Well, as you all know I try and avoid spamming you with label stuff during the week – generally leaving that to Sunday if at all possible – but this week you are going to get spammed off your tits, sorry.  I blame the fact that we have just been on holiday for a fortnight, so I am horribly behind with pretty much everything as a result.

Meursault Waiting Room Session.  So, first up, whilst on their recent tour with Sparrow & the Workshop, Meursault dropped in to see DC from The Waiting Room.

They recorded an interview and recorded something like six songs for the show, all with the tour lineup of two electric guitars, bass and drums – basically, the garage rock version of Meursault.  Both the interview and the recordings themselves have turned out amazing well, and the lads said they had a great time in Cardiff and were incredibly well looked after by DC and The Woman of the House, so we owe them both a very big thank you.

You can listen to the session below, and to The Waiting Room’s archive shows here.

Me on the BBC. If you have a Twitter or Facebook account then there is absolutely hee-haw chance you aren’t sick of hearing about this by now, but yesterday on BBC2 Scotland there was a one-hour documentary about the Scottish bands at this year’s SXSW festival.

As you know, Mrs. Toad and I were along as well, and on the Sunday after the madness subsided I recorded a podcast with Vic Galloway, Peej from Dear Scotland and Stuart from Creative Scotland.  The BBC crew happened to film this, and that footage pretty much filled up most of the last ten minutes of the documentary.  That may not sound like much, but believe me, ten minutes of screen time is actually fucking ages.

Anyone who missed it can see it again on the BBC iPlayer here, and I absolutely promise you that the strong language warning on that page is NOTHING TO DO WITH ME WHATSOEVER!

Hmm, some scrappy bits of news to add this week, and no better place to do it, so here it goes.  Firstly, some quick podcasty things, and then some new award stuff.

The Contrast Podcast have begun their Festive Fifty countdown, with this week’s episode announcing 34-50 in the list, and you may notice a couple of familiar names in there – namely, Aidan Moffat and Meursault.  Keep an eye on the forthcoming episodes as they count down to number one.  The Contrast Podcast is so called because it is assembled from intros and songs sent in by bloggers and podcasters from all over the place, so there is no one single presenter, although Tim deserves a massive debt of gratitude for herding this great big flock of digital cats.

I have been asked to introduce a song a little later in the countdown, so I can promise you that there will be plenty of Toad favourites featuring higher up this list.  It’s quite an honour actually, because the Contrast Podcast represents a pretty impressive cross-section of the internet-based music chatterati and given this is voted for (obviously) by contributors and listeners then you must be doing something very right to end up on it.

In other podcasty news, Jesus H. Foxx will be making an appearance on The Waiting Room this weekend.  DC recorded a session with them ages ago (although I still don’t think he beats my record for procrastination) and it will be broadcast on WOXY on Saturday at one in the afternoon UK time, I think, and then re-broadcast on Sunday at nine.

This was recorded during their tour earlier in the year and frankly I have no idea what to expect.  The Foxx were recently included in some torrent playlist thingy of new indie so it’s, er, nice to see them moving up in the world.  Next stop – Limewire!

And finally, the 2009 BAMS have been announced!  Hooray!  What’s that?  No fucking idea what I’m talking about?  Thought not.  Lloyd from Peenko decided to poll Scottish Bloggers and Music Sites (see, B.A.M.S., get it?) to see what our favourite album of the year was.  And the results are now in, and read as follows:

1. The Phantom Band – Checkmate Savage (61)
2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion (54)
3. De Rosa – Prevention (53)
4. King Creosote – Flick the V’s (51)
5. Withered Hand – Good News (45)
6. The Twilight Sad – Forget The Night Ahead (43)
7. We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls (40)
8. Beerjacket – Animosity (38)
9. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More (32)
9. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career (32)
11. My Latest Novel – Deaths and Entrances (28)
11. Malcolm Middleton – Waxing Gibbous (28)
13. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – s/t (25)
14. You Already Know – s/t (24)
14. Broken Records – Until the Earth Begins to Part (24)
16. The XX – s/t (23)
17. The Antlers – Hospice (21)
18. Sufjan Stevens – The BQE (19)
18. And So I Watch You From Afar (19)
20. Wilco – The Album (18)

Personally, not all that close to my own list, I must confess, but I really like the idea in general, particularly given the general lack of respect the Scottish music scene appears to be getting from the London glossies at the moment.

The Phantom Band had this to say about their triumph:

“This makes us feel very honoured because the opinion of people out there giving opinions is what matters most, rather than the financially influenced press.

It always amazes me that people would take it upon themselves to go out and champion a band or an album or a band for no material gain, but it gives me faith in human nature. Blogs and reviews have been the only advertising we’ve ever had. Apart from all those people who got online and promoted us, we’d like to thank those little almost-stale doughnuts you get in big tubs from Sainsburys for keeping us fat during the recording.

We obviously also have our Producer Paul Savage and the wonderful people at Chemikal Underground to thank for letting us do what we want. These guys are the quiet heroes of Scottish music for sure.”

And everyone who voted can be found here:

17 Seconds, AyeTunes, Dear Scotland, Earz Mag, Elba Sessions, Glasgow Podcart, Hooligans Lament, Jim Gellatly, JocknRoll, Jockrock, Kowalskiy, Last Years Girl, Love Shack Baby (wait, what?) Manic Pop Thrills, My Portiswasp Says, Off the Beaten Tracks, The Pop Cop, Products of a Gaseous Brain, Song By Toad, The Blues Bunny, The Daily Growl, The Spill, The Steinberg Principle, The Vinyl Villain and Under the Radar.