I am back on Fresh Air Radio this evening, although unfortunately not accompanied by the lovely Ruth, as she’s not feeling well. However, to keep the loveliness quota nice and high, the extremely lovely Diana de Carrabus from Candythief will be playing live in session for us this evening.

She may be named like a dastardly Bond villainess, but Diana’s music is theatrical pop joy.  A somewhat stripped-down set is required in the tight confines of the Fresh Air studio, however, so it will be just herself and an acoustic guitar, accompanied by violin.

On air 7pm-8.30pm GMT – listen here.

The tracklisting will be updated live below, so feel free to add your comments in as we go along.

1. Eef Barzelay – Make Another Tree
2. Elbow – Station Approach
3. Candythief – Bargains (Live in Session)
4. Son Volt – Sultana
5. Alex Ward – Sounds Like Someone We Know
6. Timber Timbre – Magic Arrow
7. Candythief – Pass It On (Live in Session)
8. Betty Harris – Mean Man
9. Seasick Steve – The Letter
10. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (I)
11. Candythief – Amnesty (Live in Session)
12. King Charles – Beating Heart
13. REM – Disturbance at the Heron House
14. Felix Lighter – The Rational Pedestrian
15. Candythief – Junk (Live in Session)

And here, for those who missed it, is last week’s session with Thomas Western.  The sound is rather scratchy unfortunately, but I am still getting used to the desk.  To those who care, I think it’s his guitar mic which was clipping, not the vocal one, because the two were very close together:

Thomas Western – Fresh Air Session and Interview

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Thomas Western – The Worm Forgives the Plough (Live on Fresh Air)

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Thomas Western – Your Front Door (Live on Fresh Air)

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And the accompanying videos:

It always takes me absolutely ages to get into Son Volt albums, so I suppose I’m due a bit of an apology for the poor publicity team at Toolshed who sent me this a couple of months ago and have been patiently waiting for a response ever since.

I wanted to take my time though, because that’s just my pace with Jay Farrar’s band.  The music itself is a little like that as well: rich, comforting and unhurried.  They sound like a band who are prepared to give you the time to come to them on your own terms, whenever you’re ready, which is a reassuring feeling when listening to a record.

Inevitably though, my first reactions to this were the usual: ‘Well, where are the tunes?  Where’s the immediacy?  It all sounds the damn same!’  I must have listened to this record through almost twenty times or so before I started to know the songs well enough to form relationships with them individually, instead of as a single homogenous lump.

In this case it was the gorgeously harrowing tale of the wreck of the Sultana which was the trigger.  For some reason this was the song which grabbed me first, and given the rather horrible subject matter and my predilection for sad music, it was quite an iron grip.  It was only then that I started to hear that same heartbreak in many of the other songs.  Cocaine and Ashes is similarly laced with luxuriant pathos – the kind that breaks your heart yet makes you feel warm and consoled inside at the same time.  It’s a canny trick, and few can pull it off anything like this well.

Apart from the sad songs, there is a shimmering rage to tracks like When the Wheels Don’t Move – not unhinged fury, more a growling glower of a song, which marks perhaps the furthest distance from classic alt-country to which this album ever wanders.

Farrar sings about his country, its history, its legacy and its people – it’s a remarkable blend of the big and the little stories in that respect.  Perhaps that’s where the title comes from, with the dust equally representing the grit of the music and the ashes of America’s confident self-regard.  As a title, it also conjures up the dustbowl nightmare of the Grapes of Wrath, for me, and fitting that he should do so so soon after Wilco, led by Farrar’s former bandmate Jeff Tweedy, released a version of Woody Guthrie’s Jolly Banker which takes aim at precisely that subject.

So I doubt Son Volt are going to shock anyone any time soon in a musical sense.  They seem entirely settled in their general dynamic, and I can live with that quite happily.  It means I know to take my time, not to rush anything, and give enough time I know their albums will seep into my consciousness eventually.  Just be prepared to relax and let it come to you at its own pace.

Son Volt – Dynamite

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Son Volt – Cocaine & Ashes

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Well, we are nearing the end of our time in Puglia.  We’re spending a couple of days in or near Napoli before we fly back on Sunday, presumably troughing like total pigs, rather than paying all that much attention to culture and all that bobbins.

Mrs. Toad is doing Sudoku and complaining about the ‘wrong sort of paper’.  I kid you not, it’s just like British fucking Rail and their ‘wrong type of snow’, but she insists it’s just for that reason that she can’t solve them, not because they’re too hard.  Personally I find myself wondering if ‘evil’ is used to describe the comments one’s spouse will inevitably make when you fail to complete it, rather than the actual difficulty of the Sudoku puzzle itself.

So yes, we have done the lazing about and there are now a few days of actually doing shit in between us and a return to the damp splendour of the British Isles.  I suppose this is what you’re supposed to do on holiday – pay attention to the country you’re in and return, eventually – but honestly, another week of doing bollocks-all wouldn’t hurt anyone would it?

Toadcast #75 – The Bone Idlecast

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01. Snow Patrol – An Olive Grove Facing the Sea (04.14)
02. Beck – The Golden Age (12.33)
03. Belle & Sebastian – Simple Things (19.32)
04. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Tom Justice, the Choirboy Robber (21.00)
05. Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues (29.10)
06. Navigator – Work is Done (NOT Change, as we announced, sorry!) (34.44)
07. Lord Cut Glass – Holy Fuck! (40.19)
08. Son Volt – Sultana (46.46)
09. Smog – Drinking at the Dam (56.30)
10. Alela Diane – Age Old Blue (60.17)

Well that’s Mrs. Toad and I off to End of the Road. We’ll be back on Monday evening to write the What’s On in Edinburgh post thingy. To go to the festival we’ve rented one of these vans – not the one in the picture, even older – so we will be travelling in the complete twat style but, well, whatever. I know that lots of trustifarian knob-jockeys buy these things but I’ve always kind of liked them and, well, Mrs. Toad isn’t really a girl for tents I’m afraid so the other option was a socking great Winnebago.

I’ve got three interviews set up for the festival, and there might possibly be another couple that happen as well, because a few bands that I know will be there. I am still a little unsure how much work I can really be arsed doing at these things, but I think three interviews should be manageable.

While I’m away I’ll be posting the record shop posts that people have written and sent in, I’ve a podcast pre-recorded for the weekend, and I think I’ll still put up the Five For Friday post because that was good fun last week.

This year’s festival isn’t so completely jam-packed with bands I am keen to see, actually. In fact I have never heard of half of them, so I think it will be nice to just kick back and enjoy making some new discoveries.

Cool bananas. Have fun and play nicely in my absence. I’ve got access to the press facilities – oooh, don’t I feel quite the big boy – so I’ll check in from time to time when I pop in to empty my memory cards and recharge batteries and stuff. And let’s hope the weather isn’t utter shite, like it has been at every other fucking festival this year (except Pickathon – ha ha, sucks to you, British music fans)!

Son Volt – Highways & Cigarettes (Acoustic)
Ryan Adams – Blue Sky Blues

Well I rather liked Son Volt’s recent album, so here is an alternate take on The Picture from that very album.  Nothing cleverer than that.  Enjoy, Toadlings.

Oh, and I have set this post to go live on the day of the wedding, so as you are enjoying this I am probably drunk as a skunk and trying to chat up a fifteen year old bridesmaid.  Only to realise I’m talking to a small shrub with a ribbon around it and I’ve probably had far too much gin for two o’clock in the afternoon.

Son Volt – The Picture (Alternate Version)

[Disclaimer: I am actually on holiday at the moment, probably fucking up my brother's wedding by swearing too much in the best man's speech, so it's all a bit minimal at the moment.  Normal service will be resumed after we return on about the 25th July]

I barely know anything about Uncle Tupelo, the band that hatched both Jeff Tweedy’s Wilco and Jay Farrar’s Son Volt. Given how much I like what both these two have done since, perhaps I should consider digging a little deeper. Uncle Tupelo pretty much fathered the modern alt-country genre by many accounts, a hypothesis given credence by the number of times they are cited as a formative influence by constituent members of that genre.

Farrar himself isn’t so much a fan of the term, which seems a little odd, because Son Volt are such a squarely alt-country band I can barely think of anything else to say about them, they fit the term so well. Or perhaps that should be, the term fits them so well.

Either way, this is a pitch-perfect record of country rock, suffused with a bit of indie angst when needed, a little jaunty trumpet on occasion, and fuzzy guitars throughout. Jay Farrar’s voice is excellent – slightly nasal and scratchy, but strong and emotive. I love this record, but it’s such a perfect alt-country archetype I barely know what to say about it. What I can say though is that it’s good enough to send me fishing backwards through their catalogue to hear earlier stuff and may just finally give me the kick I need to go and start digging around Uncle Tupelo as well.

Son Volt – The Picture
Son Volt – L Train
Jay Farrar – Cahokian From his solo album Terroir Blues, a few years back.

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