The Steel­pa­nAu­thor­i­ty.com is here! Where does the T&T steel­band dis­ap­pear to af­ter Panora­ma and Car­ni­val? Most of the fresh­ly-paint­ed drums-Trinidad All Stars' gold, Des­per­a­does' sil­ver, Rene­gades' white-usu­al­ly col­lect dust un­til the next fes­tive sea­son, when pan­nists can be found in the yards well in­to the night, prac­tis­ing their tune for Panora­ma. Jour­nal­ist and pan afi­ciona­do Sean Nero wants to change that im­age of the steel­band: T&T's na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment. Nero's ini­tia­tive is to cre­ate steel­pa­nau­thor­i­ty.com, dubbed The Pulse of Pan. The Web site was de­vel­oped by SIR Tech­nolo­gies.

By Nero's de­f­i­n­i­tion, Steel­pan Au­thor­i­ty is not just an­oth­er Web site, but a lifestyle. Here's how he plans to bring the steel­pan alive, es­pe­cial­ly post-Car­ni­val and for the ben­e­fit of many young pan­nists, who right now can't en­vi­sion a vi­able fu­ture play­ing the pan. The vi­o­lence be­tween the po­lice and pa­trons on the Greens at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on Feb­ru­ary 5, has not helped. For in­stance, do pan lovers know that there were 50-plus pan con­certs in T&T in 2011? There were Pan Trin­ba­go's se­ries, Pan in de Coun­try­side; Har­monites' an­nu­al Christ­mas in de Pa­n­yard event; Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly opens up its pa­n­yard for a month for Fri­day af­ter-work limes, where the steel­pan is the en­ter­tain­ment.

Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders had a Fa­ther's Day con­cert at its Tra­garete Road pa­n­yard. That event was sep­a­rate from its an­nu­al Pan, Parang and Pork, held at the Queen's Park Oval.

PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars had its own Pan, Parang and Pork, which is a five-con­sec­u­tive Sat­ur­day event. Sil­ver Stars' lime at­tracts what Nero has de­scribed as "mid­dle-class" pan lovers. Among its at­ten­dees are se­nior coun­sel Mar­tin Daly, hu­man re­source spe­cial­ist Hol­lick Ra­jku­mar, and diplo­mats. There was al­so the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, which was con­ceived by the Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion, had in 2011 sev­er­al con­certs, a ma­jor one be­ing Pan on a High­er Note, held at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts. Nero plans to ob­serve ma­jor events through­out the year, in­clud­ing Black His­to­ry Month, Eman­ci­pa­tion Day and Di­vali, on this web site. For in­stance, he spoke of want­i­ng to pro­file a fe­male pan­nist, lo­cal or for­eign, for In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day.

There are oth­er off­shoots of Steel­pan Au­thor­i­ty in the mak­ing.

Nero said that by March, the pan com­mu­ni­ty would be view­ing its own brand of tele­vi­sion. As the name sug­gests, steel­pantv.com is part of the Nero mul­ti-me­dia ap­proach to the on­go­ing pro­mo­tion and grow­ing ac­cep­tance of the steel­pan in T&T. Steel­pantv.com plans to de­vel­op con­tent that re­mains spe­cif­ic to the steel­pan. Al­ready, in­ter­views have been record­ed with De­stra Gar­cia, for­mer In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er Monarch Ron­nie Mc In­tosh and reign­ing Play Whe Groovy Monarch Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller, in which they share their thoughts on the steel­pan and how they can use their in­ter­na­tion­al gigs as so­ca en­ter­tain­ers to pro­mote this genre of mu­sic. The steel­pantv.com crew has been at­tend­ing events and gath­er­ing ma­te­r­i­al for what promis­es to be an ex­cit­ing and en­ter­tain­ing se­ries. Oth­er projects in the pipeline for 2012 in­clude steel­pan­ra­dio. com and a mag­a­zine.

A 25th An­niver­sary gift

The emer­gence of the steel­pa­nau­thor­i­ty.com as part of a mul­ti-me­dia ex­pe­ri­ence co­in­cides with Nero's 25th an­niver­sary as a mem­ber of the steel­pan fra­ter­ni­ty. He start­ed play­ing the steel­pan while still at­tend­ing Mor­vant Laven­tille Ju­nior Sec­ondary School with the in-house steel or­ches­tra, un­der the di­rec­tion of Edgar Wil­son and the late Roland Gor­don. The year was 1987. The school steel­band was com­mon­ly re­ferred to as ju­nior Des­per­a­does and Nero, whose trade­mark in­stru­ment is the dou­ble sec­ond pan, honed his skill fur­ther un­der the ex­per­tise guid­ance of pan­nists from the leg­endary steel­band. Dur­ing his eight-year tenure with the school steel­band, Nero al­so served as a vice-cap­tain. The band brought home three Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma ti­tles. He was still a prin­ci­ple mem­ber of the youth steel or­ches­tra when he joined the Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra in 1990. It's now 22 years since Nero be­came a stage-side mem­ber of Rene­gades. He has al­so served as a mem­ber of the band's man­age­ment team.

When Nero be­came a bonafide mem­ber of nine-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on-Rene­gades-he was just 15. Af­ter just two months on its stage-side Nero be­come el­i­gi­ble to tour with the band and there be­gan globe-trot­ting to the oth­er is­lands in the Caribbean, the Unit­ed States, Cana­da, Japan, Tai­wan, and mul­ti­ple Eu­ro­pean coun­tries. He was al­so a trustee with the North­ern Re­gion of Pan Trin­ba­go. As a young mu­si­cian Nero has com­posed orig­i­nal pieces in­clud­ing Trade Winds, pub­lished at the 1996 Pan Is Beau­ti­ful Steel­band Com­pe­ti­tion and the un­pub­lished work, The Tem­pest.