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 session mp3s, a full interview podcast (immediately below, and with the tracklisting at the bottom of the page) and videos of both the whole day (above) and each individual song (below). Enjoy!

01. Milk Maid - Can't You See (Toad Session) (04.11)
02. Women - Black Rice (12.14)
03. Weird Era - Summer Heights (15:26)
04. Milk Maid - Girl (Toad Session) (20.19)
05. Irk the River - Mind That Child (26.22 )
06. Daily Life - No Eyes (28.43)
07. Milk Maid - Stir So Slow (Toad Session) (36.32)
08. Evan Dando - Hard Drive (45.12)
09. Easter - Holy Island (48.24)
10. Milk Maid - Not Me (Toad Session) (62.50)

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)
04. Lab Coast - Astronaut Like Me (18.11)
05. Sauna Youth - Backgrounds (20.31)
06. Hookworms - Teen Dreams (26.52)
07. R.E.M. - Swan Swan H (Athens Demo) (41.33)
08. Admiral Radley - All Fucked on Beer (44.24)
09. Dolfinz - Coral Reefer (51.17)
10. Tom Waits - All the World is Green (59.01)

*Of course it fucking did, don't be silly.  We're the happiest fucking couple I know, despite spending 90% of our time together swearing at one another!

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 that and kidding yourself you actually barbecue, because you don't.

And that is that.

01. Grandaddy - AM 180 (00.22)
02. I Break Horses - Winter Beats (07.36)
03. Acid Glasses - My Pale Garden (16.53)
04. Tunabunny - (Song for My) Solar Sister (19.49)
05. Grandaddy - Chartsengraphs (24.55)
06. The Spectral Mirror - Distant Murmurs (27.46)
07. Loved Ones - Hi Pressure (35.24)
08. Paul Hawkins & the Awkward Silences - Johnny (40.35)
09. Fear of Men - Church Words (48.23)
10. Sealings - Stay Cold (52.11)
11. Grandaddy - Saddest Vacant Lot in All the World (57.33)

Video: Vimeo - YouTube
Photos: Flickr
Audio: 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 show at Cab Vol, and also the Antihoot itself.  If you want to play at the Antihoot yourself, then just get in touch.  The rules are that you get either two songs or eight minutes, whichever is shorter, and that has to include your setup, so no brass bands please, but otherwise pretty much anything goes.

Also, this year we'll be picking a semifinalist each night, by a combination of audience acclaim and executive decision, and inviting them back to the Anti-idol on the last three nights of the show.  Those three nights will be recorded, with the best dozen or so performances being released on a Best of the Anti-hoot album on Song, by Toad Records.

As per usual with the Toad Sessions, the full interview podcast is immediately below, followed by free mp3 downloads of all the session tracks (zip file here), videos of the individual tracks themselves (all video here), and finally the tracklist for the podcast.  There aren't as many pictures as usual, but that's because we were a little short-staffed this time, and Dylan was too busy with the video camera to produce the usual number of pretty pictures.

01. Lach - A Quiet Distance (Toad Session) (12.40)
02. The Love Gestures - Hey Man (16.40)
03. Phil Ochs - Small Circle of Friends (20.31)
04. Lach - Ambition Burns (Toad Session) (32.41)
05. Kirk Kelly - Stephen Foster (37.42)
06. Roger Manning - Pearly Blues (41.14)
07. Lach - Another Night Without You (Toad Session) (55.31)
08. Neil Halstead - Might Engine (62.05)
09. Lach - Coffee Black (Toad Session) (75.06)

 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 it now.  And then Radiohead. Yes, I've finally listened to King of Limbs.  At last.

01. Barry Adamson - Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis (00.29)
02. DanDanDan - Match of the Day Background Music (08.47)
03. Anna-Anna - Mirrors of America (13.17)
04. Clem Snide - Ice Cube (21.56)
05. Lambchop - Up With People (24.29)
06. Public Dims - Lorimer (31.09)
07. Rollor - Energies are Dead in the Mind Constellation (40.17)
08. Camera Phone - Artifacts (43.44)
09. Radiohead - Lotus Flower (50.55)
10. I Like Trains - Sirens (Remix) (57.19)

 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. Mitchell Museum - What They Built (32.15)
08. Plastic Animals - It Fell Apart (35.27)
09. Seafieldroad - Cramond Island Causeway (40.56)
10. Sun Glitters - Things Are... (47.11)
11. Little Deadman - Post Helado Madness (52.31)

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 Admittance - Saint Cloud (23.19)
06. Adam Stafford - Fire & Theft (33.20)
07. Neil Young - Old Man (Live at Massey Hall 1971) (38.45)
08. Girls Names - I Lose (46.53)
09. Mavis the Dog - End of Our Day (50.55)
10. Jenny Reeve & Jill O'Sullivan - Tooth & Claw (56.59)

 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 Validators - The Fight for History (63.10)
10. Tom Lehrer - So Long, Mom (72.33)

 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.  And in general this makes me less jumpy.

None of this stops you drinking far, far too much at these things though.

01. David Thomas Broughton - Nature (00.06)
02. Edinburgh School for the Deaf - Orpheus Descending (07.09)
03. John Knox Sex Club - Katie Cruel (14.57)
04. Post War Glamour Girls - Ode to Harry Dean (Concrete Hearts) (21.00)
05. Tim Minchin - Storm (24.46)
06. The Pineapple Chunks - Look Back in Horror (40.01)
07. Scott Hutchison & Rod Jones (Fruit Tree Foundation) - I Forgot the Fall (45.23)
08. PAWS - Jellyfish (52.40)
09. Kid Canaveral - And Another Thing!! (55.29)
10. Crystal Swells - Goethe Head Soup (63.15)

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 by the videos we made for all the individual songs.  The tracklisting for the podcast is at the very bottom of the page.  Enjoy!

01. The Scottish Enlightenment - Black Dog (Toad Session) (07.53)
02. Mitchell Museum - Warning Bells (14.53)
03. Lower Dens - I Get Nervous (18.54)
04. The Scottish Enlightenment - Earth Angel (Toad Session) (33.00)
05. At the Drive In - Arcarsenal (43.15)
06. Low - Starfire (46.10)
07. The Scottish Enlightenment - Get My Limousine (Toad Session) (55.55)
08. Eef Barzelay - The Ballad of Bitter Honey (63.25)
09. Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper (67.14)
10. The Scottish Enlightenment - The Universe is Drifting Apart (Toad Session) (79.47)