This would have been a really helpful post if I had written it yesterday, when I should’ve.  In that tiny window of physical incapacitation I have managed to fail to inform you about such bands as Mount Kimbie and The Brothers Grimm, Alastair Roberts, eagleowl, The Wee Rogue and The Douglas Firs.  By such narrow margins are great blogs built and once-great blogs judged and found wanting.

There are excuses, though.  This is Song by fucking Toad of course, so there are always excuses, but an Interminable List of Feeble Excuses for Underachievement, by Toad just didn’t have the same ring to it.

Anyhow, last week saw a (thankfully brief and relatively benign) family crisis send me scurrying down to London, followed by a return trip via Manchester for two nights of bevvying at In the City, a drink-and-vinyl-fuelled reunion with Mrs. Toad on Friday night, followed by the Honeytrap gig on Saturday, after party in the wee hours of Sunday morning and then the Savings and Loan House Gig on Sunday itself.

By yesterday afternoon I was, I’ll be honest, Just Plain Fucked.  So for those of you who missed out on the dynamic fringes of the Brothers Grimm or the folkings of Alastair Roberts due to my lack of stamina I am indeed sorry… but not really all that sorry.  Fuck you, really, I was completely cabbaged and you can just deal with it this week.

So, what’s left to do this week, for those of a musical bent?  Plenty, actually, although not really until the weekend, when it really does kick off.  There’s only one gig which really stands out to me, which is this one:

Friday 22nd October 2010: The Chap, Milk & The Young Spooks play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.

The Limbo laddies (they’re going to hate me for that) are back at the Voodoo Rooms again, which is good news.  I don’t know much about the bands in question, I must confess, but then Milk are sufficiently elusive that they have neither a MySpace page, nor much written about them anywhere on the internets, so I am not entirely blaming myself.  See, I told you there were always excuses.

But there are two weekend-long festivals, both of which look like very good bets indeed.

22nd-24th October 2010: The Hidden Door Festival at the Roxy Art House.

The link above takes you to the musical plans for this particular event, but the Hidden Door Festival is a lot more than just a gig.  It’s actually a multi-arts festival, aiming to encourage collaboration across disciplines and a general breaking down of the somewhat artificial walls which tend to carelessly emerge between different disciplines when left alone for too long.  They explain it better and in more depth themselves on this page of their site, but it certainly looks like a really interesting event.

22nd-24th October 2010: Edinburgh Popfest.

This one barely needs any further information than that which can be inferred from its name, with three days of live music spread across three venues, from the Wee Red Bar (Friday), to the GRV (Saturday all-dayer), to The Lot (Sunday – early though, so watch out for your timing).

The full lineup is available on their site, but local notables include eagleowl, Withered Hand, the Secondhand Marching Band and the Just Joans, with the more exotic visitors including Darren Hayman and Suburban Kids With Biblical Names.

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names – Funeral Face

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Edge Festival at Electric Circus

Saturday 7^th August 2010

There’s a palpable air of expectancy around Milk, nurtured by the band’s mysteriously low profile (try googling them), and the word on the grapevine that components of the much celebrated Findo Gask and equally esteemed My Kappa Roots have combined in this new collective.

My first encounter with Findo Gask was at Homegame earlier this year, and I stood sidestage at Legends gobsmacked by just how tight they were, and it looks like drummer Michael Marshall has transplanted that tightness to this new outfit. The first things that grab me are the whipcrack snare shots and rattling hi-hats of the insistent, spiky sixteen-beat rhythms that carry the band’s sound.

Meanwhile, Pablo Clark, of My Kappa Roots renown, throws himself bodily into his new berth at the helm of Milk. Dressed in skinny jeans and baggy vest-top – both garments as pristine white as your daily pinta – he cavorts bodily about the stage, twisting and pogoing; and at one point manically thumping a tom hanging in his direction off the top of drum kit.

According to Chris Buckle’s recent Skinny article – just about the only decent reference point I can find to provide research for this review – guitar and keyboards are provided by Callum and Sam respectively. Little more is currently known of these two gents. Callum lurches forward from the lip of the stage, bequiffed and menacing, looking after the “bottom-end” of the band’s sound by favouring the bass strings of his big semi-acoustic six-string and occasionally tapping at a bass synth of some sort hidden amongst Sam’s stack of gadgets; while Sam himself busies himself with making his synths sound just like synths should – fat, squelchy and fuzzy – and looking achingly cool and aloof in a fitted houndstooth jacket with – inevitably – the collar turned up.

As the band sign off at the end of their set, Pablo Clark apologises for what he perceives as a messy set. I’m not sure I agree, and I don’t think the punters who have been bouncing enthusiastically around the front of the stage – and even grinding suggestively up against the venue’s structural pillars – would agree either. To me, Milk look likely to re-energise the local scene with a polished and accomplished brand of punk-pop. Okay, it might be a bit of a stretch to wheel out the “breath of fresh air” cliché at this point, as this ground has been well trodden since 1980s New Wave, but Milk certainly sound like they have a spiky, aggravated point to make and don’t care who hears it. And that’s usually not a bad thing.

FOUND take the stage for the headline slot shortly afterwards and embark on a showcase for the highly anticipated new album that’s due out before the end of the year.

The new songs have been leeching one-by-one into FOUND’s set for a good eighteen months or so now, and the last couple of times I’ve seen the band I’ve noted they seriously seem to be getting the hang of them. Something has definitely clicked, and I don’t think it’s just my own sense of familiarity. The arrangements of the new songs now sound nailed-on, while the performances, perhaps hesitant and lacking confidence a few months back, have achieved that unmistakeable FOUND swagger and poise.

Regrettably, the notorious Electric Circus sound gremlins rear their ugly heads during FOUND’s set. At one point frontman Ziggy Campbell unplugs both his bandmates’ backing-vocal mics mid-song in an attempt to eliminate a howling bout of feedback that’s defeated the soundman’s efforts to control. No soundman would take such drastic action as a compliment, but this venue does have difficulties with unorthodox instrumentation. Stick a four-to-the-floor rock band on stage and everything seems fine, as soon as a band get a bit tasty with the electronics – Meursault struggle here too – then the stage teeters on the brink of tumbling into a maelstrom of feedback.

Happily, this brief spot of bother doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the evening’s entertainment, bassist Tommy Perman even takes advantage of the moment for a spot of impromptu comedy, mugging with the unplugged mic and shouting his backing vocal lines at the top of voice, which wins the audience back in favour of the band.

Although that favour was never really in doubt. I don’t want to queer the pitch and get ahead of myself, but I have a sneaking suspicion FOUND’s new album might be a bit of a scorcher.

Tonight at 20:30 will see the return of my radio show to the airwaves of the student radio station in these parts; Fresh Air.  The station will be broadcasting through the Festival, and I myself have slots this evening, to kick things off, as well as Sunday 15th, 22nd and 29th (at the earlier time of 19:00-20:30) when Ruth will presumably be back.  The full schedule is (sort of) here.

We’re hoping to have live guests and stuff like that, and have Lach pencilled in for the 15th, to help publicise his Antihoot show, and have yet to line up anyone proper for the other two weekends yet.  We’ll hopefully get there though.

Anyhow, tonight Dylan will stand in for Ruth, and we will be previewing the Festival and talking pish about what music things are happening here throughout the month of August.

Listen Here – Live from 20:30BST

As ever, the tracklist will be updated live below and if you have any trouble with the feed you should be able to get rid of it by pausing and un-pausing the player.  Alternatively, you can find the station on iTunes as well, listed somewhere under college radio stations, I think.

1. Honeytrap – Little Johnny Winter
2. Mark Lanegan – Methamphetamine Blues
3. FOUND – Let Fidelity Break
4. Eels – Souljacker
5. Roky Erickson and Okkervil River – Goodbye Sweet Dreams
6. The Japanese War Effort – Summer Sun Skateboard
7. Arcade Fire – City With No Children
8. Inspector Tapehead – Yarvil
9. Yusuf Azak – Turn on the Long Wire
10. King Post Kitsch – Walking on Eggshells
11. Milk – Wilma, There’s Been a Fire!
12. Benni Hemm Hemm – Retaliate
13. Lach – I Want To Be With You

Night night!

For those of you not so keen on the cut and thrust of the bleeding edge of alt-folk, there is the opportunity to do something to satisfy a couple of the other senses this week.   On Thursday 5th August there is a bit of a foodie event taking place at the Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street, called World Kitchen. Also, on Thursday, after having your ears assaulted by my dubious DJing skills, you may wish to pop down to the Wee Red Bar for the inaugural Chops club night.

Myself and Mrs. Toad are taking a bit of holiday too, bravely leaving our house and retarded cat in the hand of Mrs. Toad’s brother.  It works quite well actually.  He crashes with us for a bit, we get the house and cat looked after, and he gets to make a bit of money renting out his house during the Festival.  And then I’ll be back just in time to bugger off to Haarfest in Anstruther for a week and erm… well, there is a Festival in Edinburgh in August isn’t there?  It looks like I might actually miss most of it, although by an odd coincidence  I will be around every Sunday.

And that is a convenient happenstance, because for the month of August Ruth and my good self will be returning to Fresh Air Radio for our Toad and Ruth’s Toad and Ruth Show with Toad and Ruth, with shows from seven to half eight in the evening on Sundays the 15th, 22nd and 29th August, and a kick-off preview show which will be broadcast (Ruthlessly, unfortunately) this Wednesday 4th August from half eight.  As usual we’ll be looking to get guests and live music on the show, starting with legendary New York anti-folker Lach on the 15th, who will hopefully play a few songs and chat about Lach’s Anti-hoot, his Festival show in which he will be trying to recreate the spirit of New York anti-folk in Edinburgh.  Kinda like the Bowery, then.

Wednesday 4th August 2010: Calvin Johnson, Ben Butler & Mousepad and eagleowl at Pilrig St. Paul’s Church.

Pilrig St. Paul’s is on the corner of Leith Walk and Pilrig Street, and is just the latest in a long list of gorgeous venues sniffed out by Jillian and Emily from Tracer Trails.  It will also be the venue for this year’s christonafuckingbikeimohsoveryexcited Retreat Festival (free sampler of some of the bands involved to be found here), so this will be a chance to sneak preview the place before committing to a weekend of unspeakable joy and drunken liver-punches later in the month.  I know little about this particular lineup, I have to confess, apart from the fact that Calvin Johnson shares a label with the utterly unspeakable and profoundly punchable Jeremy Jay.  But I assume Mr. Johnson himself is a hell of a lot nicer or the Tracer Trails team would never be dealing with him in the first place.

Thursday 5th August 2010:Born to Be Wide Festival Special at the Electric Circus, with all sorts of DJs and bands.

This night is a preview night for Retreat, the Forest Fringe and Acoustic Edinburgh and a general statement that, Festival and imported musical exotica aside, there is plenty of awfy good stuff to be found here the rest of the year too.  There will be mini acoustic sets by a selection of bands on the hour, interspersed with equally mini DJ sets of local music toilers such as myself playing five-song sets of our favourite Edinburgh records. Enfant Bastard, Meursault, Emily Scott and the brilliantly named Haftor Medboe stand out for me on the list of artists booked to play.

Meursault – Love or Limb

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Friday 6th August 2010: Villagers at Sneaky Pete’s.

Villagers were very nearly reviewed on Song, by Toad when they released their debut album a month or so ago.  I found it all just a tad too nice, to be honest, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be genuinely interested to hear them live.  A live performance is often a little more raw than a recorded song, which often leads to me quite considerably preferring a live setting for some of the current rash of polished folk-pop.

Villagers – Becoming a Jackal

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Friday 6th – Sunday 15th August: Acoustic Cafe at the Roxy Art House.

This acoustic mini-festival starts this weekend and runs through to the end of the following one.  On Friday we have Iona Marshall and the Last Battle, Saturday is The One Ensemble and Yusuf Azak and Sunday Meursault (solo) and Esperi.  As well as Electric Circus, Ed from the Roxy seems to be one of the few committed to supporting local music during the tidal wave of imported bumph which swamps the place in August.

Yusuf Azak – Eastern Sun

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Saturday 7th August 2010: FOUND & Milk (I’m not sure that’s the right MySpace link) at the Electric Circus.

FOUND’s rather fantastic (Machine Age Dancing!  MACHINE AGE DANCING!!!) new album is out soon.  How soon I don’t quite know I have to confess, but I can tell you this about it: it’s more of an abrasive indie-rock album that I ever expected from these lads which, frankly, is just showing off.  Get back in your pigeonhole you alt-folk glitch-hopsters!

FOUND – Freaky Freaky Chancer

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