Time again for bit of a Song, by Toad Records and Various Other Bollocks update, because there are several little bits of news in which you may all be interested.  No, make that very interested.

I’ll start with the tour stuff, I think.

Meursault get back from their European tour this weekend, and I am generously going to give them about half an hour to rest and recuperate, before getting the lazy fuckers’ noses back to the grindstone.  They are playing a homecoming gig at next Friday’s (21st) This Is Music birthday party at Sneaky Pete’s.  This will be packed, noisy and sweaty, so I recommend you get your tickets early because Sneaky’s just ain’t that big.  Tickets here.

The following night, Neil will also be playing some solo acoustic bits and pieces to open Toad and Ruth’s Toad and Ruth Gig With Toad and Ruth and Sam and Ritchie and Leif and Neil (which is a damn snappy title, if you ask me).  That night will take place in the brilliant Queen Charlotte Rooms in Leith, and is also part of Loch Lomond’s Night Bats EP launch tour.  Leif Vollebekk is playing as well, the amazing Sam Amidon is headlining, and because this is a Bowery night there will also be poetry readings and crafts.  There are only eighty tickets available, so I’d get them in advance if I were you – from here.  If everyone from the Facebook thingies actually comes, we’ll need the room twice.

Loch Lomond‘s Night Bats tour has been fleshed out with a couple of London dates.  As well as playing the first ever Song, by Toad Night in Glasgow (Mono, Wednesday 19th May, tickets here) they will be playing:
Tuesday 18th: Electroacoustic at the Slaughtered Lamb, London.
Wednesday 19th: Mono, Glasgow, with Meursault.
Thursday 20th: The Tunnels, Aberdeen, with The Tim and Sam Band.
Friday 21st: The Barrels Alehouse, Berwick, with The Tim and Sam Band.
*Saturday 22nd: Avalanche Records instore, Edinburgh, 5.30pm* – TENTATIVE.
Saturday 22nd: Queen Charlotte Rooms, Leith, with Sam Amidon.
Sunday 23rd: The Black Heart, Camden, London, with The Ghost Bees.

Loch Lomond – Tic

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Next, we have three definite releases scheduled before the end of the year, and two slightly more uncertain ones.

Inspector Tapehead‘s debut album, Duress Code was scheduled for release in Summer 2008 and is, er, finally finished. I’ve been a fan of theirs for ages so I am bloody thrilled that they want to release it with us, and the album itself is fucking great.  They’ll be booking a bit of a tour for September to promote it, with the release date currently down as being August 17th, if I remember correctly.

Inspector Tapehead – Sugar on Your Sheets

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Yusuf Azak has also finished his album, which he has rather unimaginatively titled ‘Yusuf Azak’s Album’.  I don’t know if that’s final or not, but in any case, it too is bloody gorgeous, and is scheduled for release in September/October or so.  I’ve been hassling Yusuf about this record for ages now, and I think I may have finally bored him into submission.

Yusuf Azak – Eastern Sun

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The Savings and Loan album was due out around Christmas last year, and will now be out at Christmas this year.  I reckon early December, it’s that kind of album.  Anyhow, Andrew and Martin have been tinkering with their original EP and have now fleshed it out to a full album.

The Savings and Loan – Her Window

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As well as those three, we have Animal Magic Tricks in the studio*, recording an album with Neil Meursault, and Jesus H. Foxx working on their full length debut.  Until this stuff is actually finished I can’t really give you much more detail, but they are both going to be on Song, by Toad Records and I am really excited to hear both records.

Further to that – yes, there’s more – Rob St.John has written an album’s worth of new songs, and we are trying to find a good time to get him up to record with Neil in the Summer some time.  Whether he wants to release it with us, as a self-release, or with someone else I don’t think he’s decided just yet, but as far as I am concerned that album has to happen, so anything we can do to make sure it does will be done, irrespective of how he wants to release it.  Oh, and you can bet your arse that Meursault will come up with some stupid project or other before the end of the year, knowing them.  There are rumours of another collaboration in the offing, but that’s all still up in the air.

Jesus donkey-fucking Christ I am going to be fucking busy in the second half of the bloody year.  It hurts just to look at that bloody list.

* By ‘studio’ I really mean our living room.  It sounds better if I say studio though.

The hardest thing about working with a band from Foreign Parts is that there is a bit of a limit to what you can do for them from far away, especially when you’re our size.  Generally, all the things I can do to help a band out around here – Toad Sessions, tell my friends about them, try and get them written about on blogs or on the radio or on live bills and so on – are much harder if no-one gets the chance to see them and have my general pestering backed up by other people.

Loch Lomond have their second Song, by Toad Records release coming up in May, when their gorgeous Night Bats EP comes out over here.  We’ve already had a rather positive review from SoundsXP, and their split 12″ with the Builders & the Butchers was also very well received, I reckon this EP will hopefully go down very well indeed.

Anyhow, to help us promote the release, the band have made the incredible commitment of travelling over to Scotland to play some gigs and do some sessions in support of the EP.  I really appreciate this, as it is far from a significant expense.

So they are playing four dates, one of which gives us the chance to come through to Glasgow for our first label showcase, so it’s all pretty exciting.  Please come along and support these guys if you can – it’s no small thing they’re doing, coming over here to entertain you ungrateful fuckers, you know.

Wednesday 19th May: Song, by Toad Records Label Showcase at Mono, Glasgow.
With Meursault, Loch Lomond and Jonnie Common – £5 on the door.

Thursday 20th May: The Tunnels, Aberdeen.
With Tim and Sam’s Tim and Sam Band.

Friday 21st May: The Barrels Alehouse, Berwick.
With Tim and Sam’s Tim and Sam Band.

Saturday 22nd May: Toad and Ruth’s Toad and Ruth Show at The Queen Charlotte Rooms, Leith.
With Sam Amidon & Meursault (solo acoustic).

Loch Lomond – Wax & Wire

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The Toadcasts stumble from one clusterfuck to the next, each one more incoherent than the last.  This, I think it’s fair to say, makes the Homegame one look good by comparison.  Not that the songs aren’t good, just that the instances of people talking over one another and two conversations going on at once and so on and so forth are notably worse on this.

However, the music is excellent, and surprisingly up to the minute by my standards.  We even managed to sneak the new National song in there, which they only released on Thursday – how’s that for happening and newsworthy and so on and so forth.

We have some new Sam Amidon as well, a track by Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti which dropped through my letterbox while I was away in Austin, and some splendid stuff by Harlem and Clogs.  If only it wasn’t for the pish chat, this would be a great podcast, actually.

Toadcast #115 – The Messcast

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1. Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou – Ruth Drink My Whisky (05.12)
2. The National – Blood Buzz Ohio (13.40)
3. Loch Lomond – Spine (MMIX) (25.50)
4. Sam Amidon – Way Go Lily (29.43)
5. Harlem – Friendly Ghost (34.49)
6. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Round and Round (44.02)
7. Ghostkeeper – By Morning (49.10)
8. Love is All – Bigger Bolder (53.57)
9. Grand Champeen – Broken Records (62.16)
10. Clogs – Last Song (68.24)

I do try and avoid shilling for the label on this blog, because no-one wants to read a twice-daily sales pitch, but I reckon it’s okay to have a look forward at what we’ve got planned for the year.  That’s what the new year is for, really, isn’t it?

So I’ve got a nice big release schedule drawn up, just like real record labels do, and honestly it scares the shite out of me.  I can pretty much plan out my free time for the whole of the next twelve months just looking at it, but there are some great releases in there.

By the end of 2010 we are going to have a back catalogue to be bloody proud of, honestly, especially when you consider that we had only been a record label for about a month at this time last year.

That picture, incidentally, is a somewhat butchered (sorry Annie) version of one of four gorgeous photos on this blog taken of the two new Meursault 7″s.

Toadcast #102 – Song, by Toad Records

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01. Trips and Falls – We Were Like Strangers Today (05.30)
02. Maxwell Panther – My Ex-Identity (09.02)
03. Cold Seeds – Leave Me to Lie Alone in the Ground (17.19)
04. Jesus H. Foxx – This is Not a Rental Car (26.43)
05. Animal Magic Tricks – Smallish Hooves (29.35)
06. The Savings and Loan – Virgin’s Lullaby (36.36)
07. Inspector Tapehead – Sugar on Your Sheets (40.02)
08. Loch Lomond – Holiday (48.25)
09. Meursault – What You Don’t Have (Live on Fresh Air Radio) (58.34)
10. Nightjar – Sweet Annie Lee (66.56)

This is something of a departure from the first couple of Loch Lomond records – the sublime Lament For Children EP and full length Paper the Walls – despite the fact that nothing has changed all that much.

There’s been a shift of tone, only a slight one mind, but one which has nevertheless had a big effect on the overall impression of their sound.  The best way I can describe it is to say that the slightly macabre fairytale atmosphere, which was only present in the subtlest of shades before, has pretty much gone now, and with it the slightly disturbing, dark undercurrent of their music.  This is no criticism however, just an attempt to rationalise the significantly different impression I get from this record, compared to its ostensibly quite similar-sounding predecessors.

The title track bridges the gap the most for me, more so then even a re-recording of Spine, which is a relatively old (and brilliant) song. Even the name Night Bats has that old dark mystery about it, and the rather other-wordly falsetto emphasises that point with some impact.

The new version of Spine is perhaps the most telling song on the record for me.  It’s been recorded at what feels like a marginally quicker tempo, but whether or not it actually is faster, it certain feels it: there’s real purpose and urgency to the new recording, and a much fuller sound which doesn’t change the song that much in a literal sense, but in overall feel makes a big difference.

The subtle shift in emphasis is just enough to take the character of their sound from dark folk to
slightly distressed pop. It is in many ways a big pop record this; here the crescendoes are generated by swells of instrumentation, whereas before it was a keening of the emotion of the delivery.

It’s really bloody good though, because despite this change, none of the emotional impact of the music has gone.  It’s bigger, sure, and definitely a little bolder, but it really gives the impression that this incarnation was lurking in their music all along and they are just starting to let it out.  That same combination of euphoria, sadness and introversion is intact, but there is just a bit more confidence added to the mix which gives this EP a sense of real strength and integrity – it all just clicks nicely into place.

Loch Lomond – Wax & Wire

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Our Portland pals Loch Lomond have a couple of new releases coming up, so I thought it was time we featured them again on Song, by Toad because it’s been a while.

The first is the split 12″ which is out on Song, by Toad Records this coming Monday, and the second is their brand new EP – their first new material for a couple of years.

The split 12″ was recorded in conjunction with the Builders & the Butchers – another considerable Toad favourite – and is being given a UK release by us in partnership with Bladen County Records in Portland.  The artwork is from a hand-drawn biro sketch by my good self, and printed onto nice tactile paper so it should be nice and touchy-feely to handle, which is how all physical releases should be.

The new EP is out in early November, and will be properly reviewed at the time, but they are clearly going for a more swoonsome, poppier sound after the slight undercurrent of unease which brought an intangible darkness to their earlier recordings.  The EP has four new songs, and a re-recording of Spine, from their gorgeous Lament For Children EP, which is a good few years old now.  Their PR chappies have sent out Wax & Wire as a taster for now, and I’ve included the old version of Spine, just for fun.  The sound is definitely moving on, but I really like the sound of the new stuff, so that can only be a good thing.

Loch Lomond – Wax & Wire

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Loch Lomond – Spine (The old version)

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Loch Lomond MySpace

Helloooo people.  This morning the Toadcast comes to you from Leith.  There were beers and there was a fuckload of incoherent rambling, and it ran way over time but, erm, who really cares?

This week I went to visit my crippled friend Steven (v? ph?) Kearney in Leith and we recorded a podcast in his house prattling on about all the usual nonsense.  He got all jumpy about sound quality, omitting to notice the fact that the Toadcasts are the most incredibly badly recorded show on the interwaves.  Honestly, why would this week be the one single week it suddenly didn’t sound like shit?

Still, Steven has recently started his own podcast, leading on from his Fresh Air show Dylan and the Mule.  It’s only one episode down, but it sounds very promising indeed, so with a bit of luck there could be very good things coming from that part of the world this year.  Me, I just desperately need a sleep.  Night night Toadlings.

I will probably be gawping at the wonderful Cybraphon by the time you read this.  With a hangover.

Toadcast #81 – The Mulecast

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01. Withered Hand – No Cigarettes (06.56)
02. Buster Fantastic – Mess of Me (17.57)
03. Mountain Goats – Genesis 3-23 (19.47)
04. Kill It Kid – Send Me an Angel Down (29.07)
05. Joe Cocker – Dear Landlord (33.51)
06. Loch Lomond – Blood Bank (44.52)
07. Micah P. Hinson – Don’t You Forget (Parts 1 & 2) (59.24)
08. The Palace Flophouse – Until My Lungs Hurt (64.52)
09. Tom Waits – A Little Rain (78.17)

It’s been a while since we had an update on exactly what on Earth is going on at Song, by Toad Records, so I thought I might let you all know what our plans are for the rest of the year.  Partly for shits and giggles, partly because I am really excited, and partly as a desperate marketing ploy to wear you down by constant repetition into accepting that everything we ever release will be the best thing you have ever heard in the world.

It will be, you know.

So, in chronological order, here’s an brief outline of our release schedule for the rest of the year, although some of it is still a little undefined and a couple of things are still being negotiated.  We’ll be popping a label sampler in the Avalanche album club soon, so anyone subscribed to that will get a nice CD taster of what we’re planning to get up to between now and Christmas.  For the rest of you, that taste will come in digital form, below:

Jesus H. Foxx – Matter

We are planning a release party for their Matter EP on the re-opening of the Bowery in mid-September, but I told you all about this quite recently, so that’s all I’ll put in here.
Jesus H. Foxx – Trying to Be Good.mp3

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Loch Lomond & The Builders and the Butchers – Split 12″

This is being released in partnership with Matt from Bladen County Records.  We love both these bands anyway, and they were the most amazingly lovely people to hang out with when we were in Portland last year, and even offered to allow us to release this over here.  The muppets never sent me the artwork though, so I’ve used one of my own drawings, which I also really like.  And it’s our first vinyl release, which is just fucking exciting in itself.  The vinyl itself is just being made now, so it will be out in a month or so.
Loch Lomond – Elephants & Little Girls

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Maxwell Panther – Do You Feel Different Yet?

Maxwell’s recordings are rough as hell, but his songwriting is bloody great.  I genuinely don’t know what people are going to make of this, but I love it, so I decided not to second-guess myself too much.  I like it, so it’s being released.
Maxwell Panther – Tip of the Tongue (The Quiet One)

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Meursault 7″ singles.

We’re releasing two double a-side singles on white vinyl in the Autumn, with William Henry Miller Parts 1 and 2 paired with The Furnace and The Dirt & the Roots respectively.  The band are just putting the finishing touches to the new versions of the Williams Henry Miller, and we’re looking at release dates in October for these.  Meursault vinyl.  Fucking yes!

The Savings and Loan

The Savings and Loan are my friend Martin Donnelly and former De Rosa pianist Andrew Bush, and they self-released an EP of gloomy Scottish Winter music last year.  Currently they’re fleshing it out into a full album, and have specifically decided to release it in mid-November as that’s the season they think it suits the best.  And I think they’re right.
The Savings and Loan – The Virgin’s Lullaby

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Inspector Tapehead – Duress Code

The band are still working on this, but Jonnie has news to deliver when he plays his Trampoline gig on Saturday – which is where I first heard Inspector Tapehead, funnily enough, and Meursault come to think of it.  They don’t exactly work at pace, these lads, but I love the results so I don’t really care how it all comes to pass.  I can’t tell you much about artwork or release dates or anything like that, but I reckon this should be out by the end of the year too, hopefully.
Inspector Tapehead – I am Your Pedigree (There are supposed to be naughty words in this song.  Where have they gone, boys, eh?)

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Trips & Falls – He Was Such a Quiet Boy

This is far from certain just yet, and I don’t want to jinx anything, but I am talking to Jacob and the band about a UK release for what is pretty much my favourite album of 2009 so far, give or take a best guess here and there.  We’ll see what they say, but I would be fucking chuffed if they wanted to release this on Song, by Toad because I think it’s weird and brilliant.
Trips & Falls – How Do You Do

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Enfant Bastard

Cammy is erratic, I suppose, and I don’t love everything he does, but I do love a fuck of a lot of it.  In general though I reckon the moments of clarity far outweigh the times it doesn’t quite come together, and anyone who’s prepared to let the times when they don’t quite get it pass them by and wait a little for it to click is going to be rewarded. As with Trips & Falls, this is hardly a done deal, but I’ve told Cammy I’d love to release the next album he wants to really put out there, so I just have to wait and hope he takes me up on it.
Enfant Bastard – Landscape Painting is Easy

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I am going to be a busy, busy boy, it appears.

This article is very, very long – I’m warning you now. I was trying to cut it down, and eventually just thought fuck it, I don’t have an editor, why not leave it all up there, so I have. There’s a page break though, to stop it eating my entire front page, so if you want to read the whole thing then you’ll have to use the ‘Read More’ link thingy down near the bottom. I’ve also popped in some interview and live footage as well, although the audio on the interview is dreadful, because we couldn’t find a quiet enough spot. I bet the fucking BBC never has to put up with this sort of shit.

Anyway, when you first see Ritchie Young, live, whispering his way through the more delicate parts of Loch Lomond’s material you really worry that he’s going to have the strength in his lungs to force out the rest of the song. It even occurs that he might just apologise, cough weakly and slink off stage in terror. The first time I saw the band perform this weekend they were on the main stage in the midst of a general PA failure, and playing entirely without the benefit of microphones. I’ll be honest, I feared for him.

Then something strange happens. Loch Lomond songs tend to tiptoe along, taking stock of the ground on which they find themselves, before suddenly growing and becoming a bigger, more forceful beast altogether. The do this out of nowhere, too, much like an unassuming lizard that suddenly rears its head, bares its teeth and unfolds a brightly coloured ruff. It’s not terrifying and aggressive exactly, but it is clearly not the meek and defenceless creature you casually mistook it for. Similarly Ritchie will look almost timid and, unamplified, the seemingly disconnected meanderings of the band can sound entirely lost until suddenly, it all changes. The stray strands of instrumental come together to form a coherent swirl of sound, the volume and force of the song elevate noticably and suddenly Ritchie’s voice reveals several new gears. A pained whisper, or a delicate one, breaks out into accusatory wail, like he was suddenly using all of his lungs to push it out instead of just the air in a single breath. The song, put simply, suddenly gets big.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the podcast to accompany all the Portland and Pickathon things I’ve been slowly but surely writing up over the course of the last couple of weeks.  With all the video to edit it may take a while to get it all sorted, but just follow this Pickathon search and you’ll find it all.  My full review of the festival is here.

This is a musical journey through our trip, from the Shaky Hands and The Builders & the Butchers who got us out there, to Eef Barzelay who we saw in Portland, several bands from the Pickathon Festival and even a song from Ray Rude’s Gameboy pop outfit Operation Mission.

It’s rather shorter than usual, but that is part of a new strategy: shorter podcasts more often.  I am going to try and go for once a week, and make them a maximum of an hour long.  I can’t promise anything, but I am going to try, and I think this might be a better approach for all of us, frankly.

Toad’s Pickathon pictures | Toad Vimeo page | Other Pickathon Features

Toadcast #34 – The Portland Podcast

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01. The Shaky Hands – A New Parade (2.20)
02. The Builders & the Butchers – When It Rains (08.47)
03. Eef Barzelay – Numerology (12.21)
04. Operation Mission – Aqueous (19.30)
05. Lackthereof – Choir Practise (23.22)
06. Langhorne Slim – Restless (31.20)
07. Bombadil – Cavalier’s Har Hum (40.47)
08. Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Beloved, We Have Expired (43.26)
09. Oz St. Fossils – Jeweller’s Daughter (53.54)
10. Loch Lomond – Tic (59.49)
11. The Cave Singers – Cold Eye (66.34)