I love Homegame.  Have I mentioned that before?

For the uninitiated, the Fence Collective‘s Homegame Festival is held once a year in the small fishing village of Anstruther in Fife (well, it used to be a fishing village but it seems to be largely touristy now – neighbour Pittenweem seems to be more of a working harbour).  A huge pile of Fence Records acts, bolstered by friends and neighbours, get together and play lots of gigs in the town halls, school halls and beer halls of the town, and about six hundred or so lucky punters get to go along.

There are a few things I love about this festival, so here are a couple, put as briefly as possible:
- Anstruther is small, so the festival itself has to be small, or the town wouldn’t be able to cope.
- Fence Collective music is fucking brilliant.  There will be no sets by the View, not even acoustic ones.
- It’s actually in a town, so if it pisses down you can just stay in the pub and not get wet.
- The bands themselves are all relaxed, friendly and as interested in seeing good music and getting plastered as the rest of us, which makes for a really nice, communal atmosphere.
- It’s in a seaside town so if you ever get all musicked out, you can pick up a paper, sit on the promenade and read for a bit.
- Did I mention the relaxed atmosphere?  It’s the nicest festival in the world to be at.

This year Mrs. Toad and I rented a couple of cottages in Pittenweem – we were too slow to get Anstruther – which ended up being absolutely full of bodies at the end of every gin-sodden night of debauchery.  And when I say full I mean full; every inch of floor and ever sofa or cushion covered with some passed out drunkard or other.  Fuck me it was fun. Read the rest of this entry »

This Toad Session has been a wee while coming, but frankly I think it’s fucking superb.  The videos have turned out wonderfully, Neil and Gav have done an amazing job with the sound, Fee and Dylan have taken some great photos.  I’m happy as a pig in shit, quite frankly.  Johnny Lynch (Mr. Pictish Trail) had plenty of time to kill, so we drank some beer, took our time and talked a monumental amount of shite.  The podcast is really strong this time around, I think.  We talk a lot but I think it’s pretty decent stuff for the most part, not random blather, so I really think it should be an enjoyable listen.  Hopefully, anyway.

Johnny picked really nice songs, too.  He’s recorded a couple of unreleased ones, and a Lone Pigeon cover, as well as his Top of the Pops hit single Winter Home Disco.  It makes for a really nice mix.  As per usual the songs are all available for downloading, hotlinking and sharing around, the videos can be watched below, on our YouTube (yeuch) page or our Vimeo page, and the photos are all to be seen as a slideshow here or on the general Song, by Toad Flickr page here.  Go to Blueback Hotrod for more of Dylan’s live music photography.  And enjoy the podcast – it can be played below, and the tracklisting is at the bottom of the page.  I’m really proud of this, people, so I hope you enjoy it.

Toadcast #62 – The Pictish Trail Toad Session

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The Pictish Trail – Winter Home Disco (Toad Session)

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The Pictish Trail – I Will Pour it Down (Toad Session)

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The Pictish Trail – You Covered the Earth With Your Thumb (Toad Session)

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The Pictish Trail – Won’t You Take Me Back (Lone Pigeon Cover) (Toad Session)

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And now the videos, starting with the overall session video, and then the ones we made for the individual songs:

01. The Pictish Trail – Winter Home Disco (06.04)
02. Bonnie Prince Billy – Today I Started Celebrating Again (17.33)
03. Adam Beattie – Bank Street (22.12)
04. The Pictish Trail – I Will Pour It Down (34.37)
05. Judson Claiborne – Song For Dreaming (38.30)
06. Amadou & Mariam – Sabali (43.35)
07. Why? – The Song of the Sad Assassin (48.51)
08. The Pictish Trail – You Covered the Earth With Your Thumb (62.31)
09. Preston School of Industry – Walk of a Gurl (69.03)
10. The Pictish Trail – Won’t You Take Me Back (Lone Pigeon Cover) (76.42)

Thanks folks, hope you enjoyed that.

Yes, that is the new Toad t-shirt, which can be purchased here, and bears the inspiring and uplifting slogan ‘Up yours, Eagletits.’

Well there’s been some good live music recently, and last night was another excellent Limbo night.  All three bands were really good and even though it was a late one, there wasn’t an excessive amount of drunkenness, so apart from being rather tired I actually feel pretty reasonable this morning.  Quick question for you all, in advance of the Friday Fives – even though it’s now woefully late, would you appreciate a live review of Mitchell Museum and one of David Thomas Broughton from a couple of weeks ago?  Or is timeliness next only to godliness in these matters?

I am going to have the Samamidon session up tomorrow, by hook or by crook.  This may well involve a very, very late night with gallons of gin tea, but I am determined to get it up there and start on the Pictish Trail one.

Tomorrow I shall be wandering along to the Meursault in-store at Avalanche, and then over next week they will be round at the house recording the vocals for William Henry Miller Parts One and Two.  These will be double a-sides with The Furnace and either The Dirt & the Roots or A Few Kind Words for a twin pack of vinyl released later in the year – probably May I would have thought.  And before you start chipping in, no I am not asking for help deciding which of the latter two will be released.  Neil will mostly decide, and I will chip in, but this is not a democracy (ha – didn’t that sound decisive and commanding!)

So, that’s about it for this week.  We will shortly be heading back to our favourite watering hole, the newly refurbished King’s Wark, for a couple of lunchtime pints and one of the finest lunches to be had in Scotland.  Fucking, if I may say so, brilliant.  And then off up to the Wee Red Bar to help out with Trampoline and see the Japanese War Effort.  Exciting time people, it a rock-and-roll-o-rama around here these days.

So, time to stop shuffling about in the shadows, de-lurk, and make you contribution.  If nothing else you will at least stop this thread descending into the usual Bart-baiting within five posts, so any new commenters are highly appreciated.  And without further ado, this week’s Toad’s (stolen from GUT) Friday Five:

1. Name a great band with a piss-poor debut album (point for the non-obvious ones like Dylan, Radiohead and the Beatles).
2. Name your favourite thing to do in the snow.
3. How many pairs of shoes do you own?
4. Silliest fish name.
5. How many different formats do you own music in these days?

The Pictish Trail – Into the Smoke (Live on BBC 6Music) Thanks to The Daily Growl.

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Miwa Gemini – Pieces

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The Tartans – Cats of Camerford

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School of Seven Bells – Half Asleep

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Feist & Ben Gibbard – Train Song

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Sorry this has been so late coming, but we have spent the day recording the sixth Toad Session with the Pictish Trail.  And now I am off to London to see some friends and speak to people about getting Meursault onto some bills down South.  We’re also going to be talking to Pure Groove and Rough Trade about stocking the record, which should hopefully go alright.

So yes, I’m going to be sitting on a train down to London as you read this, leafing through magazines and trying to find people who might be interested in reviewing future Toad releases.  There’s no rest for the wicked and I don’t even have time to write any more on this post either.  DC will be posting his show tomorrow in place of the Toadcast, and I will be back properly functioning on Monday or Tuesday with a bit of luck.  This week’s five and five songs have been chosen by Johnny Pictish, Fee, Gavin, myself and Dylan at the end of the Toad Session.  I am now going to get pissed and fuck off down South.  Have a good weekend Toadlings.

1. Who put the Ram in a a-ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong?
2. Ideal next Toad Session.
3. Whis is Irn-Bru orange?
4. Favourite daytime TV show for when you have a day off during the week.
5. Chicken or fish?

Grandaddy – Jeez Louise

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The Pictish Trail – I Don’t Know Where to Begin

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The Walkmen – The Rat

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Ryan Adams – To Be Young

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Mercury Rev – Opus 40

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Well here we go.  The new year is yet to quite take hold or take off, but I promise you that things will kick back into gear this weekend.  There are some fine love shows appearing on the calendar, slowly but surely, and eventually 2009 will get going.  No rush though.

This Toadcast is a bit of a mix.  I’ve got some of this year’s favourites, I look back at some of last year’s favourites, and I also poke away at a couple of the bands I hope will make their mark in 2009.

In that sense, examining last year’s favourites makes a lot of sense.  I’m always curious about how well our fads and fancies bear up to the passage of time.  I’ve not been too fickle in recent years, which is sort of nice, so I don’t mind looking back like this.  There aren’t too many embarrassments to be had, so it’s kind of nice to take the chance to look backwards, look forwards a little and generally just take the opportunity to pause for breath and enjoy the new year.  As should you, toadlings, as should you.  Happy new year, folks.

Toadcast #52 – Let’s Go

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01. Bombadil – Cavaliers’ Har Hum (02.24)
02. Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta – The Ragged Garden of Your Eye (08.57)
03. Aidan John Moffat – The Boy That You Love (12.19)
04. Mitchell Museum – Extra Lives (18.11)
05. The Savings & Loan – The Virgin’s Lullaby (24.36)
06. The Builders & the Butchers – When it Rains (28.06)
07. Elvis Perkins – It’s Only Me (34.30)
08. Mother & the Addicts – Are Others (38.21)
09. The Pictish Trail – Winter Home Disco (46.27)
10. The Low Lows – Dear Flys, Love Spider (54.49)

6. Barton Carroll – The Lost One

I know nothing about Barton Carroll, I wasn’t looking forward to this album at all, and then when it landed in my lap I still refused to quite get it for ages; maybe it’s because it’s stylistically quite unadventurous. The big difference, though, is that absolutely every single song on this album, despite flirting with cliche rather frequently, is compelling. They all have you perking up when they come on in their turn, thinking ‘oh good, this song’.
Barton Carroll – Those Days are Gone, and My Heart is Breaking

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7. Donny Hue & the Colors – Tell Tall Tales

This is another album which rather arrived out of nowhere. I wasn’t even aware it was in the pipeline when the promo copy was emailed through in November or so, when the album turned out to be quite so brilliant it was like an early Christmas present. It’s wry and witty, sad and playful and a simple pleasure from start to finish.
Donny Hue & the Colors – Good Time Happening

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8. Bombadil – A Buzz, A Buzz

I liked this album enough all on its own, but when I saw these guys play live at Pickathon in August I was just floored. I haven’t enjoyed a live performance so much in years – it was just overflowing with fun and zest and exuberance, and only the clinically dead could have failed to be swept away.
Bombadil – Cavaliers’ Har Hum

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9. Pale Young Gentlemen – Black Forest (Tra La La)

This is just a fantastically rewarding album to listen to. It’s delicate at times, wistful at others, and thumping at others. It’s also more instrumentally accomplished than pretty much anything else you’ll listen to for a long time.
Pale Young Gentlemen – Coal/Ivory

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10. The Pictish Trail – Secret Soundz Vol. 1

For someone who I’ve seen on stage so many times, and seen play for other people’s bands so many times, this record still still wasn’t anything like what I expected. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this ever-surprising dance from sad to playful to downright bizarre wasn’t it. It’s a cracking record though, almost because it seems so surprising.
The Pictish Trail – Winter Home Disco

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Part 1: 1-10
Part 2: 11-23
Part 3: 24-36
Part 4: 37-50

Here is the official beginning of Christmas List season, here at Song, by Toad. If you want to get involved and write your own list, then please do. Go here for more details. The more of you that contribute to that the better the results we will get, so don’t be shy.

This is the first quarter of my Festive Fifty for 2008. I will also be preparing a list of my twenty favourite albums, but I might just neglect singles and EPs this time around. If you disagree with anything then do get stuck in, but bear in mind that this is far from a definitive ranking. Ask me on another day and Pictish’s brilliant I Don’t Know Where to Begin could easily be in the top five. Ask me in four months’ time and it would probably be all-change again. Read the rest of this entry »

Gak. Too much beer. Once more I stagger into work feeling fuzzy-headed and furry-tongued after a night of beer and song. It’s so fucking hard to concentrate on anything when you really just want to curl up on the floor under your desk and catch up on another six hours of sleep.

Tonight, however, instead of sleep, there will be podcasting and then a trip to the Withered Hand, Ish Marquez and Stanley Brinks gig at about eleven. And tomorrow we all get up nice and early and spend the whole day putting together Meursault albums. This involves screen printing front and back, folding the poster with the lyrics on it, applying a Toad stamp and an orange felt tip to the inlay card, and putting a barcode sticker on the back. Oddly, it is also going to involve watching Wales and Australia play at egg-chasing on the telly. It’s also going to take ages, but should be worth it in the end.

I forgot to mention a couple of gigs earlier in the week (like there weren’t enough already) but Sunday could end up panning out very nicely if you all do as you are told and follow my advice, which is this: potter along to the National Museum of Scotland for three o’clock, when The Pictish Trail will be playing a free set, then go to the pub for a couple of hours (there’s dozens within easy walking distance) and potter along to the Jazz Bar to see Candythief between about nine and half eleven. Candythief have a new album available and if it’s anything like their previous EP I will be absolutely delighted. So there you go – that’s your Sunday planned out for you.

As for Friday, however, there is still some serious business afoot: Five Friday Favourites, as pinched from GUT. It’s been very local on the site this week, so this would be a fine chance for all you lurkers to show the local gangs that you’re not afraid of them and get stuck in on your own account. Go for it – what’s the worst that can happen – public humiliation? Pish posh.

1. Favourite sweetie (in the candy sense, because of Candythief – nothing saucy please).
2. Best work-dodging tip for the terminally hung over.
3. Longest spell spent successfully on the wagon.
4. Soap of choice.
5. Coolest old TV program to search for on YouTube.

The Pictish Trail – I Don’t Know Where to Begin
Candythief – Junk
The Jam – All Mod Cons
The Zincs – The Moguls’ Wives
The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Hush Little Baby

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)

As you can see I have complied with Mrs. Toad’s request to stop featuring cutesy Edinburgh pictures on these little posts and put up some pictures of radgy wee neds instead. This is something I think she feels is more representative of a kind of Edinburgh life that tends to be ignored (for more such pictures, go here, it’s hilarious).

I play football regularly in Craigmillar, often against teams from there or alternatively from lovely places like Craigour, Niddrie and other delightful Edinburgh tourist spots. I’ve actually been threatened with being knifed something like three or four times during various matches when we’ve played out there. It is a little unsettling actually, because for all you always have to respond with bravado – ‘Yeah fuck off – I’m more scared of your Mum you little poof’ or something equally erudite – there’s always the slender chance that one of the weaselly little fuckers is just crazy enough to mean it.

The biggest question I have with neds (pikeys, scallys, radges, whatever you local variation might be) is how they manage to find the stamina to go through life so CONSTANTLY FUCKING ANGRY. Honestly, where does that rage come from, how can they summon that level of anger, all of every day, about nothing at all? I suppose having lost at everything doesn’t help. Maybe the anger is why they live such short lives too – the rage must just burn you up.

Anyway, all that’s by the by really, isn’t it. What’s on this week then? Not much, but one absolute corker: Fence Club.

Wednesday 17th September 2008: James Yorkston & the Athletes, Malcolm Middleton, and Pictish Trail & Rozi Plain at The Caves.
In terms of lineups you’d struggle to beat this. James Yorkston’s new album is gorgeous, and given his tour is necessarily going to be a solo affair I really recommend you take this chance to see him now. The lush beauty of the sound is going to be perfect for The Caves, especially with full Athletic accompaniment. Malcolm Middleton’s literate, witty, downbeat indie takes little introduction, I would hope, and the dynamic duo of Pictish and Plain should be a treat. Tickets are getting close to selling out, too, so I’d buy one now if I were you. The official line is that there should be tickets left to sell on the door, but they aren’t certain. Book here to put your mind at rest.
James Yorkston – Queen of Spain
Malcolm Middleton – A Brighter Beat

Saturday 20th September 2008: Jonquil at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
One of Edinburgh’s own has recently agreed to become their manager, so they must be good. It’s a sort of experimental folk sound, broadly speaking, and is really bloody marvellous live. It’s a late one too, so don’t get so plastered you fail to appreciate the music. I do that all the fucking time, and it irritates the shit out of me.
Jonquil – Apparency

And, you know, I really think that’s it.