I'm always somewhat baffled by the output of Song, by Toad Records - some of it like Meursault I absolutely fall in love with, whilst others are just so very lo-fi that I simply struggle with the noise - have a listen to their 2012 Sampler to hear what I'm talking about. Lucky for me Yusaf Azak keeps is one of those that writes rich acoustic pop songs, with lush strings, and a voice that manages to both soothing and emotive. I'm a good few months behind with Prizefighter EP though, mostly [...]
New installment in the mix series that focuses on experimental rock, avant garde pop, freak folk, and electronic music. If you like a song, please check out the artist (and consider purchasing music). Click here to download a ZIP file with all tracks and cover art. 1. Life Size Maps – Wind in the Furnace (from Weird Luck ) 2. Volcanoes – With Black Gloves (from Heavy Hands ) 3. Death Grips – Get Got (from The Money Store ) [...]
Record Store (shop, shop, it's called a fucking SHOP!) Day is always bad news for my cash reserves. I am not, I have to confess, all that enticed by the exclusives, as honestly I find that all a bit gimmicky and pointless, but I do like the idea of encouraging people back into shops and reminding people what a pleasure it is to spend hours poking around through racks of records. Music is a personal, physical thing for me - it involves the sense, of course it's physical! - and gigs and community events like Record Store Day [...]
There are two main things happening this week, as far as I can tell. One is the above-mentioned Ides of Toad gig of course, and the other is Record Store Day. I am ambivalent about Record Store Day, I have to confess, as it seems to encourage the worst kind of scalping and eBay profiteering, and it also seems like a poor apology for not spending more time in record shops year round. But at the same time it can be a really nice day, and encourages people back into shops with some really nice, limited edition products. [...]
Yusuf Azak released The Prizefighter EP as a follow up to his debut album, Turn on the Longwire , released through Song, By Toad Records. It's easy to compare Azak to the likes of Nick Drake and Elliott Smith . His delivery is cool, introspective, and aware. The compositions are marked by excellent work on the guitar and piano. The four tracks on this EP are immediately gripping, and make Azak one to watch out for in coming years. Get this EP while you can. Check out: " [...]
Song, by Toad Records hereby release into the world what we reckon is going to become an annual free sampler, mostly as a free download, but with a few CDs given to local record shops and available at gigs as well. The sampler is a combination of things we'll be releasing this year, mixed in with a couple of things from 2011 and interspersed with a few brilliant moments from the late Kenneth Williams' reading of the Wind in the Willows. Snippets from this reading litter my own weekly podcast, and inspired the name of the label in [...]
For this podcast I am joined by Ian, who is now a member of the Song, by Toad Records team, to go through a bit of a run-down of what's going to be happening on the label this year. We've got a couple of our more recent releases, like Rob St. John and Lil Daggers, as well as some of our confirmed and ready new albums for next year, by the likes of The Leg, Jesus H. Foxx and Yusuf Azak. I've also got a couple of tracks from bands we'll be releasing on a split [...]
Frightened Rabbit As part of their recent US tour the Frabbit boys were selling a limited edition EP, so now that their state side adventures are all finished up (for now), they've decided to make it free to download. Rather nifty it is too, featuring collaborations with Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell and Scottish folk singer, Archie Fisher, you can nab yourself a free download of the EP simply by signing up to their mailing list . A pretty good deal if I do say so myself. White Denim I know that [...]
Johnny Lynch very kindly suggested that I put together the bill for an all day hangover-buster/refueller the day after the Fence Collective's Hott Loggz! Festival (see, Hott Toadzz - get it? get it?). So, I have compiled a collection of the very finest Song, by Toad Records bands, as well as a couple of Toad Pals, and Johnny has arranged for us to use the Hew Scott hall from 2pm to 10pm, to allow those who have to be at work on the Monday to get back to their various homes. There will be a bar [...]
Presumably bored with the excessive amounts of time and work required to produce and publicise formal releases, Yusuf Azak has made a four-song EP available for free on his Bandcamp page . Those of you listening to it as normal, innocent punters will hear lush, lovely acoustic pop tunes, swathed in strings, piano and Yusuf's gorgeous vocals (although the familiar looping and layering is a little less prominent here than on earlier releases). He seems to divide opinion, Yusuf, which is odd because I don't really think of him as the most deliberately challenging or [...]
It's a relatively manageable week, this one. It's quiet enough, until Saturday, which has a couple of rather unfortunate clashes, but there are definitely some great gigs on. Pick of the bunch would, for me, be the Mazes and Milk Maid show at Sneaky's on Wednesday, but the Emily Scott album launch also looks rather promising, with the presence of extra strings for both herself and Yusuf Azak adding a bit of extra incentive. Once again I seem to have managed to start the week with a little bit of a hangover, annoyingly, so I have [...]
You know, the only things in my Facebook events thingy for this week are my own gig, a friend's birthday piss-up and some club night or other. Three items. In the days before Facebook events became an invite to bury our inboxes in spam it used to be fucking useful , but now... sheesh! Still, even having investigated a little further, this really does seem to be it. Am I right? Is this it? Are we going to have to do something intellectually valid with our week instead, like read a book or go to the Cameo [...]
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 [...]
One thing about going away on holiday is that I seem to have lost all grip on my Facebook invites. And whilst I know that Facebook invites have become just another form of tedious spam for most of you, for me they are still a pretty handy way of staying on top of the week's gigging activities. The week's gigging activites are relatively thin on the ground this week, however. There is, of course, the BBC Scotland SXSW documentary tomorrow at 9pm. There is plenty of Withered Hand, Kid Canaveral, Rachel Sermanni and Unicorn Kid to go around, [...]
This podcast was recorded - not a word of a lie - on a deserted mountaintop in Corsica in the shadow of a ruined castle. Not an especially enormous ruined castle, I'll grant you, but the shadow of a ruined castle nevertheless. I will try and show you this as clearly as possible when I choose the picture for the mp3 tag and all that stuff, but I honestly doubt it will be all that easy. Vast panoramas of rocky mountains don't really come across all that well in photos, particularly when the only device you have with [...]
It's easy to say, isn't it, but oh so very hard to do: whatever else you do in the music business, never get into the habit of resenting other people's success. I had an absolutely awful temper as a kid. I don't think anyone I currently know has ever really seen me lose it, because it doesn't really happen these days. But I went through a couple of years of getting into fights, shouting at referees, smashing up things in frustration, and just generally giving too much vent to my feelings. Eventually I got myself sent [...]
Apparently no-one visits websites anymore, because it's all about the social media and so on and so forth, so I suppose most of you have already seen this. In case you haven't, however, I have uploaded a free Song, by Toad Records sampler to Bandcamp, with songs from some of our more recent releases, as well as a healthy dose of new material from the releases we have planned for the rest of the year. Our release schedule is slowly filling up, as well. Before a brief break for the Edinburgh Festival we have four-song 73 [...]
This is one of those weeks where there could be two of you and you'd still probably not quite manage to get to all the decent gigs in the city this week. Personally I am going to try and keep it a bit calm, but I have my doubts as to whether or not I am likely to succeed. Mrs. Toad, no doubt, will be wildly impressed. I had fun down in London last week, incidentally. As I mentioned, I did a quick interview with Tom Robinson for BBC 6Music while I was there and, in typical fashion, [...]
This is my annual World of Song, by Toad Records podcast, where I prattle on a bit about the stuff we have coming up in the new year. I play a couple of things we released towards the tail end of the year, and some stuff by some of the new bands we're going to be working with for the first time in 2011. I also prattle on at immensely tedious length about the ins and outs of running a record label, which may or may not actually interest you at all, but it's there whether you like [...]
OK, so here's part two of the A-Z from 2010... Well, if truth be told this is actually, more specifically, the N-Z of 2010... Again as a rule, one song per band... If you want to see the first part then click here ... Without any further ado here we go... [...]
The Blue Walrus
The Dadada
Song, by Toad
Peenko
The Sound of the Overground
Azealia Banks - '1991' [Listen]
[Listen] The Vaccines - "No Hope"
Donald Glover TANKS at Sasquatch.
Must-Watch: Amazing live-dub marriage proposal!
Azealia Banks’ ’1991′ EP: Listen To “1991″ And “Van Vogue”
