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On Friday, I played with another Carriacou string band — either the Strugglers or the Stragglers—vowels here are really a problem for me. But it was pretty great. But . . . oh, what did I do?
I took a bus to Windward, the northeast tip of the island. It’s where the boatbuilding tradition of Carriacou was first introduced, by Scottish people, I think. Wandering around Windward I sensed that the relation between the people here and the sea is really vital and strong. They build all these boats — still do it. On the pier at Hillsborough you see these one-masted, husky, husky forty-foot wooden boats unloading beer and supplies.
They’re diesel-powered now, but the boats are built here by hand. They’re rough and strong and not fussy and probably leak no more than you can bail out and there’s a ghetto blaster in the pilothouse.
So, in Windward, there were more of them: more boats, wooden, at anchor; the big husky inter-island cargo boats and then smaller sloops, low and sexy and rough with “real masts (two spreaders; aluminum) and long booms.” These don’t have engines. I watched one sailing in through the gap in the reef under jib alone. And they row out to their moorings in their hand-built dinghies.
A sizable hunk of the people in Windward are much paler than the rest of the island. They’ve still got kinky and dreaded hair, but they’re exotic shades paler. Later on, the first night (Friday) of Parang when I was already dead tired, I went to hear the Hosanna competition. Choirs from the different villages on the island dress up and sing. There’s a test piece — everyone did their take on “Silent Night” and then there is their own chosen piece. You can win $400 for first prize. You can also win for best costumes, so they are all resplendent in various weird ways — matching island prints as cummerbunds or flowered shirts, scarves, headgear, you name it.
There was a group from Windward, seven girls, two of whom were pale but full of Black attitude. Oh, you can also win a money prize for the best-spoken introduction, so there were these cool invocations of the season, “Masters and Mistresses, Boys and Girls, the Windward Stars remind you this is Jesus’ time, so be HAPPY and JOYOUS.” Stuff like that.
From Windward, I walked back to Hillsborough. It took about two hours. I walked through a deserted part of the island; me and the birds, a dirt track, and lots of greenery. For a while, I listened to my tape of the rehearsal with the BBH Serenaders to internalize my part. Walk, walk, walk.
It’s not consistently easy being here. I’m living on chicken and biscuits and beers and not enough sleep. There are moments when my energy flags and I’m not able to confront all the dark glances I get with confidence. Many people are very friendly. They almost all love my ukulele. Some like the way I play and what I bring to their music. But other times, walking through a village strumming my ukulele, I can’t connect and instead, I get sullen glances.
And then later, at night, when youth gathers, there are hints of bad energy. Plus, I can’t always understand what is being said and at night not everyone wants to slow down for me, whiteboy. But then I play something on the uke and lean against someone’s truck and start talking Parang or whatever and people are friendly again.
Few people bother learning my name. Every once in a while, I have a “Where are you from?” conversation. Mostly, though, it’s “You are here. Play the music. You play sweet. Play some more. Yeah, yeah, play our music. Want a drink?”
I got back to Hillsborough. The point of the digression was that it was nice to have a long, alone walk — me, my uke, my cassette recorder, my thoughts. In Hillsborough I perched on a cinderblock wall to let my sweat dry, strumming a little uke. A guy (his name is Jerry) came up and told me that at Brunswick, by the cemetery (this island is lousy with cemeteries. There are about eight “towns”, “villages”, “population centers” and each has its cemetery) they’d be having a Christmas tree lighting. “Come play dat ting, mahn. Around 7:00. De Parang competition doh start till 10:00.”
I checked in at the spirits shop/tailor shop where I’d left my guitar by the old guy, Tailor Coy, who is a musician and has guitars and cuatros scattered around the joint. Tailor likes my uke, so I figured it was a good place to leave the guitar. He actually closed up last night so I had to get it the following morning — no problem — and he told me that his daughter was getting married that afternoon and he wanted me to play with him at the wedding. So, I went to play at the wedding and then walked to Brunswick.
[This video above isn’t the Strugglers but it captures the feeling of street parang as opposed to parang during the competition. I recognize a couple of the guys in the video: Todd from BBH sings one verse; around 5 minutes I see Serman, Uncle Winston and Ashba. What is cool about that street-brand of mingled parang bands is that everyone has their repertoire of verses to contribute and every band has their own choruses that have been used in competition. So when they’re not competing, but just celebrating the music, I can hear them going from one chorus to another and I can see them signaling to each other when someone has a verse they want to sing out. And the energy and rhythm just carry it along.]
Back to the Strugglers at the Brunswick Christmas Tree Lighting. Oh, oh, oh. That music! It was the equivalent of a jump-up, only with string band music. People around a store/bar lit by a couple of naked light bulbs, cars parked here and there, knots of people listening, singing, swaying. It was so African in ways, the call and response patterns of these songs, some of which they’ve written themselves for Parang competition.
“Your woman ain’t dead yet
your woman ain’t dead yet
your woman ain’t dead yet
Jerico, don’t take out the cabinet.”
Something like that. There was a guitar and another guy playing bass lines on a guitar and what they call a banjo here (three strings. It’s African. It’s what the banjo came from) and a drum and a triangle and maracas and a cuatro (baritone ukulele — they get them from Venezuela–Gust had one in the entry-way of Natalie’s house — and these men shouting at the top of their lungs. Two chords — sometimes a third — and it’s all about the rhythm.
At the Parang competition, I can see how the melee piece, where they dish the cumulative dirt on everybody, could get raucous and nasty in a “fun, only the strong survive, way”. Friday night, one of the hosanna groups singing “Silent Night” got laughed at for their naive interpretation (they were acting it out, a little like Darby, my 6-year-old niece, aboard Alcyone will earnestly act out a song). If they hoot at Christmas carols, imagine what happens when they get into the true competitive Parang spirit. I just hope nobody talks on me in a song.