04/30 Chameleon Project & Contact @ The Pepper Ja

[The Chameleon]

Saturday April 30@

&

Fusing the energy of rock, dub, break-beat, and house music into improvised live and recorded performances, CONTACT is a band on the cusp of an emerging genre of music, assailling bored dance floors with irresistible beats and unforgettable hooks.

Jazz, jungle, disco, funk, dub, techno…it’s all about a groove.

What keeps it engaging is improvisation. It keeps changing. It never stops. It’s at the heart of all great music…and it’s in the DNA of the members of the Chameleon Project (CP).

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This show will be one instrumental jam-pack, bass-pounding, bootyboucin' free for all! Get there early, get crunked and stay late. Homegrown livetronica, come out and represent! Hammertime in the Hammer!

Tickets at the Door...

www.chameleonproject.com www.contacttheband.ca

_________________

Demand quality music always!

"Pimipin' ain't easy" -Big Daddy Kane

"A jazz musician is juggler that uses harmonies instead of oranges" -Benny Green

[The Chameleon]

Ahhh1 Beautiful picturesque Hamilton......The Skyline reminds me of Bladerunner...

...Perfect for angular drum & bass jam-band business.

[Jay Funk Dawg]

give'r boys

[The Chameleon]

Will do. I'll see you at yer show too.

[SmoothedShredder]

How's the tour going Josh?

[The Chameleon]

Things are going great with more dates to come and things in the works....

Here is the poster for the Hamilton show....

[Homestar_Runner]

What does "Jazz, jungle, disco, funk, dub, technob&itb?s all about a groove." mean?

[SmoothedShredder]

Hmmm... Seems like the blackholes known as 'spaces' have been replaced by characters. Seems like Hawkings was wrong... energy can escape from Black Holes. I suspect that the message that was trying to be conveyed is that:

It's all about a Groove.

Definately.. and all you Toronto Heads: Check out Chameleon Project with the Void on May 20th at the Gypsy...

Any special requests? I wanna hear Welcome back Kotter this time... but smash it in the head with King Tubby would ya!

~W

[The Chameleon]

Yeah you guys are right the poster text is wack. I think smoothshredder is on the ball witht the comment that spaces have been replaced with wierd characters.

I'll have to pimp slap the Pepper Jack. het that's a great tile for a funk tune. Hmmmm.

[The Chameleon]

Rigt On! The Chameleon Project gets some press. We are featured in the Hamilton View and the Hamilton Spectator this week.

The Spectator ran a picture of us with a bi-line and the view is running a small interview.

Check it out if your have acess to these papers. I'm gonna work on finding links to post.

J

[earjunkie]

electro/organic jam bands givin er at the pepper jack. It is once again hammer time. (can't touch this!)

[Jay Funk Dawg]

this is going to be a blast!!

[The Chameleon]

The Chameleon Project is featured in a 3 page story in the Hamilton View! Bitchin'.

Here's the story.....

[color:red]CHAMELEON PROJECT

ARE ALL MUSICAL COLOURS IN ONE

Sometimes you just want to say nuts to the singer–

songwriters of the world, with all the introspection and

headiness that comes with their kind of music.

Sometimes you just want to shake your ass. That’s

where Toronto–based jazz/drum&bass/dub/ breaks/funk/

disco (phew!) wunderkinds The Chameleon Project

come in.

Dedicated to the fine art of inspiring booty movement,

Chameleon Project are set to hit Pepper Jack’s this

Saturday, with their bag of tricks in tow. Composed of

Josh Laing (Guitar, FX, Real–time Sampling), Snappy

Homefry (Bass), Adam Hutchison (keys) and Tyrone

Caissie (Drums), CP’s influences are all over the map,

ranging from Art Blakey and Amon Tobin to Lee Morgan

and The Crown Heights Affair. Their music, however,

while wide–ranging in spirit, is in reality a cohesive,

dance–tastic whole.

If that above–listed fusion of genres seems daunting to

you, don’t fear. This is a salad–bowl versus melting pot

kind of situation, where each part serves a distinct

purpose in making the whole instead of being, well, a

hodge podge. As Laing says, “We all do what we do for

the good of the project. Everyone brings a piece of the

puzzle to the musical table…

“The hybrid of what we play came about for many

reasons, but one of the most overriding was to push the

jazz repertoire into new, progressive territory and to

push drum and bass and electronic music into more vital

territory and out of its current state of general malaise.

“We just want to strike a blow in our own little way for

music that can rock the dance floor and your brain all at

once.”

It seemed to me that Chameleon Project aren’t what one

might call a jam–band, but Laing set me straight. “Well, I

would say we are a jam band,” he explains, “only we’re

trained jazz players who use jazz harmony as our basis

as opposed to (the) rock harmony that most jam bands

use. We’re a jam–band in the sense that our sets rely a

lot on in the moment—improv and on–stage

communication.

“The clearest way to describe what we do is a fusion of

jazz, dub and drum and bass—we call it breakbeat dub–

jazz. But in reality, we play groove oriented, improvised

music, and what you hear is a blend of what we listen to,

are inspired by, and what we reflect back to the listener.”

And they are jazzy, alright, not only in certain rhythms

and some of their instrumentation, but also thanks to that

aforementioned improv. “Being jazz players—that’s at

the heart of what we do,” Laing explains. “The improv

provides the perfect foil for the repetitive and propulsive

grooves of the rhythm section that drives the jam. The

drum and the bass takes care of your body and your

booty, while the improvisation over top speaks to your

mind.”

Chameleon Project have been doing a bit of improv off–

stage lately, too, launching a new record label (Reptile

Vision Records) and finding a replacement for original

bassist, Jamie Kidd, who left CP to focus on production

and DJing.

To fill Kidd’s space in a band with such a multi–faceted

sound required “a very particular type of bassist,” Laing

says, “one that could handle jazz standards, drum and

bass and breaks feels, but also understood the bass

principles of dub. That bassist ended up being the very

capable Snappy Homefry from Toronto, who is fitting in

perfectly. We’ve been rehearsing like crazy, and the

Pepper Jack gig comes hot on the heels of our vinyl

release at the El Mocambo in Toronto, which went

amazing…”

Speaking of Pepper Jack’s, what can you expect if you

make it out this weekend? “Lots of groove and phat

beats,” Lang lists. “Thoughtful improvisations and

interesting textures. Music that digs in and gets urgent,

and then becomes flowing and pastoral, sometimes in

one song. A type of modern psychedelia played by jazz

musicians on acid, to sum up. In essence, a cool party

where we just happen to be playing. The overall vibe is

paramount. We also enjoy doing original arrangements

of choice cover songs along with our own originals. Oh,

and one more curveball—we’re all instrumental.”

As noted at the start of all this, that’s the kind of

curveball you can’t help but want to catch sometimes.

For more info, you can check out CP on the web at,

strangely enough, chameleonproject.com. V

and here's the actual link to the view...

http://www.viewmag.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2935&page=3.

[The Chameleon]

Tonight in the Hammer. The shit goes down. I hope we play as tough as this guy looks.....

Hammer town represent!

Edited April 30, 2005 by Guest

[MamaPink]

can anyone tell me what order the two bands are playing in tonight?

[bouche]

I'd love to hear Chameleon project live. I've got their disc here, and I've given a few away (thanks Josh) and they sound real good.

Them and Contact sounds like a great combination for a good 1-2 punch !

(nice english buddy!)

[The Chameleon]

can anyone tell me what order the two bands are playing in tonight?

Yes I can. The order is as follows... Contact will go on around 10:00pm and play a 60min set or so. And the Chameleon Project will go on after that and play until they kick us out.

Hope to see you there!

[The Chameleon]

I'd love to hear Chameleon project live. I've got their disc here, and I've given a few away (thanks Josh) and they sound real good.

Them and Contact sounds like a great combination for a good 1-2 punch !

(nice english buddy!)

Thanks, Bouche! Your site is awsome and helps wierd little bands like us a tonne, as we simply confuse the mainstream music industry.

I hope we can make it to Ottawa soon and see you at a show. We are actually talking to Mavericks now about the possibility.

Keep on truckin'!

[bouche]

nice sig !

I sure hope you guys are looking at a weekend here. If you manage to get a friday or saturday, I'm sure there would be a good ol' party knocking on the door.

[The Chameleon]

Great to hear there's friendly ears in Ottawa.

[Lazlo]

I suggest that everybody check out Chameleon Project if you dig elevator music.