As this evening brings us yet another excellent Ides of Toad lineup at Henry’s (it’s starting pretty much now – run, you might make it!) I thought I should probably write out another one of those lists of upcoming stuff, just so it lodges in the back of your mind now, and then you can all flood down in your droves on the night, filling the bands with joy and making me an unspeakably rich man in the process.

Well, it’d be nice if at least a few of you came anyway.  This is where I feel I should insert one of those internet Safety Winks, just so you know I’m joking —>

Anyhow, we now have pretty much a gig every other week booked between now and the blundering behemoth of the Edinburgh Festival, which I fully intend to boycott in its entirety this year.  Honestly, whilst a couple of our gigs last year went pretty well, I’m not sure I can be fucked with the stress this time around.  Still, last year’s posters were pretty cool.

All tickets can be purchased either online here, or from Avalanche Records on the Grassmarket.

Tuesday 22^nd May
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Bronto Skylift, Lady North & Rollor

This will be pretty full-on, I think, with Rollor returning to Edinburgh to take on the combined frantic mentalism of Lady North and the Highlands’ most fearsome band, Bronto Skylift.

Friday 15th June
Venue TBC
PAWS, Dolfinz, Waiters & Sex Hands

For the launch of the split 12″ we are releasing with the above four bands, we are organising a mini tour of the UK (London, Manchester & Aberdeen as well) and getting all four bands to play.  It will be raucous and guitary and fucking ace.  And you can buy gorgeous clear turquoise vinyl at the gigs too.

Saturday 30^th June
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Milk Maid, New Fabian Society & OP

Milk Maid return to Edinburgh, with their second album pretty much finished.  I am very much looking forward to seeing them again. They are joined on the bill by hypnotic, shoegazey newcomers The New Fabian Society, and OP who are a mysterious concoction of members of North American War and The John Knox Sex Club.

Saturday 7^th July
The Queen’s Hall (tickets for this are from their website)
Meursault Something For the Weakened album launch, with Rob St. John & Jill O’Sullivan and Jenny Reeve

Meursault’s third album Something for the Weakened is now finished and ready to be prodded out into the world. Having worked with a stable six-piece for the last two years this is much more of a band record than previous albums. Support will come from label-mate and musical collaborator Rob St. John and long-time pal Jill O’Sullivan from Sparrow and the Workshop, who will be performing with Jenny Reeve.

Wednesday 18^th July
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Dolfinz & Fantasy Rainbow

Dolfinz are on the verge of becoming the Ides of Toad’s house band, and they’re back in July, bringing another two of the UK’s finest garage bands with them.  It will be loud and messy and awesome, as per usual.

Friday 27^th July
Henry’s Cellar Bar
Jo Schornikow (The Shivers) & Scott Rudd

Jo Schornikow from The Shivers, who just released More on Fife’s Fence Records, will be touring her solo material, along with the beautiful acoustic songwriting of New York’s Scott Rudd.

The wait is finally over, ladies and gentlemen, because… *drum roll* …I hereby announce the debut album by Edinburgh’s most elusive pop merchants Jesus H. Foxx.

To celebrate, as is our way because we’re just bloody lovely people, we are giving away a couple of singles to encourage you, largely through the cultivation of guilt, to shell out ten of your finest pounds to purchase the album. Actually, even your tattiest ones will be fine, we’re not fussy. In fact, fuck it, even if you don’t want the album, you could always just send us some money.

Anyhow, we are just looking for a suitable venue for a swanky release party and BOOM, Endless Knocking will officially be loose in the wild.  It’s a gorgeous album too, switching from frenetic to woozy, from rich and melodic to choppy and hyperactive, and it may have been a little bit of a wait, but it was very much worth it.

Well, after a thin couple of weeks there are some rather excellent things happening in Edinburgh over the next few days.  Except I won’t be here because of a wedding.  Drat.  People really shouldn’t get married.  Mrs. Toad and I are married now, that’s all the weddings there need to be.

Alternatively, I suppose, if people weren’t getting married all the time I might well take no holidays at all, so I suppose I should be a little less ungrateful and just take the opportunity to put my feet up.

Anyhow, the Ides of Toad makes a return as well, with our next gig on Wednesday.  Which is tomorrow!  You all better come.  Please.

Wednesday 16th May: Slow Down Molasses & Smackvan play The Ides of Toad at Henry’s Cellar Bar.

As I have mentioned already, Slow Down Molasses (see video above) were fantastic at The Great Escape.  The sound was a right bloody racket when they got all three guitars, keyboards and both drummers going, but they’re still a subtle band, with a light touch.  Smackvan are a somewhat quieter proposition, and their latest album is one of the best things to come out of Scotland this year.

Friday 18th May: The Still Corners, Honeyblood & Magic Eye at Sneaky Pete’s.

This show is in celebration of This is Music turning six, which is probably something like 57 in promoter years.  The lineup is bloody exceptional though, with newcomers the dreamy Magic Eye and the raucous Honeyblood providing local support to Subpop’s excellent Still Corners.

Saturday 19th May: Jonnie Common, Mitchell Museum & Gav from Over the Wall play Limbo at the Voodoo Rooms.

Jonnie Common is a pop genius, pure and simple.  Mitchell Museum are back after officially retiring two years ago, and Gav from Over the Wall has some solo stuff coming out very soon.  So this, as much as there is, is probably Limbo royalty, just about.

Sunday 20th May: Jonquil & Sebastian Dangerfield at the Electric Circus.

Jonquil seem, according to their website anyway, to be tropical pop these days.  I am pretty sure when I saw them they were a sort of orchestral alt-folk band, although I could be wrong about that, because I was embarrassingly drunk at the time.  Anyhow, they’re playing the Electric Circus on Sunday, so you can find out for yourselves I suppose.

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…

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01. Hot Panda – Fuck Shit Up (00.24)
02. Slow Down, Molasses – Light (07.44)
03. Born Gold – Lawn Knives (16.19)
04. Odonis Odonis – Tick Tock (23.07)
05. PAWS – Bainz (26.17)
06. The Black Tambourines – Let You Down (Toad Session Sneak Preview) (34.15)
07. Fear of Men – Doldrums (44.06)
08. PINS – Eleventh Hour (47.13)
09. Perfume Genius – Lookout, Lookout (55.02)
10. Fanzine – L.A. (62.51)

The Canadians win at music. We went to three things at the Canadian showcase: Hooded Fang (above), Slow Down Molasses, and Hot Panda, and all three were fucking great.  I know it’s a cliché to say that Canadians seem to be disproportionately good at music, but on this weekend’s evidence, they just are.  Born Gold to follow later tonight!

Brighton is an odd place. Seemingly designed around the car, with weird, three-lane roads running right through the middle of town and along the waterfront, and with the place centred on a series of huge roundabouts.  Inbetween all these incongruously large roads (particularly for a relatively small town), however, are rabbit warrens of tiny streets.  So you get used to ambling lazily around, and then IMMINENT DEATH, IMMINENT DEATH!

People are really, really nice.  I keep expecting to meet these music industry twats you hear so much about, and I still haven’t found them.  I know at our level of things you aren’t likely to meet a lot of industry twats, because they’re all chasing the money farther up the ladder, but this is a really big festival and everyone has been incredible.

Doing a seminar after three or four pints is a bad idea. I was on a panel about running independent labels, and I’d had a few pints.  So needless to say I talked way, way too much, swore like an angry sailor and contradicted everyone.  The one the next day about podcasts and alternative broadcasting was done stone-cold sober (well, it was at 11:30 in the morning) and was far more lucid and less annoying.

Buzz is an unpredictable beast. Fear of Men are pretty fucking buzzy band, to the best of my knowledge, but their set at the Amazing Radio thing was woefully under-attended. They were really good too, as were PINS, who played after them.  PINS are pretty damn buzzy themselves for such a new band (12,000 Soundcloud plays on one song), and while it was marginally busier for them, I was still surprised at the relatively modest turnout.  Mind you, I suppose the Amazing Radio showcase, whilst it had pretty much the best lineup of the whole festival, wasn’t listed in the official brochure, so maybe folk just didn’t know.

Jellied Eels are a fucking abomination. They just are.  Never eat them.  Ever.

I can be a right tedious cunt when drunk. I met loads of people at the end of the day yesterday, after a whole day of drinking.  Bad idea. Apologies are almost certainly due to Dani from Amazing Radio, Jake from Basement Fever, Matthew from the Pigeon Post, the drummer from PINS, most of Fear of Men, and that random guy who I thought was trying to start a fight with me, until he pointed out that it was actually me who had started it.

New music festivals are way, way better than music festivals. If The Great Escape ever gets big enough that they feel obliged to import shit headline bands to draw in the masses, then it will be a real shame.  Alright, they did have Gaz Coombes, Maximo Park, Mystery Jets and We Are Scientists on the bill, which was pretty fucking mystifying, but for the most part, these are all new and under the radar bands, and that made the whole thing far more fun.  Have you seen the lineup for Reading and Leeds this year?  Exactly.

Some of the venues are great, but some are atrocious. The Canadian stuff was help in the Blind Tiger, which was a great place.  Amazing Radio, on the other hand, had to make do with downstairs at the Queen’s Hotel, which was just weird, having all these bands play on conference centre carpet.  All we needed was a plate of little triangular sandwiches and a variety of biscuits and the oddness would have been complete.

I want to live somewhere with a beach.  And pubs. Pubs on the beach. The sun came out on Friday, and we had beer and grilled sardines on the beach. It. Was. Awesome.

People have sort of heard of Song, by Toad. Which is nice.  We met loads of ‘industry people’ who it seemed had actually heard of us, were aware of what we are doing, and seemed to like it.  This was a bit of a surprise, to be honest.

Be careful when crossing the road.  I think the people of Brighton actively try and run folk over.

Three days is about the limit. At SXSW this year, I hit it so hard during Interactive that I couldn’t really face seeing much during the music festival.  This is a colossal waste of time and money, so I am glad I managed to get out to see so much this time.  Credit must go to Ian as well, who rather bafflingly chose to get up incredibly early every day, and phoned to hassle me before noon and force me to come out to see things.

I was serious about the jellied eels.  Honestly, just don’t.  Horrendous things.

Zowie, these guys were fucking awesome!  I loved Hot Panda’s last album How Come I’m Dead, but I have to confess that I’d rather stopped thinking about the band in if I am being honest the only reason I actually saw them today was because I happened to already be at the Canadian showcase and I thought, oh hang on, why the fuck not, I liked their record.

And they were brilliant.  I know bands, and readers to an extent, hate the ‘imagine the lovechild of X and Y’ thing, but for those of you who have never seen Hot Panda live, imagining some sort of cross between Liars and Wolf Parade will more or less get you in the right ballpark.  Only with added awesome.

Looking at the band is pretty incongruous as well, as the drummer and lead singer look like the straightest, most sensible people around, and they are flanked by a couple of fantastically cool hipster types.  Until they start playing it looks rather like two different bands who have accidentally stumbled onto the same stage together.

Once things kick off, however, it’s pretty clear that I have been a total idiot for forgetting about this band for so long.  They are tight as fuck, and the perfect combination of weird, ferocious and hugely infectious.  At one point, the bass player is playing her guitar with one hand and a trumpet with the other, the lead singer leaps into the crowd and starts the next song from there, and the keyboard player leaps about the place like a man having more fun than pretty much any fun I have ever had.

Brilliant.  And then I had to run off and be a nice sensible person on a panel.

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Slow Down, Molasses are from Saskatoon, which is apparently a thriving town, but to my mind is for some reason just marginally more glamorous than Cumbernauld, but I am open to being corrected by anyone who actually knows.

We’re putting them on at Henry’s in Edinburgh next week, so I really shouldn’t have come to see them here as well, but umm… well, I didn’t have any better plans before my label panel and I happened to meet Tyson from the band the night before in London as well, so why the fuck not.

Anyway, they were excellent, so without wishing to be too much of a used car salesman, I strongly recommend you come to the gig next week.  And if you don’t live in Edinburgh, they’re touring the UK at the moment, so have a look and see if you can go and see them, because I recommend you do.

With three guitarists, two drummers and a keyboard player they can make a right racket when they’re in the mood. For all their songs have a sort of characteristic ‘Canadian alternative music’ vibe (and don’t worry, I honestly don’t know what that means either, but you’ll know what I mean if you see them play) but they build to rather splendidly epic crescendos.  Not all that proggy per se, but is nevertheless quite euphoric in a sense.

As much as the percussion is great, and the drummer and the keyboard player look like they are having The Most Fun Ever, I think the guitars draw me to this band the most.  They interact really well, and alternate between subtle, dreamy effects, and thumping away like bastards as the songs build and build.  Nice.  Sometimes you take a chance putting a band on, not knowing that much about them, and that’s kind of what I did here.  Seems to have been a really rather excellent decision.  Well done me!

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Well, if you want quiet, brittle music, you won’t find much that is more so than Josh T. Pearson or Perfume Genius.  I have seen both in Glasgow in the last year and with both performers the audiences have been absolutely, completely and utterly silent, absolutely in thrall to the fragile music being played for them.

It can be a difficult thing, I assume, playing intense songs with quite difficult, personal subject matter to an audience of strangers.  One of my friends at the Perfume Genius gig at the Captain’s Rest said that she kind of wished he had played alone, instead of with a couple of extra players to add some minimal backing.  I can see what she means, but that would of course mean stripping away what little remains of the cushion between performer and audience, and whilst I can imagine that would make for a captivating show, I am not sure I could really ask any musician to open themselves up that much that regularly for the purposes of my entertainment.

As it is, you can tell Mike Hadreas is not at his most comfortable on stage.  His performance is absolutely excellent, but his one attempt to chat with the crowd showed that it wasn’t something that came all that naturally. It might have been a feeble attempt at chat, strictly speaking, but it was honest and without artifice, so however meagre, it still helped us connect with Hadreas as a performer a little better.

That was a relief, because given he was sitting down to play the piano at a venue with a very low stage, it was actually quite difficult to get much feel for him as a person.  Unless you were right up the front you really couldn’t see him at all, so the night felt just a little bit like a bunch of people standing in a crowded room to listen to the same record.

A little paradoxically, one of the other strange things to contend with was the very existence of performers playing the music.  Given how ethereal and elusive the Perfume Genius albums are, it seemed almost shocking to see three normal guys there in front of us playing, as if it were entirely unremarkable for them to be doing so.  And the Captain’s Rest seemed like an odd place for this all to be happening.  I can imagine the band playing an intimate house gig or in some stunning old edifice in Edinburgh for example, but a run of the mill, workaday gig venue in Glasgow just seemed a little incongruous.  Too normal, somehow.

And having said all that, you’d think I wasn’t that into the gig wouldn’t you, but that’s really not the case.  I really noticed these odd little things, but in general it was a cracking show.  The band may have numbered only three but they fleshed out the songs beautifully, and their restraint was a pleasure to witness; never trampling over songs which need air to breathe and silence to break.

I can easily imagine this being difficult music to translate to a live setting actually, but in this case it was gorgeous.  Perhaps less icy and mysterious than on record, but that was replaced by a warmth which I will confess I hadn’t quite seen there before.

Perfume Genius – Lookout, Lookout

Perfume Genius – All Waters

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I struggle enough to put on gigs in a venue with a PA, a professional sound engineer and a bartender, so I am nothing short of in awe of the kind of madness it would take to put on a whole festival.  That’s just what my pal Baz has done though.  Most of the time he puts on gigs in Wigan (and I complain about Edinburgh being a tough sell!) but last Summer he started The Imploding Inevitable Festival up in the Lake District.

The Lake District is one of the most beautiful parts of the UK, in my opinion, and I used to go up there quite a lot when I was living in Manchester.  I didn’t go last year, but I will be there in June this time around because I am DJing at the festival this year.  Don’t worry though, Toad heroes Jonnie Common, The Pictish Trail and Rob St. John will all be playing too, so you won’t just be stuck up a mountain with just me, my record collection and no way to escape.

The Imploding Inevitable also chimes nicely with my new policy of boycotting the tedious identikit festivals you tend to find once the attendance goes much into the thousands.  I just prefer these smaller ones, frankly.  And you can buy tickets here if you so choose, and so choose you bloody well should.

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.

Direct download: Toadcast #225 – The Nightcast

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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. Woody Guthrie – So Long, it’s Been Good to Know You (40.37)
09. PAWS – Misled Youth (46.20)
10. Blank Canvas – Golden (53.53)
11. The Eighteenth Day of May – Cold Early Morning (59.04)