Nurse Karen is reporting in her blog that there will be an international version of the Machel Montano HD album called “Wining season” out soon. According to Karen the album will be released on Delicious Vinyl. No info on the label’s website so far.
Machel already released two 12″ on that label in the 90s (1995 to be precise).
David Rudder recently did his Calypso Journey show in Toronto, Canada. It combined calypso music of three generations starting in the 30s and the show also features Lord Superior and Toronto’s singer Drew Gonsalves.
Read a concert review here or listen to the audios at CBC (unfortunatly you might need some special media plugins to listen to the audios).
Here are my 2cents: The main problem is that soca music is too unknown and also a very small market. Nobody is hating on the Caribbean, soca is just not important enough. The fact that some artists get paid 3000$ for a 15min show in Toronto doesn’t mean that there are significant album sales figures. How many artists are actually doing a full album? 5? 10? (per season/country).. well here you have the main point: the quantity.
Also most of the soca artists who have some chart entries are promoted as r&b or sunshine pop - which is not too bad cause usually that tracks don’t breathe the spirit of the Carnival anymore.. but not really helpfull in promoting the label “soca”.
Still, there are good reasons to have a “soca”-category: soca is the music of a whole region, so it would be nice to have at least a “Caribbean”.
Doubles in Trinidad is now 4$ - wonder how much they are in Tobago. - See a video of the panist Duvone Stewart (with NFM Pantasy) playing Shurwayne’s “Dead or alive” in Canotier, France. [pan-jumbie] - Carnival Corbeauxstill fires against the “William Monroe Show” aka Fantastic Friday and this years Soca Monarch Bunji Garlin. - Vincean soca artist Maddzart is planing a “The Madd Symphony Carnival” show for this year.[via cyanwait]. The world’s biggest bootlegger for Caribbean music, Audiomaxxx is taken offline after police raid..ehm just make sure to write down his adress. And finally, there is another intersting weblog dedicated to soca music: (Nurse) Karin is based in Toronto and has a podcast also.
DeCooler recently looked like one of those numerous blogs that repost youtube videos. But hey, that’s cool - thanks to Tempo so many artists nowadays doing videos which helps the artists to get more exposure.
Here we go again with a video directed by Kevin Fires Morgan. Sanell Dempster is definitely the female singer from Trinidad with the most outstanding career. She won roadmarch 1999 with “De river” after singing in almost all popular brass bands like Traffik, Atlantik and Blue Ventures. Last year she rocked the carnivals with “Chokolade”
Read an interesting interview with the calypsonian Mighty Duke. He made some good points on money and the latest carnival music.
You’ve seen Trinidad music grow from ?
Yes, from one stage to the other. From being way on top to now being nothing. We don’t have music now… We don’t have music. As a matter of fact, Carnival don’t have any music.
Imagine a festival like Carnival and we have rhythm but not music. When you lack music in something, you lack the heart of it all. There’s no sweetness, nothing at all; except you jump and you get tired.