The Toadcast - The Weekly Podcast From Song, By Toad

Video: Vimeo - YouTube Photos: Flickr Audio: zip dowload (right click, save as) This session came together in an extremely short space of time, and as such I am extremely pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out - from an audio point of view in particular these are some of my favourite session recordings. We invited Milk Maid to play an Ides of Toad gig in June, they arrived the night before the gig, and we happened to be having beers and listening to some records when I mentioned that we sometimes record in our living room. I showed them the Scottish Enlightenment Toad Session, and they suggested recording a session too, the next day, before the gig. Recording a band with a full drum kit, two guitarists and a bass in one room made me nervous enough, and actually getting anyone to help seemed improbable at such short notice, but thankfully Fee and Rory were able to make it down, so I owe them both a massive debt of gratitude for their help. As per usual we have a full set of photos, freely downloadable

We nearly missed our anniversary again this year, but fortunately caught the fucker just in time.  We were heading off to Leith to get some scran and I was sitting at the bus stop thinking about how it was nearly August and then asked one of those stupid questions you ask when something is really obvious, but actually so obvious you become unsure of it: "It's July, right?" "Yes, of course it is." "That means it must be nearly..." (hastily fishes in pocket for phone) "Fuck!  It's our anniversary.  Today!" When your wife forgets the thing entirely as well I guess it makes no difference, so instead of going to see something daft at the pictures, we went to a fishy place, had a seafood platter and bottle of champagne, before going for (a couple too many) cocktails at The Raconteur round the corner from our house. Five years married.  Oh how happy we looked.  That didn't last*. 01. Mazes - Summer Hits (00.22)02. Frightened Rabbit - Fuck This Place (feat. Tracyanne Campbell) (05.49)03. CD/EX - Tell the Girl (12.13)

This is called the Barbecast because we finally went out and replaced our shitty old one this morning, and today we intend to christen the new one.  The previous one had actually rusted through, and the only way to hold the burning coals in place was a shonky combination of chicken wire and tin foil. Not ideal. It's funny though, the two nations who go about barbecueing things the most actually know nothing whatsoever about the barbecue. Dear Aussies and Americans, if it is powered by gas rather than charcoal it IS NOT A BARBECUE.  It is simply a cooker you keep outside.  Cultural differences ... blah blah ... practicality ... witter ... special smoked wood chips ... etc etc etc.... BOOOORING!  You're wrong, you don't know what you're talking about, it's not a barbecue unless you have to light your own coals.  Full stop.  Non-negotiable, this is simply a fact of life: if it is gas-fired then it is a cooker, not a barbecue, irrespective of whether or not you use it out of doors, and you can stop calling it tha

Video: Vimeo - YouTubePhotos: FlickrAudio: zip download (right-click, save as). Lach is the man behind the Antihoot, the New York open stage which gave rise to the term and the movement called Antifolk.  People bandy the word about so much these days it's almost become as nebulous as the term 'indie', but it had a very specific origin and a very specific meaning back at the beginning. Last year Lach brought the Antihoot to the Edinburgh Festival, and we recorded a Toad Session with him while he was here.  When we figured out that we would actually be releasing his new album as well, and that he would be returning to Edinburgh this year - running both the Antihoot at the Gilded Balloon as well as a free fringe show called Lach, the Waitress, the Walls and the Weirdos in The Speakeasy at Cabaret Voltaire - I figured we might as well wait a little while to publish this session. Well Lach is back now, his album comes out on Song, by Toad Records on Monday and we are starting to get ready for both the one-man sho

 The Raincast is so called because we have had three days of sporadic, but at times absolutely torrential rain here in Edinburgh this week.  The leak in our ceiling has sprung back into action with some vigour, although this time it manifested itself in a manner which didn't ruin all sorts of my vinyl, which was generous of it.  We really must get that looked at before the whole bloody ceiling comes crashing down. The rest of my day will be spent sticking things into envelopes to publicise the Lach release, which is really, really soon, as well as the new album by Trips and Falls, which isn't out until the end of September.  I will be back on the gocco printer hand printing the artwork for that one though, which isn't something I've done for a while, so rather looking forward to it. Anyhow, in the meantime, have a wee listen to this. It's an interesting mix this week, from the utterly obscure, to the borderline famous, to the might almost have been nearly famous five years ago, but not really likely to crack

 Fast because I need to squeeze eleven songs into an hour because I just didn't want to trim the playlist, fast because I want to get out into the back garden asap to enjoy the sun, and fast because um... well, just because.  I dunno.  Fuck you, anyway, this is the one-hundred-and-eighty-first stupid name for one of these damn things I've had to come up with.  The names were bound to get worse over time really, weren't they. Anyhow, once this is done, I expect to get a couple of hours out in the garden before buggering off to Henry's for the Edinburgh School for the Deaf, Zed Penguin and Spook School gig.  These things have to happen on bloody glorious days, don't they. Ah well, at least it wasn't a Toad Session this time, like it usually is the moment we get a sunny day. 01. Yo La Tengo - Outsmartener (00.25) 02. Enfant Bastard - Demo Scene (06.40) 03. Lambchop - Came Home Late (12.34) 04. Smog - Teenage Spaceship (16.35) 05. Castor - Watcher Buckles (21.56) 06. Boring Girls - Tin Foliage (27.57) 07. Mitchel

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 you with which to take them is an iPhone.Anyhow, having recorded this, the challenge is going to be to find somewhere to upload the fucker.  Bank machines and shops which let you pay by card are pretty scarce commodities in the interior of the island, never mind a decent internet connection. 01. Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Come a Long Way (00.09)02. Yusuf Azak - Lay Me Down (05.36)03. The Black Tambourines - Better Off Dead (09.54)04. Fog - 10th Avenue Freakout (18.42)05. Six Organs of Admittanc

 The reason this is called the Nukecast is because I am pretty irritated by the exaggeration of just how horrible it is to be alive in 2011.  2011 is a total piece of piss.  It's easy, unthreatening and perfectly comfortable, and the idea that the modern world is in any way topsy-turvy is just plain silly. I am not all that old, but even the eighties, when I was a kid, were far rougher than this.  There was actual genuine menace, the world might just have been about to end in a nuclear fireball, and no-one had anything you could honestly call a proper job. So I complain about this for about an hour, while Mrs. Toad calls me an idiot.  Welcome to the drunken Toadcasts.  Again. 01. Tom Lehrer - Who's Next (00.08) 02. Billy Bragg - Think Again (10.34) 03. Milk Maid - Girl (21.07) 04. Odonis Odonis - Mr. Smith (24.06) 05. Sonny & the Sunsets - I Wanna Do It (31.09) 06. Phil Ochs - Talking Cuban Crisis (41.19) 07. Crystal Swells - Dead Awake (47.43) 08. Male Bonding - Bones (52.07) 09. M.J. Hibbett & the V

 This week's podcast is named the Northcast because I was just up in Inverness at GoNorth, which is I suppose the biggest official Scottish music industry chatfest. I am getting better at these, I have to be honest.  The music industry is heavily based around status and I do not do well when I suspect people might be looking down their nose at me, consequently my first few were quite a challenge to escape from before I picked a fight with someone I shouldn't, but as my general stature within music, and Scottish music in particular, has slowly grown I am finding these events easier to handle. It also helped that as well as helping Lloyd from Peenko and Jason from the Popcop curate one of the stages, I did some one-to-one mentoring sessions (yes, I know!) and was on two of the panels myself.  That in itself gives you a kind of status which means people seem less awkward if it comes time to approach them asking about something they can do for you - I suppose it just feels like you're on a more equitable footing.

Video: Vimeo – YouTube Photos: Flickr – Blueback Hotrod Free mp3 downloads: zip file (right click – save as) I first got into The Scottish Enlightenment back in 2007 when they releases the Eyes single on Moojuice Records.  Then they went silent for a couple of years, to the extent that I thought they might have actually called it a day, but last year they came back stronger than ever before. Two fantastic EPs and an equally excellent album were released on Glasgow's rather awesome Armellodie Records, and in general I think it's fair to say that it was a toss-up between them and Kid Canaveral as to who I thought the Scottish band of 2011 was (*cough cough* Song, by Toad Records bands apart of course) Mrs. Toad operated one of the video cameras this time, and Dylan was on still and video cameras.  I recorded and edited this one - the first full band I've recorded since Sparrow and the Workshop back in 2008.  As per usual we have the podcast below, the freely downloadable session mp3s underneath that, followed

The Braincast is not so called because it unusually filled with penetrative insights, but because if you listen to it this weekend it will be while I am down at the Brainlove Festival either listening to bands, DJing or sneaking off to watch the Champions League final at the nearest pub. This week is another relatively haircut-friendly playlist actually, with words like 'remix' to be found and some fashionably hazy production and everything.  In fact I may have to do another 'tedious old shite' podcast soon, just to make up for it. Anyhow, next week looks like being the Scottish Enlightenment Toad Session, which is coming along nicely.  I just need the photos and to complete the constantly challenging ten minute main video, which always takes quite a long while.  I will listen to the podcast on the train down to London and figure out which bits I think should go in the video.  In the meantime, enjoy... 01. FOUND - Anti-climb Paint (00.22) 02. Silverbacks - Atta Boyz (07.32) 03. Phil & the Osophers - Ink o

The Floydcast is named after that furry fuckwit in the picture: the Song, by Toad house cat and Mrs. Toad's imbecilic companion of the last seven years.  Last night we had him killed.  I know you're supposed to say 'put to sleep' or whatever, but when the poor wee fucker is looking plaintively at you because you're the only person at the vet's that he actually trusts it really does feel like execution. We think he had lung cancer of some form or other.  His lungs had clouded up, the vet had tried more or less every trick they could, and he was still battling for every breath.  In the end we had him put down because his poor wee lungs were so fucked that even in the off chance we could have found what was wrong and put it right, he would still have been limping his way through what remained of his life on half a gulp of breath. Anyhow, as much as a nuisance as I found the wee bastard I really will miss his idiotic presence, capering about the house like an arse and getting in the way whenever you try and do an

I am learning to despise hotel internet.  Whether I book myself and end up staying in a fucking Travelodge or Mrs. Toad books and we end up staying on one of the larger guest suites at Buckingham fucking Palace, absolutely all of them have such risibly bad internet connections that recording a podcast leaves me tearing my fucking hair out. I couldn't even get the online image editor to load properly, so the image is that rather pathetic, borderline clipart stinker you see in the top right hand corner.  Dreadful.  My art teachers would be justifiably disappointed. Anyhow, this is called the Plancast for one simple and far from compelling reason: the fact that Mrs. Toad and I are down in London and have had to be clinically heartless in who we do and don't see.  We don't exactly have lots of friends down South, but still far too many to see in one weekend and at times in the past we have tried to do too much and ended up being inadvertently rude to everyone. 01. Love Inks - Blackeye (00.06) 02. Dubstar - The Da

This is the post-Homegame, 'dear Jesus please just let me sleep for a week, good god someone please fetch me a green vegetable' podcast. I can just about keep my head together enough to get through this, but then I have the Monday listings to write and the bloody Francois/This is the Kit/Babe gig to organise tonight as well.  Aargh! I also have all sorts of other things to do this week, but after the sort of mind-boggling battering your mind and your liver get at Homegame I am not sure I can face any of it.  I am going back to sleep, wake me up in June. 01. FOUND - I'll Wake With a Seismic Head No More (00.34) 02. Randolph's Leap - Counting Sheep (7:57) 03. Josh T. Pearson - Country Dumb (Piano Version) (13.57) 04. The Singleman Affair - If I Only Fell in Love When I Was Young (21.16) 05. eagleowl - Into the Fold (Toad Session) (29.00) 06. The Last Battle - Ruins (35.07) 07. King Creosote & the Earlies - Bats in the Attic (Live on 6Music with Mark Riley) (40.23) 08. Sweet Baboo - Girl Under a Tree (45.37)

This podcast is, as you will already know, very, very late.  Personally I blame a combination of the RNLI, gin, and the fact that Mrs. Toad is away all week, which meant that yesterday wasn't really available for blog things. It's also not very new music-orientated either, so hopefully those of you who come here pretty much just for that won't be too disappointed. I think what happened was that I got so into a handful of new releases recently that I neglected all the others, so when I came to sit down and write about tunes last week I suddenly realised I had nothing to write about.  For blogging that makes things a little challenging, but from a podcast point of view I am always happy to just fuck it and play some oldies, which is what I'll do here. 01. Mad Melvin (00.17)
02. Chumbawamba - Farewell the Crown (01.43)
03. Billy Bragg - Walk Away Renee (07.37)
04. The Left Banke - Walk Away Renee (09.59)
05. Bruce Springsteen - Growin' Up (17.07)
06. Psychedelic Horseshit - Rat Poison (24.17)
07. The Chesterfiel

No, no, don't worry this isn't some sort of chillout special (although we did actually do one of those once upon a time).  The only reason this is called the Chillcast is because on what was a beautifully sunny day for the rest of Scotland, Edinburgh performed its age old trick of drawing a freezing sea mist off the North Sea - the haar, as it's called - and turning a lovely Spring day into a damp, chilly sulk.  Bastard. I realised a while back that I don't actually cover all that much Scottish music, despite the location of this blog being quite a prominent feature of the thing. This week, though, we have something like five Scottish (or Scottish-based) bands on this, and all of them relatively under the radar ones as well. Anyhow, I am off to play nicely with Mrs. Toad's colleagues for the rest of the day, in some sort of horrific bonding exercise.  Ah well, it pays the bills I suppose, and it's not like she doesn't have to spend an awful lot of time hanging out with my 'colleagues'. 01. The Sandwitches - S

Sparrow and the Workshop recorded one of our first ever Toad Sessions.  In fact, they were the first band I ever recorded all on my lonesome and, after a few rather panicked emails to my little brother who knows about this shit, it all seemed to go pretty well. So, not content with merely asking Meursault to join them on their next tour of England, they upped the level of niceness by offering to come round the house and record a sort of album preview podcast for their next record. Spitting Daggers comes out in a couple of weeks, and the band came over to get pissed, to talk utter balls and to play a couple of songs from the album and a few others they've been listening to recently.  A good, and very drunken, time was had by all. 01. Tegan & Sara - Walking With a Ghost (00.24)02. Sparrow and the Workshop - Snakes in the Grass (09.53)03. Brian Jonestown Massacre - Nevertheless (19.07)04. Fists - Ascending (22.32)05. John Knox Sex Club - Run William Run (30.27)06. Meursault - Flittin' (40.29)07. Sparrow and

Video: Vimeo – YouTube Photos: Flickr – Blueback Hotrod Free mp3 downloads: zip file (right click – save as) The more I read about Johny Lamb from Thirty Pounds of Bone before this session, the more nervous I became.  The internet seemed to be full of all sorts of tales of him being reclusive, antisocial and very, very hard on interviewers. Now, the press can be a little unreliable at the best of times, and personality-based reports of this nature can vary from person to person, but it almost comical how completely different this session was to my expectations.  Johny was friendly, perhaps a little shy, genuinely chatty and a lovely guy.  In fact, in terms of the interview podcast I think this is probably the most interesting one we’ve ever had. Thanks are due to Mrs. Toad for the splendid bacon sarnies, to Dylan and Fiona who took the pictures, and to Matthew who did a lot of the filming.  As per usual we have the podcast below, the freely downloadable session mp3s underneath that, followed by the videos we

It is a very, very fine Spring day indeed, this morning in Edinburgh, and so needless to say I am going to spend it in my office talking to imaginary people on the internet.  This week we are simply going to have a bit of a trawl through my inbox.  As I mention halfway through the podcast, I now have unlistened albums totalling a mighty one day, eighteen hours and thirty-four minutes worth of music.  So if you are wondering why I haven't reviewed this that or the other, then that probably has something to do with it.  The trickiest part, of course, is that it's not enough to simply have listened to something. To actually have anything resembling an intelligent comment to make you need to listen to something really quite often, and know the ins and outs of an album pretty well.  This takes a lot more than just a once-over lasting for one day, eighteen hours and thirty-four minutes. 01. The Lovely Eggs - Don't Look at Me (I Don't Like It) (00.40)02. Lady Lazarus - Fighting Words & Fists (06.46)03. Bill Call

This podcast is all about our week's record shopping in Austin, although I promise I am done going on about SXSW, so those of you bored to tears by the whole business are entirely safe, I promise. We did buy a fair bit of vinyl while we were over there though, whether it be directly from the bands at their shows (usually whilst still pished and giddy from enjoying the gig) or on one of our particular excursions to either End of an Ear or Waterloo Records. There is such pleasure to be had from poking through rack upon rack of vinyl, and whilst I have no real quibble with digital music, I think the sheer ritual and physical relationship it sacrifices can't really be matched in the digital realm. 01. X-Ray Eyeballs - Crystal (00.22)02. The Magnetic Fields - All the Umbrellas in London (08.15)03. Sparklehorse - Homecoming Queen (11.33)04. The Coathangers - Chicken 30 (17.35)05. Lost in the Trees - Walk Around the Lake (24.30)06. Kurt Vile - My Sympathy (32.44)07. Pavement - Range Life (35.15)08. Warm Ghost - Open