If the money-making triumph of nights like Goin’ Steady and Shindig! are any indication, Toronto has a thing for Motown.
But more often than not, the closest the backwards-looking party set can get to the soul and splendor of the legendary Detroit ‘60s pop label is throwing on a vintage suit or a diva dress and dancing to classic records played off a laptop.
Not if Christopher Sandes and Aaron Knight have anything to say about it.
This Friday (October 21), the floor-moving duo will open the doors of the re-invigorated Great Hall (1087 Queen W.) for the second edition of their new bi-monthly Motown night, The Big Sound.
Knight, one of the masterminds behind the weekly Shake A Tail ‘60s party at Sneaky Dee’s (moved recently from Clinton’s), acts as DJ, while Sandes (who plays piano with Steamboat and Andre Ethier, in addition to co-running the popular Loving in the Name Of cover night) has taken it a step further and assembled a gargantuan supergroup of Toronto musicians to act as the live house band.
With more than 20 virtuosic performers and musicians from all over the generic spectrum (full list at the bottom of the page), it’s the closest approximation you’ll likely ever get to the full, fleshed-out spectacle of the Motown Sound.
We sat down with Sandes and Knight over pho to talk about the enduring power of Motown, the difficulties of assembling more than 20 musicians on one stage and their modest ambition to break even.
This has got to be one of the most ambitious tribute nights in the city. What gave you the idea to put it together?
Knight: Everybody loves it. If you’re into music from that era, if you’re into pop music at all, you’ve got to be into Motown. At Shake A Tail, I can just put on some of these tracks and guarantee a full dance floor.
Sandes: Motown is some of the longest lasting, arguably best, most feel-good music of all time. I can’t help myself. I love it. I’ve never been able to get away from it. I guess the saddest thing about my generation is that very few people ever got to hear it live, and if they did it was always a much smaller version of the Motown sound. Not to slag any of the other parties in Toronto – the records are great and there’s lots of people out there with great taste and great collections, but we’ve been living off of that for the last I-don’t know-how-long. When I realized with our connections and our collective numbers from our other nights that we could pull something like this together, I knew that it had to be done.
Why do you think you’re the first to attempt a Motown night of this scale?
Sandes: To do it the right way means spending a lot on musicians and arrangements, which defeats most people’s reason for doing something on a professional level: money.
Knight: Chris has access to a fantastic band (Steamboat), which means he had a bunch of musicians already, so trying to organize it was a hell of a lot easier than it might have been.
Sandes: It was still hard, though, to convince a lot of people that I was going to pay them. Through playing at and hanging around the Tranzac I knew certain people and through doing Loving In The Name of I knew certain people, and through playing in other bands I knew other people. But a lot of them were sort of skeptical. Like how are you going to pay 20 people?
How do you pay 20 people?
Knight: It’s a gamble. We’re never setting out with the goal of making a profit. We’re just trying to break even.
Sandes: It was very important to us to pay all the musicians something that was realistic and was also commensurate with their talent and the time that we were asking them to put into it. We’re not nickel and diming people. We’re trying to turn it into something where people can feel really good about it and not feel like they’re being taken for a ride. So basically we need a really good turnout to even break even. Already, it’s required a pretty big investment.
What about on an organizational level. How do you co-ordinate 20 musicians to practice and play together?
Sandes: It’s not easy. My Gmail account went from 50 percent capacity to full in just over a month. But as soon as we had our first practice, it was totally worth it. That was one of the best days of my recent life. Everybody knew the second we were all in one room banging it out that we were doing something great. Everybody, regardless of their backgrounds – classical or free jazz or indie rock or country – as soon as we were all doing it, and even though they were playing these simple parts, the enduring quality of Motown was just so evident. It’s just phenomenal stuff.
Why do it on such a big level? Couldn’t you reduce a lot of stress and money troubles by just shrinking the band?
Knight: If you don’t have that whole group, you’re going to have to fake it with some synthesizers and stuff. And then you get some embarrassing wedding band version of Motown.
Sandes: There’s no substitute for a violin. It’s been around for long enough it’s owed its due. Same with a cello, same with vibraphone, same with drums. We’ve got two guitars, keyboards, a dedicated tambourine guy, vibraphone, four horns, three strings, five background singers and then the lead singers. It just goes on and on and on. I get to sit onstage playing keyboards and just the racket that comes off the first beat, it’s a huge sound. It pays tribute to the whole Motown ethic of the big sound. They’re mini pop orchestras. There’s no substitute for people playing together, either as a sound or a spectacle. You just can’t ration quality.
As you said before, there are musicians here from all sorts of genres. Do you think Motown is the one thing they all have in common?
Sandes: It’s not the one thing, but it’s definitely a big thing that we can all agree on. And I wanted to get the best people that I could, so I had to approach people from different music scenes. I was begging and scraping. It’s interesting that there’s so many divided scenes in the city that never meet. And I knew that if I wanted to do this right, I needed help from those scenes. I needed a voice like Tanika Charles, for instance. You can’t find that in the indie scene. I had to approach people that play free jazz exclusively. And I went to people that play freak folk at the Tranzac.
You have a number of singers. Does one sing lead and the rest sing backup?
Sandes: Everybody takes equal turns. Originally the idea had been to get a lot of singers, but after the first one a lot of people dropped out. And the singers that were left were so interested in the project at that point after the first show that they said “listen, all those people that dropped out, don’t get them back. Let us do it.” So at the next one each singer will come up and do two songs. As soon as they’re done singing, they rotate to the backup section.
And they’re all fantastic. If you were at the first Big Sound, for instance, you’d know that Maylee Todd does the most remarkable 10 year old Michael Jackson vocals. During that whole performance, I was sitting at the piano introducing people. During one of the songs I was thinking “is someone singing out of tune?” And then I realized that the entire audience was singing the song with them. And when Maylee Todd did the Jacksons, she was singing so high that she was so far above all of them that you could hear them as two distinct groups. When the last chord hit happened the crowd freaked out. It was a moment of total goosebumps.
The Big Sound takes place this Friday, October 21 at the Great Hall. $10. As a bonus, Sandes provided us with the name and project of every member of the band:
Chris Sandes: Loving In The Name Of, Andre Ethier, Steamboat,
Aaron Knight: Shake A Tail
Jer Strachan – Saxophone: Rockets red Glare, Canaille, Feuer Music
Mike Smith – Bass: Muskox, Sandro Perri,
Sandro Perri – Guitar: Himself, Polmo Polpo
Francois Turenne – Guitar: Cuff The Duke, Hylozoists
Alex Lukachevsky – singer: Himself, Deep Dark United
Tanika Charles – singer: herself & Zaki Ibrahim
Rodd Skimmons – Singer: The Makeover & Bang The Party
Allie Ho Sang – Singer:
Maylee Todd – singer: herself
Matt Mclaren – Guitar: Steamboat, Andre Ethier, Mantler, Old Soul, Biblical
Jay Anderson – Drums: Minotaurs, Steamboat, Andre Ethier, Mantler , Old Soul, Biblical
Eric Woolston – Vibes: Forest City Lovers, Maylee Todd
Mika Posen – Violin: Timber Timbre
Alex Mcmaster: Cello on every session in Toronto!
Randy Lee – Violin: Jim Guthrie , Hylozoists
Jay hay – SAX: FREE JAZZ
Shaun Brodie – Trumpet: Hidden Cameras
Pat Blanchard: Trombone on every session in Toronto
Adam Hindle – Percussion: Born Ruffians
Andy Scott – Tambourine: The Bicycles, Les Montaignes, Biblical
Drew Smith – Singer: Dr. EW, The Bicycles
