Miacca: Tia leaves the band
Posted by jamie on Jan 9, 2012
Today we received the sad news that Tia Kalmaru has left Miacca. We’re still big fans of both, and the good news is that they’re all still big fans of each other.
Here’s what Ti told us:
Everything’s cool and everyone’s still friends and the band are carrying on with another member.. can you also remind people of the slackers gig?
It is my regret to announce that I am leaving Miacca. After 2 years of travelling round in a sweaty car, eating junk food, sleeping in the most uncomfortable places, having no money, failing at education and generally having the best time of my life, it’s time to move on to the next phase of my life. It’s been an almost impossible decision to make as my band mates have supported me through the hardest times of my life. They will carry on without me, with another guitarist and are going to do all gigs that are already booked.
Aislinn, Joe and Damon, good luck guys, make 2012 your year! It’s been a pleasure playing with you guys and I wish you (plus new guitarist) the very best of luck, thanks everyone who supported the band while I was a member, you all helped me grow as a person, as well as musically, in ways you can’t imagine. Keep supporting, they’re just getting started
Ti ♥
To see Miacca’s show with Jaya the Cat and the Slackers, go here.
To get Slackers tickets, go here.
Jaya the Cat: new album 2012
Posted by jamie on Sep 14, 2011
Jaya the Cat have posted this update on the progress of their new record.
So I guess we owe you an apology. Out of the three main goals we set out last July, only two will come to fruition. We regret to inform you that we will not be releasing our new album this year. Almost all of it is recorded and mixing is going well, but once everything is done and we’ve cut a new deal with whoever is gonna release this thing, we’ll be in 2012. We were hoping it wasn’t gonna come to this but apparently this is the way the universe wants it to go down. The good news is that the promise that this album will be FUCKING AWESOME remains true! We can’t wait to share all of this with you guys.
Jaya the Cat/ New Town Kings: London show announced
Posted by jamie on Sep 13, 2011
The New Town Kings have been confirmed as support for Jaya the Cat’s at the Academy in Islington on Sunday 20th November.
Tickets are here.
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.
Jaya the Cat, Advantage, the Apostates
Posted by jamie on Mar 8, 2010
Jaya the Cat, Advantage, the Apostates
Underworld, Camden, London
26th February 2010.
Jamie
A dosey lie-in that almost made me late this morning, and was responsible for my friend Hassan’s hoodie getting left neatly folded on my bedroom floor instead of in my backpack and on its way to the Underworld was the payback for a mad week and one too many late nights. The bleariness, I should emphasise, did happen early in the morning: I did have to rush here straight from work. As with a lot if Underworld shows I’ve seen recently, the bill here was pretty killer and started early. The last bit of hustle, from Camden Road station past the Grand Union and over the bridge, was achieved with a banana in my shorts pocket tap-tap-tapping away at he back of my knee. Don’t know how it got there, but it was tasty and had to be gone before we could go in. Three big, greedy bites saw to that and in we went just after doors.
Clay Pigeon sadly didn’t show as Az wasn’t well, so there was some loitering around in the half-dark before the Apostates kicked the night off with a dirty, rough-and-ready set of ska-punk. They’re a three-piece, without horns, if you haven’t seen them, and play a gleefully shambolic take on the whole thing, with big fat basslines and the greasy, boozy, rock n’ roll feel to it. It’s whispered in my ear that the girl next to us has seen them twice before and they were drunk both times. Tonight they’re not, just lovably nonchalant, almost not fussed, about being on stage, as they rock out around a short, sweet set of riff-heavy music that’s basically punk with upstrokes. They’re a good band to let your hair down to and good fun for a party and gone, soon after, with a growing crowd still rocking n its heels as what passes for lights get turned up one click above off.
Advantage are a different concept altogether. They’re calling what they do “brass rock” to differentiate themselves from the more conventional punk/ska sound, and, in fairness, to try and squash what they do in to that would be unnecessarily reductive. There’s ska and punk in their sound but there’s a lot more besides – it’s constantly evolving in to a bigger, more powerful beast. It’s like epic rock, and it has horns. Needless to say, it’s superb. I love these guys, and they absolutely kick it when they play live.
With so much incorporated in to their sound, it’s impressive that so much of what Advantage are about can be crammed in to a quick set. It’s essentially a hit and run on the ears and bodies that have come to experience the band: they get on, unleash that ever growing, ever evolving sound and then, all of a sudden, they’re done. Bang. In that, though, they really do demonstrate what they’re about: it’s impressive how much can be crowbarred in.
So far in their short life the guys have released two three-track EPs, and there’s another record expected soon. All three are represented tonight. The fact that they open and close with new tracks (Something to Say and The Beat) is testament to the almost restless extent of their creativity. They never seem to be satisfied, and are always adding and tinkering with their sound. There always seems to be more and more that they can and will do with their music, and it’s made them really exciting to follow. The Fear and Wait are highlights, and newie Time and Place is a great song too: plenty of movement considering it’s brand new.
Oh, and they’ll rock you out in concert too. As I’ve said, it’s pretty short and sweet, but the room is moving throughout, new and (relatively speaking) older tracks go down a storm. A bouncing, bobbing throng of bodies singing the words back, even to stuff that’s not been released. The place is full of joy, and it’s getting warmer and warmer. Both of these, honestly, you can feel in the air. Throw in the sheer power behind Advantage’s sound and you’ve got a really intense set that should, were there any justice, have lasted longer. All the melodies were in there, but the riffs were so big and fat you could feel them. It’s a really impressive, and really enjoyable set.
Jaya the Cat headline. By now my excitement at seeing them for the first time is making me pretty giddy, and a jumping belly full of rum and cider can’t be helping. In the hot, dark little room, the five members of Jaya the Cat step out and get a really rapturous response. They then proceed to deliver one of the most accomplished performances, and one of the most enjoyable sets, that you could see. Not just right now, I mean this is right up there. Jaya the Cat effortlessly hold the room, and have so much going for them you can’t fail to enjoy yourself watching them. Their sound, at times, is easygoing soulful reggae and ska, and at others it’s closer to the straight-up punk rock band that they were when they first got together. Throughout the night, they stop off at most places in between and keep the Underworld bouncing, shouting, and waving all of its fists in the air. Where that’s not appropriate, you just can’t resist getting your groove on. You know, all booty-shaking and that. There’s so much soul in those tunes that it’s sexy, and so much rhythm, so much tune, that you can’t stop dancing. It’s absolutely wonderful.
There are a few brief exchanges with the crowd, but not much to speak of: it’s basically a case of showing up and getting on with the songs, but that’s no bad thing. Jaya the Cat have got the tunes, and you’d want them to squash in as many as they can.
Latest record More Late Night Transmissions features heavily: Thank You Reggae, Hello Hangover and Pass the Ammunition, in their different ways, are gems. Blur, Nightbus and Mistake also feature alongside oldies like Cog in the Wheel and the ominous Final Solution in a night where everything is just right: whatever they do just works. Exhausted as we were (and I played a football match at lunchtime too, you know), you can’t help yourself but move to these guys. Especially on this form. Exhausted, eventually, we found ourselves in an awkward position: my legs were having a dilemma on their own. It’s only halfway through the set but they couldn’t dance any more. But then they couldn’t stop. What do you do?
It’s helpful, for that reason, when the pace does slow down a little. Throughout the set the guys shift through various speeds. What was funny was how the slower it got, the more people in the room were getting it on. Avoiding the heat, and looking for some skanking room, we’d skulked over to the back by the railing. Watching the whole crowd, to a smooth reggae tune with loads of bass and an extra gravely Geoff vocal, people were pulling all around us. Fair play to them, I guess. I did say it was sexy.
The night comes to a close with Jaya the Cat at full speed, and a room full of tired legs and unhappy shins summon up their last dregs of energy to throw some tired bodies around the floor one last time. Breathless by the end, we’re pretty much shunted out through the side stairs for the club night to start. The street’s full of yelling, screaming and police vans: a total contrast to the atmosphere just a few stairs behind us, and it’s freezing up here. That tight little knot of people who’ve just met and become best friends disappears in every direction. Our crew opted to shiver upstairs in a chip shop and watch police vans struggle to park. Dizzy from what we’d just witnessed, very little of what’s going on gets taken in. I basically floated home.
