Purveyors of: the holy trinity (brains, balls, guitar.)

Nope. No Star Wars puns here. That shit’s too easy. Besides, There are more important issues to discuss, like the fact that rock’n’roll is only getting more boring. Fact: right now in America there are real “rock schools” just like in the Jack Black movie that teach little kids how to be rock stars. Imagine how awful rock is going to be in the future. It’s doomed. Meanwhile Jazz had been turned into the new classical by university music education. At this point, God’s Gift to Yoda seem buried. How can their combination of bland and dry make anything but musical Melba Toast?  Well music isn’t science (or baking), it’s alchemy and these two genres can save each other. Rock needs brains and jazz needs balls. As Matt Pilgrim discovered, God’s Gift to Yoda posess a surplus of both.

How did you guys meet each other?

We all went to music school.  Three of us at U of T, one at McGill. We all met through the scene and accidentally had a jam session about a year ago.  A couple sessions later, we were picking a band name.

Has anyone been in a band before GGTY? If so, which ones?

We're all over the place.  Some of the other bands that our members have been part of include Sister Suvi, Awesome, No Phone, Ragni, My Mom's Drunk, Excite Bike, Loitering Heroes, Methuselah, House Plants, mmiicchhaaeell, and Woodchopper's Association.

Who are your primary influences?

Ooh, lots. A few in no particular order - Nels Cline, Human Feel, Talking Heads, Radiohead, Bill Frisell, The Police, Ben Monder, Kneebody, Sonic Youth, Springsteen, The Bad Plus, Charles Mingus, and tons more.

What is it about jazz that you like more than other styles of music?

Nothing.  It's not that we like other styles less.  Probably if we were to get together and pick our top 3 bands, they would all fall in non-jazz categories.  But we still approach our music with a jazz aesthetic.  Then again, GGTY goes further to approach jazz with a rock aesthetic.  The band basically formed as two jazz guitarists wanting to rock out.  We thought a lot about what kind of music we wanted to create - but we didn't want to be those jazz guys trying to play rock. We wanted to make an honest blend.  We're calling it indie-jazz-rock (sometimes we throw the word postmodern in there as well).

Is your fanbase an older or younger group?

Younger.  We've done a few shows in more traditional jazz settings. They think we're too loud.

What is the plan in terms of touring and recording in the near future?

We've got 2 EPs out right now.  Scribble Man, and The Music Of Sandra Biennale.  We plan on continuing releasing an EP every few months and doing a full length album in the next year. We did some touring recently through Montreal, Ottawa, and Peterborough.  Definitely more and wider touring to come.

By Matt Pilgrim