Elbow are an award-winning English alternative rock band. The band formed in Bury, Greater Manchester, in 1990, and retains its original line-up of lead vocalist and lyricist Guy Garvey, guitarist Mark Potter, keyboardist Craig Potter, bassist Pete Turner and drummer Richard Jupp. Over the band's 19 year career they have released four studio albums, four EPs and ten top fifty singles in the UK. The band is named after a line in the BBC TV mini-series The Singing Detective; a character (Philip Marlow) says that the word "elbow" is the most sensuous word in the English language, not for its definition, but for how it feels to say it.
Acclaimed for their innovative sound and front-man Guy Garvey's evocative candid lyrics, Elbow have received vast critical acclaim and been endorsed by major artists Radiohead, Coldplay, Blur, R.E.M. and U2 despite minor commercial success during much of their career (The Velvet Underground's co-founder John Cale selected Elbow's "Switching Off" as one of his eight chosen records on the BBC's Desert Island Discs radio programme).[1] Since winning the 2008 Mercury Music Prize for their fourth album, The Seldom Seen Kid, commercial success is finally beginning to match Elbow's critical acclaim and status among fans.
History
Lead singer Guy Garvey met guitarist Mark Potter at Bury College in 1990 at the age of 16. Potter asked Garvey to sing in a band he was in with drummer Richard Jupp and bassist Pete Turner. Together, the four men formed the band Mr Soft. (The name was later changed to Soft.) Mark Potter's brother Craig Potter joined the band soon after on keyboards. By 1997, they had changed their name a third time to Elbow, signed a deal with Island Records, and recorded their début album with producer Steve Osborne. However, when Island was bought out by major label Universal, the band was dropped in a mass cull and the album never released. They continued to record on the iconic independent label Uglyman, and released The Noisebox EP, The Newborn EP, and The Any Day Now EP, which were given extensive airplay by BBC Radio 1.
Their debut album, Asleep in the Back, released on V2 in 2001, was hailed as a seminal album of the new millennium, gaining them a Mercury Music Prize nomination and a BRIT Award nomination. Their second album, Cast of Thousands sealed their reputation as innovators in UK music. The title is a reference to their performance at Glastonbury in 2002, when they recorded thousands of people singing, "We still believe in love, so fuck you". That recording was featured on the song Grace Under Pressure.
In 2004, Elbow went on an unofficial tour of Cuba, playing songs from Asleep in the Back and Cast of Thousands at venues in and around Havana. British documentary maker Irshad Ashraf was present on the tour and filmed a large portion of it. The resulting short film was shown at festivals in 2004, but remains commercially unavailable. Their acoustic cover of Destiny's Child's "Independent Women", recorded exclusively for a BBC Radio 1 session, was turned into a popular web animation by Rathergood.com's Joel Veitch.[2] The animation features a band of flat-capped northern kittens "performing" the song. In the same year, their song "Fallen Angel" appeared in the film 9 Songs.
Elbow's innovation in the studio has invited work with other bands, notably Editors and I Am Kloot, the latter whose début album was produced by Guy Garvey. Their third album, Leaders of the Free World, was entirely self-produced at Blueprint Studios in Salford, a space the band hired for the duration of their recording sessions. They teamed up with video artists The Soup Collective to produce an integrated music and video DVD. However, despite further critical acclaim, the album faltered commercially, and soon the band were dropped from V2 in 2006. They have since signed to Fiction Records. The band contributed the song "Snowball" to the 2005 War Child benefit album Help - a Day in the Life. In addition, an unreleased track titled "Beats For Two" was used in the closing titles of the 2004 film Inside I'm Dancing. Garvey also returned to I Am Kloot as co-producer for their single "Maybe I Should". He continues to work closely with Manchester indie label Skinny Dog.
The band completed their fourth studio album, The Seldom Seen Kid in late 2007. The band self-produced, mixed and recorded the album without outside help. The song "Grounds for Divorce" from this album is featured on the trailer for the Coen Brothers' film Burn After Reading starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and John Malkovich. The song is also featured in the 30 second TV Spot for Valve's zombie apocalypse game Left 4 Dead[3], as the trailer song for the twelfth series of Top Gear and many other adverts on various TV channels.[4] Since the June 2008 release of the song "One Day Like This" it has been used in sport coverage for both ITV and BBC including the Beijing Olympics 2008, as well as ads for the upcoming film "The Soloist." The song was also used during the final of Big Brother 9. The track moved from 113 to 35 in the UK singles chart.
On 9 September 2008, Elbow won the Mercury Music Prize for The Seldom Seen Kid. The award was presented to them by Jools Holland. The band plan to follow this success, by starting work on a fifth studio album, before their European tour in autumn 2008. They are also planning a side-project album of children's songs, to accompany an animated film.[5]
In 2009 Elbow contributed to War Child's Heroes album, covering U2’s ‘Running to Stand Still.’ Garvey said:
“When the band first met each other aged 17, Mark and Craig’s father Gareth would lend us his Volvo to get our gear around. It seemed that for a year and a half all that we listened to in that car was 'Rattle and Hum'. I remember the excitement every time a U2 album was released, we just loved them. The first song we ever covered together before we had enough of our own songs to do a performance was 'Running To Stand Still'.”
“For ‘Heroes’ we've changed the order of things but kept every musical theme in the song. We wrote it with the members of U2 in mind.”
“War Child do exactly what it says on the tin. These kids shouldn't be in such circumstances in the first place, but they are, so thank god someone's doing something about it.”
In May 2009 the band won two prestigious Ivor Novello awards, the song 'One Day Like This' won the main award for best song and 'Grounds for Divorce' took best contemporary song.[6]
Live appearances
In summer 2006, Elbow headlined the Ukula Bright Lights Festival in Toronto's Distillery District. Asked before the show about what he thought about his Manchester-influenced imagery in his songs, Guy Garvey said, "I think lyrics are one of the tools of the box in order to try to get the feeling across. I don’t think it matters if you use local imagery as long as it’s part of the bigger picture."[7]
At the beginning of March, Guy Garvey stated in a radio interview that Elbow would be performing at the Reading and Leeds festivals on the August Bank Holiday weekend 2008.
Elbow performed at Delamere Forest in Cheshire on 14 June 2008 as part of the Forestry Commission's 2008 music tours. They were supported by I Am Kloot. The band commented before the show, "We always love playing gigs in unusual places. We've never done a gig in a forest before so we're really looking forward to it."
Elbow and Bournemouth-based Air Traffic embarked on an extensive North American tour in May 2008, which was greatly received by the media including Blender and Spin magazine.
On June 23 2008 they announced that they would be playing a five-date tour in October 2008, with gigs in Leicester, Leeds, Gateshead, Liverpool and Manchester.
The Band did a gig in Paradiso, Amsterdam, on 25 June 2008, which was recorded and can be watched online [1]
Elbow appeared on the Other Stage at the Glastonbury Festival on June 28 2008, joined on stage by many violinists and cellists. They also performed in the Obelisk Arena at the Latitude Festival on 19 July 2008.
They played at the 2008 Electric Picnic festival.
Elbow performed at the National Movie Awards broadcast on ITV on Tuesday 9 September 2008.
Elbow appeared on BBC2's "Later Live" show hosted by Jools Holland on 23 September 2008.
Elbow exclusively performed their album "The Seldom Seen Kid" for BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music with the BBC Concert Orchestra and London-based chamber choir Chantage at the Abbey Road Studios on 17 January 2009 (first broadcast on 31 January 2009).
In March 2009, they will appear at the V Festival (Australia) alongside The Killers, Snow Patrol, Kaiser Chiefs and Duffy. They will also appear at the UK V Festivals on 22nd and 23rd August at Hylands Park, Chelmsford and Weston Park, Staffordshire, sharing the bill with Oasis, The Killers, Razorlight, Snow Patrol, The Ting Tings and MGMT.
On 18 February 2009, Elbow received the award for Best British Group at the Brit Awards from actor and singer David Hasselhoff.
On 14th March 2009 they played Wembley Arena their largest live concert so far. [8]
They will be the opening band at the 2009 NME awards.
They played Brighton Dome on 28th February 2009. Guy said "You need forgiveness when you've been in a band this long,". Elbow started with "Starlings" followed by "The Bones Of You" and after a scattering of songs from Leaders of the Free World, Asleep in the Back and Seldom Seen Kid, ended their encore with "Newborn" and "Scattered Black & Whites".
Elbow have performed at the Meteor Awards in Dublin on 17th March 2009. At this awards ceremony they also won Best International Band.
On July 4, 2009, Elbow played a gig at Roskilde Festival, Denmark, to an audience of approximately 15,000. On stage, Garvey remarked that "last time we played in Denmark, 7 people came." The gig received extremely positive reviews and left the audience stunned.
As part of the Manchester International Festival, Elbow performed with The Hallé at the Bridgewater Hall on the 8th and 9th of July 2009. These concerts featured new orchestral and choral arrangements of Elbow's material, with the band themselves playing alongside the Hallé musicians onstage.
Band members
Discography
Studio albums
UK singles & EPs
All positions are from the UK Singles Chart [9].
Other releases and covers
- In 2002, Elbow has recorded a cover of "Something in the Air" (3.31) for the War Child compilation "1 Love".
- Elbow contributed a song "Snowball" (5.00) to the War Child compilation "Help!: A Day in the Life", in September, 2005. Already recorded for the "Cast of Thousands" record, they didn't think it fit the album and left it off. The song and lyrics are highly political, suiting the compilation.
- Another cover "Working Class Hero" (5.03) was recorded as part of a tribute album "Lennon: Covered Vol. 1" given away with Q Magazine, in 2005.
- A The The cover of "August and September" (4.55) was recorded as part of a tribute album "Q Covered: Best of 86/06" in 2006.
- The last recorded cover to date, 2009, is "Running to Stand Still" (5.16) and is originally by U2. Elbow's version is part of the War Child compilation "Heroes",
TV Appearances
Awards
Awards won by the band include the Brit Award,[11] the Ivor Novello award,[12] the Mercury Prize[13] the South Bank Show Pop award,[14] the NME award,[15] and the Mojo Magazine Song of the Year 2009.[16]
References
External links
