Here's a feature article that I wrote on Bass is Base in the new Canadian
Musician Magazine (December issue). For those north of the 49th, I urge you
to pick it up. If you can't get it where your at you can e-mail
'mail@nor.com' for subscription info.
It's a bit long but I hope you enjoy it.
Face To Face With Bass is Base
By: Ian Menzies
So far it's been a strange night. Backstage there's a crazy scene going on,
a group of seven foot tall Vancouver Grizzly basketball players are being
dwarfed by two stilt walking acrobats from Cirque De Soliel. Meanwhile, a
tuxedo clad Vancouver Symphony Orchestra member is bumming a light from the
tattered jeans and leather jacket wearing Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo. On
stage, a solo Sarah McLachlan is performing "Possession" on the piano, as
the sold out audience watches her enormous face, smiling on the four
jumbotron TV screens, high above centre ice. It's the gala opening of
Vancouver's newest sports and entertainment facility, GM Place and Bass Is
Base is about to take the stage. Without so much as a signal check, the
savvy six piece touring outfit fires it up, grooving through their first
song with funky freshness, only to be joined on stage by the entire Grizzly
chearleading squad...... So this is how the other half lives!
The high profile gig is just the latest in a long string of coups for the
two year old, Toronto based band. From the moment of their inception, Bass
Is Base knew they were on to something special. Ethnically diverse,
ferociously funky and proudly Canadian, the dynamic trio of Ivana Santilli
(vocals/keyboards/trumpet), Chin Injeti (vocals/bass), and MC Mystic
(rap/vocals/percussion), started making joyful noise right from the first
open-ended jams that they pumped out of their now infamous soulshack. Just
eight months later, the group had taken the Canadian indie scene by storm,
selling thousands of their self made debut "First Impressions For The Bottom
Jigglers", garnering major Much Music rotation (and a Canadian Music Video
Award) for their tasty, low budget "Funkmobile" video, and finally, signing
an international record deal with Loose Cannon/Island/A&M. It was truly a
remarkable ascension and what made it even more impressive was that they had
invented their own genre along the way - the live breakbeat. "I could say we
write like a normal band and just jam, but that is not the case," says Chin
with a giggle. "We listen to old records, just like hip hop artists. But
they conjure up a beat with samples and weird sounds, we try to make those
noises on our instruments." Mystic expands on the concept. "A hip hop group
will take breaks from old records, sample a two bar segment and loop it," he
says. "What we do, instead of taking it off the record and sampling it, is
that we create our own little segments and build up around the loop we've
created. Everything is formatted from this break, so it's all live, a live
breakbeat. (see sidebar)
With the release of their new record, "Memories Of The Soulshack Survivors",
the band is ready to spread their special sauce of funk, rap, R&B, soul and
a few harder to define influences, to the rest of the world. It's a
diversity of styles that springs from their different cultural backgrounds:
Chin is East Indian, inspired by his father's traditional singing; Ivana,
French Canadian and Italian, cut her teeth with her fathers Italian wedding
band; and Mystic, who's Trinidadian roots bring the rich Carribean musical
tradition into the fold. "There used to be barriers and boundaries on
music," notes Chin, "but not now. We use our roots to our advantage. It's
completely amalgamated. Even visually, we each look a little different, but
it works."
Last winter, after touring the country with the Barenaked Ladies, the band
went into Metalworks studios in Toronto to record their major label debut.
Because of the limited pressings made of their initial release, the group
decided they'd take the opportunity to re-record six of the songs from the
disc - including the already classic lead off tune, Funkmobile. "What we
wanted to do was not really ad anything to the songs," Chin explains, "but
just record them with the new producers at a better quality. Make it sound
wider, deeper and bigger, but not over produce it." Was there any concern
that they might not recapture the songs original spirit? "Not really,"
states Ivana. "We play the songs live all the time and it's not like the
song dies through that process. If anything it becomes much more a part of
you and you play it that much better. But there's always a worry that you
wont re-capture the moment."
All three of the B=B mainstays light up when talking about their two
producers for the new record, New York veterans Shane Faber and Mike
Mangini. "They were excellent," chimes in the whole trio. "They brought the
best of both worlds," explains Mystic, "because Shane is a highly
technically trained musician. Back in the day, he went to music school with
Jaco (Pastorius) and Mike has done an enormous amount of production work in
the hip hop world, like Digable Planets, Leaders Of The New School and De La
Soul. They were great 'cuz it was like, 'just capture the vibe and put the
vibe on tape and that's it' - really cool."
Because the band is such a great live act, they were able to cut most of the
record live off the floor, which was a real treat for the production team.
"We work with a lot of people who develop ideas through computers and
sequencers," Faber admits. "What I love about Bass Is Bass is the live
playing. When you get a group of people in a room just playing and grooving
together, that's the magic, that's the energy." Although they started out
just cutting the songs as they played them live, the band was more than open
to experimentation. "One of the things we got a chance to use was a real
Moog instead of my Kurzwiel," says Ivana, "and a real Hammond and Farfisa
organ too." Chin continues. "We really didn't know all that we wanted before
hand. The arrangements of the songs were so basic and had so much room to
grow that they were able to grow through the process of recording. Things
like the Farfisa on Straw, Stix & Bricks and the Vocoder on Into My Heart
were all ideas that we grew into in the studio."
Diamond Dreams (the album's lead-off single) Chin's soaring voice is the
band's most definable trademark. Shortly after playing a show with rap group
The Pharcyde, rapper Slim Kid was quoted in a Toronto paper saying, "I still
want to get with Bass Is Bass, because homeboys voice is dope." For his
part, Chin remains humble "I'm particularly proud of I Cry," he admits. "It
injects a hip hop feel to a top 40 sound and we used an acoustic guitar with
vocal samples of ourselves - a really cool mix." The vocal performance is
nothing short of stunning and the end result is a song that's not easy to
qualify, which suits Chin just fine. "I don't think I know anybody else that
has used human beat boxin' and funny noises in the same way. That's the kind
of concept we go for. We try to make pop interesting and give the listeners
more credit than they usually get."
With only 24 months of history, Bass Is Base is a band with a long future.
Their unique style is like a breath of fresh air running through the
boardrooms of Canada's music industry - a place were soul, hip hop and R&B
has always been left to the Americans. Chin, Mystic and Ivana are living
proof that, like all great music, it can only come from within.
SIDEBAR 1
GEAR
Since they still load all their own gear! The soulshack survivors keep their
road rigs nice and simple.
Chin Injeti plays a Warwick Dolphin a new 5 string Fender Jazz and a 1972
Fender Jazz "I'm not too worried about string brands or gauges, they change
around quite a bit." His Bag End cabinet is powered by a Crest amplifier and
controlled by a Demeter pre-amp.
Ivana Santilli plays a late 70s Fender Rhodes, "The kind with a flat as
opposed to rounded top because I have to sit my Kurzwiel on it." The K-2000
provides her with organ and synth sounds. "I'm just about to get nice
weighted 88 key piano, but I'm still looking around." For trumpet, Ivana is
still blowing the Bundy she's had since school days. "Early on a teacher
told me I had a tone some people take 10 years to get but I've never
practised that much, so I keep it simple."
MC Mystic plays any percussion instruments he finds laying around and sings
and raps into whatever mic they put in front of him.
SIDEBAR 2
Paul E. Lopes
For those who haven't worked or played much in the hip hop and dance idioms,
the idea of the DJ as musician may still seem a bit odd. For Bass is Base
though, the DJ plays a crucial role in completing the soulshack experience.
"I've been spinning with Bass Is Base since before they even really got
going," says Paul E. Lopes. The veteran DJ -who has his own radio show in
Toronto and also writes for Streetsound Magazine - is currently touring with
the band. "We used to hold parties together and the theme of the party would
be that I'd play music and then they'd come out and perform and then later
on we'd jam together. They'd play their instruments over my beats or I'd
throw some stuff over theirs."
Ever since the mid 70s, the use of turntables to generate breakbeats has
been a cornerstone of the hip hop music scene. "The whole thing began with
people who didn't have the means of getting together a drummer and all
that," Lopes explains. "So the way that people found to do it, was to set up
two turntables and find records that had beats that really excited them or
were funky as hell. With two copies of the same record, it's possible to
bring in the beat of one record and then, using the mixer, bring in the beat
of the other record to keep it going while you go back and reset the first
one. It's sort of like a manual loop, you just keep it going back and forth
and then, to add a little style to it, you might do a little scratching
before you bring the record in." By selecting parts of songs that had no
vocals over them, rappers found the space they needed to drop their rhymes
on top of the grooves. "A lot of times DJs would use the section of a record
were the band was 'breaking it down' to just the drummer, or the drums and
bass and that's were the term breakbeats came from."
Equipment wise, Lopes uses Technics SL-1200 turntables and Stanton 680
cartridges. "They haven't changed the 1200 since 1982. It's a very standard
piece of equipment and the Stanton is nice and heavy, which is good for
scratching." For a mixer he prefers Numark but ads. "Like most equipment,
it's the person using it that makes the difference."