I’ll confess, the fact that Sparrow and the Workshop have twice insisted to me that John Knox Sex Club are the best live band in Scotland played a significant part in me asking them to play at Henry’s on Saturday.  Then I heard their version of Katie Cruel on the Sways Records Mixtape, and thought it was incredible.  And then I heard their new album Raise Ravens, and that was that. So I am really looking forward to tomorrow, I don’t know about you.

As for today, it really is unseasonably warm at the moment – almost creepily so.  I half expect Jeff Goldblum to come rushing in the door brandishing unfairly discredited research and demanding I help him get in touch with the president to explain how aliens are invading, or the dinosaurs are coming back, or a comet is about to collide with the planet or something like that.  It’s usually Jeff Goldblum who delivers that kind of news isn’t it?

I other news, the Eastern Promise even is taking place in Glasgow (well, Easterhouse actually, but that’s almost Glasgow) this weekend.  You can get the bus from Mono if you like, and tonight will see the appearance of the amazing Animal Magic Tricks, who was fucking great in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago, and tomorrow the return of the Scottish Independent Record Fair, where you can purchase assorted tat from the independent record labels of Scotland, amongst which we number our good selves.  You’ll be able to tell our stall, because it will be the one with all the best stuff on it.  Bwah-ha!

Actually, I’ll be there to set up, but will have to get back through to Edinburgh pretty sharpish for obvious enough reasons. In my absence, the stall will be manned by Wee Matthew, who has helped us out with all sorts of things, from filming to PR to screen-printing of album covers, over the last few years.

And so, before I even begin to try and get my head around another busy weekend, let’s just kick back and relax a bit, and spend the afternoon fannying about on the internet. My Fresh Air Show, incidentally, is likely to be on a Friday afternoon this year. Along with yon Brian from Trapped Mice/Loch Awe/Last Battle/etc etc etc… and possibly one other victim.  So erm, yes, even more wastage to Friday afternoons than usual!

1. Name a band who sound nothing like their name.
2. Era you romanticise the most.
3. Of all the people saving the world in disaster movies, who would you most want on the case if you had the choice.
4. Has there actually been a good ‘ZOMG it’s the end of teh wurld!!1!’ film that you can think of?
5. Kids’ movie you actually like.

Five songs from 2003/4 for your entertainment.

Rickie Lee Jones – Little Mysteries

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Laura Viers – Shadow Blues

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R.E.M. – Bad Day

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Shiva Burlesque – Do the Way

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The Jesus & Mary Chain – Just Like Honey

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Please note that this is called the Remmcast, rather than the Ariyemcast, for little better reason than that it sounds better.

R.E.M. split up this week, which is sort of like the death of an elderly relative: you know it’s sad, and you mourn the loss, but they hadn’t been themselves for a while, everyone knew it was probably coming, and maybe it’s for the best after all.

Due to not really wanting to pontificate too much, I haven’t really produced what could be in any way described as a ‘career retrospective’ or anything, nor have I really gone into much about their contemporaries or influences nor indeed the enduring influence they themselves have had.  Nope, I have simply recorded a podcast as per usual, but with three R.E.M. songs in it because they were fucking brilliant.

Direct download: Toadcast #193 – The Remcast

01. Ezra Furman & the Harpoons – Hard Time in a Terrible Land (00.26)
02. Burning Yellows – False Horizons (04.33)
03. R.E.M. – Perfect Circle (11.44)
04. The Twilight Sad – Kill it in the Morning (17.52)
05. Niwel Tsumbu – It’s All Vibrations (23.35)
06. R.E.M. – Star Me Kitten (33.03)
07. The Fair Ohs – I’m a Woman, I’m Your Wife (38:15)
08. Zoey Van Goey – You Told the Drunks I Knew Karate (GRNR Remix) (39.10)
09. The Whines – Electric Current (45.02)
10. Youthfall – Secular Child (49.01)
11. R.E.M. – Parakeet (59.47)

We nearly missed our anniversary again this year, but fortunately caught the fucker just in time.  We were heading off to Leith to get some scran and I was sitting at the bus stop thinking about how it was nearly August and then asked one of those stupid questions you ask when something is really obvious, but actually so obvious you become unsure of it:

“It’s July, right?”
“Yes, of course it is.”
“That means it must be nearly…” (hastily fishes in pocket for phone) “Fuck!  It’s our anniversary.  Today!”

When your wife forgets the thing entirely as well I guess it makes no difference, so instead of going to see something daft at the pictures, we went to a fishy place, had a seafood platter and bottle of champagne, before going for (a couple too many) cocktails at The Raconteur round the corner from our house.

Five years married.  Oh how happy we looked.  That didn’t last*.

Direct download: Toadcast #185 – The Weddingcast

01. Mazes – Summer Hits (00.22)
02. Frightened Rabbit – Fuck This Place (feat. Tracyanne Campbell) (05.49)
03. CD/EX – Tell the Girl (12.13)
04. Lab Coast – Astronaut Like Me (18.11)
05. Sauna Youth – Backgrounds (20.31)
06. Hookworms – Teen Dreams (26.52)
07. R.E.M. – Swan Swan H (Athens Demo) (41.33)
08. Admiral Radley – All Fucked on Beer (44.24)
09. Dolfinz – Coral Reefer (51.17)
10. Tom Waits – All the World is Green (59.01)

*Of course it fucking did, don’t be silly.  We’re the happiest fucking couple I know, despite spending 90% of our time together swearing at one another!

I called myself a novelty-whore in a review a little while back, and it’s something which I’ve been a little wary of for a while now: that I am so absorbed in the small-scale DIY end of the music industry that I have somehow lost my taste for famous bands.  Or worse, that I somehow filter out their excellence once they hit album number three or thereabouts, and henceforth hear only the sound of boredom.

I do wonder, sometimes, what my younger self would have made of disappointing recent albums by the likes of Grinderman, Iron & Wine, Bright Eyes and now, it would seem, REM.  I remember reviewing an album by the Rolling Stones many years ago – one heralded as the tedious “blistering return to form” by the proper music press -  and I think I described it as sounding ‘a bit like The Stones covering The Stones’ or something roughly along those lines.  Well the new REM is a bit like that.

I just can’t help but wonder if the me from six or seven years ago who got most of his music from Uncut or Word might have been more impressed with these albums – maybe I’ve just been pulled away by getting my nose too close to the grindstone, but I have genuinely lost almost all interest in bands of this size.

I just read Sean from Drowned in Sound say this on Twitter: “the Ladytron interview is getting serious traffic on DiS at the moment! And people wonder why we don’t DO little bands”.  I have the same issue here, but Sean is trying to run a business, and I am… well I am kind of, but not really.  Big bands mean more traffic, and the fact that I have stopped caring about reviewing albums by the likes of the above, or the new Mountain Goats album (avvvvverage) means that I am doing without the spikes in traffic these high-interest releases bring with them.

I take the opposite approach to DiS though, which is something you can do if you’re a bit smaller: I am absolutely not prepared to second-guess the content on Song, by Toad by the amount of readership it will attract.  Ruth, who does the Fresh Air show with me, pointed out how blogs haven’t called such and such a band (I forget who) out on being shite, and I said that many probably had, just by omission.

I used to write negative reviews on this site, but in all honesty, at the moment I really just can’t be arsed.  I sat down with that Bright Eyes album, and just couldn’t force myself to listen to it all the way through, never mind actually bother thinking of anything meaningful to say about it.  But I’ll take the hit in traffic just to keep the site focussed on things I genuinely give a shit about.

And this year, that means I have reviewed almost no major bands.   REM, Mountain Goats, Bright Eyes, Iron and Wine… just one really booooring record after another after another.  And I wonder if I have just been drawn so far away from mainstream music that I just don’t have the attention left over to properly absorb this stuff anymore.  But deep down I can’t help but suspect that it’s just down to the fact that some very famous bands have released some very, very average music so far this year.

I am Ruthless for this week’s show on Fresh Air Radio, so it will just be me prattling on by myself instead.  I have a John Darnielle tribute to the assault on organised labour in Wisconsion, I have the original version of that song, and I have some Withered Hand, in honour of his SXSW visa troubles.

Other than that, I am pretty worn out from a night of epic drinking in Stockton (which is not even Middlesbrough) last night after the excellent seminar thingy hosted by The Generator at which I (inevitably) drank and talked far too much.  There is a certain inevitability to these things, isn’t there.

Live from 8pm UK time – click here to listen.

As per usual the playlist will appear below as I play things, and feel free to swing by the comments and have your say.

1. Lil Daggers – Give Me the Pill
2. King Post Kitsch – Don’t You Touch My Fucking Honeytone
3. Meursault – And Butter Would Not Melt (from Jonnie Common’s Deskjob)
4. Withered Hand – No Cigarettes
5. Tom Waits – Anywhere I Lay My Head
6. John Darnielle – There is Power in a Union
7. The Louche FC – Only in a Dream
8. Irk the River – Mind That Child
9. The Son(s) – Radar
10. REM – It Happened Today
11. Billy Bragg – There is Power in a Union
12. Elbow – Jesus is a Rochdale Girl
13. David Thomas Broughton – Ain’t Got no Sole
14. Clem Snide – Pale Blue Eyes
15. Warm Ghost – Open the Wormhole in Your Heart
16. Dam Mantle – Grey
17. Dolfish – Your Love is Bummin’ Me Out
18. The Honey Pies – Hair of the Dog

The Stallcast you ask?  Yes indeed the Stallcast, because my brain is still stuck in neutral after the Christmas break and seems annoyingly resistant to being asked to function properly at the moment.  I’ve had half a week back ‘at work’, if I can really call it that, and I still feel like the the old grey custard is still spluttering a bit, rather than firing on all cylinders.

The playlist reflects this in many way too, because it’s a bit all over the place.  Good tunes though, although I suspect those amongst you with Haircuts might not be as impressed as others.

Anyhow, the mission for this week is to get fucking moving, clean out the foostiness in the brain and properly embark upon 2011.  A jump start may be needed, however.

Direct download: Toadcast #156 – The Stallcast

01. R.E.M. – It Happened Today (00.23)
02. Sin Fang – The Only Living Boy in New York (09.24)
03. Jamie Cameron – When You’re Almost Done, Run (15.14)
04. Johnny Hawaii – The Lonely Smurfer (20.10)
05. Speak & the Spells – She’s Dead (26.51)
06. Beth Gibbons & Rustin’ Man – Tom the Model (35.34)
07. Future Bible Heroes – A Thousand Lovers in a Day (39.09)
08. Kurt Vile – Jesus Fever (43.15)
09. Charles Latham – Hard On (48.25)
10. FOUND – Machine Age Dancing (55.39)

Fresh Air, after giving its hard-working students an entirely deserved and not at all excessive four months off over the Summer, is back on the interweb airwaves this week.  And you know what that means, don’t you?  Yes, Ruth calling me names for an hour and a half while we play songs!  Hooray!  Kind of.

We’ve been off the air for ages, and I actually haven’t seen Ruth all that much in the intervening time, so it will be nice to have a chat and catch up, although I promise to try and do most of that whilst the songs are playing so as not to bore you too much.

Live from 8pm (UK time) – listen here.

The player on the page linked to above can be a little flaky, so just pause and un-pause it and that should sort it out.  Alternatively I am pretty certain you can find us on iTunes quite easily.  We’ll be updating the playlist live below as we go along, so feel free to chip in with comments during the show and we’ll… well, probably just tell you to piss off, really.

1. Meursault – Crank Resolutions
2. Jackson C. Frank – Blues Run the Game
3. Sweet Baboo – I’m a Dancer
4. Onions – I Want to be a Dancer
5. The Decemberists – Down by the Water
6. The National – Terrible Love (New Version)
7. The Driftwood Singers – Coco Ellis
8. Oz St. Fossils – The Jeweller’s Daughter
9. Trips and Falls – I Learned Sunday Morning, on a Wednesday
10. REM – I Believe
11. Ray’s Vast Basement – The Story of Lee
12. Pet Shop Boys – What Have I Done to Deserve This?
13. Sparta Philharmonic – Devotion
14. Nick Drake – Blues Run the Game

Ha! Any excuse to shoe-horn a bit of vintage REM into the equation! Although I’ve probably desecrated five millennia of Chinese mythology by misappropriating it like that. Sorry!

So… Mr. and Mrs. Toad have invaded China to spread the good word of the amphibian god, Toad-Ra, and left Toad Enterprises Inc.â„¢ to its own devices, which leaves me in charge of copying-and-pasting stuff up onto the blog.

If you’d like to see your name up in lights on here over the next couple of weeks, like Martin did yesterday with his excellent gig review, just drop me a line - probably best to use the sunday(at)songbytoad(dot)com email address. Basically I’m trying to avoid writing too much and would prefer it if you lot did it all instead!

That photo of the little Feng Shui toad reminds me of a guy I used to work for in Cardiff. He ran a small but fairly successful chain of bars and restaurants, but then got all mystical on us and got into Feng Shui and all that self-help shit. He decided that what Cardiff really needed was a shop half-filled with distressingly hippy-dippy life-enhancement tat like healing crytals and dozens of little toads like that one in the picture, while the other half of the shop was filled with heaps of American self-help Anthony Robbins bollocks retailing at around £150 for a pack of six audio cassettes. The fella was forced to close the shop within a year. Fucking idiot.

Anyway, it wouldn’t be Friday without a five, would it? So here we go. Remember to delurkify yourself and get stuck into the bizarre, unpredicatable and frankly suggestive banter that usually occurs on a Friday. Hey, beats working.

1. If you were to visit China, what in particular would you make sure you experienced while you were there? (If you’ve already been - you can tell us what you enjoyed most.)

2. What dish do you always order from the Chinese take-away?

3. And the oddest Chinese thing you’ve ever eaten.

4. Do you practise any Feng Shui at home?

5. Happy-clappy shiny-shiny hippy-dippy Anthony Robbins self help plans. A genuine method to improve your life or a pile of hoary old arse?

And, look! Here’s five delicious tunes!

REM – Seven Chinese Brothers

China Drum – Wuthering Heights

China Crisis – Black Man Ray

Ed Harcourt – Shanghai

David Bowie – China Girl

We have been collecting for the lifeboats today and as usual we have had a massive, lovely meal prepared by my darling Mrs. Toad.  It was fucking awesome, I have to tell you, and anyone who wasn’t here truly did miss out.

We, and the RNLI, owe a massive debt of thanks to Sharon from the Wirral, Euan from The Kays Lavelle (and many other things), Peter from next door, Matthew from Glasgow (as of last week), Ella from the Last Battle, Lucy and Catherine from Mrs. Toad’s Finance Corp., Jamie from Broken Records, and Dylan and Ed who turned up and were nice but didn’t really do much, and of course the internationally renowned musical expert, the esteemed Dr. Millar.

In terms of actually making a difference, it’s worth pointing out that the collection in Stockbridge has hovered around the £200 mark for about the last thirty years, but since us young ‘uns have been involved that number has almost tripled, which is sort of nice.  It actually does make a big difference when you all turn up and show some enthusiasm and commit even just a few hours to helping out.  Charity people can be a bit pushy at times, so it gets a bit of a bad rap, but it really does make an important difference.  So thank you.  And hopefully we’ll see you all again next year.

Toadcast #120 – The Swing-O-Cast

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1. The Bonzo Dog Band – No Matter Who You Vote For, the Government Always Gets In (5.35)
2. Billy Bragg – The Marching Song of the Covert Battalions (13.27)
3. Wham! – Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do) (22.23)
4. Pet Shop Boys – Opportunites (28.59)
5. The Dead Kennedys – Kill the Poor (41.00)
6. Bruce Springsteen – Atlantic City (44.04)
7. REM – Ignoreland (52.33)
8. Pearl Jam – Bu$hleaguer (60.39)
9. Gao Yuqian, Liu Changyu, Qian Haoliang – The Party Has Taught Your Son to be a Man of Iron (80.01)
10. Erase Errata – Another Genius Idea from our Government (81.44)

Well I am Ruthless and bandless to begin this term’s broadcasts, so you’ll have to wait until next week for the first Toadly Fresh Air Session I’m afraid.

Having said that, however, I have a shiteload of excellent and very shiny new material to play tonight, so people wanting the pop hits are likely to be rather disappointed as there are few old favourites and lots of new demos which I am very much hoping will end up on albums before the end of the year.

Ruth will be back with me as of next week, but she’s currently nursing Michael H. Foxx, who is in hospital with the nasties.  So best wishes to both of them, but we’ll be back in the normal swing of things from next Monday onwards.

Live on Air 8pm-9.30pm – Listen live here.

Incidentally, if you know anyone who you would recommend for a live session, just get in touch in the comments or by email (see the contact page above).

This evening’s tracklisting (updated live):

1. Django Django – Storm
2. Liars – No Barrier Fun
3. Gobble Gobble – Lawn Knives
4. Robin Grey – I Love Leonard Cohen
5. Leonard Cohen – Avalanche
6. REM – First We Take Manhattan (Leonard Cohen Cover)
7. The Burns Unit – Since We’ve Fallen Out
8. The Van Allen Belt – The Way You Look
9. Trips and Falls – That is a Big Door!
10. Sarah Lowes – Night Time
11. Findo Gask – Full Five (Demo)
12. Yusuf Azak – Eastern Sun (Demo)
13. Meursault – All Creatures Will Make Merry

Meursault – Fresh Air Session

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Meursault – Love or Limb (Live on Fresh Air)

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Meursault – Untitled Triptych (Live on Fresh Air)

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Meursault – What You Don’t Have (Live on Fresh Air)

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Meursault – Heaven Waits (Live on FreshAir)

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