Press
IN THE PRESS
March 15, 2011 - Tra La Las return with Kitchener show, The Cord
March 30, 2011 - Fred Penner entertains, The Cord
October 6, 2011 – Indie Seen, Echo Weekly. By Care Humphries.
It’s not often that I don’t know what to say about a band. Quite frankly, I don’t know what to say about The Tra La Las. I laughed when I read their bio (indicating that they’d been drawn to one another by their ‘mutual hair styles and toothy grins’). I laughed when I read their classification of their music (which they claim hosts their ‘sincerest attempt at rap’). And trust you me, I laughed when I turned on their myspace and the song ‘Police Man’ flooded my speakers.
But ‘laughing’ and ‘laughing at’ is a distinguishable line between ‘this is something I get and love’ and ‘this is something I don’t get.’ Rest assured you will get The Tra La Las. They’re fun. They mash uncanny, hilarious lyrics with their instrumentation, harmonies and subject matter. There is something brutally honest about The Tra La Las – the music sounds like they recorded in their basement and some of their singing is barely audible at times. Sometimes their music bounces off an echo in wherever they chose to set up a microphone; sometimes they’re an acapella doo-wop group. And sometimes even their percussion is off-beat. But this comprises the charm of the Tra La Las. They’re cheerful. Happy. Excited to be doing what they’re doing. It suddenly doesn’t matter what the recording quality is like. They’re charisma and talent takes over every fibre of the song.
Comprised of Laurier students, Laura Ashfield, Janice Lee, Emily Slofstra and Adam F. Lewis, the Tra La Las have been making music since 2008. Impossible to whittle a genre for the group, they’re content to define a term entirely for themselves. “It’s hard to narrow us down to a genre because we are certainly not pure folk. We have elements of doo-wop, sometimes we rock out pretty hard and the political nature of our lyrics sometimes pushes us towards punk – especially since our drummer Adam is pretty punx,” explains the band. “We have been described as folk rock, pop, doo-wop. The constant in our music are the tight vocal harmonies, the way we make people feel happy, and the lean towards being slightly ridiculous and not taking ourselves too seriously. We like to cover Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg for example. We are trying to settle now on calling ourselves radical folk rock.” (I have a particular soft spot for their M.I.A. cover which includes a glockenspiel instead of the signature ‘cocking of the gun’ sound in the chorus.)
The bottom line is that having a genre to swear themselves by becomes second-fiddle to the talented Tra La Las. The band has already opened for Fred Penner, and this weekend’s EP release should be nothing short of a light-hearted good time soaked in fun. “I have never seen any performer with absolute control of the audience like Fred Penner,” Lee remembers of the legendary Canadian musician. “He made a bar full of drunk twenty-somethings sit up straight on the dirty Chainsaw dance floor and sing ABC. He’s the perfect mix of musician, entertainer, comedian and inspirational speaker. We were thrilled to sing with him.”
“I grew up listening to Fred Penner, so it was amazing to not just see him live, but get to sing three songs on stage with him,” adds Slofstra. “Someone else requested my favourite song ‘The ABCs of You’, so I couldn’t resist rushing on stage to sing along with him — apparently people were crying it was so overwhelmingly delightful. Then when he called all three of us up to sing Sandwiches and The Cat Came Back, it was the cherry on top. My sister says that that was the high point of my life, so it must be all downhill for here, but I think she’s just jealous that she didn’t get to come!”
Although opening a show is great, the stage is dedicated this weekend to the band and their long-awaited EP release, ‘Fight The Tide’. “We are so excited to finally have a well-recorded album to release,” they tell me. “The EP is called ‘Fight The Tide’ because of the running nature theme and also as in to fight the tide of injustice in our world. We see preserving the planet, taking care of and loving each other and challenging the police state as all intertwined in fighting the tide of injustice.” Having recorded alongside David Prychitka at Transverbal Productions in Hamilton, the band comments that the EP was able to capture that funky, rich, soulful and adorable spirit of the Tra La Las. “His home studio was great because we’d eventually get tired and hangry (hungry + angry), so it was nice to feel relaxed in the house, make some food, nap,” adds Slofstra.
Taking the stage on Friday are local indie hipsters, The Urban Monks, as well as drumming gurus, Organic Groove. “We like the Queen Street Commons,” says the band of the venue. “It’s a welcoming community space. And their lemon squares are amazing.”
Check out the Tra La Las this Friday for an EP Release unlike any other. And that’s due in part to the Tra La Las being unlike any other band I’ve ever had the pleasure to listen to and to laugh with. I said in the beginning I didn’t know what to say about them. I guess I lied.
