songbytoadrecords

[songbytoadrecords]

Listen/purchase: Pick and Mix 26 by The Tropicanas

This is The Tropicanas, who will be playing our Henry's show next Friday, with Hairband and Tight Knit. Pure, woozy guitar pop. Cracking band. https://thetropicanas.bandcamp.com/

Tix: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hairband-the-tropicanas-tight-knit-tickets-46146414167

[songbytoadrecords]

How the fuck did I not know anything about this at all?

[songbytoadrecords]

Back between 2004 and about, erm... maybe around 2014 or so I wrote a music blog which had a spell of being really quite successful, until I ended up less and less interested in the mainstream and the traffic which goes with writing about it.

I tried to keep positive or silent about unsigned bands, but I reckoned once someone got in the NME or a review in DiS or something, then they were successful enough to be fair game and if I thought they were fucking shit I felt happy enough to say so.

Once I started getting closer to real bands, and especially when I started actually releasing music myself, through the label, my perspective totally changed. I realised that even bands who seem successful are often at far less advanced stages in their careers than they might seem, and even if they are doing well, criticism, particularly the really gratuitous stuff which is both fun to write and to read, can still really fucking sting.

It never occurred to me really. I mean, we all talk this way to our pals down the pub, and I always felt that the strength of my blog lay quite substantially in a style of writing which reflected real world conversations as much as possible. Even in the needlessly over-the-top takedown.

The closer I got to the reality of the industry, though, and the more I spent time with musicians it just started to feel, well, really mean.

You can say that kind of stuff down the pub to entertain your pals, but publish it, even on a small-readership blog, and it’s a public statement of a sort. It just felt needlessly hurtful, and even as someone who can revel in being a bit of a dickhead, I just began to feel more and more like the bad guy.

So I stopped. I just stopped writing negative stuff. It didn’t feel nice; it made me feel unkind. 

I actually think negative reviews have a place in music, though. Not the ones which are all about making the writer look clever and funny at the expense of the musician, that’s just a pretty desperate incarnation of our rather ugly LOOK AT ME AREN’T I IMPORTANT AND CLEVER instincts. But calling out music we think is bad or boring or lazy does have an important role to play, I think, so it’s sort of a shame that real criticism - real analysis and evaluation of music - seems to be less and less viable these days. 

But the music industry is full of enough things which deal body-blows to people’s self-esteem, and battling through them and continuing to make records takes a fuck of a lot of courage, and even though I respect the role of critical responses, I just didn’t want to be part of that side of it any more.

And that, in an incredibly long-winded way, is why I found this article so instructive.

[songbytoadrecords]

This is really nice. Remember Jamie from (amongst other things) The Japanese War Effort, Conquering Animal Sound and Carbs? Well here he is being clever again, working with a lass called Emma Carey.

Listen/purchase: Mannerisms by Heavy Manners

[songbytoadrecords]

Pilestra - My Dream

Romanian dreampop? Alright then, why not. I rather like this actually.

https://pilestra.bandcamp.com/

[songbytoadrecords]

NEW ADAM STAFFORD VIDEO!

That's right, the Taciturn Maverick of Falkirk is back with a new double album of neoclassical machine music (fuck yeah!) about depression (fuck yeah!) and the dismal state of social cohesion in the modern world (fuck YEAH!)

And you know what, it's fucking great. You can pre-order a copy of the album here.

And maybe pop along to Summerhall for the launch show, which will be amazing. Of course.

[songbytoadrecords]

I’ve not been listening to this kind of stuff all that much recently - whatever ‘this kind of stuff’ is - but I like this. Just nasty.

Listen/purchase: F@#k The Public by The Rotations

[songbytoadrecords]

Oh my oh my!

@dropped_alfa

[songbytoadrecords]

Siobhan Wilson features rather significantly on the new Aidan Moffat and RM Hubbert album, I hear, both singing and playing cello. From the sounds of this, it's going to be a fucking great record.

Pre-order.

Aidan Moffat & RM Hubbert // Cockcrow (feat. Siobhan Wilson) // (Officia...

[songbytoadrecords]

Well this is pretty fucking un-polished, and I have no idea how I ended up finding it - probably an email I have since lost - but it’s gentle and lovely underneath the grumble and mumble.

Listen/purchase: Quitter by Quitter

[songbytoadrecords]

Mellow shoegaze, would you call this? I dunno, but it’s lovely and I have been listening to it all day. Many thanks to Antiquated Future for the tip!

Listen/purchase: Like Author, Like Daughter by Midwife

[songbytoadrecords]

We have a new car. And no, it is not a Volvo. IMAGINE!

[songbytoadrecords]

Wandering by Zed Penguin, from their debut album 'A Ghost, A Beast', which you can pre-order on Song, by Toad Records here.

[songbytoadrecords]

A new tour announced for Siobhan Wilson, folks. Full details and tickets here: siobhan-wilson.com/tour-dates

[songbytoadrecords]

Some more good things, of a slightly ambient bent.

Listen/download: Ancients EP by Hanetration

[songbytoadrecords]

the walkmen - tenleytown

Continuing last night’s Walkmen theme, the fucking drumbeat in this song is fantastic.

[songbytoadrecords]

Buy everything this label ever releases. You will not regret it, I promise you. Surprise trumpet solos and everything! And side one, track one references AA Milne, so they are therefore the greatest band in history by virtue of that one fact alone. So there.

Listen/purchase: Like Like by Advrb