The year was 1957, Carnival was under threat of a boycott by 16 bands over the fact that the prize money for band of the year was not enough. The ship running between Trinidad and Tobago broke down forcing Tobagonians to stay in Tobago for Carnival and George Bailey's "Back to Africa" wins Band of the Year which drew raves from the judges from "how much research went into the band" as well as captured spectators with sections such as Masai, Watusi, Zulu and Zambesi tribesmen.
"Oba Adelle I had a train 15 yards ling held by African Maidens and the burnished rhinestone studded crowns of the African Royalty and Court Ministers were masterpieces of metal craftsmanship".... read more in today's Vintage Tuesday:
Click
on the book to read online
Or download today's articles
HERE.
The following photograph can be found on
Noel Norton's website along with other Carnival gems. Please visit his
website to see other treasures from our Carnival History by Minshall, Berkely and others... really fabulous photographs:
George Bailey's "Back To Africa" PHOTO SOURCE:www.noelnorton.com
To all the Hindus celebrating the Festival of Light today....
It's MONDAY!! Time for more of your questions for the band leader.
Leave a comment or email me your questions at
trinicarnivaldiary@yahoo.com.
Ronnie & Caro Calypso Fiesta (frontline)
Cock Fight (frontline)
Dimanche Gras (frontline)
Soca Monarch (Frontline)
Panorama (Frontline)
Harts Gandara
Vayu (Male)
Zranka (pink)
Spice Sea Salt (frontline)
Brian Mc Farlane Kasena (Female)
Rashaida Bride (Female)
Hausa Dancers (Female)
With all those beautiful feathered costumes it would do you all wise to invest in a bottle of Fletch Dry Powder, just in case it rains or for some unforeseen reason your feathers get wet (spilled drink, misting zone perhaps?). For those of you in the US I already linked several sites where you can purchase waterproofing powder online, now those masqueraders in the UK can also purchase the waterproofing powder online as well. Through research from one of the bloggers
this site is selling the powder at the best price compared to others, even with shipping and handling included. The product is called
Gateway Waterproofing Powder, sold at
www.merlinarcherycentre.co.uk for £4.00
As for footwear, I have been getting request for cheap boots from masqueraders in the UK and here are a few sites that I have come across that have pretty decent flat boots at reasonable prices:
(click on the highlighted name to be taken to the website)Faith Boots from
£10.00
Urban OutfittersBoots from
£19.99
Priceless ShoesBoots from
£2.00 
Garage ShoesBoots from
£19.99
Linzi Shoes
Boots from £20.00
Desmazieres ShoesBoots from
£ 14.00 
WynsorsBoots from
£12.95
New Look Boots from
£15.00
Remember that
Afro Chic can spray any boot to match the colour of your costume so even black boots are fine. You may want to consult her regarding the material the boot is made of however; the website is
bootsbyafrochic.com
WHAT?: The premier "Sneak Peek" for Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival festival featuring a costume catwalk of themed carnival costume collections from rival carnival bands. Hosted by AJ Calloway & Vashtie Kola, live performances by soca sensation Rupee and other special guests.
WHEN?: Oct 30, 2008 at 8:00 PM EDT (7:00 PM DOORS)
WHERE?: Prince George Ballroom - New York, NY $100.00
HOW MUCH?: $100.00 (US) Inclusive of Premium Drinks & Hors D'oeuvres. Tickets can be bought online at
Ticket Web.
See
antilia.com/carnival for details.
As we await patiently the launch of Trini Revellers website, private section with that band, D Harvard Section, has launched their offering with "Sweet T&T a Tribute to Trinidad and Tobago":
The sections are
Play Yuhself (orange),
Cyar Fraid Powder and
Carib Country (blue). Since I am in a good mood today I am ONLY going to focus on the positive.
Play Yuhself is offering one of the cheapest frontline sections ever at $2395.00TT!! You cannot even get a Backline Babe costume at that price in most of the other bands.
Cyar Fraid Powder is an interesting twist on the Fancy Sailor for the females who may want a sexy sailor costume and I do like the male costume very much.
Carib Country is a simple, no frill costume for the ladies who don't want to fuss with a headpiece and just want something as if they were chilling on the beach at less than $2000.00TT. All these prices are "all inclusive" as per the website.
For more photos please visit D Harvard Section
website.
Today it is all about the kids as Gerad Kelly's
website is also up and running; his 2009 Children's Presentation is
SHADES OF WHITE:
Pretty costumes but imagine keeping that entire band clean all day!! Invest in
Tide to Go parents.
I am loving the costumes for Rosalind Gabriel's kiddies portrayal of National Pride and one section even requires the girls to wear black knee high boots!
As for the adult's band I was expecting costumes on par with the kiddies, with lovely, towering backpacks and lots of fabric but from the drawings they remind me of Wayne Berkley circa 1995! Further judgment is reserved until I see the actual costumes on the road on Carnival Tuesday.
For drawings of both the Children and Adult's band or for more information visit Rosalind Gabriel's
website.
PHOTO SOURCE:www.rosalindgabriel.com
When it comes to keeping your masqueraders happy and protected what are the ratios of masqueraders to drinks trucks, music trucks and security?What about the process of deciding which performers to have on the road? Does that come down to a money thing or do bandleaders go by who are the most popular performers for the season and start the bidding war?
As far as drinks, for a bar to function reasonably well (as no bar is perfect.) a minimum ratio is 1 bar person per 50 patrons, but this also depends on how much available bar surface there is.In any event there will have to be a wait to get your drinks. It is just the logistics of it. Best we can do is minimize the wait. In some aspects the traditional carts function better, for some good reasons,less people sharing the same access area or bar surface. A Cart may may serve an average a 100 or so patrons, attended to by approx. 4 bar tenders or cart workers. That ratio is 1:25 which is very good. As well as most cart patrons can simply put there hand in their own carts and retrieve drinks .Self service is the quickest way. But with the complaints on the rise of congestion being worsened by so many additional trucks I feel that sooner or later the powers that be may restrict the number of of trucks Bands will be allowed.
In respect to who performs on the road, it is a little of all that you mentioned. Availability is I think the most important, and you also has to be careful of who you hire, because some bands are too popular and may cause an unnecessary mount of non masqueraders to invade, and stress the security, as what happened with Machel and Poison. I love HD but I wouldn't let them play on the road for me. So you want good consistent sound with an all round band, that has stamina, fair popularity, and lots of road experience. And Band nor sound system comes cheap. All you can do is try to give the people the best time they could have.
Thanks again , till next week
B.L.
Yesterday I paid an impromptu visit to Richard and Anthony's production house where they were diligently working on pieces for the sections Spangled Cotinga, Green Honeycreeper, Caged Canary and Hummingbird. I have to say I absolutely LOVE,LOVE,LOVE Caged Canary's frontline headpiece (which I tried on) it has got to be the most fantastic headpiece of all the costumes I have seen thus far for Carnival 2009. It is just gorgeous!!!
As for quality control, the costumes that I saw in production were all being crafted with meticulous detail to the prototype so at least those masqueraders in any of the aforementioned sections should not be worried of having their headpieces looking different to the original.
I was also able to try the tail on for Spangled Cotinga Frontline and it is very sturdy, the back piece is made with a wire base which is then attached to the front piece using hooks on the side of the belt. The tail is awesome !!! That visit was a well needed booster to the excitement for Carnival, I cannot WAIT to see my costume!
Steelband Invaders wearing their instruments hung around their necks
at the beginning of the 1950’s.
Calypso tent, 1956.Top, 4th from the left, Mighty Sparrow
Today's Vintage Tuesday features the year 1956 with two articles, one featuring Carnival in San Fernando. To read online, click on the book below:
Or, download the articles
HERE.
PHOTO SOURCE:http://www.lameca.org
You can check out the first photos of Legacy's launch of "Kingdom of the Dragon",their 2009 presentation on
trinisoca.com:
Gallery 1Gallery 2Gallery 3They got LOTS of photos.
I will reserve my comments for when I see the costumes in person or on the website for a better look, however THIS costume below, the red one, is a VERY close version of Spice's Melliot Blue frontline:
Spice - Melliot Blue 
p.s. And do not try to educate me on the Meliot Blue/Spangled Cotinga similarities; both costumes were done by the SAME designers so it is impossible to plagiarize your own self!!! It would do those of you reading the blog for the first time wellto check the archives from inception in 2006, in fact from the last few months, to understand that I do not spout things from off the top of my head without being aware of the facts.
SOURCE:www.trinisoca.com
Another Monday.. another round of questions. You know the drill, leave a comment or send me an email with your question at trinicarnivaldiary@yahoo.com.
Pan Trinbago has announced the dates for Panorama 2009.
Preliminary competition is slated to begin on January 23rd with the judging of single bands followed by the period January 27th to February 3rd which will feature the judging of small, medium and large bands.
On February 8th the National semi-finals, aka "Savannah Party", will once again be held at the the Queen's Park Savannah with the grand finals of Panorama taking place on February 21st at the same venue.
Renowned, award winning Kiddies Carnival Band Leader, Rosalind Gabriel, will be venturing into new territory as she launched an Adult Band for 2009. The band's presentation for 2009 is called "
Native Land" and is comprised of 5 sections catering to masqueraders looking for "something different and a lot more cloth". Micheal Salickram of the Shiv Shakti Dancers is also involved in this Carnival venture.
Rosalind's kiddies band for 2009 will be playing "
National Pride" and both adults and kiddies will be parading on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. For more information on the band you can visit the
official website though it is not fully up and running as yet.
For the non-boots wearing masqueraders, I stumbled upon the perfect sneaker for Dreams!
Jessica Simpson Women's Even Sneaker - price $68.95Buy at -
Endless.comAnd I am loving these for Natural Mystic as an alternative to chunky trainers, this costume needs footwear that is not bulky:
Vision Streetwear Women's Glitz Low Sneaker -$21.97Buy at -
Endless.comAnd the deal of the day are these silver, sequined and rhinestone sneakers at $15.00! They look as if you would need to add a pair of gel in soles for extra comfort (so order one size bigger) but the price cannot be beat for sleek silver sneakers that need no extra embellishments:
Buy at -
Newport News
But I am only now seeing Kaotic's new section "
Untamed!".
And to tell you just HOW late I am, am I the only one who just realised that Kaotic's former Public Relations officer, Rene Holford, is no longer with the band and is playing with TRIBE (I won't tell you which section) ? Ms. Holford has joined a growing list of band affilaites who have absconded and are now playing with TRIBE!
SOURCE:www.kaoticcarnival09.com
Thanks to DQ who made the observation that
Genesis changed their website address, it is now
http://carnivalgenesis.com so please bookmark, note or update your links. I would have never known their website was up and running otherwise!!
I have to say the prices are not bad at all though some of the frontline options are a tad pricey they are in line with current pricing trends for frontlines in other bands unfortunately. I do like like their
Dealers section MUCH better than the other one from that other band. The section
Diamonds is gorgeous, love it, probably Nina's best costume to date. I also like
Ice for some reason, in spite of the Snow Witch vibe I am getting for it.
Diamonds
Not bad Genesis, I can see a marked improvement in costume design over the years from this band and one thing you can say is that they certainly went outside the norm for some of the designs, and there is a marked absence of beads on the costumes!!
SOURCEwww.carnivalgenesis.com
Spotted at Labor Day.. I am trying to put my finger on what is drawing my attention in that picture and I think I have it; those are another version on Island People's jeweled panties for Rays of Lights!!! Then, I thought to myself is that a squiggly tail coming out of the back of that frontline costume? hmmmm...!
What say you?
This Frontline H.O. is __________????
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