Song, by Toad

It’s fucking Friday, three hours from Beer O’Clock, bloody marvellous! Mrs. Toad is away for over a week in Australia, which is quite frankly disastrous news. I’ll have a wanking hand like a fucking Fiddler Crab by the end of the week. Still, on the plus side I will have loads of time to do worky things. Not Proper Job worky things obviously, no, Toady worky things like getting promo copies of the first couple of Toad releases off to the music magazines, writing up interviews and editing the video, and publishing the Sparrow & the Workshop Toad Session.

So it’s another week in my underpants, glued to a computer screen and eating gherkins out of the jar for me I’m afraid.  Think of that while you’re out leading your exciting, exotic lives, snorting coke and banging hot babes.  Yeah, yeah, it’s fine for you lot you bunch of fly-by-night flibbertigibbets, but just you mind who puts in the real work around here.

This week’s splendid Five for Friday is as follows, and as usual please do take this opportunity to come out of the closet and spit your penny’s worth into the communal bucket.

1. A band none of us have mentioned but who we really should love (MySpace link might help).
2. Book that most reminds you of your childhood.
3. Worst thing you’ve ever said about an ex (no names, obviously).
4. Percentage of your day not spent doing what you are being paid to do.
5. Percentage of your internet usage that would qualify as being too porny to comfortably share with your other half.  If you have no shame about sharing that sort of thing with your other half, then pretend you do for the purposes of this list.

The Raincoats – Balloonacy
Jake Flowers & the Carol-Anne Showband – Rosalie
Eva Cassidy – Kathy’s Song Is there a more heartbreakingly lovely line in all of music than “There but for the grace of you go I”?
My Teenage Stride – The But for the Grace of You Go I
Art Brut – Emily Kane

The English folk scene has been in the rudest of health these last few years. If you head over to The Daily Growl you’ll see plenty of chat about the likes of Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit, as well as Emmy the Great who he finally talked me into liking despite considerable reticence on my part. There are countless others as well, all singing a kind of largely acoustic folk-pop with witty lyrics and a brilliant ability to transition between the cheeky and the lovely in a moment.

I was aware of Jake Flowers before I heard his recent material with The Carol-Anne Showband, but this little demo CD is bloody brilliant and it’s about time I posted about them. There’s quite an English folky sound to this – how would you define folky anyway? – but tracks like standout Annabel (keep an eye out for this week’s podcast) could equally easily be bracketed in the alt-country catch-all that has been bandied about so loosely in recent years.

Either way, fans of acoustic music which rises and falls between gentle melancholia and rattle-along rhythm will bloody love this. Jake’s voice can be quite fragile sounding at times, making the gentler songs all the more affecting. Annabel is a rather dark tale, Stalker’s upbeat rhythms disguise a mildly worrying tale of obsessive love, and Rosalie is a gorgeous love song that slowly builds and builds.

Three songs, just under eight minutes – a little bundle of joy. There’s one more at their MySpace page as well which is just as good as anything on the demo, so hopefully there will be much more where this came from in the months to come.

Jake Flowers & the Carol-Anne Showband – Rosalie
Jake Flowers & the Carol-Anne Showband – Stalker