Squid Precision Drumming

REMEMBER THOSE OLD bank ads set to that Todd Rundgren song that went, "I don’t wanna work, I just wanna bang on de drum all day"? Halifax ensemble Squid has managed to combine working and banging (percussively, that is) for nearly seven years now, performing as buskers, in theatres, or as part of the larger rhythmic revue DRUM!

Born out of the Dartmouth Pipes and Drums Band, the quartet quickly moved away from strict tempo into a blend of Latin, African and rock and roll styles, adding dancers and other instruments in its ultimate production Squid: The Evolution, which hits the boards at Neptune’s Studio Theatre this week, continuing until May 27.

Squid: The Evolution takes full advantage of the theatre environment in terms of lighting and staging, and it builds on the rhythm with the addition of Chapman stick and a human beatbox. - The Chronicle Herald

REMEMBER THOSE OLD bank ads set to that Todd Rundgren song that went, "I don’t wanna work, I just wanna bang on de drum all day"? Halifax ensemble Squid has managed to combine working and banging (percussively, that is) for nearly seven years now, performing as buskers, in theatres, or as part of the larger rhythmic revue DRUM!

Born out of the Dartmouth Pipes and Drums Band, the quartet quickly moved away from strict tempo into a blend of Latin, African and rock and roll styles, adding dancers and other instruments in its ultimate production Squid: The Evolution, which hits the boards at Neptune’s Studio Theatre this week, continuing until May 27.

Squid: The Evolution takes full advantage of the theatre environment in terms of lighting and staging, and it builds on the rhythm with the addition of Chapman stick and a human beatbox. - The Chronicle Herald

When it comes to repeating things on stage, Ryan Fraser says it must be bigger and better.

"We don't want to be redundant, but we don't want people leaving and thinking 'I wish they would have done this again,'" the Squid member said.

Starting on Tuesday, the four-man precision drumming and piping group will perform an updated version of its high-energy Squid: The Evolution on Neptune Theatre's studio stage. It will include more than an hour of humming-bird-speed drumming, a parade of musical styles and a few visual surprises.

"It was definitely the most fulfilling feeling we had had up to this point in our career," Fraser said about the show, which premiered in February 2006 at Alderney Landing. It was the group's first theatrical production since forming in 2000.

The four members of Squid - Fraser, Mark Jamieson, Ian MacMillan and Daniel St-Pierre - march past the traditional pipe and drum sound into the realm of African rhythms, Celtic and hip-hop - all with an ample amount of drumstick-tossing physicality.

"Alderney was a great starting point," Fraser said.

"It was a great experience and definitely allowed us to learn a little bit more, first hand, about working in theatre."

He said the group was happiest that its original works - written more for music concerts - worked well in the stage show. It helped cement for them that Squid was best suited for the theatre, much like the successful PVC instrument playing Blue Man Group or foot-pounding Stomp they modelled themselves after.

Still, Fraser said some things didn't work, and this run of The Evolution has matured since Alderney Landing. Some of the music has been erased from the show. Other tunes have been updated.

"Last year, in terms of tech, we were really learning," Fraser said. "This year we have been able to get the tech really solid, with some interesting and solid lighting components - the bells-and-whistles type of stuff."

He said they are keeping the beat-box act that had fans clapping last year, but have added a DJ, electric drums and a plugged-in bagpipe. They have also recruited Rawlins Cross's Brian Bourne, who plays the Chapman Stick - a guitar and bass in one.

One part which they've expanded from last year is a glow-in-the-dark routine, in which the guys are dressed in black suits with fluorescent tape attached, to make them look like stick people.

"That was definitely one of the showier parts of the production," Fraser said. "It was something I knew I wanted to build on. We've updated it with fancier technology to make it brighter, a little bit bigger, and more exciting." - The Daily News

When it comes to repeating things on stage, Ryan Fraser says it must be bigger and better.

"We don't want to be redundant, but we don't want people leaving and thinking 'I wish they would have done this again,'" the Squid member said.

Starting on Tuesday, the four-man precision drumming and piping group will perform an updated version of its high-energy Squid: The Evolution on Neptune Theatre's studio stage. It will include more than an hour of humming-bird-speed drumming, a parade of musical styles and a few visual surprises.

"It was definitely the most fulfilling feeling we had had up to this point in our career," Fraser said about the show, which premiered in February 2006 at Alderney Landing. It was the group's first theatrical production since forming in 2000.

The four members of Squid - Fraser, Mark Jamieson, Ian MacMillan and Daniel St-Pierre - march past the traditional pipe and drum sound into the realm of African rhythms, Celtic and hip-hop - all with an ample amount of drumstick-tossing physicality.

"Alderney was a great starting point," Fraser said.

"It was a great experience and definitely allowed us to learn a little bit more, first hand, about working in theatre."

He said the group was happiest that its original works - written more for music concerts - worked well in the stage show. It helped cement for them that Squid was best suited for the theatre, much like the successful PVC instrument playing Blue Man Group or foot-pounding Stomp they modelled themselves after.

Still, Fraser said some things didn't work, and this run of The Evolution has matured since Alderney Landing. Some of the music has been erased from the show. Other tunes have been updated.

"Last year, in terms of tech, we were really learning," Fraser said. "This year we have been able to get the tech really solid, with some interesting and solid lighting components - the bells-and-whistles type of stuff."

He said they are keeping the beat-box act that had fans clapping last year, but have added a DJ, electric drums and a plugged-in bagpipe. They have also recruited Rawlins Cross's Brian Bourne, who plays the Chapman Stick - a guitar and bass in one.

One part which they've expanded from last year is a glow-in-the-dark routine, in which the guys are dressed in black suits with fluorescent tape attached, to make them look like stick people.

"That was definitely one of the showier parts of the production," Fraser said. "It was something I knew I wanted to build on. We've updated it with fancier technology to make it brighter, a little bit bigger, and more exciting." - The Daily News

They ought to put precision drumming in the Olympics. No one watching Wednesday night’s opening show by Squid could help but be impressed by the amount of running, jumping and fly-by drumming they witnessed in Squid: The Evolution, at Alderney Landing Theatre. The show runs tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. It is both an entertainment and an athletic event.

Drummers Matthew Guest, Daniel St. Pierre, Mark Jamieson, Ian Macmillan and Ryan Fraser, together with bass guitarist Terry Flick, beat-box artist Jay Andrews and dancer Stephanie Grant, deserve the national anthem and a moment on a spotlit podium for evolving their International Buskerfest routines into a full evening’s non-stop, high-energy show.

Against a red-on-black, bomb-burst backdrop created by students from Sackville High School, the drummers moved through five main percussion set-ups and brought on their own pipe-band drums, pausing to stand in line either singly or in pairs, trios and full quartet, eyes front, staring straight ahead, apparently unblinking, as their hands and arms rattled out fire from their drumheads.

They executed complexly choreographed sticking patterns, the meat and potatoes of pipe-band show drumming, juggling the sticks, tapping on the rim of the neighbouring drum, hitting anything that stayed still long enough and was hard enough to contribute to their sizzling tattoos.

Fascinating, even compelling, as those rolls and paradiddles and metrical acrobatics are, you can get used to it and, embarrassing as it is to confess it, you begin to look for something more. But not to worry. Squid always was an energetic group. The percussion setups created anticipation — especially the downstage right setup which consisted of three bass drums in a line with four bar stools placed in front of them. The seats of the stools had been duct-taped to the rungs. I cannot reveal why. It’s part of one of their many surprises. I can tell you that what they do is both witty and virtuosic.

Ryan Fraser played bagpipe tunes but without the drones, silenced because they proved impossible to tune with the rock guitars (bass and solo), played by Flick and Guest from time to time.

Fraser, kilted and wearing heavy white sneakers, tapped the floor from foot to foot in time with the tunes, MacPherson’s Lament prominent among them, and at the climax of the show, took the audience completely by surprise by executing a break-dance spin on one hip, horizontal on the floor, his sound continuing without a trace of a bump or interruption.

Highland dancer Grant participated in one of the more spectacular bits of showmanship, but it’s a spoiler to say anything more about it, except that the audience lost their minds in delight.

Squid: The Evolution takes a top busker act and turns it into a star stage turn. I have but one caution: those with sensitive ears should bring earplugs. Bass drums can cause pain at 40 paces. But the one they occasionally use in this show is amplified. It sounds like a pile driver. The theatre trembles and you realize to what all those guys who turn their cars into boom boxes and shake houses as they drive by, hope one day to achieve. - The Chronicle Herald

They ought to put precision drumming in the Olympics. No one watching Wednesday night’s opening show by Squid could help but be impressed by the amount of running, jumping and fly-by drumming they witnessed in Squid: The Evolution, at Alderney Landing Theatre. The show runs tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. It is both an entertainment and an athletic event.

Drummers Matthew Guest, Daniel St. Pierre, Mark Jamieson, Ian Macmillan and Ryan Fraser, together with bass guitarist Terry Flick, beat-box artist Jay Andrews and dancer Stephanie Grant, deserve the national anthem and a moment on a spotlit podium for evolving their International Buskerfest routines into a full evening’s non-stop, high-energy show.

Against a red-on-black, bomb-burst backdrop created by students from Sackville High School, the drummers moved through five main percussion set-ups and brought on their own pipe-band drums, pausing to stand in line either singly or in pairs, trios and full quartet, eyes front, staring straight ahead, apparently unblinking, as their hands and arms rattled out fire from their drumheads.

They executed complexly choreographed sticking patterns, the meat and potatoes of pipe-band show drumming, juggling the sticks, tapping on the rim of the neighbouring drum, hitting anything that stayed still long enough and was hard enough to contribute to their sizzling tattoos.

Fascinating, even compelling, as those rolls and paradiddles and metrical acrobatics are, you can get used to it and, embarrassing as it is to confess it, you begin to look for something more. But not to worry. Squid always was an energetic group. The percussion setups created anticipation — especially the downstage right setup which consisted of three bass drums in a line with four bar stools placed in front of them. The seats of the stools had been duct-taped to the rungs. I cannot reveal why. It’s part of one of their many surprises. I can tell you that what they do is both witty and virtuosic.

Ryan Fraser played bagpipe tunes but without the drones, silenced because they proved impossible to tune with the rock guitars (bass and solo), played by Flick and Guest from time to time.

Fraser, kilted and wearing heavy white sneakers, tapped the floor from foot to foot in time with the tunes, MacPherson’s Lament prominent among them, and at the climax of the show, took the audience completely by surprise by executing a break-dance spin on one hip, horizontal on the floor, his sound continuing without a trace of a bump or interruption.

Highland dancer Grant participated in one of the more spectacular bits of showmanship, but it’s a spoiler to say anything more about it, except that the audience lost their minds in delight.

Squid: The Evolution takes a top busker act and turns it into a star stage turn. I have but one caution: those with sensitive ears should bring earplugs. Bass drums can cause pain at 40 paces. But the one they occasionally use in this show is amplified. It sounds like a pile driver. The theatre trembles and you realize to what all those guys who turn their cars into boom boxes and shake houses as they drive by, hope one day to achieve. - The Chronicle Herald

REVIEW - Anyone who thinks listening to two hours of nearly non-stop drumming is asking for a migraine hasn't met the likes of Squid.

The five-guy precision drumming and piping group played its first of four performances at the Alderney Landing Theatre last night.

Called Squid: The Evolution, the show - the band's first theatre production - took its audience of 200 on a trip from traditional military drumming to a modern fusion of world beats.

The four drummers' Dartmouth Pipe Band training was obvious during the first - and most traditional - part of the show.

Standing rigid, with their backs straight and chests puffed out, drummers Matthew Guest, Mark Jamieson, Ian MacMillan and Daniel St. Pierre performed with military accuracy. Their only movements came from their drumstick-wielding hands, fluttering with the speed of hummingbird wings.

As the show progressed, they played up the military strictness by acting like toy soldiers before finally exploding in a flurry of stick-tossing movements.

Ryan Fraser, Squid's fifth member, took bagpiping from cruel to refreshing. During one jazzy jam session, he played his pipes more like a saxophone than Highland instrument.

It's no wonder the band - whose average age is 22 - received the Aliant People's Choice Award at the 2004 Halifax Buskers Festival. These guys are performers.

At one point, local beatboxer Jay Andrews led Squid in a hip-hop set by using vocal sound effects to mimic the beats and rhythms of drums and symbols.

Thrown into the mix was a little physicality, in the same vein as the PVC-playing Blue Man Group and foot-pounding Stomp. Between their drum beats, the guys threw their sticks, played with water bottles and tossed around stools, causing the audience to clap and gasp.

Squid not only crosses the musical spectrum, the group reinterprets familiar sounds and rhythms, making them exciting and new. - The Daily News

REVIEW - Anyone who thinks listening to two hours of nearly non-stop drumming is asking for a migraine hasn't met the likes of Squid.

The five-guy precision drumming and piping group played its first of four performances at the Alderney Landing Theatre last night.

Called Squid: The Evolution, the show - the band's first theatre production - took its audience of 200 on a trip from traditional military drumming to a modern fusion of world beats.

The four drummers' Dartmouth Pipe Band training was obvious during the first - and most traditional - part of the show.

Standing rigid, with their backs straight and chests puffed out, drummers Matthew Guest, Mark Jamieson, Ian MacMillan and Daniel St. Pierre performed with military accuracy. Their only movements came from their drumstick-wielding hands, fluttering with the speed of hummingbird wings.

As the show progressed, they played up the military strictness by acting like toy soldiers before finally exploding in a flurry of stick-tossing movements.

Ryan Fraser, Squid's fifth member, took bagpiping from cruel to refreshing. During one jazzy jam session, he played his pipes more like a saxophone than Highland instrument.

It's no wonder the band - whose average age is 22 - received the Aliant People's Choice Award at the 2004 Halifax Buskers Festival. These guys are performers.

At one point, local beatboxer Jay Andrews led Squid in a hip-hop set by using vocal sound effects to mimic the beats and rhythms of drums and symbols.

Thrown into the mix was a little physicality, in the same vein as the PVC-playing Blue Man Group and foot-pounding Stomp. Between their drum beats, the guys threw their sticks, played with water bottles and tossed around stools, causing the audience to clap and gasp.

Squid not only crosses the musical spectrum, the group reinterprets familiar sounds and rhythms, making them exciting and new. - The Daily News

I took my 11-year-old son to see Squid: The Evolution at Neptune's Studio Theatre and it's hard to say which was more fun - watching the show or watching my son watching the show. Every few minutes he'd lean in and whisper (loudly) "They're awesome!" or "Wow! Where do they get their ideas?" Their ideas include an amazing beatboxer, glow-in-the-dark drumsticks moving at lightning speed, water droplets cascading through the air, human drum sets and bagpiping guaranteed to convince anyone that the oft-maligned instrument is cool. The show is well-balanced. The emphasis is on the extraordinary drumming but it's presented with variety and humour. My only note of criticism - a printed programme would be useful, both for information, and as a souvenir of an electrifying evening. - The Coast

I took my 11-year-old son to see Squid: The Evolution at Neptune's Studio Theatre and it's hard to say which was more fun - watching the show or watching my son watching the show. Every few minutes he'd lean in and whisper (loudly) "They're awesome!" or "Wow! Where do they get their ideas?" Their ideas include an amazing beatboxer, glow-in-the-dark drumsticks moving at lightning speed, water droplets cascading through the air, human drum sets and bagpiping guaranteed to convince anyone that the oft-maligned instrument is cool. The show is well-balanced. The emphasis is on the extraordinary drumming but it's presented with variety and humour. My only note of criticism - a printed programme would be useful, both for information, and as a souvenir of an electrifying evening. - The Coast