(Babyface Brass / Facebook)
Alright let’s get down to business. Because with Babyface Brass, it’s all business in the front and party at the back. You’re metaphorical mullet when there is zero mullet in sight. Its called symbolism.
Babyface Brass is a ten person brass band hailing from Vancouver, BC. They are a funky group of musicians that you will find busking along the Granville strip of downtown Vancouver. In fact, my No Apologies Radio cohost and Babyface Brass drummer almost went viral recently after a group of passers-by mistook him for Seth Rogen! Now as a Vancouverite we love some Seth Rogen, but in fact the fame went the other way around this time as Seth Rogen would be lucky to jam like my buddy Kenan Zeiglar-Sungar. Sorry Seth, you can have comedy!
(Babyface Brass / Facebook)
Babyface Brass actually started as a purely busking band. Aston Sweet, a musician who’s face you will probably recognize from a multitude of East Vancouver bands, began Babyface Brass with the notion that they would jam on the street to make some extra cash. Whether for extra drinks or extra living money, Aston told me this was their first time busking ever. With no goal in sight, this was a fun way to jam, take in the city the people, and make some money. Enter in my friend and radio co-host Kenan Zeiglar-Sungar. A local drummer, stand-up bass, and vocalist from East Vancouver. Kenan was now a long-time cohost of the Co-op Vancouver radio show called “No Apologies Necessary”. This show has been running over 15 years and evolved from a hip-hop show to what is now referred to as an “eclectic shmorgasboard of all Canadian music.” His first time playing with Babyface Brass was actually when they were invited to come play live on the radio show in Downtown Vancouver.
“I had them on Co-op Radio and they said ‘Bring some drums’ so we did something live on the radio for the first time we played together. It went fairly well, I had my friend running the board. It was done simply, wasn’t the best in audio quality, but we had fun doing it. I don’t think we broke any microphones. CRTC didn’t break down the door.” -Kenan Zeiglar-Sungar
Babyface Brass started small, then over time became of a collective of musicians coming and going. They have a drummer, trumpets, saxophone, tuba, trombone, and even tap dancers! Kenan told me in conversations past how they came by these tap dancers. While busking on the Granville strip, one day a mother and her kids passed by the band – one of the kids worked up the courage to ask Babyface Brass to jam. He was a tap dancer, and while we all know tapping to be a form of dance, it is also a form of music! The band members readily allowed the tapper to join, and thereby another piece of percussion was added.
(Babyface Brass / Facebook)
One of the first times I saw Babyface Brass was at the now closed-down Cafe Deux Soleils which was a Commercial Drive hub for poets, up-and-coming musicians, and many other members of the community. The cafe closed forever in 2022 due to a lack of funding. A classic trope of arts-based venues here in Vancouver. Ironically enough Kenan and I were posed to hold our first No Apologies Necessary fundraiser together at his iconic venue, days after the cafe permanently closed. We were shocked, speechless, caught up at the time of finding a new venue for our days-away music fundraiser. I was lucky enough to experience the venue for the last time, and take in an epic tap battle between the three tappers that joined them that day. As a “refuge for outsiders” Cafe Deux Soleils is duly mourned.
Not long after I would see Babyface Brass perform at Victoria’s Ska & Reggae Festival in 2022. I watched the band relate to the crowd, picking up the heat-soaked tired crowd, and putting them down with boogie-bumping beats. It was the first time I was clearly able to recognize what a “hype man” was on stage.
At this time I was freshly exploring what it means to be an interviewer. I’d seen bands perform, then meet them after, and starting to question the differing nature of one individual split into two. Musicians perform music that is uniquely them, but very often I was meeting musicians who created a persona on stage that was different. In my mind, I couldn’t understand how the two could exist at once, so I knocked it off as a “cultivated persona” that had been created purely for the stage.
(Fog Fotág / Facebook)
But this thought would later expand. Not to be proven wrong, but added to for a better meaning.
Have you ever played Dungeons & Dragons or a table top game of the like? In these games you create a persona, one that you want to be, and perform the rest of the game as if that character. Although to the unexperienced D&D player this could be seen as fantastical imaginings of someone you want to be – but to the sociologist inside of me I saw these characters as another branch of who they were. Players could meet around the table and get to know each other better through the deep-psyche that presented itself while playing. Player A wanted to destroy the monster and be a hero? That reflected something deeper inside. Player B wanted to only ransack and cause havoc…. Another keen attribute to something that lured deeper inside.
So was how I learnt it to be with musicians. They weren’t creating something entirely new and fabricated on stage. They were using the medium to explore another branch of who they were.
Taking us back to “hype man”. Here I was watching Babyface Brass and learning my cohosts other psyche as “hype man.” He could rouse the audience, create a chant if he wanted to, or start a clap along.. the opportunities were endless. While each member jumped to the front for their individual creations, this was a trait that many of them exuded. They were finding parts of themselves on stage, not pretending to be someone they weren’t.
I love a good ‘ol “sociology experiment” and this one proved as another learning lesson to me. I was getting closer at understanding how the intimate internal filtered into this exuberant external. And while I could talk forever of the tunes, it was this bridging of the self that most caught my attention that day.
(Fog Fotág / Facebook)
Kenan and Aston, in tandem with other members of a group called High Society are on their way to Cumberland today. Booked and jamming for a 4/20 event in the small town that hosts an insane amount of folk-music events. While Babyface Brass seeks to continue creating and publishing new music of their own, you will find them performing all around Vancouver. From Downtown Granville St. to a local East Van music venue called The Wise Hall. Like many many MANY other awesome music venues, The Wise is experiencing a battle with demise as funding struggles to keep the venue afloat. On Mondays you will find a weekly Jazz Evening hosted sometimes by Babyface Brass and other times by recognizable local musicians in an effort to fundraise for this awesome space.
Find more about Babyface Brass below:
Written by Volante Matheson, Radio Arts & Entertainment at BCIT.
Contact: vmatheson1@my.bcit.ca