Jamie T’s Panic Prevention

Don't be fooled by his MC like moniker. Jamie T is a tall, skinny lad from the south-west London suburb of Wimbledon, influenced as much by The Clash, Tom Waits, Rancid and The Specials as the drum’n’bass and garage that surrounded him while growing up.

Armed only with an acoustic bass guitar, a teenage Jamie T begun playing the backrooms of pubs in Soho and Twickenham, playing his solo show of tales of life in identikit suburbia and what it is to be a young man growing up in 1990s Britain. The live experience was akin to the troubadour spirit of the American folkies of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan colliding headlong with true English gents like Paul Weller, Billy Bragg and Elvis Costello, with a few pills and cans of Stella to loosen the creative juices.

But determined to avoid any of the clichés that acoustic playing implies, Jamie decided to fuse his loose folky songs, with a punk, reggae and hip hop tinge. This was done by recording in his bedroom, with the budget equipment usually used to create drum'n'bass and garage tracks. The end result is an uncategorisable and exciting new sound. A raw and scruffy hybrid of production underpinning torrid but touching stories of London living. Where girls find love behind the bike-sheds, where New Years Eve is predictably always shit, and drunk boys brawl on the top deck of the nightbus.

Aged just 20, Jamie’s debut album is a mad scramble of sonic diary entries about his recent experiences, and those of his mates. Called ‘Panic Prevention’ - after the series of mixtapes and club nights he has put on – it’s a record which depicts a blurry, boozy, chaotic world that’s instantly recognisable as the same one reported about in concerned TV news features from Britain’s teen-alcoholic-strewn small towns. And quite unapologetically, the young Mr T is much closer to the reportees than the reporters.

‘Panic Prevention’ was largely written and recorded in Jamie’s bedroom. It features twelve tracks, including his recent hit single ‘If You Got The Money’ which reached no.13 in the charts. It also includes his third single ‘Calm Down Dearest’ which will be released on January 15th. ‘Calm Down Dearest’ is a softer moment for Jamie, although on closer listen you’ll realise it’s a plea to a friend to “stop racking and stacking those lines” and to “calm down dearest”. Available on CD and two 7”s, ‘Calm Down Dearest’ will also be available as a download on www.jamie-t.com. Anyone who pre-orders the track will be also be able to preview album tracks from the date of the single release. In addition to this, I-Tunes will be offering an exclusive version of ‘Calm Down Dearest’ recorded at Jamie’s recent sold out show at Scala.

New Single - ‘Calm Down Dearest’ released Jan 15th 2007
Debut album - ‘Panic SPrevention’ released Jan 29th 2007

To find out more visit Jamie-T.com / Myspace.com/jamietwimbledon