Songkick

Edinburgh blogger: Song, by Toad
(With fantastic toady illustrations and amusing chat.)

1. Name? Matthew Young
2. Age? 32
3. Occupation? Industrial designer
4. How long have you lived in Edinburgh? Nearly three years now.
5. Favorite Edinburgh venue? They are pretty much all terrible as buildings. A lot of promoters and booking agents are making a real effort to put good lineups together these days, but the venues themselves are awful. The ones that are nice spaces have abysmal acoustics, and the decent performance spaces tend to be grotty little shitholes.
6. How long have you been blogging? Unofficially on my static site since mid-2004. Actually on a proper blog since November 2006.
7. How did you choose the name of your blog? From The Wind in the Willows. We always used to listen to it on cassette in the car, and my Mum used to call me a “little toad” because she couldn’t bring herself to swear at her darling child, no matter what an insufferable little bastard I was. So when I was naming the blog, the valedictory banquet [in the story] came to mind: “Speech, by Toad. There will be further speeches, by Toad during the evening. Song, by Toad (Composed by himself.) Other compositions, by Toad, will be sung in the course of the evening by the composer.”
8. First concert? Probably Tina Turner. Blame my bloody mother. Under my own steam, probably The Pogues in Manchester in ‘93.
9. Most recent concert? Broken Records at The Caves. They’re going to be famous, these lads, I think. And I can claim to be the first person to ever write anything about them, ever. Given the Edinburgh music scene, this might be the only time I am able to say this!
10. Most memorable concert? Why?
    Tom Waits at the Orpheum in Boston. Why? Because he’s Tom fucking Waits, that’s why!
11. Most disappointing? Why? Michael Jackson in Vienna in 1991. Because he turned up. And, shamefully, so did I.
12. Dream line-up? I really don’t care. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. My favourite gigs are the ones where you take a chance on someone you barely know and they turn out to be brilliant. It’s rare, but it’s worth the wait.