Artist.......: The Gentlemen's Club
Album........: The Servant
Label........: Independant
Genre........: Indie
Catnr........: n/a
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Apr-08-2006
str.date.....: Nov-08-2005
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: www.thegentlemensclubband.com
track title time
01. Days Ago 02:38
02. Jane Doe 03:11
03. The Servant 03:14
04. Colourblind 03:35
05. Damn Those Pretty Girls 03:33
06. Memories of You 04:47
07. Docks of Paraplife 02:56
08. Who We Are 02:51
09. Alexander's Anthem 05:26
Runtime 32:11 min
Size 46,1 MB
Release Notes:
The Gentlemen's Club is a forum for the songs of
Eric Passmore and Andrew Johnston. The two
songwriters are aided and abetted in their efforts
by a revolving cast of sidemen, background singers,
arrangers and friends. Hence, the Club.
Johnston and Passmore live with engineer Al Isler
and the 3 maintain a project studio from home
called the Red Room. It is in this clubhouse
atmosphere where songs and melodies are banged out
on pianos, organs, and guitars. Pens and papers, 4
part writing, studying the canon, feeding and
sheltering all 3 of us.
The Gentlemen's Club first CD is called The
Servant. It is a chronicle of PassmoreÆs prolonged
struggle with a failed relationship and a physical
illness that rendered him unable to play music. He
wrote the songs along the slow path to recovery
using two fingers and a keyboard. The result is an
album of classic piano driven pop, steeped in
string quartets, harpsichord, pedal steel and lush
vocal harmonies.
The Servant ranges from the hushed and delicate
tapestry of strings and horns that is Days Ago to
the straight up Joe Jackson-esque rock of the title
track. In between there is a breezy country rocker
and a few retro pop gems to boot. Despite this
eclecticism the album is stitched through with a
boyish fragility which unites the songs. (think
Alex Chilton meets Nick Drake.) However, the
compositions betray a powerful commitment to song
craft and a striving to perfect the things we love.
Nowhere is this better expressed than in the
soaring orchestral outro to the song Alexander's
Anthem. At times, our protagonist seems frozen in
the past but is determined to cast off the shell of
memory and move boldly into adulthood.
The Gentlemen's Club have been together for about 2
years and The Servant is their first album. The
album is available nationwide through a deal with
LOCAL/Sopref, which is a Montreal based company.
Since its inception, the group has been fortunate
to share bills with some of Montreal's best bands
including Trailer, Timber, JP Houston, Expo 67,
Poorfolk, and Lesley Lane. Also, they have played
in New York City at the venerable PianoÆs Bar and
opened for Brooklyn's The National. The group is
hard at work at The Breakglass Studio working on
the country tinged second album, Golden Age.