Helloooooo… once again Brian and myself will be gracing, if that’s the right word, the airwaves of Fresh Air Student Radio this afternoon.  We will also be introducing a new member of the team, the lovely and lively El Parks, who you might know from The Electric Circus. And if you don’t, you’ll soon know her from the show.

As per usual, the show will be kicking off at half past three this afternoon, and we will guide you lovingly through the last couple of tedious hours of work, before pub o’clock sweeps in like an avenging angel of inebriational joy to rescue us all from another week in our dingy offices.  Or wherever it is you happen to be foostering about this week.

On air from 3:30om: listen live here.
Or iTunes: Radio – College/University – Fresh Air, The Alternative

In the meantime, it’s de-lurking time on Song, by Toad, as it always is on Friday afternoon.  Those of you who fly by and point an laugh, why not take the chance to fritter away your afternoon answering the following five daft questions.  And then listen to us on the radio, because it will be awesome.

1. Expression or word you use all the time which you wish you could stop using.
2. Thing you wish you could have been the one to discover.
3. One great thing about living hundreds of years ago.
4. And one bad thing.
5. Coffee break routine.

The playlist for the radio show will appear live below as we go along:
1. Zed Penguin
2. PET – What You Building
3. Grandpa Was a Lion – In a Dream
4. Lady North – It’s All About Gettin’ That Claude Monet
5. Weird Era – Summer Heights
6. Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Get the Fever Out
7. Plastic Animals – Pirate DVDs
8. Mastodon – Black Tongue
9. Magic Arm – Daft Punk is Playing at My House
10. Luna – Sweet Child O’ Mine
11. Jack Steadman – Beatplate (Remix)
12. PAWS – A Romance in Lower Mathematics

I received a leaked copy of this album ages ago, and I was so intent on not leaking it any further that I’ve ended up completely missing the release date, and consequently only now writing a review I should have penned weeks ago – sorry!

It’s fair to say that I’ve been waiting for some time for this.  One of my readers, Campfires & Battlefields, introduced us all to Samantha Crain over a year ago and since then she has become one of my favourite emerging artists on one of my favourite record labels – Ramseur in North Carolina.  We interviewed her and guitarist Jacob at last year’s Pickathon Festival in Portland, and they were genuinely lovely people, so I’ve been looking forward to this album for ages now.

Miss Crain sings with a remarkable amount of world-weary pathos for someone only twenty-two years old, and that sense of tristesse permeates this album.  It gives it a degree of gravitas and also, crucially, makes it incredibly emotionally engaging. The combination of beautifully penned lyrics and her lovely voice – rich yet vulnerable – convey an integrity and a sincerity few have matched, to my ears, for some years now.

In terms of the arrangements and how the music is actually assembled, I do have a couple of minor quibbles though.  Apart from the vaguely punk-tinged Bullfight, this whole album is a basic guitar/bass/drums setup with pretty consistent fundamental rhythms throughout – slightly folky, slightly country.  There is definitely a uniformity of sound from start to finish which I think could perhaps have done with some breaking up here and there.  Something a bit rockier perhaps, a little fiddle or banjo maybe, or perhaps a fiercer number where they rock out a little – just something a little different.  There are also a couple of tracks I would accuse of being a little stodgy, not least the title track which is just about my least favourite.

Not withstanding that small criticism, this album contains some of the best songs I’ve heard in fucking ages.  Rising Sun, Let the Fever Out, Long Division, Devils in Boston… the list goes on. They have just the right pace to them, mix sadness with a kind of silent optimism, and a gentle base with a more biting instinct which producesa kind of defiance which is genuinely uplifting.

So whilst I don’t quite hear an album that I would call a Great Record, I definitely do hear a lot of truly great songs written by a genuinely talented performer and songwriter who I firmly believe has a talent which is really quite special.  Very good work indeed.

Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Rising Sun

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Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Devils In Boston

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Website | More mp3s | Buy from Ramseur Records

It’s that time of the week once more, when I pop over to Fresh Air Towers and pollute the airwaves of Edinburgh’s innocent student population with my ranting and rambling for a couple of hours.  Yes, I am on Edinburgh’s student radio station between the hours of 6.30pm and 8pm this evening (British Summer Time, I think)

To listen, go to the Fresh Air homepage and click on the big Listen Live button in the top left.

I’ll update this post with the playlist as I go along, and you should all feel free to chip in with comments here and there, should you have anything to add, or just generally feel abusive.  Oh, and apparently I was voted Best Specialist Show at the awards on Saturday, while I was rather ungratefully off getting pished at Trampoline so, er, sorry guys and thanks very much.

1. Monty Python Theme Song (Oh yes, yes I did!)
2. Cherry Ghost – Mathematics
3. Elk City – Los Cruzados
4. Tom Waits – Just the Right Bullets
5. Barton Carroll – Those Days Are Gone and My Heart is Breaking
6. Helicopter Girl – Cry Mississippi
7. Lucky Jim – Our Troubles End Tonight
8. Sad Day For Puppets – Little Light
9. Haunted House – Rattled Out in Makeup
10. Donny Hue & the Colors – Oh Lord
11. Tom Waits – What Keeps Mankind Alive
12. Eels – Devil’s Dog
13. Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Bananfish Revolution
14. American Music Club – Mantovani the Mind Reader
15. Tom Waits – Bad Liver and a Broken Heart

That’s all for this week, folks.  Tune in again next week, same time, for the last show this semester.

Hello, and welcome back to the slowly restarting new year of swearing and complaining here on Song, by Toad.  Don’t be too perturbed by the look of the thing.  This is not the final design, but as I am not a web designer it will have to do until I can figure out exactly what I want, lay it out properly, and then ask someone to code it for me.  That won’t be for a month or two though, so settle in for now and just ignore some of the crapper elements of the design – they won’t be permanent.

In other news, we have some splendid plans for 2009, so it should be another exciting (exhausting) year.  We are trying to get Meursault moving and arrange a couple of tours for them, which will be tedious.  We have a whole list of new releases for this year, including two Meursault 7″ singles, a split 12″ with the The Builders & the Butchers and Loch Lomond, the Loch Lomond album Paper the Walls is getting a UK release, Maxwell Panther and The Savings & Loan will be releasing records… and that’s just the ones we already know about.

In news more related to this site, rather than the label, we have Samamidon and The Pictish Trail now firmly booked in to record Toad Sessions before the end of January, there are plans to expand our coverage of Pickathon, Homegame and the End of the Road Festival, and of course increase the number of interviews and get a bit more video onto the site, as discussed in the previous thread.

So, I am not one for new year’s resolutions, but I am also incredibly lazy, so that’s what you’re getting for this Friday’s Favourites, as pinched from GUT.  If you want to suggest a Five at any point, just email me.  The music is taken from five of my favourite EPs from last year, as a sort of apology for not having a list on which they could be included.  I’ll try and put that right in 2009, but… ah, fuck it, that’s ages away.  Enjoy the new year, Toadlings.

1. Give us a new year’s resolution.
2. Recommend one for someone else.
3. Most anticipated 2009 release.
4. First gig of the year.
5. Suggest a quote for Toad t-shirt of the week.  T-shirt of the week you say?  Why yes, that’s just what I said.

Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – The Last Stanchion Goes Belly-Up

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The Avett Brothers – Murder in the City

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Passion Pit – Sleepyhead

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The Young Republic – Shiloh

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Over the Wall – Thurso

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Hello You.

This Wednesday 24th December (Christmas Eve, naturellement), at or around abouts 10pm GMT (USA: 2pm PST + 3pm MST + 4pm CST + 5pm EST; Europe: 11pm CET), splashed all over the interwaves via the usual birdshit splatter pattern, for your listening consideration, will be The Waiting Room Christmas Eve 3hr Best Of 2008 Round-Up Show.

On this very (quite, in this case, literally) Eve we, one half of Drunk Country & The Woman of The House, will be dishing out thoughtfully considered Gold Guitar Pick of Excellence ‘Awards’* to the lucky Nominee(s) what is found to be the Best Of in their particular category.

It’s almost like a real end of year music award’s show but with less drinking & no Gallagher brothers.

Below, then, is the list of Categories & Nominees, 34 Artistes + 34 Songs. We have rather cruelly (although this is clearly a cynical attempt at injecting some tension into the proceedings) refrained from listing the Nominees in the last 2 Categories. Those will be revealed on the night. Mwah, I believe, Ha Ha, indeed, Ha.

So, there you go.  This took us AGES to compile from thousands of songs listened to & playlisted over the whole of this past year. *PHEW* just does not cut it. 2008 was simply awash with brilliance, surprises, genius & plain old breathtaking musicalisation. Oh, & singing.

The list, then:

Best “What The Fuck Was That?!”

1) Celebrity Chimp – Celebrity Chimp

2) The Just Joans – Hey Boy… You’re Oh So Sensitive

3) Aidan John Moffat – Cunts

4) Eagleowl – Motherfucker

5) The Theatre Fire – Coyote

6) Joe Rodger & The Velcro Quartet – Suddenly They Realised…

Best Cover Versions

1) Robin Grey – There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis (Kirsty MacColl cover)

2) Erlend Ropstad – 7 (Prince cover)

3) The Miserable Rich – Over & Over (Hot Chip cover)

4) Taken By Trees – Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns ‘n’ Roses cover)

Best Contenders for a Bond Theme

1) Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan – Come On Over (Turn Me On)

2) The Last Shadow Puppets – In My Room

3) Get Well Soon – You/Aurora/You/Seaside

4) Hour Of The Shipwreck – Unclouded Eyes

Best Emotional Blackmail

1) Porlolo – Turning On Heels

2) Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers – Beloved, We Have Expired

3) The Dø – Stay (Just A Little Bit More)

4) Meaghan Smith – 5 More Minutes

5) Ane Brun – Don’t Leave

6) Plants & Animals – Bye Bye Bye

Best Pound Down The Back of The Sofa

Nominees 1-8 = a big fat question mark

Best Song of 2008

Nominees 1-6 = a bigger, fatter question mark

The podcast will be available, as we say, sometime tomorrow around 10pm (we have very limited access where we are headed for the holidays, so bear with us).

It remains only for us to wish every one of you all the very best this Christmas holiday & to remind you that our 3hr New Year’s Eve 2008 Jukebox show will be on (just like the title reads) Wednesday 31st December, from 10pm-1am GMT. See the New Year in with us, why don’t you?  (Yah, fucking right…).

Thanks for tuning in & listening. It’s been a heck of a year.

MC & a HNY,

½DC + TWoTH

*when we say ‘Awards’, what we really mean is  we will email a picture of a solid Gold Guitar Pick of Excellence – we’re not that unhinged that we’d actually fork out for 6 solid gold plectrums. Jesus, no.

This podcast contains a large number of songs from albums which I didn’t really enjoy enough to want to review, but which nevertheless contained some excellent songs. I never want to give a small or emerging band a shitty review because it just feels mean. For me there’s a certain threshold to be reached, after which you are fair game for anything I feel like saying because, frankly, why would you care, but smaller bands are never going to get a really hard time on this site. Unless they behave like dicks of course, but I digress.

A lot of these albums contain songs I really like, but only one or two, and I really wanted them to be heard. Also, given that your music taste and mine probably only partially overlap anyway (otherwise it would just be creepy) I think it’s quite possible you might disagree and want to explore further. It always amazes me how seriously people can take my opinion, as some sort of self-appointed arbiter of musical worthiness, when neither I nor any other critic is any better placed or more worthy to judge than any random fanny off the street. The only thing that sets us apart is not musical judgment, it’s the slightly dubious compulsion to constantly be writing or talking about it for some unknown reason.

Anyway, that’s only about half a dozen songs on this list, the rest are just there either because they don’t entirely belong anywhere else, hence the Orphaned Songs title, and partly because I just felt like it. Enjoy…

Toadcast #39 – Orphaned Songs

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01. Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Let the Fever Out (HearYa Live Session) (02.40)
02. Passion Pit – Sleepyhead (07.30)
03. The Hurricanes – Down Below (13.46)
04. Simon Bookish – Dumb Terminal (21.30)
05. Adam & the Amethysts – Bumble Bee (23.49)
06. KiNo – Won’t Do (29.29)
07. Rags & Feathers – Silent Movie Starlets (33.04)
08. Woodpigeon – Home as a Romaticised Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always & Forever (37.39)
09. Eagle Seagull – I’m Sorry but I’m Beginning to Hate Your Face (44.56)
10. Meursault – Westward, Ho (51.53)
11. Sun Kil Moon – Carry Me Ohio (57.26)

I actually know very little about Samantha Crain.  Campfires & Battlefields, one of my regular readers and frequently a kind babysitter of the site when I am absent, emailed me a couple of her mp3s a while back and that was the first time I’d even heard of her.  C&B’s excitement was was obvious, and I have to confess my own pretty much matched his the second I heard her gorgeous, soulful voice break out across the bluesy foundation of the wonderfully sad songs which she writes.

That voice is so rich, knowing and, well, experienced I suppose, that her youth seems almost inconceivable.  21 is still pretty young, and the solidity and presence of the band belie the fact that as a group they are still only just settling on their sound – only just establishing their identity, it seems.  In fact, Samantha herself is only just starting to explore the kind of songs that she herself can write.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been waiting for this for a while, and it is bloody lovely.  Campfires & Battlefields, perhaps one of my oldest readers (in both senses), introduced me to Samantha Crain a few months ago, and I’ve been waiting for this to make an appearance ever since.

It’s quite an old album actually.  Samantha recorded it herself and made it available as a self-release a couple of years ago, but since she is now signed to Ramseur Records they thought a formal re-release would be a good thing.  Since then the band has stabilised a little and there are plenty of new songs raring to go, so hopefully it won’t be long before we are hearing even more from this particular neck of the Oaklahoma woods.

The record itself is an absolute beauty.  The music is basically a kind of gentle, bluesy rock ‘n’ roll, with a little bit of folk folded in there for good measure, but Samantha’s voice has a wonderfully graceful soul quality to it which is the absolute clincher for me.  I honestly could listen to her sing all day long.  She’s still finding her feet a little as a songwriter and evolving her sound as she does, but this sounds very mature.  Maybe it’s the voice, or maybe the slow, confident pace, but it does not sound like the first work of a fledgling musician.

I can’t wait for the new stuff, but until then this is five songs of true beauty, and there is plenty to keep us engaged while we wait.

Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Beloved, We Have Expired

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy From Ramseur Records

This is the podcast to accompany all the Portland and Pickathon things I’ve been slowly but surely writing up over the course of the last couple of weeks.  With all the video to edit it may take a while to get it all sorted, but just follow this Pickathon search and you’ll find it all.  My full review of the festival is here.

This is a musical journey through our trip, from the Shaky Hands and The Builders & the Butchers who got us out there, to Eef Barzelay who we saw in Portland, several bands from the Pickathon Festival and even a song from Ray Rude’s Gameboy pop outfit Operation Mission.

It’s rather shorter than usual, but that is part of a new strategy: shorter podcasts more often.  I am going to try and go for once a week, and make them a maximum of an hour long.  I can’t promise anything, but I am going to try, and I think this might be a better approach for all of us, frankly.

Toad’s Pickathon pictures | Toad Vimeo page | Other Pickathon Features

Toadcast #34 – The Portland Podcast

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01. The Shaky Hands – A New Parade (2.20)
02. The Builders & the Butchers – When It Rains (08.47)
03. Eef Barzelay – Numerology (12.21)
04. Operation Mission – Aqueous (19.30)
05. Lackthereof – Choir Practise (23.22)
06. Langhorne Slim – Restless (31.20)
07. Bombadil – Cavalier’s Har Hum (40.47)
08. Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Beloved, We Have Expired (43.26)
09. Oz St. Fossils – Jeweller’s Daughter (53.54)
10. Loch Lomond – Tic (59.49)
11. The Cave Singers – Cold Eye (66.34)

DC is giving away all sorts of goodies on The Waiting Room this week. In fact, he’s giving away all sorts of things that I would rather like to win myself, bar a couple of things which I have already. I was supposed to write this last week, but given it appears I have some sort of Black Belt in Fuckwittery, I managed to miss it by a week. Idiot.

Anyhow, all you have to do is listen to last week’s episode and email DC with the weight, pounds or kilos, of his suitcase when he flew back from the States the other week. The podcast itself is mostly about that trip and the bands he encountered there, so there should be bags of good things to listen to. I’m just downloading it myself, so I’ll be listening in a wee while.

Last week’s Waiting Room – the one with the competition.

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Anyway, the goodies to give away are as follows:

The Builders & Butchers / Loch Lomond split 12″ – signed by The Builders & The Butchers
The Builders & Butchers Debut CD Album – signed by The Builders & The Butchers
Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers T-Shirt – size Adult Medium (US)
Anni Rossi CD Albums Scandia + Insects Kissing
Parethetical Girls 7″ Picture Disc + CD Album Safe As Houses
The Jones Street Boys CD Album Overcome
Or, The Whale CD Album Light Poles & Pines

I can promise you, that Builders & the Butchers album is still the best thing I’ve heard since I tiptoed in to the blogosphere a couple of years ago, and Loch Lomond are brilliant. Samantha Crain is bloody marvellous too, and I’m really looking forward to seeing her at Pickathon in a couple of weeks, and to hearing her new album. When Mrs. Toad and I get drunk, The Builders & the Butchers is pretty much the first thing we reach for in the evening. The only row is whether to play Black Dresses or Spanish Death Song first.

The Builders & the Butchers – Bottom of the Lake
Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Bananafish
Loch Lomond – Nothern Knees, Trees, and Lights