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On this day, 19 March 2001, singer/songwriter Ed Harcourt played Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach.
Before going solo, Harcourt played the bass and keyboards for Snug, a band formed at school in the mid-1990s by Harcourt, James Deane, Ed Groves and Johnny Lewsley. The band recorded two albums and a handful of singles together before dissolving.
In 2000, Harcourt recorded his debut mini-album Maplewood EP straight to a 4-track recorder at Wootton Manor. After signing with Heavenly Records and releasing Maplewood in November 2000, Harcourt recorded his debut studio album Here Be Monsters with producers Gil Norton and Tim Holmes.
The album was released in June 2001, and charted on the UK Albums Chart at No. 84. One month after its release, the album was nominated for the 2001 Mercury Prize.
He later described the period as "very strange for me, I was naive, I knew nothing. I was used to making music in my room, so it felt very odd being on stage". In the US he signed with Capitol Records.
