Elba Sessions

I’m very excited about this month’s line up. In truth, I’m excited with every month’s line up but this month it’s gonna be a good un! Headlining for us this month is RM Hubbert. A stalwart of cult Glasgow band, El Hombre Trajeado, he has recently released his debut album ‘First & Last’ which is a gorgeous collection of, if you want a description in a very flowery kind of way, ‘instrumental acoustic sketches’. It also has the perfect amount of flamenco in there so what better music to listen to in the summer.

Joining ‘Hubby’ on the bill are Croy’s finest, Campfires in Winter. These lads are currently a drummer down so they are going to treat us to an acoustic set. I’ve not seen them live before but some respected, and some less respected bloggers (i.e Peenko (wink!!)) tell me very good things!!

Finally, a late but very welcome addition to the bill is Yusuf Azak. I downloaded the two EP’s from his myspace page and have listened to them regularly since. I find it hard to describe Yusuf’s music but the best way to put it in layman’s terms would be hushed vocals with some nice guitar playing. In fact, I quite liked Matthew at Song, By Toad’s description from a while back. “like a ghostly set of old bellows, wheezing in and out and managing to rather surprisingly generate some fantastic songs whilst doing so“. And mentioning Song, By Toad, Yusuf may have a release out on the label later this year.

Gig Info:

Where: The Liquid Ship, Great Western Road, Glasgow
When: Thursday July 1st 2010 at 9pm
Tax: Free

Howdy people. This is another of those posts which start off with one thing in mind and then end up encompassing a whole load of stuff floating about my emails and head.

First up a shout out to fellow bloggers Peenko and Aye Tunes. They are having a first foray into the promotion game this Friday (27/4/10) with a rather good line up at the Captain’s Rest. Joining Campfires In Winter and Kid Canaveral are Mitchell Museum who have been wearing out my iPod in the last few weeks. Tickets are £5 on the door but if you contact either blogger in advance, they’ll knock a quid off the price cos they are just like that!

Also gigging this week are young upstarts The Girobabies who launch their brand new EP ‘Social Not Working’ with a launch party this Friday at The Buff Club. It all kicks off at 7pm and only costs the princely sum of £3. You can have a wee listen to the EP on their bandcamp page.

If the previous two gigs weren’t enough for a Friday night, there’s an absolute corker going down at our home from home The Liquid Ship. Gracing the basement once again is the wonderful Julia and the Doogans along with Stevie and The Moon and Lovers Turn To Monsters. Cracking line up, I would presume gig times will run as we run it, so first act will be on at 9pm.

Then on Saturday night, Eagleowl take on the Captains Rest in the second leg of their Edinburgh/Glasgow EP launch parties. Support comes from My Kappa Roots and Rob St John. You can pre order the EP on their bandcamp page.

The readers of this blog don’t need to be told by us that Glasgow’s music scene is buzzing and the guys over at UNESCO City of Music are putting together a music stream aiming to promote all that’s good and local going on in the city. They are looking for submissions which can be uploaded to their soundcloud page or sent in by good old fashioned mail to the following address;

Glasgow City of Music
20 Trongate
Glasgow
G1 5ES

For further information you can email info@glasgowcityofmusic.com

The Glasgow Oxjam Team are on the lookout for people wanting to help out at this years Oxjam takeover, which will take place in October. There is more details on their myspace blog and you can download an application on the Oxjam website. I went along to the takeover last year and saw some great bands, Yahweh being one that stands out the memory. The best thing is that it’s all for a great cause.

It seems like the local music scene is beginning to hot up again after christmas and ‘The Big Freeze’ with plenty of good releases and gigs coming up. I felt like there was a real lack of decent gigs through January, however, couple this with post christmas debt and a busy day-job, it might just be me.

A band that have only recently caught my attention, thanks to Jim at Aye Tunes is Spaghetti Anywhere. They are based in London and play uncomplicated indie pop. A little bit in the vain of Belle and Sebastian or Camera Obscura although I am always very wary of comparing bands. Anyways, they are definitely worth checking out and their E.P. is released on Feb 22nd on Toy Soldier Records.

If you can’t wait until Feb 22nd for your fill of new music, I suggest you point your browsers in the direction of Glasgow based label/collective Wise Blood Industries from tomorrow where you will be able to download the new single ‘The Hours’ from The Kays Lavelle. I’ve given it a couple of listens now and the orchestration is fantastic and I just love the haunting vocals. Their album, recorded by Neil Pennycook of Meursault, is due out in the spring and no doubt when that comes around it will be very hotly anticipated.

There’s quite a few gigs this week to look out for in Glasgow this week. The aforementioned Meursault play next Sunday (21st) at Nice and Sleazys with Xiu Xiu and North Atlantic Oscillation. Working backwards, we may have mentioned at some point that King James, Maple Leaves, Craig Davidson and Cuddly Shark will be playing at The Liquid Ship on Friday night (19th), more details here. On Thursday a big Happy Birthday goes out to the Glasgow PodcART dudes. They will be having a bit of a shindig to celebrate with sets from St Deluxe, Little Yellow Ukeleles and Campfires in Winter. That all goes down at the 13th Note. Lastly (but also firstly this week), on Wednesday night at Brel the fantastic Julia and The Doogans, Panda Su and Sophie’s Pigeons will play some pretty acoustic songs.

Anyways, that’s about all my thoughts for now, we’re going to get this blog a bit more populated with features and reviews over the next few weeks so keep checking back and don’t be a stranger!