Song, by Toad

It’s not quite so mental this week on Edinburgh’s live circuit.  There are quite a few interesting gigs, but not all that many unmissable ones, so I think it might be easier to pick and choose a couple without overburdening yourself.  Last week’s strategy of driving to gigs in order to prevent excessive alcohol consumption proved extremely successful (until the weekend, but then the weekend is supposed to be for fun so bugger off, besides, it’s not every day your label has an EP launch party) so I might just continue it this week.  In any case, I have three five-a-side football games this week, so it may just be necessary anyway, whatever I personally may wish to do.

Monday 14th September 2009: Jeremy Jay, Tisso Lake & the Colourful Band at the Bowery.

Jeremy Jay is a K Records star, a label give considerable love by Ruth from the Bowery when she made an appearance on the Toadcast a couple of weeks ago.  Ian from Tisso Lake has a gorgeous voice and a lovely guitar sound and while I haven’t seen him with a full band before, he is rather Rob St. Johnish (*sniff, bye Rob) when he plays solo.  The Colourful Band are from Leith and while their recorded material can seem a little lacking in real conviction, there is definitely a lot of potential there, so I will be very interested to see them live to get a better idea of what they are really like as a band.

Jeremy Jay – Beautiful Rebel

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Tuesday 15th September 2009: Brook Pridemore at the Forest Cafe.

[This has shifted to the Forest Cafe from the Bowery] Anyone who saw Dan Costello at the Bowery last Monday will know that Brook is his drummer, and will be breathlessly waiting for him to sing Breakup Song for Brook Pridemore to Sing, written by Mr. Costello with the fairly obvious intention that it be sung by erm…  yes, Gary Barlow, that was it.  Apart from that, I have little idea what to expect, but if he plays with anything like as light a touch and generous-spirited a nature as Costello himself then this will be a really enjoyable night.

Tuesday 15th September 2009: Theoretical Girl at Sneaky Pete’s.

[Edit: due to the cancellation of the support acts, anyone mentioning Song, by Toad at the door will be given free entry - bloody excellent!] I am not entirely sure about Theoretical Girl, but there’s definitely something interesting going on there, so if New York anti-folk isn’t quite your bag then this slightly theatrical, often piano-led, somewhat Dubstar-esque lady is well worth investigating.

Theoretical Girl – Another Fight

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Wednesday 16th September 2009: Jesus H. Foxx, Second Hand Marching Band & Wounded Knee at the Wee Red Bar.

We all know how good I think the Foxx are, but I am also bloody delighted to get the chance to catch the Second Hand Marching Band again.  They encompass a lot of styles, from carnival folk, to more mysterious, dreamy territory and I haven’t seen them for ages.

Second Hand Marching Band – Mad Sense

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Thursday 17th September 2009: Whispertown 2000, Joe McAdam (from the New York Fund) & No Pasaran at Sneaky Pete’s.

I liked the Whispertown 2000 debut album, maybe not quite enough to review it, but enough to be fascinated by their music.  They’re getting bigger, too, and I think they are about to play the End of the Road Festival, so they could be on the verge of making a bit of a breakthrough.

Whispertown 2000 – Done With Love

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Friday 19th September 2009: Beerjacket & Emily Scott play Trampoline at the Wee Red Bar.

Despite threatening suicide on a number of occasions, Trampoline soldiers on, as the one of the best and most consistently under-publicised nights in Edinburgh.  Of the bands on Song, by Toad Records I saw two for the first time at Trampoline shows, and the lineups are almost all excellent.

They have a couple more bodies on board now – Dave and Michael from The Stormy Seas/Shipping Forecast Garden Party/ex-Rubix – so I am really hoping they can push this onto a new level.  The lineups are almost always top notch, and I think as a night it should really benefit from the extra help, because it deserves to be a lot bigger than it is.  Euan wrote about Beerjacket when he was babysitting this blog in June, so I am really looking forward to seeing them for the first time.

Saturday 20th September 2009: The Declining Winter, Conquering Animal Sound & Fieldhead at the Bowery.

I might not be a massive fan of the Declining Winter myself, but I am bloody delighted to see Tracer Trails back promoting gigs again.  The current groundswell of belief in the Edinburgh musical community owes an awful lot to the work done by Tracer Trails a couple of years ago, who consistently brought left-field artists, often of some renown, to Edinburgh and hence, along with the now defunct I Fly Spitfires, did an enormous amount to actually make Edinburgh a place good bands would seriously consider putting on their tour schedule.  They also both made a huge contribution to actually building the audiences for this kind of music, giving subsequent promoters a confidence that there were people who would come, if they put on shows themselves.

Both promoters pretty much vanished, just as their labour was beginning to bear fruit for everyone else, which was a huge shame, so it’s really brilliant to see Tracer Trails back in business.  I urge you all to go along and show your support, because it would be great to see them back on the list of reliably excellent and challenging promoters we have around at the moment.

This is our first attempt at a stunt podcast, live from a festival.  We go to festivals and I am trying to figure out how much work I can make for myself without taking the fun out of the festival for myself, or just generally trying too hard.

I didn’t really set up any interviews this time around – no, not even Billy Bragg – but I did manage to grab Mark from emerging Glasgow band The Seventeenth Century for a chat.  The audio is terrible, I’m afraid, but it should be just about audible.  If I’d been able to locate the keys for the Toad van at that point we’d have gone in there, just for a respite from the wind noises on the recording and the colossal amount of bleed from the main stage.

In any case, it should be entertaining enough, I hope, and with a bit of luck subsequent attempts at the same thing will be a lot better.

Toadcast #79 – The Wickerman

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01. The Cave Singers – Beach House (04.04)
02. Julian Plenti – The Fun That We Had (07.31)
03. The Second Hand Marching Band – Mad Sense (15.37)
04. The Seventeenth Century – Mid October (22.59)
05. Celebrity Chimp – Pornstar (35.37)
06. The Lemonheads – The Outdoor Type (40.00)
07. The Human League – All I Ever Wanted (47.11)
08. The Go Team! – Feelgood by Numbers (50.25)
09. Meursault – Lament For a Teenage Millionaire (59.16)

This week I discovered Women’s Shoes Syndrome.  I wore leather shoes for the first time in something like six years on Saturday and Christ am I paying the price now.  I’m sure the women reading this are most likely to be making comments along the lines of men not being able to take the suffering and not really understanding the concept of pain and childbirth is shit etc etc etc but that really isn’t my question.  My question is Why?  Honestly, if it’s always this painful, why the fuck do you bother?  It’s the equivalent of a child burning itself on the stove.  If, after repeatedly causing yourself considerable pain, you do not cease to do the thing which causes you pain then what the fuck is in your head?  That’s crazy talk.  Meet your new friend, Mr. Pair of Trainers – comfortable, soft and will never bite you angrily in the heel for no reason.  Christ, how much better do you think these things make you look, that you’re prepared to go through this every goddam time?

In other news, tonight I will be commencing work on a painting for the next Toad Records release, because it really is high time that was finished.  One thing that will be finished this week is my run of shows on Fresh Air.  It’s the end of term and the station shuts down over the Summer, so Tuesday will be the last Song, by Toad show until some time in September, I think – maybe even October.  This is a shame as I find the Fresh Air shows tremendous fun, but it’s hard enough to get students into university during term time, never mind the holidays, and it is a student radio station after all.  Gigs… well, maybe towards the end of the week.  Limbo looks good this week, and there’s no way I am missing Meursault and Honeytrap on Friday.

Monday 25th May 2009: Zoey Van Goey & We See Lights at the Bowery.

Zoey Van Goey have a new album out round about now, which is encouraging news.  I know scandalously little about them, but their indie-pop is very much respected amongst people whose opinions I trust, so if you have some time tonight this should be a good evening.
Zoey Van Goey – City is Exploding

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Thursday 28th May 2009: The Lovely Eggs, Second Hand Marching Band & The Pineapple Chunks play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.

The Lovely Eggs, from what little I know about them (ie: a cursory MySpace listen) seem like they are completely mental, but in the best possible way.  The Pineapple Chunks have a similar, slightly spasmodic element to them, but where this fits with the loveliness of the Second Hand Marching Band alt-folk hydra is a little beyond me.  Should be a good night though.
The Lovely Eggs – Sexual Cowboy

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Thursday 28th May 2009: St. Deluxe, Gothenburg Address & Bronto Skylift play Skinny Dip at the Bongo Club.

Whilst this lineup doesn’t excite me very much (anyone championed by Alan McGhee is to be treated with deep, deep suspicion) what is interesting is seeing the Skinny start to move into gig promotion.  Given their involvement with music retail in the form of Ten Tracks, their involvement with the local music scene is becoming pretty varied, it seems.  Good on them.
St. Deluxe – New Wave Stars

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Friday 29th May 2009: Meursault, Honeytrap & X-Lion Tamer at Sneaky Pete’s.

I am really excited to see Honeytrap at long last.  They were one of the first small bands I ever discovered after Song, by Toad finally drifted into its current guise.  Infuriatingly, I found out about them something like a week after they’d played Henry’s, and it’s been something like two years of waiting before I’ve had a second chance to see them live.  I will not be passing this one up.
Honeytrap – Broken Violin

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Saturday 30th May 2009: Cancel the Astronauts, Moustache of Insanity & Conquering Animal Sound play The Gentle Invasion night at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

Moustache of Insanity pretty much lay their cards on the table with their choice of name, and Conquering Animal Sound is the first outing for a new project involving Jamie from the excellent Japanese War Effort.  Headliners this month are Edinburgh indie boys Cancel the Astronauts, who have a new EP available for sale, called I am the President of Your Fanclub, and Last Night I Followed You Home.  Freaks.
Cancel the Astronauts – Country Song

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This podcast is sort of like the Clustercast should have been.  I haven’t actually listened to it yet, so I don’t know if it’s any good, but it sort of felt better, somehow.  It isn’t anything like that incoherent and garbled anyway, which is a relief.

We spent the day collecting for the lifeboats, along with some excellent help from our pals Dylan from Blueback Hotrod, Neil from Meursault, Ed from 17 Seconds, Dave, Michael and the Stormettes from The Stormy Seas and Morgan from, erm, Glasgow.  I have to point out how important their help was as well.  It’s easy to talk a good game and then to pussy out at the last minute, but despite the fact that both Neil and Ed had other things on today, everyone made the time to come down and help out, which is bloody good of them.  We collected a fair chunk of cash – Mrs. Toad’s pretty blonde colleague collected the most, rather predictably.  Maybe we need fewer beardy alt-folkies and more hot babes next year.

Enjoy the podcast, then; we’ve got a lot of nautically-themed songs this week and could have had even more.  There are loads of songs, and we had far more on the list before trimming.  It’s a bit out of control, this podcast, but actually I think it’s quite good.  Dylan’s roving reporter slots are just… well, they’re just.  They’re just. That’s what they are.  Experience them for yourself.  Good luck.

Toadcast #67 – The Wuzzlecast

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01. The Pogues – The Ship Comes In (05.57)
02. Sad Day For Puppets – Big Waves (09.07)
03. Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (17.44)
04. James Yorkston – Sir Patrick Spens (26.22)
05. The Second Hand Marching Band – Not Yet (38.40)
06. The Stormy Seas – The Sea Wind (42.40)
07. Ute Lemper – Little Water Song (50.31)
08. Frightened Rabbit – Floating in the Forth (57.25)
09. Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians – The Wreck of the Arthur Lee (64.53)
10. American Music Club – The Song of the Rats Leaving the Sinking Ship (75.43)

For reference, here are some YouTube videos which inspired this podcast:

It’s all going to be underground this week, with most happeny things happening at the Bowery, aided and abetted by Sneaky Pete’s on the Cowgate.

Ben Folds Five – Underground (Live at Ziggy’s)

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This weekend has been nice, actually.  Getting the Samamidon session posted took me all the way through Friday night without any sleep, and all I managed was a couple of hours’ nap before the Meursault in-store at Avalanche, and then then off to have a couple of bevvies with Broken Records to celebrate their signing to 4AD.

After all this, though, Sunday was a real treat.  I did no work whatsoever, Mrs. Toad and I tidied the house, albeit at a rather leisurely pace, and I played vinyl all afternoon.  A gin was poured at about five in the afternoon, I read through the latest National Geographic and we cooked a great big meal for some friends.  Fucking marvellous.  I have to confess that I hogged the record player all night, but then, recently that hasn’t always been the case.  I’ve been so busy that Mrs. Toad has done all the playing of records, while I beaver away at the computer, so it was nice to shelve all that for a couple of days and really just relax and indulge for a bit.

And let’s face it, there’s can’t be much better than a Sunday afternoon playing vinyl with a nice, strong G&T.

Thursday 12th February 2009: Share & The Second Hand Marching Band at the Bowery.

I know nothing at all about Share, but the Second Hand Marching Band’s recent EP is superb, so I am really looking forward to seeing them live again.  With 22 of them fitting everyone on stage will be a challenge, as will the mic setup.  Nevertheless, their ramshackle, folky gentleness promises to provide a memorable evening.
The Second Hand Marching Band – Don’t!

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Thursday 12th February 2009: The Endrick Brothers & Broken Records at the Caves.

The Endrick Brothers are a plain vanilla alt-country band who I nevertheless enjoyed enormously on the only occasion I’ve seen them live – they just had a sort of warm charm to them.  Broken Records are likely to be playing out of their skins as they celebrate the recording of their album. Tickets from here.
The Endrick Brothers – Star of the Silver Screen

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Friday 13th February 2009: Meursault & How to Swim play This is Music at Sneaky Pete’s.

I’ve shamefully never been to This is Music.  Probably because I fear the late closing and the dancing students – what a dismally pathetic excuse.  I’ve done a lot of drinking this last week with people with no jobs to go to in the morning, and believe me, it takes some doing.  Anyhow, with the carnval mayhem of How to Swim and the demented howl of Meursault, this should be fucking superb.
How to Swim – A Little Orgasm of Disappointment

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Saturday 14th February 2009: My Kappa Roots, eagleowl & Rob St. John at the Bowery.

This is a collaborative effort between the Bowery, the bands, Ten Tracks, the Collective Gallery and The Skinny.  Irrespective of all that, of course, it’s just a fucking splendid lineup of the capital’s finest alternative folksters.  And balls to Valentine’s Day – to quote Billy Bragg “Those glossy catalogues of couples are cashing in on happiness again and again.”  And never mind the unhappiness it fucking generates.  Pointless fucking whore of an occasion.
Billy Bragg – Valentine’s Day is Over

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I’m going to get this out of the way right now: the centrepiece of this album, the title track, sounds way too much like Beirut to me (go to their MySpace to hear it).  This will no doubt piss the band off something chronic, and they’d have a point.  ‘Which fucking Beirut song, then?’ they would ask and I would have no specific answer.  But it’s true, and the resemblance is so uncanny that I find it just a little annoying every time I find myself humming along.

Why did I start with that annoying nit-picking, you ask?  Well because it is the solitary complaint I have about this whole EP which is brilliant start to finish, including the aforementioned song.  Maybe because of my own label, maybe because of seeing a handful of demos coalesce into full releases, I am starting to become very aware of sequencing these days, and here it is accomplished perfectly.  I wonder if Bart, who plays in both this band and eagleowl, had anything to do with it, as the approach feels quite similar to eagleowl’s own EP for some reason.

Whilst they may touch on Beirootyness at one extreme, there is a really wonderful diversity to this, which is especially impressive for such a short record.  Ghost folk, collective clappery, it’s all a little bit different on every song, which makes it all hard to describe and very, very rewarding to listen to.

I’ve seen these guys play before, and they are some sort of mad twenty-odd-strong assembly of stray members of all sorts of other Scottish underground bands, and it is easy to dismiss this kind of thing as some kind of a novelty act.  Why the fuck would you need twenty members, for Christ’s sake, it’s a band, not a fucking rogue religious sect?  But then you hear an EP like this and it pretty much extinguishes that kind of snarky thinking, replacing it with the simple truth that whatever they are doing and however they are doing it, it is being done very right indeed, so best just butt out and let them get on with it.

The Second Hand Marching Band – Mad Sense

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Website (Buy from here too) | MySpace | Buy from Chaffinch Records

You won’t see much of me at gigs this week, because my little brother is visiting. I am gutted at having to miss the Major Matt Mason gig last night, but I just ended up being too tired and having too much to do in too little time.

Samamidon is playing in Edinburgh next Monday, so that needs to be publicised. He’s a bit good, and Meursault are doing an acoustic slot in support, so it promises to be an amazing night. The gig is going to be at the Bowery, which is the new venue that my friend Ruth and her friend Jane are opening up. The opening party is on Saturday, for those interested in a bit of intrigue and a splash of free champagne.

Tuesday 4th November 2008: Jackie-O Motherfucker at the Voodoo Rooms.
I missed their last visit to Edinburgh but alt-folk pioneers Jackie-O Motherfucker, yet another excellent Portland band, make their way here again at last. Because Ben is visiting it might not be possible to get to this one, but I’ll do what I can to persuade him.
Jackie-O Motherfucker – Valley of Fire

Thursday 6th November: Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
My ignorance of Wreckless Eric is pretty complete, but I do have two songs by him which I really like, and he was something of a minor hero in his time as far as I am aware. I also inadvertently busted someone at an open-mic night here in Edinburgh last year, on the basis of Wreckless Eric. It is a strictly ‘no covers’ night and a certain gentleman played Reconnez Cherie on the assumption that no-one would recognise it. He counted without the music obsessive at the back, however, and at about the line about ‘nights in my Zodiac’ I leaned over to my mate, who ran the night at the time, and said ‘Fuck me, that’s a Wreckless Eric song.’ What did I learn from that evening? That no-one, absolutely no-one it seems, likes a smart arse.
Wreckless Eric – Reconnez Cherie

Saturday 8th November: Greenbelt Collective, The Second Hand Marching Band, White Heath & The Occasional Flickers at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
I don’t know the Greenbelt Collective, but TSHMB and The Occasional Flickers are both excellent, so as ways to round off your week go, this couldn’t be much better. I’ll be expecting a good sweep of the territory between folk and pop and back again.
The Occasional Flickers – A Medal Won in ‘84

Saturday 8th November: The Bowery Opening Party, at the Bowery Bar.
Quite which bands will be playing is somewhat up in the air at the moment but this will be the official opening party for Edinburgh’s newest live music and arts venue. Personally I’m more interested in the music side of course, but there will be fine bands, free champagne and candles. Check out the website, designed by yours truly and featuring the photos of a certain Dylan from Blueback Hotrod. The place is really lovely, so I do recommend you get along if you can because this place could be fantastic if we all get behind it.
Lydia Lunch – Bowery Blues

Sunday 9th November: Marcus Mumford & Rags & Feathers at 99 Hannover Street.
This is a charity gig, held in one of Edinburgh’s snazzier bars, generally full of wannabe-WAGs. On Sunday, however, there’s be soulful folk-pop, so the place should be a much nicer place to be, and I am really looking forward to seeing what Marcus Mumford is like as a solo act. [Edit: this is now at Bannerman's on the Cowgate]
Rags & Feathers – Silent Movie Starlets

Well we are approaching the Carnival of Shit that is the Edinburgh Festival’s indie music offering.  The Edge is utterly abysmal, offering virtually no bands worth seeing and absolutely nothing to generate any sort of excitment.  Noah & the Whale, Johnny Flynn and the Shout Out Louds are the only real treats from out of town, but two of the best bands – Broken Records and Isosceles – are local so we get to see them during the rest of year anyway.  So brilliant as it is to see local lads headlining the Liquid Rooms, the lack of imagination shown in the booking of the festival as a whole is really quite dismal.  The Raconteurs have recently been added to the bill and they’re brilliant live, but their last album was pretty disappointing, so I am torn on that one.

Pretty much anything worthwhile happening in music this August, barring the notable exceptions mentioned above, is happening because Bart & Emily got off their arses and put together The Retreat, a month of gigs at the Scottish Scullery, in St. John’s Church Hall at the end of Princes Street.  They are putting on a lot of local talent, the setting is phenomenal and the lineups superb.  And, of course, I am fucking well missing most of it because I am off on holiday.  Oh well, can’t have it all.

Tuesday 29th July 2008: The Second Hand Marching Band, Les Cox (Sportifs), The Wind Whistles, Oso at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
The Second Hand Marching Band are a sort of weird amalgamation of the sounds of Beirut played by a group roughly the size of the Polyphonic Spree.  I don’t know the other bands all that well, but even a quick browse through MySpaceland indicates that this is going to be an excellent gig.  The Gentle Invasion haven’t done a shit one yet.
The Second Hand Marching Band – Transformers (Tragically, this song has nothing to do with giant robots from outer space (who are also cars) and is consequently far less awesome than it could be.)

Friday 1st August 2008: Je Suis Animal, Meursault & Come In Tokyo at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
C&B tipped me off about this bunch of Norweigan indie-popsters only a couple of weeks ago.  I’ll be away, so I won’t be able to go myself, but they sound really good and are supported by the splendid Meursault so if I were here, I’d be there, if you know what I mean.
Je Suis Animal – Sparkle Spit

Christ I am turning into a dickhead.  Euan and Bart, who you may all know from their frequent contributions to the comments section here at Song, by Toad, are both friends of mine and have both been treated shamefully by my good (good – ha!) self in recent weeks.  I have forgotten to mention both of their recent gigs.  First it was Bart’s Gentle Invasion show with The Second Hand Marching Band, and this week it was Euan’s turn, when I entirely neglected to mention the fact that The Kays Lavelle are playing at Henry’s tomorrow (Thursday 15th May).

Please go along and clap furiously, because I am feeling really shitty about this.  People like them, apart from being good pals, make an enormous contribution to sites like this by commenting frequently and for most part vaguely sensibly, because it makes the place look populated and enjoyable and keeps the “Yo man this rokz” or “U R teh SuXORZZ!!!1!” crowd very much at arm’s length.  So the least I can do is try and make a contribution to their stuff in return.  And recently I haven’t done this, and I do not like it.

So please go to the Kays show and, erm, help me make up for being a dick.  And buy Euan a pint while you’re at it, and you can trade the cost off against the reams and reams of brilliant music I introduce you to every single day of the fucking year. Oh, er, oops.  Contrition of course, I was meant to be showing contrition.

Sorry lads, seriously.

The Kays Lavelle – First Light
And just for fun:
iLiKETRAiNS – A Rook House For Bobby
iLiKETRAiNS – I Am Murdered

Oh the busyness just doesn’t subside, does it. And there’s nothing quite so life-affirming as being in the office on a Bank Holiday Monday. The way things work around here they just lump Bank Holidays into your overall holiday allowance, so you can take the days when you want. This makes a lot of sense for plenty of reasons, but it falls short in one crucial way: every once in a while it is nice to be forced to take some time off and just waste a day with your other half.

Mrs. Toad is at home by herself, no doubt drinking a cuppa in our south-facing, sun-drenched garden. Or proto-garden more like, as it was all planted from scratch last year and is only slowly growing into itself.
As much as I like where I work, I would dearly love to be at home with my silly missus and her preposterous cat, drinking tea in the sunshine and cursing my silliness at failing to dead-head the fennel before the bastard went to seed and caused an explosion of miniature fennel plants in the little bed in front of the shed. Or something like that. Rats.

So, coming down from Nick Cave in Glasgow last night with JC and Mrs. Villain, what can we find to try and fail to live up to that experience this week? And what the fuck is going on on Thursday for crying out loud?

Tuesday 6th May: Frightened Rabbit at The Hive.
I don’t know what the venue is like, but The Hive’s website is so monumentally shit and clunky to navigate that I sightly resent plugging their gigs. And actually, Frightened Rabbit’s new album isn’t exactly blowing my socks off either. Mind you, I’ll be busy doing radio things, so what do I care. Ross Clark is supporting, and he’s pretty handy.
Frightened Rabbit – The Modern Leper

Thursday 8th May: King Creosote & Slow Club at Fence Club, the Caves.
Another excellent Fence Club lineup, with good ol’ KC and the excellent Slow Club – another Moshi Moshi band, I have serious Label Envy! There’s also an exclusive vinyl treat (that sounds kinky) if you come along, so what more incentive could you want? These parties are brilliant fun.
Slow Club – Me & You

Thursday 8th May: Attic Lights at Cabaret Voltaire.
I keep hearing these lads mentioned as the Next Big Thing, and highly complimented by plenty of very reliable people. Honestly though, I have never heard anything that gets me all that excited. Still, I have yet to give the time necessary to qualify that kind of negativity, so I will make more effort before I shrug my shoulders once and for all.
Attic Lights – Never Get Sick of the Sea

Thursday 8th May: The Kays Lavelle & The Mannequins at Limbo, the Voodoo Rooms.
The Kays Lavelle will presumably be shit, once again*.
Anyway, once the humour subsides, expect some rather dark, generally piano-led indie-rock. The Mannequins are new to me, but a cursory listen to their MySpace sounds pretty promising. Sort of punk-croon, if you can imagine that.
The Mannequins – Little Black Book

Thursday 8th May: Dave Graney, The Low Miffs & the Bum-Clocks in the Speakeasy at the Voodoo Rooms.
This is a superb lineup. I don’t know much about the headliner, but the Low Miffs are fantastic, and as for the Bum-Clocks… well, can you imagine Robert Burns’ poetry performed against a backdrop of Malcolm Ross’ indie guitar riffs? This is really, really worth going to.
The Bum-Clocks – A Tale o’ Twa Dugs

Friday 9th May: MGMT at the Liquid Room.
I’ll admit I’m being a bit of a pop slut by going to this, but Time to Pretend is just brilliant and although the rest of it slides a little closer to the Scissor Sister than I might personally choose, I expect this to be a load of fun. Someone told me they were shit live, but I’ll withhold judgment on that until after Friday. I’m bloody well committed now anyway.
MGMT – The Youth

Friday 9th May: Rachel Unthank & the Winterset at the Voodoo Rooms.
If I’m being honest I would say that this is a little bit too folky for me, really. There’s a lot to like in the music though, and some of my readers may well love this, so it’s definitely worth considering. And her rendition of Blue Bleezin’ Blind Drunk is just brilliant.
Rachel Unthank & the Winterset – Blue Bleezin’ Blind Drunk

[Edit: an irate Bart, who couldn't even be arsed to list this gig himself, insists I mention the following gig. They're so good they don't feature on his own listings page, but hey, they're presumably good enough for me, eh? Fucksake.]

Saturday 10th May: The Second Hand Marching Band, Skeleton Bob & Woodenbox at the Wee Red Bar.
Apparently this lot are all very good. For more complete descriptions, complete with a girly ginger hissy-fit, see the comments below. Good grief.
The Second Hand Marching Band – Dance to Half Death

*Sorry, that’s an in-joke. Lead singer Euan is a regular reader of this site and so my first review of the band was a one-liner: The Kays Lavelle were shit. Side-splitting, eh? Yes, I know, sometimes I wonder how I do it.