Pan Buzz

It's years I've been beg­ging for lo­cal DJs to give pan songs a fair roll of the dice–but they aren't tak­ing me on. It seems as though it is one song they're in­ter­est­ed in morn­ing, noon and night. They just can't stop palanc­ing. Don't these big-name ra­dio DJs have a con­science and heart? Dey have no shame? With the Na­tion­al Panora­ma se­mi-fi­nal 48 hours away, al­most no­body has heard, on the air­waves, Pan Army, the se­lec­tion of Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove; or Pan is Mag­num, Wit­co Des­per­a­does' tune of choice.

The list of un­heard songs, all of them bet­ter than what has been on the ra­dio since Christ­mas Day, in­cludes Wild and Free, one of the sweet­est pan songs this year, com­posed by 19-year-old An­dre White, the win­ning arranger in last year's New York Labour Day Panora­ma; Oba Synette's Pan War; De Fos­to's Smooth Sail­ing; Karen Ec­cles' Play de Pan; and every­thing record­ed by Crazy. You mean to say that with al­most 50 pan songs out there, these high fa­lutin ra­dio DJs can't find time to play a sin­gle one? What a sad state of af­fairs! With the ex­cep­tion of 94.7 WACK 90.1 and to a less­er ex­tent, 100.1, pro­gramme di­rec­tors of all ra­dio sta­tions ought to hang their heads in shame for show­ing such ut­ter dis­re­spect for our na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

Bat­tle­zone!

It's the mo­ment most pan lovers have wait­ed for, the na­tion­al Panora­ma se­mi-fi­nals, which will take place on Sun­day. Small, medi­um and large bands will fea­ture in the pop­u­lar Sa­van­nah Par­ty, from 9 am, at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, which will be turned in­to a mu­si­cal bat­tle­zone. As usu­al, yours tru­ly will be there. Now this year, I won't be do­ing any pelvic gy­ra­tions. I in­tend to take it down a notch or two. I might just do a slow wine. I can't wait to hear de­fend­ing champs, PCS Sil­ver Stars. My spies tell me they're sound­ing great with Bat­tle­zone, com­posed by Ed­win Pouchet and sung by Anselm Dou­glas. Pan peo­ple will have to pelt our re­al dol­lars to en­joy the sa­van­nah par­ty. The North­ern Greens will cost $300; pad­dock stands, $260 and the track, $60. Un­til next week, keep lov­ing up the pan.