Elba Sessions

My turn, let’s keep it snappy…

Album of The Year – Loads to choose from! Titus Andronicus – The Airing of Grievances probably tops the list though. Honourable mentions to Brakes, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Le Reno Amps, Cuddly Shark and The Cinematics, oh, and The Phantom Band! (I could go on…)

Hopes for 2010/Things You’re Looking Forward To – Putting on more gigs, writing more for the blog (and getting better at it), seeing and hearing loads of new music, working with Armellodie records and seeing it evolve, Pavement at the Barrowlands (!!!!!!!) and putting some faces to email addresses!

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM ALL OF US HERE AT ELBA!

SEE YOU IN 2010!

After a couple of days of Christmas over-indulgence, Elba Sessions go self indulgent. We’ve saved a couple of annual posts until the end of the month about our ‘bests’ of the year. Up first, podcaster broadcaster Chris…

Album of The Year – Wilco – Wilco (The Album). I literally listened to one album for 2 months after I bought this album so it has to be. Honourable mention to Richmond Fontaine’s new album…brilliant.

Hopes for 2010/Things You’re Looking Forward To -
Album – Lightspeed Champion.
Book – Willy Vlautin – ‘Lean On Pete.
TV – Final season of Lost can’t f%^king wait!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh and putting on more gigs…

The Elba Sessions podcast has been running since July this year and we have been blogging since September so we were pretty honoured to be asked by Peenko to throw our tuppence worth into what is now affectionately known as The Scottish BAMS or The Scottish Bloggers and Music Sites Award 2009, to give it it’s proper title. The Phantom Band’s Checkmate Savage took the honours and the Top 20 was packed with plenty of good choices, with a large amount of Scottish talent being represented.

Personally I struggled a bit, not to choose the ten so much, but more to order it from 10 to 1. Looking back at my choices, I’ll stick with my Number 1 and possibly the first few places but to be honest, if any of my top 10 were at number 1, I’d have no complaints at all. Here is how Stephen, Chris and myself voted…

(note: Stephen ducks out slightly by nominating an unreleased album, but we’ll let him off for that and you’ll notice I favoured counting down from 10 to 1, to build suspense and all, wheras my fellow amigos went straight in with a number 1!)

Phil Elba

10. Cuddly Shark – Cuddly Shark
9.Le Reno Amps – Tear It Open
8.Bruce Springsteen – Working On A Dream
7.The Cinematics – Love and Terror
6. Brakes – Touchdown
5. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
4. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion
3. Sufjan Stevens – The BQE
2. Phantom Band – Checkmate Savage
1. Titus Andronicus – The Airing of Grievances

Stephen Elba

1. De Rosa – Prevention
2. My Latest Novel – Deaths and Entrances.
3. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career.
4. Idlewild – Post Electric Blues.
5. Conor Mason – When its Over
6. Le Reno Amps – Tear it Open
7. LAU – Arc Light
8. bat for lashes – two Suns
9. Daniel Wylie – Fake your own death (wont be released until 2010 but i have heard the tracks and they are ace!)
10. Cuddly Shark – Cuddly Shark

Chris Elba

1. Wilco – Wilco (the album)
2. Richmond Fontaine – We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River
3. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
4. Bruce Springsteen – Working on a Dream
5. De Rosa – Prevention
6. Bob Dylan – Together Through Life
7. Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
8. The Low Anthem – Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
9. Sufjan Stevens – The BQE
10. Le Reno Amps – Tear It Open

I was pretty pleased that 4 of mine were included in the Top 20 and having seen the spreadsheet where the maths was done, a couple just missed out. I think The Phantom Band were worthy winners though, being voted for by predominantly scottish blogs and writers it’s fitting that a Scottish band should win it, who would have doubted that one would!

And here’s how the masses voted!

1. The Phantom Band – Checkmate Savage (61)
2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion (54)
3. De Rosa – Prevention (53)
4. King Creosote – Flick the V’s (51)
5. Withered Hand – Good News (45)
6. The Twilight Sad – Forget The Night Ahead (43)
7. We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls (40)
8. Beerjacket – Animosity (38)
9. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More (32)
9. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career (32)
11. My Latest Novel – Deaths and Entrances (28)
11. Malcolm Middleton – Waxing Gibbous (28)
13. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – s/t (25)
14. You Already Know – s/t (24)
14. Broken Records – Until the Earth Begins to Part (24)
16. The XX – s/t (23)
17. The Antlers – Hospice (21)
18. Sufjan Stevens – The BQE (19)
18. And So I Watch You From Afar (19)
20. Wilco – The Album (18)

You can praise/blame/thank the following for their input!

17 Seconds, AyeTunes, Dear Scotland, Earz Mag, Elba Sessions, Glasgow Podcart, Hooligans Lament, Jim Gellatly, JocknRoll, Jockrock, Kowalskiy, Last Years Girl, Love Shack Baby, Manic Pop Thrills, My Portiswasp Says, Off the Beaten Tracks, The Popcop, Products of a Gaseous Brain, Song By Toad, The Daily Growl, The Spill, The Steinberg Principle, The Vinyl Villain and Under the Radar.

And once again, well done to Peenko for organising all of this!

Now, I usually like to get the gig reviews/post match up pretty sharpish on the Elba Sessions site so please excuse me for being a bit lax this month! A mixture of putting on two gigs in two nights, organising Elba Annual posts, starting a new project, work and a few beers at the shows, have pushed back what will be (mostly) a photographic memory of the evening! This is what happens when you man the door! (Apologies, for the size of the photos, I just couldn’t get them to fit right this evening but there’s a link at the end to a gallery!)

Up first, for his first of three Elba engagements, was Conor Mason. Just off the boat from Derry, Conor started with a set of songs from his debut LP ‘When It’s Over’.

Next up, one of my new favourite bands, Rags and Feathers. It was the first time I’d seen them and already I can’t wait to go and see them again. They are well worth checking out and a lovely bunch. Julian and Andrea even had an impromptu DJ set on the Opry Wheels of Steel. All I can say is that they are just a huge slice of folky goodness!

The third band of the evening were The Moth and The Mirror. Fresh from a couple of dates with Frightened Rabbit (they also support them at their Dec 22nd ABC show) they were on top form and went down well with everyone. They were the perfect build up to the last band of the night, Le Reno Amps.

This was to be Lindsey’s last show with the Amps and the rest of the band ’suited’ up for the occasion. After a country heavy opening set, the Amps fired on all cylinders with tracks from all three of their albums, with a couple of extras added in. There was even time for an onstage plea for a new bass player which I am to believe has still not proved successful. Finishing with a rendition of Johnny Cash’s ‘Daddy Sang Bass’, it was a fitting send off for Wolfie.

If anyone knows a bass player…???? (There is a strict criteria!)

Thanks to Steph Mulligan for the pictures, some can be viewed at a better size here…(more to come). Also, a huuuuuuuuuuuge thanks to Mags and her staff at the venue, you are unlikely to find more welcoming venue staff anywhere!

When planning the Elba Sessions Annual, it was only right that the subject of the Grand Ole Opry gig, got a day all to herself. Tonight at the Opry Le Reno Amps will bid a fond farewell to bass player Lindsey. Stepping up to media duties one more time, she answered our questionnaire…

Album of The Year – The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love

Hopes for 2010/Things You’re Looking Forward To – I’m going on holiday! A real holiday! To Kenya! To see a lion!

Lindsey has her final fling tonight at The Grand Ole Opry with support from The Moth and The Mirror, Rags and Feathers and Conor Mason. Doors are 8pm, £4 (that’s a pound per band!) and it would be amazing to see y’all there!

I don’t think it’s any secret that we here at Elba Sessions *heart* Le Reno Amps. Not only have they popped up on an Elba Podcast and an Elba Sessions Presents…at the Liquid Ship, we’re also helping them give a rousing send off to their bassist this Thursday at the Grand Ole Opry deep in Glasgow’s cowboy country! Indeed, Al and Scott almost single handedly changed the face of the Elba Sessions because for 30 worrying minutes at The Liquid Ship, being bombarded by their patter, we questioned whether the Elba Sessions were actually made for wannabe stand up comics. Thankfully a few months on, we’re still concentrating on bands, and the booking agents of northern England’s working mens clubs are not booking Le Reno Amps. Phew. We’d like to think last months appearance on the cover CD of WORD Magazine and this month’s review in MOJO is down to their appearances with Elba, but we can’t take all the credit…the four of them are affa hard workers!

Album of The Year

Scott: Heavy Trash – “Midnight Soul Serenade”

Al: Bloody Hell just one! I’d probably plump for… De Rosa – Prevention,

but worthy mentions…
St Vincent – Actor
Golden Silvers – True Romance
Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
Jason Lytle – Yours Truely, The Commuter

Favourite New Band

Scott: Last ‘new to me’ band I heard and keep returning to are Empire of the Sun, reckon that album’s going to be with me for years to come. How very populist of me! I’m also currently very taken with the Dirty Projectors – or possibly not! They did a brilliant track with David Byrne on ‘Dark was the Night’, investigating further I learned they did a concept album in 2007 called ‘Rise Above’, which is (Wiki quote) “…an attempt by band leader Dave Longstreth to remember and reinterpret the entire Black Flag album Damaged after not hearing it for almost 15 years”. Now, I learned to play guitar by listening to Black Flag and the Circle Jerks – unless Dave Longstreth heard Black Flag through a coma from his hospital bed, this album is short on remembering and heavy on re-interpretation! I think I may love it, but it’s too early to say, I may wake up one morning and realise I actually hate it and forever refer to them as fucking BAWC’S! (Brooklyn Art Wanker Cunt Students)

Al: I really love the Golden Silvers album so yeah Golden Silvers. I’ve been listening to Super Adventure Club’s “Chalk Horror!” album a lot of late too, so yeah they’d both be my favourite “new” bands!

Best Gig – Le Reno Amps

Scott: The Windmill in Brixton

Al: Ooh this year, eh, we had a couple of belting London shows at The Windmill in Brixton and The Sheep Walk in Leytonstone back in April, they were both really great. More recently we did a Merchant City Festival show with Super Adventure Club and The Elvis Suicide. It were a lot of fun too.

Best Gig – Other

Scott: Faith No More at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh

Al: I cannae mind what I did last week let alone all year but Morrissey at Barras in May was totally amazing. Wilco at Greenman was brilliant, I was very very merry on cheap red wine. Eh what else, Field Music very recently at Captains Rest in Glasgow was great too. There’s been too many. I should stay in more.

Best Memories of 2009

Scott: Touring and gigging to promote the album – i.e. playing with Brakes, spending time with our friends from Drift and Cottonmouth Rocks. OF COURSE – THE ELBA SESSION AND GIG! YAAY! (ed: clearly a man of taste)

Al: Being right up the front for Field Music, literally felt like I was invading Peter Brewis personal space it was so rammed in the Captains Rest. That band deserve a bigger stage for sure! I was grinning something awful.

Hopes for 2010/Things You’re Looking Forward To

Scott: Hope I don’t drop the baby (ed: you’ve been in a band with Al for years. You’ll be just fine!). Looking forward to FINALLY finishing this next album, hoping it sounds as good as its current promise. Also, hoping my PC doesn’t pack in before I finish the bloody album.

Al: I’ve been working hard on setting up a record label with a collective spirit. It’s called Armellodie. I’ve been doing it for a while but having just released our first longplayer (Cuddly Shark’s eponymous debut) I’m getting my teeth into it now and am set to release some corking records next year. You can check out Armellodie at www.armellodie.com. The website is launched in December 09.

I also cannae wait for Spoon at Tuts on Valentines Night. My better half’s not bothered about Spoon but I love them. So much so I persuaded her to get us tickets cos I’m skinto, of course I’ll buy her a drink at it, I’m romantic like that!

Le Reno Amps play ‘The Wolf’s Last Stand‘ at the Grand Ole Opry, Glasgow, this Thursday 3rd December with The Moth and The Mirror, Rags and Feathers and Conor Mason.

We are delighted to announce along with the peeps at Drift Records the details of a special christmas show!

When we heard that Elba favourites Le Reno Amps were soon to be a man down, we couldn’t just stand by and simply watch, we had to mark this sad occasion and the best way, it was decided, was to have a right good hoe down, and where better to have said ‘hoe down’ than the institution that is The Grand Ole Opry. A stellar bill has been assembled for Zinzi’s last ‘Amps’ gig on Thurs 3rd December including The Moth & The Mirror, Rags & Feathers and Conor Mason.

We hope you will join us to give Wolfie the send off she deserves on what should be the event of the week!!!!

Tickets can be had here…

Lets face it: the weekend really does start on a Thursday night nowadays. There’s nothing like nursing a light alcohol induced headache on a Friday at work. Perhaps indulging in a little sneaky something that’ll pick you up at lunch time. Maybe even taking a half day. It is unfathomably gratifying to ease into the weekend. The first instalment of ‘Elba Sessions Presents’ last night certainly proved itself to be an imperative addition to this new tradition.

The Liquid Ship played host to the first live chapter of Elba, brought to you from the regular stage of The Free Candy Sessions, and what a night it was. There really could have been no better a setting; the subterranean ambient nook is perfect. To step into the calming and cosy lantern and candle lit venue to such pleasing acoustics…well…I’m pretty much drooling reminiscing over how delightful it was.

The gentle sounds of Paul McLinden opened the evening. There is something graceful about how he performs. On record his songs are serene but live they are almost lulling, yet all the while captivating. He has perfected that ‘warm your soul’ feeling that comes when someone merges their instrument and voice so completely.

Whilst we’re on the subject of soul, Calum MacDonald really knows how to bear his. The room was hushed to a revered silence as his minimal guitar accompanied honest vocals. This man could out-do Frightened Rabbit in emotional stakes single handedly. An impressive cover of ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ showed weight and promise. We at Elba now also have a rather unexpected fixation on Calum’s hairdo.

Four piece Only Living Boys opened things up again with their keyboard rooted light indie. Even with a full line up these guys managed to hold back rather than blow the windows out of a small venue. Not only this but they provided the “Only Living Snare” for our headline act of the evening Le Reno Amps.

Le Reno and what I like to think of as their semi-acoustic set showed Al and Scott on unmissable and crowd pleasing form. Their set encompassed the very best of the band. Old favourites including 1969 and Get You Wet were warmly welcomed alongside an array of tracks from latest album Tear It Open (Drift Records). Out of this, Outlaws really is the one that shows the boys (and lady on days when she is present) as we know and love them. It has a guitar riff and vocal yowl that’ll grip you like no other dark country tinted song can. Al literally ripped up his guitar on stage during the solo, pulling a ‘knob’ off in the process. Why is it I always find myself saying such things that elicit mild titters after a Le Reno Amps show? One wonders. I implore you to catch this band right now, they really are at their best. They’ll also sell you their records for:

‘Whatever you like really. We’re mental…like Radiohead. Unless it’s under a tenner…’

What’s that they say about Aberdonians again?

Thanks to everyone who came along and big thank you to all the bands. We really hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Next month is looking just as lavish with John Hinshelwood & Sandra Gellatly, Andrea Marini and Julia and the Doogans confirmed for Thursday 5th November.

Thanks also to Steph Mulligan for the fab photos!!! We’ll have more up on the myspace soon!

*The Word From Elba HQ*

Just a quick update for anyone eagerly awaiting the two podcasts for October. Due to busy schedules by all parties we are launching these a couple of days later than normal on the 5th October.

Our two podcasts involve Salon Society & Andrea Marini.

Salon Society who’s single PREACHING THE BLUES is out on 1st October followed by the album ‘Promenade’ at the end of the month with launch night at Arta on 30th October.

Andrea Marini who will be playing at the Elba Sessions second night at Liquid Ship on 5th November is also playing Oxjam Festival in October and will have news on this and more in the podcast.

So check back for those on the 5th October for the above and in the meantime check out our September podcast with Le Reno Amps who have just finished their UK tour promoting new EP ‘The Stand Off’ and will be headlining the Elba Sessions 8th October night at Liquid Ship.

Laters!!!

Al Nero proclaimed that most of the cool alternative kids were probably at Stereo to see Fuck Buttons (review here by Club Hott) but there was still a good turnout for a stellar line up at the 13th Note.

First up were the ‘new look’ Elvis Suicide complete with a new bass player, drummer and guitarist, powered along by Chris Devotion. I’m pleased to say that they still play their own brand of breakneck, riotous rock n roll which makes them such a good live band. Next up were Peter Parker who were then followed by the fabulous Super Adventure Club. It was the first time I’d seen them and I was totally impressed by them. Finishing off the evening was Le Reno Amps, promoting their new EP ‘The Stand Off’. No strangers to Elba, Le Reno played a set of newies, oldies and all goodies and had a right good hoe-down!

It was a grand way to start the weekend early!!

*Le Reno Amps will play an acoustic set for us at The Liquid Ship on October 8th.