Next Friday, you could do the usual Halloween thing – dress up, trick or treat, go to a party, watch some fireworks, bob for apples, toilet paper a house …
Or …
You could find your way to Good Earth Café in Canmore and get in on Elk Run & Riot’s recording of a new live album the local band is working on. Well, a partial recording anyway. The band plans to record about half an album’s worth of songs at Good Earth then hit a studio for the second half – to be recorded live off the floor to capture the band’s on-stage sound.
Elk Run & Riot is valley locals Andrew Cotter, Ryan Schepens, Brian Bailey and Marc Frappier.
The foursome released their inaugural full-length album Both Sides of the Valley over summer – an offering chock full of local flavour as it follows a somewhat typical life of someone who lands in this valley and the trials, tribulations and triumphs that follow.
Since the release, “we’ve definitely been the busiest we’ve been as a band,” said Cotter. “It’s been pretty wild. The album’s doing great and we’re getting some good reviews.”
Not wanting to rest of their laurels though, Elk Run & Riot are moving forward with the next live offering. “We think it’s important to not just rest on it; we didn’t want to sit on it for a year, we need to keep moving forward.
“And the Good Earth show (with Cotter, Schepens and Bailey) is all ages, which is great. It’s tough to play a lot of late night venues, but this acoustic show will be from 7-9 p.m. at it allows younger people to get in.
“The cool thing is if you’re there, you’ll be on the album too; we’re going to have mics around the room to capture the crowd. Not a lot of people are doing recordings like this.”
Tickets are $7 in advance or $10 at the door and money raised will toward recording the live album.
Moving forward also includes ramping up local shows, as ERR also plays, in whole, or in parts, Melissa’s in Banff, Oct. 28 (Cotter and Schepens, acoustic) at 10 p.m. and Banff’s Rose and Crown, Oct. 30 at 10 p.m. They’ll also play various valley venues through November and December with listings in The Buzz.
“We’re quite versatile; we can play quiet venues, or louder places like Wild Bill’s.”
While the band’s Both Sides featured eight tracks, the foursome had built up a solid bank of songs that can be used in future, and they continue to write. After the Halloween recording at Good Earth, the band has studio time booked for November, when Justin Becker will help out with recording once again.
Becker recorded Both Sides and has a steady gig at Communitea Cafe doing sound.
“We’re happy with where we are right now,” said Cotter. “We just want to keep moving forward and give people something different.”
Since getting together in Banff to jam and play shows more than a year ago, Elk Run & Riot won a Tommy’s Battle of the Bands in Banff and in June of last year, played The Banff Centre’s amphitheatre when they opened for Classified and Zeus.
In deciding to get together as a band, the foursome decided to forego playing covers in order to concentrate on developing original music.
The band’s sound is folk rock, with elements of bluegrass, rock, jamming, even the Beach Boys thrown in.
“We do a lot of different things,” said Cotter. “We’re pretty stoked that we’ve never pigeonholed into one genre, because we have a little something for everyone.”
