Song, by Toad

Oh dear god almighty I have a hangover.  Fucking bastard music people.  Last night there was gigging and drinking and wandering the streets of a most balmy and pleasant Edinburgh with an assortment of miscreants and other ne’er-do-wells.  We saw Honeytrap and Meursault play at Sneaky Pete’s – I was recording this podcast, hence late for X-Lion Tamer, sorry to both Ed and Tony – and it was fucking amazing.

And after that there was drinking.  Fuck me there was lots of drinking.  And then I came home and went into the local all night shop and purchased a couple of steaks for late-night snacking purposes, and was harassed by a bunch of young lads when I came out.  Not harassed in a bad way, but I think I was asked to buy them some fags or something like that.  Anyhow, the conversation… erm, well I’m not really sure how the conversation went, because I was fucking hammered, but at some point the van came up, which was parked just along the road.  So, ah, for some slightly bizarre reason I ended up with five high school lads and me sat in the van with the stereo up fucking loud – so loud apparently that you could hear it all the way down the street.  Or, at least, so Mrs. Toad tells me.  Because at some point she came home from wherever it was she was out drinking and hopped in as well.

So, after a little van-based rocking out, they came back into the house for a bit and Mrs. Toad played them Motorhead and The Sex Pistols and The Wedding Present so fucking loud the windows shook.  Funnily enough, these nice, polite lads kept insisting throughout that we should just let them know when we were bored and we would like them to go.  Such nice, polite boys!  I think one of them even did the dishes.  I didn’t want to have to try and explain what a couple of total fucking bozos they were dealing with, but erm, yeah, that was our Friday night.  Weird, huh?  I think we went to bed at about five, eventually.  And now to record a couple of Toad Sessions, at least one with a very, very hung over band.

Toadcast #71 – The Tough Lovecast

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01. Belle & Sebastian – Take Your Carriage Clock & Shove It (03.46)
02. Adam Balbo – Debating a Time Metaphor (07.16)
03. The Sequins – The Usual Delights (14.05)
04. Situationists – A Cold Front (16.31)
05. Blur – Out of Time (23.02)
06. New Ruins – Symptoms (32.37)
07. The Laurel Collective – Hindenburg Mile High Club (41.26)
08. The Lovely Eggs – Tyrannosaurus Rex for Christmas (45.07)
09. The Empty Set – A Challenge to Copernicus (49.34)
10. Honeytrap – Mussolini’s Son (55.29)

The Fightcast?  Yes, the fucking Fightcast.  Why?  Well because mp3 bloggers have been taking it in the arse with some force over the last week.  Posts are being deleted left right and centre, so presumably the major labels have decided to declare all-out war on blogs.  This is because they are scabby old unwashed cheesy penises.  This is not slander, I can prove it with charts and graphs.

Ultimately this is about corporate control of culture.  I don’t want to sound like a ranting conspiracy theorist, but put simply, this is how it works:  people pay for things they feel passionate about.  People feel passionate about art, the creation thereof and the participation therein.  Consequently any company vaguely engaged in cultural endeavours desperately wants to own the loyalty and devotion of as many people as possible, and anyone participating in this arena is a threat.  Grassroots art has more emotional resonance with people, people are more loyal to and more devoted to it and it is more personal.  Due to social networks of all sorts – blogs, networking sites, even something as simple as email -  it is an ever bigger and less controllable threat.

They want blogs to exist inasmuch as we provide free market research and free A&R, but if we think we have any influence, any rights, or indeed any genuine loyalty, they wish us dead.  Fuck them, fuck their little games and fuck the horse they rode in on.  If they don’t want to play with normal people then let them withdraw.  Let them take REM and U2 and fuck off.  I would rather form a massive great list of small independent record labels that do want to play nicely and only ever cover them and unsigned bands, and let the big boys compete with the X-Factor, if they think they can.  Fuck them, let them drown in their own greed.

Toadcast #43 – The Fightcast

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01. The Love Language – Lalita (02.20)
02. Honey Claws – Shout Out (07.14)
03. Findo Gask – One Eight Zero (10.56)
04. The Avett Brothers – Murder in the City (23.25)
05. Yusuf Azak – Ursa Major (28.02)
06. Miracle Fortress – Have You Seen in Your Dreams (30.53)
07. How To Swim – From Here to Dundee/Eternity (33.55)
08. Jib Kidder – Flip Flap (45.09)
09. Situationists – Onwards & Upwards (46.17)
10. Yusuf Azak – 19.19 (53.45)
11. The Avett Brothers – The Greatest Sum (Acoustic) (62.02)

I tend to fawn and gush over bands on Tough Love Records to the extent that it can be a little embarrassing, but I genuinely love both The Sequins and Honeytrap.  With Situationists, on the other hand, I can see a relationship that could go either way.

There’s a lot to like on this EP, and at the best they have absolutely nailed the perfect mix of old-fashioned indie sound and more current, punchy guitar pop.  There are moments within a couple of the songs that can be a little flat – a little standard, I guess – but when they’re good they are very good.  So where do they go from here?  Well I couldn’t tell you, obviously – if I could predict that kind of thing I’d be richer – but they do have another EP in the pipeline so I am looking forward to seeing if they can build on what is a very promising start.

The packaging alone makes this EP worth buying.  You get a piece of 10″ vinyl and a CD of the EP itself, all wrapped up in an excellent piece of graphic design and a really nicely executed, heavyweight card sleeve.  Tough Love put a fuck of a lot of effort and investment into their packaging, and are one of the few labels out there where simply owning the digital files just isn’t enough.

Situationists – This City Holds Us All

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