Toad Sings On…
Your music expert Lisa-marie Ferla celebrates a tiny label’s success
SCOTLAND’S most “wilfully commercially obscure” record label may be readying itself for its 10th anniversary celebrations – but Matthew Young of Song, By Toad says he never intended to turn his hobby music blog into a label.
“The idea was to help our pals out a bit,” he says, citing the close-knit Edinburgh music scene of 2008-10 from which sprang Broken Records – who ultimately signed to 4AD – and Meursault, whose critically acclaimed debut Pissing On Bonfires/kissing With Tongues became the fledgling label’s first major release.
“The assumption was that they’d find recognition, find a proper label and move on – but it turns out there aren’t that many labels, and they aren’t finding bands.”
Besides, that first Meursault album ultimately sold thousands, rather than the anticipated “hundreds or dozens”, of copies – by which time Young found himself at the helm of a proper record label before really having the chance to think about it.
Ten years on, Young’s “nitwit caper of a lifetime” has become a full-time job, home to its own recording/ performance space, The Happiness Hotel in Leith, as well as a shelf of Young’s own record collection “full of all the records I probably want to listen to more than any others”.
The label’s 10th anniversary celebrations kick off properly this month. A series of special shows across Scotland and England aim to celebrate the milestone with label artists, friends and supporters – as well as, perhaps, offer a glimpse of what comes next.
First, they’re taking over Inshriach House near Aviemore on September 15 – home, not entirely coincidentally, of the distillery behind Inshriach Gin. More importantly it’s the location where one of the best-received split 12” compilations for which Song, By Toad became known was recorded.
Billed as a sort of “Song, By Toad And Friends” celebration, the show brings together artists who have played particularly notable roles in the history of the label.
American folk artist Samantha Crain was one of the first artists interviewed on the old Song, By Toad blog; Jonny Lynch of Pictish Trail and Lost Map Records was an early cheerleader; and Adam Stafford, Faith Eliott, Lush Purr and Siobhan Wilson have between them released some of the most interesting albums on the label’s roster.
After the away-day comes a homecoming, with a show on September 28 at Leith Depot – a notorious earlier incarnation of which hosted the Song, By Toad launch gig back in June, 2008. There will be three more birthday shows this year – at Henry’s Cellar Bar (November 15), once home to the label’s raucous, unpredictable