I received an email the other day from a friend of mine who records under the name of Scuff (MySpace here) tipping me off about a band he plays in called Fur Hood.  And they’re good.

It’s sort of twee, with lazy harmonies and an unhurried pace, which creates something of the atmosphere of a prohibitively hot Summer’s day.  They use quite staccato rhythms and some genuinely eccentric percussion, which sounds like their playing the contents of their dishwasher.  On top of these two elements drift washes of melodic electronica, somewhat reminiscent of the likes of Dubstar and Saint Etienne’s dreamier material.

I think that why this works for me is the interplay between the retro-sounding indie pop of Always Tomorrow and the far less mellifluous rattle and stumble of Yellow Yellow Always Yellow.  They seem to be able to veer between the lush and comfortable one one hand and the weirdly experimental on the other that you find yourself never really knowing what to expect.  This makes each song something of an emotional challenge – a relief when it stays pretty and exciting when it doesn’t.

From five songs you can’t always tell that much, but this is a really promising start if you ask me.

Fur Hood – Circles & Stairs

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Fur Hood – Yellow Yellow the Colour Yellow

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This is just an overspilling of all the shiny new things I have in my inbox this week.  It’s so fabulously up to the minute that there are songs in here which only landed in my inbox yesterday.  There’s a slightly sneaky legend making an appearance as well, in the shape of Jason Lytle.  Jason was the lead singer of Grandaddy, a legendary group who disbanded back in about, erm, 2006 or so, leading to Jason moving to a house out in Montana and apparently giving up on the idea of making a living out of music altogether.

The thing is, music is an art form, and no-one makes a fucking living out of making art.  The only exceptions are deplorable cunts like Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and fucking Bono, so please can we dispel the idea that art is a profession.  It’s not a job, nor a career, it’s a fucking calling; an obsession.  Of course, the good news for us fans is that, because it’s a calling rather than a job, Mr. Lytle was never likely to stay away forever.  If you care about something it’s almost impossible to stop yourself doing it.  Believe me, I know – I feel the same way about masturbation (sorry, not that funny, I know).

Oooh, by the way, I was very macho this evening.  I got home and I opened the gate to find some random chump sitting on our steps drinking beer.  So I bellowed with rage, grabbed him by the lapels and flung him out into the street, shouting angry man things like ‘get the fuck out of my fucking house you cunt or I’ll fucking batter you fucking senseless’ and other well known aristotelian arguments.  Unfortunately, as is often the case with fighting, one proved vastly less capable than the other, and he apologised and asked for the rest of his beer back and acknowledged that he was in the wrong.  Christ that made me feel like a prick and a bully.  So I ended up pointing out that my wife was small and that if she came home and found someone sitting on our steps drinking beer she’d have been scared, and that I was sorry for being so violent and please just bugger off etc etc.  He agreed and apologised and basically took all the fun out of being an alpha male, the bastard.  Christ, I might have to wait ten years to be that macho again, why did he have to ruin it for me?

Toadcast #53 – Shiny!

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01. Orouni – A Greased & Golden Palm (05.47)
02. The Gillyflowers – Country Boy (09.25)
03. Trips & Falls – And in Real Life He Wears Corduroy Pants (16.45)
04. Ragged Claws – On the Death of an Emperor (25.00)
05. Findo Gask – Wrapped in Plastic (Live) (32.00)
06. Enfant Bastard – Landscape Painting is Easy (36.23)
07. Scuff – Sailing Three Sheets to the Wind (40.56)
08. Jason Lytle – Birds Encouraged Him (Live at Maps) (47.34)
09. Auld Lang Syne – Where My Fortune Lies (51.01)
10. Scott Pinkmountain & the Golden Bolts of Tone – Abyssinia (58.24)

This is a recommendation from Sparrow & the Workshop, albeit one I am finally latching onto properly something like six months after I was initally tipped off during their Toad Session.

The band, or nom-de-guerre I suppose, in question is Scuff, and there are still only three songs on his MySpace page, so I suppose things have hardly been progressing with a frantic sense of urgency in his part of the world either.  Only three perhaps, but they are really good songs.    The only sentence on the MySpace page that offers any sort of insight into what we’re listening to is this one:

band stuff can get complicated and it’s nice just to be able to play a bunch of songs that you like

The songs sound just like that as well.  I maintain that the Scots, and the Glaswegians in particular, have a unique flair for a characteristic form of rambling interior monologue.  These are rendered special by their signature blend of grandeur and melodrama, mixed with irony and scathing self-mockery.  They are simultaneously entirely serious and entirely tongue-in-cheek and I have never really heard their like elsewhere.

Scuff’s lyrics, coupled with that one line about eschewing the complications of bands, seem to put this music in a similar sort of territory.  It’s one side of a random personal conversation, delivered in an open, uncontrived manner, and it really works.  The guitar style is really nice as well and I don’t know how many more songs like this Scuff (Dougie, if I remember correctly) has in him, but I for one am very keen to hear more.

Scuff – Sailing 3 Sheets to the Wind

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Scuff – Step a Little Closer

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Christ this has taken me ages. We recorded this in late August after myself and Mrs. Toad came back from the States, but the intervention of the End of the Road Festival and an unspeakable disaster with video tape has delayed this beyond the bounds of pretty much everyone’s patience. I eventually had to give up trying to extricate video from chewed tapes and make do with the video we actually had, which has been bloody frustrating.

As per usual we have the videos all posted either on the Toad Vimeo page (the best quality) and YouTube (more accessible). We also have pictures taken by both my friend Morgan, who is also the official Song, by Toad camerman, and Dylan as well. Dylan has all his pictures, including these, on his own sit Blueback Hotrod, and we’ve also uploaded them to the Song, by Toad Flickr page as well. So, firstly, here is the podcast, with the tracklisting at the bottom of the page:

Toadcast #46 – Sparrow & the Workshop Toad Session

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Here are the session tracks themselves as downloadable, shareable and loveable mp3s:

Sparrow & the Workshop – Last Chance (Toad Session)

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Sparrow & the Workshop – Magic Tricks (Toad Session)

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Sparrow & the Workshop – The Gun (Toad Session)

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Sparrow & the Workshop – My Crime (Toad Session)

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First we have the overall video, and then a couple of videos for individual songs:

Toadcast #46 – Sparrow & the Workshop Toad Session Playlist:
01. Sparrow & the Workshop – Last Chance (Toad Session) (07.21)
02. Scuff – Step a Little Closer (10.14)
03. Skeeter Davis – My Last Date With You (17.50)
04. Micah P. Hinson – Come Home Quickly Darling (21.22)
05. Sparrow & the Workshop – Magic Tricks (Toad Session) (26.19)
06. Rob St. John – Tipping In (30.17)
07. Langhorne Slim – Restless (35.27)
08. Sparrow & the Workshop – The Gun (41.50)
09. The Everley Brothers – Crying in the Rain (46.56)
10. The Skids – Into the Valley (48.51)
11. Sparrow & the Workshop – My Crime (Toad Session) (58.25)