Pe­ter Ray Blood

Against the back­drop of the tur­moil sur­round­ing the of­fi­cial Pa­rade of the Bands route in Port-of-Spain is the news that Car­ni­val 2014 could very well have a dozen new mas­quer­ade bands on the al­ready con­gest­ed route. Join­ing new­com­ers like K2K Al­liance and Pa­parazzi Mas are Pe­tle Mas, Car­ni­val Pas­sion, Flirt and Pas­sion.

A man with loads of ex­pe­ri­ence as a show pro­mot­er, Glen­roy Wat­son has turned mas band­leader. Al­so the own­er of Out­side Woman Restau­rant, Wat­son's band Flirt is lo­cat­ed at 4 Phillip Street and will present La Is­la de Calor for Car­ni­val 2014. The band com­pris­es nine sec­tions, de­signed by Roger Hicks and Gil­da Lewis. The theme of the mas is in­spired by "an is­land of heat" and de­signs in­clude sec­tions ex­ot­i­cal­ly named like Ex­oti­co, Provo­ca­do, Em­bra­mar, Ar­di­ente, Caliente, En­can­ta­dor and Pi­cante.

Asked why he made the switch to mas, Wat­son said: "Over the years, I find that not much is giv­en to mas­quer­aders. I feel band­lead­ers can do more for the peo­ple who spend their hard-earned mon­ey to play mas. I am of­fer­ing some­thing new and some­thing nov­el. First off, the en­ter­tain­ment in my band is go­ing to be off the chain. We have en­ter­tain­ers from Ja­maica and top lo­cal so­ca stars per­form­ing all day Mon­day and Tues­day, as well as a retro truck by King Pa­pa Rocky and Starchild, plus old-school ca­lyp­so and so­ca artistes."

New mas band Car­ni­val Pas­sion suc­cess­ful­ly launched its pre­sen­ta­tion, Ta­ban­ca, at the band's camp, at 89 Tra­garete Road, Wood­brook, a fort­night ago. Band­leader Ger­ard Weekes, a past King of Car­ni­val, is con­fi­dent that his band's de­but on the streets of Port-of-Spain will be a suc­cess. He said the band's pro­duc­tion team is served by a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence, by crafts­peo­ple who have pre­vi­ous­ly worked and played with "the best in the busi­ness," in­clud­ing Pe­ter Min­shall, Bri­an Mac Far­lane, Bar­barossa and Poi­son.

Weekes is an ex­pe­ri­enced mas­quer­ad­er hav­ing por­trayed char­ac­ters with Min­shall pre­sen­ta­tions in 1987 and '88. In the '90s he al­so per­formed as a char­ac­ter for David Rud­der's per­for­mances. Last year, por­tray­ing Ai Tu No Yoroko­bi, Joy of Peace in Japan­ese, from Mac Far­lane's pre­sen­ta­tion of Joy, Weekes reached the pin­na­cle of his mas ca­reer by win­ning the King of Car­ni­val ti­tle.

In terms of lead­ing a band Weekes has some ex­pe­ri­ence as, from 1986, he pro­duced the Car­ni­val Mon­day night band Night Ri­vals. Asked why he de­cid­ed to step up from be­ing a mas­quer­ad­er to be­ing a full-fledged band­leader, Weekes said: "Our cel­e­brat­ed de­sign­er, Bri­an Mac Far­lane won't be a part of Car­ni­val. The loy­al mas­quer­aders who have been part of the Mac Far­lane fam­i­ly are now in search of a home and leader. In so do­ing we've be­come no­mads, find­ing our­selves wan­der­ing through the streets of Port-of-Spain. We all have a pas­sion for mas and Car­ni­val, as well as a ta­ban­ca, thus the name of the or­gan­i­sa­tion and the band."

Ta­ban­ca will have nine sec­tions, name­ly Pas­sion Dream­er, Desert Queen, No­mads, Gyp­sies, Per­sian Wan­der­ers, African Wan­der­ers, Pier­rots, War­riors and War­rior Princess­es.

Reg­is­tra­tion for Ta­ban­ca be­gan on Jan­u­ary 6, and Weekes said the re­sponse has been over­whelm­ing, "es­pe­cial­ly from for­eign­ers."

An­oth­er new mas band is Pas­sion, based at 12 O'Con­nor Street, Wood­brook.

The band will hit the streets with Pas­sion, ex­pect­ed to have 800 mas­quer­aders. Band spokesper­son Sheena Tang Nian re­vealed: "Pas­sion is the brain­child of four friends–Mark Paguan­das, Shiv­al Ma­haraj, Chris­t­ian Nath, An­tho­ny Har­rysingh. They are ser­vice providers so they have ex­pe­ri­ence in Car­ni­val and mas from the oth­er end of the spec­trum."

The band will com­prise sev­en sec­tions, some of them be­ing L'Spir­it, Lust, Love, Van­i­ty, Pride and Carpe Diem.

The main de­sign­ers have worked with al­most all of the large mas bands in Port-of-Spain in the past.

"We all have pas­sion; pas­sion for mas, pas­sion for life, thus the name of the band," said Tang Nian.

Pas­sion's mu­sic on the road will be by La­lo Sound Sys­tem, served by two well-known DJs, Chucks and Jerome.

De­sign­ers and their sec­tions for Pas­sion are L'Spir­it, So­nia and Natha­nia Mack; Love, Rawle Per­manand; Lust and Pride, Richard and An­tho­ny Hall; Zeal, Stephanie Ram­lo­gan. Tang Nian said Pas­sion will not pro­duce par­tic­i­pants in this year's King and Queen of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions but will def­i­nite­ly be com­pet­ing in the Band of the Year com­pe­ti­tion.

Sa­fari is the ti­tle of Mas­quer­ade debu­tante Pe­tle Mas, which is led by Pe­tle Claver­ie, a for­mer sec­tion leader of Poi­son and Dream Team. Its mas camp is based at 15 Warn­er Street, New­town.

Pop­u­lar St James J'Ou­vert mas band Cheers is launch­ing its sec­ond edi­tion all-in­clu­sive J'Ou­vert band on Jan­u­ary 31, at 7 pm, at Cheers Pub, cor­ner of Moon­er­am and Quam­i­na Streets. The band's or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee com­pris­es mem­bers of Cheers Pub and Uni­ty Tas­sa, con­sist­ing of close friends and as­so­ciates. Theirs is called This Par­ty Is It.

Yas­min Boland, a band of­fi­cial, ex­plained: "We are do­ing a par­ty twist that spins off of the past year and the se­ries of THA Elec­tions, Ch­agua­nas West and St Joseph by-elec­tions and the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. Last year our com­mit­tee was very suc­cess­ful in pro­vid­ing our mem­ber­ship with a safe fun-filled par­ty ex­pe­ri­ence for our ini­tial pre­sen­ta­tion–Sec­tion Uni­ty 34.

Boland, who runs Cheers with her hus­band Steve, added: "Our ob­jec­tive is to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing all of our reg­is­tered mem­bers with a safe and en­joy­able J'Ou­vert ex­pe­ri­ence. This year, we es­ti­mate a band mem­ber­ship of 400 rev­ellers. It is our in­tent to of­fer a body paint par­ty on the road and a pop­u­lar DJ, liquor, chasers, bot­tled wa­ter and ice will be pro­vid­ed on route to all reg­is­tered mem­bers. We hit the road at the start of J'Ou­vert at 4 am. Break­fast will be served on the pa­rade route.

Cheers and Uni­ty Tas­sa have host­ed sev­er­al so­cial events of which part of the pro­ceeds are do­nat­ed to sev­er­al char­i­ty groups and NGOs. For Christ­mas the or­gan­i­sa­tion staged a suc­cess­ful Christ­mas parang lime.

Reg­is­tra­tion is at Cheers Pub, and mu­sic on the road will be by Uni­ty Tas­sa Group and El­e­ment One Sounds.

Renowned for rul­ing the roost in chil­dren's mas, Ros­alind Gabriel and Vil­lage Pro­duc­tions is cel­e­brat­ing its 21st an­niver­sary as a pro­duc­er of adult mas. This year, the band is pre­sent­ing Fes­ti­val of Colours, de­signed by Fol­lette Eu­stace. Mu­sic will be by Michael Tilo­kee of Stu­dio 9, the same road mu­sic Gabriel has used for over ten years. Based at 26 O'Con­nor Street, Wood­brook, sec­tions of Fes­ti­val of Colours in­clude The Colour of Steel, Wild Hi­bis­cus Bloom, Mas­quer­ade, Na­tion­al Pride, Buc­coo Blue and Rain­bow Coun­try.

Speak­ing to Pulse this week, Gabriel said: "Fes­ti­val of Colours draws off the theme of our Ju­nior Band, Colour My Cul­ture, al­so de­signed by Eu­stace, to com­pli­ment and en­hance the "on-the-road" pre­sen­ta­tion for 2014. Nor­van Fuller­ton and groups from the Prime Min­is­ter's Best Vil­lage bring to our adult band the same deep love that he has fos­tered over the years, in­tent on knit­ting vil­lages and com­mu­ni­ties through arts, cul­ture and friend­ly com­pe­ti­tion.

"This is a group of par­ents of chil­dren who play with their chil­dren on the road, friends and fam­i­ly of the Bet­ter Vil­lage com­mu­ni­ties, and we have al­ways wel­comed mem­bers of the pub­lic, lo­cal and over­seas, who want to play mas with joy and dig­ni­ty."

Gabriel con­tin­ued: "Both our bands have grown or­gan­i­cal­ly over the years. Well de­signed, well con­struct­ed cos­tumes, used many times by our chil­dren to show­case our cul­ture. We get sto­ries of chil­dren tak­ing cos­tumes abroad and us­ing them in 'show and tell' and cos­tume com­pe­ti­tions and walk­ing away with prizes. We wel­come any­one to join us who shares our ideals."

Touch­ing on chil­dren's mas, the Diego Mar­tin Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee (DM­CC), un­der the chair­man­ship of for­mer Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion com­mis­sion­er Don­ald Lit­tle, will be stag­ing its an­nu­al chil­dren's Pa­rade of Bands on Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 16, from noon to 6 pm, at Tru Valu car-park in Di­a­mond Vale, Diego Mar­tin.

Schools in Diego Mar­tin and its en­vi­rons are be­ing in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate. Said DM­CC or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee mem­ber Chris­tine Mar­tineau: "This ac­tiv­i­ty is one as­pect of sev­er­al en­deav­ours which we em­bark up­on dur­ing the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od/sea­son to re­vive and en­cour­age com­mu­ni­ty spir­it with­in Diego Mar­tin and its en­vi­rons.

"Due to the low turn-out in pre­vi­ous years, our main ob­jec­tive this year is to in­ject and re­sus­ci­tate com­mu­ni­ty spir­it and par­tic­i­pa­tion in Diego Mar­tin/Di­a­mond Vale and en­vi­rons. The bands will as­sem­ble at Bagatelle and pa­rade through the Diego Mar­tin Main Road turn­ing left on to Wendy Fitzwilliam Boule­vard to Tru Valu car-park where they will be judged. We have a mu­sic truck on the road.

"We cov­er the whole spec­trum of mas, from low end to high end. In­clu­siv­i­ty is para­mount. The cat­e­gories range from ole mas, tra­di­tion­al mas, and cos­tumed mi­ni, small, medi­um, large bands."

For in­for­ma­tion: Stel­la Richards-Al­leyne (497-0067) or Her­bert Tyson (632-a3080/797-6747).

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