Righty-ho people, another week draws to a close and by Christ have I been productive. The only person suffering this week has once again been the unimaginably tolerant Mrs. Toad, who has been criminally neglected at the expense of early conference calls a Proper Job, gigs attended, Meursault singles recorded, vinyl packaging finalised, and the pulling together of the final details of the Jesus H. Foxx EP for the launch on Saturday. Last night we finished packing and folding and stamping the last of the run at about one in the morning, and it's looking bloody lovely. [...]
You could drink yourself into a coma going to every interesting gig in Edinburgh this week. I think I might need a few orange juice gigs, if just to vaguely preserve both liver and waistline. Although it may be too late for both, I have to admit. I think I am going to start driving to gigs (tonight is by necessity, but we'll see how it goes) just as a way of forcing myself to stick to fizzy water or some such beverage. Maybe Skinny Water , perhaps (thank you Cogstar), a drink so monumentally stupid that [...]
Well the Trampoline show for this Friday, with Ziggy Campbell and Yusuf Azak has been cancelled, which is a bit of a tragedy for my music fun, but at least spares me some of the Olympic amounts of typing this post is going to require all through bloody August. Fucking hell, it's like a mini novel. Fortunately I don't think much was actually on yesterday, when the sort of hangover generated only by consuming an entire bottle of gin prevented me from doing anything productive at all. So this post is being written now and dated two days [...]
It's been a while since we had an update on exactly what on Earth is going on at Song, by Toad Records, so I thought I might let you all know what our plans are for the rest of the year. Partly for shits and giggles, partly because I am really excited, and partly as a desperate marketing ploy to wear you down by constant repetition into accepting that everything we ever release will be the best thing you have ever heard in the world. It will be, you know. So, in chronological order, here's an [...]
Jesus, They're Everywhere The new Jesus H. Foxx EP is being given a full release on Song, by Toad Records in about a month's time. By full release, I mean that we will be making a run of five hundred copies, with hand-painted artwork and I will be doing my best to publicise it around the various magazines and radio stations and blogs out there. It also implies that they are Song, by Toad Records' latest signing, I suppose, in the sense that anyone is signed to Song, by Toad Records, which is something [...]
Saturday's gig was, I think it's fair to say without excessively blowing my own trumpet, fucking outstanding. What fun! There were flowers everywhere - thank you for those of you who made an effort, and didn't leave me alone to look like a pillock by myself - the music was great and the gin flowed in epic quantities. The open mic stuff at the beginning was great fun, so a big thank you to everyone who played. We had two lovely songs by Alison and Tom from Aurora Stands in Snow, and then a couple from Scott Renton [...]
Hello. I am Bart. Woo. So I'm doing the Monday gig listing. Mainly cos I'm usuallythe first person to jump in any time Matthew misses anything. You'll notice there's no music files. It's not that I don't really know what I'm doing. Well, not only that. For some reason the file hosting site that me, Dylan and Euan were given access to during Matthew's little holiday seems to have mysteriously dissappeared from the web. And it's only been three days. Crumbs. Hopefully songbytoad.com will still be here when he gets back - but who's to say [...]
When I first heard about Jesus H. Foxx, they were the haircut band support act of choice in Edinburgh, and pretty much the only purveyors of spiky indie punk pop in the city. That particular niche seems to be quite well inhabited these days, even as the Foxx themselves are leaving it behind. This EP is very short, very very good, and a hell of a lot more than the slightly one-dimensional band I had rather hastily pigeonholed Jesus H. Foxx as being. The jerkiness remains in their staccatto percussion and tendency to shift rhythms at surprising times, [...]
Me and the missus are rambling away together on this one. It's largely new music, bookended by a couple of more well-known things. We Invent a new term - a weird combination of food and sex called culiniungus. We offend the Irish and the Scots. In fact, we are as offensively and predictably us as you could imagine. We were out and totally smashed at the Broken Records gig at the Bowery yesterday, followed by some hot Sneaky Pete's action. There are some disastrously embarrassing pictures here , if you want to point and laugh. The gig [...]
Good grief, it's a busy week in Edinburgh this week. I am going to have to drive everywhere just to stop myself drinking my liver into oblivion. Personally, of course, I am advocating the Song, by Toad Spring piss up at the Bowery on Thursday. Those of you yet to acquire a copy of Meursault's blinding new EP , I'd very much recommend you take this chance to do so. We've only made 300 copies - all hand-painted - so I don't think they'll last all that long. Tigerfest and the [...]
Evening, Toadlings. There's really very little on in Edinburgh this week that I would personally be up for, and the one gig I want to see is taking place when I am bastarding well out of town, on Thursday evening. Marina & the Diamonds are playing Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms this week, but honestly I am not all that convinced I have to confess. The only thing I really want to go to this week is the Jesus H. Foxx EP launch at the Bowery on Thursday night, but I'm in fucking London aren't I, so I [...]
I haven't mentioned Jesus H. Foxx much on these pages and that is because, if I'm being brutally honest, I had my doubts about them as a band. They were good, and they were lots of fun, but for the most part it seemed to lack a bit of something. The music could be very uniform and one-paced over the course of a whole gig. I wasn't entirely convinced by the lyrics either; whilst they seemed to use them effectively as an instrument to provide rhythm and melody, they seemed to fare less well as actual words. They were using [...]
I haven't mentioned Jesus H. Foxx much on these pages and that is because, if I'm being brutally honest, I had my doubts about them as a band. They were good, and they were lots of fun, but for the most part it seemed to lack a bit of something. The music could be very uniform and one-paced over the course of a whole gig. I wasn't entirely convinced by the lyrics either; whilst they seemed to use them effectively as an instrument to provide rhythm and melody, they seemed to fare less well as actual words. They were using [...]
How many of you are there? There's only one of me, which looks like it might prove troublesome this week, particularly late on when the clashing gigs really start to stack up. I am just back in Edinburgh after the Jason Lytle interview, which went very well in terms of being a most pleasant sort of chat, yet didn't provide a particularly obvious hook on which to hang an article. I may have to listen back and digest for a couple of days before writing it, I think. It's odd to suddenly find yourself in conversation with someone whose music [...]
Bugger me it's a busy week in gigs this week, starting this very evening, which is annoying in a sense as I'd rather hoped to have a relaxing week. Fat chance, it seems. Sorry for the lack of chat, but there's a fuck of a lot to list here and I have to get this done before the end of my lunch break. Consequently these previews are going to be the shortest I've ever written. It might seem slightly insulting to the bands involved, but huge apologies if it is, but I am really, really rushed this morning. [...]
If you're going to everything that's on this week, you might wish to consider drinking cups of tea at gigs or you'll have a liver like a fucking cricket ball by the end of all this. You could literally drink your way through the week, the finest of music dancing in your ears, and a great big beer-hoover emptying your wallet. My absolute definites are Withered Hand, Sparrow & the Workshop, Trembling Bells, Findo Gask and, erm, Jesus H. Foxx. Christ. I am going to have to make sure I have a couple of orange juice gigs in [...]
Christ, it's going to be like Fred Karno's bloody Circus in Edinburgh this week (did your Grandma use that phrase all the time too?) Particulary towards the tail end of the week there are all sorts of good gigs, of which I will be attending... precisely none, unfortunately. We're away in London this weekend, and I am in Glasgow on both Wednesday and Thursday nights, would you believe. Incredibly frustrating. We are nearly finished work on the Samamidon Toad Session, and a bloody good thing too, because Johnny Lynch, aka the Pictish Trail, will be coming [...]
Christ on a bike, after nothing at all last week, all of a sudden things are going bananas this week. You could pretty much be at a good show every night if you wanted. I'm not going to write much in this intro because, frankly, there are so many gigs to bloody write about that the post would run on far too long otherwise. Suffice to say that Friday's party was, from my perspective, a massive success. The open mic bit at the beginning was not an idea many people were overly convinced by, but I think pretty [...]
Having been neatly scolded for my snobbery after mocking neds last week, with no mention of their prejudice for threatening to chib me for sounding a bit posh and somewhat English, I am going to steer clear of sweeping generalisations this time around for fear of being stabbed by the weasels on one side and berated as I bleed to death by the tut-tutters on the other. Wee Half China does make some very good points in that post actually, and whilst it is easy enough to point out that mocking neds for being shitey little [...]
Mrs. Toad has been away all week and I have been at a gig every night in her absence. In retrospect this was a bit foolish because I've had to sit through some real shit, but everyone I have specifically gone to see has been excellent. A few less shows next week though, because there [...]
Song, by Toad
Santigold – The Keepers (Duke Dumont Remix)
