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.