Because of the proximity of the Caribbean to the United States of America, Caribbean music has inevitably been influenced by American culture and market demands. Usually, however, the interrogation of Caribbean music, especially the Trinidadian scene, is often conducted with the focus only on Calypso, Soca and Chutney, and not on alternative forms such as rock, alternative, pop, punk or metal which have significant American influence. These musics are considered foreign and non-indigenous to the space.
The consequences of World War II on the Caribbean went beyond Sparrow’s “Jean and Dinah”. The Second World War saw the arrival of American soldiers in the region and with them came rock and roll, which had been pioneered by the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix and impacted indigenous musical forms such as calypso and, eventually, soca.
Although the impact of American culture on the Caribbean is often more overtly observed in cinema, fashion and cuisine, for several decades, Trinidad has had an active and fertile underground rock-n-roll culture, running parallel to the emergence and development of both soca and chutney musics. But the local rock music scene has always remained a sub-culture, popular among, and supported by, only a small, select crowd. The British-influenced rock, punk and pop music of the seventies eventually gave way to American-influenced rock and pop music promoted by radio stations such as 95.1 and music television shows such as the Kasey Casem Count Down and eventually MTV and VH-1 music videos which dominated local consumption in the 80s, 90s and new millennium. Despite its roots in African American musical forms, by the 70s, rock music was considered to be “white people music” and identified as such in Trinidad. Since Euro-creoles were generally considered to be the oppressors and a marginal, as well as marginalized minority, their music was viewed with suspicion and treated as foreign by the majority of the Afro-creole population. Indeed, for an Afro-creole person to show interest in rock music, was to be “playing white”. The heavy metal or glam metal music of the 80s, was also considered foreign, associated with whites and also associated with the Indo-creole population, who were considered by the Afro-creole population to be “playing white” or certainly aspiring to be “white”. This association of rock and pop music with “whiteness” and “Indianness” therefore made them taboo musical forms, ignored or even resented by the mainstream as not “we thing”. “We” used to mean local or Trini; and local or Trini often being equated with Afro-Creole cultural forms. 80s bands such as Charlie’s Roots, led by David Rudder, and Taxi, led by Cathy Imamshah had to be careful about how much white-influenced popular music they sang to avoid jeopardizing their crowd appeal and credibility during the Carnival season. They struggled with issues of diversity and balance in their music as well as audience acceptance. 90s bands such as Second Imij, which eventually became Imij and Co., suffered much the same dichotomy and to some extent Kees The Band struggles with this contemporarily. Calypso, now superseded by Soca, which has been joined by Chutney are considered to be national musics. Bands that play these musics are considered to be patriotic and promoting “we culture”. Anything outside of those three forms are considered foreign.
One of the most prominent bands within the rock genre is jointpop, led by guitarist Gary Hector with band members Damon Homer, Dion Camacho, Jason Girdharrie and Phil Hill. This band has been in existence for 15 years and has had tremendous impact on the local rock scene. They tour the United States and the United Kingdom regularly, have released five albums, and hold local concerts. Despite their longevity, relative popularity and immense talent, they have remained virtual unknowns: exiles in their own home primarily because, while their sound is indigenous, the musical form they have chosen is considered to be foreign and the members of this band remain outsiders on both the local and foreign rock scene. Of course, the irony of it all is that all current indigenous music are in fact derivations of imported forms. Calypso is a combination of African and European forms (Rohlehr; 1990, Warner-Lewis; 1991) and soca a combination of African, European and East Indian music forms (Guibault, 2007).
Behind the Music:
After spending five years in the band Odd Fellows Local (known for underground hits such as “Little Miss Popular” and “Arrest Arrest”), in 1995, Gary Hector got together with a group of other musicians: Gerard Rajkumar, Damon Homer, Libert Carimbocas and Graeme Granger to form the music band jointpop. It is a name he says just "popped" into his head and is always spelt in lowercase.
jointpop, at that point in time was just another of the many garage rock bands that seemed to spring up overnight in Trinidad. Some of jointpop's then contemporaries were Smith Tuttle, Brown Fox, Incert Coin, Orange Sky. Some had been spawned out of Anchorage Restaurant's annual Pop/Rock competition that encouraged local bands to come and play cover songs from their favourite foreign bands. In between playing for the show some of these bands attempted to create their own original music. jointpop never fit the cover-band template though and remained resolute in its commitment to develop its own brand of music. The band cites as its major influences a mash up of:
Dylan, Stones, Beatles, Kinks, Clash, Pistols, Smiths, Blondie... way too much rock n roll to mention… Sparrow, Kitch, Maestro ,Shorty, Merchant, Explainer, Shadow, Blue Boy and the great David Rudder, sadly for me it stopped after Rudder in my opinion, the art of the songwriter as Calypsonian. King David Rudder would have the biggest impact on me and to this day his lyrics just melts me….all the time.. I always have to write him some very humbling email after hearing some songs or watching some TV re run. And the pop style writers back in the day, Sparks, Wildfire, Tony Wilson, Stumpy Chapman, Mave and Dave, Carol Addison, Mac and Katie Kisson, Nadie La Fond, Nappy Meyers and the great Andre Tanker, with whom I became very close too and he played on our records and also on stage with us. Special man. (interview, 2011)
In the ensuing year,s the band changed members, remaining with the core duo of Hector and Homer on guitars and adding Camacho on drums, Gidharrie on bass and Hill on keyboards. In total, the band has released the following albums: Port of Spain Style (1999), Exile Baby (2002), an EP called jointpop (2005), Bess of jointpop (2006), The January Transfer Window (2007), and The Longest Kiss Goodnight (2010). The style of the band has evolved along with the albums. The earliest album has been described by BC Pires, journalist and self-professed acolyte of the band, as Calypso-Rock. Exile Baby (2002), their sophomore album began the departure from the calypso rock formula and in their last two albums the sound has been decidedly rock with punk touches.
Hector asserts the following on the rock music scene in Trinidad:
Growing up in a musical country with songs on the 2 radio stations, at least back then, you would hear all the great calypso songs of the day and also that of some pop style songwriters, which just floated into your consciousness. The fact that rock n roll being only just an underground situation in tnt has been accepted by us a very long time ago. There is no way we can change the musical landscape in tnt, and that was never the intention, because we respect the local music made here and it’s good for the identity of our country, but at the same time, for us to be considered ‘outsiders’, sometimes it’s not fair, but we don’t care really. Some people love to go out and see the local rock bands perform, but that number gets smaller when the bands play original songs. If you really want to check the number of rock music fans in tnt, just go to those over rated concerts by all the 70’s and 80’s bands they bring here to perform, 20 to 30,000 people ; and at those terrible tribute bands and cover band competitions you will find 5,000 people. But only mention the word “original” and here comes the loyal 60 to 100 people.
It is against such a framework of foreignness and otherness that rock music enters into the local landscape. When asked his thoughts about the potential of the local rock industry, Hector’s frank response was:
Well first of all there is no “Music Industry,” far less a Rock Music Industry. So much needs to be put in place for any chance of that happening. Without radio support, there can be no music industry. That’s the bottom line. All other points and arguments follow that. Radio remains the most important media for music. Repetition is the key. And if you don’t believe me, just check, any bad song repeated on the radio can be sung along to after a while. Like telling a lie over and over....it becomes the truth.
With rock music recordings being further marginalized, then the bands would just give up, or try to please radio and the public, then get lost, so they just won’t survive, plus they are smarter than jointpop, and go and find real jobs or just play in a cover band and have fun. And too much of the rock music scene here is about playing 2 gigs, with some fans screaming and winning a band competition and they are bigger than The Beatles, sad it’s that way because they don’t get the chance to just continue and feel some beautiful pain.
It’s the expensive reason why we are here right now on tour in the UK. We have no choice but to be here to expose our music and story to people who are interested in us. They follow us online, or from UK radio, UK press and when we do interviews with radio and press it’s the same thing they want to know. Feels strange being on radio in England, Scotland, Germany, USA, and Australia, and imagine Russia. But jointpop can’t get onto 99% of tnt radio.
When asked about what it is like to be in a rock band from Trinidad touring the UK Hector says:
Because of where we come from, we are free of all music biz trappings. So we are free to write as we please, any topic and style, versus if we were from London for example. We may get caught up in all the 'Brit' scene, the Camden fashion and 'most' of the bands sounding the same etc. But at the same time, our local scene is one of "no ambition". The radio, press and the Music Industry in general are all mainstream, so the underground is really suffocating. In the UK, so many independent and Underground Radio ,Press, TV, Mags etc. The UK’s got an actual Music Industry, and sadly T&T do not have a Music Industry. The jointpop story is one of a rock n roll band on a calypso and reggae island here in Trinidad and Tobago. About trying to find a voice in your own home. Just about being travellers and rock n roll troubadours.”
15 years is a long time to remain unknown in a country whose life revolves around the daily ritual of performance. Trinidadians like swagger, grand charge, picong, cheekiness, and a good melody. These things have been the mainstay of the calypso and soca forms for decades and are the mainstays of jointpop’s compositions. Writer and music critic for Caribbean Beat magazine, Jonathan Ali ranks jointpop’s Gary Hector among the greatest song writer’s to have emerged from Trinidad, placing him next to David Rudder and Andre Tanker. Ali laments that because Hector’s medium is rock music, few people will ever be exposed to his greatness (interview, 2011). He also cites the introspection that a rock ballad allows for as one of the features that allows Hector’s skills as a song writer to be showcased.
A chronological sampling of their music easily demonstrates that the sound of their music has undergone radical changes in the 15-year life span of the band. From the calypso influenced songs on Port of Spain Style (1999) to the rock and industrial punk infused music of the Longest Kiss Goodnight (2010), the band’s themes, not sound, have remained consistent. jointpop’s 50 plus songs have all contended with critical post-colonial and post modern issues like exile, rebellion, the pitfalls of the entertainment industry, love, mimicry and nationalism.
When questioned about the importance of socio-political commentary in his music, Hector says:
It’s only important if it matters. The writer must have something to bother about. I love my country and my people very much, and I hate to see people abuse it, and she has never been abused more than now in the past 20 years. It’s strange because I feel like I’m at War with the country I love. It’s funny when some people say to me about some situation of the day...”why don’t you write a song about that ?.... and I can find many songs I wrote and recorded before. And it’s only because back to the point above of radio being the loudspeaker for the people. No one hears about the issues in the songs, because they can’t. And as far as Politicians go, well, they don’t deserve ink from my pen. They all build a wall for me to try to score around.
If there was a genre known as Calypso-Rock, then jointpop’s 1995 debut album Port of Spain Style (1999) would be the quintessential album. The ten songs on offer on it fulfill all the content requirements of great calypsos, while the music is a fusion of calypso and rock instrumentation. “Lost in Space (Port of Spain Style)” the album’s title song is the bands defiant opening salvo that discusses a space that rejects them while they remain committed to it. Its opening verse leads listener into a conversation on one of the band’s key tropes: displacement. It is a trope that is repeated later on in their career in songs like “Exile Baby” (2002), “Radio Luxembourg” (2005) and “Planes, Trains and Pain” (2010). Hector, in a velvet murmur tells you that this is “Port of Spain style” and then launches into a full length lament:
I feel like I walking, a long long time,
I feel like I walking in vain
I feel like I walking on my two hands
I feel like I walking away.
Is only faces
Different places
No one to see,
Nowhere to go…
Is trouble now
Is bacchanal
This despair over the Trinidad milieu remains throughout the band’s oeuvre and on this album is repeated in songs like “Urgent”, (Doh Study Me (Study Yuhself), “½ Past Nine”, and “Bashment To Halloween”. This latter pair provides biting commentaries on the social malaise in Trinidad. In “½ Past Nine”, possibly the band’s most popular song locally, Hector compares two time periods, a nostalgically remembered past and the present. He croons:
How come in my time, I cyah smile in the morning
How come in my mother’s time
Well, Ma could live in anytime
But this time, aint no nice time
The only nice time is after ½ past 9. (“1/2 past 9”, 1995)
“Bashment…” is a biting satirical take on our love of pappyshow and mimicry. In it, Hector takes shots at the Trinbagonian’s constant need to mimic and adulate foreign cultures. In one verse he fires off the line at the local rock music scene when he says: “They only playing cover music like they come from Cover Land”. And sums up his disgust saying:
Sometimes they does make me sick,
My people like they only on gimmick.
And sometimes it does make me grin, Lord,
This country I living in.
I get the shock of my life. (“Bashment to Halloween”, 1995)
There is also at least one tribute song on the album venerating a calypso great, “King Radio” and one song of affirmation, “Rise”. The rock elements on this album are sublime rather than overt. Most of the songs feel like blues and funk influenced calypsos, with their reliance on rhythm guitar, driving bass and drum syncopations and the touches of flute and saxophone provided by Carimbocas. But the combination of rock and calypso made jointpop a difficult band to market. They weren’t quite rock, no one would think of their music as really calypso, so where to place them? Local radio stations barely played them. The ones whose format was soca and calypso ignored them and the radio stations with pop-rock formats such as 95.1 The Rock grudgingly played “1/2 past 9” on rare occasions.
Exiled Babies
By 2002’s Exile Baby, the band’s sound had evolved into an esoteric mix of calypso, rock and punk. The songwriting credits on this album are accredited to Mick Richardson, Hector’s alter-ego and to those in on the joke, it’s a nod to two of Hector’s influences, Mick Jagger and Nick Richardson of the Rolling Stones. The calypso ballad style that was evident in “Bashment to Halloween” and “1/2 Past 9” disappears, but the social commentary, satire and lament remain in every song on the album. In terms of coherence of sound Exile Baby is probably the band’s weakest production. The album’s opening song, Exile Baby, hark’s back to the placelessness and wandering evident in Port of Spain Style as Hector and band are “looking for who made me, looking for who saves me...” A considerable chunk of the album features songs about the pains and pitfalls of Trinidad’s entertainment industry and fame: on “(I Hate) Entertainment”, Hector professes that he hates entertainment, but wryly admits that he has become entertainment.
“122345…544321” looks at the fleeting nature of fame where one minute you are popular and then 544321 minutes later nobody knows your name. “New Fast Food in Town” is yet another take on the fickleness of the entertainment industry as well as a larger social comment on the consumerist nature of Trinidad’s society, that deconstructs a meal order at a fast-food service counter wherein the customer requests:
6-piece original
a portion of distortion
some cold emotion to get them high (“New Fast Food”, 2002)
This new fast food is making the society sick, as they hold their heads and bellies while bawling and vomiting on the sides of the street. In “The Great Pop Swindle” (a pun on the iconic 70s documentary The Great Rock Swindle), Hector affirms that he’s not going to let what’s supposed to make him happy make him sad or drive him mad. And in an earlier song, he declares he is “Not For Sale” and asks:
Would you sell your father’s underwear?
Would you sell your mother’s pretty grey hair?
Would you give your love to anyone that comes near?
...Would you throw your legs up in the air?
...We all out of love
We not for Sale! (“Not For Sale”, 2002)
“I Never Promised You a Clothes Garden” (a pun on the song “I never Promised You a Rose Garden”) is both a comment on the economic disappoints that people who pursue music face as well as a love song. In it, Hector sings:
I watch you recline
As you watch me decline
Hope your dreams come true
Then I’ll do it all for you
Bridge:
(help) I can’t stop falling
(help) pick me up off this ground
(help) Someone prop me up until Sun Down, until Sundown
Chorus: If only I could take you to London,
If only just to say goodbye
If only, if only, if only I...
By Exile Baby the melancholic lament heard in 1999s Port of Spain Style became a cacaphonic wail as well as castigation of the society in songs like “ Crack, Pitbull and Gun” complete with distorted guitars when he says:
No, no no, why Trinis so?
Yes, they want it
But like they want it all
And like they need it
But like they need it all
And now we have it
Oh, look we have it all
Of all the things we can do for fun
And of all the things we should do for fun
Crack, Pitbull and Gun!
We’re very strange people
Oh, Trini on the run
The song is an interesting juxtaposition of guttural moan at the song’s start followed by an almost frivolous scatting sequence that both emphasises and undermines the seriousness of the issue Hector is highlighting. Crime and violence have become essential traits of our society, and this song hints at the desensitisation and numbness that has begun to creep over the wider society as a result of drug and gun-related crimes.
Planes, Trains and Pain
In 2007 and 2010 jointpop released two albums, The January Transfer Window and The Longest Kiss Goodnight that would see the band’s sound go entirely in the direction of rock and punk; while the social commentary remained steadily entrenched, even in the ballads. These two albums do not feature any of the multiple artists collaborationss that happened on Port of Spain Style (1999) or Exile Baby (2002), the sound of these last two albums is minimalist in terms of its instrumental nature, and yet fuller because, whereas in the earlier albums the only counterpoint to Hector’s vocals was the silky lead guitar rifts of Damon Homer, in January Transfer Window, the conversation now happens between Hector’s voice, Homer’s guitar and Phil Hill’s keyboard with Camacho and Girdharrie providing tight and unwavering support on the drums and bass. An excellent example of this is “The Irony of It All”, classic social commentary by Hector in the form of a rock ballad and filled out satisfyingly by Hill’s orchestration and Homer’s virtuosity. Other features of these last two albums are tongue-in-cheek references to Beatles trivia such as Yoko Ono, McCartney’s “Band on the Run” and “Eleanor Rigby”, and Lennon’s “Fool on the Hill”. The instrumentation on the songs still reveals influences from The Clash, The Cure and even some country music, but all pulled together much more tightly than the earlier albums. The band’s foreign listenership has obviously influenced its musical focus and there are nods to this in songs like “Walsall Wonderland”, “Camden Ketchup”, and “The South of France”.
Entertainment, the music industry, displacement and otherness remain constant themes throughout these two albums as well. Yet, the tone is far less strident now, much more accepting, if not resigned, to their position as constant outsiders to any music scene they enter.
$ouls for $ale?
Despite their settled sound, the band’s rebellious tone is far from curtailed. “Rock n Roll in Yuh Cacahole” has long been their defiant call to arms, always used in a call-and-response style to an enthusiastic audience, who might like “foreign” music but remember their oral traditions. The defiance and thumbing of the nose at the system, a feature of sub-altern voices remains central to their music, but of late the jointpop that once defiantly claimed it is not for sale has decided “Fuck That!”, its soul is going cheap. The rock game is a hard one, it is getting harder and harder to write these songs and have to tour in exile baby and market their Port of Spain Style to Radio Luxembourg, while at home their music is considered not Trinbagonian enough because we have arrived at preconceived notions about what is national in a space influenced and developed by foreign cultures.
When asked about the band’s future and where they are likely to fit in, Hector gave his typical straightforward response:
Once jointpop continue to just write songs, record albums and perform when allowed, then that’s enough of a fit for us really (interview, 2011).
The Irony of it All
In the larger scheme of things, jointpop’s narrative is important for several reasons. Through their music and their very existence this band represents people who are in and of this space but do not necessarily seem to fit because they do not ascribe to any preconceived notion of national identity. If rock music is an amalgamation of Afro and European sound and instrumentation, what makes it any less valid to this space than calypso music? What makes calypso, soca and chutney music, forms that have all been influenced by or have sampled foreign musical forms, more national? Why does a certain type of music have to be limited to an ethnic group? Who makes rock white and calypso black? What makes a musical form that utilises protest, satire and socio-political commentary any less valid than calypso? What allows Machel Montano’s sampling of an Irish singer ( Enya’s “Caribbean Blue”, in “Band Of De Year”, 2006) or Destra Garcia’s sampling of a Norweigian band (Aha’s “Take On Me” in her 2003 offering, “Bonnie and Clyde”) to be considered national music, while jointpop’s indigenous compositions are considered foreign?
In a space that is grappling with shifts in postcolonial and postmodern ideology jointpop’s subversive questions about identity and nationalism may be just an/Other narrative we need to hear.
Essential Discography
Port of Spain Style (1999)
1. Lost in Space; 2. Urgent; 3. King Radio; 4. 2 High; 5. After ½ Past Nine; 6. Bashment to Halloween; 7. Is Only Propaganda (But Ah Like It); 8. Doh Study Me (Study Yuhself); 9. Rise; 10. Sawng.
Exile Baby (2002)
1. I Need to Make a Call; 2. Exile Baby; 3. Not For Sale; 4. (I Hate) Entertainment; 5. 122345 544321; 6. Jazz; 7. La Belle Rosette; 8. New Fast Food; 9. Harde Bapre; 10. Crack Pitbull and Gun; 11. The Great Pop Swindle; 12. I Never Promised You a Clothes Garden
EP (2004)
1. Let’s Pray for Rock and Roll; 2. The Water Supreme; 3. Radio Luxembourg; 4. Voodoo vs Voodoo; 5. Monsta Me
The January Transfer Window (2007)
1. The Irony of it All; 2. Monday Morning Love Situation; 3. Mystery; 4. Walsall Wonderland; 5. Yoko Ono; 6. The Desperate Housefly; 7. The Fool; 8. The Bet; 9. The Spelling Bee; 10. Brass & Steel; 11. Mayaro Heart Burn Blues; 12. I know; 13. Quality Daydream Time; 14. Dancing in the Moonlight
The Longest Kiss Goodnight
1. Loveless Street; 2. Planes, Trains and Pain;3. $oul$ Going Cheap; 4. We Can’t Work it Out; 5. Camden Ketchup; 6. Dirty Little Secrets; 7. The Bleeding Broken Hearts Club; 8. Please Don’t Tell My In-Laws (I’m an Outlaw); 9. The Wrong Side of the Sunshine; 10. The South of France
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