Biography

It was a long since forgotten night in 2003 when Patrick Bird and Martyn Savigar created Beats for Bars – music drawn from every genre and mashed up in ways previously unimaginable into your ideal soundtrack. Volume II was made in 2005 – same concept, different material. You can still hear both Volumes of Beats for Bars in the cool bars of West London, and there are still arguments about which one is better.

And so Caned & Able was spawned...

There were no plans to do anything commercially with Caned & Able, but before we knew it we were recording original material and it was simply a case of whoever was in the room at the time was in the band. Paolo Ogliari was brought in to assist on production, and by 2008 the debut album "Smoke..." was released on Malicious Damage Records (alongside The Orb, Killing Joke, Shriekback).

Again using a hybrid of vocal, acoustic and electro styles, the album was revered as the stoner's perfect soundtrack. The very first recording of Caned & Able was a track called "Deuteronomy", and though there is an alternative version on "Smoke..." the original version was released after the album as an EP. The rest of 2008 was a bit of an experimental period that saw Caned & Able getting into remixing, working with artists such as The Verve, Maple Bee and The Sun Paulo.

2009 was when we dipped our toes into the live DJ scene – well sort of... We played for Lily Allen at her "It's Not Me, It's You" album launch party, playing with The Orb at Malicious Damage events, along with countless DJ sets in Selfridges on Oxford Street, London. The mashups were still happening too, with "Superchunk" mixes being broadcast on Xfm and championed by the wonderful Eddy Temple-Morris.

The end of 2009 saw Trickster losing his Dad to lung cancer, which is the reason why Caned & Able recorded a tribute to him, entitled "All I Wish..." – an album of poignant cover versions of seven of The Cure's lesser-known songs. All proceeds from this record go to Cancer Research UK. In reality, "All I Wish..." was an album of remixes of our cover versions. The full versions are to be found on the 2010 album entitled "The Cure" released on PSB Music. This record saw the return of Chris Bell on drums for Caned & Able – he played on "Smoke..." along with Jon Klein, who also plays on all albums to date.

Nearly there – 2010 was the year that Caned & Able settled down into what they now consider to be "their style". With two albums in progress at the same time and with the arrival of new co-producer Raj Vivekananthan, all sorts of unexpected tangents were occurring.

Chris recorded his drums in one night – nuff said. A couple of weeks later, an old friend of Raj's turns up at the studio. Enter Big G...

The rest is history.

In Spring 2011 we were joined by Mel Draisey on keyboards, vocals and strings, with Gary Means on bass.

After a series of blazing live shows at the "Dark Matter" album launches and UK festivals last year, the band mixed "Black To Comm" – the new Primal Scream concert album and DVD.

The new album "Cosmosis" is now finished and ready for touring in 2012 – this promises to be a great year for Caned & Able.