We spent a brilliant 8 hours with Laurence and Johny of King James last Friday (19th Feb) culminating in an effortlessly awesome set at Elba Sessions Presents…at The Liquid Ship. After a gruelling overnight drive from London, looking a little startled, we welcomed them into Elba Studios to have a wee chat and let them play a couple of their songs.

Also, we’re pretty happy that for your comfort and pleasure, this is the first Elba podcast that you can download, so you can always have us handy on your portable music device.

King James Podcast by elbasessions

King James the album will be out soon so keep checking the Lynched Recordings site for further info.

King James
Thirty Pounds of Bone
Diamond Family Archive

I think I speak for us all when I say the sooner we see them back up north the better!

We”ll be back at The Liquid Ship on Friday 19th February and we’ve assembled somewhat of an eclectic, but totally rad (excuse the outdated slang term but I’ve been listening to Pavement) lineup. Heading up the bill for our first gig of 2010 are King James. Hailing from somewhere between the Cornwall coast and Berlin they are made up in numbers by an amalgamation of Thirty Pounds of Bone and The Diamond Family Archive. Their music is a collection of folk-tinged gospel music (according to The Source, ‘with a bit of Hank Williams thrown in for good measure’) and is actually pretty uplifting listen to! We’re really excited to get them up (and over) to Scotland before they head over to Germany for a string of dates.

Also on the bill for the night are Glasgow’s very own Maple Leaves. Tipped for big things this year they have the ability to surround me with a warm glow everytime I listen to them so they should have no trouble in putting a spring in the step of everybody’s weekend. Next up we have Craig Davidson, a singer songwriter hailing, like myself, from the chilly north east of Scotland. His influences range from Elliot Smith and Nick Drake all the way to The Teardrop Explodes and Pink Floyd. There’s a definite element of psychedelia to his work which you can check out on his myspace.

Plus, if three bands weren’t enough, we’ve organised what can only be described as a ‘wee treat’. Called out recently for being nothing but angry on their debut album, we’ve taken up the role of therapist to try and tame the beast that is Cuddly Shark. We’ve twisted their arm, and some more, and persuaded them that whilst turning their amps up to 11 is great, that we think they would sound just swell stripped down to nothing more than some quiet guitars and percussion. This could go either way folks…(!).

So there you have it, first lineup of the year. Will hopefully see some new faces along and as ever, kick off is at 9pm and the gig is free!

At the risk of sounding older than my 25 years, they don’t do cd’s like they used to! I suppose it’s just so easy to buy on the internet these days that most record companies don’t spend much effort on producing some cool artwork and packaging. I’ll always be one for having a physical copy of an album but records shops can be so hellish these days (notable examples excluded) , it’s sometimes more preferable just to ‘i-tunes it’.

Therefore, I was delighted to arrive home from a long day in the office to find a parcel all the way from Berlin. Enclosed was the latest Thirty Pounds Of Bone EP, ‘And They Go Down To It In Ships’, (previously mentioned on this very blog) from Woodland Recordings. I have to say it’s a marvellous effort! Limited to 100 copies, the CD is individually handmade and wrapped in starched sail cloth with a hand stiched booklet. It’s good to see that there are still people out there doing it themselves so round of applause to Woodland!!!

The total bonus is that the music is as good as the packaging! If you haven’t already, I’d really recommend checking out Johny (TBOP). You can download his recent Berlin set for free here (incredible!). There are also a load of other downloads by Woodland Recordings which I plan to work my way through very soon. The Great Park is also worth a listen.

In the words of Woodland…

“Home Taping, Is Music”