
After complaining last week about the continuing collapse of Edinburgh's venues and the harm that does to anyone involved in music in the city, this remarkable gig came as something of a pleasant surprise. Of course, if the currently proposed Public Entertainment License , which contrary to the impression you might get from the current discussion is not just restricted to Glasgow but in fact nationwide, comes into force, then gigs like this will become prohibitively expensive and awkward to put on and will therefore simply not happen. And a good thing too. One thing [...]

Apparently you people like music and stuff, right - that's why you're here? Well this week I like gardening. Yes, as if to demonstrate that I am taking all these accusations of being too old and too middle-class extremely seriously, this week I am far more excited about the back garden that I am about music, sorry. We've had a lot of rain this spring, so inevitably when we get a sunny week, as we did last week, everything blooms. This, I have to confess, as someone relatively new to gardening, is incredibly exciting. Any teenagers [...]
Today we have a triple threat of the weird and, hopefully, wonderful. We also have a real rarity - a song that I genuinely hate, but enjoy in this form. All three songs today feature in one way or another Paul Vickers, as should have been obvious from the title. Paul Vickers is best known to me as one of Dawn of the Replicants. I was really into them about ten years ago, before losing track of them somewhat. They were a great band, impossible to categorise, and we'll have [...]
Today we have a triple threat of the weird and, hopefully, wonderful. We also have a real rarity - a song that I genuinely hate, but enjoy in this form. All three songs today feature in one way or another Paul Vickers, as should have been obvious from the title. Paul Vickers is best known to me as one of Dawn of the Replicants. I was really into them about ten years ago, before losing track of them somewhat. They were a great band, impossible to categorise, and we'll have [...]

nina simone i am blessed (wax tailor remix) los lobos this time of the year ryan adams hey parker, it's christmas bright eyes blue christmas paul vickers and the leg i want a hippopotamus for christmas of montreal my favorite christmas jackson 5 santa claus is coming to town califone welcome christmas sam phillips it came upon a midnight clear apples in stereo holiday mood

So August is almost upon us. Traditionally - or at least for as long as I've been living here - most bands and promoters in Edinburgh tend to just take the month off and make way for the festival. It's a bit of a monolith. Every available venue (and most non-venue) space is booked up months in advance, and with so much happening every single day in August, it becomes rather difficult for smaller operations putting on shows. Of course there are exceptions – a lot of the bigger clubs just keep on trucking, and nights like Acoustic Edinburgh embrace [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]