For those of you who missed it, Toad favourite Samantha Crain has been making telling us about the progress on her new album, over on this thread about Arizona. She has this excellent news to deliver:

We’ve finished our full length album “songs in the night” and right now it’s gettin’ all nice and pretty (mastered, artwork, pressed, etc)…the official release date for it will be April 28th but i’m sure we’ll be getting to a copy to review before then.

Bloody marvellous is all I have to say about that.

Anyway, this week you friendly neighbourhood Toad ages by the princely sum of a single year, with my thrity-third birthday falling on Wednesday 19th November. And by some remarkable instance of good fortune there happens to be a gig on that night. A very Toad-friendly gig indeed…

But first, I have no idea if I have any readers in Dundee – certainly no-one has ever mentioned it, although one or two of you have confessed to being from there – but there is a show there this Friday that a friend of mine is putting on. Mike from Manic Pop Thrills will be putting on De Rosa, Esperi and The Wildhouse at Hustlers in Dundee this Friday, 21st November 2008.  It’s scary enough thing to promote a gig, but the first one is positively terrifying, so I really wish him the best of luck, and it would be great if we could get some Toadlings down there to support.

So, that birthday show:

Wednesday 19th November 2008: Sparrow & the Workshop, Rob St. John & Meursault at Cabaret Voltaire.
My friends Tallah and HP from Fresh Air radio have rather serendipitously chosen to put on three of my favourite Scottish bands on my birthday, and entirely by coincidence too. Tickets will be £4 on the door, and I believe Rob will be taking the opportunity to launch his new EP, although I haven’t actually confirmed that with him. He’s playing an electric guitar these days, and I have to say that it really suits his sound. Neil from Meursault will be playing entirely solo this time, and Sparrow & the Workshop say they have quite a few new tunes to try out. So if you want to know what the alternative folk scene in Scotland is like
outside of the Fence Collective, then this mix of epic melancholy from Meursault, intimate loveliness from Rob and furious Americana from Sparrow & the Workshop gives you about as good a cross-section as you’re likely to find. And there’ll be the added benefit of sniggering at a certain drunken gentleman staggering about and making a tit of himself I should imagine.
Sparrow & the Workshop – Grizzly Bear

Thursday 20th November 2008: Zoey Van Goey, Over the Wall & Callel play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.
Sorry – forgot to add this one. Over the Wall were really good at the End of the Road Festival. It was an exuberant performance swinging between glitchy electronica and full on pop music, and they seem to be shaping up nicely into a very decent band indeed. Zoey Van Goey are basically an indie rock combo as far as I am aware, but I have been told they are good countless times, this will be my first chance to see them and I do not intend to miss it. Also, this is Limbo’s first birthday, following a year in which they have rather incredibly managed to put on three bands every single fucking week, which is a feat that completely amazes me. Congratulations lads, quite an achievement.
Over the Wall – Thurso

Thursday 20th November 2008: Pockets & the Kazookeylele at The Bowery.
I am not going to plug this at all, except to offer the video below if a bizarre gentleman playing The Final Countdown on one of the most peculiar instruments I have ever seen. One for the real connoisseurs, this.
Pockets & the Kazookeylele – The Final Countdown

I am on Fresh Air student radio again this evening.  Seeing as my brother’s around I thought that instead of asking him to entertain himself himself for an hour while I prattled, I would invite him along to chatter about music with me for a bit.

I’m not sure what I’m going to play, but probably quite a few oldies I would imagine.  I might talk about musical big brothers.  As the big brother myself, I never had one but three different people ended up sort of playing that role in my life: my Dad, my Mum’s cousin Steve and my friend from uni, Strath.

So, as ever, to tune in go to freshair.org.uk between 7pm and 8pm UK time and click on the big Listen Live thingy in the top left to listen to Song, by Toad.

Elk City – Little Brother

In about a hour or so I will be back on Fresh Air, Edinburgh’s student radio station for the first of another semester of Song, by Toad shows – every Tuesday from 7pm-8pm UK time.

Just click the big Listen Live button thingy on their homepage and you will be treated to the (frankly creepy) spectacle of me talking for an hour without swearing once. Hopefully.

It’s a good playlist to start back with, and as a taster here’s a song from right at the end of it that I almost certainly won’t get time to play because I’ll probably talk too much.

Andre Herman Dune & David Tatersall – Jim Flynn’s Next Book

I’ve been on Blogfresh Radio a few times in the past, and always enjoyed the experience. I used to chat to Bill Pearis, which was always fun, but he’s moved on now. These days when I talk to them it’s with a chap called Dev Sherlock who has proved to be just as much fun to chat to as Bill. A little too much fun actually – it seems to be traditional that when I talk to Blogfresh I prattle on endlessly for fucking ages, and then they face the unenviable task of trying to cut it down to a concise minute or so. Poor bastards – still, someone’s got to make them work for their money.

Anyhow, in addition to the more usual approach where a blogger chats a little bit to introduce a song they’re really enjoying at the moment, Blogfresh have very kindly done a profile on Song, by Toad on their latest show. There’s inevitably vanity at play here, of course there is, but I am nonetheless really chuffed that they decided to feature this blog on their recent show. It’s nice because I like what they’re doing, and they’re nice people. So go an listen and make a point of listening regularly. Their shows are short and sweet, unlike my rambling dispatches, and give you a really good taster of what’s going on on the blogs that week. It’s weird to hear a blogger’s actual voice, because sometimes I’d imagined something entirely different, but rather cool nonetheless.

In other news, I am back on Fresh Air Radio (click on the Listen Live thingy) this weekend. I have two shows, Saturday 12-2pm and Sunday 2-4pm both this weekend and next.  So if you want to hear me successfully managing to not swear – no seriously, it happens – tune in.  It’s Freshers Week at the uni as well so I might concentrate on a bit of an introduction to the Edinburgh music scene, and also play some songs from my own time as a first year student. That’ll give the game away something chronic about just how bloody old I am but fuck it, why not, it sounds fun. And there’s nothing to help people settle down and get over their nerves about being new to a place that finding some silly old fart to snigger at.

Here’s a couple that I might well consider:
Lemonheads – Being Around (Acoustic)
James – Say Something

Or my first year in Glasgow:
Gene – Sick, Sober & Sorry
Pulp – Common People

This evening is my last show of the term on Fresh Air, and I’ve managed to persuade Mrs. Toad to join in with me. So we will be co-presenting a selection of choices, mostly by her, from 8.30pm-10pm (BST). I haven’t managed to get myself thrown off the station by myself, so let’s see if my little nightmare can do it for me, eh?

Here, in no particular order, are a couple of songs that, althought they aren’t on the playlist, give a flavour of what might be. To listen to the show itself, just go to freshair.org.uk and click on the big green Listen Live button on the right hand side. Easy peasy!

Me First & the Gimme Gimmes – Rocket Man
The Clash – I’m So Bored With the USA
Dolly Parton – 9 to 5 (Don’t ask!)

I’m sorry there’s a bit too much plugging going on at the moment and not enough actual music talk. I promise no more plugs for the rest of the week after this, but I thought I might remind you of my second show on Fresh Air, Edinburgh’s student radio station will be on tonight between 8.30pm and 10pm British Summer Time.

There’s not much to say other than that it would be lovely if some of you could pop along and say hello – there’s even a studio email address so you can heckle me mid-show, as the excellent Campfires & Battlefields and Drunk Country both managed to last time. This, given my newness and state of abject terror, was much appreciated, fellas.

So go to the Fresh Air website and click on the big green Listen Live button on the right, and you will be soothed to sleep by me blathering about, erm, well whatever nonsense springs to mind, really. And I will be trying to use naughty curse words either, or be too inappropriate, which might be a laugh to listen to.

As an enticer, here’s a track that didn’t make tonight’s playlist, although it was close:

Pink Mountaintops – Plastic Man, You’re the Devil

Yes indeed, people. In a few hours I shall be making my radio bow on Edinburgh University’s Fresh Air Radio, which I am sure will be a suitably terrifying experience.  No matter how piss-easy I’m sure this stuff is (I mean, one button to play, one button to talk – hardly rocket science, surely) I nevertheless find myself completely certain I will manage to locate the self-destruct button somewhere on that array of knobs and levers and so on.  And you’ve heard my podcasts they are hardly the most disciplined of ventures, so god knows what sort of a fiasco we could be in for.

Nevertheless, it seems like fun and they have been kind enough to give me a slot, so here goes.  I’m on from 20.30 – 22.00, Tuesdays for the next four weeks, until the studio closes down again when the students are on holiday.  Click on the listen live button on this page to tune in.

And, by way of jollying you along, here’s a song that I was intending to put on the playlist but couldn’t quite find the room for.  Splendid track though.

Fishboy – Half Time at the Proper Name Spelling Bee