I am not leaving the house this week. Instead I am going to be locked in my sweaty little internet den (or the ‘editing suite’, if you want it to sound a bit less grotty) beavering away at session videos. I couldn’t resist a little leak of one of the Meursault recordings here though, but that’s because the whole thing is coming together really nicely and I am just plain excited.

And the Festival ends this week as well. Would you believe I haven’t done a single show this year, not one. I mean, I’ve been to see Eagleowl and Broken Records, but then I’d do that anyway. Mind you, the whole fucking lot is getting so bloody expensive these days that this is hardly a disaster.

Monday 25th August 2008: Alex Cornish at The Village, Leith.
Alex is a a good friend, and a DIY champion in this era of record industry panic. He’s actually turned down the advances of proper labels in order to carry on making things happen on his own. Given that he’s an Edinburgh lad doing things his own way, so you’d bloody well all better show him some support when the new single comes out in September. More on that later in the week.
Alex Cornish – Scotland the Brave

Monday 25th August 2008: Clare & the Reasons at Cabaret Voltaire.
I know nothing about these guys at all, apart from the fact that they come highly, highly recommended by a good friend of mine. So highly recommended, in fact, that she’s emailed me about this particular gig three or four times already. Mad old bag.
Clare & the Reasons – Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Yes, that one.)

Tuesday 26th August 2008: The Raconteurs at the Corn Exchange.
I was so disappointed by their last album that I won’t be going to this, but the Raconteurs were blistering the last time I saw them, so if you liked their recent stuff and are in any doubts, just go. Jack White, in particular, is a virtuoso live performer.
The Raconteurs – Steady as She Goes (Acoustic)

Thursday 28th August 2008: Meursault, Sparrow & the Workshop & The Red Well play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.
Continuing their consistently excellent lineups, this one has to trump the lot, I think. Will I be there? Mwah ha ha ha, will fucking bells on I will. And to celebrate, here’s a little sneak preview from the forthcoming Meursault Toad Session, which will be posted this weekend. Why? Because I just couldn’t restrain myself, that’s why.
Meursault – Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues (Toad Session)

Thursday 28th August 2008: Punch & the Apostles play Henry’s Cellar Bar, along with Super Adventure Club, Rodent Emporium and Terra Surfa.
I would interested to see these guys actually, as their single on Lucky Number Nine Records, an excellent little DIY Glasgow label, was really rather good. I’d like to see them live, just to get a better understanding of their sound. Their gypsy blunderbuss sound might have slightly missed its window in terms of its fashionable status, but they still sound like a very good band to me irrespective of all that sort of calculating commercial bobbins.
Punch & the Apostles – The Engineers of Salammbo

After my difficulties with the Web Sherriff last week a few people left some angry posts about them being bastards and so on, and I kind of got stuck in myself, accusing them of living in the 20th Century, which is fair enough I think.

However, I think it’s time someone actually stood up for Web Sheriff.  Wipe the coffee off your monitor, yes, I am serious.  Now, I am not stepping back from accusations that they are foolish dinosaurs desperately clinging onto an outmoded way of doing things and actually are entirely failing to protect the bands they represent.

But in their favour, unlike the RIAA before them, who genuinely are a malevolent bunch of dishonest, vicious whores, they actually don’t do anything all that bad apart from get in touch and ask you to take songs down.  Now this is frustrating as hell, and it winds me up because I take this blog quite personally, and having one of their notices on your site is a bit like finding an uninvited guest in your living room and makes you react angrily.  But I have received similar emails from managers of small bands like The Dodos and The 1900s and complied immediately as well.  Now, these emails were better worded and didn’t carry a thinly disguised legal threat, which helped, but the upshoot is the same: please take that song down as we don’t want you giving it away for free.

I even, ludicrously, got one from a group no-one has heard of, asking me to take their song down.  Manchester’s Modernaires are a terrific group who I’d love to feature more of, but the last time I did I was contacted (by their manager I think – I don’t really remember) informing me that they had signed some sort of release deal with a label or someone and that this deal included internet exclusivity.  Now for a group that small to effectively forbid internet word of mouth advertising is, in my opinion, completely and utterly insane.  Stupid, blinkered, self-defeating, and so utterly indicative of someone, somewhere completely failing to understand how the internet works, that it made me laugh and cry at the same time.  But I took the songs down – of course I did, why wouldn’t I?

Now the Modernaires scenario arises, I would guess, from the label they are dealing with desperately trying to scrabble for more pageviews.  There is an attitude at the moment that pageviews constitute clout, and to a degree I would agree with this, and that for all I don’t have much capital here at Song, by Toad, the perception is that I in some way ‘own’ a particular audience.  I have my doubts about this, but I am guessing that this bunch simply want to drive traffic their way, and have decided on a stupid way of going about it.

But if you think they’re being totally unreasonable, consider this: as a blogger plugging, say, someone’s new 7″ single would you agree with me if I decided not to make the single itself available for download as part of the review?  I wouldn’t do it myself, because I would want to encourage people to go and buy the thing.  In the days when most people no longer have record players this may not be a particularly worthwhile stance, but I would feel wrong making it available.  So I am not entirely disagreeing with the substance of the Modernaires’ management, just the way they actually put similar instincts to my own into practise.

In the case of the REMs and Ranconteurs of this world, the statement is more directly dismissive: we do not want or need your publicity, your discussion or your interest.  Fair enough.  Maybe it’s more nuanced than that: as much as we appreciate your publicity, discussion and interest, it comes with the inherent (debatable, but not spurious) drawback of making almost our entire record available for nothing on the internet, and we want people to buy the records instead.  In the case of the Dodos, 1900s, and the New Pornographers, when they have contacted me (the latter via Web Sheriff) they have all said ‘we would prefer it if just these particular songs were made available as preview songs’, which I actually think is completely reasonable.

In the case of REM and the Raconteurs, there was no such thing, although there were other preview options available via Facebook streams and so on, but if I am being inflexible in terms of how I post music – no streams or other shit like that – it is a bit hypocritical to pull a face that they are being equally inflexible in how they publicise their music.

And lets not be disingenuous here, there is a perfectly reasonable argument of exploitation to be made.  When I post songs by The Raconteurs, Radiohead, REM, whatever, my hits do increase.  As the pageviews are the only currency in which I can really trade, this means that it can be argued that I am using their big name to increase the value of my own enterprise whilst offering very little in return.  As I said at the time, they don’t need my review in particular, and neither do you.  There are millions out there.

They have no obligation to value what we are doing here, and I am not stupid enough to think that what we do is in any way a benefit for groups of that size.  They are well beyond needing the approval or even acknowledgement of anyone at this level.  Even small groups have no obligation to want to be on these pages – that’s just arrogant.  I am writing about music because I like it, for my benefit, not entirely for theirs so why should they feel any obligation to participate?

As I said, the malevolent tone and fairly explicit threat of Web Sheriff requests in the middle of a small time, personal website are jarring and a little scary.  They are making it quite clear that they could sue if they wanted to, and as a result we react with understandable hostility.  But they aren’t making requests that other, smaller enterprises do not and what they are requesting may be considered misguided, but it is not entirely unreasonable.

Effectively a great many sites like this and audiences like us are using blogs and small sites as away of actively turning our backs on the (capitals!) Music Industry Behemoth.  Groups like REM and The Raconteurs are part of that behemoth, almost by default by virtue of their size and popularity.  So if we are turning our backs on their world then it is a little bit churlish to take exception when they in turn do not feel obliged to grovellingly accept what crumbs of approval we actually do disdain to toss in their direction.

As to the songs, well I’m not sure how these are at all relevant, but they have been knocking around my inbox for a bit and I thought it was time someone heard them.

Teitur – Catherine the Waitress
Tobias Froberg – Blissfull
Tafra – I’m Sorry Brakne-Hoby

Fuck me, I’m glad that’s over with. Did you find that as dull as I did? Four consecutive posts about major bands on major labels that you could all just as easily have read about in Q Magazine. I even liked the Elbow and REM albums, but I still felt slightly dirty writing about them, although I don’t know why.

This blog is supposed to be a record of my thoughts on music, and I was genuinely interested to hear the new Supergrass and REM, and really excited to hear The Raconteurs and Elbow so why do I feel so flat after writing about them? Why has it suddenly become so unsatisfying to write about bands of that stature?

I don’t think the answer lies in snobbery, per se. I have no shame in enjoying the really big and famous bands that I like, nor do I think anyone else should apologise for liking famous music – or fluffy, superficial pop for that matter. Music is there to be enjoyed, and really doesn’t need to be dissected much more than that*.

Maybe it’s the club-ism; the exclusivity. We share something that They don’t have their hands on yet so it feels more special, like a secret or something. There’s also the issue of making a contribution, I suppose. Me bigging up the new REM album is utterly irrelevant to the band whereas when I write about really small groups I might just double their sales if a few of you go and buy something. And they are much more delighted to see a positive review of their music of course, and that always makes this a more satisfying thing to do.

Ultimately, I think it’s about ownership, really. Pop culture is not something most of us get to participate in in any meaningful way whatsoever, so by writing about smaller bands it almost forces REM and Supergrass to become Pop Culture, whereas the little unsigned acts become Our Pop Culture – more personal, more involved and, crucially I think, a smaller community to be a part of. One which may be global in reach but is not global in numbers. It’s a more comprehensible size, something you can actually feel a part of, something you feel you can come to terms with and something which gives a little back when you go and say Hi at the end of a gig. The global audience for REM is just too big for that. The global audience for Bambi Get Over It is not.

So I guess it’s no real surprise that it just feels so much better to have a tiny unsigned band to write about, or to get some friends in and post their live performances on YouTube. They are people we know, people we can be a bit more emotionally invested in, people whose fans could conceivably all get together for a big piss up in the same place. I think a lot of what is perceived as indie snobbery is not quite as much to do with snobbery and perhaps more to do with feeling part of a community whose edges are still close enough to touch, and where you actually feel like an important member rather than a single album sale amongst millions.

So I’m not going to stop writing about big famous bands, because I am genuinely interested in them, but I am finding myself more and more drawn to the grassroots of the music world – small projects where people are having a go and I feel like I really can help bring their work to a wider audience. It just feels nicer.

Bambi Get Over It – That Girl
Darla Farmer – History
Hotpipes – Born in a Bomb
It’s a Buffalo – Outlines

* I could pretty much delete this whole blog on the basis of that one comment alone!

After all the hoo-ha surrounding the helter-skelter release of this album and the refusal to allow reviewers to have advance copies and all of that gubbins has died down, I think we can now safely address the question of whether or not it is actually any good without tripping over wordy Music 2.0 chatter at every turn.

I’ve already been accused of anti-mainstream snobbery once today, so I am a little hesitant to say this, but I actually do not think this album is especially good. Jack White’s dirty blues are still in evidence, as are some of the more eccentric digressions that decorated the last White Stripes album. And once again Brendan Benson brings just enough pop sensibility to the record to take it a clear step away from other White enterprises.

The thing is that somehow they seem to have landed in the sort of Rawk territory that lacks something of the bite of Broken Boy Soldiers. Many Shades of Black, for example, may be an excellent song but it has more than a whiff of Queen about it, particularly in the chorus. It’s weird.

You know what I think may have happened? I think some of the pace has gone out of their music. Broken Boy Soldiers seemed to distill the excitement of a new project into music that drove forwards excitedly onto the next riff, or the next song, or whatever else they came up with next. This seems to lack a little of that bubbling energy and consequently the album comes across as more than a little bit sluggish.

Am I being an anti-mainstream snob again? I don’t know, possibly, but I am just not very excited by listening to this record.

The Raconteurs – The Switch & the Spur
The Raconteurs – Carolina Drama

The Fun Police have made an appearance and music has consequently returned to the 19th Century, where it will presumably remain until someone rolls a much-needed hand grenade into Web Sherriff Towers.

website | hype | amazon

Yikes – new album out next week apparently! Fuck me they’ve moved fast on this one. Apparently they only mastered the thing a couple of weeks ago and just decided to fire the thing out there without the benefit of pre-release marketing and see how it went.

According to the lengthy message they put out on their site and MySpace and so on, this is for a couple of reasons. Firstly, so people can react to the music on their own terms, rather than have fannies like myself tell them what to think about it, which makes sense. The other is to stay one step ahead of any potential leaks, and make sure that people get the record on the right terms, in the right quality and all at the same time.

So there are no preview tracks, nothing is posted on MySpace and hence that’s about all I can tell you, apart from the fact that the record itself is going to be called Consolers of the Lonely. And making the obvious point that The Raconteurs are a fucking brilliant band, and that I am hugely, hugely excited to hear their new stuff on Monday 25th.

All I can offer on top of this is to post a rather excellent acoustic version of Steady As She Goes which sounds for all the world like it comes from a radio session of some sort, although I’ve no idea which one. Anyhow, enjoy, and join me in salivating with anticipation.

The Raconteurs – Steady as She Goes (Acoustic)
They are rather good aren’t they: The Raconteurs – Store Bought Bones