SO-ME

Was at the new TimeBomb (Timebomb distributes a bunch of skate and streetwear brands all over RVCA, Freshjive, LRG etc.) location today in Vancouver visiting our boy Gman. TimeBomb's new office is dope. They've designed the whole building like a piece of art. Inside on the walls they feature a whole host of great artists from around the world. I'm going to post some of the work I've seen. First is So-Me who U might know his work already from Kid Cudi's day and Night video or from Kanye's Good life video. Here's some other work he's done.










TIMEBOMB

SO-ME

HOW WE'RE DOING

So I'm here in the comfort inn Hotel in Vancouver. Sitting on the computer. I am fukin tired. Its 12:26am here which for Torontonians means 3:26am
Our flights just got in. Tune dropped me off and went to check his boy uptown. Flo is out and about and I'm reading up on some music biz stuff online.

Looking forward to our show tomorrow in Whistler. That town loves to party and we haven't been up there for a while. We're gonna toss some new ish into our set and I'm hyped to try out our newest live remix of Mos Def.

Damn it rains here a lot. But I still love Vancouver and B.C. If you're reading this and coming out to our shows in the next few days, take some pics and send them to us. We wanna see how the party is for you guys and how you experience it.

I'm about to pass outtttttttttttttt

OFF THE BEATEN PATH...

CLASSIC LIVE

We're gonna play to a crowd this size someday. Classic performance

KNK : CANADIAN WEST COAST RUN

British Columbia we are coming out to rock you next week!
Whistler March 31st @ Moe Joes
Vancouver April 1st @ The Biltmore Cabaret
Victoria April 2nd @ Clubhouse

GONZALES

SALVADOR DALI

The Best

JANOS, MONTREAL

SO part of the lifestyle on the road is always eating out and trying somewhere new to get a feel for a citys spirit. Our last trip to Montreal we stopped in at the well known spot Janos. We all had the exact same thing. Poulet et frites. While Flo recommended this place highly and swears by it, Tune and I both thought the chicken was a bit dry and nuthing to write home about. Though we did find the waitress to be friendly and good spirited. The atmosphere was trendy with a mom and pop shop feel to it.

End result, (out of 10)
Flo 8
Matisse 5
Tune 5

MELODICA'S

KEYS N KRATES IN VANCOUVER

Hellloooo VICTORIA, BC

Yup Yup , at the Clubhouse April 2nd were coming out to play for all you Grad students. Get smashed, wasted and do something you'll regret ok?

Ummm... dopeness...

This is why I love youtube. Stephanie Mills at the Apollo! Wtf!

SCHOOL'S OUT

So school's out and our report card came in. Check what A CMW critic thought of our show the other night at Canadian Music week. Bombastic claim huh? I bet she was shaking her booh tayyyy

"We reinvented the remix" is the battle cry of this Toronto trio. It's a pretty bombastic claim, but Keys N Krates mostly live up to their own hype with their live remixes —

KEYS N KRATES: CMW REPORT CARD, FULL ARTICLE HERE

SXSW REVIEW: KRAAK & SMAAK

Ohhhh kayyyyy
So we walked into another bar called Vive as one NY hip hop group was ending their set. We watched a couple songs and had a couple drinks. I wanted to leave before the next act came on because I didn't think it would be any good. Some of the dudes we were with wanted to stay and hear a couple from the next act. I'm sooo hyped we did. This band floored me. From the Netherlands. Kraak & Smaak. I gotta say the music on their site doesnt fully translate to how sick these guys are live. I mean seriously their sound set up took me to school. The core members are a 3 piece but live they boasted 6 players (dj, bass, drummer, keys, 2 singers who rotated and never shared the stage at the same time. 1 male 1 female. )

The keyboardist had a full out rhodes, a Roland of some sort that I couldn't make out, a reallll ass vintage Keytar, ( I have one, but not like this one. this was a spaceship) He also had what had to be a vintage moog synthesizer onstage. They murdered the crowd. I who usually like to be a music snob and hang out at the back with my critical eye ended up I moving up to the stage just to see how the hell they were creating such a soundscape live. If you ever hear that these guys are in town, go here them. A great electro live jam to have fun at. These guys should come out with a live album too if they haven't already. ILL ILL

MISSING:

the american dollar. Well, 200 of them actually. If anyone finds that amount between Toronto and Texas, please return to their owner. Their loved one misses them. F.U.C.K.

SXSW REVIEW: THE BAR-KAYS

Kay so after driving 28 hrs From Toronto to Dallas (YES, we drove. You are NOT the first person to ask us) to pick up our boy Peter who was to play bass for our show, and then driving another 4 hrs onwards, we finally arrived in Austin around 6pm last night. We stopped and ate at this Texas restaurant called FuddRunners., which we'll review later.

Anyway we went out that night and hit the strip HARD. Austin is Nutzzz right now. We hit a few shows and found out the legendary Bar-Kays were playing around 1am. DAMMMN

Let me tell you these guy lived up to being responsible for some of the funkiest grooves ever created. They owned the stage and had the 200 plus crowd in the palm of their hands. Singing old 70's Stax jams and revisiting Otis Reddings biggest hits. They even had the crowd doing the electric slide left to right across the dance floor. Me being a keyboardist I was listening to the 3 man synth orchestra that was hammering out melodies and patches. The band was so in the pocket it was nuts.

WTF?

soooo while we were setting up for our show this past Saturday night in Montreal, some things seemed to be missing from our rider.

can you guess what they're building???

(a) merch table
(b) Flo's dj table
(c) liquor and booze stand

KEYS N KRATES @ CMW

Last night we rocked out with everyone at Canadian Music Week. Good GOOD Times
Read Charts review of us HERE

PLUSHGUN

Hope to see all of our Toronto peoples out at our CMW showcase tonight at Wrongbar. See the flyer a few posts below. Here's a cool New Wavish band from Brooklyn signed to Last Gang Records that's also on the bill. Feelin it.

A WARNING

Tune sent me this....and I just thought that y know, we're out here doing our thing and we're kinda becoming role models in a small sort of way. So I just wanted to contribute some good to the world and let people know that Keys N Krates cares. We really do. So kids this is a public service announcement for you if any of you are doing this. STOP IT NOW

SXSW MUSIC CONFERENCE

So we're in the lab now,, workin on new stuff, blablabla. I hate it when people post screen names like "on the grind son." I'm gonna start setting my facebook status to "jerking off." How you like them apples? Okay, let's get back on track. So we're heading down to Austin, Teaxas for Southby to see what all this madness is about. We have two showcases confirmed, and one tentative. Here's a flyer for one of them. Big up Kunal for putting this one together.

THIS SATURDAY KEYS N KRATES, THE WONG BOYS @ ACADEMY CLUB, MONTREAL

This Saturday we're headed back to Montreal and Academy Club for our 2nd show with The Wong Boys.
Montreal we got YOU.

KEYS N KRATES - CEO (LIVE REMIX) VIDEO FOOTAGE

Here's some live footage of us doing CEO in it's primitive form at a Toronto show back in November. Scroll down for the MP3 you can grab to bump in your ipods.

KEYS N KRATES - CEO (LIVE REMIX VERSION)

Get used to it. You will be seeing a lot of MP3 drops of our live remixes over the next while. The MP3s are pretty much us set up and recording in a straight regular ass room, but using some crazy analog pre-amps, and guitar amps to run the ttables and keys through so we could capture that gritty room sound. All live off the floor and one take,, on the motown tip. The first entry is sort of a tribute to Hov,, who is lyrically and in someways businesswise really the CEO of rap right now (and for the past while). A two-step party vibe along with a nice epic breakdown piano breakdown that definitely makes cats at our shows close their eyes and forget about their work week. What more can you ask for? As well, For all you DJs and vinyl nerds, the artwork is a mock of the 80s promotional 12 inches that so much music we all loved came out on first. It was designed by my boy Mike Delmundo who is an ill designer with a cool clothing line called Iris ,, which we will eventually feature on the blog soon.

KEYS N KRATES - CEO (LIVE REMIX VERSION)

PICS FROM HOT 97 WHO'S NEXT SHOWCASE W/ KEYS N KRATES, KNAAN, B-REAL

REVIVE DA LIVE

Respectz goes to Meghan for getting us out to this show. A few months back when we were playing at the CMJ's in NY we shared the stage with a dope hip hop band called Igmar Thomas & the Cyphers. Met Igmar, Meghan and their peeps there and loved how they jammed their shit live.

Revive the Live represents a collective of some of the top jazz and hip hop musicians in NY. They've played with EVERYBODY. Just checked a show they were all putting on called Hip Hop since 1942. 8-9 piece band that blended ol Jazz tracks from Coltrane, Miles and others and then flipped them into the hip hop jams they became like Tribe, Gangstarr and KRS- ONE. All live. Pretty sick concept and the crowd loved it.

IF you are an underground jazz or hip hop fan this collective is worth a checking out HERE