Cats Awards 2011

Here's a list of all the great things that happened to us musically in 2011:

Best band - Delta Sleep


These math jazz shoutaholics are the band we played the most gigs with in 2011 and for good reason, we even had them down to our album launch show where they ripped a massive sicky all over the shop. They also sell a wonderful selection of chutneys from their merch stand, watch out for the chili relish though. It's disgusting.

Best album - Necks of the wood by Lime Headed Dog


Following on from the amazing KFUM & KFUK, these wonky synth pop legends gave us a more polished and focused slice of off-the-wall catchiness. I haven't heard anything else like it. Except for Michael Palin's Introspective Fly Factory, but they sound like everyone. 

Best track - Hopscotch Machine-gun Madness by A Genuine Freakshow

The title seems apt for the scatter-shot dual vocal verses but freakshow soon hit us up with some of their trademark post rock goodness and by the end it's time to get epic. Then you just hit play again don't you. Fact: A Genuine Freakshow had a Harry Potter book named after them but it never made it to print due to a suspicious incident.

Best live show - Maybeshewill performing I was here for a moment... with strings

I'm a sucker for strings as anyone who has ever listened to our band might be able to guess. Maybeshewill are pretty full sounding at the best of times, imagine that times one squajillion and you're close to how major league baseball they were sounding at this gig. Sorry the video's not great it was filmed through the eye of the beholder.

Best new bands we heard

Waitress for the bees - Looping violas, saws, dinosaurs... how could this ever be anything but something great?

Leonie Evans (lead singer of Rae) - Incredible singer/guitarist/trumpet impersonator.

Best Webzine - Joyzine

After a quick facelift Joyzine returned with various artists designing the front cover. They've currently got our design up so go have a gander and then read all the ace articles and reviews. Fact: Our cover is actually a life size village and took 30 tonnes of plasticine to make. It's currently inhabited by aging rock stars although Bono has complained about a Razorlight problem and we've had to call in the exterminators. 

Click for fun - JOYZINE

Best Festival - 2000 Trees

This festival is amazing. Even though we won't be playing there next year those of us still in the country will definitely be going. 

Hope you had as much fun as us in 2011. 

Bencat x

The end of all the cats

Apologies for the bad news in such a festive time of year but we've already let it slip at our recent shows and thought we'd better inform you of what's going on.

From the end of February 2012 the band once known as Cats and Cats and Cats will be coming to an end. It's with heavy hearts we say this but they're also happy hearts as they're full of great memories and fondness for both each other and the people who've helped us over the years. Of which there have been so many we're going to fill a whole blog with thank you messages to all the people we can remember that we owe so much to. If you ever want to be reminded of how generous and wonderful people can be I urge you to start a band, you'll soon realise that all over the world people are willing to let you sleep on their floor, cook you delicious fry ups, drive you around, put you on in their town, produce incredible artwork and much more. I'll bet if you're reading this then you've probably helped us out, even if it's by telling your friends about us. So we send our thanks out to you too.

The reasons behind the break up are entirely amicable, for years the band has been our main priority but at some point other things were bound to get in the way and all of the band members have big plans that have edged their way into contention. Ben's plan of moving to Japan at the end of February means that the band will no longer be a possibility.

We're really sorry to anyone who just got into the band and wanted to see us live, or for us to make them more music (we do have a fairly extensive back catalogue you can explore). Fortunately we're leaving a whole host of amazing bands behind in a never stagnant UK scene which we have loved being a part of.  If you ever need any recommendations please get in touch as we always enjoy talking about music. We'll also have some new projects we'll be shouting about before long so don't get too sad.

We'll follow up this blog in the new year with some more soppy literature and about a million well deserved thank yous. Also a big farewell show will be announced soon.

We've been Cats and Cats and Cats, and it's been fantastic.

Ben, Doug, Tom and Jamie xxxx

Dunne!

Alright toadfish, we've finished!

It was a choppy slog but we've got 11 songs recorded and ready to put at you!
We're most pleased with what's come together and hope you enjoy it. It'll be available on our bandcamp at www.functionrecords.bandcamp.com from tomorrow.

We're all off to brush the teeth, drink the Cava, eat the curry, and wake the Doug.

In your face chandelier.

19th hour

We're plunging into our last few hours now and things are getting pretty raw. Everything's funny and confusing.

We've got a bunch of songs coming together and we're set to romp home with some drums and vocals when the hour is more sociable. But now is a time for deep introspection. The window is rank with condensation and our stomachs are fighting to digest the last of the chipsticks and curry we ate a lifetime ago. Ben pushes pen across paper, Doug analyses ceiling, Heather wrestles her warmth inwards, and Dan pretends to be asleep. Wayne is a ghost of a man. We haven't seen him for days. His parting words callous and final. He is on a journey now.

In a couple of hours we will be loud on the buzz of a frantic countdown. We will congregate, smiles within all faces, swigging a morning coffee, celebrating  each other's heroics.

But not yet.

The 14th hour

So what I failed to mention last time is that the album is set in the years leading up to the death of an unknown man found on the beach in Adelaide. We have been working out lyrical ideas from a summary of the mystery and some interesting facts that were discovered by various means. If you want to have a read, here's what we're working from - http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2011/08/the-body-on-somerton-beach/

There has been a flurry of productivity since the last blog and now we have 10 or 11 songs down, not quite sure exactly how many, everything is moving too fast! Most of the instrument parts are finished, we have just started vocals and it's all starting to come together rather nicely.

In fact, this blog has been by far the least successful part of this album recording as each post has been started but not finished and slowly added to over the course of many hours. I guess that's what happens if you try to record a whole album in the space of 24 hours. More to come.

24 hour album challenge

After a bacon and egg and sandwich and a morning cup of tea we were all ready to put our  brains together and start the process of creating an album within 24 hours.

Ben pressed record at exactly  9.54 am this morning with a trumpet solo by Beth Holloway.

The house shortly turned into musical chaos with people fracturing off into different rooms for simultaneous song writing. The first song to go down was a solo effort by Ben, shortly followed by the more raucous "Adelaide". then Jamie's first offering went down whilst Dan and Heather were composing using pure chance as the writing technique. Numbers written on paper depict different chords for the verses and different notes for the melodies, whether they be glock or vocals. It's certainly interesting and sounds surprisingly good. Wayne was composing some terrific lyrics to Dans accordion written "Jestyn". Some songs are being written at great length whilst others are coming together more quickly and getting laid straight down such as Ben's next offering with myself (Doug) and Dan layering up a percussive storm over the top. So at the moment we have about 6 or 7 tracks down, not all of them recorded, it is hard to keep track.

So I have to go back and record again now as Ben just had an idea for some drums to Jamie's song that we recorded earlier. Best get back to it. Will update again later!

Toodle pip.

Birthday Challenge

It's Ben's birthday so...we're going to write and record an album in 24 hours!


On October 15th we'll be getting together and working our creative brains into mush and hopefully we should have an album for you to download the following monday (Oct 17th). We'll also be performing the album on the Sunday evening where there'll be physical copies for sale, the location of this will be a secret we'll only let special people know (e mail us if you think you're special enough). We're also looking for musicians to get involved with this, especially those who can play unusual instruments (eg. taramaglock, bubbletrone or the hunk), so if you're interested chuck us an e mail here: catsandcatsandcats1@gmail.com.


We'll blog the whole thing to death over here so you can keep checking up on us. Don't expect a slickly produced set of dance hits, we'll be recording in my bedroom with weird instruments and an extreme time limit. 


YES!