This is a question no-one can answer of course, but the closer you get to bands and musicians the more relevant it becomes: how much is the actual music itself influencing how much I like music?

I never thought about it much, but I suppose it’s at its most evident when you go on holiday.  Sitting on the beach in Southeast Asia I’ve found myself humming along to David Gray, reggae, even some truly awful chillout and, at the time, actually enjoying it.

I had an amazing time at Homegame, but I remember going along for the first time.  This was something like 2006, and I didn’t really know anything about the Fence Collective nor indeed any of the bands other than James Yorkston and King Creosote.  My sales pitch to Mrs. Toad to get her along was “Well a lot of the bands aren’t that great, but some of them are amazing, and it’s in a tiny Scottish fishing village for fuck’s sake, what could go wrong?”

I was right, of course, but I find myself wondering about that statement in retrospect. I have been consistently excited about the lineups over the last few years, and I ask myself a couple of questions.  Firstly, is this just down to being more interested on DIY music these days, so I just know the bands better?  Or, possibly, are the bills much the same quality, but I now know I am going to have such a good time that I ignore the bands on the bill I don’t like, focus on the good ones, and mentally fill in the gaps with Homegamefun and assume everything’s just brilliant?

Then there’s the personal side: I know lots of these bands personally by now, which must change things, but I don’t really know to what extent.  There are loads of people who I personally like a great deal, and have shared many pints with, whose bands have never been so much as mentioned on these pages, so I clearly don’t just like stuff because I am pals with the band, but it must change something.

But when I think about dancing around like a pillock this weekend I do wonder, if I just heard the same stuff innocently on a stereo, would I enjoy it as much as I do now?  I suppose I probably wouldn’t.  My love for these bands is pretty impossible to separate from the amount of time I’ve spent leaping around like a muppet to their tunes, so surely if those things hadn’t happened it would take something away from my relationship with the music. I’m not sure what, but something.

I only bring this up because I wonder about explaining to people just how much fun Homegame actually is.  I could do the ‘here, listen to this band and that band and the other band’, which I guess I do on Song, by Toad to an extent, but I doubt I could really put it across properly. And as you get more involved in music that gulf between bands who are just bands, and bands you develop quite involved relationships with for one reason or another just widens.

Of course if I hadn’t loved King Creosote and James Yorkston I would never have been drawn to Homegame, and if I hadn’t loved what I’d heard once I got there I wouldn’t have kept on returning. But there’s so much more to it now, it seems kind of unfair on ‘other music’ to even try and make a direct comparison.  The fun of it comes from so many things – the manageable size making it so sociable, the new people you always end up meeting, the bands you’ve never seen before as much as the bands you’ve seen a dozen times, and of course the location and the whole annual ritual of it.

It’s a meaningless question of course.  Music fits in with the rest of your life and it’s an interactive relationship, so your experience of everything depends on everything else, and you can get as much or as little out of music as you personally choose.

But I sometimes wonder what random pop-punk or experimental electronic band from just outside Wycombe I could have developed an equally joyous relationship with had we both just happened to be around at the right time and the right place.

I am sick of them, and I am not going anymore. You know the ones, hundreds of tents as far as the eye can see, grass which gets ground to dust or churned into mud within a day, fields strewn with polystyrene boxes, paper plates and plastic pint pots, toilets as fearsome as the fucking Sarlaac pit.  I could (yes, yes, and do) go on, but you know what I mean when I refer to a green-field refugee camp festival.

I am not just being prissy about hygiene and personal comfort or anything like that – well, the toilets are pretty horrific – I just don’t like large groups of people.  In fact, off the top of my head, the only time I actively enjoy crowds is at a football match.

As well as attending quite a few for the sheer enjoyment, I ended up going to an awful lot of festivals last year as Meursault’s driver, and most of them really, really were fucking awful.  The funny thing is, though, from the band’s perspective the best shows didn’t always come at what were, from a punter’s point of view, the best festivals.  They had a riot playing T in the Park, for example, whereas from a fan’s perspective that’s a festival I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole.

Still, driving them around did give me a pretty thorough overview of the UK festival circuit, and whilst it was fun to try lots of the big ones, including my first trip to Glastonbury, I think I have come up with some general guidelines for myself when it comes to festivals.

For example, five thousand people is already way too big.  The lineup at End of the Road saves it, but in every other sense it is just the same as all the other festivals – the same food stalls, the same venues, albeit in a different field – all these are just businesses which tour the festival circuit all year, meaning one festival looks pretty much exactly like the next.

I did think Truck stood out though.  For all the lineup wasn’t as strong as the likes of Green Man or EotR, all the stalls at the festival itself were provided by local businesses.  This meant not one single one of those depressing places which tour each and every UK festival was there, and this gave the place a real character of its own.  We were lucky with weather too, which helped, but this was one of my favourites.

Of the smaller festivals, well you all know how much I love Pickathon and Homegame, and the Fence Away Game last year was just mind-blowing.  At these smaller festivals the landscape tends to more in evidence, as it isn’t overwhelmed by the miniature city which lands on top of it for a week.  And I may be a city boy at heart, but a weekend in a tentopolis in a field doesn’t seem like a holiday, but a weekend in the Scottish mountains really does.

Equally, when the people are fewer it just feels more like an expedition and less like a stampede.  It feels like we’re visiting the countryside rather than barging across it, and I do think that breeds a slightly different mentality in the fans as well, and that they are more likely to be respectful of their surroundings under these circumstances.

I have also learned that I don’t actually care as much about lineups as I would have thought.  I could go to the End of the Road Festival twice and still not see everything I wanted to see, but on a couple of occasions that has led to me worrying about what I might be missing, rather than simply relaxing and having fun .

What I find is that, for all I obviously want at least some bands I really like to be there, when the lineup is a little patchier there is more time to just relax and enjoy being away from it all.  It’s nice to have little pockets of time where you aren’t thinking about what is happening on whatever stage.  I like there to be a few things I am really keen to see, a few things I am interested in taking a chance on and quite a lot of time I am not fussed about anything.  At those times I tend to just sit back and relax or go and see a band I have never heard of, which is really nice way to spend a weekend.

Without the experience, the infrastructure or the financial backing, these festivals can be a little hit and miss I guess.  Close to Edinburgh there are a couple – Kelburn Garden Party and Doune the Rabbit Hole – which look really interesting and which have been described to me as both brilliant and awful depending on who I’ve spoken to.  I’d still rather go there than Rockness though.

There are also a couple of interesting ones a little further afield.  One, The Insider, I know nothing about but is located up near Inshriach House in the Highlands near Aviemore and should be spectacular.  The Imploding Inevitable Festival seems to be quite similar in spirit, is taking place in Fellfoot Woods in Cumbria.  Both the lineups have that excellent combination of complete obscurity and a handful of bands I really want to hear, and both locations look really interesting.

The thing with these really small festivals, though, is that their PR reach can be a little limited, so there are no doubt dozens of others going on around the UK I’ve never heard of, but whatever they are they look a damn site more like fun than any of the big boys which, honestly, just bore me to tears these days.

About this time last year Findo Gask were, in my opinion, just about the most promising band in Scotland.  Their unusual take on electro disco pop seemed to appeal to the indie kids as much as to the dancefloor, and with Vic Galloway and Muslim Alim putting them forward as one of two recommended Scottish bands for the BBC Introducing slots at Glastonbury they seemed to be gaining real momentum.

Personally I love their first two singles, Va Va Va and One Eight Zero, and they are a band I would actually have loved to have on the label, but they seemed to be doing so well by the Spring of 2010 that I was unlikely to have ever asked them because despite being unsigned I thought they had probably progressed beyond us already.

Then, around April, they suddenly announced that they were to split.  This wasn’t entirely out of the blue – I had heard fairly wispy rumours to that effect before – but it seemed so incongruous: they seemed just on the verge of genuinely achieving something.

Nevertheless, there it was.  They said that their intention was to finish their debut album, release it, and then walk away, in a similar move to the recent announcement by Edinburgh’s Come On Gang!

I suppose it’s no surprise that the album shows absolutely no signs of materialising, all motivation presumably dissipating as the band’s members involve themselves in other projects. I still consider it a massive shame though, as I was a big fan of the band, to the extent that we interviewed them at Homegame last year, up in Fife.

I’ve been embarrassingly tardy editing the video together.  As I suppose must have been the case with the album, once the split was announced it just never seemed pressing, with so many other things to do.  But as some sort of obituary I thought I should post a short film of the interview (above) and then a couple of song videos (below), two from their full set on the Friday night and then two from their acoustic performance the next morning in the Hew Scott Hall.

So cheers lads, and good luck for the future.  I still wish I could have heard that record.

Christ, people are getting this shit up and running early this year.

I am not much of one for festivals, frankly.  All the tents and mud and rock ‘n’ roll rather fails to float my boat most of the time, and the sheer numbers of people really do put me off.  I never did like people all that much.

But there are a couple which I quite like, and they have both made unprecedentedly well-organised announcements this afternoon, so I thought I should pass them on.

Fence Homegame. The Homegame Festival is undoubtedly my favourite festival, taking place in the comforting surroundings of Anstruther, where you can find beds, clean sheets and comfortable showers.  Anyhow, the Fencey chaps have just let us know that next year it will be taking place on the weekend of the 12th-14th March, and that tickets will go on sale at noon on Tuesday 1st December only from the Fence website.  This means an almight digital free for all, of the kind which melted their server a couple of years ago, but if you don’t manage to get your hands on one then you might be able to find a few as they become available on the Beef Board as the time draws closer.

End of the Road Festival. Mrs. Toad had the mother of all sulks with the EotR folks when they failed to add Meursault to the bill for last year’s festival.  We’ll be trying to put that one right this year, but in the meantime they have announced a handful of bands already: Wilco, The Mountain Goats, The Low Anthem, A.A. Bondy, Diane Cluck with Anders Griffen and The Wilderness of Manitoba.  All good bands, although only the last one is new to me.  5000 people is right about my tolerance limit for groups of people, so I may have to consult with my midget companion on this one.

In any case, there you go, some fucking news for ya.  While it’s still fresh enough to actually be news.  Now that doesn’t happen every day around these parts.

Slow Club‘s performance at the Fence Collective’s Homegame Festival last month really shouldn’t have surprised me, but for some reason it did.  I’ve seen them before, at another Fence event in Edinburgh’s Caves a couple of years ago, and I really like their Moshi Moshi singles, but for some reason I’d allowed them to drift somewhat from my consciousness; I really don’t know why.

When they played at the Anstruther Town Hall, however, I was reminded pretty sharpish.  They were sharp, energetic and bags of fun to watch.  It all just seemed incredibly natural, watching them perform, as if playing their songs was simply something they found as normal and everyday as brushing their teeth.  Where other bands had laboured, for instance, under the appaling sound conditions, running the full gamut from quietly disconcerted to openly irritated, Charles and Rebecca just laughed it off, played through it and generally made it seem like it was the most insignificant thing in the world.

This attitude breezes through their music as well.  Even their less lyrically perky songs are infected with a relaxed, bouncy enjoyment and they rattled through their set at a fair clip.

The band are from Sheffield, but where up until only very recently there was a fairly thriving alternative music scene, loosely based around entities like the Sheffield Phonographic Corporation label, now there is apparently something of a wasteland.  Consequently, Slow Club seem to have been adopted by a number of other groups, whilst not necessarily being an obvious part of any of them.  Their label, Moshi Moshi, brings something of a scene with them, and they also seem to have been somewhat co-opted by the posh-folk crowd which includes the likes of Johnny Flynn, Noah & the Whale and Laura Marling.  Then there’s their relationship with Fence, which now stands at two Homegame Festivals and a Fence Club.

Their music also doesn’t seem to quite belong in any such easy niche, though.  It thumps along, with plenty of rockabilly and old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll, but they seem to get lumped in with alt-folkies which, apart perhaps from some of the company they keep, makes no sense at all.

Their album, Yeah So, is basically finished though, and will be out in July so maybe then they will get the chance to make an impact on the UK music scene more in keeping with who they themselves are, rather than being pigeonholed by either the city of their provenance or the other bands who like them.  After their superb performance at Homegame, I am really looking forward to this record, and so should you be.

***

The videos here are snippets from their Homegame set.  I actually recorded a whole interview with them while they were in Anstruther and, in the mother of all IT disasters, lost the fucking lot.  So my sincerest apologies to Charles and Rebecca, and to Debbie who set it up, but if you want to hear a proper interview with them then download DC’s podcast of his Waiting Room show for woxy.com, or alternatively go and check out Andy’s live Off the Beaten Tracks Session videos from the same day, as well as Dylan’s photos on Blueback Hotrod.  This must be a significant annoyance for professional music people actually, having to deal with an increasingly amateur music press, so I really am sorry.

Anyone who has bought Animal Magic Tricks lovely Soil album (available from her MySpace page) will know of Frances’ electronic low-fi scratching, which brings a mysteriously elusive atmosphere to her songs.  Anyone who hasn’t bought her album should.  Her voice sounds fragile, but when she opens the valves she actually has a pretty impressive set of pipes on her.  Her voice is gorgeous actually, and complements the roughness of the music beautifully. Recently she’s been playing with a cellist – Pete from the Leg, specifically, who also plays with Alex Cornish – and the combination is bloody lovely.

There’s something rich and comforting about cello sounds, which gives a lovely warmth to her songs.  It’s as if the alienation of the wavering keyboard sounds and the tremble in her voice are being offered the promise that it is all alright after all.  It’s like reading the saddest part of a book with a comfortable knowledge that there’s going to be a happy ending.  Frances has recorded three songs with Pete when she was in Edinburgh recently, and played with him both at Homegame this year and the warmup gig beforehand, so hopefully this is something that we’re going to see a little more of in her recorded material because I love the combination.

These are a couple of videos from her Homegame set, so you can see what I’m talking about.

Whilst up in Fife at Homegame this year pretty much everyone crashed on the floor of the two cottages Mrs. Toad and I rented in Pittenweem, and this is also where we all ended up retreating to finish off the day’s drinking after the pubs of Anstruther finally got sick of all the folkies and closed their doors.

My old pal DC from the Waiting Room had intended to get a quick interview with Neil from Meursault all weekend, but they never quite managed to make it happen, unfortunately.  Consequently DC had to settle for a couple of songs performed at the end of Sunday evening in the cottage after everyone had spent the best part of the day pouring beer down their gullets.

These videos and the accompanying mp3s may be just a tiny little bit shonky, but they are rather funny and do give you something of an idea of the weekend .  For those who were there, this particular evening turned into something of a carnival of offensive and spectacularly inappropriate humour, pretty much all of which I’ve edited out.  Sorry people, but it’s best for everyone this way.  The only way to find out just how bad it got is to come next year.

The episode of the Waiting Room on which these recordings appear, and which includes the overall wrap-up of Homegame in general, can be found here.

Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt.1 – Waiting Room Session (The ‘Dylan Gives Everyone the Clap’ Version)

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Meursault – Hard On – Waiting Room Session (Charles Latham Cover)

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My Homegame review is pretty brief, but it is here, and there is a wee video thingy as well for you to enjoy.  This is of course the accompanying podcast, with songs either from the bands I saw there, or from EPs and bits and pieces I acquired at the merch table up in Fife.

I should really have included some interviews and shit in this podcast, shouldn’t I, but then I wasn’t actually as well prepared or as organised as I should have been, really.  Inasmuch as I kind of think I would prefer my video to have turned out a bit more like Milo’s, I would also have preferred my podcast to turn out a little more like DC’s Homegame show over at the Waiting Room.  I’m not saying that I dislike the stuff that I’ve done this year, just that to my eyes it lacks a little bit of fizz and personality, unfortunately.  Oh well, it’s all a learning process, and by the time Wickerman comes around I reckon I should be able to produce something a lot better.

Toadcast #69 – The Fifecast

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01. The Phantom Band – Island (03.00)
02. The Hand – Happa Yori (15.02)
03. King Creosote – Nothing Rings True (19.52)
04. James Yorkston & Adrian Crowley – Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grieviance (25.42)
05. Jake Flowers – One For the Ditch (30.07)
06. Love.Stop.Repeat – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (33.25)
07. Viking Moses – Clown School (39.03)
08. Inspector Tapehead – A Fillet of Banjo (46.14)
09. Animal Magic Tricks – Smallish Hooves (51.26)
10. Jonnie Common – Taken Out (57.16)

At this year’s amazing Homegame Festival, run by our DIY pals at the Fence Collective (who have been incredibly helpful in the start up of Song, by Toad Records), I had the chance for a bit of an interview with Scottish indie hero Malcolm Middleton.

Neil from Meursault, who is a longstanding fan, conducted most of the interview itself, and we teamed up with Andy from the new Edinburgh live session showcase Off the Beaten Tracks, who shot a couple of session videos at the same time.  You’ll have to go to their site to see the session videos, but it’s well worth the visit as they have stuff from Team Turnip and Come On Gang already up, with Slow Club, Meursault, Randan Discotheque and, I think, Found all to be added in the coming weeks.

The interview itself was really nice, as can be seen in the video above.  Malcolm himself has a reputation for being a miserable bastard, and I have to confess that made me a little apprehensive about talking to him.  I’m still new to interviewing people and, whilst it’s piss-easy when things are going well, turning things around when they are going badly is something of a skill, and one which I am yet to come anything close to mastering. Read the rest of this entry »

< Day Two
<< Day One

Did I mention that my head hurt on the Saturday? Would you be surprised to know that it hurt on the Sunday as well? Didn’t think so. I skipped Beefball, to my shame, and only managed to pootle along to music-related shenanigans by about two in the afternoon. It was like being a student again.

In fact so severe was my hangover that the only thing you could really do with it was give the bastard a taste of its own medicine, so yes, more beer it was! I bumped into The Pictish Trail on the way down to the Hew Scott Hall, and he was nice about Mary Hampton that I decided to see what the lass was made of. She was a skinny lass and friendly of demeanour, and played her songs with an intense, otherworldy air to her. It was nice – lovely English folk in the modern hippy style, if you know what I mean. That and a couple of quick bottles of Becks made for a fine way to ease into the day.

I tried to get in to see James Yorkston, but by the time we made it up to the hall it would have involved climbing over half of Homegame, so there seemed no real point – grab a paper and head to the pub. There is little more pleasant than convivially drinking away your hangover in the pub on a Sunday, as Scotland’s weather never quite makes up its mind outside. It was almost a shame there was all this bloody music to intrude on matters.

Again, I found myself taking it kind of easy on the Sunday evening – relaxing in the Hew Scott Hall at the Red Deer Club night, and enjoying some bloody marvellous acts*, like George Thomas, Sara Lowes and Magic Arm. The latter two have released superb mini albums this year, and their performances here had all the wit and warmth of those records. I was a bit pished by this point, and had wandered over to Dunc le Chunk to ask about the re-jigged lineup and ended up pestering him, Sara and Marc from Magic Arm for most of the rest of the evening. The shame of it.

Anyhow, assuming I didn’t ruin their evening, I certainly didn’t ruin my own, which was brilliant. Again, folk wandered in and out from time to time, and I ended up chattering with all sorts of people I didn’t really know particularly, but who were unfailingly tolerant of my drunken enthusiasm. The gigs themselves were really excellent as well. It was such a relaxed, friendly atmosphere that it seemed to spread to the musicians themselves, as they all appeared to take it pretty easy, enjoy the evening and play with a kind of relaxed ease that made the evening such a pleasure. It really was like they’d just popped round your house to play some songs and have a laugh.

Magic Arm – Move Out
Sara Lowes – Down & Out

*Did you know that The Red Deer Club released the Moulettes EP earlier this year? No, me neither, first I’d heard about it.