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

The first ever Peace Dot Love music festival took place during NXNE at the Koolhaus. It was a musical tribute to Dylan Ellis and Oliver Martin who were gunned down in a parked car in June 2008, a horrible crime that has yet to be solved. The fest was put on by 102.1 the Edge, D.O. It! (an organization formed to raise funds for youth violence prevention groups), LOVE and Peacebuilders International in partnership with NXNE (as well as some other sponsors, including iheartthemusic).

It began with DJ duo TMDP. Despite their early start time they had the crowd that was there grooving to their tunes. It wasn’t a large crowd, but that didn’t seem to affect the tunes coming off the turntables as these consummate professionals performed with the same energy as when iheartthemusic witnessed them spin to an at-capacity Circa crew. (If you missed them you can see them at the TIME Festival at Sound Academy on July 25.)

Stereos were met with a plethora of pre-pubescent screams from the throngs of teenyboppers who rushed the stage. Personally I thought it sounded like watered down radio dribble with too much auto-tune. However, I also think the latest album from Black Eyed Peas had too much auto-tune and Stereo’s song “Summer Girl” was number one on iTunes so they mustn’t be doing much wrong (but I’d be hard pressed to pick out what they were doing exceptionally right). In any case, the PG-13 prepubescent portion of the Koolhaus seemed to dig it as they screamed and sang along to every song, including “She Only Likes Me When I’m Drunk” (love the title). Perhaps it’s just a matter of taste… or lack thereof.

Feeling Stereo-ed out, I popped through the rabbit hole into the side room where I discovered a polar bear playing bass, an Elton John-looking lead singer and a percussion apparatus that resembled a mix between Dick Van Dyke’s instrumental outfit in Mary Poppins and a medieval torture contraption. The band sounded like a lot of fun… unfortunately no one was able to tell me who they were (if you’re reading this and you know the answer, let us know).

True to form Down With Webster gave a high-octane performance. This large ensemble band is an amalgamation of high energy electro with large doses of rap and rock. One of the highlights was the when the drummer had a fun video game soundtrack solo (the low light was when one of the silly members threw beer on our photographer, not cool dude!). Even when they experienced some technical difficulties they kept the crowd entertained by busting out a freestyle. And they were entertaining, I even spotted some parents grooving to their tunes.

Simultaneously We Are the Take had a work out on the stage next door. These boys played so hard they were quite literally dripping with sweat. The passion in playing engaged the crowd who seemed fully immersed (or should I say “taken in”) by the band. These guys always put on a good show and are clearly garnering a devout fan following.

Dragonette was nothing less than awesome. iheartthemusic had the pleasure of speaking to the husband and wife team before the show and learned that they were truly there to support the cause, which they spoke very well of [stay tuned for that interview, we talked music, fashion and spilling sauce on sneakers in Japan... apparently a no-no as it takes a while for the smell to go away]. Their performance was dynamic and a highlight for many of the festival goers. One word: awesome!

Closing out the night was USS (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker). Phew, if you weren’t tired already you would have been by just watching these two guys fly around stage, doing handstands and bouncing with the crowd. Lots of energy and a wonderful way to end a wonderful festival. With so many great performances I look forward to see how they top this next year.

Written by Emer Schlosser

Photography by Carl Heindl

iheartthemusic was caught up with the foursome that make up We Are The Take – Erik, Craig, Andrew, and Kevin – when they played a recent gig at Tattoo. They continually amaze us with their pop-rock sound, so, if you haven’t yet, be sure to be amazed when they return to Tattoo this Saturday (April 18^th) when they will be bringing down the house with Thriving Ivory. In the meantime, check out our chat with WATT’s Kevin and Andrew.

iheartthemusic: Since we saw you last, you guys have been playing quite a few shows!

Kevin: Yah, a couple of weeks ago we were at Mod Club and last week we were at the El Mocambo. That was a lot of fun and was for another charity as well.

Andrew: We’ve had the fortunate habit of playing a few charity shows as of late and it’s been hard to keep track.

iheartthemusic: So how important is it for you to be a part of these events?

Kevin: We have a number of reasons for coming on board; I mean, we obviously support the charity. Morgan from Birds of Wales asked us to do the one tonight and we’ve known him for a while now. We are always happy to play and to play for a good cause is a bonus. Everyone has a great vibe about them tonight.

Andrew: That’s always the thing about charity gigs, you find that there are a lot of people with like minds in the room, which is always a plus. Everyone is here for the same reason and it’s nice to get them all in the same room and for us to be able to do what we do.

iheartthemusic: Your sound appears to have a bit of a Brit pop influence to it, is that right?

Kevin: We don’t generally fit into the Canadiana roots rock thing. We are all fans of that but that’s not what we are doing. We are a pop band that has been influenced by everything under the sun. We just want it to look good and we want to look clean.

Andrew: I think we are electric!

Kevin: We’re electric!

iheartthemusic: Any musical influences?

Andrew: Tons! The Beatles, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, The Tragically Hip.

Kevin: We love a lot of British bands like Kasabian and Coldplay, anything with good melody. I went to jazz school so [for me] it was pretty much everything that had a good melody and grooved and made people want to dance and feel good. That’s sort of what we want to do.

Andrew: We’ve been fortunate as of late to play with some good Canadian bands. We just played with the Arkells and The Waking Eyes. Once you’ve played with a band a few times you get kind of caught up in it and you aren’t as concerned with checking them out when they are playing because you are more worried about your performance, but after playing with them I am now a huge fan of both. I even bought both records and have been listening to them like crazy! So it’s nice to kind of pull things away from the bands you are playing with and take little pieces as you go along; that’s something that’s fun and helps with learning and growing.

Kevin: And stealing!!

Andrew: And stealing!

Kevin: I think Einstein said, well I’m not going to quote Einstein, but it was something like the best thing to do is to hide your influences.

Andrew: I think what you meant to say was that E=MC2.

iheartthemusic: [laughs] There you go! Speaking of playing with these two great acts, do you find that there is a real sense of community amongst Toronto bands?

Kevin: It’s been rather difficult for us. I mean, we have played with a lot of really great acts, but we haven’t found the same sort of fit. Recently, with the Arkells and The Waking Eyes, we felt that that was great. We are doing different things but it was great to play with bands that were kind of similar. In terms of a community, we have played with a bunch of nice people that are really successful at what they are doing. Like Lights, we played shows with her a few months ago. I mean, talk about way different types of music. At the end of the day we just aren’t picky, whoever will listen.

iheartthemusic: Any touring coming up for you guys in the near future?

Kevin: We’ve just been Ontario-based with the exception of Montreal and we really want to change that. We were lucky enough to have one of our songs get on a TV show that aired across the States. There was a lot of beautiful response from people all over the country and we haven’t been able to get there. We haven’t even been to B.C. or the East Coast. Erik speaks French and we would love to go to France. I mean, there is so much we want to do, but we are trying to be patient and get our live thing together. You only get one chance to make an impression.

iheartthemusic: I also know you aren’t a signed band. Do you have reservations to being signed at all?

Andrew: It’s been a personal choice and has a lot to do with what’s going on in the industry right now. We’ve seen a lot of close friends get major label deals and get their album shelved for a while and then get dropped. We’re not shying away from signing with an indie label or a major label, but we have to work towards what we want and what our personal plan is because we have been working hard for this.

Kevin: We’re focused right now on building it on a really grassroots level. We are just trying to do it ourselves from the bottom up. It’s been a blessing and a curse. A big part of us wants to sign to a label and get a video and exposure, but at the same time we lose a lot of control and right now that’s one thing we can use to our advantage.

Andrew: It’s all we have at the moment. I mean, we play everyday together as a group, writing and practicing, and everything we put out there is exactly what we want and that’s kind of nice. It’s all internal right now.

iheartthemusic: Tonight it appeared that “Montreal Love Song” was a song that everyone was pumped to hear. Do you think that that is indicative of the industry and how the single is taking over the album?

Kevin: I think it is really difficult to write singles and smash hits and it’s difficult to say, but I think writing, for us as a group, is an organic thing.

Andrew: No one knows what a single is.

Kevin: There have been a lot of surprises too.

Andrew: We have a five song EP out now, but we have recorded 12 songs, and when we did they were 12 similar but different sounding songs; not because we had any intention of the single, but because we are growing as a group and each song is a testament to that.

Kevin: The single always helps your casual listener get into you, though. You need that and if it’s “Montreal Love Song” that people need to listen to to see what we do, then who cares.

iheartthemusic: So Kevin, you have a jazz background, but does the rest of the band have some kind of musical backing?

Kevin: I think we all just said let’s pick up an instrument and play and impress the girls. That’s what you do when you are a 13-year-old boy.

Andrew: We all have different stories. For me personally, my mom sort of forced me into playing piano when I was little. That was the foundation of it and then I stopped and then picked up the bass at around 12 or 13.

iheartthemusic: When did the trumpet come in for you?

Andrew: I played the trumpet all through high school. I put it down as of grade 13thirteen and thought I was never going to be playing that instrument again. It’s back though, but I’m still working on it.

iheartthemusic: So what’s the next step for We Are The Take?

Andrew: We’ve done the festivals and we are hoping to get invited back to Virgin Festival again. It’s all about just getting our show tighter and tighter and hopefully get on a tour some time soon.

Kevin: We would love to go coast to coast. That’s a huge, huge goal for us soon. We would love to get on the radio, but that’s hard to do without a video. We shot a video but it’s having trouble getting finished and if it gets finished I think that it is going to be amazing. It’s for the song “Dreams”. In the meantime, we are going to just keep doing what we are doing and let the song writing and the music be first.

photography provided by Carl Heindl

When it comes to music that supports a great cause, iheartthemusic is a huge advocate! So when we saw that STAND Canada – an organization made up of students who got together to raise awareness and champion for Darfur – were throwing a benefit concert at Tattoo, we knew we had to be there. The event took place on April 2^nd and had two incredible bands playing in support of this charity, We Are The Take and Birds of Wales, with all tickets sales going towards the charity.

The night started off with a band that are no strangers to iheartthemusic as we were introduced to them back in February when they opened for the Arkells and The Waking Eyes. We are talking about We Are The Take who played an incredible set that night. These guys never fail to amaze us,  however, it did take the audience some time to warm up to them as the floor was virtually empty until the end of their performance. They played all the songs off of their debut EP, such as “Dreams” and “Tenterhooks”, and they even introduced a new one, “Fire”, which was sung almost entirely by Craig with Kevin coming out from behind his drum kit to sing along (they also had bassist Andrew play some trumpet, which I am told he hasn’t done since high school!) A crowd favourite had to have been “Montreal Love Song”, which vocalist Erik said was pretty self-explanatory and is about falling in love with a girl from Montreal (I wonder who that may be…). This is one of the tightest bands we have seen perform live, and they are getting better each time we see them.

Next on the bill were the four guys from Birds of Wales. Lead vocalist Morgan sang incredibly well and was able to get people on the floor dancing to groove along with their country-rock tunes. Though Morgan had played an acoustic set previously that day at a MySpace secret show, he was still happy and excited to be playing for the second time that evening. They played all the hits, including “Cinderella (has nothing on you)” and a few love songs that were dedicated to various female audience members. The only rather disappointing thing was that the crowd appeared to filter out. We weren’t sure if that was due to the fact that it was a Thursday night and people had to work the next day, or that they were only there to see We Are The Take, either way it was their loss as Birds know how to rock.

Birds of Wales are a band that garnered much hype a few years ago and have since been touring the UK with such heavy hitters as Xavier Rudd. When we sat down and spoke with Morgan he explained to us that they have already recorded their album and are just waiting to release it. Well, after seeing them live we are certainly hoping that that will be very soon!

photography provided by Carl Heindl

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