Elba Sessions

So, we’ve had some ‘database issues’ over the last couple of weeks so we’re declaring January a bust. No blogging in Jan, for various issues. It’s pleasing however that one of these reasons isn’t that there was no good music to listen to, the reasons are another story however, and I’m leaving it at that.

I’d started writing this post in the first week of January and had got to 800 words but now it’s Feb, I’m not going where I was going when I wrote it anymore but I am keeping the title to this post, cos I like it. If you don’t know it, it’s the title of a Willie Nelson song.

I liked the idea that at the start of the year when we are besieged by ‘ones to watch’ lists that we have no idea what’s selling this year. In fact, I hope sad songs and waltzes are selling this year, because those type of songs are fucking great.

That’s all really, we just wanted to say hello, for the new year, assure you that we hadn’t nicked off anywhere and we’ll try and write about better stuff this year. I’ve added some things from Jan that I’ve enjoyed below and we’ll resume normal service over the next week

* Go and download yourself the latest single from Dad Rocks! It’s free to do so.

* Check out new albums from RM Hubbert, Django Django and Chris Devotion & The Expectations

* On that last point Chris Devotion and the Expectations are launching their album tonight at Captain’s Rest in Glasgow. If you’re on the east coast, they will be playing at Henry’s Cellar Bar in Edinburgh on Feb 18th as part of Song, By Toad’s ‘Ides of Toad‘ gigs.

* And finally, whilst mentioning Song, By Toad. His latest Toad Session with Josh T Pearson is available for download/perusal over this direction

There can be many factors which delay Elba from confirming a podcast with someone to actually recording the pod. It’s generally to do with when the studio is available and has a free slot for some podcasting but sometimes it can be all about location. In January, we were lucky enough that AJ Roach was in Glasgow rather than Brooklyn, last February we had a relatively short couple of hours to record King James as they passed through Glasgow and we collared Conor Mason on his two day soiree to Glasgow for some shows at the tail end of 2009.

Location can’t be blamed however for this podcast. When booking RM Hubbert for an Elba Presents gig last May I enquired whether or not he fancied popping into the studio for a chat and to play a couple of tunes. Yes was the near instantaneous response,

“where are you based?” he enquired

“The Hidden Lane, it’s just off Argyle Street. Do you know it?”

“I have an office there” came the reply

Well, this should be easy I thought…

Leap forward 9 months and we have finally got it recorded, and it couldn’t have been better timing. Following on from last years highly acclaimed album First & Last, he is just about to embark on a lengthy jaunt across Europe supporting Mogwai, his album is being re-released on Chemikal Underground and he is currently recording the follow up to First & Last with a veritable feast of collaborators which is being produced by Alex Kapranos.

You can listen to the resulting podcast below and download using the wee arrow.

RM Hubbert Podcast – Feb 2011 by elbasessions

You can see all of the Mogwai support dates on his website here but if Luxembourg is a bit of a trek for a wet evening you can catch him play the Arches along with the brilliant Finn LeMarinel on February 26th at The Arches in Glasgow.

Our final annual comes from Elba Sessions’ constant and reasoned voice; Phil. You will be well acquainted with him by now I’m sure.  For those of you who are not: he is a man of great taste, intelligence, wit and charm.  As a great driving force behind everything Elba I’ve found him to be exceptionally motivated and particularly good at knowing what buttons to push to get the most out of everyone he works with.  It is holding all these elements together and only ever snapping when things have reached well passed boiling point which leads us to his alter ego.  With a quiet and calm demeanor, a patience like no other, an ability to maintain organization even whilst working under potentially incendiary conditions and the occasional (and very understandable) melt down, who else could we select?

All that sucking up needed balancing out with something ridiculous. Ironically he will, of course, love this comparison. Here is Phil’s account of 2010:

Album of The Year - This is a tough one. There have been quite a lot of albums I’ve really liked over the course of the year and the title of ‘favourite’ constantly seems to change. I think ‘Method’ by Thirty Pounds of Bone gets the win though. It is an honest album and really nicely put together and produced. For the first couple of months, Los Campesinos! and Field Music would also be in with a shout as well as notable mentions for Chris T-T, Meursault, Super Adventure Club and The National.

Best Gig - There have been several people I have really enjoyed seeing this year, RM Hubbert, King James, Super Adventure Club (possibly the most fun that can be had watching a band, as well as the most jealous at how ridiculously good individually they are). Best gigs are usually defined for me by notable things or songs that were played. In that sense, there have been two or three great gigs for me in 2010. The National, which seems to be on everyone’s lips really stands out just for the whole occasion. Mr November, including a tour of the crowd by singer Matt Berninger, was a biiig standout as well as the completely unplugged sing-along to Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks.

Also, on two occasions I’ve seen a band play a song this year that has just made the hairs on my neck stand up. When The Scottish Enlightenment bellowed into Little Sleep at the end of the set at their album launch in the 13th Note and when they played it at The Liquid Ship on one of our Elba gigs, i knew that there was something pretty special happening.

Favourite New Band(s) - Probably could make a lengthy list here but I’ll try to keep it short. Bella Ruse play the kind of sweet indie folk pop that I’m just a sucker for. I’ve also been digging Caitlin Rose, The Mariner’s Children and more locally Johnny Reb, She’s Hit, Yusuf Azak and The Douglas Firs.

Musical Memories of 2010 - Putting on some great bands at The Liquid Ship as part of our Elba Sessions gigs…Chris’ boundless enthusiasm for Springsteen…Kim’s boundless enthusiasm for music and her awesome writing…Kim and Chris’ support and patience when I get ‘the rage’… The National at the Academy…Willy Vlautin at the Captains Rest (if indeed that was this year)…The return of Le Reno Amps…Making some new musical acquaintances…oh, and being thanked in the sleeve notes for the Thirty Pounds of Bone album was pretty sweet.

Hopes/Plans (music) for 2011 - To kick on with Elba a lot more. I really want to get a good focus going on the blog, going for a bit of a wider viewpoint on the music we all love here at Elba rather than the same old. We’ll also get the Elba Sessions gigs going again in a few months, peepers on the lookout for bands to play already. I’m also looking forward to Dj’ing at the first BARmellodie night at Bloc on January 21st. Also, I want to start getting along to a lot more gigs and seeing some bands to get excited over.

So that’s us for 2010. Have a grand old time this evening!  We wish you a bonne année and we will return before you have fully recovered fully from the celebrations.

Today’s instalment of the Elba Annual features a blogger who has just found himself rated as hotter than Subo in The List’s Hot 100. I’ve never met Subo so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt…

Peenko, or Lloyd as his family call him, has had as he calls it, ‘a batshit crazy’ year. I could list the amount of pies he’s put his fingers in this year, but he covers it all quite nicely in his Annual answers…

Album of The Year - I have been debating this in my head for months now, it’s been a really hard choice. There have been so many albums that have got me really excited this year, personal highlights would have to include Kid Canaveral, Admiral Fallow and RM Hubbert (although I am not sureif it came out this year). However, I can’t really see past the Phantom Band’s ‘Wants’. I never thought that they’d be able to better last years Checkmate Savage, but they have and then some.

Best Gig – Man that’s a tough one, there have been so many great gigs for me personally this year. What makes it doubly hard to select one is my god awful memory. Off the top of my head I really enjoyed The Unwinding Hours (both at Oran Mor and at the ABC as part of the Chemikal Underground birthday bash), the Kid Canaveral album launch at The Roxy (possibly the sweatiest I have ever been at a gig), The Phantom Band at Oran Mor (it’s amazing what a difference a new drummer can make). I guess my favourite gig would have to be the National at the Academy, that was pretty fucking special, coming out the first few drops of
snow made it feel almost magical.

Favourite New Band(s) - Another toughie, if we’re going for bands that I hadn’t heard of until this year my personal favourites would have to be we’re only afraid of NYC, Randolph’s Leap, the Son(s), I Build Collapsible Mountains and Hey Marseilles (the only non-Scottish band in there). I am sure that if you asked me this in a weeks time I’d have a totally new list of acts, there genuinely are so many amazing new bands in Scotland at the moment.

Musical Memories of 2010 - Where do I start?! this year alone things went batshit crazy for me, I guess putting on the first ever AvP gig would have to be pretty near the top, mainly cause we didn’t have a clue what we were doing and still loads of folk turned up. Starting not one, but two labels has got to be in there. I was really flattered by the number folk that took the time to write about Olive Grove (one of the labels). Alongside side that I guess I can’t leave out becoming the manager of Campfires in Winter and the wee stint I did on the radio for Fresh Air.

Also, I nearly forgot to mention goNorth and the crazy few days I had up there hanging out with Ian from the blog Have Fun At Dinner. Awesome times were had in Inverness, we even got to see Mimi from Shameless signing autographs in the Inverness Poundland. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Hopes/Plans for 2011 - For me personally I hope to have the time to keep the blog going, what with becoming a dad in the summer my time has been somewhat taken up. Then again I don’t want to be a rubbish dad, nobody wants their children to grow up hating them. Plus I need someone to pass the legacy on to!

As for the labels, I hope we can continue to find new up and coming talent and show them off to the world. At the moment we’ve almost agreed a deal for our next Olive Grove release which has got me pretty excited.
As well as that I am hoping to put on a few more gigs and record a few more sessions. I won’t be resting on my laurels that’s for sure!

Check out the Peenko Corporation Juggernaut at the following URL’s

Peenko Blog

Olive Grove Records

Here’s our irregular guide to what we’d go to if money were no object this week. Except of course that September appears to be ‘spend plenty money on gig month’ and I’m actually heading out to a gig this week, and next, and then a couple the week after…

Tuesday (7th Sept)

It appears Tuesday is the night this week that will drag me out of the house as me and Kim are off to the Oran Mor to see The New Pornographers. We are both pretty big fans of Neko Case’s solo stuff so as well as an appearance from her I’m quite looking forward to seeing the band. My knowledge of TNP is patchy but I did really like the first half of their most recent album. It got a bit weird on Side B.

Also…

Emily Jane White/Julia and The Doogans at 13th Note – £6 – We don’t know much about Ms White but the 13th Note’s website describes her as folk/blues/gothic, which appeals. We do however know that we love Julia, and her Doogans.

Wednesday (8th September)

The completely mental but brilliant Super Adventure Club are playing at Bloc. Nuff said.

Also, if you have some pennies saved up or are feeling a little flush, go and see the lovely Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan at the ABC.

Thursday (9th September)

There’s a pretty sweet looking gig over at the 13th Note again featuring some our previous guests at Elba. Kochka, Blue Sky Archives, Campfires In Winter and Jonathan Sebastian Knight set things rocking from 8pm. You can win a pair of tickets over at Aye Tunes.

Friday (10th September)

Upbeat popsters Kid Canaveral kick off the weekend with an appearance at The Captains Rest whilst in a secret location somewhere in Glasgow, there’s a nice wee line up including two of the most technically brilliant musicians we’ve had at Elba, RM Hubbert and Finn Lemarinel, along with noiserv and Esperi. You can get tickets here and find out the location of said secret hideout.

Saturday (11th September)

Well, you could just stay in today. There was plenty to do Tuesday to Friday!!!!

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

VOLCANIC ASH DELAYS ELBA BLOG (apologies for the slight ’10 hour’ delay)

Well this weekend seems to be dedicated to the resurgence of awful nineties acts in the fair city of Glasgow. Not only are we being honoured with an appearance by Reef but also the one hit wonder duo Shakespear’s Sister. What a worry. Anyway, onto some live music that we want to tell you about. We’ll keep it short but very sweet.

For those of you lucky enough to have received tickets, like Elba’s very own Phil Smith (we are not speaking due to this), The Phantom Band, Race Horses, And So I Watch You From Afar and Chickenhawk play King Tuts as part of the BBC United Nations tour tonight (15.04.2010). That is a ridiculously tasty line up. Do enjoy, you select few.

If psychadellic rock is calling you this weekend, Californian Wooden Shjips play Stereo Saturday.

RM Hubbert and Moon Unit will be in Mono as part of their Record Store Day festivities. Not only that but it’s free!

*UPDATE TO THE ABOVE* Them pesky Zombie avoiders Super Adventure Club play Avalanche on Saturday 17th as part of their record store day celebrations. That’s at 3pm.