HIYAAAAAAA!  I am a little bit wired this morning, can you tell?  After the onslaught of SXSW (which I will stop mentioning now, promise) I get back to the print press promo work for the King Post Kitsch album, a Josh T. Pearson session at Stereo in Glasgow this afternoon and the Husband, Miaoux Miaoux and Justin Grounds gig at Medina tomorrow.  You are all coming to that aren’t you?  ALL of you!

Oh, and the annual lifeboat collection day has been announced.  With a government seemingly intent on turning us into a third world nation (no social services, massive gap between rich and poor, what other conclusion can there be?) it feels more important than ever that we participate in things like this.  Voting seems to make no fucking difference whatsoever, so more day-to-day stuff looks like just about the only way you can really participate in democracy in this country at the moment.  Christ, I sound like a bitter old Socialist don’t I!

Anyway, on Saturday 30th April any and all volunteers should convene at our house in Stockbridge and we’ll send people out to shake a tin, while Mrs. Toad prepares a big old roast and then in the evening we can eat like pigs and get bladdered.  From experience, the most effective collectors have been anyone wielding a baby (Euan), pretty girls (better not name names here) and pushy bastards (thank you Mr. Sutherland), but we’ll pretty much take anyone, so please do let me know if you’d like to help.

So, as the sun shines on Edinburgh and I contemplate a cup of tea in the back garden, please remember that Friday is de-lurking day, and the perfect time to come out of the intershadows and say hello.  Fill in your five and then talk baws* with everyone else.  Productivity is most severely frowned upon around here, but most especially so on Friday.

1. Which festival are you most looking forward to this year?
2. Name a song for the first warm, sunny day of the year.
3. What do you tend to have with your cuppa?
4. How will you waste time, next time you have the opportunity?
5. How do you take your eggs?

This week’s five songs were all introduced to me by Campfires & Battlefields, with whom I ended up sharing far too few pints in Texas last week.

Bowerbirds – In Our Talons

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Musee Mechanique – Like Home

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Sam Amidon – Little Johnny Brown

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Bodies of Water – We Are Co-Existors

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Salt & Samovar – Swallowed a Pill

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*For non-Scots, baws = nuts, bollocks, rambutans, balls, testicles, etc etc etc.  As in ‘bawsack’ – excellent Scottish vulgarity!

Erm, hiya. C&B here. I’m one of Matthew’s multiple personalities, and he and the lovely Mrs. Toad have left me to guard the valuables while they traipse off on one of their debauched “swinger” weekends to some Sandals resort in the Caribbean, where they’re undoubtedly lounging half-naked by the floating bar and sipping flourescent blue cocktails as we speak. Bon voyage, you little dickenses!  If anyone believes that whole Homegame story, well, you have my pity.

Lest you suspect that the Toad has left the fox in charge of the henhouse, I can assure you that I am far too inept at matters technical to do any lasting damage to this budding media empire.  In fact, I myself am a grotesquely nerdy fan of Song, by Toad, and so it turns out that Matthew has unwittingly left the family jewels in trustworthy hands after all.  You know what I mean (filthy bastards).

Anyhow, I can say without a trace of irony that it’s all about joy hereabouts.  To me, anyway.  JOY!  If you’re like me then many of the songs you’ve heard on this blog will have left you exhilarated and puffed up about music, with the Broken Records’ performance on the first-ever Toad Session being just the most recent example.  And since this is ‘da house of mirt’, I want to say a few words about a Brooklyn band I’ve recently discovered called Salt & Samovar.  They have a newish self-produced record out aptly titled “Old Joy, New Joy,” and I suppose if pressed we could agree to call it a study in gospel-revival psych-garage honky-tonk swing.  Yes, that’ll do.  Lots of hand clapping, foot stomping, piano tinkling, lovely full-throated boy-girl vocal harmonies and even some face-melting axework from lead singer/guitarist D.S. Moltz.

But the extra ingredient is love.  Each copy of the record is handcrafted by the band and contains a 16-page “hymnal” containing sheet music and lyrics.  On album opener “Swallowed A Pill,” Moltz sings without inhibition of the melodies that ensnared him and that have inhabited his dreams from the cradle.

It’s A Sorrow To See
How It’s Entrapped Me
Such A Beautiful
Misery

Perhaps I’m a gross sentimentalist, but this inspires me.  I want to be IN this band.  Oh!  And for what it’s worth, my wife may be an even bigger fan than I.  So you see, Salt & Samovar literally brings families closer together.  Is there anything they can’t do?

O! Be joyful!

Salt & Samovar – Swallowed a Pill
Salt & Samovar – What Can You Expect

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