Well the BBC have their list, the BAMS sort of have theirs and now we have ours: hot tips for bands to make it big in 2012, in this case as chosen by a selection of music bloggers designed to give a decent cross-section of opinions and some sort of reasonable alternative to the pap peddled on the Beeb.
Now, to be entirely fair, although it is easy to make fun of the BBC’s Sound of 2012 list (here it is, so you can compare, contrast and make snide remarks on Twitter), it’s not something I really tend to do because… well who cares, really. That list is for the commercial, pop side of the industry and for fans who give a fuck about that kind of thing. I don’t particularly think I or anyone reading this website is likely to fall into those categories, so why on Earth would any of us care that it’s full of bands we’ve either never heard or think are shite. Of course that’s what we think, it’s not a list written for people like us.
The scary part about that list, and something which does bother me about it, is the effect making it or, more importantly, not making it can have on the levels of attention and effort given to artists by their record labels. This is hardly the fault of the listmakers of course, and it is very much the nature of the nettle you grasp when you choose to play around at that end of the music industry, but it is nevertheless pretty fucking sickening.  Mind you these labels are very clearly not artistic enterprises, so a commercial entity acting in a commercially ruthless way shouldn’t stir even the tiniest eddy of surprise in anyone.
So I feel I should point out that this list is not intended in any way to be a dig at the BBC list, nor a vehicle for criticising it, Andy from Von Pip simply thought it would be an interesting thing to try, just to see what we came up with, and if our list perhaps brought some interesting, slightly different bands to the fore. And with the shortlist to be announced in a little while, without any further ado, here is the long list: Read the rest of this entry »
 Apart from the gig stuff happening this week, I will be on this panel in Glasgow tomorrow. It is about the use of social media in music, and although I am not entirely certain quite how qualified I am to give actual advice, I do notice for example that our social media-based stuff for the record label tend to yield a lot more interest than our mailing list, so I guess there are a few things to talk about.
And then on Saturday we’ll be recording a Toad Session with the truly awesome PAWS. Quite how we’re going to get away with the enormous racket they make I have no real idea, but umm… well, we’ll see, won’t we. Fortunately Philip sings quite loud, so hopefully we won’t just end up with drums in everything.
However, for those of you who care not for Toad Sessions, nor indeed for social media seminars, here are some more traditional musical diversions for you over the next seven days.
If you can’t enjoy yourself at a Slow Club gig it must simply be because you are incapable of fun and therefore not a very worthwhile person. Their tunes are infallibly catchy, the band themselves seem to have a brilliant time playing and they are also obviously incredibly nice people, and that makes their gigs even better! And for a band who perform with simply dual vocals, guitar and a very, very stripped back drum kit they don’t half make a racket when they want to.
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Stu from Tidal Wave of Indifference has slipped his head into the gig promotion noose, and I intend to be along to kick away the stool this Saturday. It’s an ambitious, four-band lineup with strong acoustic pop sensibilities running through it, but quite big sounds nevertheless. Should be good, and I will be there! Somewhat pished after recording the PAWS session, I would imagine, but there nevertheless.
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I had an awesome week of live music last week, from the Dylan Uncovered on Thursday (from which there is some recorded audio of Esperi and Yusuf Azak’s sets here), to Ringo Deathstarr on Friday and finally Conquering Animal Sound on Saturday.
This week promises to be a little more spread out, but nevertheless just as good. As well as the return of the Ides of Toad gigs on Saturday (with an ear-carressingly excellent lineup, I might add) we will be recording a Toad Session with Armellodie Records‘ Thirty Pounds of Bone. The Rob St. John one will be published this Saturday as well, and Rob himself will be here all week recording his debut album, so I am going to be like a giddy little puppy until the inevitable crash on Sunday, I would imagine.
In other news, I assume you’ve heard about Radiohead’s new album? Presumably inspired by Edinburgh’s Gerry Loves Records, they are releasing the world’s second ever record packaged in newsprint. Ah well, we all need to draw inspiration from somewhere, and apparently the Hollies don’t have any more good songs to rip off*.
I have to confess that I don’t think Radiohead have released anything which has been much cop since Amnesiac, but I really do salute their excellent adjustment to selling music in the Twenty-First Century. I know this is all much easier when you are already as famous as they are, but absolutely no-one has adjusted as well, as quickly or as consistently innovatively as they have. The special edition isn’t even all that pricey – just thirty quid – and I bet it’s fucking gorgeous.
Ryan Francesconi is a composer who does a lot of arranging for Joanna Newsom (who has described him as a genius on more than one occasion). He has recorded several albums of his own, including some amazing solo guitar stuff, which he will be performing on Tuesday, along with some of his Balkan stuff. Support will come from the excellent Wee Rogue and from Rob St. John – and for those who worry about duplicating their entertainment, Rob will be playing a totally different set to Saturday’s Ides of Toad gig, so I strongly recommend going to both.
This is an interesting one. I was contacted by Letters’ US PR guys before the band had ever played in Edinburgh, which is actually their hometown. They were described recently by The Pop Cop as ‘Scotland’s hottest new band’, which seems a little odd for a band who has never played a gig yet, and you can preview a couple of their songs here if you like, and read their interview with Kowalskiy here.
I wasn’t as smitten with the Kill it Kid album as I had expected to be, but by all accounts they are a irresistible force live, and I reckon this could well be worth a punt. The vocals alone are powerful as hell, and when their bluesy rock ‘n’ roll really gets going I reckon it could be pretty bloody impressive.
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This is going to be a bonanza of goodness. As well as the awesomeness promised in the official lineup, we also have a special guest added to the bill who we are, for carbonated beverage-related reasons, having to pretend is a secret (the only American band on the label, named after a certain Scottish lake, you get the picture). Also, Thirty Pounds of Bone will be travelling up from the very bottom left hand corner of the island to play a rare gig up here, and people have told me that the last time they saw him, he was so good that they travelled halfway across Scotland to seem him play the next day again. Oh, and Rob has promised to play Fucking Loud, by all accounts, so I am expecting heckles of ‘Judas!’ from you. And if your musical knickers weren’t damp enough already, we also have that Ziggy fella from FOUND, whose own album is released in a few weeks too. 100% pure unadulterated lineup gold!
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Sneaky’s have some really good stuff programmed in for the next month or two, so it’s worth just generally checking out their listings, but this is the one which stood out for me this week.
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*Dear Radiohead fanatics, that was a joke. Please do not form an angry mob and try and burn the house down because you hate me for poking gentle fun at your favourite band.
Before we get onto the tedious ritual of me listing good gigs every week and you ungrateful fuckers not going to any of them, I felt the need to share something quite special with you. I spent my entire weekend going through lists of blogs who might be interested in the music we release and building mailing lists of people who have bought things from the label in the past and so on and so forth, so it’s not been the most exciting weekend of our lives, I have to confess.
Consequently, by bedtime last night, having spent most of the previous forty-eight hours staring at a computer screen all I was really intellectually capable of was a bit of empty-headed cinema and an early night. Mrs. Toad tends to specialise in intellectually dormant movies, but I think it’s fair to say that this time she has pretty much excelled herself. I really don’t know how she can ever top this one: The Saint, starring (so to speak) Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue.
Anyone who has read the Simon Templar books, or even seen Roger Moore’s series as that character back before his Bond days, will know that this is light, genuinely entertaining fluff. There’s not much to it, but it has a certain style and is eminently enjoyable. By contrast, the movie was so bad it veered from train wreck to masterpiece and back every thirty seconds or so.
Elizabeth Shue takes, rather predictably, the Christmas Jones role of Nucular Physicist who has, it seems, invented Cold Fusion. She even hosts a presentation at Oxford where an undergrad (in a white coat, so you know she’s sciencey) asks what fusion actually is, presumably not having had to complete GCSE Physics in order to gain a place at university, unless of course she was a vet student or something who happened to be in the wrong lecture. Shue then holds aloft some sort of pickle jar with a glass coil inside it and explains that she just feels Cold Fusion to be possible, and that’s all the justification for this lecture we are given.
Apparently she has ‘a formula’. Because that’s what it takes to create a stable fusion reaction, a pickle jar and a formula, not a gigantic installation of state of the art engineering, apparently. She’s just got two hours of ‘figgerin’ left to do to figure out which order to put the bits of her equations in. Now, I may not know much about Nucular Physics but…
But in all honesty Shue is the least of your worries when watching this – she’ll look back on the script and cringe, but not particularly on her own performance. I suppose that’s the benefit of these one-dimensional, utterly implausible, hot-babe twenty-something lady scientist characters – they’re such ironclad stereotypes that you can’t really do much with them good or bad (assuming, Miss Richards, that you can at least pronounce the name of your allotted discipline correctly).
Anyhow, the real highlight of this two hour festival of toe-curling agony, was Val fucking Kilmer. The man is a legend. His character’s superpower was having no actual identity and being good at disguises, something which was accomplished so cartoonishly badly that every new persona made us cackle with horrified glee. The character in that clip above (don’t watch it all, I really don’t think you could take it) was pretty much the piece de resistance however.
He discovered that Shue’s character loved Byron (or something like that, I can’t remember) so decided that in order to seduce her he would need a character with an artistic soul. I can only imagine the howls of woe from all the charming, well-mannered Oxford scientists who had been trying to slip her the salami for the previous few years, when it turned out that all it took was one of the worst haircuts in cinematic history, a pair of hilarious leather pantaloons and a completely baffling choice of accents to get into the old dear’s knickers.
“Er, sir, the Chateau Latour is four hundred pounds per bottle.” “Very well, we’ll take two of them.” Zing!
Anyhow, after foiling the plans of the Russian energy magnate who created an energy shortage by stashing Moscow’s entire supply of fuel oil under his fucking house and then decided that the best way to take advantage of this shortage was by providing Cold Fusion power to the people of Russia, thus presumably negating his entire basis of power in an instant, rather than, say, just jacking up the prices of fuel oil and controlling supply to make his fortune and keep a political stranglehold on the country’s government, but I digress… Yes, so after this, Shue decides to give Cold Fusion to the world so she and Val can live happily ever after – once she’s spent the two hours necessary to figure out which way round her formulae go (something presumably not covered in the preceding years of research) in a back room at the American embassy in Moscow, that is.
Anyhow, those are some of the edited highlights, but really this film has to be seen to be believed. You have to be tough though, because I really don’t think many people could take it. Particularly the bit where Val’s hiding in the river in Moscow and the baddies looking for him conveniently fuck off for ten minutes so he can stumble to the shelter of the nearest block of flats, only to return (again, for no fathomable reason beyond evil ESP) five minutes later to resume the excitement of their narrow escape.
Anyhow, I’ll stop now. Please, please watch this for yourself, it really is the worst film I think I have ever seen, and considering the woman I married that really is saying something. Absolutely all of it is bad. All of it. Every line, every plot device, every character, every single premise, absolutely everything. Cold Fusion! In a pickle jar with a glass coil! It looked more like she’d brought her cuppa soup in the fucking thing, honestly.
Oh hang on, I was supposed to be talking about something else, wasn’t I…
A couple of splendid Glasgow bands are coming through to play at the newly re-opened Liquid Rooms. The re-decorating may be complete, but the sticky floor and smell of stale beer have apparently been lovingly preserved. Still, it was always a good venue to see bands, because the stage is high enough that you can always see, and the PA is really fucking loud. Look for the Twilight Sad to give it a good workout!
This’ll be a gorgeously Americana-flecked night of acoustic pop. Dan Mangan’s new album Nice, Nice, Very Nice is really, erm, very nice indeed (sorry, had to be done).
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Honeytrap are wild fun, and this will be my first chance to see Sebastian Dangerfield, but I’ve talked enough about this gig already, so you know what to expect by now – or at least you should. Tickets here.
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This is the first glimpse of The Savings and Loan in about five years, and probably the first proper one just about ever. Their debut album is out on Song, by Toad Records in early December, and they will be supported by The Last Battle, fielding a rather minimal lineup (it is our living room after all). We’ve sold about half the tickets already, and whilst you are likely to be able to get in on the night, it might be safer to buy tickets in advance from here. It would help us out if you did, anyway.
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Firstly, the flurry of posts yesterday, from my rather tardy podcast to radio show post, meant that my brother’s Sunday Supplement – a rant about classical music – was buried rather too fast, so please do go back and check it out if you have a little time to waste this afternoon.
Secondly, the Edge Festival goes bloody nuts this week, and if I listed all the gigs then I’d be here all day, and there really is no need for that, so you can have it in paragraph form instead: on Monday 23rd we have Field Music at Sneaky Pete’s and Bear in Heaven at Electric Circus (late). Tuesday sees The Phantom Band at the Electric Circus, Wednesday Eels at the Picturehouse and Thursday Mark Lanegan at the Liquid Room (who have finally got a website worthy of the name). Friday is quiet, and then on the weekend we have Harlem at Sneaky Pete’s on Saturday and Modest Mouse at the Picturehouse on Sunday. All these things you can Google yourselves if you are interested, and there is more info on the Edge site, here.
When it comes to more homegrown things, however, there is still plenty on this week, a good deal at the reassuringly active Bristo Hall – a really nice space which doesn’t get used as often as it might.
This might well be a late one (11pm-3am) so check it out before you go or you’ll be totally fucking wasted by the time the first band comes on. I haven’t heard much from the Chunks for a while, as I believe they’ve been recording, so it would be rather cool if there were some new material here to be enjoyed. There’s quite some distance covered from Sara & the Snakes’ swampy, bluesy garage stuff, the Chunks’ ramshackle whateverthefuckitistheyplay, and the Leg, who are so good they makes themselves sick down themselves (or so I hear anyway, because I have yet to see them live, for shame).
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This is a big lineup selected by Foxgang for their Festival Special. Given the reluctance of local promoters to do anything at all during the festival (and I have every sympathy – I do the same) it is good to see these guys putting on their own showcase. Highlights for me would be the indie-pop of Sebastian Dangerfield, and Glaswegian indie pair Washington Irving and French Wives, from Instinctive Raccoon.
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These are two of the original Song, by Toad bands, in a certain sense. Both now have labels and albums and careers, dammit, and it’s weird. With debut albums fairly well in the rearview mirror I would imagine that there will be a fair amount of new material on show here, although I know Broken Records don’t want to ruin the surprise for when their second album comes out later in the year. Their new stuff sounds a lot more layered and guitary and a lot less folky than their earliest material, and I am deeply curious about the new record.
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A free download sampler featuring a large number of the bands playing can be downloaded from here, if you’d like a bit of a preview. Other than that, take it from me, this is going to be the highlight of the Edinburgh gig calendar, no exceptions – full details here, and I reckon you should probably buy tickets in advance (weekend – Saturday – Sunday) too as I doubt there will be too many left on the door.
I suppose that if we are talking about Scottish gigs this week, I really do have to mention T in the Park, or Nedstock as my far-funnier-than-I friend refers to it over at the Vinyl Villain. I’ve actually only been once myself, back in 1996 I think it was, when Radiohead and Pulp headlined the Saturday and Sunday spots respectively. The thing is, I looked it up on Wikipedia and it seems that was indeed 1996, but then, it says Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were also on the bill and although I cannot for the life of me imagine missing one of my all time musical heroes I have absolutely no recollection of seeing them that year.
The one thing I do remember, however, was watching a hunched introvert and an awkward geek effortlessly engage one of the biggest crowds I’d ever been a part of. I think it was probably the first time I ever really understood what real star power actually was, because both Jarvis Cocker and Thom Yorke had the whole gigantic main stage crowd eating out of the palms of their hands.
I’m glancing over this year’s lineup and wondering who I would go and see, and apart from maybe Big Pink and Dirty Projectors on Friday, and Frightened Rabbit and Mumfords on Saturday, I’d stick with the ‘also appearing’ bit at the bottom of that poster where you see the likes of Sparrow & the Workshop, the Boy Who Trapped the Sun, French Wives, Mitchell Museum, The Seventeenth Century and Washington Irving. Most of them are playing the T-Break Stage, where Meursault are also making a guest appearance on Friday.
I really don’t know anything at all about Rickie Lee Jones from a musical perspective, but I have heard one or two songs I like here and there. And given people have repeatedly advised me never to ever put gigs on in the Summer, I suppose it should come as no surprise that this is the only one I could find this week that I liked. Any suggestions welcome in the comment thread.
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Having spent the week driving Loch Lomond around the country I figured that some sort of driving-themed nonsense would be in order for this week’s podcast.
Driving music (NOT in the Top Gear sense) tends to stick in your head, probably because when listening to it there is nothing else to do but sit and absorb the whole album. I know most musicians would probably blanche somewhat at the idea of having their work enjoyed over the thrum of wind noise, tyre noise and a grumbling engine, but a long drive is still probably one of the best places to listen to music.
Oh, and the ‘character’is supplied by all the fuckers outside having fun while I DO FUCKING WORK FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT OF YOU UNGRATEFUL INTERNET BASTARDS. Erm, sorry. I’m tired.
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01. The Twilight Sad – The Wrong Car (01.53)
02. Bear Driver – A Thousand Samurais (09.12)
03. The National – Terrible Love (14.37)
04. Band of Horses – Infinite Arms (19.11)
05. The Wedding Present – Drive (25.07)
06. The French Wives – Me vs Me (28.54)
07. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – Davy’s on the Road Again (Live) (35.01)
08. Foon Yap – Gabriel Moody (41.49)
09. The Goodnight Loving Supper Club – The Pan (50.14)
10. The Men They Couldn’t Hang – A Map of Morocco (54.27)
I feel really weird this morning. Partly I am whizzed off my tits on painkillers, which at least makes the back pain manageable, and partly I took the advice from this thread a little too seriously last night. Ouch. Pills, Caol Ila and Ardbeg: not a winning combination by the time the morning after comes around.
So there’s no chat this week, you’ll be pleased to know. Here are some gigs. Go to them. But good luck picking what to do on Wednesday, because I’ve no fucking idea myself.
Actually David Thomas Broughton is being supported by Debutant, Twi the Humble Feather and Ross Clark, I just liked the phrasing of that little place marker, so I left it in. ‘Several other chaps’ – spendid. See, I told you the pills were working. Anyhow, David Thomas Broughton is mental and brilliant. He has a black belt in the use of loop pedals, a gorgeous voice and a strange knack for peculiar physical theatre to accompany his musical performances. He’s sufficiently eccentric, actually, that he is a good one for sorting the men from the boys because a lot of people really don’t like David Thomas Broughton. These people are wrong, it is as simple as that.
Wednesday 23rd September 2009: Withered Hand Album Launch at the Leith Dockers’ Club, with special guests.
You know I like this album, don’t you? You also know I have an awful lot of time for Dan, don’t you. And I’ve not read a bad review for the record anywhere – not even a merely lukewarm one. So expect a big old hairy metal-hippie love-in at one of Edinburgh’s more idiosyncratic venue choices. I would tell you who the Very Special Guest is, but I am not allowed. You’ll just have to keep your Ear Against the Wireless.
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The Wee Red website seems to think this is on Thursday 24th, whereas I am pretty sure the bands think it’s on the 23rd. I don’t know – personally I would go along on Wednesday if I were you because the venue is there all week and it’s probably best to turn up when the bands are actually intending to play. Besides, at least if you go on Wednesday and you’re wrong, there’s time to put it right. There will be lots of guitars and drums at this gig,
The Occasional Flickers are probably best and most lazily described as pleasant twee-pop. Which is nice. My head hurts too much to write anything more about this.
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The Low Miffs are a fucking great live band, and their album is excellent. It’s art rock, to a degree, old school indie to a degree and camp as tits in some senses. I’ll be here with bells on, depending on certain potential Manchester-based excusions.
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Zoey Van Goey are another band I have inexplicably yet to see, for no really obvious reason. They have an album out and an increasing national profile, so I really should get my shit together and check them out. Strike the Colours is the vehicle for Malcolm Middleton’s fiddle player, and a band I kind of like, but perhaps no more than that.
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How many of you are there? There’s only one of me, which looks like it might prove troublesome this week, particularly late on when the clashing gigs really start to stack up. I am just back in Edinburgh after the Jason Lytle interview, which went very well in terms of being a most pleasant sort of chat, yet didn’t provide a particularly obvious hook on which to hang an article. I may have to listen back and digest for a couple of days before writing it, I think. It’s odd to suddenly find yourself in conversation with someone whose music you’ve been listening to for over ten years, though, so I guess that in itself might be an interesting angle to take.
This week’s activities on Toad will involve beginning to work on that interview, the writing up of a couple of gig reviews, and editing a big pile of Broken Records live videos. So in other words it’s going to be fucking busy again. I am also going to have a chat with Andy about redesigning both this website and the label site. I find myself feeling inordinately guilty about not designing it myself, oddly. This whole site has been entirely DIY so far, so that’s probably the reason, but at the moment I need it to be able to do things which are well beyond my own rudimentary understanding of code, and I simply don’t have the time to begin with, so there you go. I’ll have a big input of course, and the Toad sketches will remain, but basically I’m going to try and let Andy get on with it as much as I can. As a designer myself, at Proper Job, I know there’s nothing worse than a client who stares over your shoulder constantly while you’re trying to do your job.
So that’s it, this is being posted in the wee hours, and I am going straight to bed so that I can at least pretend to be functional in the morning. I actually find a lack of sleep worse than a hangover in terms of its damage to my productivity these days, so these half one bedtimes really do have to stop.
St. Deluxe are the new hot tamales around town, apparently. I’ve had a listen to their MySpace and they do indeed sound pretty decent, although with such a brief listen I’m really in no position to say much one way or another. They’re quite a rough and noisy band though, where French Wives and Team Turnip are a little poppier, but all three groups on this bill sound like good value to me. St Deluxe – New Wave Stars
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Tim and Sam and so on and so forth are big favourites of me old pal Drunk Country over at the Waiting Room, so he’ll be chuffed to know that they’re putting in an appearance in these parts. I am rarely ever much of a fan of bands who play instrumental music, but I think that’s probably laziness on my behalf, and certainly these chaps make fine music under any circumstances. It’s even better live, according to DC, so I’d recommend this one. It’s a late one though, I think, so check the times before turning up. Tim & Sam etc.. – Join the Dots
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I am fairly (but not entirely) sure that Frightened Rabbit are intending to play an acoustic set at the Bowery on Friday instead of their more usual melodic indie rock, and I do believe Meursault are following suit and unplugging all their electronic faffery as well, so this should be quite a special one. Frightened Rabbit – I Feel Better (Live)
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Jesus H. Foxx will be mentioned some time later today when I write up their gig at the Bowery from last Friday, but believe me they are sounding very, very good at the moment. Where previously they seemed to be fairly single-faceted (is that physically possible – never mind) there’s a lot more depth and a lot more confidence to their music these days. They have an EP on the way too, which I am very excited to hear indeed. Jesus H. Foxx – Trying to Be Good
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Is Dan from Withered Hand playing every single gig in Scotland at the moment? Ah well, good for us if he is. Apart from the music, Thomas Truax’s truly amazing homemade instruments make this a gig you really should attend. Thomas Truax – The Butterfly & the Entomologist
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I don’t want to say anything that’s going to get me beaten up by an angry mob of nice, sensitive young men, but this is probably the least ‘anti’ of the many great anti-folk gigs you can find in Edinburgh in any given week. I mean that in the sense that the ‘anti’ part is something I tend to treat as describing a certain lack of prettiness in anti-folk music, but even as specific a genre description as anti-folk is a bit too broad for that sort of thing these days. Where was I? Oh yes, expect fine, fragile and lovely music. The Wee Rogue – Into the Mist
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Should the loveliness at the Bowery prove just a little too gentle for you then Sneaky Pete’s is probably the place to be, where there will be Post Rock a-gogo. It’ll be loud, I’d imagine, so get there early, find a spot facing the stage and just let it all wash over you. San Sebastian – New
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Come On Gang should be in a fine mood after their SXSW adventure, so their punk pop should have even more zip to it than usual. It’s going to be a busy week at Sneaky Pete’s. Is their booking getting better and better or is it just that I’m only just starting to realise that I should be paying more attention to what they’re doing? Good stuff, anyway.
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