The Toadcast - The Weekly Podcast From Song, By Toad

Ian and myself were down in Brighton for most of last week with The Great Escape, and that's pretty much what this podcast is about from start to finish.  It's hardly a studied analysis of course - and I sincerely doubt you'd expect one - instead it's more of a chatter about the Brighton fun we've had and the people we've met. Scotland is actually rather isolated when it comes to music.  Hence, I suppose, the importance of the local Scottish music community to bands and labels based up here. Nevertheless, it is really important to connect with the rest of the UK. A lot of our most appreciated supporters are people I know only from Twitter and the other end of an email, be they fans, label customers, writers and broadcasters who have supported us or labels who have inspired us.  So, in the interests of cementing these relationships, meeting new people and drinking an absolute fucking shitload of beer, off to Brighton we went... 01. Hot Panda - Fuck Shit Up (00.24) 02. Slow Down, Molasses - Light (07.44) 03. Bo

The Nightcast.  Yes, night.  I am recording this at about two in the morning for the simple reason that for all I aim to do these once a week, on the weekend, once again it has been just plain impossible to actually get the damn thing done on the weekend just gone, so here I am squeezing it into the ungodly hours of Tuesday night. Well, Wednesday now. And of course I am off to The Great Escape in the morning.  Actually, it already is the morning.  Oh all right then, by the time this is uploaded and ready to go and I can actually get some sleep, I think I might be due to get out of bed in two hours time.  Cock and balls.  I thought the night time was supposed to be a little more glamorous than this. 01. The Pictish Trail - Of Course You Exist (FOUND Remix) (00.26)02. Plastic Animals - Ghosts (07.56)03. Playlounge - Boner Hit (Keel Her cover) (15.24)04. Yoofs - Love at 140 (18.17)05. Dead Rat Orchestra - The Geshin & the Guga (23.15)06. The See See - Fix Me Up (30.24)07. Meursault - Flittin' (36.26)08. Wood

This is called the Repeatcast because I sometimes wonder that the constant flow of new music I fire into these podcasts might just passing you by.  I know I struggle to stay on top of things sometimes myself, so maybe you just listen when you can be bothered and sometimes things just go in one ear and out the other. I've been considering doing an artist of the week thing, like Ted from http://www.cloudsounds.co.uk/ where he plays two tracks from an artist one week (well, one month now that the show's monthly) and then one from the same artist the next week as well, so there is a degree of reinforcement Knowing me, I doubt I'll ever get round to it, honestly, but you know, it seems like a good idea.  Or something vaguely like it seems like a good idea, because it would be a shame if all this music just vanished into the ether.  So this week we have a lot of repetition of bands already played on the podcasts, just to make sure you're paying attention properly.  Like you should be. 01. Easter - Damp Patch (00.21

This is called the Justcast because, whilst it may well be late, it is entirely justifiably late, so piss off and stop moaning at me. And come on, stop being coy, I know you're secretly tutting.  Or at least I fucking hope you are, because the other option is that you don't really give a fuck, and where would that leave us?So, having worked all through the working week, and then having spent all of Saturday working at Record Store Day stuff, I got to Sunday and was honestly just not up for doing anything at all, sorry. I was pooped.  Bushed.  Knackered. Tuckered. Done for.  So I did fuck all, and I actually felt guilty about this for a while, and then realised that actually, every cunt gets a fucking weekend, so stop feeling sorry for yourself, embrace a day of doing bugger all, and just do the podcast as soon as you can reasonably manage.  So there you go.Next week I might do a bit of a podcast on my Record Store Day purchases (and there were many) but not this week, because I haven't had the chance to sit d

We are in St. Andrews this weekend for the Fence Collective's Eye of the Dug Festival.  Needless to say, The Dugcast or something to that effect might have been more suitable, but there are so many golf twats around town that I really couldn't ignore them, not after all the effort they make to look like complete prats. I get the impression that with golf, the costumes became so ludicrous that really the only way to look cool, instead of dressing like a normal person, was to try and look like an even bigger fuckwit than the rest of them.  Which, given the exceptionally high bar that has already been set, takes some doing. Anyhow, there is no danger of me ever taking up golf.  None at all.  I already find playing pool frustrating enough, and it strikes me as really quite similar in the following crucial way: you play what turns out to be a perfect shot, then the next time you do what feels like the exact same fucking thing, and yet somehow the shot you produce is dreadful.  With no clue what you've done differe

The Dutchcast was named after football.  I was at the pub all day watching United play QPR and City getting done by Arsenal.  For some reason this reminded me of living in Holland, primarily because Arsenal have dropped off the pace in the Premier League a lot recently, but when I was in Holland it was the height of the Wenger vs. Ferguson clashes, so watching the team play again and actually caring about the result reminded me really strongly of a time when Arsenal actually mattered as a football club.  Harsh, but fair.So yes, in my reminiscences of my time spent living in Holland I have popped in a couple of songs I was introduced to by pals when I lived out there, as well as a cracking track by Bettie Serveert, one of the most well-respected Dutch indie bands out there.Added to that are a couple of new things from the internet, not least the new track from Owen Ashworth's new project Advance Base, as well as a demo from our pal Tom Western, who recorded four gorgeous demos in our living room about a month

April Fool's Day really does bore me to tears.  The jokes are so weak and obvious most of the time that they really are pointless, although Avalanche's Withered Hand futon did make me laugh. It's the forced bonhomie which I find the most tedious, I have to confess. 'Oh yes, ha ha, very funny, well done you, gosh how everso fucking hilarious'. And then just occasionally you hear news, like Viva Brother splitting up which, whilst it is painfully obviously an April Fool, is just too close to real, actual good news we'd actually all want to hear to cause any real merriment. And then there's the Republican candidates for the presidency of the United States.  Tragic, frightening, comical, and depressing. And sadly not an April Fool's joke either. 01. Two Tears - Heisse Hexe (00.22)02. Magic Eye - Flamin' Teenage (06.49)03. North American War - Me & My G.I. Joes (14.02)04. Palms  - Wolf (18.57)05. Habibi Band - Sunsets (25.39)06. Woodsman - Supernal Radionics (30.55)07. Sex Hands - The Moist Maker (39.25)08. The

The Procast is so called because this week has been an awfy professional one.  The third Meursault album is approaching, and because there are publishers, managers, bookers and all sorts involved in this one we had to have a Serious Meeting about it and make sure the planning was all being done properly.We did all the grown-up stuff like minute the meeting, assign people deliverables and all sorts of stuff.  It was the closest to being back at my old job that I have experienced since I left, in all honesty - lists, management, timescales, budget discussions and all sorts.That sounds dismal, I know, but it was quite fun actually.  I know I like releasing under the radar, awkward releases, but at the same time, if a band starts doing well and achieving things I don't want them to have to necessarily leave our label in order to do so, and it's quite satisfying (and actually quite interesting too) to be involved in a project on a slightly larger scale to usual. 01. John Knox Sex Club - Above Us the Waves (00.17)0

After last year's relatively sensible podcast (I think the BBC cameras scared us into some degree of sensibleness), this years is far, far less sensible.  I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it's probably a little more honest. This time around, as well as the more usual suspects of Messrs. Galloway, Reid, Thomas and myself, we are joined by The Two Jamies: Webster who manages Three Blind Wolves and Gilmour who manages We Were Promised Jetpacks.  This is helpful because instead of drunken fuckwits gabbling at one another, we actually have some proper insight from people who have brought bands out to SXSW and have something useful to add. And for the rest of it me, Vic, Peej and Stuart just take the piss out of one another.  So umm... well, you have to take the rough with the smooth I suppose. 01. Grave Babies - Nightmare (00.21) 02. Pond - Leisure Pony (5.59) 03. The Animals - We Gotta Get Outta This Place (16.28) 04. Bruce Springsteen - Excerpt from SXSW keynote speech (19.37) 05. Roy Orb

 The Airconcast?  Yes, because I am recording this in our hotel room in Austin, surrounded by a noisy fridge and an even noisier air-conditioning unit.  It was so loud I actually turned it off during the recording, but the room then quickly became uncomfortably stuffy, so this podcast was recorded with me sitting in my pants in a slightly uncomfortable  sweat - picture that if you will.We are, as you will have guessed, out here for SXSW again, but seeing as next week's podcast is going to be our now-traditional chat with Peej, Vic Galloway and Stuart Thomas about this year's festival, I figured you probably didn't want two SXSW podcasts in one week so I'd lay off this time and just make it about music. 01. Trogons - Solo Amor (00.10) 02. Pond - Mystery (06.45) 03. FLATS - Foxtrot (13:14) 04. Mariee Sioux & Bonnie Prince Billy - Mad Mad Me (19.49) 05. Monster Rally & RUMTUM - Andes (23.47) 06. Ender Belongs to Me - New Light (28.33) 07. Ira Lee - Drinking Alone in Paris (feat. Scream Dream Baby) (38.13

I honestly thought I was done with politics.  Watching us commit genocide in Iraq despite the protests across the entire country, and then watching the Lib Dems spinelessly capitulate to the rapacious, craven Tory lizards once they got their little sniff of power just sickened me. Right, I thought, I am done with this shit, it is just a gigantic waste of everyone's time. However, the Tories haven't just been shit, they've been a repellent disgrace, governing with a sort of vindictive, cackling glee generally reserved for people in plastic armour in the Star Wars movies.  Between that and the SNP deciding that forcing all minor cultural events to require a financially prohibitive and bureaucratically obstructive license, I find my simmering rage for politics to be reinvigorated.  There's no fucking point voting whatsoever, but that doesn't mean you can't get stuck the fuck into these cunts. 01. Aidan John Moffat - Dear Donald (00.25) 02. Speck & the Specktones - Fruitcakes (01.37) 03. Galaxie 500 - Tugboat

Welcome to Toadcast number 215.  This is called the Kingcast because I have been on a bit of run promoting gigs recently, with three in the last eight days or so.  Given almost none of my friends or music associates came to these gigs and that the list of attending guests on the Facebook event pages made for pretty grisly reading, I was grimly expecting the gigs to be absolutely awful - barely attended wastelands of funlessness - but every single one was brilliant.The people who came were almost all people I didn't know, with a few welcome exceptions, and the gigs themselves were absolutely immense fun.  There was probably more dancing this weekend that at anything Toad-related in history.  So today I have been looking through the forthcoming gigs and getting my ticket links live and stuff like that, and realising that we have some absolute stonkers coming up.  So with a bit of luck, and rather depending on whereabouts in the world you're listening from, I might well see you there.Dancing!  At a Toad gig!  I

Video: Vimeo - YouTube Photos: Flickr Audio: zip download - right click, save as I am rather embarrassed to confess that we recorded this session absolutely bloody ages ago. First the Festival, then the mixes, then intervening sessions, and finally just the sheer amount of time these take to edit managed to delay things. But now, finally, at long, long last here it is: the Kid Canaveral Toad Session. This was another relatively messy, drunken one I'm afraid. We were nice though - we made them dinner and supplied them with a beverage or several, and it happened to be a nice day too, so we were even able to sit out in the garden for a bit. The team this time around consisted of Neil from Meursault, who recorded the session (and I hope I've not offended him with my mixes!), Fiona and Dylan who took the photos, and Dylan also did a lot of the video work as well. And cooked. Whereas I just sat around, drank beer and swore at people mostly. Kid Canaveral - And Another Thing! (Toad Session) Kid Canaveral - Homerun

Don't worry, this podcast really isn't about football.  I might have been tempted, but in all honesty, but I can't really think of all that many good songs about football and if I am being truthful with myself I can't imagine you lot really enjoying a podcast about football all that much. More to the point, I am back playing football myself now, after something like two years out with back problems.  Two years really is a long time to miss out on something you love doing, and even more so when you're past your mid-thirties and every year you miss is one of the last you'll get the chance to play at all. So, in amongst the new songs and all the usual things you would expect from a Toadcast (i.e. mostly swearing) there are a couple of songs which represent my reaction to getting back to playing football again, and my reaction to some of the more newsworthy moments of the footballing week as well. 01. Morris Major - Seymour Grove (00.17) 02. Chris Devotion and the Expectations - A Modest Refusal (07.27) 03. Billy

Ah, Tartan Shortbread, that most wonderful of sardonic Scottish put-downs.  For those unfamiliar with the term, this is the offhand dismissal used to describe the sort of mawkish, clichéd tourist tat which masquerades as Scottish heritage and culture for those with woefully little imagination.  Alternatively, I suppose you could say that Tartan Shortbread is a blanket term for Scottish heritage as a sort of motorway service station take on national identity. Anyhow, given I work very much at the coalface of the DIY music world in Scotland, I find that I have been oddly unsupportive of a large number of Scottish who have emerged in the last couple of years to considerable enthusiasm from the Scottish music press, both professional and amateur. For some reason, the recent bands who have shown some likelihood of cracking an audience wider than the relatively narrow confines of the five million or so people in Scotland itself just haven't appealed to me, with a few notable exceptions.  However, sitting down to as

Video: Vimeo - YouTube Photos: Flickr Audio: zip download: right-click, save as This session was recorded in Glasgow before Josh's performance at Oran Mor on 22nd November last year. The first attempt to record a session with him was at Stereo, but recording in a venue really didn't work out, so this time we decided to take up the kind offer of Phil from PAWS to record it in his bedroom instead. Again we were a little pressed for time, because Josh had a marathon day, recording a session with the BBC and conducting an interview before doing our session, and then having the gig to play afterwards. So we only recorded three songs, and for simplicity's sake we did the interview in one chunk and I have just chopped bits of it into the podcast where appropriate. Given the incredibly punishing schedule he tends to have I really do appreciate Josh taking the time to re-record this session, as well as the infallibly good humour and cooperative nature showed by both himself and Peter and Tom, his management team. It

After reading Vic Galloway's rather nice article in today's Herald on the rise of bands in Scotland influenced by both grunge and lo-fi slacker indie rock. Recording for our upcoming split 12" with Manchester bands Waiters and Sex Hands has seen pals recommend I have a good listen to The Meat Puppets too, if that's the kind of stuff I'm into - particularly if that's the kind of guitar sound I am enjoying at the moment. So that's what this podcast is loosely about.  As I explain, despite growing up at the perfect time to have been into all this stuff the first time around, I ended up being only vaguely aware of it, due to being almost entirely insulated in the bubble of the international expat community in Vienna at the time, and hence only really having MTV to introduce me to new music, beyond what I happened across by accident in the record shops around town.  Which generally wasn't Dinosaur Jr. 01. Nirvana - Love Buzz (Shocking Blue cover) (00.26) 02. Feel Right - She's No Good (08.47) 03. Shudderpulps - Ti

The Fishcast is so called because Dolfinz are here recording for our split 12", and erm, well dolphins aren't fish are they, but umm... well it sounded better than The Aquaticmammalswhichlookabitlikefishbutaren'tcast.  Dolfinz played a pretty big drum kit - three toms, three ride cymbals, a double bass drum pedal, and the result was an absolutely frightening racket which must have been shaking the bloody pictures off the walls next door.  We're recording the PAWS songs for the split in about ten days' time, and after that I think we'll have to give the neighbours  a good long break from the kind of noise we make in here from time to time or they'll go fucking mental.In the meantime, we have some songs chosen by the Dolfinz lads, some new stuff from my inbox and a couple of things I should have really got into ages ago but for no good reason at all, just didn't.  Shame on me. 01. Fuck (00.20) 02. Cum Stain - Broke My Dick (03.27) 03. Smackvan - Black Eyes (07.59) 04. Keel Her - Enid Coleslaw (16.23) 05. The Di

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 12" in the Spring.  We'll be recording that stuff in our house next week, so the songs we chose to represent those bands are for obvious reasons not the final ones we'll be releasing, just tracks by the bands so you can get a bit of a flavour of what we're up to. With Ian on board and based on the good press we managed last year I am hoping we can really kick on with the label this year and make a decent impression.  Obviously the third Meursault album will  help, what with them being our most established band, but we have a good spread of stuff, from ban

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 and The Leg, and I have five Toad Sessions to get edited and published, and a split 12" to record (starting in about a week), so whether or not it proves to be a challenge, the old grey matter has to be brought back to life somehow, be it kicking and screaming or otherwise. 01. Jesus H. Foxx - So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away (00.13) 02. The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop (07.47) 03. Post War Glamour Girls - Suburban Barbarian (14.40) 04. Now Wakes the Sea - Another Pair of Hands (18.32