Ed Harcourt - Strangers (2005)In 2006, I was fortunate to attend the South by Southwest Music Festival and Conference in Austin, TX. This week-long rock and roll summer camp is legendary, especially for those of us who lived in the Southwest, since it was a mere 16 hour drive from Arizona. However, bands and industry folk from across the world make the trek there every March, with over 1,000 performances in various venues across Downtown Austin. It's a taste-making, hand-shaking explosion of music and my trips there in 2006 and 2008 are two of the best weeks of my life. Period. To this day, I'm still stalking their website to find out how I can get a job working to plan such an incredible event (seriously! hire me!)
In 2006, however, I had a badge to attend the actual conference portion as well as the shows at night. The conference exists in a series of "panels" throughout the daytime (while most are sleeping off their hangovers or attending day parties) I geeked out completely about getting to attend these panels, taking quick courses in Artist Management, packaging, PR, new media and trends as well as really fun interviews with folks like Neil Young (the keynote that year) and Morrissey. These panels boasted experts in the respective cateories, record execs, some celebrities, some dudes who just knew a lot, etc. During the week I ended up going to a panel called "Breaking British Buzz Bands", since I knew very little about international marketing of music, however it had apparently fallen apart as far as speakers over the course of the week. When you walked into most of the panels, they'd have white name cards for each speaker, and with this having obviously changed speakers, there were a few names hand written on the cards. I look over them and see "E. Harcourt" on the left. I do a quick doubletake, since it is a British panel and the Ed Harcourt I had come to love through the album Strangers was in fact British. I anxiously waited and low and behold it was him who had stepped in.
Ed was not a rockstar by any means, but I was a really big fan of his record and excited to hear what he had to say. A lot of it sounded like moon language, considering I had no concept of what Radio 1 meant back then. I tried to come up with a really cool question to ask Ed, because I'm creepy, and ended up taking to him afterwards with some question about college radio (since we played his album and I had no other point of reference) It was silly and I was 19, but hey, it was a fun surprise. Later that night, I was waiting in line at Emo's when he walked by, looked over at me and said "Oh, hey!" and I said "Hey!" back. From that point on, I boasted that Ed and I were on "Hey" level. I am a nerd.
This story really has very little to do with the album, other than I loved it so much that I geeked out at something so informal. I found his songs through college radio and picked up the record soon after. He gained a little commercial success with the song "Strangers" featured on a few TV shows and heard occasionally when I was out shopping (really) His sound was very much in the vein of Badly Drawn Boy and hosted a large array of instrumentation centered around his piano playing. It's dreamy and poppy yet intricate and deliberate. He was certainly an authority on buzzing in Britain, because he was, however nothing really ever clicked for him in the US. With it's incredible pop sensibilities, timeless instrumentation and powerful vocals, it really should have been a bigger record all around.
So there's that. And here's his music. Enjoy.
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