This is called the Tapecast because last night, for the first time in about ten years, I made a mixtape. Â Because of the van having a tape player there is actually a point to making these bloody things now, so we got hammered and listened to records all night (again), only this time I recorded them all onto a C-90!
There is something so stupidly fascinating about making tapes in the first place, but there is certainly something surreal in resurrecting what genuinely was dead technology. Â It is far from easy to actually buy blank tapes these days. Â I ended up recording over a shite old one I had to hand, and there is only a limited supply of ones hanging around which I would be happy to tape over.
It was bloody fun though, so I think it might well happen again!
Oh, and as I am now hosting these podcasts on Mixcloud as well, I have a new streaming widget thingy. Â Mixcloud are PRS registered, which means the artists get money when you listen using their doo-dah, which is something we should all think about. Â I am not convinced about doubling up the post images so I may have to give a bit more consideration to how to integrate it into the page, but there it is anyway for the time being.
01. The Humms – Blood Sucking Vampire (02.30)
02. We Can’t Enjoy Ourselves – Put Your Blue Dress On (11.19)
03. Ezequiel Ezequiel – Dear Permafrost (15.03)
04. Small Town Boredom – Apologies for Apathy (22.32)
05. Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights (30.59)
06. The Dodos – Walking (35.59)
07. Trips and Falls – I Learned Sunday Morning, on a Wednesday (41.57)
08. Br’er – Whitewash (48.41)
09. Efren – Stay High (53.22)
10. Donny Hue & the Colors – Wild Again (59.22)
It’s time for some video fun here on Song, by Toad. It seems that as well as allowing more and more people to record their own music, the relative affordability of digital equipment has also allowed more and more bands and other enterprises to make surprisingly good videos on their own as well, be it music videos, live sessions, video blogs or whatever else.
Above we have the official (*ahem*!) video for Trips and Falls‘ moment of genius ‘And in Real Life He Wears Corduroy Pants”. This is from their debut album on Song, by Toad Records ‘He Was Such a Quiet Boy’, which can be bought here and which I absolutely love. But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I.
When we first saw Bombadil play live it was at Pickathon in 2008, and they were brilliant. For the most part they played songs from their debut album A Buzz, A Buzz but there was one standout which I had never heard before: Marriage, which ended up on their second record, Tarpits and Canyonlands, which was released last year. Below is a live session with Scott Avett from the Avett Brothers, who were label-mates of Bombadil’s during their years on the wonderful Ramseur Records, before they left recently to sign to Columbia.
Below we have the official Silver Columns video for their new single Cavalier. I am really looking forward to hearing this album, because far from being a disco-pop novelty act, their new stuff really sounds like it’s going to be a varied, excellent record. And a video with Johnny Pictish acting all cool like a pop star is always worth a good chortle.
When we started the Toad Sessions I think I might have had something like this video below in mind, if only we lived somewhere as cool as that. It’s by Adam Arcuragi, and it just looks so incredibly lush, the sound is good and I envy anyone actually being there. How dare their lives be so brilliant!
It’ll be back to music and the sharing of illegally pirated copyright material next, but for now I thought a wee visual interlude was in order. Enjoy!
This might actually have been my favourite album of 2009. The trouble was that it was a self-release, which we were in the process of re-jigging a little and re-releasing on Song, by Toad Records, so I didn’t really want to include it in its initial form.
I don’t want to give you the hard sell, so you can read my intial review here. This is a new version though, re-sequenced, re-mastered and with a few songs clipped out. I honestly love this record – it’s strange and a little creepy and yet in a sense it is probably best thought of as a pop record I think. The songs themselves are absolutely packed with riffs and hooks and all that pop stuff, it’s just all somewhat, well… peculiar I guess. And I love it.
Initial reviews have been *ahem* flooding in. Well sort of. We’ve had some really nice ones in The Skinny, Quick Before it Melts and This Music Wins, which I really appreciate. The real peach, though, came by email from Nicola who has been a massive support to this label in general, and was intending to review it for The List. She was somehow thwarted due to administrational gremlins unfortunately, but she emailed me this, and I really wish you read more reviews like this in actual magazines:
“Anecdotally, I do have some feedback though. It has been, without a doubt, THE hit album in our house this year. This is predominantly due to the fact that my wee girl (two-and-a-half) utterly loves the opening track. (By which I mean it’s on almost every morning by half seven, and we’re all up dancing). I was tempted to mail you to let you know that at a recent family gathering there were octogenarians up on the floor to the Chills / country strains of Trips & Falls but, you know, babies and pensioners are maybe not yr demographic… (There were plenty of us inbetweeners loving it too, right enough…)”
So there you have it. If you ever have children and pensioners you want to see on the same dancefloor (actually, that sounds dangerous, how are there so few fatalities at weddings?) then this is your baby.
Anyhow, I love this, it is now available to buy and I really hope you’ll enjoy it as well. There’s a video for And in Real Life He Wears Corduroy Pants at the bottom of the page as well – it’s an all-out multi-media PR blitz!
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Hello. Sorry for the lack of preparation here, but Homegame rather fucked with my ability to get anything done in an orderly and organised fashion this week.
Listen to us! We’re super duper and we have the very very lovely Love. Stop.Repeat with us for some post Homegame fun….
1. Matthew and The Atlas – Deadwood
2. Trips and Falls – We Were Like Strangers Today
3. Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now
4. Love.Stop.Repeat – Song For Mary (live in session)
5. Mimicking Birds – Cabin Fever
6. Love.Stop.Repeat – Tail Lights (live in session)
7. Au Revoir Simone – We Are Here
8. Love.Stop.Repeat – Storm Song (live in session)
9. Jonnie Common – hand-to-hand
10. Fanfarlo – Finish Line
11. Sparklehorse – Maria’s Little Elbows
12. Love.Stop.Repeat – Pillow (live in session)
13. Cold Seeds – Perfume of Mexican Birds
In case any of you wondered what it really means being an independent record label, it is shown in these pictures (click to enlarge). This is the Trips and Falls album He Was Such a Quiet Boy carpeting our floors. We hand print two colours onto the sleeves, apply two different stickers to the front, then fold up the box and insert the CD and the inlay card. Then we do it again, two hundred and ninety-nine more times.
Still, looks fucking lovely doesn’t it. Chris from Meursault and his brother Mike did the artwork under the guise of their new graphic art powerhouse-in-indie-slippers enterprise The Brothers Grimm. They also did the artwork for the new Meursault album, which is looking fantastic as well, so a big thanks to them both.
It’s times like this that being a record label is really fucking cool. You can pre-order the album from here, if you want – out on 22nd March.
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Well I am Ruthless and bandless to begin this term’s broadcasts, so you’ll have to wait until next week for the first Toadly Fresh Air Session I’m afraid.
Having said that, however, I have a shiteload of excellent and very shiny new material to play tonight, so people wanting the pop hits are likely to be rather disappointed as there are few old favourites and lots of new demos which I am very much hoping will end up on albums before the end of the year.
Ruth will be back with me as of next week, but she’s currently nursing Michael H. Foxx, who is in hospital with the nasties. So best wishes to both of them, but we’ll be back in the normal swing of things from next Monday onwards.
Incidentally, if you know anyone who you would recommend for a live session, just get in touch in the comments or by email (see the contact page above).
This evening’s tracklisting (updated live):
1. Django Django – Storm
2. Liars – No Barrier Fun
3. Gobble Gobble – Lawn Knives
4. Robin Grey – I Love Leonard Cohen
5. Leonard Cohen – Avalanche
6. REM – First We Take Manhattan (Leonard Cohen Cover)
7. The Burns Unit – Since We’ve Fallen Out
8. The Van Allen Belt – The Way You Look
9. Trips and Falls – That is a Big Door!
10. Sarah Lowes – Night Time
11. Findo Gask – Full Five (Demo)
12. Yusuf Azak – Eastern Sun (Demo)
13. Meursault – All Creatures Will Make Merry
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Today rocks. It’s freezing cold, even Edinburgh has a little snow, and the Water of Leith has completely frozen over outside our office. Basically, this is a proper Winter and, as you might have guessed from my last post, I am loving it.
My hair froze on the way into work this morning, which is something I haven’t experienced since I was about seventeen. I went skiing for a day with my Dad this Christmas which, rather sadly, is something we haven’t done for nearly ten years. Christ it was perilous on the first few runs down!
So yes, basically I am loving it, it’s like regressing to childhood again, at least as nostalgic as the Elton John song I put in your Friday selection. Yes. Yes I did. Elton John. Suck it up, bitches (as he presumably must have said to Wham at one stage).
This weekend I will be sorting out video and audio from the New Year’s House Gig, making a start on the eagleowl Toad Session, getting a couple of our new releases sorted out and generally being an efficient little weasel. I think I work harder in my free time at the moment than I do at my actual job – I’m certainly far more organised, there’s no doubt about that.
I was mocked yesterday for constantly carrying about a a big (and very pretty and colourful) chart of the Song, by Toad Records release schedule for the year. Fair point and all, but between the timeline and the actual cost figures I have in there, it’s a pretty important chart to have. Yay admin! Whoever thought it could be so sexy.
1. Name one plan/resolution/Very Important Decision you have made for the new year.
2. Have you done any Extremely Fun Snow Stuff yet? And if not, WHY NOT?
3. Favourite snowy bit in a film (NOT Hoth-related because that’s too easy).
4. Coldest you’ve ever experienced.
5. Favourite warming up beverage for freezing cold days.
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I do try and avoid shilling for the label on this blog, because no-one wants to read a twice-daily sales pitch, but I reckon it’s okay to have a look forward at what we’ve got planned for the year. That’s what the new year is for, really, isn’t it?
So I’ve got a nice big release schedule drawn up, just like real record labels do, and honestly it scares the shite out of me. I can pretty much plan out my free time for the whole of the next twelve months just looking at it, but there are some great releases in there.
By the end of 2010 we are going to have a back catalogue to be bloody proud of, honestly, especially when you consider that we had only been a record label for about a month at this time last year.
That picture, incidentally, is a somewhat butchered (sorry Annie) version of one of four gorgeous photos on this blog taken of the two new Meursault 7″s.
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01. Trips and Falls – We Were Like Strangers Today (05.30)
02. Maxwell Panther – My Ex-Identity (09.02)
03. Cold Seeds – Leave Me to Lie Alone in the Ground (17.19)
04. Jesus H. Foxx – This is Not a Rental Car (26.43)
05. Animal Magic Tricks – Smallish Hooves (29.35)
06. The Savings and Loan – Virgin’s Lullaby (36.36)
07. Inspector Tapehead – Sugar on Your Sheets (40.02)
08. Loch Lomond – Holiday (48.25)
09. Meursault – What You Don’t Have (Live on Fresh Air Radio) (58.34)
10. Nightjar – Sweet Annie Lee (66.56)
Get it – Festive Fiddy! Oh I do crack myself up sometimes, I really do.
So here endeth the Festive Fifty for this year. As anyone who has compiled this kind of list will know, the whole process is more than a little arbitrary, and were I to start from scratch tomorrow I would probably end up somewhere notably different.
The interesting thing for me personally is to note how strongly the advantages and disadvantages of nepotism have made themselves known.
The advantages are obvious – would there be so much Withered Hand, Meursault, FOUND and all the rest so high on this list if I didn’t have a much closer personal relationship with their music than most other music? Well I doubt it. I am being a hundred percent sincere when I say that these are my favourite songs this year, but I do know that being as close to music as I am does change how you feel about it, so I have to acknowledge that.
On the downside, bands like Broken Records, Sparrow & the Workshop, Withered Hand and even Meursault to a degree have suffered from how early I became familiar with certain songs. I have a demo version, a Religious Songs EP version and an album version of New Dawn, for example. So while under normal circumstances songs like that, Devil Song by Sparrow, Eilert Loveborg by Broken Records and even Nothing Broke by Meursault would normally have figured very prominently indeed on this list, I already expressed my enthusiasm for them at least a year ago and consequently they are on other lists and I don’t really feel I can put them on this one.
And before anyone complains about Trips and Falls being another Song, by Toad Records band on this list, remember that, as with Meursault last year, it’s not that they’re on this list because they’re a Song, by Toad Records band, it’s that they’re a Song, by Toad Records band because they’re on this list.
01.Elvis Perkins In Dearland – Shampoo
There just something about the rhythm of this song which I cannot get away from. When I first played it on my Fresh Air Radio show Dylan commented that it had a sort of cocky swagger to it, and it really, really does. Then there’s the deep, foreboding harmonies which break in at the end. There’s strut to the rhythm, a crack to his voice, belligerence and tragedy in the mood of it all – it’s just a fucking special, special song.
02.Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt.2 (Single Version)
When Neil first played us this apparently he though ‘Fuck, I’ve finally written a song they don’t like’. Mrs. Toad now plays this single at least once a day in our house, and if ever there was a song to break your speakers for it’s this one. The cello is gut-shaking, the piano is chiming and gorgeous and those vocals are just about the most heart-wrenching I’ve heard anywhere, ever. So if he wants to write a song we don’t like he may have to try a little harder.
03.Navigator – Work is Done
This sensitive, emotional song interrupts an album which is basically an onslaught of overloaded mics and distortion and when this suddenly appears it hits you right between the eyes, largely because you’re so unprepared. It doesn’t depend on its surroundings though, because even in isolation this is every bit as heartbreaking a song.
04.Trips and Falls – And In Real Life He Wears Corduroy Pants
This was one of those moments where the very first second you listen to something you know for certain that you are hearing something a bit special. This is a genius combination of massively infectious pop song and really peculiar atmosphere. There’s something just plain creepy about this album, even the sugar-sweet Prelude to a Shark Attack, but this song perhaps embodies that better than any. And it really is one to be played loud as well.
05.FOUND – Mullokian (Toad Session)
I remember sitting there while they were recording this and thinking ‘What the fucking hell is going on here, this is amaaaazing!’ The gently rolling guitar refrain, the simple heartfelt chorus (if you can call it that) and Tommy’s phenomenal backing vocals – there’s just so little actually there, and even that is used with such economy. Brilliant.
06.Withered Hand – No Cigarettes
The first time I heard this I remember a grin slowly spreading over my face. Dan’s songs can often be about little in particular other than a weird sense of something really not being right, and this seems to be one of those – describing a general sense of malaise with such simple music and a deft turn of phrase, you can’t help but let this get to you.
07.Auld Lang Syne – Where My Fortune Lies
This is as rousing and uplifting as any church music could ever be, and has even more impact for shrinking back into such quiet in the middle. Some fucking voice as well.
08.The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You
The album may have disappointed, but this is stunning. It’s that voice, the slow piano, the… just the sheer sadness of it all. It sounds like the demoralisation of someone coming out the other end of a midlife crisis and surveying the wreckage of their lives, although it may not be about that exactly, it does feel that way to me I have to confess.
09.Navigator – Blood
This embodies Navigator’s brilliant album Bad Children, for me. It’s a song which is full of pain, but is angry and belligerent with it. There’s an underlying aggression to it which really batters out at you from within the noise, and prevents the song, or indeed the album, sounding at all self-pitying or maudlin. He’s hurting and he’s fucking angry, and the resulting music is absolutely superb.
10.Alela Diane – Age Old Blue
Age Old Blue may be from another album I wasn’t that keen on overall, but this duet with friend Michael Hurley is beautiful. I remember seeing them perform it for the first time after her performance at the Bongo Club a couple of years ago and having no real expectations when they took the stage, only to have my jaw drop at the combination of his nasal, grizzled accompaniment to her gorgeous voice.
To download all these songs as a single zip file, click here.
21.FOUND – Enough About Human Rights
I’m not sure if anyone, not even the band themselves, likes Enough About Human Rights best from their excellent Let Fidelity Break EP, but I do. There’s just something unexpected about this song, for some reason. The fact that it is in fact a Moondog cover probably has a lot to do with that, but the hectic, percussive energy FOUND pile into their version just makes me grin every time I hear it.
22.Timber Timbre – Demon Host
The ‘ohs’ in this song take the spectral folk of Timber Timbre and give it a pleading, forlorn quality which imbues it with just a little more pathos than some of the others on the album, and this makes it extra special, in my view.
23.FOUND – You’re No Vincent Gallo – Toad Session
Honestly, I could put pretty much their entire session in the top ten of this list quite easily. It was one of the best things I have ever seen, I think it’s fair to say. Without all the stuff added by the full band I found myself so much more impressed with Ziggy’s voice, with the gorgeous tones he got from his banjo… with pretty much all of it, honestly. Gorgeous.
24.Broken Records – Lessons Never Learnt
This may have been on an earlier release, but it was on this year’s(ish) Out on the Water EP, so I am putting my foot down and saying that it counts. In any case, a really surprising song to come from a band like this, and I think that little down-up of the cello absolutely makes it.
25.Trips and Falls – Breaking Up With My Mormon Missionaries
These guys were pretty much the revelation of the year for me, in all honesty. So much so that we’ve offered to release He Was Such a Quiet Boy on Song, by Toad Records, and it should be coming out in early March. Their music is just fucking creepy, to be honest, and the male/female vocal interplay on this track in particular really is odd. Add that repetitive descent on the strings and this really is an unsettling song. And a brilliant one.
26.Jesus H. Foxx – Elegy For the Good Times
It didn’t grab me as my favourite track from Jesus H. Foxx’ debut EP Matter right off the bat, but I think it is. The cornet, the harmonies, and that simple, repetitive rhythmic underpinning for the whole thing… it all just works incredibly well together, and there’s a sophistication to it which never ceases to surprise me when I think that this is the band’s first release, with their current lineup that is.
27.The Pictish Trail – You Covered the Earth With Your Thumb (Toad Session)
I love the Toad Sessions. They really can provide some amazing recordings, and with Neil so kindly recording and mixing all of the ones we’ve done so far this year we really have had some incredible stuff. Johnny Pictish is about the nicest guy ever to set foot in our house, and his session really was good. The slow build of this, and the prominence of his vocal really are gorgeous.
28.Navigator – Change
An oddly melodic tune from one of the most belligerently low-fi albums I think I have ever heard. It took a while for the sense of ‘whoooah, what the fuck?’ to subside when I first heard this record, but it is absolutely brilliant. Fuzz or not, this is just a stone-cold pop gem and one of the most catchy riffs of the year.
29.The Builders and The Butchers – Golden And Green
Mental and ferocious brilliance. When these guys hit their stride their ramshackle old jalopy threatens to shake loose its wheels altogether and crash into a ditch, and those are almost without fail their greatest songs. This is just like that.
30.Titus Andronicus – Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ
I don’t know whether I just like how raucous this song gets, or whether I like how quiet it is half the time, compared to how raucous it gets when it cuts loose. Either way, this is one of the best play it loud soungs of the year.
31.Sparrow & the Workshop – Into the Wild
I heard this EP so close to doing this list that Horse’s Grin could as easily have been here instead, but such is the slightly arbitrary nature of these things that you’re getting this one. Maybe it’s something about the storming ending which gets me – Nick is getting to really have a right bloody go on his guitars these days, and Jill is proving that her voice is easily powerful enough to step up and match it. This is full on rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s superb.
32.Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (I)
Yes, more Wild Beasts. I don’t know how this happened – it wasn’t exactly deliberate, I just kept ordering and re-ordering my list and their songs kept on sticking in there, often at the expense of stuff I thought I liked better. This one’s more downbeat, but again that guitar sound and gorgeous voice produce something atmospheric and yet still insidiously infectious.
33.Alela Diane & Alina Hardin – I Have Returned
This whole EP is simple and absolutely gorgeous. Again, I could have picked pretty much any of the songs from it, but there’s something about this one which seems to have captivated me just that little bit more. The vocal interplay between the two is as lovely as with any song on the EP, but maybe there’s something in the roll of the verses which does it. Then again, maybe it’s just arbitrary and I might pick a different one this time next week.
34.Meursault – Nothing Broke
A different version of this was on the band’s MySpace page the first time I ever heard them and it made a really strong impression on me. They recorded it for their Toad Session back in August last year, and now this gorgeous piano and harmonium version for the truly stunning Nothing Broke EP. If anything, the only reason this song is so low on this list is down to the fact that it’s so familiar by now.
35.Timber Timbre – Lay Down in the Tall Grass
This song shows just how simple most of this album is – the barest hint of percussion doing nothing very complex, a simple organ riff repeating throughout the song, and vocals. There’s other stuff there too, but really very little of it, and that kind of subtle touch is what makes this such a special album.
To download all these songs in one big zip file, click here.
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This is called the Tapecast because last night, for the first time in about ten years, I made a mixtape. Â Because of the van having a tape player there is actually a point to making these bloody things now, so we got hammered and listened to records all night (again), only this time I recorded them all onto a C-90!
