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I awoke with a considerable hangover on Saturday, but a bloody great greasy breakfast saw to that. Tattie scones – anyone outside Scotland know them? Magic for mopping up the egg yolk and bacon grease from your plate as you swill the last of your coffee.

I did some husbandly things in the morning, traipsing into St. Andrews with Mrs. Toad to find a memory card for the camera, so we only caught The Pictish Trail in the morning. Johnny played a solo set which was, bar something of a deranged electro wig-out on the last song, a guitar based affair. He’s some set of lungs on him does Mr. Lynch, and has an album coming out very soon, on Fence Records. Given the amount of time he dedicates to the label itself and to playing in King Creosote’s band, it’s nothing short of a miracle he found the time.

The Pictish Trail – Words Fail Me Now

Bar brief excursions for OLO Worms and Player Piano, I spent pretty much the rest of the evening in the Hew Scott Hall at the Tracer Trails evening.

OLO Worms are really not my thing at all – a little bit too much experimentation going on there and not really enough straightforward tune-writing. Not that they don’t have some genuinely lovely bits of course, but there’s a lot of mentalism there that I struggle to quite come to terms with. But that, folks, is the beauty of the Fence Collective: nowhere are you more likely to be exposed to something new and peculiar that they have taken a chance on, and that is there just because someone has found something interesting in the music was enough to spark genuine interest. Fingers & Thumbs is about as straight-up a pop song as you’re likely to hear from them.

OLO Worms – Fingers & Thumbs

A little bit more traditional is Player Piano, a star of Homegame, erm, three I think. Mrs. Toad and I saw his excellent solo set in the Erskine Hall in 2006, and this was the only gig of all of Homegame that she insisted in coming to this year. Jeremy Radway plays an old-fashioned kind of music, part rock ‘n’ roll, part music hall in a sense, and with a little bit of soul in there as well. For this set he amped it up a bit and made some noise, bringing touches of 70s proto-metal to the evening, which was odd, but good. And if you like the sound of that, listen to this – just gorgeous:

Player Piano – Mercy (A.C. Mix)

As for the Tracer Trails stuff, well regular readers of this blog will be well familiar with most of the bands mentioned – Eagleowl, Rob St. John, Adrian Crowley, Rich Amino and Withered Hand all played – so there’s no need to go into the music too much, apart from pointing out that I pretty much enjoyed the lot. As much as any one act I actually enjoyed the atmosphere and the evening the most. A couple of the band members swapped around, there was a blinding reworking of Rich Amino’s Ribena song, making the subject of necrophilia the focus, and Mrs. Toad got a little mashed and insisted to me that we release virtually fucking everyone on Song, by Toad Records and get the lot round to record sessions.

This is the beauty of a small, friendly scene like this. I mentioned Song, by Toad Records to Johnny Lynch who pretty much runs Fence and he had all sorts of useful tips and advice and help. Hopefully he’ll be on the Toad Sessions pretty soon as well. Fence also invited Manchester’s Red Deer Club Records to take over an evening in one of the halls as well – small enterprises run by genuine enthusiasts and who see one another as potential sources of support and help and fun and not as adversaries.

So we sat there in that hall, people drifting in and out as they went to other things, half the people discussing their little personal projects with one another, chatting to the musicians and chatting to friends they largely know from the Fence forums, or the Beef Board, as it is known, and it was genuinely fucking brilliant. This is one of the things that is oddly contradictory about Web 2.0 and all this technological shite that so isolates us at our desks, using MySpace and email and blogs and discussion boards and Facebook and IM and anything else rather than actually having a conversation with anyone: I have made friends with more real, flesh and blood people by fannying about on the internet than I ever have by any other way.

And would Fence Records or the Edinburgh indie-folk scene or the Red Deer Club and all these disparate-yet-interrelated communities still exist without all this? Of course they would, I’m no deranged technology evangelist, but the slightly contradictory link between all these virtual friends and the easy, friendly, cosy atmosphere of the Hew Scott Hall on the Saturday makes me feel quite optimistic. And it also gave me a stinking fucking hangover. But virtual friendships clearly are actually real, they are not poor second-cousins to meeting people in the flesh, they are every bit as real and as meaningful.

Rob St. John – The Acid Test
Rich Amino – One Hundred & Blue
Adrian Crowley – Bless Our Tiny Hearts
Eagleowl – This is Not Your Lucky Day

Sorry a couple of these songs are re-posts, but I just don’t have that much stuff by Rob & Eagleowl in particular that I can share.

Day Two >
Day Three >>

The reason the truly excellent Campfires & Battlefields took over all things Toad this weekend is that I was away with Mrs. Toad, and he very kindly volunteered to keep things ticking over in our absence. You will surely all join me in thanking him for his excellent job, and I guess you may be at least slightly curious as to what exactly we were up to.

Well a large number of people in the Fence Collective have known each other since childhood and, despite gathering many other folk along the way, are still very firmly rooted in the Fife town of Anstruther where many of the original members grew up. So, despite the increasing prominence of the Collective’s musical endeavours, with the success of King Creosote, Found and James Yorkston, they all still like to get back together once a year for a weekend, get completely cabbaged and play lots and lot of music.

Mrs. Toad and I have been to the last three of these and we both love them, but for different reasons. She likes going to a seaside town for a weekend, where she can go to one or two gigs, but basically abandon me to my musical enthusiasms and read the FT from cover to cover. I like going to a festival where half the bands are mental, half are inspired, half are awful, half are beautiful and you genuinely have no idea what you’re going to see from one gig to the next. I don’t think I know anyone other than the Fence lot who take even a fraction as many chances with music, or who are anything like so confident to put on something completely left field and bizarre, safe in the knowledge that it will get a fair listen and genuine appreciation from their audience.

One of the things about being married of course is that I was not just travelling up to Anstruther as a music fanatic, I was also going there as a (briefly) dutiful husband. Mrs. Toad and I have gone for a meal at the absolutely fucking wonderful Cellar Restaurant every one of the three years we’ve been to Homegame, and so we did again. It’s expensive, but it’s a ritual and a treat and we love it. You have a seat with a G&T, browse the menu and the wine list, and eventually wander through to the dining room and spend all night over one of the best meals you will eat. They don’t turn the tables, so generally we’ve been the last out. This year we went along early though, and after a lovely few hours where things were a little more Mr. Creosote than King Creosote, Mrs. Toad returned to the cottage and, for me, the festival commenced.

I’d rather disappointingly missed Art Pedro unfortunately, whose set coincided with our esculent* escapades, but that was a sacrifice which had to be made. I am determined to see him play at some point however, but this was not to be the time.

Art Pedro – Girl From School

I did make it for Down the Tiny Steps, fortunately. You should all know how highly I rate these lads by now, so I won’t go into it too much, save to say that their lineup is even more slimline now than it was the last time I saw them. The hole in the lineup left no corresponding hole in the music however, which is a sort of bizarre Scot-hop folktronica. Sort of. It’s superb for late in a day of drinking and listening basically, because it’s eminently danceable and gorgeously wistful at the same time. Ideal for that reserved indie sway, which is about as close to dancing as I get most of the time. Fortunately for the Tinies, others were not so shy.

Down the Tiny Steps – Revenge

After the Tinies and before we repaired to the Pink House – for a party where I ended up swilling whisky from a hip flask out of one hand and red wine from the bottle with the other and presumably talking monumental amounts of garbage throughout – there was time for a show-closer from Jon Hopkins. I doubt many of you know of Mr. Hopkins, and neither do I, particularly. I know he is a very steeply rising star in the world of production and has been faithfully described as being a thoroughly down to earth and friendly chap despite this. I also know he has done a number of superlative remixes of Fence songs, in particular King Creosote’s Circle My Demise for a De-Fence release last year. I am not massively into laptop music most of the time, but at that stage of the night, drunk and giddy, I really enjoyed his set.

The rest of the evening, as you can imagine, was a bit of a blur.

Jon Hopkins – Circle My Demise

* I have to confess that I dug this one up in the thesaurus. What an excellent word, though, don’t you think?

What’s happening in Edinburgh this week? Erm, well mostly bugger all actually. In fact, I can’t find anything that I’d really bother going to see this week, but not to fear for one of the first great live events of the year is upon us: The Fence Collective Homegame. But more about that later, because it isn’t in Edinburgh, whereas this is:

Thursday 27th March: Isosceles at The Voodoo Rooms.
Alright, I’m scraping the barrel a bit with this one, I admit, but I had to list something. The only reason I say scraping is because I know nothing at all about these fellows, and I am not entirely sure it’s my sort of thing, on first listen, but Billy from Spins ‘n’ Needles is going along and seeing as the missus is in God Bless America this week I thought I might pop along for sociable reasons. And what a fucking excellent song Kitch Bitch is.
Isosceles – This is Where it Ends
Isosceles – Kitch Bitch

Normally I find Bart’s weekly incursions into this thread to be something of a bane, because it invariably means I have missed something good, but this week I find myself pleading for his help. Is there anything good happening this week, Bart? Anything?

Well, now that’s over with, what’s all this Homegame business then? Well if you read this blog regularly you almost certainly know all about Fence Records. They are based in Anstruther on the Fife coast and every year they all return to the town, invite those of us lucky enough to snag tickets in the eight minutes it took them to sell out, and spend all weekend getting absolutely cabbaged and playing lots and lots of great tunes.

Bands you have read about these pages that will be playing include Down the Tiny Steps, Art Pedro, Rob St.John, Eagleowl, The Pictish Trail, Viva Stereo, Kid Canaveral and of course the two most famous ones: King Creosote and James Yorkston. So you see why I’m excited. A dozen great bands and a long weekend on the Fife coast with my charmingly indifferent flower of delicate beauty, Mrs. Toad. She just goes for the weekend at the seaside really, and doesn’t pay much, if any, attention to any of the bands. Which in a silly way I sort of like.

Yes, Gummi Bako. Nuts he may be, but he can certainly write music. If you’ve ever seen him live, then you’ll know that during performances Mr. Bako has the habit of morphing into something akin to Beeker from the Muppet Show with ten thousand volts coursing through him. There’s a sort of deranged, wild-eyed squawk that makes an appearance from time to time and can be, for the first little while, rather terrifying.

I first saw a Gummi Bako solo slot at last year’s Homegame and although I thought he was nuts, there was something oddly compelling about the music, and certainly the performance. The full band performed at the recent Fence Night at The Caves in Edinburgh and although the oddness was still there, it was a slightly less prominent due to the presence of guitars, which resulted in a rock ‘n’ roll performance that was a little easier to grasp. Then he played again this year, again a largely solo set, with Elle and Uncle Beesly joining him on bass and guitar respectively and some splendid washboard percussion. Something strange was happening to me; I was really starting to like this stuff. The weirdness just seemed to melt into the music and the whole thing was making sense all of sudden. Don’t ask me how this happened, but I blame some sort of wicked Fife spell myself.

Anyhow, on his page on the Fence site Gummi Bako is described as wonky-tonk, and I think that fits pretty perfectly. There are a couple of CDs, amongst other things, available on his site, and I can definitely recommend Sticky Wicket as a good place to start, although there’s a new single out soon too. Sticky Wicket is a much more straight-up pop record than I would have expected, and although at times you may find some of the eccentricities a little odd, that will fade and you will left with a really good record. Well it’s taken me a little time, but I’ve got there eventually.

Gummi Bako – Underground
Gummi Bako – She’s the Carrot
website | myspace | fence records

Well I never expected this lot, that’s for sure. Karl-Jonas Winqvist and his cohorts are not exactly the gentle Fife folkster you generally associate with the Fence Collective stereotype, more an electronic Ben Folds from Sweden. He sits behind his electric piano in the middle of the stage, flanked by guitar and trumpet, and proceeds to chatter on for ten minutes about his high school reunion party before even letting you in on the fact that he is actually introducing his first song.

The gig continues like this all night – completely dominated by Karl-Jonas’ hugely engaging and utterly unaffected stage personality. Even the music is just like him – energetic, completely likeable and bristling with good things. It’s like listening to someone discovering music for the first time – lyrically and musically you almost feel as if he’s just happened upon all these new things he can try and just flings them into the songs, almost as you watch. In fact, he’s such a liberated performer that you could almost have imagined that he was making it up as he went along.

Musically this is pure pop, with wit, charm and abundant playfulness. Pianos, clarinets, pretend mandolins, trumpets and electronic beats all jump about all over the songs, making an appearance here and there and then vanishing again, only to reappear again when you least expect them. It’s bonkers, but it’s brilliant.

Blood Music – I Am Your Taxi
Blood Music – There is a War in Almost Every Corner

website | myspace | buy from cdon.com

For the next week or so I will be reviewing a lot of the bands I saw at the Fence Collective’s superlative Homegame festival this weekend just gone, culminating in a big old chat about the festival as a whole sometime next weekend.

I’m starting with The Singleman Affair because they will be playing some more dates in the UK in the next few days – full details here – and I was rather hoping that, as well as any of my own readers who are up for it, some other gig-friendly bloggers like The Indie Credential in Manchester and The Daily Growl and Another Form of Relief from (roughly) London may have the chance to pop in and help spread the word. Honestly, I really think it’ll be worth your while. There are no more Scotland dates though, I’m afraid.

Musically, The Singleman Affair are a little different live to how they are on record. Their sort of spooky country noir sound is hushed and melancholy on their debut release, Let’s Kill the Summer, but live it was full of raucous stomping and darkly suggestive guitar menace. Initally, having loved the energy of the live show, I was a bit taken aback by the record but after only a couple of listens it has really grabbed me as well. The comparisons here are fairly easy – a slightly less country Handsome Family; a more atmospheric Johnny Cash; a more gothic Eels; a less grandiose Willard Grant Conspiracy. They couldn’t have been more tailor-made for the ears of Toad.

Given that I already knew King Creosote and James Yorkston were going to be brilliant, having seen them before, I’d say these guys were pretty much the highlight of the whole business for me, coming out of the blue as they did. If you can make any of the dates linked above, honestly, do go – they really were excellent.

The Singleman Affair – Dragonflies to Find
The Singleman Affair – Eyelids in Light
The Singleman Affair – Sun in Your Eyes

website | myspace | amazon

My lady and I are off to the Fence Collective’s annual Homegame festival in Anstruther this weekend. Fence have always been based here, and being a sleepy little seaside town it is the perfect place for this sort of thing. Consequently there will be no posts now until at least Monday, when I will no doubt be overflowing with new musical Fencey goodness to share.

Until then interbloggificators, I leave you with a song by The Ordinary Boys. Yes, that’s right, The Ordinary Boys. Before they became something of an embarrassment, they did actually record the odd good song. Like this one:

The Ordinary Boys – Seaside