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

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.

Considering it was “technically” day three for NXNE, you may find it odd that I should call this post “day 2″. The reason is that “day 1″ was such a write-off (for me it consisted of the opening night party and watching one of the worst acts ever at The Drake, which I refuse to name, before I decided to pack it up and call it a night). Thursday, June 18th was PEACE DOT LOVE, a festival promoting and supporting local anti-violence initiatives in Toronto that consisted of a plethora of amazing Toronto acts. This festival also happened to be  sponsored in part by iheartthemusic, so it was lots of work (but we always have room for pleasure). Thus bringing me to Friday, June 19th, the official start to my NXNE experience. The night went something like this: Yonge & Dundas Square – Hard Rock Cafe – Yonge & Dundas – Lee’s Palace – home. Not that much travel, but I needed to ease into the week slowly.

I decided to start the evening with heading to Yonge and Dundas Square to catch East Coast sensation In-Flight Safety perform. After releasing their latest album, We Are An Empire, My Dear, back in January, I was stoked to be able to see them perform live in Toronto. The crowd in attendance was definitely full of fans and it was nice to see people from all walks of life and ages out to see the show.

Next it was a mad rush across the street to the Hard Rock Cafe (a venue that I was entirely not familiar with) to see Ottawa pop/rock group Benefit of a Doubt perform. These guys just recently came off a tour with Norglen and are a band that I have been personally loving for quite some time. Having not been able to catch them during CMW in March, I made sure I was in attendance for their NXNE appearance. Unfortunately for them (and the rest of NXNE attendees) the venue was a huge hindrance. It was like the Hard Rock was the uncool kid that no one wanted to go near. The only people present were clearly there for the food and not the music. This did not, however, faze the foursome on stage as they rocked out harder than most bands we saw that week who played to sold out shows. They opened the show with what I was told was a band favourite to play, “We Are The Broken”, which saw lead vocalist Chase’s voice hit notes that I wouldn’t dare attempt. The overall feel in the room shifted as they began to play. People became mesmerized by their stage presence and forgot about their plates. Chase played barefoot, the band headbanged in unison and they all looked like they were having an awesome time! This band shows no signs of slowing down and I predict they will only get better and bigger.

After their set we didn’t have to venture too far to see the next act, which was Wintersleep who was playing back at Yonge & Dundas Square. This was a show that could not be missed as they rarely venture to Toronto (since they are too busy touring the world). Although my height caused viewing difficulties, I managed to take note of their keyboardist literally balancing on one leg while he playing (impressive to say the least). Everyone was singing along to the well-known tunes and I literally have nothing else to say except that there could have been a bit more stage presence. After seeing the first two bands of the night perform, Wintersleep was a bit of a let down in that regard. However, it was still great to see them live and we managed to grab some awesome shots for your enjoyment!

The last stop of the night was Lee’s Palace to catch one of the hot ticket acts of the week – L.A. duo No Age. Before they were about to go on we managed to catch the last few songs of Seattle group The Dead Science. They are described as “creative experimental pop” and honestly, that is precisely what you get. With a drummer, a guitarist and a guy that appears to play the cello like it is a guitar, their sound is anything but conventional. The lead singer alternated from a high pitched soprano-type voice to a soft whisper (which was a little bit distracting at times) and managed to sing on his toes! The highlight was their technical skill. The drummer banged on the drums without a hitch and the cello player literally rocked out as hard as anyone could on a classical instrument. I would suggest checking them out if only to see (perhaps) where the future of music is taking us!

There was so much hype surrounding the two guys that make up No Age that I was pretty excited to see what it was all about. I know that this band has a very loyal following so I don’t want to piss anyone off… but, I must confess that I did not enjoy it one bit. Although they were engaging as an act, I could hardly make out what Dean was saying and Randy appeared to be in his own world on the guitar. The crowd were clearly MASSIVE fans and they created probably the biggest mosh pit that Lee’s has seen, which continued for the entire duration of their set. I believe that at one point Dean revealed that he just puked in his mouth and then swallowed it. I’m not sure if that is what turned me off the most or if it was the amount of kiddies around me snorting lines. Two thumbs down from me.