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.

Ian and myself were down in Brighton for most of last week with The Great Escape, and that’s pretty much what this podcast is about from start to finish.  It’s hardly a studied analysis of course – and I sincerely doubt you’d expect one – instead it’s more of a chatter about the Brighton fun we’ve had and the people we’ve met.

Scotland is actually rather isolated when it comes to music.  Hence, I suppose, the importance of the local Scottish music community to bands and labels based up here. Nevertheless, it is really important to connect with the rest of the UK.

A lot of our most appreciated supporters are people I know only from Twitter and the other end of an email, be they fans, label customers, writers and broadcasters who have supported us or labels who have inspired us.  So, in the interests of cementing these relationships, meeting new people and drinking an absolute fucking shitload of beer, off to Brighton we went…

Direct download: Toadcast #226 – The Rainbowcast

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01. Hot Panda – Fuck Shit Up (00.24)
02. Slow Down, Molasses – Light (07.44)
03. Born Gold – Lawn Knives (16.19)
04. Odonis Odonis – Tick Tock (23.07)
05. PAWS – Bainz (26.17)
06. The Black Tambourines – Let You Down (Toad Session Sneak Preview) (34.15)
07. Fear of Men – Doldrums (44.06)
08. PINS – Eleventh Hour (47.13)
09. Perfume Genius – Lookout, Lookout (55.02)
10. Fanzine – L.A. (62.51)

The Nightcast.  Yes, night.  I am recording this at about two in the morning for the simple reason that for all I aim to do these once a week, on the weekend, once again it has been just plain impossible to actually get the damn thing done on the weekend just gone, so here I am squeezing it into the ungodly hours of Tuesday night.

Well, Wednesday now.

And of course I am off to The Great Escape in the morning.  Actually, it already is the morning.  Oh all right then, by the time this is uploaded and ready to go and I can actually get some sleep, I think I might be due to get out of bed in two hours time.  Cock and balls.  I thought the night time was supposed to be a little more glamorous than this.

Direct download: Toadcast #225 – The Nightcast

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01. The Pictish Trail – Of Course You Exist (FOUND Remix) (00.26)
02. Plastic Animals – Ghosts (07.56)
03. Playlounge – Boner Hit (Keel Her cover) (15.24)
04. Yoofs – Love at 140 (18.17)
05. Dead Rat Orchestra – The Geshin & the Guga (23.15)
06. The See See – Fix Me Up (30.24)
07. Meursault – Flittin’ (36.26)
08. Woody Guthrie – So Long, it’s Been Good to Know You (40.37)
09. PAWS – Misled Youth (46.20)
10. Blank Canvas – Golden (53.53)
11. The Eighteenth Day of May – Cold Early Morning (59.04)

Record Store (shop, shop, it’s called a fucking SHOP!) Day is always bad news for my cash reserves.  I am not, I have to confess, all that enticed by the exclusives, as honestly I find that all a bit gimmicky and pointless, but I do like the idea of encouraging people back into shops and reminding people what a pleasure it is to spend hours poking around through racks of records.

Music is a personal, physical thing for me – it involves the sense, of course it’s physical! – and gigs and community events like Record Store Day help to reinforce that, and therefore despite the needless exclusives and the exploitation of artificial scarcity, I still like the social side of it, as well as the cooperation between shops, labels, bands and venues it seems to encourage.

We have a good few things happening in the next week or so actually, starting with RM Hubbert, Yusuf Azak and Rory Sutherland at Henry’s tonight.  Then tomorrow, the RSD festivities kick in, with Withered Hand and Ballboy at Avalanche, and Neil from Meursault and PAWS down at Voxbox in Stockbridge.

Then, next weekend, we have The Leg’s album launch.  We are going to be meeting in The Wash between 6-8pm, and then walking up to a secret venue in the Old Town for a free private party.  And if, say, you were to pay a £5 non-refundable deposit for a copy of their new album (by using the button below), then we will almost certainly be touched enough to invite you.  *cough*

Anyhow, enough business, it’s Friday, and that means fucking about on the internet.  Answer these five stupid questions and I shall be happy to fuck about on the internet with you:

1. If you could re-colour an animal, what would it be?
2. What’s the first pop music you really remember being aware of?
3. What do you really enjoy shopping for?
4. And what do you hate shopping for?
5. Are you going to buy anything special on Record Store Day?

Record Store Day is a very, very good thing. Getting folk down to their local record shop in the hope they will support it all year round. This year marks the first ever RSD for Song, by Toad neighbours Vox Box Music. The shop is a real labour of love for Darren and George who run it, and they have always been more than happy to stock anything from the label. They are good people and their shop consistently has an amazing and eclectic selection.

To celebrate their first ever RSD our pals at Gerry Loves Records and I have organised a wee event for the day.

The shop is going to open as usual at 10.30am and will have a very small selection of exclusives for you to get your hands on, so you may as well try your luck. Then at 3.00pm we are going to have our very own Neil Pennycook from Meursault singing some songs from his forthcoming Melanie tribute album. After that we are going to head across the street to a secret location on the same street to see Gerry Loves band and new FatCat signing PAWS play a full blown set at 4.00pm

It’s going to be a great day. Booze, food, records and music. It’s a no brainer so do pop along.

If you don’t know where Vox Box or St. Stephen Street are, here ye go;

There are two main things happening this week, as far as I can tell.  One is the above-mentioned Ides of Toad gig of course, and the other is Record Store Day.  I am ambivalent about Record Store Day, I have to confess, as it seems to encourage the worst kind of scalping and eBay profiteering, and it also seems like a poor apology for not spending more time in record shops year round.

But at the same time it can be a really nice day, and encourages people back into shops with some really nice, limited edition products.  Also, it seems to encourage a bit more cooperation between record shops themselves and the music communities they are there to serve, which is also a good thing.

Here at Song, by Toad we will be doing some special stuff with our local record shop: Vox Box on St. Stephen’s Street. Ian has been working with them on this and will be announcing some special bits and piece, including a couple of rather brilliant in-store performances.

Anyhow, here’s a quick run-down of some interesting things happening in Edinburgh this week:

Tuesday 17th April: Library Tapes, Poppy Ackroyd & Hiva Oa at the Third Door.

This gig should inhabit the space broadly between classical, experimental and folk music.  Ah yes, that space, I hear you cry.  That well-established pop niche which has made many bands so many millions of pounds – but of course!  Well okay, I admit this might be something of a niche concern, but it sounds like a really good gig to me, and actually, for it’s hardly made anyone rich, the intersection between classical, experimental and folk music sounds like a highly fascinating place, to me.

Hiva Oa – Badger

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Friday 20th April: R.M. Hubbert, Yusuf Azak & Rory Sutherland play the Ides of Toad at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

RM Hubbert’s mesmerising new album features all sorts of inspired collaborations to complement his intricate Flamenco guitar playing. Yusuf Azak’s new album is finished too, and should be released sometime this Summer. And opening will be Rory Sutherland, more usually known as the violin player in Broken Records. I have no idea what he will be playing, but I am sure it will be good!

R.M. Hubbert – Sandwalks

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Yusuf Azak – Lay Me Down

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Saturday 21st April: Record Store Day

Whether you’re in Edinburgh or not, this Saturday should be a fine day for music fans, as shops around the world celebrate Record Store Day.  In Edinburgh I know Avalanche have a lot planned – in-stores from Withered Hand and Ballboy, some official Record Store Day beer, and then a knees-up at the Electric Circus in the evening in conjunction with The Tidal Wave of Indifference, involving a stripped down set by The Last Battle, followed by Emily Scott and then Star Wheel Press.

We at Song, by Toad will be, as I mentioned earlier, working in conjunction with our own local record shop Vox Box, and will provide early chances to get your hands on new albums by The Leg and Jesus H. Foxx, as well as live performances by… well, I won’t mention too much about it, as it was actually Ian who went to a lot of work to set this up, so I think I will let him set it all out when he posts about it tomorrow.

 Actually, I don’t know if I love Audio Antihero or secretly hate them.  I’ve met Jamie only the once, and he seemed like a bloody lovely guy, but then he did come up with the record label motto “Specialists in Commercial Suicide”, of which I will forever be just a little bit jealous. I mean, I love “Gin and Swearing”, and indeed our new t-shirt slogan “Swearing at You on the Internet Since 2004″, but “Specialists in Commercial Suicide”… it still just has the edge somehow.  Bastard!

And to make matters worse, he has just moved to Florida and will therefore get to see Song, by Toad Records band Lil Daggers long before I ever get to.  Which makes me resent him even more.  The bastard.

And apart from all that, he is clearly even nicer than I described because for the second year running Jamie has put together a fantastic compilation of songs, which are now available to purchase with all funds going to benefit the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths.

We at Song, by Toad donated a couple of tracks to the compilation as well, which is a nice thing to be asked to do, so if you wish to contribute four quid or more (it should be more, really, shouldn’t it – go on, cough up, you can fucking afford it) you can hear the recording of Jesus H. Foxx’s This is Not a Rental Car from their forthcoming debut album Endless Knocking, and also PAWS’ brilliant Kill a Familiar, which we’ll be releasing on a split 12″ with Waiters, Sex Hands and Dolfinz later in the year.

You can listen to the whole thing on Bandcamp below, but please do buy the thing.  There are thirty-six songs on there, and it is well worth the money.

 

Rather than a single coherent post this afternoon, I have a collection of bits and pieces of interesting news all looking for a home, so I reckon one big jumbled post of stuff was probably the way forward.

PAWS: First up, that video above is a new song by well-established Toad favourites PAWS. Phil apparently wrote and recorded the song one night when he couldn’t sleep, and the footage is all stuff shot in the woods around Tain, where he’s from.

Apart from the rather scrappy genesis, what I like about the song is that it sounds very much like a PAWS song, whilst being of a very different pace and feel to their more characteristic, raucous pop music.

It bodes really well for the album, because if they had a challenge ahead of them for that (apart from continuing to write good songs of course) it was to be able to break up the stream of bouncy pop gems with some stuff which was a little different, just to give the album some ebb and flow. Between this and the brilliant, largely improvised instrumental they recorded for our split 12″ it looks like a band known for their mental live shows and irrepressible pop tunes have an awful lot more range to them than people might have come to suspect. This is a good thing.

Yoofs: I think these guys ended up with two songs on my end of year Festive Fifty, which tells you all you need to know about how highly I rate them. They are loosely affiliated with bands like The Black Tambourines and Joanna Gruesome down South, and have a split coming out on the brilliant Art is Hard Records later in the year, I believe.

Before that, however, this. Whilst Yoofs clearly show leanings towards the lo-fi, garagey, sometimes surfey stuff being made quite a lot in the South of England at the moment, they actually prompt me, for the second time in a week, do draw a comparison to the Bees. This is rougher and growlier, but I think the comparison still stands, and it’s one of the reasons I find this band so interesting: because instead of drawing their influences directly from the States, be it slacker indie, lo-fi, psychedelia, surf or whatever, these guys also seem to add in something more distinctly British. Apart from the Bees comparison I can’t put my finger on exactly how that manifests itself, but I do think it’s there.

Anyhow, they have a splendid new single out called Hazy Days which you can download for 50p from here.

Dolfinz: And finally, PAWS’ bedroom record label Cath Records is spluttering into life at the moment as well, which is really good news. As well as the excellent, if a little odd, Generation Scum record (of which more later this week) Cath will be releasing a four-song tape by fellow Song, by Toad Split 12″ band Dolfinz.

The EP is called Mean Girls and is, I kid you not, about the film Mean Girls. I don’t know if they were inspired by Sex Hands writing all their songs about Friends but umm, well I’d rather people wrote songs about this bollocks than some of the po-faced crap which does get released.

Don’t worry, this podcast really isn’t about football.  I might have been tempted, but in all honesty, but I can’t really think of all that many good songs about football and if I am being truthful with myself I can’t imagine you lot really enjoying a podcast about football all that much.

More to the point, I am back playing football myself now, after something like two years out with back problems.  Two years really is a long time to miss out on something you love doing, and even more so when you’re past your mid-thirties and every year you miss is one of the last you’ll get the chance to play at all.

So, in amongst the new songs and all the usual things you would expect from a Toadcast (i.e. mostly swearing) there are a couple of songs which represent my reaction to getting back to playing football again, and my reaction to some of the more newsworthy moments of the footballing week as well.

Direct download: Toadcast #213 – The Footiecast

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01. Morris Major – Seymour Grove (00.17)
02. Chris Devotion and the Expectations – A Modest Refusal (07.27)
03. Billy Bragg – A Lover Sings (20.13)
04. Bob Dylan – Oxford Town (24.07)
05. PAWS – Bainz (30.17)
06. Coast Jumper – Lawless (37.49)
07. That Ghost – Morning Now (42.09)
08. Now Wakes the Sea – Propranolol (50.31)
09. Smackvan – 4am (54.19)
10. Mark Lanegan Band – Bleeding Muddy Water (64.01)

 Yes, this coming Wednesday, the fifteenth of February!!!  Get it in yer diaries! This is going to be the Edinburgh launch for Randolph’s Leap’s rather excellent new album Randolph’s Leap and the Curse of the Haunted Headphones.

It’s a brilliant album of lo-fi charm, moving effortlessly from humour to pathos, and will be available on Peenko Records on a limited run of 30 tapes.  Well, 29 as far as you’re concerned, because I will be having one.

Also on the bill will be Molly Nilsson, who is pals with friends of ours from Manchester and touring the UK at the moment.  She too is a little eccentric, but completely compelling, and I reckon this could be one of our best house gigs yet.

In other news, Brian, El and myself are back on Fresh Air Radio from half past three this afternoon. It will be your usual pre-pub Friday Five show, and I might even sneak on some naughty previews of Song, by Toad Records’ upcoming releases too, just because I am too excited to keep them to myself, but don’t want them out there in a format people can rip and pass around.

On air from 3:30pm UK time – listen live here.

Now, as to the Friday Fives themselves, here are your five stupid questions for this evening:

1. Given every venue in Edinburgh seems to be closing, where should we host gigs in future.
2. Where is the oddest place you’ve been to a gig so far?
3. If you had to name a venue, what would you call it?
4. Who doesn’t seem to be touring, but you would really like to see?
5. What are you looking forward to in your immediate gig-going future?

And in terms of the Song, by Toad House Gig, tickets are a mere £5, all of which goes straight to the artists, and can be purchased by clicking on the link below:

Randolph’s Leap – I Can’t Dance to This Music Anymore

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Playlist for the Fresh Air Funtimes…:
01. Molly Nilsson – A Song They Won’t Be Playing on the Radio
02. Randolph’s Leap – Bile
03. Sex Hands – Chandler in a Box
04. Dolfinz – Jennifer Finch
05. Police Teeth – I Made Out With You Before You Were Cool
06. Crocodiles – Stoned to Death
07. Wanda Jackson – Funnel of Love
08. Chris Devotion & the Expectations – Tell the Girls
09. Morris Major – In Amongst My Ideas
10. Warm Ghost – Open the Wormhole in Your Heart
11. LeThug – 3rd Lanark
12. R.M. Hubbert – Sunbeam Melts the Hour
13. Memory Tapes – Bicycle (Little Loud Remix)
14. PAWS – Chair
15. Waiters – Brisk