artist Moses Mayes

See Magazine Article Link: http://www.seemagazine.com/Issues/2007/1108/mus3.htm


Get down, Moses
Winnipeg funktronic outfit have a "Rockit" in their pocket
MOSES MAYES
w/ Girl Nobody. Fri, Nov 9. Velvet Underground (10030-102 St). Info: 428-7827

How fitting. As keyboardist Nathan Reimer of Winnipeg's Moses Mayes gets on his cellphone while his band makes its way from Canmore to Calgary, a barely decipherable chiming can be heard on his end of the line.

"Are you close to an ice cream truck?" I asked.

"No," he laughs. "We're listening to Herbie Hancock."

Hancock, of course, particularly with his breakthrough track "Rockit," could be credited with singlehandedly birthing the now-omnipresent hybridization of jazz and electronic music, which includes Moses Mayes among its adherents. Turns out the band even got to share a stage and meet their hero in Saskatoon a few years ago.

"He did a perfect imitation of our saxophone player and basically said he thought it was great," Reimer recalls. "Nothing too specific, but that's fine. In terms of the music that we pull a lot of our inspiration from, Herbie Hancock is right at the top of that list."

When the band, initially an eight-piece, first got together, their sound was largely shaped by their then-drummer's obsession with dance music and the other musicians' jam-based approach to jazz and funk. "What we ended up with was a combination of players who were into a lot of the [jazz] fusion stuff and [our drummer] just knowing that house beat through and through," Reimer says. "I have yet to meet anyone who knows the finer points of a house beat more than he does."

It proved to be a winning combo, and soon Moses Mayes was spreading the groove all across Canada, releasing two long-players and an EP and grabbing support slots not only with Hancock but the late James Brown as well. Then, during the period preceding the recording of their third album proper, Second Ring, the band went through something of a transition period. Members started getting older and pursuing diverging career paths, leaving the trio of Reimer, turntablist Grant Paley, and guitarist Mark Penner to deal with the band full-time, hiring out musicians to fill the roster on an as-needed basis.

"It's tricky, actually," Reimer says. "A lot of our ability to tour or not tour comes from whether or not we can find the musicians. It took a long time, close to deadline, on this one just to find a drummer. Our saxophone player has just recently moved out to Toronto, but we really like and want him so we had to fly him back, and our drummer, in fact, lives in Canmore. We actually have to pull from several different cities across Canada in order to make any sort of tour happen."

As such, the live Moses Mayes experience very much depends on whoever they have on tour with them–and with three drummers with varying backgrounds to choose from, the band's sound changes wildly from incarnation to incarnation. "One summer," Reimer says, "because of the drummer and the horn player we had, we were able to do more of the fusion-y type stuff, whereas some tours, when we've got our original drummer, we focus more on that housier side of things."

However, Reimer says the revolving door of players has been educational, at least for those on the inside, with the core lineup learning and adjusting to new techniques the hired help brings to the table (or more accurately, to the touring van). Those long stretches on the road, he says, are often used to discuss and fine-tune their sound. Which leaves me guiltily wondering if I've interrupted just such a session.

"No, that was just mellow, chillout time," Reimer assures me. "But it's not uncommon for that to happen, to be listening to something and pretty soon you're discussing backing up solos and how to come up, say, behind a saxophone solo and make that more effective. It's always about trying to push things to make our music as good as possible."

So, we're home after three grueling weeks on the road (shed a tear for us) and pretty much a show every night except for a couple where we drove non-stop to get to our shows. How was the tour? Pretty friggen awesome people - I must say that this was the best band we've had on a Moses tour and we played some amazing shows with some amazing bands. Technically it's not over yet, we have one more show at 10,000 Lakes this Thursday but really we are all back home and rested again.

Tour highlights? Oh yes, many of them. But here are some of my favs:

Opening for Herbie Hancock: We even got to speak with him and he's certified gentleman people. The best part is he checked out our set and shook all our hands as he was walking on to the stage to do his set and even did an impersonation of Paul our sax player! We we're all giggling like lil' girls as we shook his hand too...his band was also very very nice except the drummer who was the biggest dick I've ever met (but an amazing drummer).

Montreal Jazz: Holy shit, this was our second time playing this festival but this time it really felt like people where there to see us. 10,000 people watched and danced and we had them the entire set! I think the big thing compared to 2004 was the fact that the band was tight as hell and our songs where more sophisticated! Someone even posted some videos on YouTube from the performance, so kewl. The girl in the yellow also made this one special - she was continually trying to distract everyone one in the band with classic girl on girl top40 dance moves...eventually I just stopped looking...lol. Damn you girl in Yellow!!!

Kelowna: The promoters told us there's not much of a music scene in Kelowna and how great it was to have us there. The opening band, Zen Media, was great! The bar was packed and I've never seen people go so crazy for music before - it's like they've never seen it! Thanks Kelowna, you guys we're a lot of fun and we promise to play quieter next time we're through ;-)

DJ Champion & his G-Strings: Wow, great band - go and check these guys out. We partied with Sebastian and Betty from Champion till the wee hours until the security gave us shit. Classic line from them too "Ok guys, the noise has to come down. That's the biggest problem...and if you're gonna smoke pot in the hotel please put a towel on the door" lol...the noise was the biggest problem??? Wow, I love Saskatoon! Especially a 5 star hotel that allows da pot...lol...classic

Broken Bottles and bugs at the fancy hotel: Imagine pulling up at a Marriott in downtown Calgary with a very dirty van plastered with prairie bugs, doesn't look so classy does it. Now imagine that while meeting Joshua Redman and his band and about 4 full beer bottles fall out of that same van and smash all over the front of the hotel. Moses Mayes was classy that night....reeeeeeal classy. At least the bottle of Rum didn't fall out. (PS - not drinking and driving here, just our rider being brought back to the hotel ;-)

Jazz Winnipeg: It's our annual gig and we always look forward to it cause it's our hometown. The best part was this gig fell in the middle of the tour instead of kicking it off. It was by far the best set we've done in the 7 years we've played this gig. I saw all the friends and family I haven't seen in a long, long time. We even did an encore that we where not suppose to play cause it was past the legal by-law end time for outdoor concerts. The crowd wanted it, what where we suppose to do? We played one more to surprised look on the security and sound crews face...lol...thanks everyone, it was a blast.

UrbanTerror: We found a new source for wasting time in the van for those 12 hour trips. And bless wireless connections. These two wonderful technologies provided a source of crack that we need for the long long drives...

Stressed out Soundman: Canmore hotel hosts the most stressed out soundman we've ever seen. Honestly, we stood there waiting patiently and quietly while he was setting up all the while yelping at us for no good reason other then him being sketched out. At one point Mark finally told then guy that "We're just standing here waiting man!!! You're the one freaking out, not us". Regardless, he finally got it together then proceeded to lecture me on everything bands do to piss him off - I then told him "Well that's great, we didn't do any of that and you still freaked out". He still persisted on what pisses him off...ahhh, the Canmore Hotel, always good times. 

Running out of Gas: There's always time for a first and running out of gas on the I94 in Michigan was a first. When the van died Nathan was like "What the....damnit, we ran out of gas!!!" So here we are, pushing the van down the I94 when bang, he got it going again and drove/glided to the nearest exit to the BP. The rest of the band walked it to the BP - and trust me, you never see anyone walking on an Interstate...never. There were 5 of us walking it...lol. 

10,000 Lakes: It's satisfying to play a huge show for a bunch of people that don't know your band but still have this huge buzz about you. That pretty much sums up 10KLF in Detroit Lakes. We hit the stage at 1:30 in the morning to much hype and well, I don't want to sound conceeded, but we delivered that hype (I think). 10KLF, you rock, and all you American's have convinced us we need to come to your country a whole lot more...we're working on it, stay tuned!

Anyway, that's a quick flash back in time. Thanks to all the peeps that came to see us play and buying our records and merch (the gurls Underwear was the most popular btw). Thanks to all the bands we played with: Herbie Hancock, Gorilla Funk Monster, Sweet Soul Productions Champion & His G-Strings, Zen Media, Karmetech Underground, Novillero Soul Revue, the Hummers, Wassabi Collective, Andrew Spence and Yuka. And big thanks to the Blackdog Pub in Bayfield! You got our trumpet player seriously drunk! He had a horrible ride back to Winnipeg which was a gas to watch for 24 hours!

See you all in the fall when Moses hits a club tour :-)

RPG

We posted our new single here first at CBC Radio 3!

The song 'Being', from our new record 'Second Ring', features Ariane Jean on vocals and blends the funk fusion sounds of Moses Mayes with modern electronic influences....enjoy!

I mean, I'm not gonna say that Winnipeg is the the place to be in the world in the winter. It's been so cold that plugging in the car is an everyday part of life. Did you know that some people have never seen cars with plugs in them? I have some friends from the Deep South that saw it for the first time - it was an awesome thing to see. Why? Cause onetime this guy from Arizona had all this material on the dash, it kinda looked like that fuzzy stuff on a PA system. He told me 'You need to have that there otherwise your dash will crack from the heat'. He then told me it's always about 43 Celsius (or what is that, 109 Fahrenheit?) in the summer. And I know that heat. I've felt it before in California and Nevada...that's what music is when you live in wintered Winnipeg. It's that burning you feel on your feat from the summer sands...

So, myself, Mark and Nathan have been writing away and trying all this new stuff. It's been another transition for us and we're really exploring some pretty progressive grooves in this freezer here. We also started revisiting some of our older music and thinking differently about that too. So we're gonna remix some old songs, in-house, all of us with you and put together a trimmed down version to keep parties going - gonna be a fun project. We've also gotten word will be on tour this summer, playing many jazz festival across the nation. And we're also going back to the 10,000 Lakes Festival! Winnipeg, Canada, USA!!!! Make sure to make the trip down for this wonderful festival on one of the best festival sites I've ever seen! We're also stoked to be doing a show with Toronto's God Made Me Funky. Keep checking back for news on that...

Ok, there's the spiel...so I wanted to also tell you to check out a great band called Mr.SomethingSomething. Hailing from Toronto these guys will make you move if your into bands like Fela Kuti, Antibalas and Montreal's Afrodizz. They we're just nominated for a Juno and they are a fantastic band, they came through Winnipeg about a year ago and I spun before them and everyone there was smiling the night to close.

On that note, make sure to listen to the radio, get ready for the playoffs and don't buy hemp jackets cause they don't last (trust me). -RPG

Mark Penner speaks with the UK's UndergroundSoul

Moses Mayes
Wednesday, 27 December 2006
Written by Underground Soul   
 

 

 

 

 

There's a reason why Moses Mayes have been featured heavily on the pages of this website... the reason is we love em. Since 1999, MM's New Funk Fusion has been blazing throughout North America. With a reputation for busting live audiences we wanted to do our bit by introducing them to our digital soul crowd the UGS fam. Guitarist Mark Penner put his plectrum down long enough to answer some of our burning questions...

UGS: Firstly, how did the band form initially?

Mark: From the ashes of another band. Some of remaining members started a regular funk night at a Jamaican night club and the band has evolved from that.

UGS: How much time did you spend in the studio recording "Second Ring"?

Mark: We did all the tracking in about 2 1/2 weeks and mixed it for about the same. This was over a 5 month period though. We tracked it in Winnipeg and mixed in it Toronto at our producer's studio.

UGS: What is behind the name of the album?

Mark: Well, all the reasons we've come up with for the name are really after thoughts. We just picked the name of a song on the album. The original name of that song was Second Rind of Saturn which was an ode to the cosmic influence of many of our funk/fusion heros.

UGS: What is your favourite track on the album and why?

Mark: That's easy, Space and Time. It's the perfect marriage of all of our influences. It's got fusion, disco house and electro all rolled into one song. It's also our newest song, we wrote it in the studio, and I really feel it's the direction we're headed.

UGS:  How does your writing process work exactly?

Mark: That's changed over the past year. It use to be that all 7 of us would get together and just jam things out. Now we're down to only 3 full time members so the 3 of us get together and write complete songs in our studio using programming for the instruments we can't play. Then we get the full band together and work out live arrangements.

UGS: What are your main inspirations nowadays, and who are the artists you look up to?

Mark: It's seem lately all I care about is the beat. I'm obsessed with the beat. Phat beats inspire me. And although it's probably too early to say I look up to him, the new album by Lindstrom "It's a Feedelity Affair" is amazing and I can't stop listening to it. There are some perfect grooves on that album.

UGS: Which are the artist(s) you would like to work with and haven't had the chance yet?

Mark: I'd like us to tour with Jamiroquai. I'd like Morgan Geist to remix one of our songs. I'd like for us to do a track with Ivanna Santilli. I'd like to jam with Medeski, Martin and Wood.

UGS: If you could form the 'perfect band' of anyone alive or dead who would be included?

Mark: This may have happened in a live concert at some point during the early 70's. I'd take my favourites from Herbie Hancock's crew from that period. End up with: Herbie: Keys Paul Jackson: Bass Mike Clark: Drums Wah Wah Watson: Guitar Wayne Shorter: Sax Freddie Hubbard: Trumpet Norman Connors: Percussion

UGS: What has been the highlight of your recent tour?

Mark: Finally cracking Toronto. The show there was unbelievable and definitely the best we've had there.

UGS: What is the worst part of touring?

Mark: After we're done playing, trying to have conversations with people who have been drinking all night while we've been too busy performing to drink even half as much. Hosed people aren't that much fun when you're not hosed yourself.

UGS: What are your opinions on the current music scene?

Mark: I think it's funny how a style or sub-genre gets hot for half a second and then tossed side for the next one. Once it's over for that style no one is allowed to play that anymore because it's out even though it never really got explored fully. It's like the music industry is taking it's cues from the fashion world. lol "I hear Universal's releasing their new pret-a-porter Dance Punk line" "God, that's so 2005!"

UGS: If you could change one aspect of the music industry, what would that be?

Mark: I think there's a change happening that I'd like to see continue to change and that is that independent music is becoming more viable. Recording technology and online distribution and marketing have allowed artists get their music made and out there without the help of a large record company. Without the pressure to dumb down their music for wide appeal you'll see artists taking more risks and releasing more interesting stuff.

UGS: What are the plans for 2007?

Mark: Lots of touring. We plan on hitting the midwestern states and central Canada in the spring and then a big festival tour in Canada and the US in summer. We also have a goal of touring in the UK/Europe by fall of 2007. Musically, we planning on exploring the house/disco side of our personality. Simplify things and focus on solid grooves.

UGS: Where do you see yourselves five years from now?

Mark: I see us getting ready to record our 5th album in London, where we relocated to in 2010. We've just finished a short break after a grueling 43 date, sold out, European tour.

"2nd Ring" is out now on Dublum Records.