Elba Sessions

One of the bands that we enjoyed watching most this year has most definitely got to be French Wives. They come up there in the bracket of bands that know just how to put a big smile on our face. Also, with a name like that, they once in a while will throw up some good google searches of people finding the Elba blog, French Wives are not to be googled at work!! Kim caught up with Stuart to chat about the past year and plans for another busy year in 2011…

Album of The Year - My album of the year would have to be ‘The Suburbs’ by Arcade Fire. It’s a stunning record and ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’ is comfortably my favourite song of the year.

Gig of The Year - It’s a bit of a dead heat for best gig of the year for me I’m afraid as two (very different) gigs stand out in my mind. The first was seeing The Strokes re-unite at Rockness this year which sent me crashing back to my adolescence in what for me was pretty much the perfect end to a festival. I also met Albert Hammond Jr which was probably the highlight of my life and the least comfortable of his.

The other gig was Admiral Fallow at The Lexington in London. It goes without saying that 2010 has been a fantastic year for them but to see the reaction that they got in London (an encore even though they were on first) nearly brought a tear to my eye. It’s very rare in the music industry that you meet nice, genuinely talented people doing well for themselves off the back of just being good and Admiral Fallow’s success has been birthed purely out of that. No-one is ramming it down people’s throats, people are just buying into it because it is genuinely great and I couldn’t be happier for them.

Musical Memories of 2010 - I suppose my main musical memory of 2010 would just be playing lots of gigs. We’ve started to get out and about a lot more with tours down south and up into the highlands which has been really fun. Highlights would have to be headlining the T Break Stage and the first London gig we did at The Lock Tavern.

Hopes/Plans for 2011 - We’re going to be releasing an ep in February and then doing quite an extensive (for us) UK tour. After that I’m not sure but I suppose my hope for 2011 would be the same as it is every day, which would be that Big Dick records sign French Wives for squillions and I don’t need to work in a call centre anymore. And I hope the new Coldplay album is good too.

French Wives play King Tuts in Glasgow on Jan 6th as part of King Tuts’ ‘New Year’s Revolution’. Also on the bill that night are Cancel The Astronauts, Galleries and Poor Things.

Keep up with the band here…

Whilst i’m off in Paris munching on amazing pastries and lazing about here, there are some pretty good gigs going on in Glasgow.

First up, on Tuesday night is the A-T Society Fundraiser at Stereo. On the bill is former Elba Sessions guest, My Cousin I Bid You Farewell along with Ross Clark and Scott Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit. It’s all for a great cause and you can read a bit more about the A-T Society here.

On Thursday (15th July), Elba favourites Cuddly Shark play the Captain’s Rest. Word on the street is that those sharklings have been holed up on the Moray-shire coast writing some new material so expect a mix of old an possibly new songs. Also on the bill are The Lava Experiments and The Red Show.

Thursday night also sees the start of ‘Summer Nights at King Tuts’ featuring a stellar line up over the next couple of weeks of local unsigned indie darlings and cool kids! There is quite a few cracking looking line-ups over the fortnight and it all kicks of with a headline set from Silver Columns including support from MOPP, Midnight Lion and Nevada Base. You can check the full line up here and suffice to say a few of the gigs look pretty appealing to us at Elba. Astral Planes w/ Cancel The Astronauts and Galleries, French Wives, and Kitty The Lion with Julia and The Doogans on the same bill (oh lordy!).

On Saturday night our June guests, in both the pod and at The Liquid Ship, Blue Sky Archives, play Nice n Sleazy along with We See Lights. However, if it’s a blogging mecca that you are after, get yourself down to the 13th Note for the second Peenko vs Aye Tunes gig. The line up includes we’re only afraid of NYC, Randolph’s Leap (who incidentally have supplied one of my favourite lyrics for a long time and have an EP titled ‘Eeerie Indie Adam’) and Little Yellow Ukuleles. It costs a fiver to get in and if the last gig was anything to go by, you’d be advised to get your tickets in advance. You can buy from Peenko here or the much more generous Aye Tunes here! I say more generous cos you get a couple of downloads of the bands that are playing. Great idea!