Bio

Oakland’s own Jamie Way has the Blues musician’s mentality both on and off record. With a master’s degree in the art of couch surfing, a PHD in the modern day nomad and a vast experience in the studies of endless migration, he makes his living by playing from town to town. “Just keep moving while living out of your suitcase” is what Jamie tells us. Yet, in his case it’s a bass case. He said it was only a matter of time that his bass playing and M.Cing would come together; and they did on this real cool blue tone sound for his debut self titled solo album. There is an aggressive raw honesty to his songs and stage presence that has allowed him to tour with Timbuktu through-out Scandinavia and open up for EL-P in Oslo just this last April. I guess it can be assumed that, that same energy allowed him to perform with his group Grifter City twice at the 2007 SXSW as well. His style has been compared to Atmosphere and an early XZIBIT. To sound cliché he writes about his daily life and the crap that we all got to go through. When you match that with a raspy voice- those comparisons make sense. He is being flown out to Norway this summer to help produce Chris Lee’s (the other member of Grifter City) solo album which will be released under the Norwegian label Bonnier early next fall. Always looking for the next step, the next improvement, the next improv movement is what keeps Jamie Way hungry. Could it be because he has attention issues and wants to be the center of the party? Or does he really love the music and doesn’t want to dig ditches for a living. It’s up to you to figure that out.