I Heart the Music: Your Online Source for Live Music Reviews and Interviews in Toronto!

Day two of CMW for iheartthemusic saw us at the Opera House to review the completely sold-out show featuring Saukrates, Woodhands and headliner K-OS.  CBC radio were taping the concert live so the entire event had huge buzz and the excitement was rampant throughout the building.

Toronto hip-hop and R&B artist Saukrates opened the show and definitely set the tone of the evening.  He came out backed up by a live band and we especially have to give props to his guitarist who was just wicked onstage.  It’s always great when a band backs a hip-hop artist because it just takes this genre of music to a whole new level.  A master lyricist and performer, Saukrates was really versatile and sang R&B ballads, rapped and even ended with a harder, grittier, rock infused song where yes.. he head banged with his awesome dreadlocked mane. It was impressive to watch an artist rev up a hip-hop crowd, then bring them down to create an intimate, emotional space and then finish things off with really high energy. It was a true testament to both Saukrates’ experience and ability to connect with his audience.

Next came Woodhands’ Dan Werb and Paul Banwatt who played numbers from Heart Attack and their new album Remorsecapade. This performance was highly anticipated and definitely ended up being the highlight of the night; these guys were just unbelievable! Woodhands had wicked momentum and boundless energy; it was kind of like Girl Talk fused with jungle percussion and Werb’s distinct punk/hip hop vocals and utter craziness were only made even more magical accompanied by a frenetic driving bass and our favourite instrument: the keytar. Melanie Todd accompanied them for two songs, which were a lighter, cuter version of what Woodhands are known for. During the concert, the scene changed from a just a live show to an all out Ibiza style electro rave. Woodhands’ sound is so current, postmodern and totally rare to the Toronto music scene and only left us wanting more.

Headliner and seasoned pro K-OS restored order and closed the show with classic hits and new numbers from his albums like “Bounce”, “Heaven Only Knows” and “Sunday Morning”.  Also backed by a full band and DJ, K-OS freestyled, did some old school beat boxing, sang, played acoustic guitar and harmonica and did a wicked song over Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” that made for an awesome marriage of Hip Hop and Rock and Roll. Anyone who has seen K-OS live knows that the man has stage presence and swagger.

All told, Opera House was on fire last Thursday.  People were chanting lyrics, dancing and even the occasional joint was lit up—much to the dismay of Opera House security. It was really a great show…definitely one of CMW’s best this year. 

As reviewed by Victoria Kuketz

photography provided by  Mike Palmer

I want to get soapy with you! This is not some weird sexual innuendo, but rather the opening lines to Peter Chapman’s aka Peter Project’s latest EP Fresh. Cleanliness or “freshness” is the theme of the album, which is not only provided through the packaging; the album is in fact a bar of soap in the form of an iPod with a download card embedded within, but he makes use of nods to staying clean throughout the album. From song titles such as “Rubbing Garbage” to comparisons to germs and war such as on “The Quest for extreme personal freshness” Peter uses analogies to push this theme even further (and get you to stay clean in the process). Actually, this obsession with cleanliness is probably the only consistent thing on the album.

The album encompasses many musical genres/styles/sounds, which clearly supports the generation of add’ers who are constantly on the lookout for the latest single and have the attention span to match. Chapman supports those individuals by providing an album made up entirely of singles; each song independent of the other with no real cohesiveness throughout. Although the EP is comprised of a mere five songs, you are left feeling satisfied, or at least for the few seconds in between listening to songs on your iPod. Is it a play on our digital generation perhaps? Maybe, but either way it makes for unique packaging that clearly won’t go to waste!

It is hard to figure this EP out since it jumps so much from song to song. As far as being worth purchasing? It is hard to say. Much like the nature of the album, jumping from one song to the next without any sense of cohesiveness is sadly where we are headed these days with downloading becoming so accessible, so perhaps he has it right. If this speaks to you or if you are into gimmicky packaging (or a new bar of soap) then check out this album. One thing is for sure, you will stay clean in the process!

If the name 84.85 isn’t familiar to you, don’t be mad.  These two dudes are seemingly flying right under most people’s radar.  While most take the express lane to success, Jay and Cass are taking their time with things, allowing themselves to work out every kink as they hone their craft and make sure you lose your minds when you do finally hear them.  But don’t call them electro-rap – these two are straight hip-hop heads who just have the need to make you dance.  While that may be too much for hip-hop fans to take in, don’t worry about it – the dirty basslines and faster-than-usual tempo shouldn’t stop you from giving props where props are due.

iheartthemusic sat down for a less-than-typical interview.  This wasn’t a Q & A; it was a conversation between a few people over a couple of drinks to get a better sense of where they come from.  So while some questions remain, you get a better insight into who they are and what they want you to feel when you’re ripping up on the dance floor with your hands in the air.

iheartthemusic: You guys have found that balance between doing shows frequently, but just enough to build an anticipation to your next show.  Few peeps can really boast that.

Jay: Well, everyone thinks playing more shows equals success, but what we realized is when Cass moved back to Ottawa and we started to get booked more, playing twice a month or whenever he’d come back [to Toronto], half our fans and friends would come to each of them.  They know we’re playing again.  So for the past 4 or 5 months, we’ve played one show [a month].  One show and make an event out of it.  Make sure it gets press, make sure we have a photographer there, and make sure that at each of those shows is a huge event.  I don’t want to play the Social, Wrongbar and the Drake every week.  Maybe as a DJ, yeah.  But for us – one show a month and make it fucking crazy.

iheartthemusic: Your last few shows have gone really well for you guys.  When I saw you at the Boat, I showed up for the last 2 songs, but it was nuts!

Cass: Well that’s the best part.  For the last few months, we changed our sets to have “40 and a Fistfight” first, because everyone shuts up – especially with the “Billie Jean” sample at the beginning.  Then we tear it back down after and build all the way back up.

iheartthemusic: The other thing too is that you guys have so many choruses that are just so catchy, and you end up getting people to sing along to words they didn’t even know before they showed up that night.

Cass: When we started working together, 90% of the music we made was chorus-less because I thought I didn’t know how to write a chorus.

Jay: And I wouldn’t let him.  I’d be like “Ok, let’s do like a 4 bar instrumental thing, we don’t need choruses.”

Cass: I just always thought choruses were really hard to write, but they’re not.

iheartthemusic: And it’s funny to hear how those choruses have made their way around – I remember when TMDP had their CD release party, they started with a sample of “40 and a Fistfight’s” chorus.

Jay: Funny story about that is we gave them the acapella, and we never got a remix from them, they just started using it in their live show.  So, when they played Circa for the NOW Sounds of Toronto show, Barletta was there because Mansion was playing that night as well, and he saw what happened when TMDP played it.  I got a call at 2 in the morning from Barletta saying, “I NEED the stems from 40 and a Fistfight.”  Days later, he sent us 2 remixes. We get played a ton in Toronto, but it’s not us, it’s Barletta’s edit.

Cass: It’s super hard, too.  When I first heard it, I was like “holy fuck.”  Barletta’s actually a really supportive person in this scene.

iheartthemusic: Absolutely, and I think everyone in Toronto is very supportive of each other – going to each other’s shows and showing a lot of respect to one another.

Cass: That’s the thing – when people talk shit about Toronto, I get really pissed off.  The music scene here is unbelievable.  It’s unbelievable to see how supportive everyone is.  Everyone wants to help; everyone wants to throw in two cents.

Jay: But you’ve gotta be putting it down, though.

Cass: That’s true.  Especially these days where anyone can go on their computer and bang something out.

Jay: When we first started making music in Ottawa, and I moved back to Toronto, neither of us really knew what we were doing.  We had tracks but we didn’t know whether they were that good yet, but they weren’t ready.

Cass: They were recorded so badly.

Jay: People were really nice to me about it, but no one was willing to put us on.  To this day, we’re not really known for the highest quality audio out there; we’re known for putting on a pretty good live show.

Cass: That’s really the science that we’re messing with right now – how do we capture our live show and put it on a record?

iheartthemusic: Speaking of the scene in Toronto, it’s always good to see some collaborative efforts amongst local artists, and I heard that you’ve done a couple of verses on some TapeDeckBros. tracks.

Cass: Well me and the TapeDeck guys are working on something right now, and I think we’re gonna start with 1 track, but I was telling Ash that when I come back to Toronto, I’m gonna try and spend more time with him and work on more stuff.  It’s cool collaborating with other people.  It can be hard to work with anyone but Jay sometimes, because my entire experience of making music has been with Jay.  He knows how to get good shit out of me.

Jay: But it’s important to work with other people.  I support that 100%, just as Cass supports me doing remixes for other artists.  I mean, I love those TapeDeck guys.

Cass: I’m really impressed with their work ethic.  They came out the gate hard, and they’re throwing down as hard as they can.  That’s what it’s about.

ihearthemusic: Listening to your tracks, there are definitely a lot of influences that come through.

Cass: I think it’s important to pay respects to where you came from, and I know where I came from.  I know what I grew up listening to.  Two artists that have stayed with me since I was around 14 are Jay-Z and Mos Def. You’ve got a very talented commercial side and a very talented artistic side, and my goal is to be somewhere between them.  But your influences always change because we’re always listening to different music.  Last year, I listened to so much hard electronic music.

Jay: That’s a funny thing for us too, because we were both hip-hop kids growing up, and other things just snuck in.  I was listening to the same stuff Cass was listening to, but then got into jazz, funk and soul through hip-hop samples.  Cass also had a sister who was really big into punk, and so Cass might’ve gotten a bit of a punk influence through that.  But at the end of the day, we were just two hip-hop kids and that’s all we really listened to.  When we started doing dance music and listening to dance music, we realized “wait, what happened to the hip-hop?”  So when you hear songs where we slow it down a bit, it’s because we’re still a hip-hop act.

Cass: We can still make people dance at 90 BPM; it doesn’t have to be at 130.  And don’t get me wrong; I love the fast stuff – like Bass Live, for example.  I don’t even have to rap on that.  People lose their minds when that comes on, but it’s nice to slow it down, and it’s nice to add different dynamics to the set because you want to give people different sides to your music.

Jay: It was a couple of months ago that we realized that a lot of the stuff we’re making now isn’t really electro.  All the old stuff like “40 and a Fistfight,” “Breathe,” and “Don’t Worry” were all distorted bass lines and what not.  Now the stuff we’re making involve big drums, samples and that sort of thing.  I slowly stopped doing electro remixes because I realized that that wasn’t what I was about – I’m a hip-hop producer who’s doing dance music.

iheartthemusic: If you go back and listen to “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force, that’s an entirely different sound, but it’s still classified as hip-hop.

Jay: Exactly, and those are the roots of hip-hop.  I was reading an interview with Egyptian Lover, and they asked him “how does it feel to be the pioneer of electro?”  His response basically described that as much as he appreciated being considered the pioneer of the genre, that’s not what he set out to do.  He was making rap music in Detroit in the 80’s, and that’s the sound that came from that.  They weren’t making a different genre; to them, it was rap music.  That’s kind of what it’s about for us.

Cass: We’re at the point where people are trying to call us ‘electro-rap.’  Really?  This is hip-hop!  There’s a DJ and an MC, and yeah, some of it’s fast, but it’s still hip-hop to us.

iheartthemusic: So with this new lane that you guys are making for yourselves, is there an album coming?

Cass: I think the problem with us is that I feel very ambitious about an album, but I think it’s better for us to go on singles until we make the album we want to make.  I want to make something epic.  An album is meant to be your masterpiece.  It should be mind blowing, and it should be meant to be heard front to back.

Jay: We’re putting out an EP that we’ll be selling at shows starting July 17^th, but I totally agree with what Cass says.  We come from an era of albums, even though the market right now is very single-focused.  Right now, everything we’re doing is for our live show – that’s our bread and butter.  Every track we make is to contribute to the illest live show we can put on.  We’re all about paying dues.  Hip-hop was started as a live art.  There weren’t records cut when hip-hop was started.  That’s where we’re at right now.  We’re only known for our live set – that’s how we come up.  So, by the time an album comes out, we’ve already done as many shows as possible and we know how to rock it – I don’t think a lot of artists have that these days.

IF you’re still not convinced, don’t hesitate to check the 84.85 as they tear up Wrongbar this Friday, July 17^th, AND as an added bonus to the weekend, Jay will be doing a special DJ set as his alter ego, Lucy ‘Lo, spinning some real deep house at Sneaky Dee’s on Saturday, July 18th. You’re guaranteed to see iheartthemusic at both of those shows, so come holla on the dance floor.

Photos by Patricio Estebar and Amy Young.

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