These guys really were terrific.  Chris Croasdale plays a nylon-stringed guitar at a bloody good pace, the sound of it is fantastic, and the songs seem to build from a stumble to a furious gallop over the course of four or five minutes.  It’s not just the guitar though, this is just a very economically and well-assembled band.  Jonnie Common’s electronic trickery, and the raucous drumming of Roy Shearer all play crucial parts in the music, and all three of them sing.

They don’t seem to play all that often – I’ve only seen them twice in a year and there’s only one other gig listed on their MySpace – and the recording of the album is going rather slowly, but I have to confess that if this is all going to be as good as this then I will be looking forward to it a great deal.

Inspector Tapehead – A Fillet of Bozo

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Inspector Tapehead on MySpace

If there was some sort of prize for enjoying playing live more than any other band then it would be awarded to Over the Wall in a heartbeat, I would imagine.  They seem to be so genuinely delighted with every chance to get up and play that, irrespective of your opinion of their music, it is pretty much impossible not to be caught up in their infectious enthusiasm.

As to the music itself, I have to say I am positively inclined, although some ambivalence remains.  Some of it, like euphoric set-closer Thurso, is just superb.  At times it captures my imagination just a little less, simply drifting into the generic-but-decent pop category.  They’re definitely a band with potential though, and one I will happily see play again.

Over the Wall – A Grand Defeat

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Over the Wall on MySpace

An outstanding Limbo lineup was completed by Edinburgh bleep-hoppers Found (their term, not mine).  A couple of years ago, just after the release of the brilliant This Mess We Keep Reshaping, I saw Found play on a few occasions and absolutely loved them.  I saw them a while ago playing somewhere I don’t entirely remember and they seemed a little bit listless, as if the energy had evaporated somewhat.  This time around that appears to have been fixed, and all the old strut is back in their stride.

Found are another one of these bands who seem to get on really well together as a group and really enjoy playing live.  The mid-song pauses are greeted with extended waits, and general mischievous sniggering all round as they dare one another to be the first to break the silence.  And for all there’s folk in some of it, pop in most of it, and samplelicious bleepery all over the place, the one word that won’t leave my head is ‘funky’.  They are just a damned funky band when they’re on their game, as they were on this particular evening, and an absolute joy to behold.

To help them pay for their trip to SXSW, please don’t forget to buy their promotional album.  And don’t be fucking cheap, either, you’re not all students.  At least two or three pints’ worth.

Found – When You Fall

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Found on MySpace

Here I sit on the train back up to Edinburgh, marvelling at the snow-covered countryside and wondering idly to myself  at quite how effectively a couple of centimetres of snow seems to have brought the entire country to a total standstill.  It is, after all, just snow.  Lots of people have snow and somehow manage to keep their infrasructure from completely grinding to a halt.

Mind you, to complain seems a little churlish, and very very English, when there is snow to be enjoyed.  We are warm and on the train and it is pretty out.  Unfortunately the snow thwarted my plans to meet up with Rough Trade and Pure Groove this morning and see if they were interested in stocking the Meursault album, but now I will have to do all that by email and phone.

You’d think it was Cabaret Voltaire that burned down, not the Liquid Rooms, given how sparse their calendar has been since Christmas and once again there is nothing really going on there.  Elswhere, Limbo are very much back in business after a storming gig last week, and other than that,well, precious little as far as I can tell.  There’s Born to Be Wide on at the Voodoo Rooms before the Limbo gig on Thursday, with getting your music played on the radio being the theme this time around.  Other than that, in a live sense, I can’t find very much.  Enlighten me, please, because there appears to be bugger all going down in the capital this week.

Thursday 5th February 2009: Found, Over the Wall & Inspector Tapehead play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.

Both Found and Inspector Tapehead combine the acoustic and the electronic really nicely, although Found are a little more boogielicious, whereas Inspector Tapehead have a little more of a ‘bluegrass gone horribly off the rails’ sort of vibe.  Throw in the infectiously exuberant Over the Wall, and we have a truly excellent lineup.
Inspector Tapehead – Pherenzik Tear

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Friday 6th February 2009: Glissando, The French Quarter & The Japanese War Effort play Trampoline at the Wee Red Bar.

I’m recommending this gig specifically because after his performance at the Song, by Toad Christmas Party I am rather keen to see the Japanese War Effort play a fuller set, with all his electronic gizmos, having been very much impressed with the more streamlined electric guitar performance in December.
Japanese War Effort – Punk is Not Dead

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Hello, and welcome back to the slowly restarting new year of swearing and complaining here on Song, by Toad.  Don’t be too perturbed by the look of the thing.  This is not the final design, but as I am not a web designer it will have to do until I can figure out exactly what I want, lay it out properly, and then ask someone to code it for me.  That won’t be for a month or two though, so settle in for now and just ignore some of the crapper elements of the design – they won’t be permanent.

In other news, we have some splendid plans for 2009, so it should be another exciting (exhausting) year.  We are trying to get Meursault moving and arrange a couple of tours for them, which will be tedious.  We have a whole list of new releases for this year, including two Meursault 7″ singles, a split 12″ with the The Builders & the Butchers and Loch Lomond, the Loch Lomond album Paper the Walls is getting a UK release, Maxwell Panther and The Savings & Loan will be releasing records… and that’s just the ones we already know about.

In news more related to this site, rather than the label, we have Samamidon and The Pictish Trail now firmly booked in to record Toad Sessions before the end of January, there are plans to expand our coverage of Pickathon, Homegame and the End of the Road Festival, and of course increase the number of interviews and get a bit more video onto the site, as discussed in the previous thread.

So, I am not one for new year’s resolutions, but I am also incredibly lazy, so that’s what you’re getting for this Friday’s Favourites, as pinched from GUT.  If you want to suggest a Five at any point, just email me.  The music is taken from five of my favourite EPs from last year, as a sort of apology for not having a list on which they could be included.  I’ll try and put that right in 2009, but… ah, fuck it, that’s ages away.  Enjoy the new year, Toadlings.

1. Give us a new year’s resolution.
2. Recommend one for someone else.
3. Most anticipated 2009 release.
4. First gig of the year.
5. Suggest a quote for Toad t-shirt of the week.  T-shirt of the week you say?  Why yes, that’s just what I said.

Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – The Last Stanchion Goes Belly-Up

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The Avett Brothers – Murder in the City

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Passion Pit – Sleepyhead

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The Young Republic – Shiloh

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Over the Wall – Thurso

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I really have made you wait for this haven’t I. Ah well, no matter. So, another year, another End of the Road Festival. We drove down again, specifically renting a hippy VW camper for the journey, and Christ almighty what a fucking death-trap that thing was. As I wrote in the intro to the podcast about this festival, the thing steered like a bathtub full of water. Honestly, if you ever needed to react to anything unexpected turning the steering wheel was like trying haul a bucket of water out of a well. Throw in the rubbish high beams and the teeny-tiny windscreen wipers and we can count ourselves lucky we got there at all.

But get there we did, to be welcomed by pissing rain. Splendid. I’ve led a charmed life so far, as far as festivals are concerned, having encountered no more that the slightest of sprinkles in the five or six I’ve attended so far. Spoiled, you might say. Well no such luck here. I had the interview lined up with Micah P. Hinson and it was pissing down and they wouldn’t even let us into the photography pit at the front, as had been promised beforehand. I was struggling just a little to stay cheerful. Anyhow, Micah’s set was outstanding – his recorded music may be quite beautiful at times, but when he plays live he puts some real snarl into it.

The lineup is pretty basic – Micah on guitar supported by Nick on drums who plays occasional banjo, and Ashley, his wife, on keyboards – but they manage to dredge some racket out of it when they want to. During the set the sun finally broke through, and the rain stopped falling, and suddenly everything was good. Hinson’s slower songs get a bare and lovely outing with just a guitar, and his sightly abrasive on-stage manner never seems to strike a dubious chord with the audience. The interview went well, and will be posted here shortly, but safe to say that this gig seemed to be the turning point of the End of the Road Festival as far as I am concerned. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, another podcast dedicated entirely to the End of the Road Festival. I did the very same last year because I do rather love this festival, and the sheer quality of the lineup easily merits a podcast to itself.

Unlike last year, Mrs. Toad actually came with me this time around. We drove this stupid old 1960s VW camper van down there, and Christ knows how we didn’t die in the process. The fucking thing steered like a bathtub full of water, there were no brakes at all and the only crumple zone was us. The other disconcerting thing is the fact that VW campers are something of a community, so everyone who passed us in one would flash their lights and wave with the sort of sincere enthusiasm that made us mortally ashamed to be mere renters – mere passengers in a club full of such obviously devoted members, Christ we felt like charlatans.

Anyway, ignore our guilt and enjoy the podcast. There’s some fucking great music on this one. And why is it called the Deathcast? Because that blasted camper van we drove down in was an absolute death trap. Honestly, want to die in a nasty accident? Try driving a 60s VW camper van around the English countryside in the middle of the night in the pissing rain.

Toadcast #38 – The Deathcast

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01. Micah P. Hinson – Patience (03.17)
02. Nick Cave & the Dirty Three – Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum (09.41)
03. The Young Republic – Shiloh (20.19)
04. Over the Wall – Thurso (23.22)
05. British Sea Power – Carrion (29.40)
06. The Pictish Trail – All I Own (36.50)
07. Shearwater – Levithan, Bound (41.31)
08. Jeffrey Lewis – Do They Owe (45.50)
09. The Wave Pictures – Leave That Scene Behind (50.39)
10. Richard Hawley – Coming Home (53.21)
11. Calexico – Minas de Cobre (For Better Metal) (59.55)

There’s pretty much fuck all going on this week.  I get the impression everyone’s packed in in advance of the Festival, whose lineup is pretty fucking thin this year, and we may be in for a barren few weeks before things kick off in August.  If kick off is the right word.

Bart has spotted some gigs that he likes the look of, so maybe you should check Magic Marker.  Bart’s taste, barring a tendency to love everything in the world, is reliable but I don’t know enough about most of the bands he recommends this week to actually recommend them myself.  And there’s a Meursault gig virtually every night for some reason:
- One accompanied by The Kays Lavelle at the Ark on Wednesday the 25th.
- One with fellow Bear Scotlanders Les Enfant Bastard and Withered Hand at Henry’s on Thursday 26th.
- And another with Y’All is Fantasy Island on Friday 27th, also at Henry’s.  Neil will be sick of the sound of his own voice by the end of that little run.

That apart, there’s a Duty Free gig at Cabaret Voltaire on Sunday 29th June, with some Yoof Rock: Cats and Cats and Cats, Edgar Prais and Over the Wall.
It’s a lineup I have a few reservations about, but an interesting one nevertheless and definitely my pick of the weekend’s entertainment.  Hopefully next week with find some more fertile fields to plough.
Cats and Cats and Cats – You’ll Never Make it Home

This was the first gig I’ve been to that was put on by Edinburgh promoters Trampoline, and from the looks of their lineups it won’t be my last – Broken Records and Found are on the horizon. Tonight was Meursault, with support from Over the Wall, who I thought were decent, and Les Enfant Bastard who sprung something of a surprise on everyone. Most of the time they (well he, really) are known for playing acoustic anti-folk but tonight, just for fun, he roped in a couple of the lads from Meursualt and played two, erm, ‘pieces’ of abstract electronic clatter. A bleeping, droney rhythm would stagger all over the place, punctuated by some shrieking, some howling, some clatter on the drums or some barely coherent but utterly furious power chords played on the guitar, occasionally whilst battering it off the drums. And you know what? Oddly enough, it wasn’t bad actually. I may draw the line at listening to it on record, but actually, live it was good.

Over the Wall – Glasgow
Les Enfant Bastard – U R My Fucking Sunshine U Cunt

Next we come to Meursault, a group I have only just come across and hence know very little about. A group they are indeed however – one that for a change depends equally on its constituent parts. It may be the distressed wail of the vocal that first catches you, but there’s something vaguely unsettling about that metronomic banjo that bores a straight line right through the occasionally frantic electronica and Neil Pennycook’s barely controlled shriek.

His voice is phenomenal actually: it completely fills the room, despite the fact that he always seems to be slightly straining. It’s also one of those very emotive voices that makes you engage with the music, and between that and the combination of folky plucking and scraped electronic beats I think I might really like these guys. It can get a bit downbeat at times, but they had a couple more Furnace-like upbeat numbers here and I will definitely be checking out Meursault again.

Meursault – Salt Pt.2
Meursault – The Furnace