The Toadcast - The Weekly Podcast From Song, By Toad

Apologies for the lateness of this week's podcast, but inevitably the chaos of SXSW nudges schedules into the background a little.  Last year, several margaritas the worse for wear, we sat down with Ben from Instinctive Racoon, Stuart from Creative Scotland, Vic Galloway from BBC Radio Scotland and Peej from Dear Scotland, and recorded a ramshackle, lurching podcast about the fun of the week. This year, perhaps goaded into something bordering on professionalism by the presence of the BBC camera crew who have been following Vic around all week, things were a little smoother.  Although this may also have been related to the fact that the margarita-hoovering didn't actually start until afterwards this time. Ben wasn't here this time, but we did have myself, Peej, Vic and Stuart sharing a beverage on Peej's back porch and talking something approaching the usual gubbins. Oh, and the Detour Scotland Big Walk video we mention in the podcast can be found here. 01. Admiral Fallow - Squealing Pigs (00.37)02. Withered H

 Fucking hell, it's been battering it down for the last few days - 'torrent'ial, see, nothing to do with the naughty internets!  We've had snow in the morning and pishing rain for the rest of the day - fucking rotten.  Combine this with our worryingly leaky roof and honestly, it's a bit of a surprise I am not in a worse mood.   As it is, however, I feel relatively chirpy.  There is footie tonight, and I will sit up late with some wine and make mixtapes for... well, for no obvious reason whatsoever I have to confess, apart from the fact that I am getting fed up of being embarrassed by the music taste of my nineteen-year-old self whenever I randomly select a tape to play in the van.  Also, making tapes is a nice way to listen to vinyl singles which might otherwise be neglected.  01. David Thomas Broughton - Ain't Got No Sole (00.29)02. Lab Coast - Really Realise (06.54) 03. M.J. Hibbett & the Validators - The Gay Train (17.49) 04. Bonnie Prince Billy & the Cairo Gang - Island Brothers (24.19)05. Bob Dy

I really am running out of stupid names for these fucking things.  I'm sure I'm going to end up just numbering them in future, but for now you're going to have to put up with the bloody silly names I'm afraid. In my effort to squeeze eleven songs into an hour I actually don't ramble very much on this one, only to find out that the podcast ends up being much less than the usual hour and a bit, for a change.  Do I really talk so fucking much the rest of the time? Anyhow, this is a fucking ace podcast of new music.  I don't generally pay too much attention to how cool (or otherwise) these things might be, but I reckon any haircut merchants out there might rather enjoy this one.  For the rest of you, those without Haircuts with a capital haitch, well, just get on as best you can.  Let's face it, if I love it all, it can't really be all that cutting edge, can it. 01. FOUND - Machine Age Dancing (00.25) 02. Girls Names - Seánce on a Wet Afternoon (07.00) 03. Sonny & the Sandwitches - A. Grassley - Throw My Ashe

Almost a year and a half ago now my friend Craig came round to record a podcast about early blues which we, somewhat unimaginatively, called the Craigcast. A great deal of that conversation centred around Fat Possum Records (Wikipedia), and how Matthew Johnson struggled for years to keep it trundling along, despite being near bankruptcy for most of the time.  It wasn't until soul legend Solomon Burke decided to release his comeback record with them that they finally got out of the financial woods with some finality. Craig's interest in the label is based around an obsession with old blues music, but from a modern indie kid's perspective Fat Possum are still one of the best record labels in the world - The Walkmen, AA Bondy, Andrew Bird, Sonny and the Sunsets, Band of Horses, The Black Keys, Dinosaur Jr., The Felice Brothers, Wavves and Yuck all release with them.  So this is absolutely all about Fat Possum and their bands.  Sort of a tribute, and sort of a public demonstration of me being absolutely green wit

Video: Vimeo – YouTube. Photos: Flickr. Free mp3 downloads: zip file (right click – save as). We actually recorded this Toad Session in the Queen Charlotte Rooms in Leith before the Song, by Toad Christmas Party back in December.  Partly this was because it seemed like a fun thing to do, and partly because swapping our traditional and rather overpowering turquoise backdrop for their Christmas lights and tinsel. Also, we had six different bands playing the Queen Charlotte Rooms that night, as sort of a Song, by Toad Records Christmas celebration, and as Rob had only just agreed to release his debut album on Song, by Toad Records (later this year – probably in the Autumn sometime) it seemed fitting that he headline one of the rooms on the night itself. In terms of manpower we were woefully, woefully understaffed for this session.  The only person who could help at all was Wee Matthew, and even he couldn’t make it for the start, so I pressed my parents into service.  Well come on, they’ve got be more use than j

 Mrs. Toad and I do NOT approve Valentine's Day, and I have to say the fact that she genuinely seems to hate it (rather than just saying so, but secretly still expecting flowers) is a very liberating thing.  It means I can know finally forget about the whole bloody nonsense once and for all, and never ever have to figure out exactly how much I am expected to spend in order to demonstrate my affection for someone. There is, after all, very little that can be less romantic than obediently making protestations of love for no other reason than that everyone else is doing so and you are expected to conform.  Seriously?  I actually think it's just plain fucking insulting, frankly.   'Hello darling, I thought we might go out for a meal tonight.' 'Yes dear, what a lovely idea, what made you think of that?' In what possible world can 'because the shops told me to' be considered a better answer than, say, 'because we've both been really busy recently and I miss spending time with you'.  And assuming that the latter is

The Crapcast is so named because I am in one of the dingiest hotel rooms I have ever been in.  In isn't even entertainingly bad, which would be something, just like being dressed in clothes from Marks and Spencer and being trapped inside a grey cardboard box listening to Keane's greatest hits. Anyhow, the shower was really good, and I can forgive almost any other atrocity in a hotel room, as long as the shower is hot and the pressure is good. Anyhow, I am abandoning the Hotel of Beige for a friend's house tonight, and then tootling back up to Edinburgh tomorrow evening to see my nice lady again.  It makes a bit of change for me to be away on business instead of her, so I can go back and gloat about being a mover and a shaker… until she puts me firmly back in my place my reminding me that when she goes away it is to China and New York and Australia, not just a long weekend in London. And yes, I do refer to a bit of 'verbal writing' in this.  Don't judge me too harshly.  I was wrecked. 01. Billy Bragg - The Sat

After enjoying the Vinylcast I recorded a couple of weeks ago, I'm afraid I wasn't able to resist the temptation to come bacl to my record collection for this week's podcast as well.  In fact, I think I can safely say that this is now something which is going to become a regular feature of Song, by Toad podcasts because... er, well just because it's fun I suppose. This week I went to the Shelter charity shop on our street and bought about half a dozen records: some Bessie Smith, Shirley Bassey, Ella Fitzgerald, Kid Thomas and his Algiers Stompers, and a couple of old Dylan records. If I end up ever developing a taste for jazz I am pretty sure I will be able to trace it directly to a sense of misplaced nostalgia, and the charity shops of Scotland.  I am a long way from being a jazz fan, but there's something so fitting about the crackle of vinyl on an old jazz record.  I never used to listen to this stuff as a kid, but for some reason I get a nostalgic feeling from listening to it now. 01. The Met

I think I have figured out why Fence Records hate the internet.  Or at least, I feel like I am starting to get some insight into what is an intensely troubled relationship.  The two of them just don't get along at all, and the mutual antipathy has boiled over into outright hostility this afternoon, with the rush to buy Homegame tickets from the Fence website actually breaking the whole internet. So while I wait for normal service to be resumed, and with it the opportunity to buy tickets for Homegame this year, I thought I might record a podcast.  Or at least, so I thought.  But it turned out the Facebook chat about the interminable (three hour) wait was too entertaining, and the paralysing fear of the site suddenly coming back online and me missing out on tickets was too much. So I faffed about, went out and got pissed, and ended up recording this after our gig tonight, sorry. 01. Edinburgh School for the Deaf - Love is Terminal (00.17) 02. Black Tambourine - Throw Aggi off the Bridge (07.34) 03. The Great Va

I've been itching to do this podcast for a while, but only now got my arse in gear to do it: record a podcast straight from vinyl.  It's a bit of a nuisance, because I have to switch back and forth from the mic, for the chatty bits, to the USB input for the records... oh never mind, you don't care about my logistical hassles do you. The nice thing about vinyl is that the playlist is not simply going to be an inbox dump of whatever new indie has arrived this week, simply because I don't have all that much new music on vinyl.  Some, but not lots.  Also, the electicism factor is massively increased, partly because my vinyl collection is downright eccentric, and partly because the very act of leafing through completely unsorted piles of records seems to make me lots more likely to pick something absolutely random which fits with nothing else at all and really has no excuse being anywhere near a haircut indie try-hard hipster podcast.  Which is of course exactly what this is. 01. Windsor Davies &

The Stallcast you ask?  Yes indeed the Stallcast, because my brain is still stuck in neutral after the Christmas break and seems annoyingly resistant to being asked to function properly at the moment.  I've had half a week back 'at work', if I can really call it that, and I still feel like the the old grey custard is still spluttering a bit, rather than firing on all cylinders. The playlist reflects this in many way too, because it's a bit all over the place.  Good tunes though, although I suspect those amongst you with Haircuts might not be as impressed as others. Anyhow, the mission for this week is to get fucking moving, clean out the foostiness in the brain and properly embark upon 2011.  A jump start may be needed, however. 01. R.E.M. - It Happened Today (00.23) 02. Sin Fang - The Only Living Boy in New York (09.24) 03. Jamie Cameron - When You're Almost Done, Run (15.14) 04. Johnny Hawaii - The Lonely Smurfer (20.10) 05. Speak & the Spells - She's Dead (26.51) 06. Beth Gibbons & Rustin' Man - To

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 it or not.  We've got plans for some changes for the new year as well, with a new imprint for the label being launched, and a partnership with the Brothers Grimm for the creation of new lines of merch to go with every release.  It's going to be a bit exhausting, I think, but immense fun nevertheless. 01. King Post Kitsch - Eggshells (00.21) 02. Animal Magic Tricks - Heavenly Bodies (06.31) 03. The Savings and Loan - The Virgin's Lullaby (18.45) 04. Inspector Tapehead - Sugar on Your Sheets (22.00) 05. Rob St. John & the Braindead

It's Christmas Day, we have had our breakfast of smoked salmon and poached eggs, and I decided I might as well settle down with a bottle of fizz and talk shite on the internet.  Given we opened all our presents and had a big meal when my parents were visiting last week, I figured I was obliged to do no more than get pissed and slowly waste away the day today, stopping only to gorge myself on roast lamb and some indeterminate point in the evening - whenever Mrs. Toad gets over last night's hangover I suppose. I am lining up my stupid movies for tonight, as well, because that is all I intend doing this evening: watching intellectually vacant films whilst lolling about on the couch like a beached whale.  This, as far as I am concerned, is the True Meaning of Christmas (TM). 01. Stephen Malkmus - Baby C'mon (00.16)02. Sylvain Chomet - L'Illusioniste (05.02)03. Bloody Cassette Boy - Nigella's XXXmas (12.03)04. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Cold White Christmas (13.50)05. Kung Nai vs. Cambodian Space Project

I am not personally going to bother doing a 'Best of 2010' podcast based around my own choices.  Over the next couple of weeks you're going to get more than enough of that in text form anyway, so I think we can all live without a podcast as well. What I thought I might do, though, was just do a quick rundown of the Song, by Toad Readers' song and album of the year voting because… well, why the fuck not, I suppose.  As much as anything I felt like doing it because there were a couple of surprises in there, a couple of omissions and a couple of disagreements, so I guess  it gives me something to whinge about when introducing the songs, eh. 01.The Japanese War Effort - Summer Sun Skateboard (00.21)02. The National - England (06.05)03. Foals - Spanish Sahara (11.17)04. Broken Records - The Motorcycle Boy (24.31)05. Kid Canaveral - Her Hair Hangs Down (29.06)06. Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (33.51)07. Micah P. Hinson - My God, My God (41.13)08. David Tattersall - The Typewriter Ribbon (43.4

Video: Vimeo - YouTube Photos: Flickr Audio: download links below This Toad Session is something a little different, in that instead of setting up a studio environment in the house, we actually just recorded the songs at a house gig.  The gig was in fact also the band's first live appearance in four or five years.  So the whole atmosphere of the session is massively different to the usual ones we record. The interview took place all at once before the gig, rather than in and around the songs like it usually does, and for the podcast I have just spliced bits of it into the podcast as and when it seemed suitable. We also webcast this live, which was kind of fun.  I am not sure how brilliant the image and sound were for everyone, but it was an extremely fun thing to do and something we'll be looking to do more of in the new year I hope. It was a little tricky to ask people to take pictures in the middle of a performance, so we have a few photos by Anneli and Fiona but not very many.  As per usual we have videos

The Treecast is so named because we purchased and decorated our Christmas tree this afternoon.  It is an incoherent mess of all sorts of shite, stupid garish baubles, a weird peacock thingy and some foolish attempts at being tasteful which have been utterly overwhelmed by the utter cack which surrounds them. My parents always did seriously tasteful trees actually, so I would imagine they will be downright ashamed of the half-arsed mess we have managed to create.  Actually, my dad is the world's biggest Grinch, so he won't give a shite, but my mum might be silently disappointed. Nevertheless it now feels like Christmas has properly started.  We have orded a keg of beer for our Christmas party (our own one, not the label one) and for the New Year's piss up as well.  We'll have Jonnie Common, The Japanese War Effort and Neil fae Meursault playing a house gig that evening, and there will, it now appears, be shitloads of very tasty beer too.  Why the fuck would anyone bother with town? 01. Grandaddy - Now It's On

On the drive back from Glasgow yesterday, after the second of Yusuf Azak's three album launch gigs, the snow started absolutely horsing it down, to the extent that all the traffic slowed to a sensible single file at about thirty miles an hour, and all you could see was little red tail-lights in the white. It was, if I am being entirely honest, pretty cool. Although of course that's easy to say when you're no more than twenty miles from home and in no actual danger. Anyway, this morning it's all turned icy outside and Mrs. Toad is complaining about the heating not being up to the job, so I think we can safely say that the rituals of Winter have begun! Hence, the Coldcast. 01. The Mountain Goats - You or Your Memory (00.28) 02. The 63 Crayons - Devils (07.02) 03. The Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant (15.50) 04. Brown Brogues - I Just Don't Know (19.07) 05. The Beatles - Dear Prudence (25.16) 06. Girl Problems - Sancho (31.49) 07. Thirty Pounds of Bone - A Lesson in Talking (41.21) 08. Willy Mason - Carry On (44.33)

Cotes du Rhone is our default red wine of choice in this house, and after yesterday's birthday celebrations being cut rather short due to my feeling shitty, we are having a quiet evening in with a couple of bottles of red wine, a bacony, beany stew and we are going to light the fire for the first time this Winter as well. There is nothing remotely related to that on this podcast of course, but then these titles have become increasingly unrelated to the actual podcasts themselves recently so I doubt that'll surprise anyone. In fact, given I've been talking about how when the weather gets cold I tend to listen to less new music and less raucous music, the lo-fi, rackety nature of this playlist is probably a total self-contradiction, but then, this is the fucking internet, what do you really expect? 01. Cerebral Ballzy - Insufficient Fare (00.12)02. Crooked Scene - Male Bonding (05.53)03. White Wishes - Hold Your Hand (13.36)04. Johnny Reb - Nine on the Line (21.11)05. The Dead Kennedys - Kill the Poor (25.03)0

 It's not going to surprise anyone at all that I am being an absolute slob today, is it?  Mrs. Toad got back from Australia around lunchtime, and after a few hours of pottering about she crashed out with jetlag, so I snuck off to record the podcast.  I am sure that soon enough she will wake and start demanding attention and general servitude soon enough, so I better get this over with quickly. After that I am going straight back to bed to watch stupid films while my sweetheart dozes by my side, awaking occasionally to tell me off for not being comfortable enough, or to send me to fetch her things, or to just swear at me for taking all the covers or some other such sweet nothings of the kind she is wont to come out with from time to time. 01. Elvis Perkins in Dearland - Shampoo (00.21) 02. Elvis Costello - Couldn't Call it Unexpected No.4 (06.24) 03. Billie Holiday - Good Morning Heartache (13.17) 04. Smog - In the Pines (16.22) 05. My Tiny Robots - Ballad of the Mapmaker's Daughter (23.17) 06. Randolph's Leap

This is er… well, "one of those podcasts". You know, the ones where you're half pissed before lunch and basically mumble your way through an hour or so of incoherent rambling?  Yes, one of those. I even try and do something of a Cloud Sounds tribute by playing two songs available on 7" single from Cloud Sounds Records and then by playing two songs from bands I got into by listening to Cloud Sounds' podcast but unfortunately the fact that I am joined in this podcast by Andy and Paddy from Gerry Loves Records means that more or less any attempt to keep things on-topic, or indeed to have a topic at all, are pretty much doomed. It's been a while since I did a proper train wreck podcast so all I can really do it apologise in advance and urge you to sit back and enjoy it! 01. The Generalissimos - The Men Behind the Man (00.04)02. Onions - I Want to be a Dancer (06.07)03. Sufjan Stevens - Vesuvius (12.36)04. Tidy Kid - Smell (Bibio Remix) (23.32)05. Roy Robertson - Icing (27.34)06. Pregnant - Wiff of Father (35.09)