This is the last Song, by Toad show on Fresh Air for this term – so the last one until about October time, basically. As the band are long time Toad friends, and as their long (loooong)-awaited debut album is being released on Monday, it seemed only fitting that Broken Records pop into the studio and have a chat about things, talk through the album itself (read: TOAD EXCLUSIVE!!!1!1 or something like that), and generally shoot the breeze.
To tune in, go to the Fresh Air homepage and click on the big Listen Now button on the left hand side, from about 6.30pm-8pm, UK time. As per usual, I’ll fill in the playlist below, and you can take the opportunity to leave compliments, questions and abuse in the comments section as you see fit.
01. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – Hard to be a Saint in the City (Live at Hammersmith Odeon 1975)
02. White Antelope – Wild Mountain Thyme
03. Broken Records – Wolves (Toad Session)
04. Linfinity – Holy Rain
05. Ambulances – Come With Us
06. Broken Records – Lies
07. Sparrow & the Workshop – Last Chance (Toad Session)
08. The Lovely Eggs – Have You Ever Heard a Digital Accordion
09. The Low Miffs – Dear Josephine
10. Broken Records – Nearly Home
11. Bruce Springsteen – Dancing in the Dark
The day after his amazing live set at the Bowery, Sam Amidon came round to the house to record a Toad Session. He didn’t have all that much time, and I don’t think he quite knew what he’d let himself in for either, so this one is pretty brief. Still, between this and the footage from the live show I think we have a really nice portrait of the guy, who is so different in person from his recordings. Whilst the latter may be beautiful, and whilst All Is Well is an amazingly lovely album, his personality dominates his live show so much it gives you such a different perspective on his music.
As per usual, we have the session podcast below, and after that the Toad Session mp3 files, which you are free to pass around as you please. The videos are posted below that, and can all be found on the Song, by Toad Vimeo page (recommended) as well as the YouTube page (shit, but popular, so I have to put them there too). There’s also a series of photos from the session, which can be found on our Flickr page. The tracklisting for the podcast is at the bottom of this post – enjoy!
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And the downloadable, shareable, huggable mp3s from the session:
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And the videos:
And the playlist for Toadcast #55 – Samamidon Toad Session:
01. Samamidon – 1842 (Toad Session) (05.23)
02. Peter & Mary Alice Amidon – True Born Sons of Levi (10.23)
03. Mary Margaret O’Hara – When You Know Why You’re Happy (12.49)
04. Shirley Collins – Lovin’ Hannah (18.17)
05. Samamidon – Pretty Fair Damsel (Toad Session) (24.16)
06. Othar Turner & The Rising Star Fife And Drum – Bouncin’ Ball (33.20)
07. Kate & Anna McGarrigle – Swimming Song (36.29)
08. Doveman – Happy (38.53)
09. Samamidon – Fiddle Mayhem (Toad Session) (47.49)
Christ this has taken me ages. We recorded this in late August after myself and Mrs. Toad came back from the States, but the intervention of the End of the Road Festival and an unspeakable disaster with video tape has delayed this beyond the bounds of pretty much everyone’s patience. I eventually had to give up trying to extricate video from chewed tapes and make do with the video we actually had, which has been bloody frustrating.
As per usual we have the videos all posted either on the Toad Vimeo page (the best quality) and YouTube (more accessible). We also have pictures taken by both my friend Morgan, who is also the official Song, by Toad camerman, and Dylan as well. Dylan has all his pictures, including these, on his own sit Blueback Hotrod, and we’ve also uploaded them to the Song, by Toad Flickr page as well. So, firstly, here is the podcast, with the tracklisting at the bottom of the page:
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Here are the session tracks themselves as downloadable, shareable and loveable mp3s:
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First we have the overall video, and then a couple of videos for individual songs:
Toadcast #46 – Sparrow & the Workshop Toad Session Playlist:
01. Sparrow & the Workshop – Last Chance (Toad Session) (07.21)
02. Scuff – Step a Little Closer (10.14)
03. Skeeter Davis – My Last Date With You (17.50)
04. Micah P. Hinson – Come Home Quickly Darling (21.22)
05. Sparrow & the Workshop – Magic Tricks (Toad Session) (26.19)
06. Rob St. John – Tipping In (30.17)
07. Langhorne Slim – Restless (35.27)
08. Sparrow & the Workshop – The Gun (41.50)
09. The Everley Brothers – Crying in the Rain (46.56)
10. The Skids – Into the Valley (48.51)
11. Sparrow & the Workshop – My Crime (Toad Session) (58.25)
It’s been a while since the last Toad Session, but this one is a bit good and thoroughly worth waiting for. Meursault’s debut album is one of my favourite of the year, and their acoustic set is easily as good. This is the first session to be held in our house too, which brought its own challenges and then some. Mrs. Toad’s preposterous cat makes an appearance at one point, and the videos look very, very, erm… green? Blue? Whatever fucking stupid colour it is we’ve painted our living room.
Anyway, the recordings have come out really nicely, and I think the videos are good too. I’ve posted a few here, but the whole lot can be found on the Song, by Toad YouTube page. The photos turned out rather well too, so go to the Flickr page for the ones we liked. And, without further ado, here is the Meursault Toad Session podcast (the track listing is at the bottom of the page):
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And here are the videos, first the overall video and then the ones for the individual songs:
Meursault Toad Session
Toadcast #35 – Meursault Toad Session Playlist:
01. Meursault – The Furnace (Toad Session) (06.14)
02. Meursault – A Few Kind Words (09.33)
03. Eef Barzelay – Ballad of Bitter Honey (14.54)
04. Withered Hand – Religious Songs (18.22)
05. Meursault – Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues (Toad Session) (30.11)
06. The Postal Service – Nothing Better (34.29)
07. Meursault – The Dirt & the Roots (Toad Session) (37.52)
08. Tenniscoats – Baibaba Bimba (40.40)
09. The Cave Singers – Seeds of Night (47.11)
10. Samamidon – Wild Bill Jones (55.41)
11. Casiotone For the Painfully Alone – Young Shields (60.56)
12. Meursault – Nothing Broke (Toad Session) (68.49)
Hello and welcome back to the Toad Sessions. I was a little drunk when I noticed that Alela Diane was playing in Edinburgh as part of the Triptych Festival, so the idea of emailing her label and inviting her to do a Toad Session didn’t seem quite so preposterous. In the morning, I thought I was mad and would be laughed at, but amazingly they agreed, and now here it is.
This one was also recorded by Nick at Bananarow and he’s done another amazing job – the songs sound absolutely gorgeous. Dylan’s pictures can be found at the Flickr page, and we have some more videos at the Song, by Toad YouTube page. Here’s the interview podcast, with the tracklisting at the bottom of the page.
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Here are the sessions tracks themselves. The Cuckoo is a traditional song, and Dry Grass & the Shadows is from Alela’s new album which should hopefully be out later this year. Mariee’s songs are Flowers & Blood from her recent album Faces in the Rocks, whereas the gorgeous Icarus Eye is an old song from a home release.
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Here are the videos, all hosted at the YouTube page. Again, the interview is going to have to go up later because I seem to have entirely lost Morgan, my resident editing expert, so I’ve had to cobble these things together myself. I am going to work on the interview movies as best I can, so they should hopefully be available in a week or two.
01. Alela Diane – Dry Grass & the Shadows (Toad Session) (04.51)
02. The Shaky Hands – Summer’s Life (08.36)
03. Johnny Cash – I See a Darkness (11.45)
04. The Holy Modal Rounders – Hesitation Blues (20.42)
05. Neutral Milk Hotel – The Communist’s Daughter (24.10)
06. Mariee Sioux – Flowers & Blood (Toad Session) (26.07)
07. Hem – Half Acre (32.29)
08. Bonnie Prince Billy – No Bad News (41.41)
09. Willard Grant Conspiracy – Twistification (46.05)
10. Vashti Bunyan – Glow Worms (53.35)
11. Mariee Sioux – The Icarus Eye (Toad Session) (58.10)
12. Alela Diane – The Cuckoo (Toad Session) (62.56)
Well I hope you like these. The next session is going to be with local band Meursault, and will be the first one to be recorded in Toad Hall. Very exciting!
Well finally, finally we’ve found the time to finish these. This is the Broken Records interview from the session I recorded with them a few weeks back. It’s taken ages to get these finished, partly because we’re lacking a little for good footage, partly because getting everything into the right format has taken ages (both down to our lack of experience actually making movies, inevitably) and also because, erm, well we have lives too, so fuck you.
If any of you listened to the podcast, then you’ll be familiar with a lot of this – it’s basically chunks of the interview interspersed with some clips of the session tracks. YouTube only allow ten minutes per video these days, so it had to be broken into two bits, with two songs in each.
Part 1:
Part 2 – This one is a bit thin in terms of footage, but we’re learning and will put that right in future:
And just in case, here are the session tracks in mp3 format.
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