Well if there's any shit going down in Edinburgh this week I am not going to be there to enjoy it. Not out of shame at having just used the term 'shit going down' as if I was a teenager in the nineties, but because my gigfuns will be happening in London and Glasgow this week. Tomorrow I am in London to see Rob St. John and Neil from Meursault play at the Vortex, and then on Thursday I'll be in Glasgow for the Fence Records Christmas party. And funnily enough, with Detour, Frightened Rabbit and Jill O'Sullivan [...]
Okay, angry mob of the Toad readership, do your very worst. Today, as promised, is the day we vote on our five favourite songs of the year so there will be no foolish questions as per usual, but what there will be is the chance for you to write down your favourite songs, in no particular order, and I will count them up and find out which songs the readers of Toad have enjoyed the most this year. There aren't any real rules, although the song should have been released in 2011. And also, just to help me [...]
DJ Shadow - Scale It Back (feat. Little Dragon) Click here to view the embedded video. "So, that was a hummingbird being eaten by a giant snake, which plays a tambourine, which signals the catapult to launch a parrot to get a medallion from a sofa, where there's a pterodactyl which pushes the shopping trolly into an old man who's fighting a street fighter, whom's pet monkey runs over to a gargoyle which is waving a rolling pin at a pop singer who opens a freezer [...]
Malky from eagleowl asked if a friend of his could come along to Rob St. John's album launch the other week and take some pictures. Well he did, and despite the lighting being a bit of a challenge, they've turned out beautifully. The gentleman in question is Iain Stewart, whose website is here , and here is a small selection of pics from Pilrig the other week. Thanks - they look fantastic!
The above photo is of the Palm House in Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens, and was taken and passed on to me by Dylan, of Blueback Hotrod legend. And given that the weather outside is all kinds of shit I thought there would be a sort of bitter irony in using it today. See - that's how nice Edinburgh can be, so what the fuck is this pissing rain all about? Anyhow, traditional British whingeing aside, it's going to be a pretty bloody mental week this week. Thursday is going to be a particular swine, what with the awesome David [...]
So, after the chaos of the Festival, we are back to normal service here in Ides of Toad HQ (which looks suspiciously similar to Song, by Toad HQ and bears a more than passing resemblance to Song, by Toad Records HQ). Actually, I thought I managed to get myself horribly waylaid by the Festival, but it turns out I have most of the Autumn's lineups already filled and ready to go, with only a few gaps here and there. This level of organisation rather shocks me, I have to confess, but I am sure I will find some [...]
This is the post-Homegame, 'dear Jesus please just let me sleep for a week, good god someone please fetch me a green vegetable' podcast. I can just about keep my head together enough to get through this, but then I have the Monday listings to write and the bloody Francois/This is the Kit/Babe gig to organise tonight as well. Aargh! I also have all sorts of other things to do this week, but after the sort of mind-boggling battering your mind and your liver get at Homegame I am not sure I can face [...]
A couple of weeks back I posted a recording of Eagleowl covering Withered Hand, in something of a reach-around this week we have Dan Willson returning the favour with his beautiful cover of 'Into The Fold'. I had hoped that I would be posting this cover in anticipation of Withered Hand's first ever US tour, which included appearances at this years SXSW festival. However, as I am sure a lot of you are already aware, Dan has been experiencing what you might describe as the mother of all fuck ups in getting his visa sorted. You can read more about [...]
I realise that a fair few of you were a bit peeved that there was no Friday Freebies yesterday, I am afraid that as I was out manning the door at the Kid Canaveral SXSW fundraiser gig, it meant that I didn't have any time to draft something up. So next week will be a double roll over of awesomeness. Thankfully I still have time to ramble pish then share a cover version with you all, this week we have an Edinburgh artist covering an Edinburgh band, who says that Scottish music scene is a bit incestuous?! It's Withered Hand [...]
MOOOOR-ning! Having kicked off our own monthly series of gigs this weekend just, with an excellent gig at the Wee Red Bar, I feel very much ready to start properly going to gigs again, after an extremely quiet January. It was an excellent night actually, so a massive thank you to everyone who came out, and thanks a lot to the bands as well, who all made an effort to bring their friends down, which as a new promoter is something I am extremely grateful for. We've got something like five more gigs in the [...]
This week there will be fuck all happening in Edinburgh, or at least there better be, because I will be participating in none of it. Apparently there's some pagan bollocks going on at the end of the week related to a fat man and some reindeer, but I wouldn't bother paying that too much attention if I were you. Actually, there is the Christmas Songwriters' Club down in Leith on Thursday which looks rather excellent. I have been trying to buy tickets, but am finding WeGotTickets to be an unspeakable shitfest of password requirements and expired [...]
I am not personally going to bother doing a 'Best of 20102 podcast based around my own choices. Over the next couple of weeks you're going to get more than enough of that in text form anyway, so I think we can all live without a podcast as well. What I thought I might do, though, was just do a quick rundown of the Song, by Toad Readers' song and album of the year voting because… well, why the fuck not, I suppose. As much as anything I felt like doing it because there were a couple of [...]
The results of the only real award that matters this Winter season (apart from the oracular annunciations of my own opinion, of course) can now finally be announced! AWESOME! I hear you cry in unison. Maybe. Last year we had these votes as well, but I rather neglectfully failed to actually add up the final scores. In all honesty, it's the making of the lists which is often the best bit, so picking a winner at the very end is probably not entirely necessary for fun to take place, but given you all did me the honour of [...]
As it's that time of year when every man and his dog is drawing up their end of year album lists, I thought I'd ask some of the bands that have done interviews for us this year as part of Scots Way-Hay, to tell me about their favourite albums of 2010. Kicking it all off [...]
So, a day late with this, sorry. I blame a combination of Virgin Media and vast amounts of drinking. I woke up yesterday, still slightly hungover, and found that Virgin have managed to break our internet. Here I am today a day and a half later and it is still fucking broken. They offered us a fiver refund without me even asking for it, so I assume they must have fucked up something pretty significant, but I felt too shitey to venture out to find an internet cafe to write this, sorry. All of this meant that I [...]
So, a day late with this, sorry. I blame a combination of Virgin Media and vast amounts of drinking. I woke up yesterday, still slightly hungover, and found that Virgin have managed to break our internet. Here I am today a day and a half later and it is still fucking broken. They offered us a fiver refund without me even asking for it, so I assume they must have fucked up something pretty significant, but I felt too shitey to venture out to find an internet cafe to write this, sorry. All of this meant that I [...]
Monday - the fabulous Trapped Mice kicked off the week in style with some Fresh Meat action. They'll be playing a gig for my partner in crime Ayetunes early in the new year, so make sure you keep an eye out for that one Tuesday - The Last Battle sadly had to cancel their Glasgow show this week because of the snow, on the plus side I had this wee session that they did for Fresh Air. I also got a rather amusing letter which I decided to share with [...]
As it's that time of year when every man and his dog is drawing up their end of year album lists. I thought it would be a fun idea to ask some of the bands that have done interviews for me this year as part of my Scots Way-Hay, to tell me what their favourite albums of 2010. Kicking it all off we have Call To Mind, Eagleowl, Ghost Pants, I Build Collapsible Mountains, Miss the Occupier, Seafieldroad and the Son(s) telling us a bit about what was floating their boat in 2010. [...]
"Maybe Meursault have gone rock" joked my friend as we stood waiting at the Luminaire, noting all the electric guitars on stage. But three songs into their headline set, the jest proved prophetic when Neil Pennycook said "this is our new direction" before launching into the full-on guitar onslaught of ...
Yesterday was St Andrews Day. Yesterday i was too busy getting drunk to do this post. Today i'm too hungover to make a serious attempt at one and do it justice so instead i'll just post some random stuff. Some really good Scottish music of all varieties and sounds will do for a start. Some famous ones, some semi famous ones, some lesser known ones..... MP3: Frightened Rabbit - The Loneliness MP3: The Beta [...]
Song, by Toad
Diary of Cool
Peenko
Dear Scotland
The Daily Growl
Someones In The Wolf
![Niki & The Dove - The Fox [OFFICIAL VIDEO]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/youtube/l2f6UbMnlq4_130.jpg)
Download: The Violet Lights - "Sex and Sound"
Chromatics: “Into The Black”
Sunday Means Eight Of The Best
Whitney Houston uncovered
