What Is Trop Rock Music - Part II Solar Power Not Allowed in Key West, Happy Holidays!

What Is Trop Rock Music?   Part II -  Solar Power Is Not Allowed in Key West, -  Happy Holidays!!!

2015 MOTM Pit Stop Party at Popp's Motel in Key Largo. 

In the last blog we looked at some of the early influences of Trop Rock music. Specifically we looked at Martin Denny and Antonio Carlos Jobim. We also touched on Jimmy Buffett in his early Key West stages. I included a very early recorded piece of his that I have, Cuban Crime Of Passion, which he recorded live at a Steve Goodman gig in Coconut Grove, on their way back to Key West after recording the album “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean”. Interestingly enough, when I posted that clip it had sixty six plays and at this exact moment it has two hundred and five! It’s getting around! 

Maybe one day I can post the rest of the concert, which had the Godman/Buffett duo covering the Hank Williams song “You Win Again”, plus, “I Have Found Me A Home”, “Cuban Crime Of Passion”, “Death Of An Unpopular Poet”, and “Ghost Riders in The Sky”?

I’ll get back to Mr. Buffett in a bit, but first let’s look at a style of music that preceded Buffett and Trop rock has virtually never acknowledged, for reasons that this writer has no understanding, and this would be Latin Rock. The very first thing that comes to anyone’s mind when it comes to Latin rock, is of course, Santana. Let’s face it, he invented it.

Carlos Santana grew up in Mexico and later moved to San Francisco, where he started his group, Santana. It wasn’t long before Santana became a household name after they played at Woodstock a short time later. There’s no way on earth that this music couldn’t be considered as Trop Rock.

The curious thing about Santana was that the music he was playing, was largely Afro/Cuban rooted. Santana was of course Mexican, and in Mexican culture, Afro/Cuban music wasn’t the norm.  This was an oddity.

Samba Pa Ti

For myself, I see the Latin Rock/Jazz/Salsa/Timba as an undiscovered oasis that can easily be also carried under the Trop Rock umbrella. The percussion itself is a particularly interesting influence to incorporate. Hopefully some Trop radio stations will carry more Latin music in the near future.

Many Trop Rock artists use the congas, and the congas of course come from the Afro/Caribbean influence on Trop. Here’s one example from my upcoming album, this is a fade in snippet to my song “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow” where you can hear Tod Sheley, then of the band Homemade Wine, on the congas.

One thing that I have forgotten to mention regarding Trop Rock music, and music in general, is that no one has to be locked into a particular genre. I talked about Carlos Santana earlier. If you look at his Wikipedia profile, he’s listed as Latin Rock, Chicano Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Blues Rock, Jazz Fusion, Tejano. Jimmy Buffett is listed as Rock, Country, Country Pop, Folk, Gulf and Western. So being listed as multiple genres is very acceptable. An artist doesn’t have to be locked into just one.

When Jimmy Buffett’s album “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean” ( a tung in cheek take off of Marty Robbins’ song “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation”) came out,  it brought to light, perhaps by chance, a type of music that was focused in a tropical island setting, namely Key West. Buffett stayed with the theme all along and it stuck. Today,  almost forty three years after its release, Buffett is one of the world’s wealthiest musical artists, with an estimated net worth of over $400M.

Many performers who were inspired by Buffett, fall into the singer/songwriter category. Kelly McGuire and the late Hugo Duarte are two prime examples. Buffett hit a chord (pun intended) with singer/songwriters on many of his ballads, such as the aforementioned “I Have Found Me A Home” and “Death Of An Unpopular Poet”. Many feel the ballad is his greatest forte. If the ballad is Buffett’s greatest forte, that would make “A Pirate Looks At 40” his greatest song.

In 1982, Bertie Higgins released his song, Key Largo.  It charted #8 for that year. Higgins later anointed the style of music he was playing as Trop Rock. The name has stuck ever since and Bertie Higgins is the one who is credited on christening the name.

The interesting thing about Trop Rock today is that, while many performers are considered what’s known as “Parrotheads” (Fans of Buffett), many are not. In its evolution, Trop Rock has taken on new artists with influences that are not Jimmy Buffett, while some of those artists and fans don’t even care for Buffett. Growth is always good. If something stagnates, it will die. New influences are always part of growth, so on the one hand, while some are surprised to hear that some musicians in Trop Rock are not fans of Buffett, it’s expected.

To Be Continued…. 

Solar Power Not Allowed in Key West

Now that statement sure sounds strange, doesn’t it? The number one reason people head to Key West is because of abundant sunshine! Sunshine, from the Dry Tortugas to Key Biscayne, is the entire Conch Republic’s biggest asset. One would think that city government would embrace something like solar power, wouldn’t you? 

However solar power is not permitted in Key West! Well, the city can set up solar panels to power lighted street signs and the word on the street says that old City Hall on Greene Street may soon become solar powered. However, for the average citizen or business, solar power is, as the Germans say, Verboten!*

No, I can’t attach solar panels to my roof in order to conserve energy. God forbid, I may get more than I need and have to sell it back to the electric company! The electric company could then sell it to say, New Jersey, and make a profit.

The rumor mill says that the city and the electric company have struck some kind of a deal with freezing the price of oil for an extended period of time… a.k.a. Years?

Want to hear the biggest oddity of all? Christine Gorham was running for the utility board as pro-solar. Her opponent, Mona Clark, who already held the office and was against solar power, won in the October election.

Make what you will of the voters in Key West.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

It’s the Holiday Season! The Shanty Hounds, (Dani Hoy and myself) along with our dear friend Bobby DeVito, wrote and recorded a holiday song “Happy Merry Christmas From Key West”!

The objective was to capture the Key West bacchanalia atmosphere!

Everyone wrote their own verse (I’m first, Dani’s second, Bobby’s third) while Dani and I co-wrote the bridge.

The song captures the fun, partying, festive atmosphere that is Key West and also features our dogs, Cajun and Tooloulou! Let’s also not forget our friend Schmegly, who happened to stop by while we were recording!

This is 100% a Key West production. Everything was done right here. The song was written and recorded at our house, The Conch Rock Shanty, and was mixed and mastered at Private Ear Studio here in Key West by none other than the great Dan Simpson!

If you love Key West, this will complement your Christmas music collection perfectly.

To purchase it, here’s the link to CD Baby. It’s less than a dollar! That’s right!  $.99

So, please, help support the blog! Have a bunch of joy, fun, and laughs and download it from CD Baby!

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/danihoy3

Thank you for reading the blog!!!

* = Verboten, of course translates quite easily to it's English cousin's word of forbidden. Use of the German word is for emphasis. ;-)  

What Is Trop Rock Music? Part 1

What is Trop Rock Music? Part 1



What exactly is Trop Rock music anyway? There are a large contingent of people that say it's Country music that has a beach theme. Of those folks, many call it Gulf and Western, referring to The Gulf of Mexico and C&W music. You've got to love it, it's very creative!

No one would be stupid enough to argue the point that the style of Country mixed with the tropic atmosphere, is a very large segment of the music genre.  That however, is cutting the genre short of what it actually is.

I recall back when I was a kid my parents used to have records by Martin Denny. Martin Denny was a musician/composer from New York and Los Angeles who ventured down South America way for 3 1/2 years, then headed to Hawaii, where he developed a style of music called "Exotica".

Exotica incorporated rhythms that Mr. Denny picked up in South America, with mainland America and Hawaiian music combined, not forgetting the exotic bird calls that shortly thereafter found it's way into his music.

Exotica is a musician's style of music in that one has to be an accomplished musician in order to play it. A lot of Jazz is incorporated into it. For the listener, it's quite easy and relaxing to listen to.



Many consider this under the umbrella of Trop Rock today, even though it predates Trop Rock's by decades, having first started in the early 1950's. This is without a doubt, Trop music however.

In the same periods, there was a type of music my parents didn't have, but I heard on the radio and loved. It was related to what Martin Denny was doing in Hawaii, albeit this was from Rio De Janeiro. Now keep in mind that Martin Denny picked up a lot on the rhythms of Rio, Santiago, and Buenos Aires. The music I fell in love with was Bossa Nova, and the composer was Antonio Carlos Jobim.

For me, this music painted a very vivid picture of Rio de Janeiro. Not too far from the equator, this was certainly about as Trop as it got! For me, Jobim painted a warm summer evening, with a light breeze, full moon and stars, on a restaurant patio overlooking Ipanema beach.

Picture that scene while listening to this piece by Jobim ( say Joe Beem)



Many folks credit Jimmy Buffett with starting what we know today as Trop Rock. Buffett moved to Key West and did what any songwriter would do; write about where he was and the things he saw going on there. Here he was, living on a tropical island that was loaded with idiosyncrasies, crazy characters and goings on, drug smuggling, shit hole bars with tuns of salty personality and personalities, authors, a very rich history of pirates, the Navy, shrimpers, wreckers, fishermen, a crazy fire chief,... the list goes on and on, but he had all of this and more to draw from. Here he was, a great story teller and with subjects such as the aforementioned, it was an oasis to choose from, being bombarded with crazy on goings every day for inspiration.

It must be said that he didn't visit, then leave. Buffett lived here 24/7/365 and became part of the island. When writing about the island there's a vast difference between being part of it day to day, versus stopping by for a week, then going back to Kalamazoo and writing a song about it. Michael McCloud is the same as Buffett in this regard, when it comes to writing songs about Key West. Both McCloud and Buffett wrote from a local perspective. That alone gives them a very sincere credibility that is never matched by someone writing about it from afar.

Here' a very, very rare recording of Buffett. He was on his way back to Key West from Nashville after recording his first album that was written in Key West "A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean". His friend and co musician and co writer on some songs, Steve Goodman, landed a gig in the then bohemian section of Miami, Coconut Grove, at a little place called "Bubba's". A wonderful friend of mine, Dave, used to do sound for Bubba's, as well as other coffee houses in Coconut Grove and South Miami. Dave was, and is an audiophile of the first degree. He would record all the gigs he did sound for on his reel to reel from the sound board!

Steve Goodman's gig at Bubba's was no exception. You won't here it on this track, but earlier in the recording when Steve brings on Buffett and introduces him, there's but a polite applause. The Pink Crustacean album was still months from being released and at this point in time, no one knew who Buffett was. They did about five songs together that night, plus a lot of back and forth colorful banter. I edited the recording so you can hear this excellent example of Goodman-Buffett live doing a song they had just recorded up in Nashville, "Cuban Crime of Passion". I say excellent example, not because it's played to perfection, but rather because Dave captured the whole feel of the event and song so well on his reel to reel!

The recording this is from is said to be Buffett's oldest live recording, being around late 1972.



More to come in Part 2!


Support the blog! Check out The Shanty Hounds (Dani Hoy and Myself, Key West Chris Rehm, along with our pal Bobby DeVito, doing a holiday song we all co-wrote and performed on "Happy Merry Christmas From Key West"! It's only ninety-nine cents!!! That's right! $ .99!!!! Download it today! Makes a great holiday gift too!

Available at CD Baby! Sound clip available at the link!

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/danihoy3

FYI, CD Baby is the distributor who issues all recordings to iTunes, Amazon, CD Universe... the industry. :-)

TROP ROCK AWARDS IDEAS

My friend Chris Uhland is in the hospital. He stayed with us on Saturday evening and on Sunday morning I was on the computer when he said "Something really weird is happening. I have blood in my urine". Making a long story short, he's now in Baptist Hospital in Miami having had a 7lb. cancer tumor removed, as well as his kidney and spleen. They say he had the tumor for about seven years. A pound a year growth I gather?

Some of you may recall the live video feed of the TRMA awards at MOTM that was to take place, but was canceled for unknown reasons, which I mentioned in my last blog? Well, that was Chris "thedigidude" Uhland on the video side of the show, with the A1A Media Group.

One of the things I saw very early on in getting to know Chris, was that he always puts business first. Harry Teaford, of Radio A1A, is the other half of the A1A Media Group.

As the story was told to me, when Harry approached Chris about starting the A1A Media Group, like anything else he does, Chris did some research into this "Trop Rock music" to see what kind of potential it had and frankly, if it was worth his time.

One of Chris' other jobs is with the Keys television station WEYW. WEYW is connected business wise with WPBT up in Miami. In doing research into Trop Rock, Chris was able to access all of the media stats available, via both WEYW and WPBT. In his research, Chris found that according to all the media stats, Trop Rock has over two million fans. Over Two Million fans! After finding this out, Chris felt the A1A Media Group was justified and on solid ground with both Harry Teaford, and the potential growth for video media in this group.

Please keep Chris in your prayers. The energy he gets from prayers, good thoughts, vibes... etc, keeps him going. He's a very energetic guy. Watching him work is like watching the Energizer Bunny in the commercials! He doesn't stop! He's got several months ahead of him, so please don't forget him. He's a great guy, in addition to being a fantastic asset to the genre.



(Chris "thedigidude" Uhland (R) on the set)

With the stage set, first and foremost I would like to say that I'm happy to be a member of the Trop Rock Music Association! The group started off as a fan club for the group Latitude and was then called The Margarita Mafia and was overseen by Latitude's co-head Tom Becker.

The Margarita Mafia started giving awards at MOTM for various accomplishments within the Trop Rock genre. I always thought this was a great idea having a club voting and giving out awards. It keeps everyone in the club active within the club as well. Obviously, it comes as no surprise that a fan club of a band vote members of the band winners of the clubs awards. It would actually be a surprise if they didn't vote them in. A few years ago they changed their name to The Trop Rock Music Association and rightfully so, continued their club awards.

As I say, I'm all for clubs having their own awards. I belong to The Trop Rock Music Association (TRMA), as well as The Southernmost Coconut Castaways and The Key West Parrothead Club. Membership for each is only $20.00 and for myself, it's money well spent. The Trop Rock Music Association is the only one of the three that has awards.

As I write this, The TRMA show 340 members on their website, while their Facebook page has at this writing, 1,225 members. It should be noted that it may be that not all members of TRMA are signed to their website, as well as a number of people who like a Facebook page are not members of a given club.

Lets go back to my friend Chris "thedigidude" Uhland. His research into seeing if Trop Rock would be worthwhile for him to invest his time into, utilizing the media information available through stations WEYW and WPBT's sources, showed him that there are over two million fans in Trop Rock.

Just to underline this, back in August when Dani Hoy and I played at the Sandbox, Danny Lynn of Tiki Island Radio drove down from Tennessee to interview us before the show. Another station, AMI Radio, was going to air our performance live. As it turned out, the weather wasn't looking too good for an out door event and AMI Radio elected to pass. With that, Danny and I talked and decided to go with a spontaneous Tiki Island Radio broadcast of the concert. There was no promotion, as this was right off the cuff. Additionally, the rain held off. We played for a total of four hours, with a break to see the sunset.

When everything was all said and done, the broadcast brought in 28,365 average listeners over the entire show. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but 28,365 was the average.  Keeping in mind that there are between fifteen and twenty Trop Rock stations broadcasting world wide, and Tiki Island Radio had absolutely no promotion for this spontaneous event, I think that easily underlines the figure of "over two million" that Chris' media sources gave. For that night Tiki Island Radio had 28,365 average listeners, while the rest of the Trop stations had their listeners as well, and no doubt, the  vast majority of Trop fans doing something entirely different on a Saturday evening. So yes, the media figure of "over two million" comes across as accurate in my book and perhaps a bit conservative at that.

With all of this in mind, now lets go back to the TRMA. They show 340 members on their website and 1,225 fans on their Facebook page. I don't know how many members the club actually has. As I said before, someone who signs up, may very well not join their website and Facebook fans might not all be members. Some people have said they have around 600 paid members, others say over 800. Bear in mind, one has to be a member in order to cast a vote in the Trop Rock Music Awards. For this, I'm going to give the TRMA the benefit of doubling the highest number of members of the estimates that I've been given (800), which brings the total number of voting members to 1,600.

For the sake of easy numbers, lets call the media's call on the amount of Trop Rock fans of "over two million", to just plain 2,000,000.


The bottom line here is that 1,600 people voting on behalf of 2,000,000 equals .08%

Yes, that's not a typo, you read that right, .08%

Having said that, if the TRMA does have 1,600 members, at $20 per membership, that's $32,000.00. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Some may argue it, but as I've stated earlier, that's the going rate to join any club and they have expenses, just like anyone else.

Here's where I differ on it. However first I will state again, that fundamentally I support what they are doing. Their intentions are spot on and from the heart.

One of the things that myself, TRMA, and many others are trying to do is to make Trop Rock a recognized genre. At the moment, the artists, clubs, organizations, and radio stations within the Trop world see ourselves as our own genre, but those in the industry do not. They'll just label it as Rock or Country.

Should Trop Rock become recognized, it's a boost for all involved. Our fan base will at minimum, double and more likely, triple. Country star Kenny Chesney, who does a LOT of music that could also be categorized as Trop, has over 6,500,000 fans on his FB page. There really is a lot of potential here.

For a moment lets just pretend that Trop Rock did become a recognized genre. BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, all put us in our own category. You go on iHeart Radio, or Pandora and search Trop Rock and up come choices like Sunny Jim, Dani Hoy, Pup Morse, Jimi Pappis, Barefoot Reggie Starrett, John Friday, Chris Bellamy, Loren Davidson, Renn Loren, B-Man and Miss Behavin', hell, even me, Key West Chris, and the list goes on and on.

What happens with news, such as a new recognized genre, is attention and that attention comes from the media. This is the type of thing that the media would be all over as well! Believe me, that's where our exposure to new fans is at it's hight. Everyone in the media, the music industry, and the fans are all over it.

With the "everyone" that I mentioned, did you notice the first listed was the media? Yes, of course there will be Rolling Stone, the media television shows, and everything else that goes along with all the hoopla that would be happening.... including reporters who report along the same lines as say, the great Mike Wallace.

A reporter like that would have a field day with Trop Rock, regarding the awards, and subsequently the entire genre that was just created. Here's an organization that started out as a band fan club, run by the heads of the band, who won virtually all the awards throughout the history of the organization, then finally, the Trop Rock Music Awards encompass a total of maybe .08% of the entire fan base.

In short, as soon as the genre starts, it's down the tubes from the way an investigative reporter writes. It would make Volkswagen look like the Arch Angel Gabrielle in comparison to Trop Rock. Right or wrong, they will tear us to ribbons. We would qualify as confetti in New York's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I couldn't say how the TRMA is set up on paper legally, and if it's set up properly, all is well and good. If not, it has the potential of blowing up like a gasoline storage facility hit by a cruise missile.

Again, I think that the intent of the TRMA is very sincere and they put a lot of blood,sweat, and tears (this year particularly) into it. For their efforts both past and present, they should be commended!

On the flip side, unfortunately, it's very vulnerable.

A couple of years ago, Beachfront Radio had a contest where listeners wrote in and voted via e-mail. If memory serves me correctly, they had around 14,000 votes. If those figures are correct, Beachfront is at .7%, up from .08%. Additionally, the voters at Beachfront Radio didn't have to join a club, or pay dues.

Trop Rock has grown quite a bit in the last two years as well. Case in point the 28K+ listeners we had with Tiki Island Radio on a live broadcast one evening from The Sandbox (Thank you Pablo, Diana, Sheryl, Rick, Debbie, and Danny!), was twice the size of the replies that Beachfront Radio received, I believe over a two week period.

Obviously, in my opinion, it's clear things should change from the status quo.  I don't think the TRMA should be a by product of a fan club for anyone. Additionally, it's my view that anyone who is a fan of Trop Rock Music, should be able to cast a vote and shouldn't be required to join a club to do so, or pay a fee. This was the thing I liked best about Beachfront Radio's contest a couple of years back.

As it stands right now, the TRMA is a fan club, who self-appointed themselves as the delegation to award those in the genre and in doing so, changed their name from The Margarita Mafia to the very official sounding Trop Rock Music Association. Again, this is a self-appointed group.

I think other options could prove more democratic and farther reaching. One idea could be having all the Trop Radio Stations pool together contests from their own listeners. One of the coolest things about this crazy genre, is that each station plays different artists from one another! The results could be fascinating!



Thanks again for reading! Tell everyone what you think and we can pool ideas! I made a Facebook page to do so. Here's the link:


https://www.facebook.com/groups/TropRockAwardsIdeas/

Sorry, but the bottom line is .08% of Trop Rock fans voting for 99.92% of the fans just doesn't cut it.



All The Best From Key West

Key West Chris Rehm

Update, Day Two

EPILOG: 

After over 133,000 views on this blog, an epilog is unprecedented. However, after yesterday's release of this blog, so many have offered information and experiences via messages to me, or posts, that an epilog is only appropriate. After yesterday's feedback, I can only imagine today, tomorrow, and the next few days will be similar.

One question that popped up was with the TRMA was:

1) Does one have to be a member to be nominated?

The answer to this was no. Only members can nominate those for awards though. However, if say Jerome Howard were nominated, he could only get an award if he joins TRMA, and pays the entrance fee to do so.

Opinion: This is obscene, plain and simple. If true, this puts the organization into serious question regarding integrity. Frankly, calling it by it's true definition, this would be extortion. It sounds like something the Mafia would do.

2) A former TRMA winner suggested that the figure I came up with of .08% was being generous. The Media figure of over 2M Trop Rock fans is set in stone. My figure of 1,600 votes  within TRMA would therefore be the number in question. As I mentioned above in the piece, I've heard TRMA numbers as low as 600, which would equate to .03% of the media figure of 2M. It doesn't really make a difference in the end however, as .08% and .03% are light years below even 1%.

3) Many are in question regarding TRMA's legal incorporation. Most are suggesting that it is not set up as a legal entity at all, and that it's basically a group of people who have a private club, with no legal incorporation whatsoever. I have no information on this one way, or another. This is however, the general consensus of what I'm seeing from others.

My Main Guitar, MOTM Schedule

                                                          MY MAIN GUITAR

Six years ago I got word that my guitar, “Bell”, a 1975 Guild D25M which I have had since I was 19, had its final truss rod adjustment. The tech informed me that if he turned it any more, the neck would snap. The only way to repair it would be for the neck to be taken apart, which would cost hundreds of dollars. A new guitar was in order.

I went to the Guitar Center in Kendall/Miami to check out what they had. At that time I lived nearby in Cutler Bay. Guitar Center had an acoustic guitar room that had two sections. The far section was the high end guitars. I went in there first. I played Martins, Gibsons, and Taylors, but the problem was, at that time I couldn’t afford any of them. So I went into the other room and played the less expensive guitars. 

The issue with these guitars was that they all sounded like they were made of cardboard. They weren’t even close to being in the same league as my Guild. I guess I played about five and then decided that I’d try it another day. My Guild was still a great guitar and at the moment, still played great.

As I was about to leave the room, my eye caught a stunning, blonde guitar. Surely this guitar was in the wrong room. I went over and picked it up. I played three notes and two chords and said “Holy smokes!” It sounded rich and full, just a great tone. I stopped and looked at the price tag. Three hundred and eighty nine dollars. I couldn’t believe it was so inexpensive! Needless to say, I bought it right there and then.

The guitar was an Ibanez Special Woods series. This model was made out of ash. Now ash is a wood that they make guitars out of, however not acoustic guitars. About half of the electric Fender Stratocasters are made of ash. The Louisville slugger baseball bats are as well.    

The guitar sounded incredible when it was plugged in. The top end was clear and quite strong for an acoustic guitar. The bottom end was brassy and very ballsy. Actually, that’s quite a lame description of it. The bottom end sounds like a 155MM Howitzer. No joke. It’ll kick your ass into next week. When I cut my album, producer Dan Simpson was doing a sound check in the studio. After plugging in mics and getting the readings, suddenly he came rushing around the corner asking “What the hell do you have there anyway?” looking at the guitar in amazement. At that point in time he proclaimed it “The best steel string acoustic guitar for recording in Key West”. Dan has been recording and producing in Key West for thirty seven years.

The specific model is a an Ibanez EW20ASENT11202

Serial Number is SQ 07111410

It was two months after I bought the guitar that I moved to Key West. I name all of my guitars, however this guitar had been around for six months and still didn’t have a name. I had been going to an open mic at Harpoon Harry’s diner regularly and there was one night that I just wasn’t in the mood for playing, however I did want to support the event, so I went without my guitar.

When the organizer of the show saw that I didn’t have my guitar with me, he pleaded with me to play and use his Yamaha. I finally agreed and went up to play.

A girl out in the crowd hollered “Where’s your beautiful guitar?”

Without any hesitation I replied “I left The Blonde Bombshell home tonight”

Suddenly, it was christened with a name!

However, it wasn’t done yet. Remember it is made out of ash?

The full name of the guitar is: “The Blonde Bombshell With The Great Ash”

Photo by Ralph DePalma, Key West

MOTM Schedule for the Shanty Hounds

MOTM ODDITIES, THE REAL KEY WEST SOUND - STEEL DRUMS? NOPE, JUNKANOO!!!

MOTM ODDITIES

A few very odd things have been happening with the upcoming 2016 MOTM event, scheduled as usual,for the first week in November.

This year brought the TRMA (Trop Rock Music Awards) back to the Casa Marina,where the organizing body, PHIP (Parrot Heads In Paradise), holds their annual MOTM event. The TRMA having not been there recently, but had been in the past, now are returning. One of the most exciting things was that this year the awards were going to be televised on the internet via video streaming!

This is a marvelous thing! Media counts show there are over 2,000,000 Trop Rock fans out there in the world and of those, around 7000 - 8000 make it to Key West for the annual gathering and festivities. So that means that around 1,992,000 are staying home.

The video stream would mean that these people could watch and enjoy the awards event! What a great idea, both for the fans that could not attend, as well as the genre itself!

With less than a month to go, PHIP decided not to proceed with the broadcast. Why would they do something like this? At best it makes PHIP look bad, and that’s the best, mind you. Canceling media exposure is a definite step backwards, no matter how you look at it. I recall from twenty something years ago, someone I followed in sports said after he made an error "Any publicity is good, no matter how you cut it". Canceling publicity is going backwards.

Many of you know that I'm one of the proponents of making Trop Rock a recognized genre. I actually started a Facebook page "Make Trop Rock a Recognized Genre". Please look it up and join it! Canceling a web TV broadcast is working against the genre's expansion.

A1A Media, an affiliate of Radio A1A.com, were to be  handling the video and streaming. After talking with A1A owner Harry Teaford, all he would say was that he didn’t understand why they cancelled the broadcast and he was very disappointed. 

Another oddity is the scheduling. When the TRMA was scheduled at The Casa Marina by PHIP, they were scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Then there was a change, again with only a few weeks to go, the TRMA is off the schedule entirely, replaced with Mac McAnally and Jimmy Buffett and The Coral Refer Band. The TRMA was off the schedule entirely.

Several days later, TRMA was rescheduled for Saturday from 4:00 - 5:30, albeit without the live video feed.

Next we get to perhaps the strangest thing of all. According to a few different sources, participants in the entire PHIP run MOTM at The Casa Marina were reportedly told that they could say that Buffett was in the MOTM event on their private websites… but could’t say anything about it in social media!

Meanwhile, PHIP has it on their on line schedule.

How does this make any sense? PHIP have it on their schedule for all to see, but people scheduled in the event can’t put it on their Facebook page? How does this make sense? It sounds like a paranoid lawyer, tripping on acid, who came up with this ridiculous scheme.

Hey look, I like Jimmy Buffett. Hell, I am one of a few on the planet that have the earliest live recording of him, playing with Steve Goodman in a bar in Coconut Grove called Bubba’s,. They were on their way back to Key West from Nashville, after recording Pink Crustacean! (Thank you Dave!) No one knew who he was when Steve introduces him. However, Jimmy Buffett, nor anyone else, should muscle their way in to an event, at the last minute, causing complete mayhem with everyone who’s been organizing the event for a year. Things like this need to be done in an organized fashion. Upsetting the applecart only harvests large problems for everyone, even those who are not immediately involved. Look before you leap, or you run the risk of looking like a bull in a china shop.

Finally, I’m hosting some events during MOTM around town, one of which is to promote the Trop Rock Festival at Sea, being held at the Sunset Tiki Bar, Wednesday, November 4th, noon to 5. The idea here is that we would have performers who are on the cruise, playing at the event. That way people who are already booked, get a preview and those who are not, might just decide that a cruise to St. Thomas, Tortola, and Nassau, might be a great time!

One of the performers on the cruise, is also in the PHIP event at the Casa Marina. When I invited him he replied “Sorry, but they are adamant about exclusivity.” In short, if a performer is playing at the PHIP event, they are not allowed to play anything but the PHIP event at the Casa Marina. It's in their contract.

I had heard this last year from a few performers as well. According to them, it’s in the contract they signed with PHIP.

I don’t understand how an organization like PHIP can restrict a musician’s income? That would strike me as being incorrigible. 

On the other hand, there are several musicians who are in the Casa Marina event that are also playing around town as well. Is there a loophole in the contract? It’s certainly a curiosity. 

THE KEY WEST SOUND 

When I made my album a few years ago, I was adamant about having a sound that was Key West. The last thing I wanted was something that was a make -pretend Key West sound. I didn’t want something that was recorded in New York, L.A., Nashville, or someplace like that, because that’s what it would sound like, a Trop Rock album that sounded like it was recorded by people who don't live in the tropics. It happens all the time. On my album, I wanted it to sound like the Keys. I wanted people who lived, breathed, and played music here all the time, to be the people playing on it. Additionally, eight of the ten songs were written in my old apartment on Whitehead Street. 

So, that’s who I put on the album and the album was recorded at The San Carlos Institute and Private Ear Studios. The San Carlos has been here since the 1870’s and Private Ear is over thirty years old. 

Likewise with the musicians. Marty Stonely, who played woodwinds, has lived in the Keys over thirty years. Bubba Lownotes on bass has been here around twenty-five years. Bob Boyd and Barry Cuda, both on keyboards, have been here twenty five and thirty years. Pauly Walterson on congas, is a Conch and has been here his whole life, seventy years.

Same was true with the producer, Dan Simpson. Dan hitch-hiked into Key West in 1978.

This album had to be 100% through and through, Florida Keys. It had to be the real deal, or nothing. That's where I live. I don't live in Michigan, New York, Oregon. I live in Key West and that was the sound and feel I wanted for that album, Key West.

At one point when we were recording the album, Dan Simpson and I were throwing around ideas for one song and I suggested "Maybe a steel drum?"

Dan dropped his chin and looked at me with his eyebrows forward.

"No."

Me: "You don't like steel drums?"

Dan: "It's not that I like them or don't like them. Your objective is to have an album that sounds like Key West. Steel drums are NOT Key West at all. It never has been."

I was reminded of this last evening, after our Thursday night gig at Grunts. Pauly Walterson has been sitting in with us on congas and after the gig we were shooting the shit.

Now remember, Pauly is seventy years old and spent his whole life in bands and around music. He’s also the best Conch to talk to about Key West history, bar none.

The subject somehow goes to steel drums and Pauly says “Take steel drums. They are not Key West. They’re in Jamaica, or Trinidad. And Reggae? That’s not Key West either, that’s Jamaican. What we are is Junkanoo from the Bahamas. You know Junkanoo with all the drums! We're also Cuban. Of course we have a lot of old time Country in our roots too.That’s what we are Bahamian, Cuban, Country, and later Rock and Roll. There are no steel drums in either of those cultures, nor in ours.”

There you have it, directly from the man himself.

The Key West Junkanoos in the Goombay Parade several years ago. This year's Goombay Parade is Friday, October 23rd.

Junkanoos playing Blue Heaven in 2012 on top of the watertower