* SoundRoots - October 25, 2007
* CBC Radio 2 Blog - July 17, 2007
* The Live Music Report - June 9, 2007
* Global Rhythm Magazine - June 11, 2007
* Toronto Star - May 31, 2007
* World Music Central - May 16, 2007
* Now is Wow - May 11, 2007
* Silverfish Magazine
* Origivation
* Caribbean Beat - Issue No. 83
* Exclaim! - February 09, 2007
* stephenbailey.com - November 14, 2007
* MusicDish e-Journal - November 14, 2007
* The Live Music Report - November 2, 2006
* IndependentsOnly.com
* Blogcritics Magazine - October 5, 2006
* Slug Magazine
* The Live Music Report - May 5, 2006
SoundRoots
dj earball
October 25, 2007
Won't You Take Me Down To Kobo Town?
Kobo Town is the result, to some extent, of a revelation by founder and bandleader Drew Gonsalves (left). Growing up in Dieto Martin, Trinidad, he hungered for foreign status symbols like running shoes, and was ashamed when his father brought home a new pair of shoes with the label "Made in Trinidad and Tobago."
In the liner notes to Independence, Gonsalves writes about the widespread dismissal of the homegrown in favor of the foreign, and how this music has turned him back to his roots. "Written out of a love for old-time calypso, roots reggae and dub poetry, this record is also driven by a desire to join the effort of those West Indian artists, activists and musicians who have recognized that the wounds in our society run deep into our past, and that recovering a sense of cultural national and spiritual self-worth is a crucial first step in the path toward healing and renewal."
Right. So it's got roots and good motivation. But, I hear you ask, what of the music?
Good news on this front, also. Chock full of positive messages, Kobo Town also knows how to lay down a groove, with strong vocals and tight arrangements. Highlights (and there are many) include the domestic violence song "Abatina," with its dark storyline and compelling; "Higher than Mercy," which delivers an anti-war message in lyrics with near-haiku beauty and simplicity; and the anti-tyranny reggae anthem "Blood and Fire." And Gonsalves' shoe story rings loudly in the lyrics of the bright, positive "Beautiful Soul": "All the time, They tellin' the lie, we are what we buy / in the paper, on the poster, in the magazine."
Lovers of old calypso, new ska (like Ska Cubano), and positive vibrations will love the righteous balm of the Caribbean poured through the sounds of Kobo Town.
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CBC Radio 2 Blog
Jowi Taylor
July 17, 2007
Culture Fuse
Last year, an album came out by a Toronto group called Kobo Town. They've been getting some attention from CBC and I see them playing around town and on the festival circuit a fair bit. I'm just willing to bet that 20 years from now, there will be a retrospective (a la Light in the Attic's "Jamaica To Toronto" compilation) that will marvel at this extraordinary group and their twist on a particular antecedent of Trinidadian Calypso.
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The Live Music Report
Tony Shivpershad
June 9, 2007 - Luminato Festival, Lula Libre Stage, Distillery District. Toronto
On a beautiful warm spring night on an open-air sound stage in the heart of Toronto's beautiful Distillery District - this is the way to see Kobo Town. The occasion was Luminato, the Toronto festival of arts and creativity. It was there, between the historic buildings, at the end of the big cobblestone road, that Kobo Town seemed larger than life.
The band executed their unique blend of Calypso, roots reggae and a splash of jazz with effortless precision. The crowd was receptive and appreciative. During their first song a two-year-old baby danced a solo game of Ring around the rosie on the riser in front of the stage, entertaining the audience and causing guitarist Cesco Emmanuel to crack a smile. Soon that solo baby would turn into a mob of dancers.
A quartet of young teenage female hip-hop dancers popped and locked amongst the other Kobo Town revellers as the band delivered crowd pleasers from their Independence album, which was released late in 2006, as well as many bonus songs. The violin solo from "Abatina", which had turned into a Linsey Wellman flute solo at the Independence album release party, this time became a dramatic guitar solo by virtuoso Cesco Emmanuel.
A couple of pulsing conga solos by Derek Thorne had the crowd cheering. Bassist Roger Williams laid down thick bottoms as drummer Robert Millicevic kept precision time. In between gifting us with his melodic poetry, bandleader Drew Gonsalves volleyed festive rhythm riffs on his acoustic guitar.
The sounds all came together beautifully, the five men on stage each bringing a unique style that came together to create lush, exotic kaiso music. The large crowd that came out to enjoy the band received a real gift this night. The dancers got a glorious workout. One fan in the audience held up a large homemade Bristol board sign that summed it all up nicely: Kobo Town Rocks!
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Global Rhythm Magazine
By Matt Scheiner
June 11, 2007
The members of Kobo Town are a complete cross-section of the Caribbean islands where their musical influences stem from-composed of Trinidadians, a Cuban and a Jamaican (as well as a few Canadians), the group fluidly meshes their West Indian roots to form a new reggae/calypso carnival party. Bandleader and lead vocalist Drew Gonsalves has a perfect reggae voice (more authentic and passionate than either Mishka or Matisyahu), and the group's lyrics tackle Trinidad's turbulent past and present-a subject he's experienced firsthand. Taking cues from Jamaican mento, reggae, and calypso (which was born in Kobo Town, Trinidad), Independence is packed with traditional instrumentation and a joyous vibe. "Sing Out, Shout Out," "Corbeaux Following" and "Blood And Fire" are the key tracks, mixing inventive horns, congas, cuatro and contrabass, led by Gonsalves' energetic and smooth patois.
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Toronto Star
Donna Yawching
May 31, 2007
Traditional Island Music Takes Root Here: Calypso's New Home
The heartbeat of Trinidadian culture is thriving in Toronto even as it fades in its homeland
It's Wednesday night at the Trane Studio on Bathurst St., and the place is hopping Ð you have to squeeze your way to the bar. Onstage, a slim young man with a guitar has the crowd swaying to an irresistible calypso beat. Drew Gonsalves and his band Kobo Town may not think of themselves this way, but they're a musical bridge between two cultures, and a tenuous link to what may be a dying folk art.
"Man in handcuffs pleads to the charges," he sings, and his listeners Ð having been prompted Ð respond: "Made up their mind and they want to take his life" It's a classic calypso ploy, call-and-response, pulling people into the spirit of the music.
It's also about capital punishment Ð an unusual topic for a bar song. But the rhythms are infectious and the melody catchy, so the audience jumps in with gusto. That, too, is characteristic of calypso Ð the ability to address serious subject matter without killing the party.
In the audience, Roger Gibbs, who heads an association of calypso performers, is one of Kobo Town's biggest fans.
"What Drew is doing is wonderful," Gibbs says. "He's drawing on the traditional calypso vocabulary...giving it a fresh and authentic sound."
Back in Trinidad, calypso is anything but fresh; its roots have withered in its birthplace.
The classic calypsonians are fading from the scene and a younger generation, influenced by everything from American R&B to Jamaican dub and dancehall, prefers a fast-paced party music that has no interest in complex syncopations or social commentary.
In Toronto, however, where an immigrant Trinidadian community clings nostalgically to the familiar rhythms, traditional calypso still has a strong following.
"I lean toward the old side," confesses Guney Cedeno, a well-known performer on the local calypso scene. "In much of the new music today, there is not much of a message or substance that can survive the way the older music can survive. After the season is over, you don't even remember the name of the song."
Cedeno has won various titles at the competitions put on each year by Gibbs' group, the Organization of Calypso Performing Artistes (OCPA). He has excelled as Calypso Monarch, Soca Monarch (soca is party-style calypso) and Extempo Monarch ("extempo" is the art of creating calypso verses on the spot, extemporaneously).
Being in Toronto "really opened my eyes to different levels and styling, in order to communicate to the wider audience," says Cedeno, who has lived in Canada for 20 years.
"Trinis are the main support for calypso music in the city," he says, but he often recognizes non-Caribbean faces in the audience who are "true lovers of calypso music. You have to meet them halfway."
Gibbs says Toronto events put on by his group have generated a "good body of original material....We have calypsonians here from all the islands. We have some real talent in this community."
One of these talents is Tara Eulith Woods, better known as Macomere Fifi and revered as Toronto's Calypso Queen. Woods is from Tobago, Trinidad's sister isle, but has lived here since 1987. Calypso seduced her after she had left her homeland.
"I never sang calypso in Tobago," she recalls.
"When we are away from our culture, that is when we miss it most. It's a love born out of necessity Ð it's not around, so you do whatever you must to hold on to it."
Woods thinks calypso is "slowly catching on" with the wider public, through exposure at various community events.
"A lot of people can identify with the political commentary," she says with a chuckle.
She has used calypso at a Pickering high school as an alternative teaching tool to address serious topics such as racism and abortion, and was impressed by the level of enthusiasm among all the students.
"Some of the best (calypsonians) were not from a Caribbean background," she says.
This ability to cross cultural divides is probably calypso's best hope for the future. Take the case of Gonsalves' band. Half of Kobo Town's musicians are from Trinidad, but the bass player is Jamaican, the drummer's roots are Slovenian and the woodwinds man is a Canadian of an Indonesian-Chinese-British background.
Robert Milicivic, the drummer, has played with Gonsalves since their high school days in Ottawa.
"There's lots of space...for creativity," he says of calypso, "which is not always the case in other music."
For him, Kobo Town's diversity is its strength. The musicians bring elements Ð such as flute and violin Ð that would not be found in purely traditional calypso or reggae arrangements.
"Drew writes the music, but (the arrangement) is quite a democratic process," Milicivic says.
"If you have an idea that's different, we try it out. If it works, that's great; we keep it. We end up with more ideas than we would have if everyone came from the same background."
Gonsalves says the band's music is solidly rooted in traditional calypso, but also incorporates elements of dub and reggae.
"Dub and calypso both come from a long tradition of storytellers and wordsmiths, so I find they go together nicely."
Like Woods, Gonsalves, 30, is a Trinidadian who came to calypso only in Canada. His family migrated to Ottawa when he was 13. Back then, coming from a privileged middle-class background, he had no interest in calypso, the music of the masses.
"I had the same self-disdain of Trinidad culture that we were all raised with," he recalls.
"No respect for it at all."
Being an expatriate changed all that.
Homesickness sparked his interest in the place he had left. He began to read Trinidadian history and listen to the music that was a "cultural window" into the past.
"All the things that you take for granted in your own culture, your own country, only begin to shine out when you are in a contrasting environment," he says.
"You realize what formed you. I only got a chance to appreciate it once I was away from it, and could look at it from the outside."
What attracts Gonsalves to traditional calypso is its ability to tell stories Ð often with humour, always with passion.
Growing out of slavery, the music evolved into a take-no-prisoners form of social satire, a safe way to criticize those in power and comment on the vicissitudes (or absurdities) of daily life.
"What I like about calypso is that it's music that was meant to say something," says Linsey Wellman, Kobo Town's woodwinds player.
"I like the outspokenness and the cleverness of the great calypsonians. It's nice to be in a group that addresses what's happening in the world, but that is equally concerned with creating great sounds."
Strong melodies and a waist-moving beat were the spoonful of sugar that made the medicine go down very easily indeed.
Gonsalves' song "Abatina," about domestic violence, is a perfect example of this. Even as you sing along to a very harsh tale, you can't stop your body swaying to the music.
"All the band members have a reverence for traditional calypso and try to stay true to that spirit," Wellman says.
"I hope that at the heart of many of our tunes lies an old-time calypso song, and that all we've done is dress it up a bit with some more state-of-the-art instrumentation."
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World Music Central
Tom Orr
May 16, 2007
I sought out this CD on a whim, having read a positive review elsewhere. I expected it to at least be pretty good and am instead pleased to report it's well into the realm of great. A mixture of calypso, reggae and Latin rhythms, the music of Toronto-based Kobo Town scores high marks not only for infectious grooves but for lyrics that are unfailingly both conscientious and clever.
Lead singer/guitarist/composer Drew Gonsalves hails from Trinidad and uses his homeland's 45 years of independence as a jumping-off point for these songs that lash out against oppression and materialism while uplifting self-worth and spirituality.
Gonsalves has a deftly engaging, Caribbean-accented voice that fills every rhythm and rhyme full of urgent yet whimsical energy, riding his band's swinging foundation of bass, drums, percussion, flute, soprano sax, trumpet and violin with graceful conviction.
I'll not bother with descriptions of specific songs 'cause they're all beauties. This disc would likely have made my Top 10 of 2006 had I known about it at the time, so I'll now make up for any oversight by saying that Independence will stir your soul, warm your heart, free your mind and render your body unable to keep still. Kobo Town deserve to be the talk of the town.
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Now is Wow
Elspeth Duncan
May 11, 2007
Last night I felt connected. Kobo Town has Trini members in it and they live in Toronto now. Last night as they played, their professionalism, talent, humility and joy at sharing their music was evident. It was not 'Trini' music, yet it was. I found it to be a fresh fusion of 'home' and other' influences. The crowd represented that fusion.
At one point as Kobo Town was playing, I got a strong sense of them in the moment: "This is what we love to do, it's what we are here to do and we are doing it the best we can." Something in my chest swelled up. Could have been pride, could have been tears, but was probably both.
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Silverfish Magazine
International fusion music can be a gaping hole in the walls many a well-rounded music collection. Here to fill in the gap between established favorites like Bob Marley and the Wailers and Wyclef is Kobo Town, a collection of incredibly talented musicians from Trinidad and Tobago making their current home in Ontario, Canada. These polished professionals bring an album to the table that not only possesses superior lyrics but infectious calypso/reggae beats that will have you shaking your shins and jumping up for an impromptu dance no matter where your cubicle may be located.
The album is presented as an exploration into the 'independence experiment' of Trinidad and Tobago in the West Indies. With a great deal of love, as well as a soupcon of irony, the group examines the culture, rhythms, and history of the nation. 'Abatina' discusses the horrors of a marriage ending in abuse and death, 'At The Edges' life on the margins of a city, 'Blood and Fire' the horrors and excitement of a city rioting for justice. This album is a powerful statement of the personal experiences of the band members in a society still adjusting to freedom and self-rule, and done in a way which celebrates the unique joy, organic growth, and tremendous beauty of Trinidad's musical and cultural eclecticism.
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Origivation
Independence is a very traditional reggae and calypso meditation on Trini- dad's various struggles for independence (political, spiritual, and cultural). Unlike the majority of so-called "political records," Independence eschews saber rattling at anonymous authority figures in favor of specific references to specific events (the slave trade, Trinidad's 1962 Independence from the Brit- ish Empire, political unrest in 1999). Flute-heavy, light reggae arrangements tend to dominate. While the upbeat tone of the music prevents the songs from being too heavy-handed, it can also subtract from the gravitas of the lyrics. It's not an innovative album, but it is awfully easy to listen to.
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Caribbean Beat
Georgia Popplewell
Issue No. 83 - January/February 2007
A band like Kobo Town - diasporic, multi-ethnic, genre-straddling - would always have been a source of bewilderment to marketing executives in what you might call the "1.0" version of the music industry. How, where, to whom, would one sell them? The answer to that question, in the age of the Internet, is, of course: to anybody and everybody on the World Wide Web. Kobo Town is one of several emerging - and, more often than not, young - groups and artists from the Caribbean who have embraced the opportunities of the Internet, thereby dispensing with the need for the traditional structures which probably wouldn't have paid them much attention anyway. Their web site, kobotown.com, re-directs to their page at MySpace (the social networking site which has become a sine qua non for independent bands and artists), which features a prominent link to their page at the well-regarded world music download site Calabash Music, along with full-length music samples (for your pre-purchase listening pleasure).
Kobo Town is led by Drew Gonsalves, a Trinidadian transplanted to Canada, and comprises an assortment of his fellow diasporians from Trinidad, Jamaica, and Cuba. The tracks on Independence alternate between uptown-style roots reggae and old-time kaiso layered with light punk and blues rhythms, with Gonsalves's social commentary texts and twenty-first-century kaiso narratives in the foreground.
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Exclaim!
Brent Hagerman
February 09, 2007
Independence is one of those rare records that you will encourage everyone in your vicinity to get. Merging calypso, roots reggae, acoustic performance, dub studio techniques and Trinidadian/Jamaican cultures, Kobo Town is a unique, stylistic, transnational composite of rhythm, poetry and activist journalism. Like the great Calypsonians of his birthplace in Port-of-Spain (Lord Kitchener, the Mighty Sparrow), Toronto-based songwriter Drew Gonsalves constructs incisive social commentary with humour, panache and unforgettable rhythm/melody combinations. Take the jumpy, Carnival-ready "Trinity," or the moody tale of murder and deception, "Abatina”," which are songs of dense graphic and musical description, and cut bone deep into the listener's subconscious. Likewise, the dancehall-inspired "Across the Dark Waters" and the lazy Kingston skank of "At the Edge of the City" fuse inter-Caribbean sounds, histories and moods in an altogether formidable package. Independence is somewhat of a concept album, recorded between Trinidad and Ontario, of a diasporic son coming to terms with the home country and falling in love with it all over again through the eyes of his new home. Don't be surprised if you too fall in love with Kobo Town.
What does the name Kobo Town signify? Drew Gonsalves: I named the project Kobo Town as a tribute to the place that helped give birth to calypso. It was the centre for the stick fighting art called Kalenda and there was a lot of rhythm and singing involved while people were jumping around and beating each other up. Calypso grew out of the boastful taunts that people used to sing around the circle of stick fighters.
Do Calypso fans tend to be purists? Well, you find a lot of people that would call themselves Calypso purists have made a peace with the drum machine I could never make! Our fan base is really mixed actually. I'd say about half is West Indian, but we also have college students, the world music crowd and the reggae audience.
Can you tell me a bit about your approach to writing lyrics? One of the things I try to do in my own songwriting is to engage [the] imagination by building songs on stories and/or images. Politically conscious music often gets tied down into abstract phrases and words. Like, for example, what does liberty mean? It could mean a hundred things to different people. The best way to relay a message is to tell a story or present somebody with an image. It is something they can smell, taste and imagine.
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stephenbailey.com
Club Midway, NYC - November 14, 2006
Music Dish, Organic Entertainment and Listen Liberally treated us all to yet another great night of music, food and drink at Club Midway (25 Ave B, NYC). Tonight's feature was Kobo Town. They are a group named after an historic neighborhood in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad where traditional calypso music is said to have been born. Currently based in Toronto, Canada this group has tight ties to Trinidad.
Those ties can be felt in the heart of their music and the kindness of their personalities. The tiny basement of Club Midway was no longer in NYC but transported to a sunbathed island with hot sand and cold beer. You couldn't help but move to the flowing harmonics and ebbing beats. Even those like me who are hopelessly deficient in the rhythm department. But the room of warm, fun-lovin' smiles would outshine any inhibitions.
Once again the host Club Midway impressed me with their sound. For such a small space their soundman-whose name escapes me-did a remarkable job of keeping things sonically balanced. This was only my second time in the club but both times were equally pleasing to the ears. Anyone who's been in small loud rooms in NYC knows how important that is. And of course the food was once again fantastic.
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MusicDish e-Journal
Mark Kirby
Club Midway, NYC - November 14, 2006
On Tuesday, November 14, we witnessed another in a fine series of events under the rubric of "Listen Liberally." These New York City events showcase bands and offer a chill place for fans and D.I.Y. people in the music industry to see them. This most recent event was the record release party of Kobo Town, a pan-Caribbean music group from Canada that has updated Trinidadian calypso and mixed it with reggae and other regional music, while still keeping the traditions of fable-style storytelling and political commentary. Led by Drew Gonsalves - primary song writer, vocalist, cuatro (a four-string mini guitar) and guitar player - Kobo Town has created something unique, a rarity in today's musical environment fraught with the cannibalism of music styles, little innovation or even creativity.
The show started off with friends and fans milling about Club Midway getting lubricated, or should I say prepped for the show. With the music space in the bar's basement (a concession to the new well-heeled residents of Avenue B) I cringed, since the sound in most places like this is loud, shrill and muddy. All right for generic punk, horrible for anything else. When the band took the stage and started playing, to my surprise, the sound was excellent. It was also clear that this band sounded so good because of touring off their new record Independence. There is nothing like touring to make a band tight.
The show started with "Half of the Houses." Beginning with Gonsalves' voice, the song jumped into a full on roots/dub reggae number. Bass player Pat Giunta and drummer Rob Milicevic laid down a serious Roots Radics-style groove, peppered by Cesco Emmanuel on lead guitar and Derek Thorne on percussion, conga and djembe. As they went through a set consisting mostly of songs off the new CD, it was clear that between their last visit to New York a year ago and this show, that the recording and touring had turned a good band who played a nice set into an awesome band playing great. After this straight up dub, they went to the other pole of their musical world, the traditional sounding calypso tune "Trinity," a sun drenched island love song that got backs off the wall and started the staid Tuesday crowd moving. "Abatina" followed. This song brought forth more of the group's signature sound, a blend of calypso melody, reggae beats and call/response backup vocals.
By this time, the crowd of Kobo Town cognoscenti and newbies was on the floor dancing, unable to keep that somnambulant New York City cool pose. While the show, like the CD, had moments of danceable fun (aforementioned "Trinity" and "Higher Than Mercy") the overall theme of Kobo Town is hope and struggle, expressed through music that is both marching strong and grooving happily. The song "St. James" is a signature number for this band, especially live, because it has everything that's good about the band. The beat is spacious like the best reggae, but the bass line has the strident macho quality of old school Afro Cuban music - think Cachao (if you don't know ask somebody). Percussionist Thorne played melodic riffs on cowbell and conga drums. Gonsalves' cuatro has a folkloric sound that brings up juice from the music's roots. His vocals have an unaffected power and simplicity reminiscent of Peter Tosh or Barrington Levy.
The lyrics express the rebellious spirit of old and new calypso - and the music of cultural resistance everywhere:
In the pool of our sorrow, in the sea of our wrong,
Like a pothound sniffs the ground for a bone
For something thrown away to call his own
...
Hope whispers into the air of night
"brother, haul yuh tail this town is mine"
St. James, night is falling down
Like an eyelid closing on the town
The whole place like a boil ready to bus'
St. James pray for us
"Sing Out Shout Out," which opens the CD, closed the set. Over a classic reggae one drop complete with a bouncing step in the bass and drums and sweet, offbeat guitar, Gonsalves sings the story and history of imperialism and control:
new flag, new name, same old game
where the lucky laugh and the poor endure
having lost the will to fight again
I remember when we were young
and hope was strong
Mr. Thorne was a treat throughout the concert but especially on his show stopping djembe solo and conga work on this song.
Overall, Kobo Town delivered. The tightly and powerfully performed songs possessed cohesion, dynamics and clarity that went beyond the recorded versions, excellent though they may be. And isn't that what we all want from a live show?
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The Live Music Report
Tony Shivpershad
November 2, 2006 - Lula Lounge, Toronto
It was cold outside. Winter was getting ready to make her slow approach. The dark streets of downtown Toronto were quiet, on this Thursday night, but inside the orange walls of Lula Lounge, six men known as Kobo Town were welcoming us to the release party for their album Independence.
Bandleader Drew Gonsalves welcomed the enthusiastic crown to "a very joyous night". Roger Williams slapped out a dub reggae bass line intro and a chorus of song erupted as the band played "Half of the Houses". A song that, while not on the CD being celebrated, would set the tone for the night.
The cold streets outside were quickly forgotten. Drummer Robert Milicevic played bare-foot, and guitarist Cesco Emmanuel wore the Trinidadian football jersey of the past summer's World Cup tournament. The song featured vocals and Emmanuel's guitar playing a sweet sounding game of call-and-response. This was old-school reggae, Bob Marley himself would have been proud to hear Kobo Town play.
The next song turned up the heat even more. "Trinity", a bubbling calypso, was played at a faster tempo than the version on the album. Percussionist Derek Thorne beat congas and Linsey Wellman added a passionate flute solo. Emmanuel's guitar was turned up and bright as the Trinidadian sun, as Gonsalves sang to us the skilfully written story of his return to his native land.
Roger Williams' pumping bass line along with drummer Robert Milicevic's tempo introduced "Abatina". While it's difficult to choose just one, this is a favourite piece on the CD. The violin of the recorded version was replaced by a melancholic melody played by Wellman on the soprano saxophone. The sax melody embodied the sad tale of Tina, who was married off to a man that did not deserve her. Kellylee Evans' vocals were missed, but Wellman made up for it with some vicious soloing on the saxophone.
Gonsalves who alternated between tres and cuatro from song to song, dedicated "Higher than Mercy" to the people who inspired him, particularly his father-in-law. Then another song not found on the CD, the incredible jazz/ska-infused "Everybody Waiting for Braxton" turned up the intensity. The group on the dance floor grooved a little harder, Wellman attacked his flute with fervour, and Emmanuel's guitar solo was brilliant.
"Sing Out, Shout Out", the song from which the album title Independence is drawn, was next up. This was a roots reggae rocker. The live treatment was like a 12-inch extended version of the album version and featured another frenzied solo from Wellman, this time on his soprano saxophone.
As if the crowd wasn't having enough fun already, Gonsalves pulled out a calypso sing-a-long about a fictitious character, Henry Marshall, who meets a tragic end. As the crowd was taught their lines, "made up their mind and they want to take his life", Gonsalves joked that no Trinidadian accent was necessary, but it would be an asset. Then we were instructed to sound more like an angry mob. Despite the morbid lyrics, this song was a lot of fun, a real party song.
Gonsalves was hospitable enough to survey the crowd, asking how many of us had to go to work the next day, and how many wanted to stay out and party all night. With that in mind, the band took a short break.
The second set started with Gonsalves alone on stage with his, playing the comedic "Yankees on the radio" (no offence to any American present). This was the story of Gonsalves' recent trip back to Trinidad where he was disturbed by the Americanization of his country's media, "You may sound like a native in New York City, but you sound like a jackass in Trinidad." The rest of the band joined in near the end of the song, to help on the chorus. Then they launched into "Blood and Fire" a song with an infectious chorus, and addictive guitar riff, a driving bass, funky drums, and some super sax.
As the show went on, Gonsalves and the band became more and more animated. The flute and guitar traded riffs on the extended intro to "Beautiful Soul", which was another fine example of Kobo Town's live treatment of the songs from the album. The dramatic "St. James" followed, which featured a great acappella breakdown.
One of the most fun songs on the album, "Corbeaux Following", was saved for last. Gonsalves' lyric writing is powerful throughout the album, but on this song they are downright profound, and it was a shame that they got lost deep in the mix during the stage performance. Near the end, the band broke the song down and the band members were introduced, each doing dazzling solos in turn, before the song returned with its Creole call-and-response ending. Then Emmanuel put down his guitar and picked up an empty beer bottle, and started to play a beat with a spoon on the bottle. Milicevic followed suit, as well as Williams. The band paraded off stage Wellman continuing to play his soprano sax, Gonsalves on tres, and Thorne playing djembe followed those playing beer bottles into the crowd while continuing the "Corbeaux Following" melody.
The band danced and played in the crowd of dancers in front of the stage before ending the song, and the night. Eventually the warmth of Trinidad faded as we walked out into the frigid night air of our frozen city.
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IndependentsOnly.com
Monk's Picks
Intoxicating calypso rhythms held straight with a reggae backbone is the best way to describe this Toronto based group's sound. Incorporating instruments like the flute, quatro, violin, saxophone and Indian hand drums, Kobo Town have created their own sound that glides on a musical wave.
Set against a backdrop of social want and need, the sense of urgency heard here makes you want to stand up and be heard. Songs of pride, hope, and an ability to see beauty in troubled times. "Independence" shows how music can be the voice of the people and that the message always rises from ashes. One of the most beautifully intelligent releases...ever!
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Blogcritics Magazine
Jon Sobel
October 5, 2006
Toronto-based reggae-calypso band Kobo Town, brainchild of Trinidadian singer, songwriter and bandleader Drew Gonsalves, is named for the old Port-of-Spain neighborhood that birthed traditional calypso. Though the band's sound is best described as pan-Caribbean, its inspiration and subject matter have firm roots in the history of Gonsalves's native land, of whose turbulent history he speaks with poetic specificity and force.
In "Trinity" he looks down on the land from an airplane: "Her clothes were torn, and her shirt was all tattered/Her eyes downcast, every hope and joy scattered/Dream of my past, bright memory shattered/but I adore her still 'cause I know that all that don't matter." In other songs ("Abatina," "Beautiful Soul") he focusses closer in, examining the lives of individuals. And in "Blood and Fire" he casts his eye on the wider stage of the whole suffering world: "From Gaza to Jaffna, blood and fire/Soweto to Rio, blood and fire...What must fall to be free, blood and fire."
But Gonsalves and his able eight-piece band couch the messages in bouncing beats that elevate the spirit. Flute and violin lines slither through the clever arrangements; Gonsalves himself handles the guitar and cuatro; and Kellylee Evans contributes some laserlike guest vocals. Fans of Caribbean music, world music in general, and meaningful songwriting should grab this CD when it's released next month - it's a beauty.
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Slug Magazine
Kobo Town = Old skool Dancehall + Roots Reggae + Cuban Son Monuto
Drew Gonsalves' brainchild, Independence, has many shining points, even though I was apprehensive to listen to the album from the beginning for fear of hearing the same dub style of the previous year. Diaphragmatic diatribes, melodic firepower and smooth beach acoustic make this record a wholly unique dub/reggae album. This album definitely tackles a new theme outside of the normal subject matter of reggae by mixing so many elements of early Trinidad Calypso, Jamaican Mento, Brazillian Forro and Columbian and Haitian Kompa. Independence is very organic in nature, using every instrument Drew Gonsalves could find for his live performance band, he then added the components to fit in the last piece of the puzzle. The result is a collection of songs that sound warm and human. I was surprisingly impressed.
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The Live Music Report
Joyce Corbett
May 5, 2006 - Lula Lounge, Toronto
The members of Kobotown snake their way through the audience to the stage, a parade of musicians such as you might hear in the historic neighbourhood of the same name in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. Derek Thorne leads the way beating a drum, followed by bandleader Drew Gonsalves playing cuatro and singing, Linsey Wellman playing saxophone, Cesco Emmanuel playing guitar and adding percussion, bassist Patrick Giunta along with drummer Robert Milicevic, striking steel to beer bottle.
Trouping onto the stage, they take their places while continuing to play. I am struck by how African the guitar sounds. They play a tune for all who have "come here from elsewhere to end up in this room in Toronto tonight." They move on to another featuring the flute, great syncopated rhythms and a solo using all three congas. After this, flautist (and saxophonist) Linsey Wellman asks, "Do you not feel like dancing tonight?" Exactly what I was wondering, this was rousing music.
The swing jazz introduction to "Everybody Waited For Braxton" came as quite a surprise and turned out to be more than just an introduction as the tune continued to cycle seamlessly between reggae and swing.
"Maybe we could take away some of these chairs," Drew Gonsalves said. "Get some dancing space." Then, "ah, maybe you're thinking, I've been waiting all night to sit, I'm so glad I have a chair, what a heartless band." As they launched into an irresistible calypso piece with a skilful rhythmic soprano saxophone people finally did start dancing.
Drew Gonsalves introduced the next piece talking about the history of calypso, or kaiso as it used to be called. It's main function was to tell the news. "Better than CNN", he said. "What would you rather listen to?" It was a vehicle for expressing opinions, for satire and for social commentary and an art form in which a facility with words was at least as important as the music. With that, he launched into an eloquent piece about Bush and the war on Iraq.
Kellylee Evans, who had finished her own show earlier that night joined the band for Kobotown's "Abatina" with its tragic narrative - "You see Harry was a charmer, no one believed that he could harm her" - "in the end Tina was buried in the yard by the church where she was married" - "now we pray that she will forgive us". Music to dance to? You wouldn't think so, but well, there was that hypnotic rhythm.
The evening continued with a pan-Caribbean mix of reggae, rock steady, calypso and funk whose vibrations dictated dance. In the end, very few people did not.
Kobotown's aim is to carry on the tradition of kaiso, following in the steps of people like the Roaring Lion, Mighty Spoiler, Lord Invader, King Radio and Attila the Hun but speaking to the issues of our times and continuing to add to the musical mix. They are doing an excellent job.
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