avenue elle

Alison had just moved from Canada to Austin, TX, to start acupuncture school. Chrissie had also recently moved back to Austin from her home-state of Pennsylvania to begin a new career in Oriental Medicine to hopefully support herself and her son. On the first day of school, these 2 girls were surprised when other students asked if they were sisters! It didn't take long for them to figure out they were both song-writers, but it would be months before they would ever decide to play a song for each other. As the friendship developed, they thought a fun thing to do might be to go to some open mics together, which they did, cheering each other on. At one point, something just clicked and they thought, "Let's try playing a song together." It was so fun, they've kept at it for the last 2 and a half years!

One afternoon, they were playing over at Chrissie's house and their friend Oren stopped by. Very few people had heard them play together, and when Oren settled into the rocking chair and started listening, he got totally lost in the music. "Why aren't you girls playing out anywhere?" He asked. "This music needs to be out there." "We don't have a demo" was the answer. Oren and his friends over at Sound Lab fixed that problem and got the duo started with their first show at Fipnotics in Austin.

Just in time for that first show, Chrissie and Alison came up with a name. After rejecting idea after idea for almost 9 months, they kept coming back to the concept of using the initials of their last names, "e" for Engle and "l" for Lumley to form "elle." But of course, they couldn't use the same name as the famous magazine. Then one day they were talking about their vision for the project and where they wanted "to go" with it, and pictured it like a street taking them on a musical journey. Thus was born "Avenue Elle."

Chrissie and Alison mostly played just as a duo for about a year, when Anthony Juneau joined them on bass. Eventually, he started playing lead guitar and helped shape the music and the vision for the band, and was involved in the production of their first EP, released in early 2006, called "hors d'oeuvres." It features 4 songs and has full instrumentation. It is truly meant as an appetizer and as soon as they can, the girls plan to release a full-length album.

Changes come, and Anthony moved on to pursue a developing acting career. But in the meantime, another incredibly talented musician has come to play with the group. Jimmy Joe Natoli plays skillful and moving lead guitar and totally rocks out when things get fiesty. Chrissie and Alison still can't stop laughing about the banjo, which adds the perfect touch to a few of the tunes.

Avenue Elle plays all around central Texas and is branching out to Dallas, Houston, and the girls are taking a small tour in Colorado in April. They are thrilled to be getting some airplay on KUT, the local NPR station, and to have been played for the daily demo on KGSR. They plan to keep putting their music out there as much as they can. The whole process, from writing the songs to working them out together, to performing and recording, is so much fun, they couldn't keep themselves from doing it if they tried!