Pe­ter Ray Blood

Band­leader Ron­nie Mc In­tosh achieved just what he set out to do last Thurs­day when he launched the C2K12 pre­sen­ta­tion of Ron­nie & Caro-The Mask of.... The vet­er­an artiste and band­leader suc­ceed­ed in not just get­ting per­mis­sion from the City Cor­po­ra­tion to lock off Fred­er­ick Street for his pa­rade of cos­tumes but suc­ceed­ed in at­tract­ing hun­dreds of fol­low­ers in the pro­ces­sion. It was in­deed the per­fect way to be­gin a fun week­end. Start­ing a lit­tle af­ter its 3 pm start at the Memo­r­i­al Park, the pro­ces­sion, ac­com­pa­nied by po­lice per­son­nel and out­rid­ers, got to its City Hall des­ti­na­tion ex­act­ly three hours af­ter­wards.

Spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Em­manuel George, MP Don­na Cox, Deputy Port-of-Spain May­or Ker­ron Valen­tine, and vet­er­an mas­men Raoul Garib and Earl Pat­ter­son, were wel­comed in­to City Hall's au­di­to­ri­um for an of­fi­cial dis­play of the beau­ti­ful­ly de­signed cos­tumes, by Mc In­tosh's wife, Car­o­line, and his moth­er in law Car­lot­ta "Co­ty" John. With no cur­few in force at the time, every­one had a rol­lick­ing time at the launch, many voic­ing their in­ten­tions of play­ing mas with the four-time Band of the Year (Medi­um) cham­pi­on. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, be­cause of the cur­few, a num­ber of mas bands have post­poned their C2K12 launch­es. How­ev­er Gen­e­sis boss Ian Mc Ken­zie is ask­ing the par­ty crowd to red-cir­cle Oc­to­ber 8 for the un­veil­ing of his mas for next year.

Par­ty in the day

Tri­nis get­ting soft. I re­mem­ber fly­ing back home from Toron­to in 1990 in the mid­dle of the 1990 cur­few and hav­ing the time of my life, at­tend­ing cur­few par­ties non stop, cour­tesy hot spots like The Mas Camp Pub and Crick­et Wick­et. Pro­pri­etors like Mac Ward and John Hor­sham host­ed these fun-filled par­ties dur­ing the cur­few hours, with Ward adding the di­men­sion of show­ing a movie dur­ing the par­ty. The first two nights, I risked be­ing caught and walked through Wood­brook in search of a "cur­few lime." On Mon­day, every­thing was shut down. By 7.30 pm, West­ern Main Road in St James was like a ghost town with Smokey & Bun­ty lock­ing its doors prompt­ly at 7 pm. In fact, Min­glers and Earth on Cipri­ani Boule­vard nev­er opened that evening. Smokey & Bun­ty pro­pri­etor Ronal­do "Bun­ty" Munroe said that his first re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lay with his staff's safe­ty, "not prof­its." He added: "I want them to be safe and get home be­fore 9 pm."

The fol­low­ing evening, along Ari­api­ta Av­enue, there were a few more ac­com­mo­dat­ing wa­ter­ing holes, in­clud­ing La Ha­vana, Frankie's, Nex' Door, Sand­bar and David "Char­lie" Lee Kim's An­chor Bar by Ana Street cor­ner, with sea­soned limers like De­bra and In­ez Bath, Odelia Gar­cia, Bar­ry Fred­er­ick and Ged­des Woods milk­ing out every last minute be­fore 9 pm. Last Tues­day, Mac Ward promised his Mas Camp Pub faith­ful that busi­ness con­tin­ues as nor­mal. He added: "There's no big dif­fer­ence for us-'come at nine, leave at five'-as we have not can­celled any any of our par­ty book­ings." In fact, to­mor­row night, Mas Camp is hav­ing its first all-nighter, from 8 pm till 5 am. On Sun­day, this Wood­brook show­place will hold its an­nu­al Red, White & Black Par­ty, from 1 pm - 7 pm, with mu­sic by DJs Cut­ting Crew, Dex-K and Hip­ster.

One en­ter­pris­ing young man who has found a way around the cur­few hours is Ke­moni Rich­mond, head of KR Pro­mo­tions. He has moved his Au­gust 27 Man­u­mis­sion par­ty, orig­i­nal­ly slat­ed for the Mil­i­tary Mu­se­um in Ch­aguara­mas, to Gas­pa­ree Is­land. On Tues­day, Rich­mond re­vealed he will run a shut­tle ser­vice from Crews Inn, Ch­aguara­mas, to the new venue from 4.30 pm - 8.30 pm, and the par­ty will run un­til 5 am. About to­mor­row's gig Ke­moni ex­plained: "This con­cept arose be­cause Man­u­mis­sion means 'eman­ci­pa­tion/lib­er­a­tion' and what we are telling par­ty go­ers is to free them­selves from what they are ac­cus­tomed to in par­ties and ex­pe­ri­ence a dif­fer­ence.

"Our venue Down the Is­lands is go­ing to be com­plete­ly trans­formed by 'Ex­pe­ri­ence Ef­fects' to give pa­trons an ul­tra ex­clu­sive par­ty ex­pe­ri­ence. "They will be en­ter­tained by ten of the hottest DJs well known to par­ty go­ers; there will be a fe­male com­pli­men­ta­ry pre­mi­um wine bar; and, at 7 am, pa­trons have a choice of a free pre­mi­um break­fast-that is will be a 'man­u­mit­ting' ex­pe­ri­ence."

For more in­for­ma­tion on this par­ty log on­to Face­book or call 681-04KR.

Ca­lyp­so in the Big Ap­ple

While we are on cur­few lock­down at home, Tri­nis in the Big Ap­ple are hav­ing them­selves a rol­lick­ing time for this year's West In­di­an Car­ni­val in New York. The Big Yard Ca­lyp­so Tent, lo­cat­ed Ex­ec­u­tive Lounge on Uti­ca Av­enue (be­tween Sny­der and Tilden Av­enues) is boast­ing some of the best ca­lyp­so­ni­ans on the plan­et, with shows sched­uled al­most every night. Lo­cals on its cast are Baron, Ti­gress, Natasha Wil­son, Pos­er, John­ny King, Black Prince, Ex­plain­er and Skatie, joined by renowned N&M Trinidad All Stars pan­nist Dane Gul­ston and co­me­di­an Tom­my Joseph. The Big Yard is ac­tu­al­ly a re­gion­al show­place as it is al­so graced by some of the Caribbean pre­mier bards from places like St Lu­cia, St Kitts, St Vin­cent and Do­mini­ca, in­clud­ing the like Grena­da's Aja­mu, Lord Kent, Dice, Tasha P, Sye, D Man Age, Den­nis Bow­man, John Douglan, and Dr Wit­ty.

Come Mon­day night, it's a spe­cial show-Salut­ing Grena­da and St Vin­cent-sub-ti­tled Oil Down; on Tues­day, it's Do­mini­ca, St Kitts, St Lu­cia Nite; and on Wednes­day, for T&T Nite, there's a mam­moth In­de­pen­dence Day pro­duc­tion, head­lined by Baron. On Thurs­day, with mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment by Swing­ing Stars, it's the ea­ger­ly await­ed Clash of the Is­lands with the fol­low­ing line-ups: Baron vs Black Prince; Pos­er vs En­cy; Ex­plain­er vs Lord Kent; John­ny King vs D Man Age; Skatie vs John Dougan; Ti­gress vs Natasha Wil­son; and more.

Say­ing sad farewells

For yet an­oth­er week, the cul­tur­al fra­ter­ni­ty has suf­fered trag­ic loss­es. Last Sat­ur­day, it was Pat Bish­op, one of the coun­try's most trea­sured cul­tur­al icons suc­cumb­ing to a heart at­tack while at­tend­ing a meet­ing. Be­gin­ning with Fon­claire Steel Or­ches­tra way back in the day, Bish­op en­hanced the for­tunes and achieve­ments of pre­mier steel­bands like Wit­co Des­per­a­does, Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus, bird­song, and Phase II Pan Groove, as well as was the mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of The Ly­di­ans. Al­so leav­ing us last week­end was pop­u­lar ca­lyp­son­ian Hot­foot (John Mc Ken­na). Apart from his singing, Hot­foot's trade­mark stage per­sona in­clud­ed him chang­ing his out­fit for every singer as em­cee at TU­CO Klas­sic Ru­so ca­lyp­so tent.