Text & photos by Joanna Krogh
Couched among the calypso, chutney and rapso, the "Alternative"
musical form has crept up, and now confronts Trinidad and Tobago, the
Caribbean and the world. For years, local bands have been imitating
their foreign rock mentors. Now they are exploring more boldly the
spaces in between the rock, alternative, reggae, rapso and calypso
genres, and a really dynamite alternative callaloo is developing.
One of the foremost alternative bands in Trinidad is Jaundis I.
Comprised of the lead singer and guitarist of one of the first local
bands called Touchdown, Jaundis I's Robert Beaden is making a name
for himself not only in television ads like du Maurier cigarettes and
his local sign painting business, but he has also gone public with
his tattoo services. Jaundis I belts out a mixture of
Police/Marley-like reggae with a broad rock range and lyrics pounded
out at times like the local mystical calypsonian Shadow.
In April, 1996, the band underwent a serious week-long stint at
Eddy Grant's Ice Records studio in Barbados, where they lay down over
a dozen tracks in preparation for future recored deals. Drummer
Arthur Reid, also of Touchdown fame, reported that the Barbados trip
was very successful. The interest in their music was great, he says,
and they fell in the tide of the popular "ring bang" craze,
personally pushed by Grant and his company.
Although most Alternative bands in Trinidad are wont to avoid the
term "ring bang," they do fall into the liminal category of what the
younger Trinidadian band, Brothers Grimm call "fusion" music. A huge
interest is being taken in the music now, following an unprecedented
Summer success with the public in 1995. Investors like Grant of
Barbados and Robert Amar of Trinidad (who supported a short-lived but
important dub/rapso movment called the Kiskadee Karavan three years
ago, and whose son was also in an Alternative band called Joshua),
are searching for a label to umbrella the new genre. Grant has come
up with the noun "ring bang," that loosely covers all the musical
output from the Caribbean bound for an international market. Amar's
presence has dwindled somewhat in the Alternative arena, but his
recording studio in Maraval was still essential in the
internationalising of the form of dub in the music of General Grant,
for example.
Trinidad is a place of liminality, and though the calypso genre has
been transformed under the fire of the social and economic pressures
of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and continues to be transformed
every year, the calypso as a music form and as a cultural wing in
itself, has long been integrated fixedly into the very heart of the
people. Every race has its imput in kaiso: From Sparrow and Kitchener
of African decent, to Denise Plummer of European decent, to the
Mighty Trini of Syrian decent, Ricki Jai, of Indian decent, and the
crossover artiste, Chinese Laundry, of Chinese decent.
Calypso and Carnival, argues Professor Gordon Rohlehr of the
University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine, and his compeer
Rawle Gibbons, of UWI's Creative Arts Centre, have become
"traditional enactments" : rituals rooted in the society over years
of forging. Where then, does the genre of Alternative music lie? Is
it still a marginal form, still groping for acceptance and
appreciation in the main blood-stream of Trinidadians and
Tobagonians?
Compared to the calypso tradition, extensively documented by Rohlehr
and other historians, the Alternative genre is a mere baby of fifteen
to twenty years! The precursors of the calypsonians are the
chantwells of the kalinda and Canboulay celebrations of the late
1800's, and even then can they be traced back to the days of slavery.
Compared to this rootedness, is the Trinidadian Alternative music
form merely a pastiche of American influence glued over our local
talents? Or are the practitioners of the art making an informed and
conceptualized effort of integration, without which they would merely
be talented liars?
Fortunately, there are important signs that the Trinidadian
Alternative musicians are indeed conscious of, and true to the
artistic traditions of integrity and honesty. Oddfellows Local, a
critical foundation band that rocked the music circuit for many years
before they were dissolved in March,1996, produced a cassette
entitled "Localize it." Leader Gary "Rega" Hector, a poet with his
hand on the pulse of the island, recognised the need to bring the
rock closer to the traditions of his people, and many of the band's
songs, in melody and lyrics, successfully bridged the gap of the
local/foreign polemic, and often had the light but strong effects of
reggae and calypso.
In his composition The World's Greatest (Daydreamer), Rega
explores art, love, pain, politics and confronts the whole world. lt
is a song about his dreams as a performer, as a would-be football
star, as all he ever wants to be; a self-signifying song that
captures the flux of his quietly-victorious corner of the music
industry. This song, indeed any Oddfellows Local performance, merited
an international audience.
Brothers Grimm are also focusing on forging something new and original out of the dynamic local/foreign brew, calling their output "fusion music." A relatively young band, age and experience wise, they have still blazed many tracks with their performances and recordings. Next to the Brothers in this category, would be Smith Tuttle. Caught already on a TV advertisement for the local newspaper The Trinidad Guardian, this band enjoyed popularity with the public especially at the Caribbean Sandblast performances. (Sandblast was a highly successful and revolutionary way of feting in Trinidad, based on MTV's version of the games and localized by Kerwyn Escayg. The first session was held during Summer 1995 at Chagaramas, and the 1996 games will be sponsored by Angostura Ltd : the world- makers of bitters.)
Smith Tuttle boasts of the watery guitars of lead singer Sean
Young Wing, and the rhythms of drummer Rene Coryat, of the former
Orange Peel Groove. Coryat, like Rega, is conscious of dramatically
contributing to the art form and is responsible for one-man drumming
concerts and the like.
Then there are the bands like Bleed, Sprang, Bushmen and Mach Four.
Solid hard rock is their specialty, with speed as a pre-requisite and
raga guitar dementia a common feature. Bleed features Steve Brereton,
one of Trinidad's most qualified rock guitarists. Brereton studied at
the Musicians' lnstitute in Hollywood, where he soaked in the action
of LA's music scene. Today, he has a large following in Trinidad who
are constantly amazed by his talents. From a distance, Brereton's
riffs and solos sound like the output of several guitarists. An
Electrical Engineering student at UWI, Brereton would like to see the
live-band circuit extended, believing that live performances will
keep them "fresh and on their toes."
Trinidad can now boast of a broad range of live music. There is the
Country Club/Cascade Club vein featuring Emit Hennessy and Wendel
Constantine, the annual National Song Festival that attracts a
largely gospel-related input, the Kiskadee Karavan spin-offs like
Homefront's Ozzi Merique who together with artistes like Rubadiri
Victor, are stretching beyond the limits of the rapso genre. And of
course there is the indubitable East Indian influence that is also
swelling beyond their ritual performances like the Ramleela and
Chutney competitions to integrate into the Trinidad Carnival as
witnessed on an unprecedented scale during Carnival 1995 with hits
like Jahajhi Bai and by Brother Marvin and Lotay La by
Sonny Mann.
Several years ago when I visited Barbados, I was amazed at that
country's appreciation of the simple live performance. The beach-bar
Sandy Banks had taken on the two-man band called Surfers without Jobs
to entertain us with a mere acoustic guitar and amplifier. It struck
me then that Trinis had no tolerance for the live performance in such
a social atmosphere apart from the exclusive Hilton restaurant, a
formal concert in a Hall, or of course, the laissez-faire Carnival
fetes.
Today the story is different. Bands like Jaundis I, Max Bit U, Brown
Fox and Amethyst are welcomed to the main stream pubs and discos like
Pelican Inn and Moon Over Bourban Street, Club Coconuts and The
Anchorage to perform to a larger middle-class crowd than ever before.
(It is a fact that, as in the USA, this formally "grunge" genre of
music was of a lower-class, rebel-following before Nirvana
main-streamed it.) Today, demo-tapes are being made, record deals are
being pursued, and the artistes themselves are becoming more
comfortable in the performance arena, enough to even experiment some
more.
But the key is integration and not adoption or imitation. The
Trinidadian audience may like fads for a while, especially if "drink
specials" encourage them. But always after rubbing their bellies with
so much food and drink, they become more critical, selective,
decisive. What remains truely important to a Trinidadian, and even
Caribbean audience, are their own interests.
Like the Carnival, Divali, Ramleela, Orisha, Rastafari and other
rituals ranging from temple, church, mosque to street, cricket-field
or office, the Alternative music form must find its home in the lives
and hearts of the whole people in order for it to have any real and
lasting meaning as it now does in the USA. The Caribbean Alternative
artistes must now heed Oddfellows' call to "Localize It." The French
may have their Existentialism, the Americans their many Alternatives,
is the Caribbean then to be only Sparrow and Bob Marley?
 |
 |