The Toad more travelled: A year in the life of the Song, by Toad record label

Published on Sunday 4 December 2011 00:00

Ahead of its Christmas party, Matthew Young of indie label Song, by Toad looks back on a year of TV appearances, impromptu stand-up and epic swearing

I would imagine that the New Year at Song, by Toad HQ will be seen in very much like the last one: in a chaotic, drunken mess, with a band playing in the living room of my Edinburgh home, and then watching my beloved vinyl collection be clumsily molested by a hopelessly inebriated cast of pretend DJs until such time as we either burn out the speakers or the last handful of people wander off in search of breakfast.

Our New Year’s gigs are fun, of course, but they’re not as rock’n’roll as you might think, despite the above description being quite accurate. We’ve been pretty lucky in that so far we’ve broken not much more than a glass per party – although someone did set themselves on fire once.

The (dubious) highlights of 2010 are hard to pin down too, but I often think it’s the setbacks which make us who were are, rather than the successes. For starters, I got myself on the telly, albeit entirely accidentally when a BBC crew ended up using footage of me recording my podcast to round up the last ten minutes of the documentary they were shooting about the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. It’s amazing how seeing yourself and your pals on TV can make even the most professional production seem just a bit like a home video though.

On the subject of the podcast, I recently published my 200th episode. In real life I swear like an angry sailor, so I figured the best way to mark the occasion would be to include at least one cuss from each preceding episode. It is an epic display of gold medal-standard swearing, and I am very proud of it.

I also, of all things, made my debut at the Edinburgh Fringe this year. When Lach was too sick to host his Antihoot (the long-running open-mic night that he recently relocated from New York to Edinburgh), I ended up stepping in and having to do stand-up comedy, on stage, at three hours’ notice and entirely off the top of my head. All I remember is telling myself: “Do not try and tell actual jokes, because you’ll be crap. And even if it goes well, shut up at the earliest possible moment and get off stage.”

Oh, and we released some records this year too. Song, by Toad Records always felt a bit like Meursault’s record label, because they are our first and most successful band, but by the end of this year our last release by them will be over 18 months ago, and it feels like we have a lot more depth as a label these days.

Rob St John’s debut album, Weald, has been the one to catch the attention recently, but we’ve also released music by King Post Kitsch, The Japanese War Effort, Lil Daggers, Lach and Trips and Falls this year. Generally you have to battle for every last press mention, but some stuff has just gone viral, in that enigmatic way things can do on the internet.

Our 2011 label sampler ended up everywhere when I put it up for free download in March, and my free “Song, by Toad’s Basic and In No Way Authoritative Guide to Releasing an Album” continues to get me thank you e-mails even now.

I started putting on gigs this year too, because so many of my favourite promoters packed it in towards the end of 2010. Putting on gigs, it turns out, is a maddeningly elusive thing to do well. Most of our nights have been great, but twice we’ve had single figure attendance. Imagine inviting a band all the way up from Manchester or London and then that happens – Christ, it was embarrassing. And expensive. Pertinently, a post on Song, by Toad entitled “Why Bands and Promoters Don’t Get Along” was another one of those viral successes I mentioned earlier.

On the subject of embarrassing and expensive, I also managed to accidentally send out a free download link of one of our albums to our entire mailing list. Out of over 1000 recipients, 177 downloaded it, so never mind the potential sales, I also learned a chastening lesson in just how many people actually bother to read our lovingly crafted newsletters.

I also, if I remember, got so drunk and happy after watching FOUND play at this year’s Homegame festival that I gave Josh T Pearson a big sweaty hug. Josh T Pearson is a six-foot Texan, with a gigantic beard and impenetrable scowl. He writes heartbreaking music, and I have seen him pull a knife on someone from the stage. He is emphatically not a man that you should hug frivolously.

In fact I have lost count of the times I have embarrassed myself this year, and also of the times I have danced around our spare bedroom (my office) celebrating some minor victory or other. Come to think of it, it’s all minor victories, really. I can’t think of one breakthrough moment this whole year, but we seem so much further on than at this time in 2010.

To celebrate, every band on the label will be at the St Stephen’s Centre in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, for an all-day, BYOB Christmas Party on 10 December. I will probably make an embarrassing speech, while trying my very, very hardest to tell myself: “Shut up at the earliest possible moment and get off stage.”

• For more, see songbytoad.com