Sticks ‘n’ Stones // Jamie T
When I first discovered Jamie T I was at a house party. I was the young-nipperish age where you would pay an older friend to collect the Strongbow by the litre from Bargainbooze beforehand. The type of teenager’s party where the same girl would get drunk and cry on the stairs every week. Boys would turn up dressed in Chinos, Shockwaves gelled hair and smelling like they bathed themselves in CK one aftershave. At around half 8, a fellow adolescence’s dad will be there in a Volvo estate ready to pick up their drunk child. Someone would pebble dash the pavement outside with puke and a girl’s heart would be captured by an older boy. All of this was occurring around me, the party reached its peak. It was roughly 21:00, Fosters cans were being spilt on the sofa, and ‘Sticks n Stones’ sounded out the iPod dock. The combination of upbeat punk and the vocal inflections of a street poet intrigued me. I loved the boisterous sound and the anarchistic chorus that encouraged a sing along. I turned to a person that I met that night, I asked “who’s this playing now?” he moved a few inches closer with one hand in his pocket and the other gripping a dangerously strong vodka mix, “Jamie T mate. Jamie T” he replied. A series of Jamie T songs proceeded to play: ‘Sheila’, ‘British Intelligence’ and ‘If You Got the Money’. It was a new sound to me, I loved everything about it.
The party wrapped up early, they always did back then. Somehow I would always end up home in time for the penultimate scoreless draw on Match of the Day. I would watch on in my bed feeling puckish and battling room spin knowing if I closed my eyes the room spin would get worse. Quite a parallel to the house parties now, where the music seems to consist of a guests ‘Soundcoud mix’ and staying up till 4am having in depth conversations about boiler room DJ sets. The sad truth is as I approach my twenties, house parties will probably entail conversations about starting families, paying bills and over passionate discussions on left wing politics. Things may get sophisticated and I may be turning up on door steps with Spanish Wine, but Jamie T will always be there to take me back to the good old nostalgic days of drinking Glen’s Vodka out of a coffee mug.