Skints, Jaya the Cat: Camden Underworld
Posted by jamie on Sep 29, 2010
The Skints, Jaya the Cat
w/ Fatter than Albert, ClayPigeon, Maddie Ruthless
Underworld, Camden
25th September 2010
Jamie
Having experienced the chaos of previous Skints performances at the Camden Underworld, you’d have thought that by now most of us would have known what to expect.
I mean, I’ve watched them at enough other venues in and outside the capital to be well aware that they’re an absolutely phenomenal live band, but their hometown shows always seem to get that much sweatier, the floor more rammed with bodies, that oddly seasick-and-delirious-at-once sensation stronger, the performance more confident. The sound, often, just feels louder. When the Skints play in London, let’s face it, the lid just comes off the place. And last time they were here all of that combined with the Underworld’s status as one of the closest, hottest, darkest venues to dangerously spectacular effect.
As one of the first clutches of eager beavers in, then, it was perhaps a sign of things to come when my buddy emerged from the guys’ toilets soon after the 5.30 doors and announced that the floor in there was already “covered in piss”. It wasn’t even really evening yet.
There was room at the front for the first few minutes of Maddie Ruthless’s set, but it started to fill up pretty quickly from there, and always looked like being a big one. Maddie Ruthless played first, backed by a lot of the guys from Fatter than Albert, who were calling themselves the Secret Affair. As all five bands had to be finished by ten, she sadly didn’t get long but Maddie was superb: her soft, soulful vocal an absolute treat over a rocksteady/dancehall sound that’s rich, smooth and totally right for skanking to. I’d not seen nor heard of Maddie before, but no matter: a few short minutes later and we’re all eating out of her hand. Having gone on early, she’s finished before it was dark outside. Still, we’re off to a bang.
ClayPigeon are a different proposition but equally enjoyable. As expected, there are a couple of Squab songs in the set, heavier, growling guitars and an impassioned vocal that makes for an edgier, bigger, gnarlier sound: it’s not reggae and it’s definitely not from New Orleans: instead this is grimy, and a lot more London. There aren’t many people in the pit that has quickly opened up behind us, but they’ve conquered a lot of dancefloor. It looks dangerous, but great fun all the same, and in that sense it’s similar to the short, sharp assault that is ClayPigeon’s set: dangerous, but really exciting. It’s easy to see how and why they were such a big influence on the Skints back in the day.
By the time Fatter Than Albert play, I’ve had a few of these (you can get them in a can) and somehow, in the process, missed the start. I returned to find a good, old-fashioned skank had taken over across the front half of the show, all heads down and knees and elbows working overtime to a high-speed, jazz-influenced skacore thing. Think of the Mad Caddies’ Dixieland-style stuff, but on speed and you’re most of the way there. It’s even opens up in to that high-speed punk at times, and includes a keyboard and samples and two horns: a trombone and a saxophone. FTA are essentially a slightly bonkers party band, and are very good at what they do. They mainly wear shorts, some of which are a more revealing than would be ideal, especially given the amount of leaping around going on, but that aside they’re brilliant fun to watch. The place barely stops moving, and bodies, by now, are flying everywhere. The walls and ceiling are already coated with a cold and shiny layer of all of our sweat, and the night is still young.
Jaya the Cat arrive to a huge cheer from the now-packed room. It’s been getting busier, boozier, and impossibly hot as the show’s gone on, and the party’s well and truly in full swing now. Jaya’s drawled, gravelly, dirty take on mashing punk and reggae is pretty much perfect for right now, and they’ve brought a big crowd of their own with them too. Again, the bodies start to move around quickly, and now they’re coming over all of our heads as well. It’s impossible not to move your feet, and we’re bobbing, swaying around nicely. There’s scarcely room to properly skank around any more, but that doesn’t stop anyone from doing their best as Jaya the Cat cruise through a set packed with booze-fuelled, chant-along crowd pleasers.
They’ve played so many shows now that there’s a practiced ease about this line-up, and that nonchalance oozes out of their performance, totally dominant and confidently holding control of the rowdy throng that’s pressed together back-to-chest-to-back in front of them. That just adds to the smooth, sultry atmosphere that’s filled the Underworld like so much beer sweated out into the muggy air. Even Jaya have a relatively short little set, but it’s full of swagger and impossibly good fun. They get a rapturous response and disappear quickly to the railing: it surely can’t be long before the Skints are on, and no-one’s moving from the floor. Whether that’s by choice or because we simply couldn’t get out, I couldn’t say.
It’s about nine o’clock when the Skints arrive on stage. If it looked busy, and very busy for early evening, when Maddie Ruthless played, it’s still pretty striking to see how many more people have managed to get in. Considering that this show was far from sold out when I got my ticket from the pub upstairs this afternoon it is actually amazing how many are in here now. I’m sorry, I feel like I’m labouring this, but it is literally shoulder-to-shoulder, and tight at that, all over the floor and up the little stairs at the back and all over the balcony, presumably as far as the cloakroom. That must mean that some people must be unable to move or see.
Then it starts: the wave-machine of can’t-move-can’t-not-move that happens when the room as a whole starts to pick people up like big, strong waves, and lift and move us, slowly and then faster. It starts when the intro begins and is even more irresistible, were that possible, when Ya Know kicks in. It’s a new set, though still taken mainly from Live.Breathe.Build.Believe, with Contemplations of the Modern Rudeboy the most notable absentee. The infectious Bright Girl, out second, has the whole pit pogoing and singing. This time it’s not put together with Inner Circle’s Sweat, though Bob Marley’s Stir it Up does appear later on, and, with the Skints’ harmonies and a bigger, dirtier bassline to it, sounds absolutely lush. Packed in, pushed together, and moved in time from side to side, this is absolute bliss, perfect for swaying too while it’s more gentle, and, when it’s not, it’s a big, powerful monster of a show. Frenetic from first to last, it’s exhausting just to watch. It’s implausible to think just how good the Skints have become. Sociopath and Murderer, which were both good songs while the band were promoting their self-titled EP, have evolved in to bigger, badder, songs more in keeping with the newer material, and are gobbled up as eagerly tonight as ever. The new single, due out this Monday (4th October) gets an outing too, and goes down well [pre-order it here].
Finally, the Skints play Roanna’s Song to finish what’s been an incredible gig. Hoarse, shivering and blinking, as the lights go on, a few wannabes are still trying to crowdsurf over a traffic-jam of exhausted punters more interested in looking for their mates and queuing for the stairs. That won’t go well. I found myself sitting on the floor in the corner, staring at all the mashed up plastic cups and just breathing. It’s still an oven in here.
We also saw the guys from Mouthwash, and Will, Si and Gabriel from Gecko. That’ll be in Heat pretty soon.
Arms of Atlas: Northampton show CANCELLED
Posted by jamie on Sep 29, 2010
Arms of Atlas’s set at the Soundhaus in Northampton this Friday (1st October) has been cancelled. There is a gig on there, but AoA won’t be playing. “There was a mix-up with the venue”, we’re told. Bah.
Advantage: new download
Posted by jamie on Sep 29, 2010
Advantage have out their most recent single, the double-A side The Beat (Get Up) and Wait, Is This Love? up as a download on their bandcamp page.
Mike TV / Fenix*TX
Posted by jamie on Sep 22, 2010
Our mates Mike TV have been added to the Fenix TX show at Portsmouth’s Wedgewood Rooms.
Tickets in the Mike TV online shop by the end of the week.
Tom Craven: live at Proud
Posted by jamie on Sep 22, 2010
Tom Craven
Proud, Camden Town
20th August 2010
Jamie
The sheer joy and excitement that we all, doubtless, were feeling was evident in Tom Craven’s voice as he leaned forward and almost whispered: “I want this to be the most intimate gig I’ve ever played”.
That being the case, he’d picked a great venue: Proud in Camden, London. If you’ve never been, it’s pretty unique: a former stable hidden away by the *ahem* stables market. The cobbled floor and original stables are still there, but each one is now a private booth. It’s decent, if scarily expensive, to hang out with your mates, but absolutely spot on for the immediate, urgent, totally candid emotional intimacy that Tom dresses his music in.
In the half dark, gathered on the floor around “the smallest stage he’s ever played on”, we sit on bean bags, little benches, and the cobbled floor, gazing up at Tom’s feet and legs as the disappear, bean-stalk style, from the soft light and in to that darkness. It’s been said before, but he really is very tall. The soft lights, the patient hush and the comfort of a few old fashioned heaters act as one to create that perfectly intimate atmosphere Tom had intended, and he himself takes it one step further with a calm, yet urgently candid performance that’s as desperate for you to understand and share its emotions as it is to be appreciated and enjoyed. There’s something about Tom’s songs that’s telling you, constantly, that he urgently wants you to understand and to share, to experience the overwhelming emotions that he and his songs are experiencing.
Two new songs come out tonight, Factory Girl, written less than a week ago, is first in the set, and absolutely beautiful. Magpie follows shortly afterwards, similarly thoughtful and just as delicate. Amongst all this, he finds time to perform Cross My Heart, Strike Me Down and the wonderfully soppy, romantic cheese thing I Fell for You. Huddled up on the floor, we find ourselves gently swaying and wistfully humming and mumbling along.
Eventually, though, it’s the delightfully named If Friendship is Leaving, Leave Me Some Pie that steals the show. It was written for an old friend of Tom’s who’s actually in the stable with us tonight, and gets his little mention. Apparently the fluffy beard he’s got is new, and the butt of a few jokes that manage to ignore the fact that Tom himself has got some new fuzz, or at least a bit more than he used to have. Oh well. The song itself is wonderful: really poignant, but only ever so slightly sad. Up this close, and played without his band, it’s incredibly personal and obviously right out of his heart and in to the muggy darkness above our heads. Aside from the crisp, clear melancholy in his voice and that lush collection of songs, it’s that direct emotional immediacy that Tom puts in to his live performances that brings us back to watch him over and over. So reassuring, like when one of those really reassuring hugs that’s also a back-rub turns up right when you need it, and makes you sniff a little bit and think a lot but then realise that everything’s going to be Ok because someone feels just how you do.
It seems that it’s really what Tom’s looking for, but, in actual fact, everyone’s going to leave here tonight with that warm, comforting ..Leave Me Some Pie feeling on the inside. Tom lifts the mood with Matinée Epitaph, a spikier tune that he likes to play with his band, and then finishes his set with and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Angels and joins it in to Chances. He wasn’t going to, he says, but it has a habit of sneaking in to every set.
It’s darker outside than in, but, by the time we emerge from Proud we’re blinking the way you do when you come out of the cinema in the daytime.
WARNING: dodgy ticket sites on the rise
Posted by jamie on Sep 19, 2010
Not a massive surprise, but a new report from the Guardian highlights some alarming facts about fraudulent websites offering tickets to gigs and sporting events:
UK festivals such as V, Reading and Leeds have been particularly popular targets. Only last month, City of London Police arrested four people following an investigation into a criminal gang that set up worldwidetickets.com, and later gigsport.com, to sell tickets for the Reading Festival and concerts including the Black Eyed Peas and Michael Bublé. The force’s fraud intelligence bureau is studying complaints from 265 victims who are estimated to have lost a total of £40,000 on non-existent tickets.
Read the full piece here - probably from behind the sofa.
Mash Attack: latest
Posted by jamie on Sep 8, 2010
Latest on Mash Attack:
“We’re spending the next few months working towards a new EP and a full re-launch with the new members”. Just a few dates planned for the moment:
23rd October: White Horse, Bognor Regis.
27th November: Joiners, Southampton - with [spunge].
Less Than Jake: MEGA support acts for UK November tour
Posted by jamie on Sep 8, 2010
As well as taking We Are the Union and Zebrahead on the UK shows in Novemeber, Less Than Jake have added “some of our favorite local bands” to the shows. Remember to breathe, because the list they’ve put together is absolutely killer.
That list includes the Skints, the Arteries, Mouthwash, This Contrast Kills, New Riot and Kids Can’t Fly.
Tickets are available now. Less Than Jake will take Sonic Boom Six from Manchester and Zebrahead on tour across mainland Europe.
