7 and 7 is

Havana Knights
7and7is return from Cuba with a mission to get musicians the gear they need to revive rock in Cuba
Published July 3, 2008 by Travis Sargent in Music Preview
Bryan Kulba

“It’s Not So Fucking Easy To Find A Set Of Drums” |

Solidarity Rock Fundraiser
w/ 7and7is, The Mark Birtles Project, Bayonets!!!, 40 Theives. July 5, The ARTery (9505 Jasper Ave). Tickets: $10 at the door

In the early ’60s, Fidel Castro outlawed rock music in Cuba, calling it a corrupting American influence that had no place in his righteous vision for the country. But rock never died out entirely in the island nation; instead, musicians began playing in a style called Nueva Trova, which combined traditional Cuban folk music with rock ’n’ roll beats and highly politicized lyrics that often took a critical attitude toward the American government.
Since then, few bands from the outside world have played in Cuba, and in December, local indie rockers 7and7is became the first independent foreign rock band to tour the country. Director Drew McIntosh documented the trip in his upcoming film 7and7is… Una Ves Por La Vida.
“It’s monumental,” he says. “A rock band from this town going out and doing something that’s a global first! You think Bon Jovi playing at the Berlin Wall was something? Imagine a DIY, working-class band touring small towns in Cuba. It’s not easy over there; you can’t just roll up to the Shell and ask for directions.”
Travel problems weren’t the group’s only worry, and when Drummer Kelly Chia’s kit failed to show up with the rest of the band’s gear, the group was forced to call in a few hasty favours to find a replacement. “We went to [neighbouring town] Sancti Spiritus to find a set and work it out,” McIntosh says. “We got there, and guess what? It’s not so fucking easy to find a set of drums. It’s not like you can just borrow them from the opening band, y’know? They just don’t have anything.”
Some locals had heard about a kit across town, which McIntosh and his cohorts set out to pilfer. “There was one set of drums in town that were decent,” he says, “and they belonged to an elementary school. So our friends and I got on a horse-drawn cart, headed over to the school, and waited for the principal to leave. We walked inside and explained our situation to the music teacher, he let us borrow it, and we wheeled the kit back to the youth centre where we were hanging out.”
Upon returning to Edmonton, McIntosh began an effort to help get instruments and recording technology into the hands of Cubans who would otherwise not have access to them. “What we’ve decided to do is to support through solidarity the musicians and artists of Cuba,” he explains. “These guys kept us out of trouble every single day, they took care of us like family. We’re trying to raise enough money to buy a digital recording interface, a laptop, and a combo amp to send down.” The fundraiser takes place on Saturday night at The ARTery, and will include sets from 40 Theives, Bayonets!!!, 7and7is, and, in one of their final performances, The Mark Birtles Project.
“All people over here know about Cuba,” McIntosh says, “is fucking Varadero and a trolley car in Old Havana, y’know? Soon it will open to the outside world, and putting this technology in their hands will make it so much easier for Canadian bands to tour over there. These people want it so badly, they’re just like us—they want to hang out with their friends and make this music. The reason it doesn’t happen is that they just can’t get the gear. The spirit in participating in this thing is what being in a punk band is all about: solidarity and community. We want to make rock ’n’ roll dangerous again!”
- See Magazine

7 and 7 is
Spoils of the Empire
(independent)
***
With their straight-up, soaring rock sound, 7 And 7 Is are an oddity on the quirky, proudly ragged Edmonton indie music landscape. I’m not a huge fan of this genre, but I can’t deny the sincerity and conviction they put into every song; they never sound clichéd, and Sean Foster’s distinctive vocals help them stand out from other U2-styled rock groups. They’re best known these days as the first band to tour Cuba, and after checking out videos of that tour, their music seems more affecting live than it does on disc — not that Spoils of the Empire isn’t a skillful, well-produced disc, but their mid-tempo dramatics make more sense in a concert setting. (Check out the new rockumentary Una Vez Por La Vida to see them in action, playing Fidel Castro’s home turf.)
Spoils opens with “Lower than Low,” a driving rock song full of well-placed handclaps, guitar solos, and Foster’s signature wail. It’s a good introduction to the band, but “Evil Dreams” cements things with synth-strings and electronics fleshing out a catchy, energetic melody. (“Clockwork” and “Brace Yourself” are two other standouts.) The album is certainly worth a listen for genre fans or those wondering about Edmonton’s varied indie scene, but their epic hi-fi sounds may keep indie purists and lo-fi diehards at arm’s length. - See Magazine

It seems that Edmonton’s 7 and 7 Is might just be forever plagued by rumours of an untimely demise. The last time the band talked to Vue, back at the end of 2006, talk that the group had broken up was dispelled.

Since then, though, scattered shows and no new recordings have led to the same rumour rising up once again. As singer Sean Foster and drummer Kelly Chia settle down at the Vue Weekly office, though, it’s clear that the band is still together. The two musicians are joined by filmmaker Drew McIntosh, who travelled to Cuba with the band in December of 2007 to make a documentary, 7 and 7 Is ... Una Vez Por La Vida, capturing the group’s tour across the country on film. Now, with the film and a new album, Spoils of the Empire, both set for release, 7 and 7 Is seems to be firing on all cylinders once again.

Of course, with 7 and 7 Is’s last release coming back in 2004, it’s not surprising to hear that the lead up to the film and the new album hasn’t been without some struggle.

“Lineup changes,” Chia offers as the primary reason that Spoils of the Empire was so long in the making.

Foster agrees with the assertion, explaining that one of the group’s original guitarists, Lance Kozak, split from 7 and 7 Is after recording had already started, leaving the remaining four members—Foster, Chia, bassist Dave Foster and guitarist Damian Fraczek to carry on. Rather than continue with the original recordings, though, the band started over, restructuring the songs with Fraczek playing both guitar and keyboards on the sessions. (new member Rich Dimitriou joined the band after recording had been completed.)

At the same time as the album was being put through its paces, Foster had developed an interest in seeing Cuba, and with the help of a musician friend who had spent time working in Edmonton before landing in Montréal, he was able to visit the country, sparking the idea of 7 and 7 Is embarking on a tour of Cuba.

“I went to Montréal in June and then in November he called and said, ‘OK, I’m going [to Cuba] next week and you should come,’” Foster recalls. “And so I just went with him and I met his friends and they’re all artists and musicians. He had come to see a 7 and 7 Is show and he was telling his friends about it and his friends were saying, ‘Oh, you should come down with the band and play here.’”

Once Foster returned to Edmonton, a night at the bar with Chia and McIntosh sparked the idea to apply for a grant and make the film. As difficult as one might think a camera-laden trip into Cuba might be, Foster laughs that it wasn’t all that difficult once the ball was rolling.

“That part was a lot easier than I expected,” he admits. “I just thought it would be impossible to go down with a camera and be able to go into small communities and stuff, but really there were no restrictions. We even had it rolling right in the airport as soon as we landed, and nobody said anything or did anything. As soon as you have permission from the government, as soon as you have a letter that’s stamped and signed, it gets you a lot of access.”

“Yeah, a letter’s golden,” McIntosh nods.

Once the band and the crew—all-around artist Bryan Kulba joined them to document the trip in photos—landed on the island, the real fun began as the rock ‘n’ roll group set out on a DIY tour through the country. And right from the opening steps it was a journey fraught with bumps—like a claim ticket to pick up the band’s drums when they arrived at 5:30 pm, at a department that closed its doors an hour earlier.

Foster says that initially the band’s shoulders were slumping as they spent the first night in an illegal hostel and then endured several hours waiting around the airport the next day, vexed by a bureaucratic nightmare in a system where computers were absent and everything was recorded in stacks and stacks of papers.

“We’re all like, ‘Wow, this fucking sucks,’” Foster laughs. “But Drew was like, ‘No, no, no, this is perfect. If it ran smoothly it would be boring.’”

And so the film became a document of an indie rock band finding its way through the Cuban landscape. There have been high profile rock shows in the country before—Audioslave’s 2005 concert perhaps the most well known—but 7 and 7 Is didn’t play any massive shows and the group’s stay was most definitely not detached from the lifestyle led by the general population. Instead, the musicians were on the ground level, and that was what McIntosh set out to capture on film. Foster says that the strangeness of it all negated any distractions that a camera might normally have caused the band.

“All these venues are courtyards where you’re inside, but it’s outside, and I remember it’s nighttime, I’m singing and looking up and I can see the stars and this big butterfly flies in front of me and I just remember forgetting the lyrics for a second because it’s so surreal,” he reflects, adding, “and then five minutes later, a religious lady from the Santería walks in front while I’m singing. So the camera was [nothing], there was so much going on. I remember seeing bats when we were playing.”

“It’s such a neat lens because it’s not Audioslave, it’s not Sepultura—it’s dudes that make music for the sake of making music,” McIntosh adds. “Their primary motivation is to make music and not necessarily for contracts and fame and whatever, and when they went to do it they went without label support or even label recognition, so it’s really interesting because there’s no business side. It’s just this rock ‘n’ roll odyssey, it’s this expedition into the great unknown.”

“And the people living there who do what we do, we played in the venues that they play at and we took our equipment the way they did, so it’s different—we didn’t have a bunch of money and a bunch of people taking care of all this,” Foster adds. “We preferred to do it the way they would do it there because then you get to see the way it really is.”

If the Canadian travellers took away an appreciation for Cuban culture after getting down in the trenches with the kids over there, those same kids received an impressive gift from the visitors in return. Upon arriving back home, McIntosh and the band set up a group called Solidarity Rocks.

“Since we came back, we’ve been working with our friends down there and starting up this non-profit record label to be able to produce and publish Cuban bands’ records and distribute them in North America, and that money goes into more opportunity for them to make stuff,” McIntosh explains. “And we’ve had fundraising shows and we’ve raised money for gear, we’ve brought guitars and a recording studio down there—we’ve done all this and it’s all come from this tour. The show that [the band is] playing upstairs at New City [after the film’s premiere], we’re just asking for a $5 donation to Solidarity Rocks. It’s basically like throwing one beer in the hat for Cuban music. It’s a nice thing, and this tour, this film, it doesn’t stop with that.”

“It’s pretty easy,” Foster notes. “You go to a show, pay five bucks, but it can mean quite a bit to somebody else, to the artists there.

“We were there a couple of months ago in December, and Drew had made up these guitar picks for the Solidarity Rock thing,” he continues. “We were in the square in Sancti Spiritus and I was talking to this rock kid and said, ‘Here, take one of these picks,’ and he’s like, ‘Hold on.’ He pulls out his wallet and opens up the change thing, and pulls out this pick and he’s like, ‘You gave this to me a year ago and I use it everyday.’”

“And those guitar picks, I made 1000 of them and I brought 500 of them down there with me and I gave them to [a friend named] William,” McIntosh picks up. “And William sent me a list of the cities where musicians are playing with these picks now, and it’s literally clear across the country. Clear across the country musicians in Cuba are playing with these picks that came from a show at New City. And it means something because it’s not just a guitar pick. First of all, they need a guitar pick, it’s a basic need. But second of all it’s this promise of more rock ‘n’ roll coming their way.” - Vue Weekly

Once in a lifetime, you get to throw your first movie premiere. Local filmmaker Drew McIntosh will debut his short documentary Saturday, Feb. 21 at the Stanley A. Milner Library.

Una Vez Por La Vida (or Once In a Lifetime) follows a band of Edmonton rockers, 7 and 7 is, on a trek through Cuba in 2007. They say they’re the first foreign musicians to tour the socialist island — playing seven shows in five cities, including a John Lennon memorial concert in Cienfuegos.

“It’s such a neat story,” he says. “This band has been playing music for so long — to very little acclaim — and they tour Cuba. I want 16-year-old kids who play in bands to watch this film and say, ‘Why can’t we do that?’”

McIntosh is now spearheading a non-profit organization, Solidarity Rock, to raise money and collect used gear for Cuba’s impoverished musicians. He is also organizing two more tours of the Caribbean island and wants to start a non-profit label to record and release albums by Cubans.

Saturday's screening starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12 at the door. The film will be followed by an gig with 7 and 7 is at New City, 10081 Jasper Avenue. Admission is a five-dollar donation to Solidarity Rock. Copies of McIntosh's film and the band’s latest CD, Spoils of the Empire, will be available for $20 at both events. - Edmonton Journal