Snow!  Awesome!  Actually, we haven’t got that much snow here in Edinburgh but I am sufficiently snow-starved that I am pretty excited nevertheless.  Not as excited as the penguins at Edinburgh Zoo will presumably be of course, but excited nevertheless.

Yusuf’s three album launch shows last week were fantastic, but I am pretty pooped and will be taking it quite easy today.  We’ve the Savings and Loan’s album release to work on for Monday, but apart from that the label is now entering a rather quiet Winter – well, apart from our official Song, by Toad Records Christmas Party of course, which will be anything but quiet.

The Christmas parties start here, in fact, with two this week, a couple of very good gigs and the opportunity to help save the Forest Cafe.  Enough for you to be getting on with for one week?  Thought so.  Welcome to the December eat/drink/hangover cycle which leaves us begging for fruit juice and fresh vegetables by January.

Xavier Rudd and Dar Williams are both (separately) at the Queen’s Hall this week, which might interest some of you.  For myself, the following gigs stand out the most:

Tuesday 30th November 2010: The Wedding Present and Ringo Deathstarr at the Liquid Room.

The Wedding Present’s absolutely brilliant, and now ‘classic’ album Bizarro is twenty or twenty-five years old or something like that, so the Weddoes are out on tour, playing the album in its entirety by way of celebration.  Just as interesting from my point of view are support band Ringo Deathstarr who make an excellent amount of fuzzy noise and whose new single is bloody excellent; I await the album with great interest.

The Wedding Present – No

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Tuesday 30th November 2010: Jenny & Johnny at Cabaret Voltaire.

Jenny Lewis is an excellent live performer with more than a little hint of swagger.  Her album, recorded with snuggle bunny Johnathan Rice, has its bland moments to be sure, but some of it is genuinely excellent, dreamy, harmony-drenched Summer pop.

Jenny & Johnny – Little Fly

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Thursday 2nd December 2010: Yahweh, Emily Scott & Union Canal at Sneaky Pete’s.

Three of the more underground bands on the week’s list of musical funz, but between Yahweh’s sweeping cinematics and Emily Scott’s musical prettiness this should be a good ‘un.  Union Canal I know nothing about whatsoever, I have to confess.

Friday 3rd December 2010: Gerry Loves Records Christmas Party at the Banshee Labyrinth.

Four of the most innovative bands in Scotland play what promises to be a very high early watermark for the tide of Christmas parties this year*.  Expect a lot of beeping and looping and stuff – which, for the less knowledgeable, is a technical musical term.  The Banshee Labyrinth is rather small, so I strongly recommend getting your tickets in advance for this one.  There will be a special guest too – one I promise you really is very thpeshul indeed.

The Japanese War Effort – Fake Tanned Out Yr Tits

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Friday 3rd December 2010: Save the Forest gig at Pilrig St. Paul’s.

This gig has been arranged to raise fund to help save the Forest Cafe, an Edinburgh institution under considerable threat after the collapse of the Edinburgh University Settlement.  Finn Andrews of The Veils will be playing, which is amazing.  The Veils are a fucking great band and although I have no idea what a Finn Andrews solo performance will be like, I would be fascinated to find out.

The Veils – Not Yet

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Saturday 4th December 2010: Limbo Christmas Party at the Voodoo Rooms.

Bands such as Toad favourites FOUND and Enfant Bastard, and Toad Records heroes Yusuf Azak and Inspector Tapehead are joined by Night Noise Team and others.  I think there will be some collaborating and some other Christmas jiggery-pokery too, but I am not entirely sure what to expect, honestly.  Apart from the fact that I am going to get very drunk indeed.

FOUND – Let Fidelity Break

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*Apologies if that analogy was just a little too tortured.  I know it was, and I judge myself.

So, initially I was going to call this post the Gigcast because I have spent the last week furiously booking gigs, arranging gigs and very much hoping people will turn up to gigs.

Then, over the course of the podcast, I consistently forgot to actually talk about the Yusuf Azak tour I have been helping to book, the Honeytrap gig I have had to organise, the Savings and Loan House Gig I have been preparing and the Toad Records Christmas Party to try and find a home for.

This is all pretty much sorted by now I think – and I’ll give you full details tomorrow in the Sunday Supplement – so what ended up dominating the podcast was me saying bone-headed things like ‘the name escapes me’ every time I had to refer to an album, a label, or pretty much anything over the course of the whole hour.  So in a last-minute change of emphasis I decided that by far the dominant feature of this podcast was not me talking about booking gigs or any of that rubbish, it was me being under-prepared and not knowing the things I was supposed to know.  Again.  Sorry.

Direct download: Toadcast #143 – The Name Escapes Me

01. Hot Panda – Mindlessnesslessness (00.03)
02. Cotton Jones – Somehow to Keep it Going (06.02)
03. Soft Cat – Dark When it Should be Violet Hour (15.37)
04. Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins – The Big Guns (19.44)
05. Family Fodder – Oneliest Thing (25.04)
06. Fire Engines – Meat Whiplash (31.44)
07. The Son(s) – Radar (38.26)
08. The Phantom Band – The None of One (41.29)
09. Jenny & Johnny – Wild is the Wind (52.12 )
10. Adam Beattie & the Consultants – Bone Dry (59.53)

I was so disappointed with both the music on the last Rilo Kiley album and with Jenny Lewis’ sex-kitten cavorting which accompanied the PR effort that I ended up developing a real dislike of the band.  This is possibly due to me being a bit of dick I suppose, rather than any fault of the band, but I really didn’t like the actual tunes much either so the results would have been much the same I guess.

Anyhow this album, recorded by Jenny Lewis and her fella Johnathan Rice, seems to straddle the pop instincts of Rilo Kiley and the soulful gospel-folk of Lewis’ solo work.  Unfortunately, I don’t actually know enough about Rice’s own work to give you an idea where it might sit as far as a fan of his music would be concerned.  In general though, as will surprise precisely no readers of this site, I tend more towards Jenny Lewis than I do to Rilo Kiley, and this fact is pretty much all you need to know to predict my reaction to this record.

Generally, when they go upbeat and get into their boy-girl, borderline doo-wop pop tunes then I kind of tune out.  Not that it’s no good or anything, just that I don’t find it at all emotionally engaging, so for all it’s pleasant enough my attention tends to drift.

Given that they are bumping uglies and are both successful musicians in their own right, I guess I am not surprised that there is a little more blissed out dreaminess to this album than any real sense of driven artistic adventure, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad record.  There are some cracking moments on this, notably opener Little Fly, and songs like As a Sprout and Wild is the Wind.

Overall I think there are far too many indifferent, middle of the road efforts like Winter Sun for me to ever end up forming a deep or particularly lasting bond with the album as a whole, but it’s an enjoyable listen with some great moments.  In fact, it’s an album which feels like it was conceived on a lazy, contented Sunday afternoon, even down to the cover art, and that is probably the best way to listen to it as well.

Jenny & Johnny – Little Fly

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Jenny & Johnny – As a Sprout

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