BEFORE THE Strypes, even before Imelda May became a star in Ireland and Britain, three London based teenagers were paving the way for a serious rock’n’roll and blues revival. Their names? Kitty, Daisy & Lewis.
Their eponymous 2008 debut revealed three precocious talents who could sing and play authentic rock’n’roll, rockabilly, blues, and ska with ease and gusto, and who sounded as if their recordings dated from between 1948 and 1956 - a feat not solely down to their using equipment from that era. Second album, Smoking In Heaven (2011 ) delivered some impressive originals, revealing an act whose confidence was growing in leaps and bounds.
Now older, but still just kids in their early/mid-20s, the trio recently released their third album, appropriately entitled The Third - via the Sunday Best Records label. Produced by The Clash’s Mick Jones, it was recorded in Kitty, Daisy & Lewis’s new analogue studio, located in a derelict Indian restaurant in Camden Town. It also reveals how the trio’s sound has grown to encompass funk and club soul with the single ‘No Action’:
Clashmusic.com called The Third “their most diverse, beguiling and impressive release to date”; while The Daily Telegraph described it as a “a hot, sweet pancake stack of danceable tracks, drizzled with drama and swung by a terrific horn section”.
The Kitty, Daisy & Lewis juggernaut, which can claim fans like film-maker David Lynch, actor Dustin Hoffman, and even bands as diverse as Eagles Of Death Metal and Coldplay, is finally coming to Galway. The band play Strange Brew at the Róisín Dubh on Thursday May 21 at 9pm. Tickets are available at www.roisindubh.net, the Ticket Desk at OMG Zhivago, Shop Street, and The Róisín Dubh.
