The Little Red Umbrella: Meet The Band: BABE

We've got a soft spot for Toronto bands who play on streetcars. It started, of course, with the Toronto Streetcar Sessions, which we covered a couple of years ago. Now, we've come across BABE: a Toronto-born quartet who recorded their very first music video by climbing aboard the TTC with a cheap keyboard, an acoustic bass and a video camera. But even more exciting than that is the band's sound, which leaps all over the map in a kaleidoscope of influences that has won them comparison to everyone from The Rapture to Fela Kuti. As their website puts it, "When you’re a musician growing up in Toronto, a dynamic and diverse city where your senses constantly stand at full attention, it’s likely that the music you enjoy and make will also be eclectic."

We recently caught up with the BABE's frontman, Michael Silvestre, and got him to answer a few of our silly questions. You'll find them below these MP3s — a couple of tunes off the group's new self-titled debut:

MP3: "Yellow Gold" by BABE
MP3: "Face Down" by BABE

How do you describe your music to someone who hasn't heard you before?

I guess our music finds it's roots in rhythm. We usually start there. That being said, I think this album has pulled from world and electronic music. We tend to lean grimy and an overall danceable haze is where we try to end up.

If you could play one venue you've never played before, what would it be?

Wembley.

Your all-time, all-star supergroup?

James Jamerson - Bass

David Chase (YYY'S) drums

Johnny Greenwood - Guitar

Karin Dreijer Andersson - and Freddy Mercury - Vocals

and Miles Davis doing whatever the fuck he wants.

What's the worst album you own?

Buckcherry. I won it off the radio.

What’s your favorite solo ever on your favourite instrument ever?

That one's tuff but for the last few days i've been listening to David Gilmour's " TIME " solo. It's the soundtrack to a place I wish I could visit...but maybe for only a few minutes - I don't think I could handle more than that.

If you were going to be a roadie for one band, who would it be?

I'd like to say Radiohead based on the countless hours I've spent with them already, but LCD Soundsystem would be more fun.

If you could switch places with another musician in some type of "Freaky Friday" type incident, who would you want it to be?

Tom Waits.

If you absolutely had to get a face tattoo of album art from one record, which record would you want to have on your face for the rest of your life?

Alladin Sane. David Bowie's face on my face.