Private Eleanor blog

It's been a while... The news here is that we're on a new compilation CD from The Beechfields Record Label, which features two previously-unreleased Private Eleanor recordings. (One is a new song we recorded at home late last year, and the other is a Pupa's Window cover recorded during the Sweethearting sessions.)

The compilation is called This City of Neighborhoods, and it's FREE! Find out more and get your copy at http://www.thebeechfields.com/thiscity.html. (You can stream the whole thing there too.)

I've been helping to put this thing together (and promising it to you all) for nearly a year now, and I couldn't be happier that it's finally done and ready for you to hear. Most of the songs on it, including our two tracks, are unavailable anywhere else. All of them are good. Go get one!


In other news, I just finished co-producing and playing drums on a full-length record for Small Sur. We're really proud of it. It'll be released at the end of the summer via a cool little Portland label called Tender Loving Empire. It's been fun working on "someone else's" music for a change, and being able to influence the result in a different way... There will be some more of that this summer, on a couple other friends' projects, if all goes according to plan.

There might be a low-key live appearance or two of our own music too. Stay tuned.

Posted by Austin at 07:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's a long interview with me on BrightestYoungThings.com, posted earlier this week.

Posted by Austin at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Year-end list season is definitely over, but I don't care. Here are my favorite records of 2007. No commentary this year, because I am lazy. Note locals at numbers 5 and 11!

1 Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Merge)
2 Iron and Wine, The Shepherd's Dog (Sub Pop)
3 Radiohead, In Rainbows (self-released)
4 The Clientele, God Save the Clientele (Merge)
5 Monarch, If Children (self-released)
6 St Vincent, Marry Me (Beggars Banquet)
7 John Vanderslice, Emerald City (Barsuk)
8 Nina Nastasia & Jim White, You Follow Me (Fatcat)
9 Blonde Redhead, 23 (4AD)
10 Menomena, Friend and Foe (Barsuk)
11 Neil Cotterill, Moonshot (The Beechfields)
12 Dr Dog, We All Belong (Park the Van)
13 PJ Harvey, White Chalk (Island)
14 Sloan, Never Hear the End of It (Yep Roc)
15 Wilco, Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch)

I will also take this opportunity to note that Marian and I will be playing a duo set, consisting mainly of covers of songs we like, at Arlington VA's fabulous Galaxy Hut on Feb 25. As you may have gathered, we're not playing a lot in public these days, so if you're able to make it out to that, you should.

Other than that -- we're doing well, relaxing, working mostly on things non-musical (jobs, art, grad school) and a bit on things musical (writing songs in our living room that will probably stay in our living room for a while, getting that long-rumored Beechfields compilation finally finished). Hibernating is pretty nice in the winter.

--Austin.

Posted by Austin at 08:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The big news: We've already discussed this in person with a number of you who know us, but for everyone else, it's time to make the announcement: We'll soon be going on an indefinite hiatus. We all still like each other, and we're not thinking of this with the finality of a "breakup"... but after early 2008, there will be no more Private Eleanor shows planned for the forseeable future.

There are a lot of reasons for this decision, but the short answer is that we feel we need a break from being in a band, and some time to try other things. I won't speak for my bandmates, but I personally am quite excited about hibernating for a while, writing and recording at home, and focusing on just making music for myself again. In the meantime, though, there are a couple of final shows in the works, and two compilation album appearances: Love Goes On, the tribute album to Grant McLennan, on which we cover a Go-Betweens song, is out now on Rare Victory Records; and two new PE recordings will appear on the Beechfields Record Label compilation this winter.

CD clearance sale! Here's the biggest thing for now: We're also trying to make sure all the remaining copies of our CDs make it to good homes... So we're having a big clearance sale on all three of our remaining titles: Only $5 per CD when you buy them directly from us (at http://www.privateeleanor.com/cdsale.html), and we'll even ship them to you for free! We have a limited number left of Sweethearting, No Straight Lines, and My Pious Friends, and we won't be getting any more pressed when they're gone, so go snap them up now! If you have friends who might enjoy our music, please forward them the link -- or just buy them a copy!

(Note that Sweethearting will remain available digitally through iTunes, but we have no control over what they charge, which means it will remain $9.99. I'd say it's better to pay us half that and get a CD with uncompressed sound quality and a cool foldout poster... but the choice is yours.)

We are incredibly grateful to every one of you who has come to a show, bought a CD, or offered words of encouragement (or a floor to sleep on) over the past few years. Having the opportunity to meet so many great people has been one of the best things about being in this band. Thank you.

Posted by Austin at 07:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Going out of print!

The three Private Eleanor albums that are currently available as of this writing (Sweethearting, No Straight Lines, and My Pious Friends and Drunken Companions) will likely be going out of print soon! When the current pressings of these records are gone, we do not plan on repressing them -- probably ever. Once they're gone, they're really GONE.

So if you have ever thought about picking up one of our records... or you've been meaning to check out that one you don't yet own... or you've always enjoyed the songs on our site or myspace, but never got around to buying a disc -- Now would be a REALLY good time!

All three CDs are available directly from the band, here on our website. Buy more than one CD and we'll throw in some extra free stuff!

Oh, but there's new music coming!

That's right, as the Private Eleanor catalog passes into out-of-print-ness, new PE music is on its way, in the form of two compilations.

First, Love Goes On (a tribute to Grant McLennan of the Go-Betweens) is released in October, featuring our cover of the title song -- alongside tracks from the Clientele, the Bats, Portastatic, Ivy, Stars, and a bunch of other great bands. Rare Victory Records is taking preorders for the album now!

Then, at the end of the year, The Beechfields will release its first compilation album. Private Eleanor is contributing two never-before-heard recordings: Our cover of an unreleased pupa's window song called "Capitan" (recorded during the Sweethearting sessions at Silver Sonya last fall) and a new song called "Scare Yourself to Death". We're excited to have both of these out for everyone to hear. More info about this release coming soon...

On another note: A thank-you...

 ...to everyone who came out early to HampdenFest for us last weekend; it was so nice to see so many friends out there supporting us.

Posted by Austin at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We had a nice couple of shows this past weekend. Thanks to those who made it out. In Baltimore we opened for Au Revoir Simone and Oh No! Oh My!, both of whom were quite good. It happened to be Drew's final show with us, after 3 and a half years in the band. (I didn't say anything about that onstage, because I'm sure he would have turned bright red for the rest of the set had I pointed it out. But now you know.) It was a fine send-off, I think. We sounded pretty good.

Then we headed up to Brooklyn, as a keyboard-less quartet, for our first New York show in a long while. We played a quieter, stripped-down set at Pete's, and it felt great. The other bands (Boy Genius and Breakup Breakdown) were great too, and incredibly nice as well. Meeting cool people when we go out of town always reminds me why we do this in the first place... and sometimes I really need the reminder.

We scored some good record purchases up in New York too. Tommy was beside himself over a hard-to-find Dntel record he found, while Marian's eagle eye netted us some fine CDs by Tiny Vipers and Josh Ritter from an otherwise-crap-filled dollar-bin.   

Baltimoreans, don't forget Hampdenfest on Saturday! Get there early for us! 

Posted by Austin at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

... our new drummer.

Many of you already know that Chris has left the band to focus on the non-rock'n'roll aspects of life. His contributions to our band over the past three years were huge, and we're definitely going to miss his presence and good musical ideas.

That said, though, we're excited to be playing with our new drummer, Tommy. He's a great player, he's really enthusiastic, and he shares both our collective love of Elliott Smith and our tendency to spend way too much on musical gear. He makes his debut in two weeks at the Metro Gallery in Baltimore, and the next night at the Delancey in Manhattan. Come out and make him feel welcome!

Posted by Austin at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A couple more reviews have been trickling out. More soon!

QROmag
Any Given Tuesday

Posted by Austin at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As you may know, our new record Sweethearting came out yesterday. Today's Baltimore City Paper has a great review of the album.

Also, CP's music blog, 'Noise', has a nice post about our recent Walters Art Museum show. Thanks to Jess and Al at CP!

We've started to pop up in some music blogs as well. 

The album is available now! (We recommend getting it from our friends at The Beechfields!)

Posted by Austin at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yes, today is the day. Our new record, Sweethearting, is now available on The Beechfields Record Label! You can get it right now at their site!

It's also available at Amazon.com, on iTunes and Emusic (for you downloaders out there) and at select record stores in the Baltimore area. More stores should be stocking the record very soon as well.

We're extremely proud of this album and we can't wait for you all to hear it! If you haven't yet, you can hear a few of the songs at the Music section of our website. Please go grab a free mp3 or two, share them with your friends, and pick up a CD if you like them!

SHOWS
For our DC friends, our DC-area CD release show is this coming Monday, April 30, at IOTA:

Mon April 30
Arlington, VA | IOTA
Opening up a great bill, with Kitty Hawk and Last Town Chorus!
2832 Wilson Blvd. | 8 pm | $10 | 21+

Baltimore people, you'll have to wait until May 18 for our big party at the Golden West:

Fri May 18
Baltimore, MD | Golden West
With Monarch!
1105 W. 36th St. | 10 pm | $5 | all ages

Everyone else: If you have suggestions for where to play in your town, please let us know! We will be on the road in July and August and we'd love to see you again.

RADIO
has just arrived at radio stations across the country, but it's already starting to do well, with several Top 5 adds this week! If you live near a college radio station, feel free to request us...

Thanks for the support, everyone! Please pick up a copy of the record and let us know what you think!

Posted by Austin at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We are quite excited to announce that our cover of a Go-Betweens song called "Love Goes On!" will be appearing this fall on a tribute compilation for late Go-Betweens co-leader Grant McLennan. We're so honored to be chosen to be a part of the project... We're big Go-Betweens fans, and fans of Grant's songs in particular, so getting to cover one of them was really fun for us. We'll be in good company on the album as well, alongside bands like the Clientele, Portastatic, Ivy, Stars, and so many other good bands.

You can hear our version of the song (as well as the best of the other submissions -- the Bank Holidays' version is pretty awesome) at the MySpace blog of the label releasing the album, Rare Victory. Thanks to Rare Victory! We should know more details about the actual release soon.

Until then, if you don't know them, go buy a Go-Betweens record. 

UPDATE: Looks like this story got us our first mention on Pitchfork!

Posted by Austin at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Thank you to everyone who came out last weekend for our show at the Walters! We had a great time. What a beautiful space... Getting to play on that stage, and seeing so many of those seats full, was quite an experience. Thank you! (And thanks to Mike from The Beechfields for making us sound good.)

We got a few good pictures that I will try to post here soon. If any of you in the audience took photos that you'd be willing to share, email them to privateeleanor at gmail dot com.

Posted by Austin at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)