef Barzelay – Ballad of Bitter Honey

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I don’t really know who I’m writing this review for.  Is it the long-time Clem Snide fan who hears their first new album for about five years?  The neophyte, who knows nothing but this?  Myself and my long-term relationship with their music?  I don’t know.

When you’ve been a fan of a band for nine years or so, through half a dozen full albums and a few live CDs, rarities compilations and EPs, then your perspective inevitably changes.  For long-term fans I’ll just say this: this album will probably take its time to sink in, but it will be largely worth the wait.  It reminds me of The End of Love in that respect – perhaps not as immediately arresting on the first few listens, but with a warmth, a depth and an intimacy which mean that your patience will be rewarded if you give it a chance.

For new listeners, this is a gorgeous album, although if you want a cast-iron Clem Snide classic I might perhaps refer you to Your Favourite Music or Ghost of Fashion.

Harking back to those two records, although they genuinely are my favourites, seems to be really underestimating their later output though.  They’ve changed as a band, and although that change does seem to have been in the direction of less musical variation, the fundamentals of the songwriting have not weakened.  Eef  Barzelay still writes some of the most caustic, impressive lyrics in the business and their ability to engage with you emotionally hasn’t waned.

That emotional engagement comes increasingly from a slow build of warmth and sympathy within the textures of the song, rather than simply an infectious hook, so you could easily be forgiven for overlooking it, but it is still there.  I felt that way myself, pretty much from End of Love onwards, inclusing Barzelay’s recent solo album, but despite thinking ‘oh gosh, no tunes’ on first listen with all of these records, they invariably end up grabbing me despite this.  I don’t know if it’s because of the lyrics, because of that combination of the acerbic with the humourous, or because of their musical ability to simply play in a manner which makes its own peace with your psyche, but something they do seems to mean that I am fated to connect with their music eventually.

So it may not be their best album, but there is something about it which is worming its way deeper and deeper into my head with every listen.

Clem Snide – Me No

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Clem Snide – Beard of Bees

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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 »

Well, no gin, no misbehaviour (except the mandatory foul language), Christ you’d be forgiven for thinking I’d sold out on you and actually grown up at last.  No fear of that actually, just a bit of liver protection.  We’re trying to guzzle just that little bit less midweek, and save the beer tokens for when we really need them, so it’s tea and slippers this time around.  In fact I thought I was being exceptionally tame until such time as I realised that I hadn’t reigned in the swearing one little bit.  Fuck, I thought to myself.

Thematically, erm, you’re on your own I’m afraid.  I’ve no real idea if you can think of anything that holds all these songs together as a coherent whole, but damned if I can.  There’s quite a bit of new stuff and quite a few stray songs that I didn’t know how to cover because I didn’t want to review the whole album, but there was a song or two that I liked.  You know what I mean.  And thirteen songs in just under an hour – fucking hell that’s efficient.

Toadcast #36 – The Domesticast

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01. Christian Williams – 30 Minutes (00.17)
02. Calexico – The News About William (05.03)
03. Crystal Stilts – Crippled Croon (07.42)
04. Glasvegas – Flowers & Fitba Tops (14.39)
05. Fishboy – Half Time at the Proper Name Spelling Bee (20.12)
06. From – One Spring Away (23.21)
07. Eef Barzelay – Make Another Tree (28.19)
08. Michael Zapruder – Ads For Feelings (34.23)
09. Okkervil River – Singer Songwriter (37.37)
10. Marc Farre – La Plaie et le Couteau (42.42)
11. Adam Balbo – Big Kid Now (48.14)
12. Christian Williams – Judas (50.24)
13. Micah P. Hinson – Throw the Stone (57.00)

It’s been a while since the last Toad Session, but this one is a bit good and thoroughly worth waiting for. Meursault’s debut album is one of my favourite of the year, and their acoustic set is easily as good. This is the first session to be held in our house too, which brought its own challenges and then some. Mrs. Toad’s preposterous cat makes an appearance at one point, and the videos look very, very, erm… green? Blue? Whatever fucking stupid colour it is we’ve painted our living room.

Anyway, the recordings have come out really nicely, and I think the videos are good too. I’ve posted a few here, but the whole lot can be found on the Song, by Toad YouTube page. The photos turned out rather well too, so go to the Flickr page for the ones we liked. And, without further ado, here is the Meursault Toad Session podcast (the track listing is at the bottom of the page):

Toadcast #35 – Meursault Toad Session

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Here are the individual songs:

Meursault – The Furnace (Toad Session)

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Meursault – Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues (Toad Session)

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Meursault – The Dirt & the Roots (Toad Session)

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Meursault – Nothing Broke (Toad Session)

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And here are the videos, first the overall video and then the ones for the individual songs:

Meursault Toad Session

Toadcast #35 – Meursault Toad Session Playlist:
01. Meursault – The Furnace (Toad Session) (06.14)
02. Meursault – A Few Kind Words (09.33)
03. Eef Barzelay – Ballad of Bitter Honey (14.54)
04. Withered Hand – Religious Songs (18.22)
05. Meursault – Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues (Toad Session) (30.11)
06. The Postal Service – Nothing Better (34.29)
07. Meursault – The Dirt & the Roots (Toad Session) (37.52)
08. Tenniscoats – Baibaba Bimba (40.40)
09. The Cave Singers – Seeds of Night (47.11)
10. Samamidon – Wild Bill Jones (55.41)
11. Casiotone For the Painfully Alone – Young Shields (60.56)
12. Meursault – Nothing Broke (Toad Session) (68.49)

If there is a better name in rock than Eef Barzelay I have yet to hear it.  And just to be even cooler, I think the lady who sang backup on the first couple of Clem Snide albums was Shivaree’s wonderfully named Ambrosia Parsley.  That is pretty much the pinnacle of the entire history of nomenclature – you can’t top that sort of thing.

Eef’s previous band, the aforementioned Clem Snide, were one of my favourite groups.  Their heartwrenching ability to turn the screw during the saddest of songs was almost unparallelled.  Eef’s first solo album, The Ballad of Bitter Honey, was a continuation of that: almost painfully confessional, and unflinchingly introspective.

That this should be similar is no surprise.  Barzelay’s self-analytical nature almost reminds me of Woody Allen at times, in its relentless nature.  There’s none of the irritating dicking about that Allen seems unable to keep in check, but that same kind of fearsome urge to examine your every failure and failing in minute detail seems to harrass Barzelay at every step.

Some of his best ever songs seem to stem from this urge, not least the brilliant Make Another Tree.  It’s almost like he is accepting and embracing every minute catastrophe he has spent the rest of the album chronicling and surrendered himself up to the inevitability of his plight.

Unfortunately, there aren’t quite as many of these moments of genius as there usually are when Eef turns his mind to music.  For all the brilliance of Numerology, Make Another Tree, Take Me, and the growlier likes of The Girls Don’t Care and Could Be Worse, there are a few stodgy numbers on this album.  Somehow it doesn’t quite flow as perfectly as either Clem Snide records or Bitter Honey, and I’m not sure why.

The genesis of the album as a whole was rather difficult.  It was almost the next Clem Snide album, was announced as such, then vanished, then finally reappeared under Eef’s name and now here it is.  The flow of the record somehow seems to mirror this slightly stumbling path to release, but I don’t know if I could properly explain why.

Eef Barzelay – It Could Be Worse
Eef Barzelay – Make Another Tree

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