My Favourite Albums of 2016: #10 Misty Miller - The Whole Family Is Worried

So, we hit the top 10 in my favourite albums of 2016. Expect to see some that have featured on virtually every list under the sun and some that probably only feature here. It’s one of those less hyped records that it’s time to turn attention to now as Misty Miller’s The Whole Family Is Worried takes the number 10 spot.

This record is the first of two arguments in the top 10 that sometimes it’s worth sticking with an artist, even if a record label doesn’t see it that way. Misty first featured as one of my Ones to Watch tips in 2010, playing sweet pixie-like love songs on a ukulele. The subsequent album was nice enough, but perhaps a little too cloying for my tastes. However, even at the time she stated her influences included Bob Dylan and rockabilly music. She clearly wasn’t your average 16 year old.

Fast forward to 2016 and Misty’s second album is a very different beast. Whilst The Whole Family Is Worried retained her ability to produce a hooky pop melody, this record was a fiery holler-along joy, full of angry guitars and lyrics about being a young woman right now. Often brutally honest, vulnerable, funny and angry, but always full of life. The number of times I’ve yelled along to the “I’ve been sleeping with your friends,” line of Happy, the song that should have been a hit, is ridiculous.

Sadly, despite positive reviews and great songs The Whole Family Is Worried got somewhat overlooked. So, if the point of these lists is to suggest a record for you to listen to, that you haven’t done yet, then you know what to do now….

Misty Miller - Happy (Video)

New Music: Misty Miller - Girlfriend (Video)

If 2016 has brought us anything, it is at least some quite amusing album titles.

Of course there’s The 1975’s rather creepy / pretentious / cooly artistic / beautiful /comical (delete as appropriate, depending on your opinion) I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It. My opinion of the record: Too much filler, too much referencing of bands from the past without adding anything new to the mix, but also some half decent tunes among the deluge, particularly the singles.

Then there’s Aurora’s All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend, which is quite deep really isn’t it? My opinion of that one: Probably the best pop album to come out of Norway since A-Ha. A lot of melancholy for one so young.

Next up is Misty Miller. I like the title of her forthcoming album a lot. It’s going to be called The Whole Family Is Worried. 

Thankfully, though there doesn’t appear to be much to worry about in terms of the music, which from the songs we’ve heard so far seems to be a right rollicking, scuzzy, punk pop affair. Much (OK, that's an overstatement - a bit) has been made over the last couple of years of Misty’s transition from sweet ukele playing folkie to her edgier style now, but really this doesn't concern me.  If Misty decided that next she wanted to dress up in a gold sequinned disco dress and produce an album of hi-energy synth pop, all I’d care about are good tunes, good performances and it being something that grabbed me in some way. Good music eh? That's what I want (don't we all?), irrespective of style.

However, there’s no need to get out the neon coloured strip lighting and flashing disco floor quite yet (although that would be fun), because for now there’s a video for her song Girlfriend – which basically shows what a lot of fun her gigs can be. 

The album is out on April 8th.

Footnote: Why the f*ck wasn’t Happy a bona fide hit? It really should have been.  

Misty Miller - Girlfriend (Video)

Misty Miller - Happy (Video)

“I’ve been sleeping with your friends,” sings Misty Miller and with it punches a way not only onto this blog (again) but this time onto BBC Radio 1. New single Happy was deservedly named hottest record in the world on Annie Mac’s show last night, where it received its first play. It's a pop punk anthem fuelled by a throw-yourself-around-the-dancefloor energy and an infectious hook that should find Misty a whole bunch of new fans. One to Watch for 2011? OK, maybe we were a little premature there, but sometimes it’s worth sticking around and letting an artist develop. 

“You were always in my head, but we don’t talk about it,” she growls. Maybe. But now is the time to start talking about Misty Miller, because this song will be in your head.

Right now, based on this video, we'd say life's a riot with Misty Miller. Can we sign up to her gang?

Get Happy from the 7th June.

Misty Miller - Happy (Video)

Misty Miller - Next To You (Video)

Misty Miller's Next To You originally surfaced back in 2013, but has been buffed up and renewed for 2015. The video, which was co-directed and edited by Milo Edwards and Misty herself was filmed at The Fox on the Hill, Misty's flat, and 'that' Burberry acoustic bench in Wimbledon that you might ‘remember’ from when Misty was quite a different artist (here). Since that time over 1 million people have seen her sitting on that bench.

The video takes some pretty literal interpretations of the song’s lyrics – eggs are broken to lines about eggs being broken and legs are shaved to, yep you’ve guessed it, words about legs being shaved. “You used to love it, whenever I sing, but now it’s like you don’t hear anything. You used to listen to every word I say, but now it’s like the only way to get through to you is if I kneel down and pray,” Misty complains at one point. Yep, she sounds pretty pissed off, but she's also said that the song was actually a lot of fun to write. “What I'm saying in the song are things most girls feel but no one has the guts to say, especially not in pop music.” Keep saying them Misty, we’re enjoying your resentment.

Next To You is available as a limited edition 7” and free download release.

Misty Miller - Next To You (Video)

Misty Miller - Taxi Cab (Video)

The last time we came across Misty Miller she was giving two fingers and a fair few shouts of “f*ck you,” to the noise police who had shut her live set down at Brighton’s Great Escape Festival where she’d been booked to play an outside tented stage clearly designed for quiet acoustic artists, not ballsy dirty rock n roll that was the musical equivalent of shagging against a brick wall in a dark cellar with half your clothes still on and no contraceptive. Maybe the bookers of Great Escape hadn’t realised that Misty had grown up a lot and wasn’t the same artist that we suggested was One To Watch back in 2010.

Now Misty’s back with a video for Taxi Cab, a song that we originally featured last year and will be released as a single on June 16th. Here are the key points that you need to know about this video.

It features zombies.

It features a night bus.

The zombies are quite horny.

Misty seems to find this all quite fun.

So do we.

It's probably not for the easily offended.

That’s it. It’s basically horny Zombies getting horny to horny sounding rock n roll. That’ll do very nicely.

Misty Miller - Taxi Cab (Video)

The Great Escape Festival 2014 - Review (Part 2)

The second day of the fun, frolics and musical mayhem by the sea that is known as Brighton's Great Escape continued in much the same way as the first, with Breaking More Waves joining the music hungry masses to see what tasty delights were available to feed the ears and how many bands it was possible for us to see in three days.

Here are 10 more things we learnt at Great Escape 2014. (Yesterday’s list can be found here).

1. The spirit of rock ‘n’ roll isn’t dead (1)

Scottish two piece Honeyblood brought a glorious lo-fi ness to the Dome Studio. The concept is simple: two girls making a racket with Stina Tweedale’s vocal providing some neat pop melodies underneath her garage band guitars (that’s garage band in the old fashioned sense not the computer software), whilst Shona McVicar bashed away wholeheartedly at the drums. Their just get up there and do it d-i-y approach seemed to be providing dividends as well; this time last year we saw the band at the same venue and the 2014 audience was much fuller, so much so that it was a 1 in 1 out situation, impressive for a mid-afternoon gig.

2. The spirit of rock ‘n’ roll isn’t dead (2)

Even more rock ‘n’ roll than Honeyblood was Misty Miller. Last time we saw Misty live she was a dainty teenager with butter wouldn’t melt looks singing cute ditties about love with a ukulele. Now her image is more goth than sunshine princess and her music is 50’s and 60’s inspired grubbily raw rock ‘n’ roll. Managing to exceed the licenced permissible decibel levels in the outdoor Festival Hub stage Misty was told to stop playing after 15 minutes of her set. Cue a two-fingers to authority moment as Misty told her band to play on and amped up the volume whilst an official climbed on stage and tried to wrestle her microphone away to boos from the audience and yells of ‘fuck you,’ from Misty. 

3. Friday was busier than Thursday

Whereas Thursday got off to a relatively quiet start it appeared that by mid Friday afternoon the world and his wife was at Great Escape with the festival's text notification and twitter services already starting to report a number of venues being at capacity. However we found no problem getting into every venue we wanted to and at one stage despite receiving a notification that one venue was at capacity, arriving three quarters of an hour later in between acts there was plenty of space to get in, so as useful as the text service was it was very of the moment and during the day audience movements were fluid.

4. Breaking More Waves might not always be the first to post the latest buzz band, but we can be the first to post a review of yesterday’s proceedings.

We beat the professionals. Better reviews not bashed out in half an hour before breakfast after 5 hours sleep will surely follow from the pros but our first one was up at 8.30 yesterday morning. We impressed ourselves. Today we're a bit slower at 9.30, but hell we didn't go to bed till nearly 3am. 

5. The worst toilets at The Great Escape are in The Blind Tiger.

Like something out of that scene from Trainspotting.

6.The quiet ones are the ones to watch out for (1).

In the basement of 10 Below, the Lake District’s Tom Higham and Ben Fletcher better known as Aquilo provided one of the sublime moments of the day. Their soothing  tunes were stripped back for a live set that silenced a room that went from being virtually empty 10 minutes before they were due to play to chock-full with a noticeable amount of music industry delegate pass holders. It suggested that whilst Aquilo may not be known to the general public particularly yet, they’re doing all the right things to make that happen in the future. With both of the duo providing soulful choirboy vocals, lush keyboard based ambience and gentle touches of guitar they silenced the crowd with something perfectly crafted and a little bit special. Hear them below.

7. The quiet ones are the ones to watch out for (2).

The toilets might stink of piss but Sophie Jamieson’s songs in the Blind Tiger had a fragile robustness that was musically fragrant. Her shy I-shouldn’t-really-be-here stage presence was transformed the moment she starts playing her mix of Daughter like folk rock, her face full of expression and intensity. The languid atmospherics of her bands guitar work added layer upon layer of goosebumps. What other words are there to describe her music other than gorgeous? None.

8. The quiet ones are the ones to watch out for (3).

Thankfully the toilets in Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar didn’t smell as bad, but Wilsen come from the same school of musical melancholy as Sophie Jamieson. Their dream-folk music swelled with sleepy waves of emotion and beauty, with tunes that were not immediately obvious on first listen, but became an immersive experience as they continued. Once again, gorgeous.

9. If you’re a band and you want to get a big round of applause just tell everyone it’s your guitarist’s first gig.

Indie rockers Shy Nature did that. It wasn’t. But they got the applause.

10. Sometimes you need a sit down.

14 hours of music and nearly all of it in standing venues. We actually praised the lord when we entered the Unitarian Church to watch Lyla Foy and Sea Change and saw chairs. Sometimes a sit down is required. The legs aren’t what they used to be.

If our legs hold out we’ll be doing it all again for a third day and reporting back here soon.

Bands Seen On Friday: Secret Company, Wilsen, Ted Zed, Beautiful Boy, Honeyblood, Misty Miller, Secret Son, Aquilo, Sea Change, Lyla Foy, Sophie Jamieson, Y.O.U, Death At Sea, Shy Nature, Bat And Ball

Here are the important statistics

Number Of Artists Full Performances Seen In Total: 29

Number Of Hours Sleep : 10 ( 5 hours / day)

Fatigue Factor : Moderate to sleepy

Hugs From Artists : 3

Number Of Music Bloggers Randomly Bumped Into : 6

Aquilo - Part Of Your Life

Misty Miller - Taxicab

Trashy, dirty, spunky, underground rock n roll; yes it’s time for another appearance on Breaking More Waves from Misty Miller who gives us another slice of bluesy guitar riffage with new track Taxicab. With hints of early Kings of Leon, The Black Keys and PJ Harvey all present and correct Misty romps her way through a song about the journey home in the back seat all alone after “the worst night she’s ever had, baby’s crying.”

Now what was all that stuff about guitar music coming back earlier this year? Well the UK top 40 singles chart may not be stuffed with it (in fact you have to look very hard to find any at all) but for those happy to peer further outside, there’s still plenty of plucky kids like Misty thrashing away with real zest.

Misty Miller will be playing some live dates supporting Eels in September in Glasgow, Newcastle, Leicester and London followed by a trip down to Breaking More Waves hometown in Portsmouth for Southsea Fest.

Misty Miller - Taxicab

Misty Miller - Anything For You

Have a listen to this. It’s straight up, ballsy rock n roll with just a hint of blues and country. It’s trashy and full of life. It could have been from pretty much any decade but it’s from right here right now. It’s by someone who hasn’t even hit twenty yet. She used to play the ukulele and sing sweet little ditties about love. They were the kind of songs we’d probably have sat back with a glass of sweet lemonade and sighed about missing summer. Now she’s playing like a girl possessed, thrashing out  tunes that we’d like to hear underground in a dirty dark sweaty room, tipsily swigging on a bottle of Jack Daniels and throwing ourselves around in a tangled mess of thrashing heated up bodies.

You want reference points? We did that here. At two minutes and thirty seconds Anything for You doesn’t know the meaning of time wasting. It’s the metaphoric version of kicking the door down in just your underwear, taking a shot at someone’s head and getting out again before anyone has even noticed.

Taken from her 5 track Next To You EP which is due on May 12th, we’re pretty fired up for Misty Miller right now. She's the devil woman and we like it. Right now we'd do anything for her, but to quote Meatloaf we won't do THAT.

Misty Miller - Anything For You

Misty Miller - The Devil

“I often feel people misconstrue me as a musician because of my previous album.” The words on Misty Miller’s Tumblr say everything that needs to be said. Let’s be clear about this; the sweet 16 year old folky ukulele singer is long gone. The reference points now are something very different. Some of the things we hear when we hear Misty Miller in 2012 are 50’s rock n roll, The Headcoatees, Pulp Fiction, Karen-O, guitars, Patti Smith, Hanging out in garages smoking, PJ Harvey, staying up all night drinking, The Sonics, basement gigs, black leather jackets, lost weekends and David Lynch.

This is Misty Miller version 2.0. Version 1.0 was sweet, clean and nice to take home to the parents. Version 2.0 is raw, rougher, ballsy and far less likely to nauseate you on the fourth listen. Your parents will still like her though because her new music will probably remind them of something they liked in the past.

Yesterday Misty uploaded 5 new songs to the internet under the simple title EP. Our favourite is The Devil. A grainy and nostalgic torch song we visualise Misty playing this at the end of the night, in a darkened room, single spotlight on her before heavy velvet curtains close around her. You can hear the other songs on the EP here.

Misty Miller - The Devil

Misty Miller - Horns On

The seed of a clue had already been planted late last year when Misty Miller appeared on her facebook under the caption “a preview of what’s to come,”  dressed in black, sneering at the camera, holding devil horn fingers above her head.

Cut forward to 2012 and five new songs have been whacked up on line. Fans expecting more of the same sentimentally sugary sweet ditties strummed on ukele about romance will probably have had to sit down. Because Misty has formed a band called Slit Lizard, got out the electric guitar and recorded with ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler. It’s fair to say she's done something of a 180 degree musical turn. Suddenly her songs are embracing the dirty, bluesy, rough, lo-fi world of rock ‘n’ roll.

You can find all of Misty’s new material, (which is a little like a cross breed experiment between The White Stripes and Kitty, Daisy and Lewis) from the sweaty stomp of Lovesick Blues to the lonesome storm of Crushed Velvet over at her Soundcloud. The standout tune for us is the sad slow-burning torch song Horns On, which streams below. “You broke me and now I’m putting my horns on,” Misty sings with some gusto against the backing of a solitary electric guitar. We can’t help but wonder what sadness she’s been through over the last couple of years.

This is a new chapter for Misty Miller and it certainly makes us want to turn the page to see what happens next. 

Misty Miller - Horns On

Misty Miller - Tiptoe Through The Bluebells / Wild Thing

Here is something that both visually and musically can only be described as pretty. Misty Miller has recorded a version of a song by Nick Lucas - Tiptoe Through The Tulips - which hit the top of the charts in May 1929. Yes you read that correctly; 1929. Did you know the charts even existed then?

She’s not the first to cover the song though as she follows in the footsteps of California rock group The Humane Society as well as Tiny Tim who took the track back into the charts in the late 60’s.

The concept behind the song is to draw people's attention to the huge importance of protecting the UK's ancient woodlands. The song was released through I Tunes this week and all proceeds from the song will be given to the Woodland Trust.

Fashion fans may be interested to know that the beautiful dress that Misty wears in the video, which makes her look like part of the forest itself was designed by Matthew Williamson. But don’t go running down to Top Shop to grab one because it is the only one in existence. The film was shot in Heartwood Forest, St Albans and the photo above was shot by Phil Lockwood.

Besides the single, in other Misty Miller news her album is now streaming in full on Soundcloud (here) and we’re presenting one of our favourite tracks from the album – Wild Thing – for you to listen to below. Did we mention the word pretty? That’s exactly what it is. Pretty uke-pop-folkin' brilliant.

Wild Thing by Misty Miller

Misty Miller - Little Thing Called Love / Why Try To Change Me Now

Of the ten artists on our Ones to Watch 2011 list, teenager Misty Miller could be described as the ‘token folk act’ but this would be widely inaccurate; because there was nothing tokenistic in our selection. Quite simply we adore her innocent songs that have already received the blessing of BBC Radio 1’s Rob Da Bank and Vogue magazine.

Her forthcoming single Little Thing Called Love is quite appropriately being released in the UK on Valentine’s Day and streams below. A delightful summery ditty about teenage love, kissing under the full moon and those moments when you can't sleep because it all seems so exciting; Little Thing Called Love is sentimentally sweet and touching in its simplicity.

Misty has also announced a string of live dates in London and one other show out of the city, which rather surprisingly and very happily we’re pleased to announce is our hometown of Portsmouth on the February 22. In terms of providing the freshest, newest and best bands on the live circuit Portsmouth often loses out to its bigger cousin down the road – Brighton. For example this week Portsmouth’s latest gig additions include Brother, The Pigeon Detectives and The View, it’s hardly inspiring stuff. However you can 100% guarantee we’ll be at the Misty Miller show, in fact we’re cancelling a proposed trip to see Jamie Woon in Brighton that night to catch Misty live.

Besides the single which you can play, there's a recently released video of Misty Miller covering the fifties classic Why Try to Change Me Now, written by Cy Coleman. It was filmed whilst on the set for the shoot of A Little Thing Called Love – you may have previously heard versions of the song by Frank Sinatra and Fiona Apple. It’s whimsically lovely and wouldn't surprise us if it inspires a few more misunderstood teenagers (here, here, here and even the boys here) to pick up the ukulele and have a go - it's becoming quite a cult. If you live on the UK south coast why not treat yourself to a trip to the Eastney Cellars, Portsmouth and watch Misty play in February? Tickets are available here and here.

Misty Miller - Little Thing Called Love by Breaking More Waves

Misty Miller - Ones to Watch 2011 #3

With an appearance in Vogue, a session with Radio 1’s Rob da Bank and a low key slot on the bandstand at Bestival 2010, 16 year old London-born ukulele genius and singer songwriter Misty Miller is doing all the right things to get noticed; but this would all be for nothing if she didn’t have good songs to back her up. Thankfully she does. For Misty performs the sweetest of folk songs coated with a melodic pop edge that have a hint of the early Kate Nash demo recordings such as Birds before she got all pop then angry. Misty started writing songs when she was only 8 or 9, and after receiving the ukulele as a gift from her father has proceeded to develop her sound using this instrument. Her debut EP Remember was released late September in 2010, and her next single is due in the new year.

There’s something very old fashioned about the structures of Misty Miller’s songs – Evergreen Love could quite easily have been performed by Elvis Presley and she cites influences including Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan and rockabilly music – not quite what you’re average 16 year old X Factor obsessed teenage girl is listening to. The words of her songs are however filled with the aspirations and feelings of a typical girl of her age, but are delivered with a maturity and poignancy that shows her to be a significant talent. With an album already recorded in between revision breaks for exams at school, Misty Miller is hardly likely to be competing with the One Directions and Justin Biebers of this world – and she’s all the better for it.