Mrs. Toad and I tend to ignore Valentine’s Day. That’s not to say that we are scrooges when it comes to romance, in fact I would say exactly the opposite, but for us the compulsory nature of it doesn’t feel very romantic. Everyone’s different, but we’d rather take our sentimentality w...
Our next BAD FUN takes place on Friday 8th March at Henry’s Cellar Bar and features well-established Toad favourite Jonnie Common , with support from FOUND’s beep-master general River of Slime and BAD FUN debutants, the Newcastle (somewhat tangentially) by way of Edinburgh Shift-Stati...
The above video is for b-side Today’s Cross by Frightened Rabbit . I mention this for two reasons: Firstly, I really like the song. This is good news, as I wasn’t that keen on their last album, and they are really nice guys so I genuinely want to like their stuff. Now I am looking for...
The Stiffcast is not the cheap innuendo I am sure you assume it to be. No no no, not that sort of stiff, the sort where every joint and muscle in your body aches because you are woefully out of shape and attempting to run around like a teenager. That sort of stiff. Yes, after three mo...
Yes, it’s that time of year again, the time when we shower you with bounteous goodness from the vaults of Toad, in the form of our annual label sampler. It is free to download from Bandcamp , with the slight proviso that you sign up to our mailing list, from which you can unsubscribe ...
I have been waiting so fucking long for this album that first time I wrote about Rick Redbeard doesn’t even appear on the site anymore, because I lost it when a bunch of posts died in the great WordPress changeover fuckup of 2007. I wrote about his music again that October , and said ...
Live in Edinburgh This Week – 4th February 2013 Posted by Matthew in Edinburgh Live Listings on 4 Feb 13 • 1 Comment » Well of course all anyone in Scotland could possibly be talking about this week would be this Saturday’s BAD FUN at Henry’s Cellar Bar (with an actual cocktail menu t...
…aaaand finally, the top five albums which I enjoyed the most in 2012. A couple of these suffered a bit from being released neither on tape nor vinyl – the two formats to which I listen the most – and one benefited immeasurably from being in the van constantly for months. Nevertheless...
This is entirely new to me, and I have to confess that on the first listen the borderline disco beat had me twitching a little in whatever one of my internal musical organs it is which seems to hate fun. I find synth-pop to be a slightly tricky area, in the sense that I can be incredi...
So yes, we are slowly creaking back into life, here at Song, by Toad and our first gig of 2013 is already approaching fast. Next weekend – i.e. Saturday 19th January – we will be back at Henry’s for a fine lineup, including one of our favourite Edinburgh bands Plastic Animals, and two...
Welcome to 2013, Toadcast listeners. As is tradition around these parts, we start the year with a podcast of songs we will be releasing this year on Song, by Toad Records, combined with a few we have released quite recently. There are a few things I didn’t put on here, because it seem...
Well well well, the voting for the song of the year was indeed done by a rather hometown audience, with the new Meursault album dominating, and only one song in the top five coming from outside our own wee corner of the Scottish music scene. The votes were genuinely all over the place...
