Three Sheet

...If you’re a hip hop enthusiast, you have to feel good when you see a group like this take the medium in a new direction, but still keep it true to the essence. I’ll be interested to see what direction Three Sheet takes their sound next... - Herohill

... I might add to that its damn near impossible to write about a band you think is excellent. And I think ‘excellent’ is too feeble a word to describe what I witnessed when I went to check the band out on Friday Night at the Elephant & Castle... - Noisography

... Three Sheet was the band everyone wanted to see, the band everyone was talking about, the band an entire city had its eye on: the great white hope. Did they deliver? If you need me to answer that question you’ve obviously never seen Three Sheet live. They always deliver. - Noisography

This band is based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia and they're filled with talent! I - chrsdl Youtube

Three Sheet pairs with "Trailer park boys" John Dunsworth (Jim Lahey) to create a non-partisan video encouraging youth to vote.
Coverage on CTV Atlantic News April 18th 2011 - John Dunsworth, Mike Swain

"Three Sheet vocalist Vanessa Furlong pulls out some Sasha Fierce confidence to kill her stage shyness, luring in crowds of dancing fans every week."

Firefighters in full uniform jump from a red truck parked outside Elephant & Castle. The shrill fire drill still screams from the now-empty basement where a diverse mix of Three Sheet addicts thrives on the hip-hop group every Thursday night.

"I wore my nice bra," singer Vanessa Furlong says loudly over the buzz of 50 fans gathered on the steps. "That's why they showed up."

Minutes earlier, as opening act Ghettosocks proclaimed "I've got a fire in my pants," to the crowd, one member of the five-piece Three Sheet might have been lighting up in the band room.

As Furlong puts it: "We were having a band meeting and---no, we really were---and may or may not have gotten into trouble and had to go running."

Furlong sips coffee through a straw on the following Saturday. Reminded of her bra comment, she shoots a coy glance: "It's true. It's the only time I get dressed up."

Every week, Furlong, the only female member of the quintet, dresses her ears with hoops that would make Beyoncé blush and struts in heels before a crowd of dancing fans.

"It's funny," the jazz-soul vocalist confesses. "A lot of people talk about this confidence I have on stage, which is the exact opposite of what I'm feeling.

I just remember reading an article about Beyoncé talking about Sasha Fierce and how when she's up there on stage she transforms into that person to give her that boost of confidence. And I was like, 'That's what I'm doing!'"

Furlong says the taboo of being "the girl" in the group stems from Three Sheet's origin story. After Gray Wynchell left Three Sheet in 2008, lead vocalist Matt Kliffer (Expedyte) and guitarist Ryan O'Quinn brought bassist Kevin Tilley and beatboxer Eric McIntyre (EMC) aboard. McIntyre introduced his girlfriend, Furlong, to the equation. Her vocal flavour jived immediately with their dynamic. Furlong says she was excited, yet hesitant to join the group.

"I did not want them to bring me into the band just because I was someone's girlfriend. I wanted them to take me into the band because they legitimately felt that I could contribute."

"She just naturally fell into place automatically," says Kliffer. "That was the big bang of Three Sheet right there."

"I always tell her, I'm like, 'Vanessa, you're the icing on the cake. You're what makes us magical.'" O'Quinn says.

Now, Furlong doesn't hold back as much. And with the release party for Three Sheet's debut album, In Circulation, on Saturday and her solo debut just around the corner, Furlong is channeling her energy to fight that girl-in-the-band taboo.

"There are, I bet, tons of girls out there who would love to be 'playin' with the boys,' as I call it," she says. "They just don't feel like they belong in that situation. That sucks. So I'm hoping I can give a little encouragement."

-Hilary Beaumont, The Coast, Halifax - Hillary Beaumont, The Coast

New music: Three Sheet have been making waves with their organic hip-hop.

"If you owed me $2.50 I'd say you owed me a 2.50-sheet," says Matt Kliffer, lyricist and beatboxer. "It's something that has yet to exist, it's not printed by the government. We're our own kind of currency."

Three Sheet---Kliffer (AKA Expedyte), bassist Kevin Tilley, beatboxer EMC (Eric McIntyre), guitarist Ryan O'Quinn and vocalist Vanessa Furlong---have been making waves with their organic hip-hop, especially since their Thursday night residency at Elephant and Castle took off this winter after the group appeared at an open mic.

Because the quintet, whose debut LP will be out in July, isn't a straight rock band or a straight hip-hop group---and not a rap-rock outfit---they fit divergent bills.

"We wanted to make a solid hip-hop group that's not limited to a hip-hop realm. We haven't even gotten on any hip-hop bills except our own," says Kliffer, laughing. "We get a lot of people who like us who don't like hip-hop. Any type of person, we've had them out on the floor dancing."

Three Sheet appear June 13 at the North Street Church and every Thursday at Elephant and Castle.

Tara Thorne, The Coast, Halifax
- The Coast

Halifax, NS - On Saturday, August 15, hip-hop collaborative, Three Sheet, will be releasing their debut album, “In Circulation” at their CD launch party at the Elephant & Castle restaurant in downtown Halifax.  

Three Sheet is five elements: three microphones and two guitars born through kitchen jams with wooden spoons for drumsticks, beatboxing, free styling and improvised guitar playing. Since moving out of the kitchen, Three Sheet has been making a lot of noise by bringing a new sound unlike anything Haligonians (or the rest of the world!) have heard before.  

“This album could potentially be the first all and only beatbox based percussion album: no drums, no samples, all live instrumentation straight from our musical souls to yours,” says band co-founder and guitarist, Ryan O’Quinn.
 
One of Three Sheet’s biggest fans is also the owner of Elephant & Castle. What started as an open mic gig, turned into much more when Peter Baylis insisted the band take ownership of the night – creating “Three Sheet Thursdays.”  

Baylis says, “Three Sheet’s originality grasped my attention right away. The passion and conviction in their music is phenomenal. I think they’re the best band to come out of Halifax in eons!” After performing 31 weeks and counting at the Elephant & Castle Underground, Three Sheet is ready to showcase their music to a larger audience with the release of their first CD.  

Rappers, Ghettosocks and Jenocide will be opening the night at 10 pm. Three Sheet will follow at 11:45 pm with the very first screening of their music video for the song “Loungin’” which was filmed at Elephant & Castle in May.  

“Get out the datebooks, black books, blackberries, journals, sharpies, permanent makers, tattoo guns, cell phones, telegraphs, calendars or whatever else you write on and remember August 15 is the night to put your Three’s up!”

Haligonia.ca - Haligonia.ca

In an era of lip-synching, recycled samples and Auto-Tune'd T-Pain-style rappers, Haligonian hip-hop quintet Three Sheet are more than a breath of fresh air - they're a blast of gale-force wind.

Organic hip-hop isn't part of the common vernacular just yet, but that's exactly what Three Sheet is; the group uses no samples, drum kits or electronic effects in their funky, drawling, lyrical tracks.

"Rap is played out as far as an MC and DJ combo, and no one hates rap more than Three Sheet; it's sh-- these days. We wanted to add a live element and make something really unique," said Matt Kliffer, aka Expedyte, the group's lead vocalist.

Together with superhuman beat-boxer Eric McEntire (EMC), female vocalist Vanessa Furlong and guitarists Ryan O'Quinn and Kevin Tilley, Kliffer's seen the newborn band take Halifax by storm less than a year after it was born.

"It's been a crazy rush seeing as how Three Sheet a year ago was just a couple of us. We finally got EMC and Vanessa, started doing weekly gigs, crashed open mics all over town and went from nothing to something in Halifax," said Kliffer.

Organic music and a grassroots campaign to spread the music is a rarity these days, but the formula's worked for Three Sheet: the band played the same Thursday gig for 41 weeks straight at the Elephant and Castle in Halifax, using the profits to record their debut album, In Circulation, which was released in September last year.

The gigs built a solid fan base, the buzz spread, and only weeks into the New Year Three Sheet finds themselves hanging on for dear life during a meteoric rise to fame. The group was just nominated for an East Coast Music Award (best hip-hop recording), played in Halifax with the GZA of Wu Tang Clan fame, was asked to play at the ECMA awards gala, and got invited to Canadian Music Week for a private showroom performance in Toronto - all on top of an East Coast tour set for this month.

"We're genuinely excited. We felt we were a good contender and should get a nomination, but we know we haven't been around that long. When they asked if we wanted to play at the actual awards show we were jumping out of our pants," said Kliffer.

By Paige Aarhus - NB HERE

Three Sheet
In Circulation (Three Sheet Ink)
by Sean Flinn

A spirited, thoughtful MC, Expedyte's verses can get wordy at times. Occasionally he sounds hurried, behind the beat. But he nails it on, for example, "Norm Now." Vanessa Furlong delivers throughout the album, particularly "Blood Whale" and "How it Goes." Halifax's Three Sheet has got something. They've got a human beatbox, EMC, but no kit---that added kick of someone on the live skins could round out the sound. Kevin Tilley, an able bassist, makes up considerably for the absence. Guitarist Ryan O'Quinn comes up with moody, haunting riffs, though coming a bit too close to Charles Austin on Buck 65's Talkin' Honky Blues at times. Still, he switches it up to provide fine funk, R&B, soul and rock styles. - The Coast

It's pretty surprising that Matt Kliffer, MC of hip-hop group Three Sheet, is awake this morning, approaching noon the day after St. Patrick's Day. While most people are sitting in a dark room eating last night's cold pizza in an attempt to stop their pain from the night before, Kliffer is busy at work.

When Kliffer (aka Expedyte) picks up the phone, it’s at the Dalhousie geology department. The fans who see him bounding energetically across the stage during performances with guitarist Ryan O'Quinn, bassist Kevin Tilley, the beat-boxing Eric McIntyre (aka EMC) and soul vocalist Vanessa Furlong, it's a good bet they don't imagine him waking up the next morning to examine sediment in a lab.

Moving from St. John, NB to study at Dalhousie, Kliffer was focused on pursuing a career in architecture when he stumbled into earth sciences. But as he began to rock out in the laboratory, his musical career began to solidify into a full-time job as well.

“As my career intensified, so did my music career, and they both started getting crazier together,” says Kliffer. “The only relationship between them is they don't allow me to have enough hours in the day.”

But his success on stage and off is no accident. After countless shows around the HRM and three tours of Ontario, Three Sheet has become one of the most successful live acts in the East Coast, playing the ECMAs and winning both Best New Group of the Year and Best Hip Hop Recording at last November's Nova Scotia Music Week. These accolades wouldn't have happened if Three Sheet hadn't become one of the tighter live acts in the city when a disenfranchised Kliffer started the group to refreshen the stale state of local hip hop shows.

“I think the live show in hip hop is kind of lacking and that's what I felt as a solo rapper rapping to a beat all the time,” says Kliffer. “I just felt like, 'This doesn't have any zest.'”

And although the creation of a more intricate live sound invigorated his approach to rapping, capturing that same energy in a studio proved to be difficult with Three Sheet's first album, *In Circulation.* Although Kliffer is humble discussing the band's critical recognition for the album, he sounds way more excited about their current activities in The Sonic Temple studio with the new release Sheet Music.

Recording the tracks live off the floor for the new album has allowed Three Sheet to harness the power of their live show more accurately than ever before. He describes running the beat-box drum sounds of EMC through different amps to achieve a full tone on the record, one which he felt their previous effort was lacking.

But as the band approaches the May release of *Sheet Music* and an upcoming cross country tour, Kliffer will soon have to stop getting his rocks off in the lab and focus on the stages of Canada full time.

“Everywhere you can play in this country, we're going to play there.”

Best Band

1st Runner-up Glory Glory Man United - The Coast Magazine