It’s the Gigpocalypse! Gigmageddon! A gigantic week-long party of musical funz! The final kick in the balls your exhausted, fading liver can’t quite handle before it gives up the ghost and implodes altogether.

After a pretty lacklustre musical showing thus far, the Edinburgh Festival finally earns its spurs this week with what can only be described as the inevitable descent of total and utter carnage.

Lach’s one-man show is back on (after illness) at Cabaret Voltaire, free every night this week at 8:45pm, and of course the Antihoot will be on every night this week except Tuesday from midnight to 3am in the Gilded Balloon.

Then there’s also the next two Toad at the Circus gigs, firstly an acoustic strummer affair, and then on Friday a thumping racket.  I will be DJing at these gigs, but don’t let that put you off, they might still be quite fun.

As well as conventional gigs, Avalanche Records have a full list of really rather excellent in-stores this week too, featuring the likes of Emily Scott and Edinburgh School for the Deaf – full details here. Oh, and of course the week finally stumbles to an alcoholic close with the return of the fantabulous Retreat Festival.  It will be awesome, and my liver will be begging for mercy long before the end.

Tuesday 23rd August 2011: Ulrich Schnauss & Jonnie Common at the Electric Circus.

This will be a carnival of electro loveliness.  I know less about Mr. Schnauss, but Jonnie’s album is pretty damn close to being the best Scottish album of the year, for my money.

Jonnie Common – Summer is For Going Places

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Wednesday 24th August 2011: Neil Pennycook, Benjamin Shaw & John Egdell at the Electric Circus.

It’ll be an all-acoustic affair for our third Toad at the Circus gig.  Apart from Meursault’s Neil Pennycook performing solo, we have the amazing Benjamin Shaw coming up from London and the equally excellent John Egdell from Newcastle.

Benjamin Shaw – 12,000 Sentinels

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Wednesday 24th August 2011: Sebadoh at Cabaret Voltaire.

This is a bit straightforward isn’t it.  Sebadoh are lo-fi indie rock legends (to paint with the broadest of brushes) and they are playing in Edinburgh.  I think this might be sold out though, so there might be little point listing it but umm… it’s Sebadoh, y’know.

Sebadoh – Nothing Like You

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Thursday 25th August 2011: Withered Hand, eagleowl, Woodpigeon (solo) & Meursault (solo) at the Queen’s Hall.

Something of an Edinburgh all-stars gig this one.  If you aren’t from here and want to know why those of us in Edinburgh have been so excited by our homegrown music scene recently, then this and Retreat are the ones to show you.

Withered Hand – Religious Songs

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Thursday 25th August 2011: Willy Mason at Cabaret Voltaire.

Willy Mason has sort of slipped off the critical radar since the pop smash (relatively speaking of course) of Oxygen back in about 2005 or so.  I saw him live back in London before moving up here actually, and it was absolutely brilliant.

Willy Mason – We Can Be Strong

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Friday 26th August 2011: Brown Brogues, Ghost Outfit & Rollor at the Electric Circus.

Let’s see the babbling hen sluts talk over this.  Fuck you, motherfuckers, tonight is going to be loud!  Brown Brogues are a clattering racket and according to The Pigeon Post Ghost Outfit are the best live band in Manchester at the moment.

Brown Brogues – Treet U Beta

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Friday 26th & Saturday 27th August 2011: Lach’s Antihoot Antifolk-off at the Gilded Balloon.

As the Antihoot has been taking place this year Lach and myself have been selecting, with the help of the audience, the favourite act of each night and we’re inviting them all back this weekend, where we’ll be recording the performances to release as The Best of the Antihoot on Song, by Toad Records.  It’ll also be a fantastic way to have a big fuck off party to celebrate the end of an awesome run at this year’s Festival which has, of course, seen me make my stand-up comedy debut.  But the less said about that the better.

Saturday 27th August 2011: The Machine Room, Land of Cakes & Plastic Animals at Sneaky Pete’s.

Continuing the excellence of their Festival booking, Sneaky Pete’s have three excellent new Edinburgh bands on on Saturday.   I’ll be at Retreat, but if it happens to sell out then this looks like an excellent alternative.

The Machine Room – Your Head on the Floor Next Door

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Saturday 27th & Sunday 28th August 2011: Retreat Festival at Pilrig St. Paul’s church.

There are a couple of events which define my musical calendar.  Most Fence events would pretty much be included in there, and the other would be Retreat.  The best bands in Edinburgh, fucking lovely people and the nicest atmosphere at any music even I’ve been to in the city.  Bart Owl is a hero. A sarcastic, ginger hero.

On the drive back from Glasgow yesterday, after the second of Yusuf Azak’s three album launch gigs, the snow started absolutely horsing it down, to the extent that all the traffic slowed to a sensible single file at about thirty miles an hour, and all you could see was little red tail-lights in the white.

It was, if I am being entirely honest, pretty cool. Although of course that’s easy to say when you’re no more than twenty miles from home and in no actual danger.

Anyway, this morning it’s all turned icy outside and Mrs. Toad is complaining about the heating not being up to the job, so I think we can safely say that the rituals of Winter have begun! Hence, the Coldcast.

Direct download: Toadcast #150 – The Coldcast

01. The Mountain Goats – You or Your Memory (00.28)
02. The 63 Crayons – Devils (07.02)
03. The Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant (15.50)
04. Brown Brogues – I Just Don’t Know (19.07)
05. The Beatles – Dear Prudence (25.16)
06. Girl Problems – Sancho (31.49)
07. Thirty Pounds of Bone – A Lesson in Talking (41.21)
08. Willy Mason – Carry On (44.33)
09. Y Niwl – Dau (52.42)
10. Songdog – A Life Eroding (So Much Sorrow) (61.26)

I have mentioned often enough on this site how much I like EPs, not least for their lack of what I suppose Americans might call a Seventh Inning Stretch – that weary feeling you get about two thirds to three quarters of the way through an album, where your attention starts to wane and you wander off to make a cup of tea.

Anyhow, I have a lot of them in my inbox at the moment, all good for varying reasons, but it seems like I would be excessive to write a separate post for each, so figured I would condense four of my favourites down into a single post for your efficient musical enjoyment, in alphabetical order by band name:

Cheapskate – Knock Knock Knock

This is actually a free download from the Cheapskate website, which appears to be down at the moment, but is also available from last.fm in the meantime.  I first found out about this band from Cloud Sounds, and it’s not the kind of music to shock you or make you sit up straight immediately you hear it, but it’s odd, and oddly compelling.

There are times when it sounds like music from children’s TV, times when it sounds like a peculiar advertising jingle, and times when it’s just sinister enough you might be worried about your teenage daughter listening to it.

In fact, this probably comes across a lot like a MySpace groomer, except in musical form: superficially friendly and oh so innocent, but with something oddly out of place and not quite right, but never so strange as to let you put your finger on it entirely.

Cheapskate – Get Up Early

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My Tiny Robots – Rock Bossa Nova EP

This EP is short and sweet, checking in at a mere four songs, with the first one swerving shy of the two-minute mark.

Stylistically it’s an interesting mish-mash.  The first track has rather surprising hints of Maximo Park, of all things, but the rest of the EP tends to embrace seventies alt-pop sung in a voice which sits halfway between new wave and a barroom croon.

It sounds sort of cocky at times, I think, with the guitar played with a stylish swagger and the rhythms feeling kind of suggestive, although not in a way that is too obvious.  Good stuff though, and given these guys seemed to be in danger of petering out until quite recently, it’s good to see ‘em back in the game, and back so strongly as well.

The My Tiny Robots site is here, and you can buy Rock Bossa Nova here – the physical copy of the CD really is gorgeous though, so I recommend pestering them about that, rather than settling for mere downloads.

My Tiny Robots – Rock Bossa Nova Fourbeat Black

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Randolph’s Leap – Battleships and Kettlechips

When will bloggers learn not to go starting record labels?  It’s a natural extension of the instinct to spend all your time writing about your favourite music though I guess, so it should be no surprise really, particularly in the age of the internet where there actually is an audience out there to be reached now that the traditional gatekeepers are floundering about like buffoons in search of their lost customers.

Step forward Olive Grove Records, and debut release, Battleships and Kettlechips by Randolph’s Leap. Randolph’s Leap are clever and sensitive, with a tongue in cheek way with their lyrics, and the ability to combine the sincere with the amusing which few manage this well.

I hate words like quirky, but it’s hard to avoid with bands like this.  Not that there’s anything zany or madcap about them, more that there are plenty of moments on this EP where I find myself looking up and actually cocking an eyebrow at the speakers, wondering quite how these guys see the world.  They seem like the kind of lunatics who are absolutely convinced that they are sane, and who tolerate the rest of the world’s eccentricities with a genial sympathy.

Randolph’s Leap – As I Lie in the Mud

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Willy Mason – So Long Baby Shoes

There was a time Willy Mason seemed oh so very close to becoming one of my favourite artists.  That he didn’t quite owes an unreasonable amount to a disappointing show at the Liquid Rooms about four years ago, where the full band he played with rather smothered the loveliness of his songs, making it all sound less remarkable than it actually is.

Shame on me, I actually stopped really paying attention with anything like the same enthusiasm after that.  I suppose it doesn’t help that he seemed to drift back from the verge of a major, permanent breakthrough to the vastly different world of self-release, meaning his new stuff wasn’t as enthusiastically forced on me as it might have been.

This is bloody gorgeous though.  The arrangements are really simple, leaving the emphasis on his lovely, lovely voice, and gentle, tender lyrics.  It’s sufficiently lovely that I feel like a right disloyal bastard for letting his music drift out of my life for the last couple of years.

The website of his UK fanclub is here, and you can buy So Long Baby Shoes from CDBaby here.

Willy Mason – I Wish I Knew How to Say Goodbye

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Fmmmghfh.. Eigg.  Drink.  Fuckers.  Still broken.

If those Fence bastards ever suggest you go to one of their festivals say NO!  You will be drowned in drink and have so much fun that there could not possibly be a more drab and disappointing place than Real Life, as and when you are forced to return to it.

I’ll be writing something about the festival itself once my brain heals, but for now here are some entertainments to keep you occupied in Edinburgh this week, the most important to me personally of course being the Inspector Tapehead album launch and pre-gig in-store performance in Avalanche Records.

Wednesday 29th September 2010: Willy Mason at the Roxy Art House.

I remember seeing Willy Mason at the Borderline in London before I moved up here, and being absolutely spellbound.  He played up here shortly afterwards with a full band, and I kind of felt that the band crowded both his voice and his guitar playing, both of which seemed to have more space to breathe at the London show. Nevertheless, there is a real warmth to the guy when he plays and if this show is anything like as good as I think it might be I am going to be a happy boy indeed.

Willy Mason – Fear No Pain

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Thursday 30th September 2010 (5pm): Inspector Tapehead in-store at Avalanche Records.

I promise to bring some beer, for those who fancy popping up for this one.

Thursday 30th September 2010: Inspector Tapehead, The Miserable Rich & The Stormy Seas at the Wee Red Bar.

Brighton’s Miserable Rich are signed to Humble Soul in Manchester, one of the country’s finest DIY labels, so I am really pleased to be able to put them on the bill for this one.  Of course, it was actually down to Tallah and Jim from This is Music, if I’m being honest, but I am still really pleased!   And given the amount of time The Stormy Seas have wasted on this blog, I think it’s about time we put them on a bill too.  And as for Inspector Taphead, well given how late the album was in appearing I suppose it’s only fair we were a bit late with the album launch show as well.

Inspector Tapehead – Yarvil

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I barely know how to react when I read articles like this one. A large part of me is on the verge of launching into a massive rant about self-obsessed fuckwits who manage to turn something as incredibly simple as diet into the carnival of self-loathing naval gazing that it has become.  And another part of me is just sad.

Funnily enough, I think I went to school with Michael Pollan, who wrote the article. Not as mates, but I think he was a few years ahead of myself and Mrs. Toad at Vienna International School. Maybe it’s a different Michael Pollan.

Anyhow, yes, food. Well his first three sentences read thus: Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly Plants.  A masterpiece of economical, impactful writing. Michael (or Mr. Pollan I suppose, if it’s not the fellow from Vienna) goes on to explain that food does not mean Food Products, it means actual, fresh, raw ingredients. But honestly, is any of this news to anyone? I read the article, and beyond the interesting explanations of the politics of the food industry and their lobbyists, and a little about the biology that means sugars are no longer slowly digested by our systems when we ingest them and instead flood into us unchecked, there’s not much there that isn’t amazingly fucking obvious.

Does anyone, anyone out there really think that when they eat things from containers labelled Really Incredibly Healthy and Organic and Pure and, erm, Cuts Carbon Too! that they are eating anything more than the same old processed shit that they are in the other boxes? People fiddle with certain quantities of trivial levels of particularly buzz-worthy ingredients (No Transfats! Bursting with Omega 3*!) and peddle it to us like the idiots that we are.

Eat fresh food all the time and cut down on the meat. Not too much booze either. It’s fucking obvious. I know when I am straying from this advice, and I know I have to accept the consequences. What’s the fucking problem? Are we that desperate to excuse our lack of self-control? Our greed? Or are we just really, really stupid as a species? Eat less, get some exercise, don’t eat shit. How many millions have been spent pimping hugely over-elaborate versions of that really simple and really obvious statement?

I really should start Mr. Toad’s Stop Fucking Moaning Life Coaching, shouldn’t I. I might have a slightly higher than usual suicide rate, but a few weeks of being told to shut the fuck up, stop whining and just get the fuck over yourself would do most patients a lot of good. And dishing out a good beating to those exploitative charlatans like Patrick fucking Holford and that witch-faced coprophiliac Gillian McKeith wouldn’t do anyone any harm either.

The sad part is that it is in absolutely no-one’s interests to point out that this just isn’t that complicated an issue.  Two hugely parasitical industries – the big pharma companies and the alternative medicine quacks – make millions from fuelling the prevaricating and the self-indulgent hand-wringing.  The shrinks profit from all the neuroses and the marketing whores and the manufacturers benefit from peddling us all this tosh.

Even the NHS, who actually would benefit from people following the simplest and most effective advice, can’t be that blunt because it quite simply is neither self-obsessed enough for most people, nor does it place the blame anywhere other than our own doorsteps.  We all know we should eat fresh food, presumably, so if we are not doing it then who else can possibly be to blame but ourselves?  Unfortunately that is not a very 21st Century answer.

The Fall – Eat Y’rself Fitter
Great Lake Swimmers – Put There by the Land
Belle & Sebastian – Meat & Potatoes
Eels – Hospital Food (Live at the BBC)
Willy Mason – Where the Humans Eat

* Omega 3? Fucking pointless.
**Incidentally, these antioxidant supplement pills have been comprehensively shown to do you no fucking good whatsoever. Eat your greens instead.

When Willy Mason played The Borderline in London a few years ago he produced one of the best, most utterly magnetic live performances it has ever been my privilege to witness. I was looking forward to this one, and reading The Daily Growl this morning I realised there was a good chance of seeing Elvis Perkins as well, so I made sure I dragged the unfortunate Mrs. Toad there nice and early.

I was pretty complimentary about Elvis Perkins’ forthcoming album (recent album, if you’re in God Bless America) but maybe not as complimentary as I may have been had I seen this performance before I wrote that post or heard the album for the first time.

If you read Tim’s Review on The Daily Growl you’ll see he calls Perkins substantial. This is a good way to describe it. He’s not showy, not all that forceful even, and you don’t come out of the gig feeling that you know much more about the music than you did before. What you do come out of it thinking is that you have just seen the real deal.

In the place of the showboating, the drive or the unhinged passion of many groups that do a great live set, there’s something understated, confident and utterly certain about Elvis Perkins. It gives his music tremendous gravitas and makes sure it hits home calmly but surely. He even cut loose and unleashed a bit of marching band trombone action for his penultimate number before closing with the opener from his album, the quiet and completely wonderful While You Were Sleeping. I will be keeping a far closer eye on him in years to come, that is for certain.

Buy his album, my little Band of Toads, you really won’t be disappointed.

Elvis Perkins – All the Night Without Love
Elvis Perkins – While You Were Sleeping

Willy Mason, after this, was a bit of a disappointment, but by the end demonstrated exactly why: he had a band with him and he really, really didn’t need one. His recorded music benefits very well from having his simple, sad acoustic songs filled out with upright bass and some guitars to add to the texture. Live, on the other hand, it is just a distraction.

When I saw him at The Borderline he filled a room completely with just him and his acoustic guitar. He is talented guitarist indeed, and I have rarely seen anyone create so rich a sound on his own. Add the soulful sadness of his voice and, honestly, the effect was just phenomenal.

Here his playing was disguised by too much accompaniment and the effect on Willy himself of having a band was that it seemed to encourage him to hide. He played almost his entire encore solo and the difference was like night and day. He was talking to us again, and his shy charisma shone through almost immediately. Suddenly there were silences in the music as well – he would play a note or strum a chord and just let it sit there, diffusing into the room.  I never thought I’d notice the gaps between the notes make such a profound difference – it always sounded like the sort of pretentious bollocks grown up music reviewers say because they can’t think of all that many ways to say something was good.

Basically, instead of an indeterminate ‘band noise’ fuzzing over the subtleties, suddenly every note counted. You could hear them fade, you knew why he played so few at times, and it led you through the music making it so much more poignant and direct. His encore earned more applause and more affection that the whole rest of the set put together. I can’t imagine how lonely and boring it would be to tour an entire continent by yourself, but Willy Mason needs to be heard by himself to really be heard, I think.

Willy Mason – All You Can Do From Where the Humans Eat
Willy Mason – Not Lie Down B-Side to Oxygen
Willy Mason – World That I Wanted Live on KCRW
Willy Mason – We Can Be Strong From If the Ocean Gets Rough