Mambo El Mocambo

Date: October 23^rd 2008
Venue: El Mocambo, 2^nd fl.
Series: Sophomore Productions Presents...

Sometime shortly after our “Disband” episode was aired on MuchMusic, a show promoting company got in touch with us to see if we were interested in being part of an event that would feature some of the bands from the “Disband” series. Andrew, our contact for the show, called me about a month ago to confirm the details of the show: it was going to go down on the 2^nd floor of the El Mocambo. I was immediately alert – anything being held on the 2^nd floor of the El Mocambo is 140% of the time a Supernova show, and I’d rather smash my face against Courtney Love’s vagina than play a show for those hacks again. Incidentally, I had also dealt with an “Andrew” from Supernova before. Upon doing my research and finding out that it wasn’t just Supernova pretending to be someone else trying to lure us into helping them capitalize on our recent success on MuchMusic, I decided (albeit cautiously) to open the lines of communication with Sophomore. Andrew informed us that we would be guaranteed a good set-time (9pm), and that we wouldn’t be responsible for promoting the event all by ourselves beyond bringing out our regular following – they had a team distributing flyers for the show all over Toronto’s downtown core. Seeing the potential promotional value in a show with bands that have had exposure on national TV on the bill, we immediately agreed to do it.

And so it was that Soul Plane’s fall comeback came to be. For some reason, we decided that we didn’t really have to promote it – it could have been that whole MuchMusic factor (I’m not saying we’re rock stars, but being on national TV definitely doesn’t hurt as far as getting exposure and bringing crowds is concerned), maybe it was the fact that we were assured a competent promo team was already on the job, or it might have been that it was just impossible to care about any show going down on the 2^nd floor of the El Mocambo since like, EVERY night is pretty much open-mic night there anyway... I don’t know. Whatever, in any case, we just assumed, as usual, that life would work itself out and that a good turn-out would just fall into our laps. We always do this, and the strategy has proven to be effective none of the time.

It wasn’t looking promising when we walked in, I can tell you that. I had told only a few people that we were putting on a gig, and I’m not even sure an official Facebook event was created for it. As far as I knew, only two significant groups of people were going to contribute to the crowd size for the night: being that it was an all-ages event, Aaron and Gideon’s friends were going to be able to come through and show their support (these 15/16-year-olds get the wildest in the crowd – the great thing about kids is that they have inherently no shame), and my girl Jade had made a “girls-night-out” thing out of our show and invited a flock of her girls from Richmond Hill to attend. Despite this guarantee, it still only accounted for maybe 20 people in total. Oh well, at least only 20 people are going to hate us by the end of the night. Could be worse.

As we got on stage, the crowd still seemed sparse. I was pretty buzzed, but I recall jumping on stage before the band that went on before us finished cleaning up and addressing the crowd. Let me say right now I meant no disrespect (Kevin later reprimanded me for not exercising proper stage protocol), in fact, I thoroughly enjoyed Typo’s set – I was merely trying to salvage what was left of the crowd so that they wouldn’t go anywhere. This tactic sometimes works because usually everyone just ends up wanting to stick around to throw rocks and hurl insults at that obnoxious Asian guy who keeps trying to convince everyone to stay for what’s obviously going to be an almost unbearably-shitty act.

By the time we got set-up and tuned, we were standing in front of what was left of what was left of the crowd. But it didn’t matter, Jade’s friends and Aaron/Gideon’s posse were right up front ready to get down the minute we did. With that kind of enthusiasm being thrown our way, how could we not bring it as hard as we did? And boy, did we ever. I can honestly say that I haven’t had that much fun on stage since the MuchMusic show. Our set went real smoothly – considering we were utterly unprepared for the show to begin with on a musical level (we had rehearsed with the full configuration of our band ONCE before we actually went on stage that night), I was particularly pleased that we were able to add a new song to our summer repertoire. “Fly” made its debut again for the first time since Daniel Paiken’s departure from the band, and it was very well-received by the crowd. By the time “Impossible” came on, most of the crowd recognized it as “the MuchMusic song” and went bananas, and fortunately for us, we were able to maintain that kind of momentum and energy throughout the entire set. We stepped off the stage to deafening applause and felicitations from all fronts. What a great start to the fall season.

Speaking of seasons, Soul Plane has officially booked a gig in Panama City, FL, for Spring Break!! THE BEST PART IS THAT YOU ARE ALL INVITED TO JOIN SOUL PLANE ON THE TOUR BUS WE RENTED OUT FOR NEXT-TO-NOTHING PRICES!! See above flier and/or “UPCOMING EVENTS” section for dates and details!! EVERYBODY COME OUT AND PARTY LIKE ROCK STARS!!

But I digress...

Back to the matter at hand: big thanks to Sophomore for putting on a great show, big thanks to our fans for coming out and supporting us, big thanks to everyone who loved it, especially our groupie entourage trekking all the way down from Richmond Hill and Thornhill to bang with us!! Haters lick a nut.

Much Chronicles Pt. IV

Over the summer, MuchMusic contacted Soul Plane and informed us that they would be invading our lives for a good couple months to film our band's debauchery and give us some national television exposure and to put us through rockstar training to see if we have what it takes to make it somewhere in the music industry. If you haven't seen the episode or heard the verdict yet, catch it online now at http://www.muchmusic.com/tv/disband/soulplane.asp (full-screen the window for the optimal in-yo'-face experience). These are my memoirs from our time on set with Much...

Day 4 – July 21^st, 2008

Location: Rehearsal Factory

Time: 10 30am

We realized at 10 35am when we got to the rehearsal space that MuchMusic rented out for us (the biggest room in the Rehearsal Factory at Dufferin St. and Dupont St.) that Kevin didn’t bring any patch cables to hook up his and Gideon’s guitars to the professional equipment that was provided. But the party was just starting – Aaron in turn piped up to say that he forgot his bag that held all his drumsticks at home. It wasn’t even five minutes into the beginning of the day yet; we were clearly on a roll.

Hector told us that we could either ask the guy who ran the Rehearsal Factory for replacements or do whatever we had to do to get our hands on some drumsticks and some patch cords. We had to be quick about it, though, because Greig Nori was going to arrive by noon with the rest of the MuchMusic crew and we had to be set up and ready to go right then on the dot. We decided that the best course of action was to make a quick drive to the Long and McQuade just around the corner. Except instead of “just around the corner” it was at least a 10-minute drive, 15 in bad traffic. And when you’re downtown Toronto on a Monday morning you can safely assume the traffic will be bad at least 100% of the time. The best part of the morning was when we had almost gotten back to the Rehearsal Factory after trudging through combative traffic, when Gideon brought up a very valid point: “Yo Aaron, don’t you carry your metronome in your stickbag, too?”

It just keeps getting better.

When we finally got back to the Rehearsal Factory for good by 11 30am, Luke and Mel were already set up and good to go. We had some trouble figuring the PA system out, but in the end it all worked out. We were able to bang out a rendition of “Welcome to T-Dot City” for the cameras before Greig Nori stepped into the building.

The first thing Greig did was make us go around in a circle introducing ourselves and showing off our individual skills that make up Soul Plane. He got Gideon to solo, Kevin to play the verse riff to “Through the Fire and Fame,” Luke to drop bass groove, Aaron to stick him with a drum solo, Mel to sing a verse off “Life is Beautiful,” and me to drop an acapella freestyle. We each took turns ripping it until he told us to stop – at the end he had a pretty good idea of where our individual levels of talent were set at.

He then asked us to play him the song we planned on playing for the panel of music-industry judges for our concert finale. We played “Life is Beautiful” and before Mel was finished singing the first chorus, he cut us short: “Eeegghh, I like it, it’s got a nice groove, a real warm feel to it, but it’s not going to grab the judges by the balls. What else you guys got? No offense, I just don’t want the judges to lose their attention span after the first six bars.” We dropped “Impossible” on him, and this time, he saw potential. This potential could only be realized, however, if we took time to open our minds and pay close attention to his feedback. His reasoning was sound: “Hey, I’ve been through this, guys. I was you guys once – I had people to please. I know how these industry people think, I know what they’ll like, what they won’t… but at the same time, you don’t have to take my opinion – I’m just here to help.” Keep it coming, homie, we’re listening.

He told us there would have to be some serious restructuring involved – the verses were too long, the choruses were too long, and there was too much unnecessary fat on the track. Everything would have to be condensed to hold onto someone’s attention, especially the attention of industry-professional judges who are specifically going to be looking for things about us to hate. He listed several ideas in terms of re-composing the lead guitar line and the chorus (after all, the chorus is the most important part of the song). After he did a cursory re-write of our entire track, he addressed another issue: the issue of copyright infringement should we ever blow up under the name “Soul Plane.” The reasons for considering a name change were two-fold: 1) It’s the title of an absolutely garbagetimes movie… people might assume (accurately) that it’s also the name of an absolutely garbagetimes band. 2) The name “Soul Plane” is more than likely a registered trademark, which means that MGM would more than likely shove a lawsuit up our asses if we ever in our flea-ridden, rabies-infected lives try to make profit off of that name.

Finally, before the shoot for this particular segment ended, Greig handed me a “clue.” He said that the whole point of this show was to help us improve our musical standards as well as push ourselves out of our comfort zone: “So, Yui, that being said, this clue is going to lead you to a challenge, kind of geared towards you and your position in Soul Plane. Your band needs to be there to support you through this event, though. Good luck.” The clue was a Polaroid picture of the front entrance of Orange Lounge (www.theorangelounge.com) with the street address of the studio written under it. He asked me if I thought I was ready, if I was nervous, probably hoping to throw me off, even going so far as to remind me to get lots of sleep the night before (it is now 3 30am). I looked him square in the eye without missing a beat and said, “Greig, baby, I was born ready. Just test me.” Famous last words.

After a lunch break, we had to change into a different set of clothes to fake a different day of filming. We were told to continue practicing as usual, bearing in mind all the revisions that were made by Greig “yesterday.” We actually started jamming after discussing how we were going to start changing up the song, and before long, I saw a manila envelope slide itself under the door. By now, I knew what MuchMusic wanted me to do, and to save time, I jumped through the hoops: “GUYS! Check this out! We got mail!”

I opened the envelope to find a photo of Much VJ Hannah Simone with stuff written on the back. Hector had to prompt me to actually turn the photograph around because I was spending too much time staring into Hannah’s eyes and sharing a moment with her that she is not yet aware of. When I finally read the stuff, it informed us that we had to find a way to prepare for the “toughest interview of our lives.” Pffft. Poor Hannah Simone has no idea what’s about to hit her. I predict she’ll give her two-weeks’ notice in less than five minutes after we wrap up the interview.

Here’s where MuchMusic tried to create drama within the band, but we were a little smarter than to let them in: the instructions on the back of Hannah Simone’s photo told Mel and me to pick one other band members to represent Soul Plane in the interview. It wasn’t anything they’d give us time off-camera to think over and talk about, either. It was clear that the boys all wanted a piece of the spotlight, but there wasn’t enough to go around, and MuchMusic knew it. Too bad they didn’t count on Mel and I being gangsters: “Well, the decision here is pretty simple – the reason Gideon is the one coming with us is because he’s our lead guitarist; out of the four of you, he gets the most time in the limelight. Maybe people should get to know him.” There was a little bit of debate between whether it would be Aaron or Gideon, but in the end we went with Gideon because of his instrumental role in the band – if anyone is on the same line as Mel and I on stage during performances, it’s Gideon during his solos. I continued to reinforce the idea that any of the boys would have been perfectly adequate to crusade for Soul Plane on any television network, but that because MuchMusic was forcing us to pick, we were going to go with the most reasonable and logical option – the lead guitarist, who usually carries his own voice in a band much like the vocalists do.

MuchMusic clearly did not get the intended effect of cooking up beef within the Soul Plane camp – proof of this could be seen in the way Julie asked the questions during the “confessional” they filmed after we made our decision. She asked me if I felt that Aaron was upset that we picked Gideon out of the two of them, and I answered her referring to Aaron only as “he.” The idea here is to not let them turn us against each other, try as they may. I knew what they were trying to do… Julie was like, “Can you please say Aaron’s actual name… like ‘AARON seemed upset’… but only if you truly think so?” I smiled at her and said, “No, I couldn’t speak on his behalf. You’d have to ask him about it.”

Good try, though, lady.

After the confessional, Soul Plane congregated back inside the Rehearsal Factory and tried to hammer out “Impossible” according to Greig. If there was tension, no one let it show. We were all just exhausted and we wanted to put our last bit of effort into putting Greig’s words to practice. We’re going to be grinding from now until August 9^th, the day we’re going to have to perfect execution the song in front of very important, very critical people.

This could be cataclysmic.

Much Chronicles Pt. III

Over the summer, MuchMusic contacted Soul Plane and informed us that they would be invading our lives for a good couple months to film our band's debauchery and give us some national television exposure and to put us through rockstar training to see if we have what it takes to make it somewhere in the music industry. If you haven't seen the episode or heard the verdict yet, catch it online now at http://www.muchmusic.com/tv/disband/soulplane.asp (full-screen the window for the optimal in-yo'-face experience). These are my memoirs from our time on set with Much...

Day 3 – July 19^th, 2008

Location: Machinehead Studio
Time: 1pm

Today was going to be different from all the other days. Today MuchMusic was bringing a camera crew as opposed to just forcing Hector to walk around with the hand-held all day – it was to be our first official shoot day for the reality series. Much was going to film us recording “Welcome to T-dot City” with Harrison Hennick, studio owner and head engineer. We made an extra effort to make ourselves look more presentable and less on welfare – Harrison and Mel were at Machinehead by 10am Saturday morning wiping, sweeping, and vacuuming. Harrison even went so far as to make sure there was toilet paper in the bathrooms. He was cute in his French maid outfit.

Hector, Julie and another cameraman, Andre, pulled into Machinehead at around 2pm. When they strolled into the studio and started setting up the lighting, Harrison was still running back and forth between the recording room and the control room, hooking up the mics to Aaron’s drum set and setting up the two guitar amps in the isolation booth. Despite the efficiency we had exercised all morning, things started self-destructing right around here: Harrison came storming out of the recording room, frustrated as diabetic at a dessert buffet, yelling something about an input being completely shot. Best timing ever.

Originally, MuchMusic had wanted to get clips of the entire band jamming at the same time. We were going to try to accommodate this request despite the studio’s obvious space and set-up issues – normally, we record all four of Soul Plane’s instrumentalists live off the floor and then the vocalists overtop. Harrison was going to try to set it up so that instrumentalists and vocalists could run a live set off the floor at the same time, even though it meant that the loudness from the instruments would bleed through everyone else’s mics. With this input situation all up in our shit, however, we couldn’t even pretend properly – MuchMusic made Kevin fake making noise on his guitar for the cameras (they were filming in the recording room and all the music gets fed out to the control room, and because we had a busted input, only Gideon, Aaron, and Luke came through the speakers in the control room and Kevin had to make believe for show purposes), and the rest of us were to pretend we could hear ourselves as well and just play along. I rapped my verses to “Welcome to T-Dot City” to Aaron’s banging drums, the only thing anyone could hear inside the Machinehead recording room. Mel didn’t even bother pretending; she just shook her head when Andre aimed his camera at her.

We are not good actors and MuchMusic found this out the hard way.

They probably didn’t know how bad we really were, though, until they “surprised us” with a celebrity guest. I first noticed him on the other side of the glass pane that separates Machinehead’s recording room from the control room, standing next to Harrison. The next thing I knew, he kicked down the door to the recording room and entered our sanctuary, introducing himself as Greig Nori, and looking around half-expecting us to perk up with some sense of recognition. WRONG – no one even flinched. He continued his self-introduction: he used to be the frontman (lead guitarist and vocalist) for Treble Charger (a band I actually knew and enjoyed listening to in like, grade 7-8). The real reason we hadn’t heard of Greig Nori, though, aside from the fact that none of us follow Canadian music, was because recently Greig had been busy working with some famous acts behind the scenes, such as managing/producing Sum 41, producing Ludacris and Iggy Pop. Other credentials include production for Hedley and managing Broken Social Scene. That’s big things. But up until the very moment when Greig told us who exactly he was, I swear I thought he was one of Harrison’s friends. I was ready to play host in front of the camera when he barged in; I was going to shake his hand and thank him for coming out to the shoot, introduce him to the Much crew and offer him a drink and ask him if it was the first time he’s ever been in a studio. I don’t know who would have been more embarrassed between the two of us if I actually went through with that. It would have made for some good TV, though.

They had to re-shoot the sequence three times to get the scene the way they wanted: the first time no one was surprised (and if we were we didn’t show it), the second time I giggled and said something derogatory, the third time Gideon farted. We don’t deserve the air we breathe.

After his brief introduction, he informed us that he was to be our “guru” for the next couple days. He told us that based on what he heard, the panel of industry professionals that we were to play for “in a week” (that’s as far as our viewers are concerned, but in reality we have a lot more time) would give us the thumbs down and tell us to disband – would we take his advice and use it to our advantage to make our music better? We would. Would we let him use his experience to carve and mould us, and would we open to making radical changes should there need to be any? We would. Would we drop everything right now to head over the rehearsal space MuchMusic rented out for us? Yup.

Greig wasted no time – he told us that MuchMusic would cover all the costs of the remainder of our booked studio hours (I didn’t know if they knew that we’re not paying Harrison anything as it is), and that it was time for us to drop all our gear and just head on over to the rehearsal space so that we could start working on our tunes under his guidance. This was news to us. We all looked at each other, puzzled like jigsaw, but we complied with Greig’s orders and started gathering our stuff. When the boys began unplugging shit to pack up their instruments, Greig told us not to worry about any of that, that Much had hired roadies to help us out. I looked around and saw no one, but I assumed they were on their way and I felt excessively official thinking that Much would go through all that trouble and expense for us. So, we listened, left everything alone and just casually strolled out the front door of Machinehead Studio. As Kevin sat in the driver seat of his Passat waiting to turn on the ignition, Julie ran out of the studio flailing her arms like she was directing air traffic: “We were just kidding, guys, don’t go anywhere. The cameras just needed to get you all making that exit there...” How fun! Next time maybe you can have an internationally-established record label pretend to sign us only to renege on their offer just as we’re about to put our pen to paper!

Anyway, after all that, they interviewed us one at a time and asked us questions about the day’s experience. I made sure to seem as impressed with Greig Nori as humanly possible without full-on fellating the dude, telling Hector (the interviewer as Andrew filmed) that an opportunity like this to be able to work with someone with Greig’s credentials doesn’t come by too often for still-local and relatively-unknown bands like Soul Plane. I made it clear that I, for one, was very grateful for this “guru,” and that Greig was definitely well-suited for the job considering the fact that he’s already been through where we’re trying to get as far as the music industry is concerned, and would thus have a lot of light to shed on Soul Plane’s current circumstances and level of competence as a band. I emphasized how fortunate we were to have someone who has been on both the musical side and the business/admin side of the industry help us hone our craft. I rounded off my interview with how much I was looking forward to working with a professional. I didn’t just say all that for a camera – I truly meant it. Maybe we weren’t all that impressed at first glance, but when you do the checklist of what substantiates Greig’s belt, you realize what a heavyweight you’re dealing with.

When MuchMusic finally left around 5 30pm-ish, Soul Plane got back down to business with a heavy session that made smoke clouds in the control room so thick I’m surprised it didn’t rain indoors. I’m not saying I hate my life, but it was, without a doubt, a sigh of relief and a breath of fresh air the minute we no longer had to keep up appearances. With the day-long, hustle-bustle, hurricane of hurry MuchMusic brought with them into Machinehead Studio, it was rather difficult to even remember that we had come here first and foremost to record a song. It felt more like we were the victims of an FBI interrogation caught on tape; they dropped in, beat us up, asked a couple questions and left. By around 7pm, though, everything for “Welcome to T-Dot City” minus Mel G’s vocals had been tracked.

On our way home we discussed some possible aspects of the show we knew still had to be brought out: we had the title figured out – “DISBAND” – because at the end of your episode, during your final concert, these music industry professionals either give you a thumbs up, telling you to keep going with the pursuit of happiness through your music and your band and describing what steps you’d have to take to advance in the industry effectively, or a thumbs down, telling you to please not quit your day job. Fortunately, bracing ourselves for the worst-case scenario and then actually going through it is nothing we’re not already accustomed to – we’ve picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves off in the wake of much worse. Then, we realized that in order to make our episode less boring, they needed to create tension and drama (words that are hardly existent as far as the relationships between the members of Soul Plane are concerned) – we went over the strategies we devised to avoid buying into their bullshit (mainly avoiding saying anything that would allow them to cut/edit your quote out of context to give it an entirely different meaning than the intended one). Lastly, we also knew that Greig Nori was going to be our “guru,” our music coach, for the next several weeks of filming, and that this type of opportunity isn’t one that you could just ignore. We just hoped he wouldn’t ignore us for the next several weeks.

To conclude, Greig Nori is gonna make us famous.

Much Chronicles Pt. II

Over the summer, MuchMusic contacted Soul Plane and informed us that they would be invading our lives for a good couple months to film our band's debauchery and give us some national television exposure and to put us through rockstar training to see if we have what it takes to make it somewhere in the music industry. If you haven't seen the episode or heard the verdict yet, catch it online now at http://www.muchmusic.com/tv/disband/soulplane.asp (full-screen the window for the optimal in-yo'-face experience). These are my memoirs from our time on set with Much...

Day 2 – July 12^th, 2008

Location: Toronto Night Market
Time: 8pm

We greeted Hector and Julie at about 8 30pm when they arrived in their cab – obviously, we were stoked to see them. Tonight, they would be filming Soul Plane live at the Toronto Night Market. Hector stepped out with a camera in hand. I told him that if the turnout was anything like the crowd we played to last year, he would most definitely need a bigger camera. He gave me a sceptical look, lit a cigarette, and started explaining the logistics of the “panoramic vision” feature and something about a wide lens function. Before I could tell him that I was only kidding, Harrison Hennick rolled onto the scene in his Envoy. We were even more stoked to see him – he had merchandise for us to sell tonight. Once he heard that MuchMusic had taken interest in the band, he had gone out of his way and benevolently taken money out of his own pockets to produce copies of our demo, Black Box, and also to manufacture several dozen Soul Plane t-shirts.

As Harrison pulled up against the curb, I excused myself from my conversation with Hector and ran to the Envoy. The rest of Soul Plane was out of the house and on the driveway by now, entertaining our MuchMusic guests as I went to speak to Harrison. Harrison lowered the driver’s side window as I approached and smiled at me like he just got laid: “I got your shit, homie. All your shit. And please tell me that’s MuchMusic right there.” I told him that it was, and that he could go say “hi” the minute I had “all my shit” in my hands. Once I grabbed the box full of t-shirts and demos and started making my way back to where the band and the producers were mingling, excitement quickly became chaos – everyone started reaching everywhere to try and get their hands on everything – I was molested on several occasions. Hector put an abrupt end to the confusion by shouting, “Hey! Guys! I need you to do all that again for the camera. Yui, go back to the car and bring the box back out when I say ‘go,’ and tell your buddy there to come out with you, wearing one of those shirts. Everybody else just be all surprised and excited and run towards Yui when he comes out from behind the truck.”

It was definitely more convincing the second time around. And, unfortunately, I was not molested.

But man, these t-shirts were dope. They came in black or royal purple, with Soul Plane logos printed on in gold or baby blue, each complete with several sets of sizes. The demos were looking real solid, too – shrinkwrapped and thermo-printed. Harrison had included his contact card in each of the copies he pressed – smart move (he’s not a businessman, he’s a business, man…). We decided amongst ourselves that we would sell the t-shirts for $10 each, and the demos at $5 a piece – this was purely for Harrison to make his money back – the man had initially suggested that we toss all the t-shirts out to the crowd. But then we decided that if you’re a fan, you’ll buy our shit. There’s no sense in trying to force merchandise on people and risk the chances of getting it thrown back on stage at us.

Hector then told Kevin, Aaron and Luke to take some the equipment out of Kevin’s Passat and re-pack it all so they could film it. The trio were simply to go back and forth holding equipment while Hector followed them and asked them a series of questions as they walked. Kevin parked pretty far away and I didn’t receive an invitation to the packing party so I can’t really document any of what was said or done over there in those 15 minutes. I can, however, tell you that over here, for 20 of those 15 minutes, Harrison was thanking me non-stop for this monster opportunity, telling me how he was just happy to be along for the ride, and begging me to get Hector to film the giant Machinehead logo on the back windshield of his ride. I told him to relax before he shits himself in public, and that we’d be filming inside Machinehead Studio a week tonight away – MuchMusic had confirmed that they would be coming to film us recording “Welcome to T-Dot City.” He immediately molested me.

What a fun night it’s been so far.

As our planned departure time of 9pm approached, we had to figure out who was going in which car. Hector and Julie had hoped to hitch a ride with us in order to film a little bit of the journey as we made our way out to the venue. Julie had a media access parking pass, which meant that she wouldn’t have to burn up half a tank of gas listlessly searching for a parking space at one of the most crowded events of the year. Hector had the camera, so the people in whichever car he went with would get filmed. I decided it was best to let the producers decide. Julie ended up in Kev’s Passat with Gideon, Luke, and Aaron; I drove Mel’s RAV4 with Hector in the passenger seat, and Conor, Harrison, and Mel in the back.

On the way up, Hector turned the camera on and just let it run for most of the drive. The majority of the dialogue in the car was conversational, and even when Hector did throw some questions at us, they were very general, very surface-level questions (ie, “Are you nervous about the show tonight?”) that upheld the consistent flow of our verbal exchange. At one point I turned Hector’s attention towards Harrison so that he could elaborate on the school for recording arts that Soul Plane and Machinehead were starting up together, as well as Soul Plane’s charity foundation for which Machinehead Studio was to be chief sponsor. Harrison handled that bidness nicely; I hadn’t expected any different.

When we arrived at Metro Square, Hector hopped out before I pulled into an empty space and filmed me parking. I hit, like, 6 cars.

As we made our way into the Toronto Night Market, Hector explained the breakdown of how tonight was going to be filmed. I was listening intently – I knew that I would have to make an extra effort to cooperate with the camera and not just a crowd when I rapped on stage tonight, and it wasn’t going to be easy. But it’s not like MuchMusic covering one of your sets is something that just slips your mind when you get distracted, nah I’m sayin’?

Probably not.

Anyway, at this point, Conor took a call from Shain, who had been there for several hours already through several periods of heavy rain that had come down earlier in the evening. Shain told us he had heard through the grapevine (he was standing right beside the stage where the organizers were talking) that there was a chance Night Market staff was going to shut down the show if it rained any heavier than the light drizzle that was hitting us now. To top it off, he said, another act had just been sent home, their set cancelled as a result of the bad weather. Shain later reiterated the conversation he just had with one of the organizers:

Shain: Well if you’re sending that band home, what about Soul Plane? They’re supposed to go on at 11 15pm.
Organizer: I don’t know right now, at this point, they might not be able to play. We might have to cancel the performances for the rest of the night if it rains again.
Shain: No. You fucking can’t. I don’t think you understand. MuchMusic is coming to film these guys, this is like, the most important act of the night. Who cares about everyone else?

I want this guy to be my PR.

Hector filmed us as the panic set in – Conor was already scrambling to come up with contingency plans. Harrison was still running around in his purple Soul Plane t-shirt trying to promote the band to Asian people who either didn’t know what he was saying or didn’t want anything to do with him, or both. I remained silent, shaking my head, walking on my feet, praying in my heart, and cursing under my breath.

Once we approached the fairgrounds, we made a bee-line for the stage. Conor was immediately trying to negotiate with the staff to secure a set for us, wet or dry, obviously using MuchMusic as powerful leverage wherever possible. We left them to their business and Hector stood around filming a whole stack of absolutely nada. After Conor finally managed to get the organizers to swear on their descendants’ souls that we’d be able to play, rain or shine, at 11 15pm on the dot, we adjourned to a pathway nearby so that Hector could film me dropping a freestyle to Aaron’s (this guy actually told Conor off when he tried to strongarm himself in) beatboxing. Conor tried to get a whole bunch of people to come with us so that it would beef up the video, using MuchMusic as leverage, but most people wanted nothing to do with any of us. We’re going to be the most disgusting famous people ever.

The minute I actually started freestyling, though, heads were turning. I did a quick 2 verses on camera, doing my best (but failing miserably) to censor myself – it’s incredibly difficult when it’s an actual freestyle (as supposed to a pre-written verse), if for no other reason than to stay on beat. Soon there were people cheering, loving the attention, and eventually the circle of people around me got bigger. Before long, though, we had to wrap it up and head back up to the stage, where we had a real show to do.

As we prepared to get on, the emcees knew the deal and announced that “the upcoming act [would] be covered by MuchMusic.” The people in the stands, some several thousand of them, roared. As the introduction was wrapped up, we got on stage and wasted 10 minutes setting up the cymbals to the drum kit. MuchMusic almost went home. This whole fiasco resulted in a lengthy delay as well as our set time getting cut short by a song. This sucks.

As we performed, I made as many references as humanly possible to MuchMusic’s presence. Every time I made the audience cheer I made it clear they were cheering for MuchMusic, just so there would be no misconceptions on anybody’s part that they were rooting for say, Soul Plane for instance. This strategy guaranteed deafening noise from the crowd the entire night – the idea of getting their 15 seconds of fame on MuchMusic must have pumped some life into them, because we’re sure not that good.

By the end of “No Worries,” two songs into our set, we were informed that we only had time for one last song. Apparently, another song had to be cut because I spent too much time shouting out MuchMusic. Oh well, time well wasted. We finished our set off with “Life is Beautiful” and took the stage with us when we left. Even the emcee couldn’t help himself: “WOW! That’s going to be a hard act to follow!” I was being congratulated left and right by people I had never met before; I had people shoving Soul Plane merchandise in my face asking for autographs – I ended up having to rob the sound guy of his Sharpie pen to get ‘er done. Harrison and Conor could hardly keep up with the sales they were making. Two pretty girls put me up to celebrity status, asking me to pose for pictures with them, and asked for Conor’s card and our website information to stay up on things. The most beautiful part of it was that MuchMUsic got it all on record.

When we got back to Aaron’s house, Hector wanted to get some Soul Plane feedback of the show on tape, so we huddled up in a semi-circle around the camera and spoke our minds. We were all extremely happy with the outcome of the night, despite our worry earlier that the event would be ruined. It was a show where we truly felt like stars, what with the crowd loving us, buying stuff with our logo on it, and a national television camera being present to cover our set. Before Hector and Julie left, they congratulated us on a successful shoot day, and I was told that Hector had run over two hours of tape.

I can’t wait to see what the next couple shoots with MuchMusic have in store for us; don’t even pretend you can.