As this evening brings us yet another excellent Ides of Toad lineup at Henry’s (it’s starting pretty much now – run, you might make it!) I thought I should probably write out another one of those lists of upcoming stuff, just so it lodges in the back of your mind now, and then you can all flood down in your droves on the night, filling the bands with joy and making me an unspeakably rich man in the process.

Well, it’d be nice if at least a few of you came anyway.  This is where I feel I should insert one of those internet Safety Winks, just so you know I’m joking —>

Anyhow, we now have pretty much a gig every other week booked between now and the blundering behemoth of the Edinburgh Festival, which I fully intend to boycott in its entirety this year.  Honestly, whilst a couple of our gigs last year went pretty well, I’m not sure I can be fucked with the stress this time around.  Still, last year’s posters were pretty cool.

All tickets can be purchased either online here, or from Avalanche Records on the Grassmarket.

Tuesday 22^nd May
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Bronto Skylift, Lady North & Rollor

This will be pretty full-on, I think, with Rollor returning to Edinburgh to take on the combined frantic mentalism of Lady North and the Highlands’ most fearsome band, Bronto Skylift.

Friday 15th June
Venue TBC
PAWS, Dolfinz, Waiters & Sex Hands

For the launch of the split 12″ we are releasing with the above four bands, we are organising a mini tour of the UK (London, Manchester & Aberdeen as well) and getting all four bands to play.  It will be raucous and guitary and fucking ace.  And you can buy gorgeous clear turquoise vinyl at the gigs too.

Saturday 30^th June
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Milk Maid, New Fabian Society & OP

Milk Maid return to Edinburgh, with their second album pretty much finished.  I am very much looking forward to seeing them again. They are joined on the bill by hypnotic, shoegazey newcomers The New Fabian Society, and OP who are a mysterious concoction of members of North American War and The John Knox Sex Club.

Saturday 7^th July
The Queen’s Hall (tickets for this are from their website)
Meursault Something For the Weakened album launch, with Rob St. John & Jill O’Sullivan and Jenny Reeve

Meursault’s third album Something for the Weakened is now finished and ready to be prodded out into the world. Having worked with a stable six-piece for the last two years this is much more of a band record than previous albums. Support will come from label-mate and musical collaborator Rob St. John and long-time pal Jill O’Sullivan from Sparrow and the Workshop, who will be performing with Jenny Reeve.

Wednesday 18^th July
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Dolfinz & Fantasy Rainbow

Dolfinz are on the verge of becoming the Ides of Toad’s house band, and they’re back in July, bringing another two of the UK’s finest garage bands with them.  It will be loud and messy and awesome, as per usual.

Friday 27^th July
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Jo Schornikow (The Shivers) & Scott Rudd

Jo Schornikow from The Shivers, who just released More on Fife’s Fence Records, will be touring her solo material, along with the beautiful acoustic songwriting of New York’s Scott Rudd.

The Muppets win at everything.  That’s all I have to say on the matter.

In other news, Mrs. Toad and I went out into the garden this weekend, to try and tackle the small jungle which has slowly been developing since the Summer.  The weather has been so spectacularly shit since July and August that we just haven’t been out there, so our window boxes have all died and every bed was overrun with weeds.

Still, due to our particularly indelicate methods of gardening – a little closer to slash and burn than anything you might see on Gardeners’ World – we managed to get through an awful lot and also to shove some rather late bulbs into the ground, albeit more in hope than expectation.  It was nice though, especially because we haven’t been out there for months now.  Although fuck knows what we’re going to with all the piles of cuttings and various other crap we generated.

Anyway, after the extreme rock ‘n’ roll of a spot of gardening, I’m not sure that booze and drugs and gigs will impress me all that much.  But let’s give it a go, eh…

Thursday 2nd Feb: Born to Be Wide Festival Seminar at the Electric Circus.

The guests for this one include Dave Corbet (T In The Park/The Edge Festival), Katch Holmes (Knockengorroch Festival), Gordon Reilly (Insider Festival), Shaun Arnold (Go North). So if you want to know how best to get on festival bills and to hear some chat about what it can actually do for you, then I strongly recommend you come to this one.

Thursday 2nd Feb: Lady North play Sick Note at Cabaret Voltaire.

This is a late night club show, and I actually think this might be one of the best ways to experience Lady North’s thumping rhythms and hypnotic guitars.  And for those of you getting soused at Born to Be Wide ealier, then this would be an ideal place to stagger onto next.

Saturday 4th Feb: Love Your Library Day at Penicuik Library, with The Last Battle and Matt Norris and the Moon.

Ed from 17 Seconds has organised a couple of great events for National Libraries Day.  The first is a comedy night involving Frankie Boyle and Miles Jupp, but that’s sold out now, and the second is a musical event out in Penicuik, with a couple of 17 Seconds Records bands.  The 37, 47 or X47 will take you there really easily from the centre of Edinburgh, so I don’t want any whinging excuses about the enormity of the journey, it’s just not that hard.

Sunday 5th Feb: Dam Mantle plays Superclub at Sneaky Pete’s.

Dam Mantle is probably on the fringes of my taste for electronic music, truth be told, but for those of you with better knowledge of this kind of stuff I reckon this should be a very good bet.

 Firstly, a big, big thank you to everyone who came out to see Withered Hand, Samantha Crain and Mike MacFarlane (who now goes by the name of Flash Jr.) last night.  It was bloody amazing.  I want to start a campaign to get more big bands to Henry’s to play a wee sweatbox gig with the crowd standing mere inches away from them.

Anyway, due to Thanksgiving dinner and parental visitation reasons, I didn’t get the chance to record the podcast this weekend, so I shall do it this afternoon, once I have posted this.

And God help our livers, there is a fuck of a lot going on this week in Edinburgh.  Mind you, it’s the same next week too, so I guess we’re going to have to just batten down the hatches and wait for January!  And I haven’t even done my end of year lists yet either.

Monday 28th November: Dems & Luxury Car at Sneaky Pete’s.

A Fresh Air-hosted return to Edinburgh for a Fresh Air alumnus, in the form of Dems’ Dan Moss.

Tuesday 29th November: Blank Canvas, the Dill Dolls, Kith & Kin and Anthony Stickings at Sneaky Pete’s.

I have to confess to knowing nothing about any of the bands on this bill bar Blank Canvas, who finished on the shortlist for this year’s Radar Prize. They play a very promising interpretation of the eighties indie sound, more as channeled via Bloc Party, and are well worth checking out.
By the Fire by Blank Canvas

Thursday 1st December: Loch Awe, Adam Stafford & Reverieme at Sneaky Pete’s.

You should all know how impressed I am with Adam Stafford’s solo stuff by now, but Loch Awe are sounding very promising at the moment too.  A new song of theirs sort of mooched its way onto the internet recently, and it’s absolutely fucking lovely.  And done with the kind of restraint and subtlety I tend (perhaps a little unfairly) not to associate with relatively young bands.

Loch Awe – I Will Drift into 10,000 Streams

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Thursday 1st December: Born to Be Wide Recording Studio Seminar at the Electric Circus.

After another excellent series of seminars, this is I believe the last one of the year for the Born to Be Wide team.  This time around they’ll be concentrating on making the best use of studio time, from preparation before you go in there, to how to best make use of your time once you’re up and running.

Friday 2nd December: Gerry Loves Records Christmas Party at the Banshee Labyrinth.

As far as I am aware, tickets for this are verrrrry nearly sold out, so go here now if you still haven’t got one.  The lineup is a great big multi-headed fun beast, with Lady North, Paws, Trapped in Kansas, Field Mouse, The Japanese War Effort & that old stand-by ‘special guests’ on the bill.  The gig also serves as a launch night for a Japanese War Effort/Field Mouse split tape, which I can tell you has me all sorts of excited.  The Japanese War Effort actually forced me to buy my first tape player in years by putting Snowbird on cassette.  I had a whole stereo system, and then this one big shiny silver machine just to play that one album.  And it was worth it!

The Japanese War Effort – Sophie Says

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Friday 2nd December: Meursault, Sparrow & the Workshop & Collar Up at Cabaret Voltaire.

This will be a fine, loud end of year blowout, as well as the chance to see new band Collar Up play, which will be rather intriguing.  Meursault are, I believe, going into hibernation in the new year, as we get ready for the release of their third album which will be out in (roughly) May 2012.

Sparrow & the Workshop – Snakes in the Grass

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Saturday 3rd December: Beard of Truth Christmas Party with The Spook School & Calypso Brown at the Wee Red Bar.

Pop fun to end the week, with excellent Edinburgh newcomers The Spook School joined on the bill by Calypso Brown, who is another artist I saw for the first time at this year’s Antihoot.  Pet have had to pull out, so the Beardmeister will be working frantically this week to find someone to step in and fill their shoes.

The Spook School – Hallam

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 Helloooooo… once again Brian and myself will be gracing, if that’s the right word, the airwaves of Fresh Air Student Radio this afternoon.  We will also be introducing a new member of the team, the lovely and lively El Parks, who you might know from The Electric Circus. And if you don’t, you’ll soon know her from the show.

As per usual, the show will be kicking off at half past three this afternoon, and we will guide you lovingly through the last couple of tedious hours of work, before pub o’clock sweeps in like an avenging angel of inebriational joy to rescue us all from another week in our dingy offices.  Or wherever it is you happen to be foostering about this week.

On air from 3:30om: listen live here.
Or iTunes: Radio – College/University – Fresh Air, The Alternative

In the meantime, it’s de-lurking time on Song, by Toad, as it always is on Friday afternoon.  Those of you who fly by and point an laugh, why not take the chance to fritter away your afternoon answering the following five daft questions.  And then listen to us on the radio, because it will be awesome.

1. Expression or word you use all the time which you wish you could stop using.
2. Thing you wish you could have been the one to discover.
3. One great thing about living hundreds of years ago.
4. And one bad thing.
5. Coffee break routine.

The playlist for the radio show will appear live below as we go along:
1. Zed Penguin
2. PET – What You Building
3. Grandpa Was a Lion – In a Dream
4. Lady North – It’s All About Gettin’ That Claude Monet
5. Weird Era – Summer Heights
6. Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Get the Fever Out
7. Plastic Animals – Pirate DVDs
8. Mastodon – Black Tongue
9. Magic Arm – Daft Punk is Playing at My House
10. Luna – Sweet Child O’ Mine
11. Jack Steadman – Beatplate (Remix)
12. PAWS – A Romance in Lower Mathematics

 And so the madness begins. The Edge Festival this year is still looking for something special, beyond Sebadoh and The National, but there is nevertheless an unbelievable shitload of stuff happening in Edinburgh over the course of the next four weeks.

Personally, I am going to have much more involvement this year, for two reasons.  For starters, last year I spent two weeks of August on holiday in China, and another week up at Haarfest in Fife, and this year I’ll be here the whole way through.

Secondly, of course, we will be releasing the Best of the Antihoot at the end of the Festival, meaning I will be spending an awful lot of time actually at the Antihoot, trying to figure out what I think is actually the best of it, and that means 12-3am most nights, and then a normal day’s work the next day.  Helloooooo coffee!

Monday 1st August 2011: Lady North, PAWS & Vasquez at Sneaky Pete’s.

I’ve been looking forward to the single for which this gig is the launch night for ages now.  Out on Gerry Loves Records, it is a 7″ split between PAWS and Lady North, and given the raucous excellence of the former and the reputed excellence of the latter, this should be a mightily excellent gig.

PAWS – Summer Wipeout

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Wednesday 3rd August 2011: Lach: The Waitress, the Walls and the Weirdos at Cabaret Voltaire.

This is the opening night of a run of solo shows Lach will be performing over the course of the Fringe – all part of the Free Fringe, with admission being on the basis of a voluntary donation.  The Waitress, the Walls and the Weirdos is named after the people Lach tended to find himself playing to at the end of the night at the Sidewalk Cafe in New York, when running the Antihoot over there.

Lach – Baby, I Don’t Want to Go

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Thursday 4th August 2011: The opening night of the Antihoot at the Gilded Balloon.

This show is also running throughout August (more of this later) and in September we’ll be releasing The Best of the Antihoot on Song, by Toad Records – compilation chosen by a combination of audience acclaim and executive decision.

Friday 5th August 2011: Avital Raz & Little Egypt at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

Those of us who were at the Avital Raz and Alex Cornish Song, by Toad House Gig in June were pretty much unanimous in thinking Avital’s stuff was absolutely amazing.  Well on the back of that gig Claire has booked her for Henry’s this Friday, with support coming from a band I have to confess to not knowing, called Little Egypt.

Sunday 7th August 2011: Edinburgh Independent Record Fair at Summerhall.

Scotland’s best independent labels, promoters and bands will be gathering in the Dissecting Room Bar at Summerhall, and combining live music in the lecture theatre with a series of stalls selling all sorts of bits and pieces of musical joy, soundtracked by DJ sets from all sorts of Scottish musical muppets luminaries.

FOUND – Anti-Climb Paint

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Sunday 7th August 2011: Born to Be Wide Edinburgh Night at the Electric Circus.

Born to Be Wide is also hosting in-stores by Rachel Sermanni and Withered Hand at Avalanche Records on the Grassmarket, and then moving to the Electric Circus for the evening, and short performances by a huge variety of new Edinburgh bands, interspersed with ‘celebrity’ DJs.  Already confirmed to play are: Chasing Owls, Austen George, Capitals, Bwani Junction, Withered Hand, Rachel Sermanni, Church of When The Sh*t Hits The Fan and Lady North.

If you’re reading this for tips, I’m afraid you’ve already missed the best gig in Edinburgh this week: Yo La Tengo at the Queen’s Hall, tonight.  Sorry about that.

There’s not much else, unfortunately, although Sneaky’s have Talons, Lady North and Jackie Treehorn on Wednesday, followed by Thomas Tantrum, New Fiction and Acrylic iQon the following day. Both of those look pretty interesting, but I can’t honestly claim to know much about any of the bands.

We also have a couple of Ides of Toad gigs next week, starting with Fatcat’s new signings Milk Maid on Monday 13th June at Henry’s Cellar Bar, supported by the awesome PAWS and new Edinburgh band Plastic Animals.  Then on Friday 17th June we have Meursault and Inspector Tapehead at The Caves.  Tickets for both of these can be found here, or at Avalanche down on the Grassmarket.

As for myself, this week I will be heading to GoNorth in Inverness. I’ll be participating in a couple of seminars, in case the shit I talk on Song, by Toad isn’t enough for you, so it would be nice if you fancied swinging by to say hello.

On Wednesday we have the Fringe events, where I’ll be on a panel on starting your own record label, alongside Jen from Euphonios and Lloyd from Olive Grove Records.  So if you want the kind of runaway global success we’ve achieved then I can tell you how to get it.

On Wednesday I am also involved in some one-to-one mentoring sessions, so if you want to sit down and go through the stages of my Guide to Self-Releasing an Album, or indeed talk about anything else, then send an email to jennifer@hailmusic.com.

On Thursday 9th there is the Scottish Music Bloggers Showcase night at a place called Flames. Jason, Lloyd and I looked through the successful applicants (I wasn’t part of that process, just picking the showcase once the shortlist had been made, so if you aren’t on there and I like your music I am denying all responsibility) and chose Indian Red Lopez, LightGuides, PAWS and Kid Canaveral.

And finally I’m also on the Music Blog panel on Friday at 2pm, talking to Lloyd again, who’ll be wearing his Peenko hat this time, Jason from The Pop Cop and John Robb about the effect of music blogging on the industry, and how best to get through to them if you are trying to promote your music.

So there you go – a busy fucking week.  If the posting schedule gets a little erratic you’ll know why, but I’ll try and keep things ticking over properly while I’m up North.

MOOOOR-ning! Having kicked off our own monthly series of gigs this weekend just, with an excellent gig at the Wee Red Bar, I feel very much ready to start properly going to gigs again, after an extremely quiet January.

It was an excellent night actually, so a massive thank you to everyone who came out, and thanks a lot to the bands as well, who all made an effort to bring their friends down, which as a new promoter is something I am extremely grateful for.

We’ve got something like five more gigs in the pipeline by now, including bands like Rob St. John, Ziggy Campbell, Thirty Pounds of Bone, Louis Barabbas and the Bedlam Six, Zed Penguin, Husband, Miaoux Miaoux, Jonnie Common’s Desk Job, and hopefully also The Leg, eagleowl and Orchestra Elastique, assuming we can make them offers they can’t refuse.

Friday 28th January 2011: Gummi Bako, eagleowl and The Oates Field play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms (tickets here).

If it weren’t for the fact that Homegame isn’t until May this year, I would have described this as the perfect warmup.  It’s been ages since Gummi Bako has brought his rock ‘n’ roll band (wonkytonk, in his own words, apparently) down from Fife, and for all I know a lot of people see them as an acquired taste, I can tell you they are awesome fun to watch.

eagleowl – Into the Fold (Toad Session)

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Sunday 30th January 2011: Broken Records & Freelance Whales at the Liquid Room (tickets here).

I haven’t seen Broken Records play live since the release of their phenomenal second album Let Me Come Home, so I am hugely looking forward to this.  The new material sounds a lot more like a guitar-based indie rock band than earlier stuff, but I can’t imagine their live impact has been anything other than enhanced by this change.

Freelance Whales – Generator – 2nd Floor

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Sunday 30th January 2011: Maps and Atlases, Gallops & Dupec vs Lady North at Sneaky Pete’s.

This looks like a night of hypnotic, crunchy, experimental electronica.  Not the wibbly, noodly stuff though, but proper, in your face racket.  It’s a kind of music which is doing quite well around here at the moment actually, but not one I feel I have properly given a chance and made an effort to get into yet.  Shame on me.

Well this week I shall mostly be entertaining my parents, who are taking the opportunity to inspect Toad Hall as a suitable place for the raising of yet-to-be-considered grandchildren.

There may yet be some opportunity for a spot of truancy however, as I am DJing at the Charity Baw on Saturday.  I wish I actually had the right accent to say that properly, but with my accent saying things like “baws”, or the far better “yer maw’s got baws and yer da’ likes it” just sounds stupid unfortunately.  It’s the biggest chore of living in a foreign country: you pick up the slang, but not the accent, and end up making a tit of yourself all the bloody time.

The only consolation is that it has happened to my brother as well, and he now uses American slang whilst sounding like he works for the BBC, which is hilarious!

Saturday 17th July 2010: Charity Baw at the Roxy, with King Creosote, Ballboy, FOUND, Three Blind Wolves and more…

The lineup’s great, but I know for a fact that at least one of the people DJing at this event is an idiot, but Kenny from King Creosote and Gav from OnTheFly will probably play some good tunes at least.  I haven’t actually seen King Creosote for ages now, and the upstairs room at the Roxy is about as atmospheric a place as I can imagine to break that duck.

King Creosote – Twin Tub Twin

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Sunday 18th July 2010: Endor, Gdansk & Lady North at Sneaky Pete’s.

Endor have a new album in the works, and Gdansk have always been good, so I recommend this.  This should be a night of good, old-fashioned guitary indie music

Gdansk – Kicking a Television

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