Apparently no-one visits websites anymore, because it’s all about the social media and so on and so forth, so I suppose most of you have already seen this.
In case you haven’t, however, I have uploaded a free Song, by Toad Records sampler to Bandcamp, with songs from some of our more recent releases, as well as a healthy dose of new material from the releases we have planned for the rest of the year.
Our release schedule is slowly filling up, as well. Â Before a brief break for the Edinburgh Festival we have four-song 7″ releases by King Post Kitsch and Lil Daggers, we have Surrender to Summer by The Japanese War Effort on 10″ vinyl, and we have albums by Lach and King Post Kitsch. Â It is going to be very fucking busy indeed.
So, before all that excitement starts I figured I might as well give away some free sweeties to get people excited. Â And here it is, downloadable for free from Bandcamp. Â Enjoy!
This is my annual World of Song, by Toad Records podcast, where I prattle on a bit about the stuff we have coming up in the new year. I play a couple of things we released towards the tail end of the year, and some stuff by some of the new bands we’re going to be working with for the first time in 2011.
I also prattle on at immensely tedious length about the ins and outs of running a record label, which may or may not actually interest you at all, but it’s there whether you like it or not.
We’ve got plans for some changes for the new year as well, with a new imprint for the label being launched, and a partnership with the Brothers Grimm for the creation of new lines of merch to go with every release. It’s going to be a bit exhausting, I think, but immense fun nevertheless.
01. King Post Kitsch – Eggshells (00.21)
02. Animal Magic Tricks – Heavenly Bodies (06.31)
03. The Savings and Loan – The Virgin’s Lullaby (18.45)
04. Inspector Tapehead – Sugar on Your Sheets (22.00)
05. Rob St. John & the Braindead Collective – The Whites of Our Eyes (28.11)
06. Loch Lomond – Elephants and Little Girls (41.36)
07. Trips and Falls – This is All Going to End Badly (52.37)
08. Jesus H. Foxx – Plans (Alt. Version Demo) (54.59)
09. Meursault – Another (61.34)
10. Lach – I Want to Be With You (65.56)
11. Yusuf Azak – Lay Me Down (Demo) (76.49)
This week there will be fuck all happening in Edinburgh, or at least there better be, because I will be participating in none of it. Apparently there’s some pagan bollocks going on at the end of the week related to a fat man and some reindeer, but I wouldn’t bother paying that too much attention if I were you.
Actually, there is the Christmas Songwriters’ Club down in Leith on Thursday which looks rather excellent. I have been trying to buy tickets, but am finding WeGotTickets to be an unspeakable shitfest of password requirements and expired logins and all this other shite. If you can manage that though, tickets are to be found here and I’d recommend it, because the lineup looks splendid.
Last week, however, was fucking spectacular.
The Song, by Toad Christmas Party was fucking excellent, if a little bit hectic (for us anyway, there was no evidence the audience really noticed). Everyone came round straight after work, so we had no more than an hour and a half to set up two PAs and soundcheck six bands. This, as many of you will know, is simply not possible. Nevertheless, we seemed to get away with it entirely.
The Queen Charlotte Rooms was decked out to the nines in tinsel and fairy lights, and the whole affair was a ludicrous, brilliant shambles. I was working a bit too much to properly let my hair down (one pint all night, one fucking pint!) but everyone seemed to have a lot of fun, and in general I can’t imagine a better way to close out what has been a rather dizzyingly dramatic year for all of us.
A massive thank you to everyone who came, and everyone who played. The Scotsman wrote us a five star review the very next day, and the Herald tried to, but apparently there was a mistake somewhere and we were robbed of two stars, dammit. They are sorting this as we speak, I believe. Thanks to David Pollock and Nicola Meighan for the writeups.
Eagleowl’s Stars in Your Eyes was the following night at Pilrig St. Paul’s and, although I wasn’t there myself due to parental commitments, apparently I (and any of you who also rather foolishly neglected to attend) missed Neil from Meursault as Tranny Lennox, Jesus H. Foxx as Johnathan Richman, eagleowl as Talking Heads, and Broken Records as REM. I dearly wish I had been able to go, but I am going to have to content myself with watching Milo’s video above, stolen from this post here, and sighing wistfully to myself.
By Saturday, Kid Canaveral’s Christmas Baubles was the final nail in my liver’s coffin. I was DJing inbetween bands and, for all my combination of naff eighties hits, indie obscurata, and the odd inclusion of I Feel Pretty from West Side Story and Nothing Like a Dame from South Pacific, I have to confess I rather doubt that my contribution was at all significant. I did, however, save everyone from a constant repeat of Now That’s What I Call Christmas 64 or whatever else they had on the stereo when I got there, so let’s not underplay it either.
In any case, it was a bloody brilliant night, and by the time I staggered home I think it is fair to say that the weekend had been officially seized.
So, a day late with this, sorry. Â I blame a combination of Virgin Media and vast amounts of drinking. Â I woke up yesterday, still slightly hungover, and found that Virgin have managed to break our internet. Â Here I am today a day and a half later and it is still fucking broken. Â They offered us a fiver refund without me even asking for it, so I assume they must have fucked up something pretty significant, but I felt too shitey to venture out to find an internet cafe to write this, sorry.
All of this meant that I missed the chance to plug the Withered Hand gig at the Wee Red Bar last night, sorry. Â He is playing tonight at the Captain’s Rest in Glasgow though, with the excellent Japanese War Effort, so I recommend getting along to that if you accidentally find yourself on the wrong side of Scotland this evening.
It’s funny, I remember a couple of years ago the mere fact that there was one music based Christmas party was enough to pique my interest. Â This year it seems that every cunt in fucking Scotland is having on, ourselves included. Â After the awesome Gerry Loves Records one a couple of weeks ago, this week is the week it all kicks off proper like:
We’ll have six bands, and two stages, with Jesus H. Foxx, Inspector Tapehead and Meursault on the noisy stage, and Yusuf Azak, Rob St. John and The Savings and Loan on the quiet stage. Â We’ll stagger the bands, but whilst we can sell 180 tickets, only eighty or so people can fit in to the upstairs acoustic room at any one time, so please be understanding if you can’t get in – and prepared if there’s something you really want to see. Â Tickets are shifting rather quickly, so I’d recommend getting them in advance (or turning up rather early – but we’ll be starting promptly to get all six bands on, so that might be wise anyway) from either Brown Paper Tickets, or the new Avalanche Records shop down on the Grassmarket.
Friday 17th December 2010: Stars in Their Eyes Christmas at Pilrig St. Paul’s.
This is going to be magic. Â Broken Records, eagleowl and Toad Records superstars Jesus H. Foxx and Meursault will be performing as their favourite bands. Â Tickets are very, very nearly sold out for this though, so act very sharpish if you want to go along – available here and from Avalanche. Â There will be a couple left on the door, but this is not something I recommend you count on.
Saturday 18th December 2010: Tentracks at the Forest Cafe.
As part of the ongoing efforts to save the Forest Cafe from closure, Tentracks are hosting a night there, featuring Not Squares, Foxgang, Logikparty and Fueldiva. Â Given that Kid Canaveral has already sold out Saturday’s Christmas party this looks like the perfect place for all you lost and wandering souls in search of a gig this weekend.
Well well well, this should be fun. And messy. And fun. But probably mostly messy, I should imagine.
I’ve booked out both floors of the Queen Charlotte Rooms down in Leith, so we are going to have two stages. The downstairs room will be with a full PA, with Jesus H. Foxx, Inspector Tapehead and Meursault playing. And the upstairs room will be a bit more acoustic, with Yusuf Azak, Rob St. John and The Savings and Loan. It won’t be entirely acoustic, but the room itself has no sound-proofing so we’ll have to keep things relatively quiet so we don’t get the Queen Charlotte Rooms in trouble.
Tickets are going to be limited to about 170 or so, so I guess it’s probably wise to buy them up in advance. There will be DJs too – probably myself for a bit, and I would imagine Michael H. Foxx, but if anyone’s specifically up for it then feel free to let me know and I am sure you can have a turn on the decks. Or CDs. Or iPods. Or whatever else you fancy I suppose.
And erm, that’s about it, really. Good bands, getting pished, and erm, I’d recommend taking Friday off work because it’s eagleowl’s party the next day and then Kid Canaveral’s after that. Sunday may need to be entirely slept through I imagine!
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Whee, back on the radio. And for some reason tonight’s playlist is going to consist of lots of pretty well-established artists. There is no reason for this at all, it just worked out that way when I was selecting the playlist.
Nevertheless, I find myself focussing so much on new music that the old stuff kinda gets neglected these days. I have actually stopped listening to my digital music collection for pleasure, and now only listen to vinyl when I am actually listening for the pure enjoyment of it. This isn’t an ideological stance against digital music, more a logistical one. The drive with all my music on is now upstairs, and I haven’t been arsed to set up a link to the stereo yet.
As per usual I will update the playlist live below as I go along, so feel free to chip in with any suggestions and comments and assorted smart-arsed remarks you might have.
1. Sleepy Horses – Lubbock Love Song
2. Paul Simon – Graceland
3. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Optimist vs the Silent Alarm
4. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Graceland
5. Paul Simon – Adios Hermanos
6. The Scottish Enlightenment – Necromancer
7. Jesus H. Foxx – Elegy for the Good Times
8. Droney Mitchell – An Empty House (Droney may actually be Rob St. John. Just perhaps.)
9. The Savings and Loan – Pale Water
10. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow
11. White Antelope – Silver Dagger
12. Saint Etienne – Like a Motorway
13. The Maladies of Bellfontaine – Black Biro
After a weekend of alcoholic liver-punching with the awful cunts from Gerry Loves Records I find myself back in Edinburgh with Mrs. Toad off in Australia and nothing between me and an entire week spent on the internet in my pants with a jar of pickled onions and a jumbo packet of pork scratchings.
In fact, that sounds like a pretty good plan, all told. Balls to dignity, self-respect and hygiene.
If ever a band’s music were better described in their band name than anything any reviewer could write it is Casiotone. And if you don’t come along on Wednesday you will never see them again, ever.
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This gig was very nearly a casualty of the collapse of the Settlement, but quickly found a home at the Caves, fortunately. My Tiny Robots played smart acoustic pop songs the last time I saw them. That was some time ago though, and I am looking forward to giving their new EP (for which this is the launch night) a good listen this week.
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The Scottish Enlightenment aren’t far from being my new band of the year, I think. And I’ve only seen them once, which is a bit stupid. St. Thomas is a fantastic piece of melancholy guitar music, and one which always seems to retain a sense of optimism and belief, and I am really looking forward to this gig.
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Over the Wall also have a new album on the way, although far from the brooding of the Scottish Enlightenment, I imagine theirs will be just a little bit more bouncy and cheerful. How to Swim may not approach their music with the same instruments, but that sense of manic exuberance is very much still there – perfect for wishing the Limbo lads happy third birthday.
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Before we get onto the tedious ritual of me listing good gigs every week and you ungrateful fuckers not going to any of them, I felt the need to share something quite special with you. I spent my entire weekend going through lists of blogs who might be interested in the music we release and building mailing lists of people who have bought things from the label in the past and so on and so forth, so it’s not been the most exciting weekend of our lives, I have to confess.
Consequently, by bedtime last night, having spent most of the previous forty-eight hours staring at a computer screen all I was really intellectually capable of was a bit of empty-headed cinema and an early night. Mrs. Toad tends to specialise in intellectually dormant movies, but I think it’s fair to say that this time she has pretty much excelled herself. I really don’t know how she can ever top this one: The Saint, starring (so to speak) Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue.
Anyone who has read the Simon Templar books, or even seen Roger Moore’s series as that character back before his Bond days, will know that this is light, genuinely entertaining fluff. There’s not much to it, but it has a certain style and is eminently enjoyable. By contrast, the movie was so bad it veered from train wreck to masterpiece and back every thirty seconds or so.
Elizabeth Shue takes, rather predictably, the Christmas Jones role of Nucular Physicist who has, it seems, invented Cold Fusion. She even hosts a presentation at Oxford where an undergrad (in a white coat, so you know she’s sciencey) asks what fusion actually is, presumably not having had to complete GCSE Physics in order to gain a place at university, unless of course she was a vet student or something who happened to be in the wrong lecture. Shue then holds aloft some sort of pickle jar with a glass coil inside it and explains that she just feels Cold Fusion to be possible, and that’s all the justification for this lecture we are given.
Apparently she has ‘a formula’. Because that’s what it takes to create a stable fusion reaction, a pickle jar and a formula, not a gigantic installation of state of the art engineering, apparently. She’s just got two hours of ‘figgerin’ left to do to figure out which order to put the bits of her equations in. Now, I may not know much about Nucular Physics but…
But in all honesty Shue is the least of your worries when watching this – she’ll look back on the script and cringe, but not particularly on her own performance. I suppose that’s the benefit of these one-dimensional, utterly implausible, hot-babe twenty-something lady scientist characters – they’re such ironclad stereotypes that you can’t really do much with them good or bad (assuming, Miss Richards, that you can at least pronounce the name of your allotted discipline correctly).
Anyhow, the real highlight of this two hour festival of toe-curling agony, was Val fucking Kilmer. The man is a legend. His character’s superpower was having no actual identity and being good at disguises, something which was accomplished so cartoonishly badly that every new persona made us cackle with horrified glee. The character in that clip above (don’t watch it all, I really don’t think you could take it) was pretty much the piece de resistance however.
He discovered that Shue’s character loved Byron (or something like that, I can’t remember) so decided that in order to seduce her he would need a character with an artistic soul. I can only imagine the howls of woe from all the charming, well-mannered Oxford scientists who had been trying to slip her the salami for the previous few years, when it turned out that all it took was one of the worst haircuts in cinematic history, a pair of hilarious leather pantaloons and a completely baffling choice of accents to get into the old dear’s knickers.
“Er, sir, the Chateau Latour is four hundred pounds per bottle.” “Very well, we’ll take two of them.” Zing!
Anyhow, after foiling the plans of the Russian energy magnate who created an energy shortage by stashing Moscow’s entire supply of fuel oil under his fucking house and then decided that the best way to take advantage of this shortage was by providing Cold Fusion power to the people of Russia, thus presumably negating his entire basis of power in an instant, rather than, say, just jacking up the prices of fuel oil and controlling supply to make his fortune and keep a political stranglehold on the country’s government, but I digress… Yes, so after this, Shue decides to give Cold Fusion to the world so she and Val can live happily ever after – once she’s spent the two hours necessary to figure out which way round her formulae go (something presumably not covered in the preceding years of research) in a back room at the American embassy in Moscow, that is.
Anyhow, those are some of the edited highlights, but really this film has to be seen to be believed. You have to be tough though, because I really don’t think many people could take it. Particularly the bit where Val’s hiding in the river in Moscow and the baddies looking for him conveniently fuck off for ten minutes so he can stumble to the shelter of the nearest block of flats, only to return (again, for no fathomable reason beyond evil ESP) five minutes later to resume the excitement of their narrow escape.
Anyhow, I’ll stop now. Please, please watch this for yourself, it really is the worst film I think I have ever seen, and considering the woman I married that really is saying something. Absolutely all of it is bad. All of it. Every line, every plot device, every character, every single premise, absolutely everything. Cold Fusion! In a pickle jar with a glass coil! It looked more like she’d brought her cuppa soup in the fucking thing, honestly.
Oh hang on, I was supposed to be talking about something else, wasn’t I…
A couple of splendid Glasgow bands are coming through to play at the newly re-opened Liquid Rooms. The re-decorating may be complete, but the sticky floor and smell of stale beer have apparently been lovingly preserved. Still, it was always a good venue to see bands, because the stage is high enough that you can always see, and the PA is really fucking loud. Look for the Twilight Sad to give it a good workout!
This’ll be a gorgeously Americana-flecked night of acoustic pop. Dan Mangan’s new album Nice, Nice, Very Nice is really, erm, very nice indeed (sorry, had to be done).
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Honeytrap are wild fun, and this will be my first chance to see Sebastian Dangerfield, but I’ve talked enough about this gig already, so you know what to expect by now – or at least you should. Tickets here.
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This is the first glimpse of The Savings and Loan in about five years, and probably the first proper one just about ever. Their debut album is out on Song, by Toad Records in early December, and they will be supported by The Last Battle, fielding a rather minimal lineup (it is our living room after all). We’ve sold about half the tickets already, and whilst you are likely to be able to get in on the night, it might be safer to buy tickets in advance from here. It would help us out if you did, anyway.
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Ohhh what jolly fun it’s been this week. Â Now I know why bands find it so hard to find booking agents: because it’s a shit job and no-one in their right mind would want to do it.
Then, just as I was hating promoters for all I was worth, I started into the organisation for all my own gigs that I had to book and suddenly developed a new-found sympathy for them too. Â So WHO IS TO BLAME FOR MY SHIT WEEK, THEN? Â I can’t think of anyone, it’s most frustrating.
Anyhow, I think I am now just about sorted for everything, so here are some announcements for you, so you can add all sorts of Toady nonsense to your calendars. Once again, I am putting all the label announcements into a Sunday Supplement so that the blog itself isn’t totally over-run with self-pimping during the week, which I am assuming would bore the shit out of everyone, myself included.
Inspector Tapehead Hooops Session was recorded by the lovely gentlemen from OLO Worms as part of their kind hospitality to our Tapeheady friends on their recent tour – thanks lads.
Cloud Sounds Song, by Toad Records Special seems, according to Ted, to have been purchased for the price of a pint when we were down in Manchester last weekend. Â It’s one of my favourite podcasts, and if you want to be even nicer, you could buy the first and thus far only (I think) Cloud Sounds Split 7″ – the song by Onions is worth it all by itself.
Peenko’s Scottish DIY Labels series features Song, by Toad this week. Â I am always impressed with quite how good I am at making myself sound like a total dickhead in so few words when it comes to these mini interview thingies. Â Ah well, we all need a talent of some sort I suppose, I was just hoping mine might be martial arts or a snappy dress sense or something like that instead.
All those gigs in full (more or less):
Honeytrap launch their new album Petrushka (Toad review here, listen in full and buy here), this Saturday at Medina. Â Jesus H. Foxx & Sebastian Dangerfield are also on the bill, and tickets can be purchased here. I was skeptical about Medina as a venue at first, but I was at an Acoustic Edinburgh show there during the Festival and really liked it – the atmosphere was ace, and I think this is going to be an excellent night. Â Doors will be kinda early though, because there’s a club night on after us, so don’t be too late.
Savings and Loan House Gig will be pretty much everyone’s first chance to see Song, by Toad Records’ latest ‘signing’ (if you can really call it that, which you can’t, honestly) before their album Today I Need Light comes out on 6th December. As it’s at our house and tickets are going steadily I would ask you to buy one in advance just so we have a reasonable idea of numbers in advance. Â You can get tickets here, and I have just confirmed a (very) stripped down set by The Last Battle will also be on the cards for the evening.
The Yusuf Azak Album Release Tour is being booked up slowly but surely. Â Turn on the Long Wire is every bit as good as I would have expected from Yusuf, and is out on the 15th November. Â There are album launch nights booked as part of a joint tour with Ethan Ash on the following nights:
Thursday November 25th, Cellar 35 in Aberdeen. Friday November 26th, Gambetta in Glasgow, with Jonnie Common. Saturday November 27th, The Roxy in Edinburgh, awaiting confirmation.
The first single from his album, Eastern Sun, will be out as a free download in a week’s time or so.
AND FINALLY, the Song, by Toad Records Christmas Party has been confirmed for Thursday 16th December at the Queen Charlotte Rooms in Leith. Â We’re going to have an electric stage downstairs headlined by the Savings and Loan, for whom this will also be their album launch, and an acoustic stage upstairs. Â I am working on the full lineup at the moment, so there will be more announcements to come about this soon enough.
So, whilst the first half of 2010 was relatively quiet on the live music front, August was absolute mayhem. And as the dust settles on another festival period, and we try to assess the physical and financial damage in a calm and orderly fashion, it doesn’t look like things are slowing down on the gig radar. Which I’m rather pleased about.
The rather talented Justin Corrie – not content in being in one third of indie popsters Maple Leave – brings his solo electronic project to Edinburgh. Also I’ll be intrigued to see how Wounded Knee’s looped folk meanderings go down amongst the glitz and glamour of Electric Circus.
Basically, an End of the Road warm up gig. And I may be biased, but I think this is one of the most interesting line-ups the cities seen in a while – an incredible coup for first time promoters Powan Presents. This Frontier Needs Heroes will be playing their own set before joining the legendary Kath Bloom as her backing band, just as eagleowl will do the same before swelling the ranks of Woodpigeon. So basically one big old alt.folk love-in.
Francois & the Atlas Mountains pretty much single handedly turned this year’s Homegame from a really nice community folk festival into an all out weekend dance party. And I’ll love them forever because of that.
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Apparently no-one visits websites anymore, because it’s all about the social media and so on and so forth, so I suppose most of you have already seen this.
