And might I mean that quite literally. Not 'probably functional', it's still all very much up in the air, but it's plausible I might be back in something resembling the land of the living. I think the work which had to be done pretty much immediately has had the effect of jump-starting a spluttering brain. The Josh T. Pearson Toad Session is finished and ready to publish next weekend (assuming he's happy with it), and Ian and I have been plotting this year's Song, by Toad Records er, strategy, if you can call it that (just listen to [...]
I am not doing predictions, mostly because I can't. I have no idea what is going to be big this year and what isn't, and even if I think a band is going to release something amazing that probably doesn't matter, because bands I love rarely ever get all that famous anyway. But in any case, and in no particular order, here are some things I liked about last year, and some things I didn't. Some stuff I'd like to see more of and some things I am looking forward to, and some things I am not. "Something [...]
Holy fuck my brain is still resisting any and all attempts to get it working again. I lived on a boat down in London, and I remember when I first bought the thing it was semi-submerged, and I had to pump out the engine compartment just to get the old Lister engine above water for the first time in about two years. Even after two years under the fucking Thames, all I had to do was crank it manually a couple of times to flush the water out, replace the battery, press start and boom, the ancient bastard [...]
Sparkcast? Spark? YES, any kind of fucking spark whatsoever will do the trick. I remember getting in trouble at my former day job a couple of years ago for writing something rather negative about that awful sensation of being back at your desk after the excesses and indolence of Christmas. I am not feeling negative about it now, which is good given I am self-employed, but I am certainly struggling to spark my brain back into something resembling life at the moment. So yes, I have two new releases to get moving, by Jesus H. Foxx [...]
As per last year we shall once again be streaming the Song, by Toad New Year's House Gig live for those of you who are either at home sick or in a different time zone and hence grateful of the entertainment. Again, as the player slows the whole page down I'll put it below the break, so just click through and you'll be able to see Kev from River of Slime play a short set around 10pm, Neil from Meursault play solo acoustic from about 10:45pm and then another half hour set (or so) from Kev at about [...]
(Full Toad Session can be found here .) So, I may have been a little tardy to make this an actual Christmas present, but The Savings and Loan would like to make you all a present of their self-titled EP, which you can download for free from their Bandcamp page . This EP formed the basis for their debut album Today I Need Light , which we released on Song, by Toad Records at the end of 2010. They then added a couple of songs, re-recorded a couple and [...]
01.Easter - Somethin' American This might be the first time such an unknown song by such an unknown band has ever been given top spot on any of my end of year lists, but they were absolutely brilliant live when they played up here in September, and this song is just fantastic, as are the other two songs on their Soundcloud page. It's less lo-fi than a lot of the DIY stuff I've listened to this year, and the squalling solos which tease Easter's songs to an end evoke loads of old school US indie music. This gives quite [...]
Lach, whose album Ramshackle Heart came out on Song, by Toad Records in July this year, and scored a clean sweep of great reviews in every single glossy music monthly in the country, which is not something we have ever managed before. Anyhow, as you may have noticed in August, the engine room behind the New York Antifolk scene has now moved to Edinburgh and as such is the subject of a documentary on BBC Radio Scotland, which broadcasts in about forty-five minutes, and again on Sunday the 1st January, and will be available [...]
11.David Thomas Broughton - Ain't Got No Sole The first song we heard from DTB's fantastic album, and perhaps the poppiest of the lot. Catchy, unusual and immensely hummable. 12.Kurt Vile - Baby's Arms Another album from which it is tricky to extricate just one song as a highlight, but for some reason I'm giving this the nod above Jesus Fever or Puppet to the Man . I think it's the most late night and glass of red winey song on the album, but it's close. 13.The [...]
Here's the first installment of the Song, by Toad Festive Fifty for 2011 - a collection of the fifty songs I have been enjoying the most this year. The fifty themselves and the precise order can hardly be described as definitive of course, because you know how fluid things like 'favourite' songs can be, but roughly speaking this is the stuff I have been enjoying the most in 2011. Just as a note, in order to make it a broader representation of the bands I've liked the most, I have made it harder and harder for bands to [...]
Here we are at the penultimate podcast of the year, and the one immediately preceding Christmas. I really don't like 99% of Christmas music so there's pretty close to none of it at all on here, although I have made a couple of exceptions as a lazy sort of nod to the season. Let's face it, if the druids can be arsed dancing about like idiots around Stonehenge and people can fall out over half-defrosted turkeys then I can probably make the effort to shove a couple of token musical nods onto a single podcast, can't I. I [...]
So, ta-daaah, here we go, what all right-thinking people have been enjoying most this year. And if you haven't been enjoying these most this year, then dammit, what do you do when I tell you what opinions to have about music, ignore me? Surely such a thing is inconceivable. As those of you who listened to last week's podcast, where I played two songs from the more forgotten albums on my first ever Albums of the Year list (2004), I am actually more fascinated by these lists in retrospect than at the time. Looking [...]
Right, all the amateurs have had a go, and we've seen disturbing amounts of Bon Iver and PJ Harvey on lists from Bradford to Boston this year, but it's time for those of us who really know what's good and what isn't to step up and set the record straight. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the definitive list of what's been good this year, so you can all stop pretending to care what Drowned in Sound or Pitchfork think, and find out what you should really be thinking about music. That's all bollocks of [...]
Well cock and balls this is brilliant. Really fucking brilliant. Generally I hate Christmas music, as you probably know by now. It either sounds schmalzy and lame coming from indie bands when they play it straight or, if they don't, it tends to sound too self-consciously anti-Christmas instead, and hence forced and awkward. There are some notable exceptions of course, but this might be the best one yet. I think. I'm not sure. It sets about Christmas music with such gleeful malice that I doubt you can really get away with calling it Christmas music by the end. [...]
Aaaaaaand another year rolls around, and we find ourselves once again at New Year's Eve. Or approaching it anyway. And this time we have something a little different for you, an idea which was suggested to me the day that Kev from River of Slime (and FOUND ) played a set in our front room which we streamed for Social Media Week. There were three or four of us watching that evening, but it was pretty obvious there should have been more, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to put that right. [...]
Well, after last year's neck-and-neck battle between Meursault and The National, this year's Song, by Toad Readers' Top Five Albums was something of a stroll by comparison. Although the field behind this album was congested, King Creosote & Jon Hopkins' Diamond Mine was a comfortable winner in the end. Whilst I doubt this quite makes up for missing out on the Mercury Prize to P.J. Harvey, it's interesting to note that after a very strong initial showing, she didn't even make the top five of this particular list. And you can bet your arse she won't [...]
The baubles in question would be twofold: Firstly, the Song, by Toad readers are awarding their own baubles for the year's musical endeavours, both in terms of anointing their song and their album of the year. And secondly, the very second I post this I am heading up into town to Kid Canaveral's Christmas Baubles, their second of what I assume will become an annual Christmas knees-up, this time hosted at Edinburgh's rather amazing Summerhall. This week on Song, by Toad I will be publishing my own top twenty albums of the year, and [...]
Morning. Fucking brilliantly awesome get tae fuck good fucking morning to you all. Grrrmpf. You know those days which start out fucking shite from the very get go and before you answer a single email or deal with a single individual you're already within a whisker of just telling everyone to piss off because you just can't be fucking arsed with them? Yep, one of those I'm afraid. Hopefully El and Brian will cheer me up on Fresh Air this afternoon. This is the last show on Fresh Air this entire term, I think, so we'll be playing [...]
"Yes, but are you happy? " said with that kind of inflection, usually accompanied with a sideways head-tilt, is such an odd question. Firstly, it always seems to imply, at least a little, that the person asking it already thinks they know the answer. Particularly if the head-tilt makes an appearance. Secondly, as I have recently discovered, I am actually incapable of answering it. If I answer it literally, I am answering it dishonestly, and if I try and answer it honestly... umm, well I find it almost impossible. People have [...]
The guys from La Blogotheque have been incredibly supportive of both Song, by Toad and, in particular, Meursault over the last few years, but due to their living in Paris and I in Scotland I've never actually met them in person. Nevertheless, on their last European tour Meursault managed to finally take advantage of their long-standing invitation to record a session, although it was something of a stretch to actually manage it. Having played their last show in Berlin the night before, and with a ferry booking later in the afternoon, Sam drove for eleven hours [...]
Song, by Toad
Monday Music – 28 May 2012
Bison - Quill
