Episode 231 | Colin Lucas - Corie Sheppard Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Corie (00:17):
Alright, oli, I have notes, I have notes in front of
me, and when I have notes, thatmeans Oli.
Now I'm in trouble.
Welcome Colin Lucas.
How are you going, sir?
I am good.
How are you doing I good?
I good, I good know I'm introuble.
Welcome Colin Lucas.
How are you going, sir?
I am good.
How are you doing I good?
I good, I good, I'm nervous.
I was telling you before Istarted that the most difficult
people to talk to sometimes isthe people who have the kind of
track record you have and whoplay in so much different
playgrounds.
But I come here underinstructions, eh, colin, I hear
you.
I have a wife whom, nowadays,nowadays, users be complaining

(00:41):
on the social media.
AKA boss, the boss.
I'm glad they say that.
Thanks, right, and they'reshowing you how DJs, fed up with
people coming and doingrequests, always coming up and
saying well, I want to hear this.
I want to hear that my wife, nomatter where we go, she is
going to that DJ and ask fordollar wine.
So I come with instructions.
She say don't make me wait fora whole hour to talk about Dalla

(01:03):
White.
She said talk about Dalla Whiteup front.
But she also said I don'tlisten.
So I didn't really want tostart there.
If I don't listen, I don'tlisten, you're booking for a
divorce.
I want to start with todaywhere's be up to now, because I
know you're working, I knowyou're doing.

Colin (01:19):
I know you're busy in.
I have a little guest housewhere, actually where Song
Revolution's band room used tobe Right, this is also the house
I grew up in, so we have aguest house there called Culture
Crossroads Inn Nice, becauseit's actually at a crossroads
and a lot of culture happeningin the house.

Corie (01:36):
I was in the house.
You know I have some history inthe house.
You know, yeah, yeah, historyin the house.
Before we leave, I'm going totell you about some history I
have.

Colin (01:44):
History that you want me to bust out here, man.

Corie (01:46):
I don't know if she could be.
You know, we can talk about itlate when she doesn't tune out.
Right, we can talk about itlater, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but I spent some timethere, so you had originally
grown up there, that's just notPatna from the crossroads.
Hi, wait here, when you muststudy your career.
I was wondering if thecrossroads had to do with your.

(02:06):
You had several crossroads.
You had your artist career, youhad musician corporate.

Colin (02:11):
But the thing is, I deliberately avoided doing music
as a career yeah, Um, and forthe simple reason I never wanted
to reach the stage where I feltI had to do this because I had
to live.
I always wanted my involvementin music to be driven by passion
, not necessity.

Corie (02:32):
So you don't sing music.
Music was never your career.
It was my hobby, full time.

Colin (02:35):
Hobby.
You say yeah, man my hobby.

Corie (02:38):
We didn't say hobby.
Wait your time.
At the height of Songrev you'reworking and things otherwise
yeah serious.
Yeah, somehow you're leavingFET to go to work and things
very easy.

Colin (02:50):
Yeah, you see, because and people who know me well know
this I was not partier and wasnever a drinker.
So I'll be playing at a FET andin between sessions I sleep in
on the back of the stage orworse yet, when Soka Village
moved to the port, remember, atone time Soka Village was in the

(03:10):
port.
My office was right across DockRoad.
I would go and do work inbetween sessions and come back
and you go home, you catch 10,whatever and you go to work and
you get back out.
And because there were peoplewho had issues with me being a
corporate person and a musician,I used to make sure I'm not
late for work and I'm notmissing or people on the job.

(03:32):
Yeah, and of course theytriggered people in society too,
but you know I got threatenedmore than once.
I either have to do this or theother.

Corie (03:41):
But in the job, I understand.
But what do you mean?
People in society.
What is the issue?

Colin (03:44):
Well, remember, a lot of people are followers and some
people are haters, unfortunately.
So if you have somebodytriggering a line of thought on
the inside of an organization,there will be overflow and
there'll be people on theoutside who'll be saying yeah,
best you keep your executivework or your same kind.

(04:04):
So in fact, there were somepeople in my music industry that
used to refer to me as theexecutive.
Yeah, yeah, they found I waskind of out of place.
Now.

Corie (04:13):
Oh, so you gained licks on all sides, both sides I was
an equal opportunity sufferer.

Colin (04:19):
Yeah, they used to say look, look, look the executive,
Big boy.

Corie (04:23):
Yeah, I like that, I like that, I like that.
So in those days, before I goback to the origins of
songwriting, of how you get intomusic in the first place, you
were in the tent as well.
You were singing in the tent, Igot to be in the tent from the
year of Dola.
Oh, that's little.

Colin (04:39):
Yeah, Martino called me and he said listen, I want you
to be in the tent.
I said, but I never sing in thetent in my life.
The thing is and some peopleused to get horrors about this
in the early years, but peoplelike Rudder and so on helped to
soothe that People were offendedwhen they said, but you're not
a Calypsoan.
It's almost like if you say Idon't know how to sing, you're

(05:04):
not a know Calypso.
No, no, no, that wasn't what itwas meant to.
I, my my teething, was singingin band, so I was singing all
kind of thing R&B, reggae, kaiso, soka so I wasn't a cut and
dried Calypso-ian.
Yeah, that was.
That was an insulting calypso.
That was just saying what?
Yeah, it's who you are Exactly.

Corie (05:25):
You know, I never knew that.
So Soka people who was in theband circuit going into the tent
, you're a non-calypso, soyou're graffiti.

Colin (05:31):
now we're calling everyone else you Wow.
They used to call you a bandsinger.
I see they used to call you aband singer?

Corie (05:39):
I Spectacular that was Monroe, yeah, but they were more
Martino.
Martino, that's right.
They were more like there wereplenty of men singing soca then,
like Turen Shoyi, all the men,oh yeah but yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gotcha gotcha.

Colin (05:51):
Yeah, they didn't have an issue with that, right?
You know, like in place there,you know because?
And we'd kind of literally sayyou don't worry about that, you
don't worry about that we goodand you was good.

Corie (06:07):
Oh gosh, you was comfortable on stage as well.
Yeah, I know.

Colin (06:11):
And you know, a lot of people used to say well, you
could go and sing tent everynight and go to work.
You know, because, whereas thethrough the week, in those days
and I used to tell him, you know, singing in tent actually
easier than doing a band gig, Isaid but when I'm doing a band
gig I had to play two sessionsof 45 minutes an hour each.

(06:32):
Oh, in the tent you're singingone or two songs and you go on
and you go on and hear the joketoo.
You know, when you're on five toten, you know that you don't
have to be in the tent from halfpast seven when it's open.
Right, right, right.
You know you're on five to ten,quarter past nine you reach

(06:54):
Stage manager sees you.
You think.
You think when you finish OutOut Home Sleep Work next morning
, that work, out home sleep worknext morning.
Oh yeah, that work next morningpart is a hard part.
Remind me to give you a jokeabout that, tell me.
So I was outside doing a gigand the gig was Sunday.

(07:18):
I had a meeting.
I wasn't the CEO of the portyet.
I had a meeting with the CEOand the minister on Monday, so
the meeting was something like11 o'clock.
I said, okay, I booked for thefirst flight out.
It was Grenada or St Vincent,right, so you had to come back
in for the meeting.
Yeah, I had to come back in forthe meeting.

(07:39):
Going to the airport, flightcancelled.
Nice boy, I said.
But what the hell is this?
I called the promoter.
I said you know, flightcancelled.

Corie (07:49):
He said well, I can't remember that.

Colin (07:53):
So I started asking him what are the options?
Somebody said, well, you couldactually charter a plane.
I said charter a plane.
You've got to be kidding Chata,please.
You've got to be kidding, youknow.
But they kept saying, well,they would see what they would
do with the flight.
And it kept getting later,friend, I went around the corner
and Chata, a small aircraft,yeah yeah, like a four-seater,

(08:16):
and got back in time for themeeting.
Now, of course, I had calledahead and told my boss I had a
problem.
The flight was canceled, but Itried.
When I reached the meeting roomjust before the meeting, he said
why are you going to Europe soquickly?
I said well, I chatted.
He said I didn't know, I hadrich friends.
I said no, that was all theearnings from that gig plus the

(08:39):
two previous gigs, plus the nextgigs.
He said but Colin, you didn'tachieve, you know.
He said but you know, colin,you know you didn't say chief.
It.
Bad enough if I embarrass me,but I mustn't embarrass you, and
for you to sit down there forthe ministers.
Where's your deputy ceo?
And you have to say he was out.
I said I'm not putting youthrough, that understood.

Corie (08:59):
He said okay, I appreciate it yeah, that
commitment, and even in thecommitment you're talking about
is on both sides, because you'retalking about a FET.
And I didn't know this until Ispoke to Eddie, because by the
time I started, fet is late 90s,early 2000s, so the song system
and all them things, the bandcome in and plug in.
But he was telling me thatyou're working in a full song
system, so you're responsiblefor everything.

Colin (09:19):
For everything, but that gig happened to be one where I
was a solo performer.
Ah nice, appearing on the show.

Corie (09:25):
Gotcha gotcha Different world.
So let me go to the origins now.
Song Revolution how did itstart off?
So?

Colin (09:34):
Song Revolution is 2.0 of a band that was originally
called ARAC A-R-A-C Andre,richard, arturo Charles, andre
Day, richard Ramsubag, arturoMacano and Charles Assam.
So they had this group.
I was away at the time doingsome studies and I came back for

(09:58):
holidays and Andre, who hadbeen a friend of mine I kid you
not, since we were like fiveyears old and living in the same
old oh wow, and living in thesame street, right, and he said,
yeah, no, we start a littleband, come and check us out.
So I went and checked them outand the vibe was really really
nice.
Sure, next thing, you know,somebody stick a guitar in my

(10:19):
hand so I end up playing, youknow, while I was there on
holiday.
It was fun.
And they said, well, when areyou coming back?
I said, well, next year.
They said, well, when you comeback, let's make a big banner,
right?
I said, well, why not?
Yeah, so came back Next thing,you know, sound Revolution.
After Shout Out, there was a guynamed Don B Harry.
Now, this is no joke.
Eh yeah, don B Harry had a meatshop at the corner of Bombay

(10:41):
Street and Kathleen Street.
Don B Harry had no children inthe band.
He had children.
But no children in the band,nothing at all.
But Don B Harry becamecommitted to helping us form
this band.
In fact, since none of us wereemployed yet, we had to take the
loan.

Corie (10:59):
But I'm not kidding.
What age were you at here?
20.

Colin (11:03):
Oh, young, young.
And Don said when somebodyasked Don, actually they were
trying to dissuade him fromgoing through these things.
He said it's such a huge areayou don't know them from Adam,
other than they come to buy meat.
Yeah, why would you, you know,put yourself in that kind of
situation to go and borrow moneyfrom a bank?
Of course he said a ratheryoung man in a band room

(11:26):
practicing music than on thecorner looking for mischief.

Corie (11:30):
Important message up to today.

Colin (11:31):
You understand what I'm saying, and he and then my dad,
they actually got together andtook out the loan that had
someone.
You know the starting block.
I see.

Corie (11:42):
So when you take the loan and you form the band, that's
when you all came up with thename Song Revolution.
Ah yeah, so what was behind thename?
How did you all come up?
How did you all choose?

Colin (11:50):
Revolution.
I had mentioned to that sameDon B Harry that one of my
ambitions was to revolutionizesound in Trinidad.
You know, as much as I likedhow music was played in Trinidad
, I just felt we could changethings a little bit.
So he took revolutionized soundand he said you know, guys, I

(12:15):
think a good name for you wouldbe Sound Revolution.
And immediately everybodybought into the name, everybody
bought into the name, and thereit was Sound Revolution.
And then Oba, sound Revolution.
And then Oba don't know if youremember the Rastaman blowing
flute and sax and things.
Oba came up with the taglineOne Body, okay, meaning yes.
So we are many people, buttogether here we are One Body,

(12:39):
nice.
And if you look at the SoundRevolution logo you'll see Sound
Revolution, one Body.

Corie (12:43):
Yeah, I want to ask some about that Sound Revolution logo
.
You own the rights to the nameand the logo and all that.

Colin (12:48):
Yeah, the guy who came up with that was Daryl King.
Yeah, and incidentally, daryl'sdaughter got married the day
before yesterday.
Daryl Dara, yeah.

Corie (12:55):
Congrats to them.
Congrats to them.
And you see Metallica or ACDC,you see them on shirts all over
the world.
There's those bands that liveon forever.
Yeah, and I wonder sometimes ifthere's something you all think
about doing or want to do fromthat band era.

Colin (13:11):
Well, remember, the band no longer exists, right, so the
impetus for doing that now.
But in the day we had somewhereof t-shirts, somewhere of
glasses, somewhere of mugs, Ikid you not, somewhere of
everything.

Corie (13:24):
Yeah, yeah, long before the merch thing come on, yeah,
and and and used to sell them,oh, and there was always a
biting market for that I wouldimagine, yeah, I suspect that it
would be here still, like if wedo some of those things like
the big bands bands at the time.

Colin (13:40):
Kalyan.

Corie (13:41):
Kalyan.

Colin (13:42):
Yeah, okay.
Roots came along about the sametime with us, maybe, maybe a
year after Roots emerged out ofa studio band.

Corie (13:49):
Right, that's what you were saying.
Yeah, so they were playing instudio and then went on the road
.

Colin (13:52):
Then somebody said yeah, come out now.
So it's.

Corie (13:59):
Kalyan I light and all them at the time Germany Brass.

Colin (14:03):
No.
Firefly came out after, ohafter Firefly was about three
years into Sunwave's existence.
Right Chandelier was about thesame time with Sunwave, I see.

Corie (14:11):
All of them come out about the same time.
Yeah, yeah, how competitive wasit when you all came out?
Real competitive yeah.

Colin (14:16):
But it was a kind of friendly competition that I'm
not sure exists now.
I that are not sure exist now.
I mean friendly to the point ofview that if your equipment
break down, the other band willsay come and use ours now, wait
till they play the.
It was that ridiculous, right?
No, you want to eat them raw inthe fetter, you know?
And.
But there wasn't enmity oranimosity, it was just really

(14:41):
competition.
You're just, you know, I justreally competition.
You're just, you know.
I remember a time we wereplaying in a fed called West
India Club.
Nobody alive now knows about it.
Yeah, west India Club, I don'tknow.
It was at the eastern side ofcountry club, so on Marival Road
, there that side, and we hadsome electrical problem.

(15:03):
The thing wouldn't phaseproperly, chandelier was not fed
to one and Carl Jacobs cameacross and said you want to use
our equipment?
And we did and we representedourselves very well.
Carl was telling me after that,while the session was going on,
robin in Hampshire, hi Robin,how are you going?

(15:25):
Looked at him and said Carl wastelling me after that, wiley
session was going on.
Robin in Hampshire.
Right, hi Robin, how you going?
Looked at him and said Carl,you realize, we just kind of
committed suicide.

Corie (15:33):
Oh, you're so tight.
A little buddy told mecolonists are perfectionists.

Colin (15:36):
You know, you hear a pin drop in your music, right man, I
just kind of heard that when mychildren all referred to me
lovingly.
All right, well, ocd lovingly.
Yeah, I think anything worthdoing is worth doing excellently
.
That's one of the credos I liveby.

(15:57):
Yeah, if you're not going totry your best at it, don't
bother.

Corie (16:00):
Got you, there's somebody else with you now when you tell
me you and your partner bounceup and you stick a guitar in
your hand that don't work, so sowhere you learn to play music.
I was doing my little guitarthing and um now funny, I'll
give you a joke.

Colin (16:13):
Same problem you man, I used to be more playing
keyboards and rubbing as yournose and nasty guitar, and we
both went to St Mary's.

Corie (16:23):
He was a year or two ahead of me and we said, as a
Fatima man, I can't help itright, I can't help it.

Colin (16:31):
Well, I understand, I understand.
So I told Robin you know, playkeyboards and so on and so on
and so on.
He said that's good, let's seehow that works for you.
On a beach line at MaracasSomething I write, though, yeah.

(16:52):
So I decided I'll learn to playguitar too.
Yeah, how much instruments doyou play?
Play with?
I don't consider myself a supercompetent instrumentalist, but
I can find my way aroundkeyboards, guitar, bass, pan sax
yeah, you can find your wayaround.

Corie (17:11):
Find my way around.
Somebody tell my story.
They say one time in a fit,when Colin walk with an alto sax
and then I think it's over,they say I have a tenor sax.
And they say we ain't no, colincan play no sax.
All of a sudden he note fornote solo in the keyboard, so I
don't want to play the wrongpart.

Colin (17:27):
And actually one of my tutors in sax was Oba.
Yeah yeah, he was a guy whojust shared knowledge and you
know, he said I'm fingering thebest fingering for that, and we
tried tooling it this way orwhatever.
Now Oba was something, and thenOba learned to play keyboards.

Corie (17:42):
Yeah.

Colin (17:43):
Yeah From him.

Corie (17:46):
Oba learned to play keyboards.
Oh, he learned to playkeyboards from you Got it.

Colin (17:48):
I wouldn't say he learned from me.
He had this kind of ridiculouskind of talent, right.
Anything he put his hand onhe'd play.
If you ever heard Oba playdouble second, he would.
Yeah, oh, he would stroke yourchin and say, oh, hey, didn't
know he was there.
No, he was phenomenal.

Corie (18:07):
That's when you might tell Carl he committed suicide.
You know he wouldn't havecommitted any harm.

Colin (18:12):
Carl realized, we just probably committed suicide.

Corie (18:16):
So keyboard is your main instrument.
Yeah, you learned that formally, like you, were trained in
music and reading music and allthat.

Colin (18:21):
Well, there's a shame moment here.
My mother, in her spare time,gave piano lessons Right
downstairs in that same house,you see right?
So it was natural and normal.
I started to take lessons.
But a little way into it, notvery far into it, I said, mom, I
really don't want to do this.
Imagine that.

(18:41):
And she said to me I won'tforce you, but I guarantee you
you will live to regret this.
Imagine that, yeah, and shesaid to me I won't force you,
but I guarantee you you willlive to regret this decision.
And I did, because up to thisday I can't read music yeah yeah
, so I play entirely by ear, or?

Corie (18:58):
by sight impressive too.
No, that I, I wish.

Colin (19:01):
I wish I could read music .
Yeah, I wish I could read music.

Corie (19:03):
Most musicians I find it more and more I wish I could
read music.
Yeah, I wish I could read music.
Most musicians, I find it.
More it's up to musicians is,the more the people who play by
ear, the ones who read, say boy,I wish I could hear what Colin
Hearn you know but you see, youcould do both, right, I suppose
you know you could do both Bestof all worlds.

Colin (19:19):
Yeah, it's anyway.
I'm not too old.
I could still learn to readmusic.
You're going for it still?
Yeah, I'm thinking about ithonestly seriously that might
seem ridiculous, but I'mactually yeah, nothing
ridiculous about it.

Corie (19:30):
I think it's great.
You know what I mean.
No say retire, no say attain,have time on that, yeah do that?
Yeah, what you mean, why not?
So going back, just back to thecrossroads, that culture is
just a part of you that willalways kind of come out when you
name in or your own venturesand those types of things well,
yeah, because, like, forinstance, if you check the rooms
, all the spaces are named aftercultural things.

Colin (19:53):
Right, room number one is songwrecks studio.
Right, we have um sparrowstateroom.
You have ricky jai ranch.
You have Despos Domain.
Nice, you have La ChapelleLounge, right Plummer Place.
Oh, nice, nice, nice, minchellManor, beautiful.

Corie (20:11):
So it's all a dedication.
It's a kind of tribute PanoramaPenthouse.

Colin (20:15):
I love it, I love it, I love it.

Corie (20:17):
I like that.
It's in St James too we couldboast of, so I'm sure tourists
come in.
They're glad for this sort ofeducation when people come in on
those things, yeah, they likethat feel, you know, Beautiful.

Colin (20:28):
I mean, right as you open the door you enter phase two,
four.
Yeah, Right, so you get it.
Boom as you enter, the cultureis going to be hitting you.
That is good.

Corie (20:41):
So the t-shirts printed for me for Songrev right.
So when we come in Songrev,what is the name of Songrev room
?

Colin (20:45):
Songrev Studio.

Corie (20:47):
Yeah, we could get a Songrev jersey to buy there.

Colin (20:49):
No, need that, I'll give you a discount.

Corie (20:51):
I like it.
I like it.

Colin (20:52):
This thing working out, you know.

Corie (20:53):
This thing working out great.
So Songrev on the road.
Songrev is a powerhouse fromeverything I hear Of home them
time.
But I hear that you know, themore I talk to people about
bands, they can't escape soundrevolution.
And when you say revolutionizedsound, that's one of the things
.
As I talk to people preparingto come here, everybody talks
about the way the band wouldsound, not just the instrumental

(21:14):
or something.
They say men come in to blowpeople out and that kind of
thing.
It's Aaron and all that for thebanner.
And the son is your brother, mylate brother.

Colin (21:23):
William Lucas.
All right, he was something andhe was never into music.
No, this is you know.

Corie (21:30):
So mommy ain't got nothing to do with it.

Colin (21:32):
Well, actually that's a different mother.
That was my dad's first wife.
Okay, all right.

Corie (21:36):
Gotcha.

Colin (21:38):
And my mom's only child I see.
I see I see, see, I see, I see,all right, good, yeah.
She took one look at me andsaid never again, never again,
take a look, I'm not doing that.
So Willie wasn't into music andI told him he heard the band
play once.
This is before you had mixingboard and so on.
And he said to me I said, well,come and hear us again and give

(22:01):
me more detailed feedback, andso on.
I said, well, come on here usagain, right, and give me more
detailed feedback, and so on.
And he came reluctantly, it wascutting into his drinking time.
So he came.
He said, well, you know, thiswas this and this was that.
So then we bought a mixingboard.
I said I'm really come and seeif I could do this for a minute.

(22:24):
So I can't play and do this Boy.
Just do it once.
Yeah, try it.
Came on, you know.
He said oh wait a minute, yeah,this sounds good.
And people were like, yeah, Ilike all that sound.
I said, yeah, my brother,that's the engineer now.
Yeah, and that is it.

(22:45):
Then he became like so deepinto the thing People used to
say you could tell from outsideof it.
Nobody had to say soundrevolution.
You're outside of it and a bandstarts, you know it's sound
revolution.

Corie (22:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Colin (23:00):
There was a particular texture to Soundwave Sound, in
fact.
In those days everybody hadtheir texture, yeah, yeah, but
ours seemed to endear itself toa lot of people.

Corie (23:14):
Yeah, we do.
The story's there, the story'sthere.
And at that time you were thelead singer.
You were the only front singer.

Colin (23:20):
No, actually I was never the lead singer in Soundwave
Sound Never check my notesactually.

Corie (23:25):
Yeah, actually, I was never the lead singer in Song
Revolution.
Never check my notes.
Yeah, check your notes.
Front singer, right?
What is that?

Colin (23:29):
I was never the lead singer in Song Revolution.
So who was the lead singer?
Nigel Hutchinson and his mother, lois Hutchinson and Oba were
the first three lead singers.
Yeah, were the first three leadsingers.
And then subsequently, whenNigel and Lois left, they were

(23:50):
replaced by Leon Caldero andAntoinette Salandi Right.
And then, after Leon left, hewas replaced by Derek Seals, and
I don't know why.
I hesitated them, because Derekis one of my favorite singers of
all all all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all
all all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all,

(24:12):
all, all, all, all, all, all,all, all, all, all, all, all,
all, all, all, all, all, all,all, all, all, all, all, all,
all, all, all, all, all, all,all, all, all, all.
And Oba would play piano.
Oh, you're a switch, butofficial front line yeah.

Corie (24:25):
I was not going to say all them YouTube videos that
you're singing in front.
It's just so it's.

Colin (24:29):
Those will post songrevs.
That's solo.

Corie (24:31):
Yes, I see.
I see, I just assume when I seeyou in the band it's songrevs
yeah.
That's interesting and puttingtogether the group.
You're instrumental in justdeciding on players, lead
singers, the whole thing likewhat the band looks like and
sounds like, coming off of thatand going into the arena as

(24:52):
competitive as it was is one ofthe things I always ask band
singers because back then peoplemight not know now, but most of
the bands you see now they havea lead singer.
It's's a band, but it's not thesame type of cover and a band
giving you a whole experienceand people.
People may not remember thatwhen you, when you go to see a
band set, you could hear anygenre of music from any artist,

(25:15):
exactly including your owncomposed music.

Colin (25:18):
Well, the thing more often, because in the good old
days a friend of mine drew to myattention sometime ago in the
good old days bands had singers.
In the good new days, singershave bands yeah.

Corie (25:31):
It flipped completely.
It flipped completely.
Yeah, something I mean when youthink of it.
If you was to call a band now,the singer name comes through.

Colin (25:38):
Exactly Nadia Batson and her band.
Yeah, Marshall and Chess.
Yeah, I find it sad like youmiss it.

Corie (25:44):
I guess younger people now don't know what it was like.

Colin (25:47):
And you see, it's important and it's one of the
things I really miss Me singingmy song is me singing my song,
you interpreting how you hearand feel and want to deliver my
song.
That's a totally differentexperience from the original and
we've been deprived of that, Ifeel.

(26:08):
So I'm telling you.
You know, one of the greatestexperiences in my life was to
hear Taxi, please Stay.
Yeah, oh, my God, listen, whenyou talk about blow away, blow
away.
I was like yeah, yeah.
And I remember Aunt and Marceltelling me they had a song

(26:31):
called Hot Mama, right, and mysame brother, william,
encouraged me to learn that song.
I hadn't heard it and he was tomake yeah, come, let's go.
And he carried me to a fet inWindshore Club Doesn't exist
anymore, it's where MasseyCaranajos no, I see, windshore
Club was there, right.
And my brother carried me tothis fet here, kaliang, mm-hmm.
And immediately as I heard thesong, I was like wow, and I know

(26:56):
how I, you know how tointernalize it and deliver it.
And we did.
And then Arthur came to hear usplay and deliver it.
And we did.
And then Arthur came to hear usplay Right, and after we played
, arthur said that that was.
I wish I could have donesomething like that.

Corie (27:11):
You know what I mean it's just a mutual respect.

Colin (27:14):
Yeah, because, yeah, you could only put this much into
what you create.
Right, what this much generatesin other people is this much, I
would imagine yeah, it mustmultiply and now we're just
being deprived of that.

Corie (27:29):
Yeah, if I was missing, I heard Zan Zan was here and he
said because he was at 18 now asa lead singer and doing more of
what you were doing, yeah.
Or what song Rev would be doing,and he said he said the same
thing.
It's his interpretation of it.
Now you bring up Stay right,which to me, just listening back

(27:50):
to music and stuff, I'm notsure how unique the song was
then, but it feels like thatgroovy era that we face in the
late 90s, like Stay was just insuch a zone.
Music then was like that insuch a zone.

Colin (28:03):
Music then was like that yeah, there was a movement there
happening At the forefront ofthat.
Again, carl and Carol Jacobs.
And when you have time, go andlisten to a song called From no
One Right and call me and tellme.
Your mind will be completelyblown, not only because of how
the song is structured, but howit is delivered Right.

(28:26):
The level of harmonization, thekind of sax playing inside
there world class.
Mm-hmm, you'll call me and tellme I will, I will.

Corie (28:34):
I will.
So with Stay.
You wrote it and Leon deliveredit.
Leon is who is he?

Colin (28:38):
No, on the original Right Stay was 1986.
Yes, it was in Leon, that'sright.
That was the first recording wehad with Leon, followed up by
Shake it in In 87.
Yeah, leon delivered it.
Now, one of the things aboutLeon Caldera he's he's an exact

(28:59):
singer.
Now I don't know if you knowAbout the.
It's a trick they use in Instudio Called double tracking,
so you'll sing down a lead andsing the lead again.
What happens is that, becauseit's never very exact, what they
do is they smooth each otherout, right?
So a lot of people say, zemen,you don't want to hear the

(29:20):
angular, so you double track andit smooths it out.
Angular gotcha, so you doubletrack and it smooths it out.
The thing with Leon, thoughLeon is so precise as a singer
that both tracks were exactlythe same.
Oh, he can't smooth out nothing,so so you know it's amazing, we
in the studio and we sing, buthow come we're not getting the

(29:40):
soothing effect Now, becauseLeon's voice is also very
melodious, Right?
You didn't really need it tosave the track, but you had
become accustomed to using it insongs like that Right Softer
stuff and you could play Leon'stwo tracks with no music and you
swear it's one track in.

(30:01):
He was so precise.
Yeah, every note hit at thesame time, held for the same
note, hit at the same time, heldfor the same length, at the
same pitch, with the same on.
He was he was amazing.

Corie (30:11):
The only other person I've heard that about is brandy
the r&b singer.
They said she could match thewaves exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've neverheard that before.
They're legendary, so stay.
What?
Can I imagine what yourreaction is like to that in fits
or them kind of thing, becausenow when you listen back to it,
it sounds slow.

Colin (30:27):
Yeah, I have a new version, by the way.
Oh, you do.
I have a Senate for you.

Corie (30:29):
Oh, please, that would be nice, that would be nice.

Colin (30:32):
So, people, people that was a big song.
You know how it started.
A little drum beat and theyoung man say watch out.
Yeah, boy.
Now, after the song had been onradio for about a week or two,

(30:54):
from the time, mose the drummerwent the part, he'll go.
And then he'll go say watch out.
And they go come and set for ityeah, stay with somebody and
people you could actually stopthe music, which we used to do
sometimes, and he'll just hearthe part he say stay, and we

(31:15):
come back a little longer andthen you stop and he say stay,
yeah, huge, huge.
Up to today, an American jazzguitarist actually did a cover
of that song, eric Gale, and itwas the title track on his 1988,
I think, album.

(31:35):
And well, he called it let'sStay Together yeah, I guess
that's part of the hook.

Corie (31:40):
Yeah, yeah, big song you bring up, but I'll ask you at
that time that's 86, so some revwould have been earlier 80s,
right when it started officially1976 oh, 76, yeah, oh, I see.
Well, my date's wrong.
These notes, they weren't atthem, so you're writing your own
songs and those things from theinception of some rev where

(32:02):
review is focused on.

Colin (32:02):
I give you a joke.
I again let me shout outdeceased.
Hey, just so 69.
Right, sebastian, hubert, rightSebastian.
I'm just saying, colin, you'reonly playing people's songs.
Write your own songs.
I'm not into that.
I don't think I have that skill.
He said, yeah, trust me, I havethat skill.

(32:23):
He said, yeah, trust me, I haveit.
So he said, yeah, what?
I'll help you write a song.
I said okay.
So we agreed He'll come Sundayafternoon and he'll help me
write a song.
So I got this idea for a songGive love to get love Right?
He never showed up.
So I started Playing around andwriting and spent a few hours

(32:46):
Customly next day, monday bandpractice, and his initial
instinctive response was can youwrite a song?
I like that.

Corie (32:54):
He help you.

Colin (32:56):
Band leader help you and he help you.
It was unapologetic.
He say can you write a song?
I say yeah.
He said let me hear it now.
So I signed it.
He said song and, would youbelieve, first song I've ever
written Give Love to Get Love.
At the wedding I told you aboutthe first, first, first first
singer of Iraq, a guy namedVirgilio King.

(33:18):
Right, we are meeting now afterwe haven't seen each other in
about 20 years.
Yeah, yeah.
And as we shake each other'shand he leans to me.
He said I woke up this morning.
I said no, you're not serious.
Yeah, feeling kind of blue.
I said Virgilio, and he sangthe whole first verse of that

(33:39):
song for me, love it from 1977.
Wow, he remembered a song thatI wrote and never even recorded.
A Savage Leo wrote and neverrecorded, never recorded.
So he just had that in his head.
Yeah boy, yeah boy.

Corie (33:52):
How many years ago is that let's not a few, a few a
few dozen a few dozen years solike the appetite for
songwriting opened up.

Colin (34:00):
Yeah, from that and I started like, okay, I could do
this.
But then I got daunted by therecording industry.
I said Colin, boy, suppose yougo and put everything there.
So I kind of pulled in, andthen the band members of Songrev
started seeing all around 85 inold BC and Oba in particular

(34:22):
was saying, hey, we need tostart recording.
And then Roots had startedrecording, you know so, colin.
Shandini had started recording,so Colin can.
So I said okay, okay, okay,okay, okay and um.
But I wasn't the only writer.
You know Moze the drummer ohyeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(34:42):
john.
In fact, up to now he has aband in Toronto called Moses
Revolution.

Corie (34:47):
I kid you not.

Colin (34:49):
And he plays and he still writes and stuff Nice.

Corie (34:53):
So from there it's racist .
You're writing all the time.

Colin (34:56):
Well, I'm not as prolific as a Rudder, sorry, I'm not as
prolific as a David Rudder.

Corie (35:02):
I have a few questions to ask about some song you write,
because I feel like if peoplewill say that, people may say
hey, this man writes it, youknow.
But I listen to some of thesesongs you write right and I
think they underestimated interms of the writing ability or
the literary ability.
We could talk about it, but letme get to put your hand in the
air and shake it.
Bomb right.
I mean them is big ears andcalypso and soca and them great

(35:25):
things.
So what is this like in Fedsthen?

Colin (35:26):
I'll give you a joke too.
Now our rule was you don't playa song unless it's on the air
already.
Okay, because we had a badexperience with our first hit
called Destruction Right.
It was actually sung by DoronHector, otherwise known as
Versatile.
Okay, so we recorded this songand we know this song bad.

(35:50):
So we said, yes, we're playingthis in Fet from Tomorrow.
Right, and you start this songand you start to play this song
and people say I'm not joking.
Sometimes they were veryacrimonious.
So we learned this song, songreleased on the radio.
It started with a drum rollthat simulated thunder After the

(36:14):
song got on the radio from thedrum roll.
So the rule was unless there'sa song on the radio, you ain't
trying it, you ain't trying.
It Comes along.
Now shake it.
We in Arima Tennis Club,january, the 1st carnival
kickoff.
I remember two other bandsGreat, and one band just put on

(36:36):
a session there to make you gohome, boy, uh-huh, because you
know your guy licks all underyour tongue.
No, careful, I feel it mighthave been chandelier.
I see when I say session,session, father.
So we in a little huddle nowthat we used to call the body
Right, and we saying, boy,where's the answer to that boy?
Because it totally mash up theplace, you know.

(36:59):
And my brother of all peoplesaid let's start with Shake it,
but his song is not released yet.

Corie (37:09):
Unreleased.
At this point it wasn'treleased.

Colin (37:12):
He said, colin, trust me, yeah, you know he have.
Let's start with Shake it.
So I look around and I say,leon, how you feel about that?
Well, leon was never on theback down.
No, no, leon said yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, let me do it.
I look around and say, oh, yousure Nobody know the song.
No, mm-hmm Say yeah, mm-hmm, weare nothing to lose with that.

(37:33):
Yeah, yeah, we don't get muchof it already.
So, boom, turn on the system.
Ladies and gentlemen, you'renow tuned into the sound of
Sound Revolution.
Everybody went.

Corie (37:47):
Serious Big reaction.

Colin (37:49):
One time we're looking at each other and watch Willie by
the mixing board.
You might know him.
Yeah, boy.
No, that was, that wascounterintuitive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no,that was.

Corie (38:04):
Hmm, that was, that was counterintuitive, yeah yeah yeah
one of those things thatlegendary you know, in terms of
the song itself, the opening.
I always wonder about theopening of songs how you decide
what's the playfulness, what'sthe safefulness, how you greet
that and I think a band have a.
I guess singing with a band orbeing in a band you have such a
good feel for what the crowdsrespond to and all that, but

(38:25):
that kind of just hold them in87.
So those times you all havethings like Roadmatch on your
mind and them kind of thingswhen you're not on it.

Colin (38:31):
No, I didn't.
I didn't.
Honestly, I didn't figure thatwas our domain, you know,
because even prior to that, theonly band song that had ever won
road match was Bahia Girl.
Everything else was fromCalypso Nyan, and I was drummed
into your head Calypso Nyan iswho will win road match, Right?
So there was no effort, nofocus on that.

(38:54):
Yeah, but this guy, Afun EdgarAfun's nephew I forgot his name.

Corie (39:02):
John Afun.

Colin (39:02):
Right, came to me about three weeks before Carnival,
just so.
He said you know that could bea good match.
I said what he said shake it.
I said no, he said, but youhave to know what to do.
I said I don't understand,remember I, yeah, you didn't
think of that, I don't know.
He said there are ways to workyour song so that it becomes

(39:28):
very high profile as a roadmatchcontender, right, but we
couldn't finish the conversationand I didn't know the ways and
there was nobody else whoventured to share the ways with
me, right, so we came, actuallywe came second at it, yeah, yeah
.

Corie (39:41):
Oh, it did.
Yeah, that song, that's onethat stood the test of time,
like many of them.
You know me and dad, that wasthere that time.
Song Rev on the road.
Yeah, yeah, what's yourreaction like to that on the
road?

Colin (39:54):
from the time you play the start, people just singing
the whole song.

Corie (39:58):
You know Leon could have rest but he was't a man to rest.

Colin (40:01):
He wasn't to today, yeah, as they used to say, don't be
gone, bad, bad, bad yeah, yeah,yeah.

Corie (40:08):
I always wonder.
I mean, you have an intenseseason.
You talk about two 45 minutesets.
You in particular, you had togo to work the next day and all
that.
How are you managing, after along kind of big hits like that
and you don't remember, athousand songs going on your
road Monday and Tuesday?
How do you add energy for that?

Colin (40:26):
then we used to we actually had a record of
carrying the most songs on theroad and so on.
A lot of bands used to cut itdown to like between six there's
no joke six or eight songs,because they figured those are
the songs that will get thetriggers, and so on.
Our philosophy was that's whatyou all think, that's what the
radio station tell you, or youfeel you learn that from the
radio station.
But people have had a wholeseason of fetting with

(40:49):
20-something songs.
Why am I going to deprive themof 13 of them On the road?
So we used to.
This is no joke.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're playing 20, 21 songs onthe road.
Yeah, and we started alsocarrying 20 songs right through
during the year calypso's I seeoutside of the season.

Corie (41:11):
I got you because then the band's performing year-round
.

Colin (41:14):
You're touring and performing all the time gotcha.
But at the beginning, huh, youcarried two out of the season
the road march and some otherpopular one.
It was that bad the wholecarnival carrying two songs.

Corie (41:27):
That's what you mean, just the band After the carnival
.
After the carnival, just twosongs.

Colin (41:29):
You're keeping two soca.
Yeah, and we were always like,but that was the practice.
And then we just said, no, waita minute, no, this isn't land
of Soka and we carry in two.
So we say, look, we carry inall when you're doing that, oh
yeah.

Corie (41:48):
Well, I can't imagine how difficult it was, because there
was a time when Ash Wednesdaycome Soka to stop play, if you
say radio, what's going?
On Radio, done with Soka forLent.

Colin (41:56):
Yeah, and to late 80s, right, where the actual
preferred genre of young peoplein Trinidad was like Soca and

(42:20):
they wanted to hear Soca likeall the time, anytime.
We used to be playing in a lotof graduations, right, right,
secondary school graduationWhole band Right, whole band
Plain.
And we remembered when, like inthe late 70s, early 80s, you
had to do a lot more R&B and popand funk and that kind of music

(42:40):
and reggae and stuff.
Right, and you're playing a fewsoca because, right, you know,
and you're ending up the set,right.
And by mid 80s and thing to thelate 80s, the thing changed.
They want to hear Soka.
Yeah, you play a little reggae,you play a thing.
But the main part of thesession was, you know, these

(43:03):
ladies used to be in the gowns,the graduation gown, and you see
, they come when you start, whenyou realize it, they come and
they kick off the shoe rightthere by the stage and you're
going.
It's not two, three, four, sothey want them.
Right, you keep pumping if youwouldn't look like you're gonna
stop song right here and theseare young people, teenagers,
yeah, and that gave us so muchjoy could imagine to see us.

(43:26):
We said yes.
Finally, you know we have comeinto our own um.
We found that that kind ofintensity started to win a
little bit by the close of theend of the 80s.
Yeah, yeah, now they're stilltaking the soccer full scale
carnival and they're still.

(43:47):
But you see, where they wantedto hear soccer whole night in
the graduation, that started tofade away amazingly to that boy
at that time.
Well, you see the airwaves kindof guide what you hear.
Therefore it guides what youlike, right?
You know, I have often said topeople don't feel that a song is

(44:10):
played a lot on the radiobecause you like it.

Corie (44:14):
You like it because it's played a lot on the radio
because you like it.

Colin (44:16):
You like it because it's played a lot on the radio, right
?
I ask people, you like Chinesemusic, right?
No, why do you think that is?
I've never heard it.
Thank you, if you grew up inChina.
I suppose, your brain willattune and you know, then you'll
like this Chinese song and notthis one, right?
But you wouldn't dislikeChinese music, of course.
You know.

(44:37):
So what you hear, what is fedinto your subconscious, you know
kind of guides, what you willlike or not like, generally
speaking, so hence it's onlyRenaissance.

Corie (44:46):
You see it coming out.

Colin (44:48):
It was amazing.
Yeah, they were hungry.
You know if you played one toomany Kograb songs you just heard
somebody say Soka, songrev Soka, and we were just like, yeah,
you're coming down early now,you know.
So prepare to be burned.

Corie (45:09):
Yeah, yeah, I can imagine a band like Songrev in their
graduation.
You know, I think Sun River, Ithink FET.
What kind of events used toplay?

Colin (45:16):
at the time we were the number one choice for even
fashion shows.
I'll tell you why Ourcross-section of music.
We used to play, yeah, r&bthing, but we used to play
crossover jazz and things.
In fact, there's something onYouTube that's been going around
for a while Right, sun Riverconcert.
There's something on YouTubethat's been going around for a
while Songraven concert, 1982.
Mm-hmm Playing Take Five.

(45:37):
Mm-hmm, right, yeah, obasoloing on the flute and so on.
Mm-hmm, we used to play.
We used to play Nightcrawler,yeah, bob James.
No, we really.
Yeah, yeah, we used to reallyget on so that people having
fashion shows at Hilton wouldfeel, oh, song of the Sea Band,
because you know the range.

(45:57):
Yeah, when we used to be inCarabana, Right, yeah, man, they
used to hire us for fashionshows and Queen show and so on,
because of how we used to playand what we used to play.

Corie (46:12):
Yeah, you were just set to suit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,with you A little buddy telling
me today there's a show, atleast outside of Asta Cinema is
now I don't know his name of it.

Colin (46:21):
Right, it's now a church, right?
Actually, we're done at Roxyand then Roxy closed to change
into Pizza Hut, so we moved toAsta and I think the next five
years were at Asta.
Sound Revolution in concert.

Corie (46:39):
And it's outside of the season.

Colin (46:40):
Oh yeah, normally in.

Corie (46:41):
October.
Okay, I got it, got it, got it.
But at that time that's a bigchange.
Like I was asking Radha aboutthat too, he had a no
restrictions concert outside ofCarnival.
It wasn't common then to have asoccer show outside of Carnival
, it was just restricted to theseason, but it wasn't a soccer
show for us.
But for you all it was just afirst.

Colin (46:59):
Everything, everything I mean, and every year we featured
a different act.
So I think 1982, you start thesecond set.
You start the second set with aSong Revolution Sings, Right?
So 1982 was Song RevolutionSings stylistics.
Song Revolution Sings Earth,wind, fire, I think was.

(47:20):
I'm with you, I say 92, it's 82, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, 82, songRevolution Sings Earth, wind,
fire.
Song Revolution Sings, I thinkRo roots or something.
We did Gladys Knight and thePips and we did a couple local
things, song Revolution things.

Corie (47:39):
Yeah, so you're a team and you carry through the show.

Colin (47:41):
For that first, for that first segment.
After, in the second half,always that Song Revolution,
things, that 40, 40, 30 minutesession, right, and then you go
back into different segments ofthe show yeah, big show sold out
show, yeah, yeah, yeah threenights would normally run.
Yeah, yeah, normally run.

Corie (47:59):
You can do that now, but you see singers, you know they
say bands are singers.
Three nights is a lot.
Yeah, yeah is a lot.
I was asking Eddie about thesimple things like preserving
people's voice, and aren't youtired when you're?

Colin (48:10):
drinking.
Yeah, drink carnival.
You got to be careful with it.

Corie (48:12):
Yeah, have to be careful with it, otherwise you're
horseback In them days.
It have no backing track and novocal backing.
No, no, no, oh hell, no, no,live mixing no no, no, hell, no.

Colin (48:23):
And the purists.
The purists will go, anythingwill leave without going for
that For sure.

Corie (48:30):
It's something that I also feel like we miss now where
people singing singing.
You know you go to shows nowand there's a.
I mean, if you're lucky you'llget somebody who's singing over
the chorus or a few punchlines,but most times it's a record
playing behind somebody andthey're going to see a real
performance, so that's live.

Colin (48:49):
Yeah, that's live.
Imagine that.
That's one of my, that's one ofmy little issues.

Corie (48:54):
I have it it does as well as well as to set the trend.
If I with body, I can't imaginehow much that men like holy,
they don't look like they'reworking to you.
It don't look.

Colin (49:06):
It don't look like it because somebody on stage on the
lead singing, and then the samelead who's singing started to
tell you something and thefellow had to pull down the lead
voice that's still singing,because the guy started to talk
to the crowd and I said, no,okay, how fake can that be?
Anyway, let me not bejudgmental.

Corie (49:28):
Well, let me be, because when I go fret to fret now,
because of the difficulty ofthat, it boxes the artist or the
performance in.
So what's happened I find nowis when you go to FET you're
seeing the exact sameperformance.
It's so templated.
That was never the case.
I mean Ronnie's still on stage,people like Kurt, alan, eddie

(49:49):
and them.
They have no two shows the same.
Customs is the night before.
It's a completely differentshow you could expect, not just
song selection, but the way thedelivery, yeah, and the
interacting with the crowdwatching you on stage.
You bring up fashion show.
I'd ask you about your fashionchoices, because you're a man
who wears some tights over theears, like when I watch it.

(50:11):
I say you know, sometimespeople just watch an old album
and you watch your style.
You say, when you watch backYouTube nowadays and you're
looking good, still you stillwearing them tights.
Let me just make sure.
First I'll tell you something.

Colin (50:24):
I would have been the last person to wear tights.
I used to but you ever catch mein a tight man.
Tights is for girls.
No, honestly, tights, I love tosee girls in tights.
Oh man, go wear tights.
I used to wear little cyclesand things.
I said, look, they could saywhat they want.

(50:46):
The next thing it started tobecome a style.
You still yeah, it's still goodhow you think this happened.
Carnival sunday 1990, rightsoaker village, we setting up
the trailer because we used toplay from the trailer.
Carnival sunday because we hadto play juve and right.
So we setting up the trailer,some piece of technical thing

(51:09):
beating me on.
So willie and I decide we willstay, let the others go, be a
change and come back.
And so you know we'd have akind of smooth transition.
We managed to get the thingfixed.
Just five minutes before thepromoter says Songrev, we said
you know, a dirty from stints, adear stints, must be made in.

(51:31):
And then I said but I can't goand perform like this A fella
named Baita.
he was a percussionist in theband Earl Edwards.
Salute to Baita.
Yeah, no, baita had his plasticbag.
He said I have two cycle shortshere and I said Baita, me cycle
shorts, boy, like a short spike, look, move with that, I could.

(51:53):
I could ritual man come back,promoter, come and say some man
with that.
This carnival Sunday.
You know, Bite a do myself.
I like I got white and a blackand white.
I say, well, now that whitelooking like that two thing,
I'll take the black and white.
I said, well, now that whitelooking like that two thing,

(52:14):
I'll take the black and white.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And Antoinette said, yeah, well, I'll take one of these Sunriff
jerseys, I'll shred it up,she'll put that.
She'll go over the cycle shortsa little bit down, right.
And you had to go do thatGotcha, do that gotcha.
So that's what happened.
Yeah, I've read self-concept,because the whole idea of

(52:36):
psychostrust for a man and itwas against it too.

Corie (52:38):
Yeah, it was really distasteful.

Colin (52:39):
Yeah, I'd gone up on the on the trailer and as I reached
up on the trailer, some ladieswere right down the button and
they just said, whoa, that wasit.
I got sued.

Corie (52:53):
So by test of blame by test of blame.

Colin (52:59):
I am missing the man that felt, you know, it worked
against all the negativity I hadin me for wearing cycle shorts,
right, you know they just went.
Whoa, and that said, okay,colin, okay, maybe he's not so
bad.
Yeah, yeah yeah, I went throughthe night time next morning, so
we leave there now and we hadto go and play on the road.

(53:20):
But we can't chance this or runhome.

Corie (53:22):
The trailer.
Go where it has to go, we in.

Colin (53:24):
We say Baita, you're the next Baita, You're going to own
him.

Corie (53:29):
I say Baita is to blame them.

Colin (53:31):
ladies, go say Baita, it's to thank for that I say,
baita, you still have the nectar, bring it so that carry on
that's what it is yeah, listen.
I'm so bad man, so what?
The white one for juvie?

(53:51):
I asked my mother cause themdays I still living?
I asked my mother because themdays are still living home.
Right, I asked my mother towash the black one, yeah.

Corie (53:58):
Make sure it's ready.

Colin (54:00):
So I read that Monday on the road, beautiful, and the
white one Tuesday on the road.

Corie (54:04):
Nice, nice, nice.
The thing I use, yeah, yeah,yeah by, but it's a good use.
And this is 90 when you comeout, so that time you're still
with Songrev.

Colin (54:15):
That time I was still with Songrev when is this year
eventually, so I joined.
Robin Imamsha.
Well, songrev and I had aparting of the ways later in
1990.
Okay, and Robin Imamsha came tome.
He said Colin, it's true boy, Ihear you, it's true boy, he

(54:36):
ain't talk that you and Sam Raftdone.
I said yeah, that's it.
He said I could have the rightof first refusal.
Now, I'd never heard it termedbefore Right, okay, but it was
obvious what it meant, of course, but I remember I'd never heard
it before Right.
Right, I said Robin, I don'twant to be in a band anymore.
He said we should have beenworking a long time.
Think about it.
Right, I thought about it.

(54:58):
I ended up in taxi.
One of the first things Robinsaid to me is no, you know,
taxi's a hip band, right, youknow.
He said no, no, no, insult tosong revolution, but taxi's
whole thing is youth and thingand flash and fashion.
And I say, well, robin, I'm notdriven by fashion.

(55:21):
I tell him I've never been, youknow, I just need to look tidy,
clean and I'm good, I'm notdriven by fashion, you know.
He said, well, you gotta helpme out.
And then because, you want to,to keep the, the, the look, the
brand yeah, consistent okay ornothing, hey.
So something close andphysically close and thing and

(55:45):
thing and thing.
Hey, first time we go on stage,somebody pull robin and say um
Robin, and say I'm, I know howwe're supposed to look.
Yeah, that's not it.
He said yeah, but make him lookfashionable that's your welcome

(56:05):
to taxi.
Yeah make him look fashionablein cycle shorts that kind of
thing right?
That's not it, and so back tothe cycle show yeah, yeah well,
all right, but I tried.
I tried valiantly in in mysecond year.
Um, spectacular right.
I didn't have any cycle shorts.

(56:25):
I'm gonna first night if yousee my boy, nice outfit.
But soon I come off stage.
Soon, as I come off stage,people come and say that's not.
You know, I had to hustle tochaos.
What do you mean?
I had to pick up chaos.
I had to hustle to chaos not tomake cycle shots for the second

(56:47):
night.

Corie (56:47):
People, you're standard dancer.

Colin (56:49):
People know what they're looking for when they see Colin
Lucas.
But I tried yeah all right.

Corie (56:52):
Well, you give it a shot.
Dying bad, dying bad.
So it's more around 90,.
You had a move.

Colin (56:57):
Yeah, 90 was Taxi which morphed into, and in fact that's
how come Dollar Wine ended upon the Taxi album.

Corie (57:05):
I see it was on Taxi album.

Colin (57:15):
Yeah, made in instructions.
But I have one more song to askyou about before yeah, football
dance.

Corie (57:17):
Which one?
Which one?
Or 89, okay, good, yeah,there's more than one.
Yes, my notes, I would not.
What can I take here?

Colin (57:22):
no, no, no no, all right, that's quite right, that's,
that's all right good, so 89, Iguess, strike squad.

Corie (57:28):
We almost in that position now where people have a
little football fever.
Now that do you take over theteam.
And yeah, there are somequalifiers coming up soon too.

Colin (57:35):
So when we I was going to play for them in a bar.
You should make us some youth.
Why?

Corie (57:40):
not when you're looking for strikers.
You know you have it and I'llbe struck.
The football dance might workagain.
So that time is strike squadfever.
That was so Strike Squad Fever,that would have been my song
rather than your football dance.
Yes, what's the idea behind thesong, then?
Just supporting the team?

Colin (57:56):
Yeah, just supporting the team.
And there were some key figuresin that Derek Seals and a guy
we call Don Wheels, right, theywere key contributors to the
structure and the content ofthat song, right, you know, if
you remember the song, to thestructure and the content of

(58:17):
that song, right, you know?
Mm-hmm, if you remember thesong, the part football dance,
football dance, football dance,that was done.
Yeah, and some other partsinside, mm-hmm, smooth voice on
and on.
Well, because of this, thesmooth voice, as I said, there
is this velvet voice, right, ohGod boy.
But because of this the smoothvoice, as I said, there it is
velvet voice, right, oh god,that's special, do you know?

(58:38):
Let me, let me take a littleboost.
Yeah, so one day in them days,you have two radio stations
driving home from work.
One station, football dance, Ismiled, turn to the other
station, football dance.
So I was close toed to theother station, football dance,
so I was close to home.
But I was close to my parents'home, so I pulled up outside to

(59:01):
run upstairs to say, mom, wouldyou believe my song playing on
both stations and it was on TV?
Oh shit, the video was on TV.
I was like whoa, yeah that isspecial.

Corie (59:13):
I said, father, thank you .

Colin (59:14):
I was like whoa, yeah, that is special.
That is special.
I said, father, thank you.

Corie (59:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that must be a special.
I'm telling you.

Colin (59:19):
Both FM stations and the TV are the same thing.

Corie (59:21):
Right, yeah, that was you know the thing about it.
Like several songs were donethey had Lancelot Lane had one
four or five strike squad songsbut that one appealed to the
youth in a way at that time thatnone of the other songs could
have claimed.
That was really holding on toyouth at the time.
I was like nine years old thattime and you can't believe that.
There's no way people don'tunderstand now that there was

(59:45):
nothing about Trinidad notqualifying by that time.
We making it because even someand some of the things you say,
leonson Lewis will put it in thenet for that was what was
happening in the very life.
But I want to ask you about thatJamaican influence in that song
in particular.
But you live and study inJamaica sometimes.

Colin (01:00:01):
Yeah well, I was 73 to 76 .

Corie (01:00:05):
Good age, good time, and you're studying what at that
time?
You're studying business orsomething really management.
So all them jobs you get overthe years you qualified.
You're a man, it's not.
You know.
Sometimes we look back at it.
A man may watch it and say thepower of a big artist to run the
port.
And where was it?
It was the port, it was TT.
Post but TT Post was after longafter yeah, after the port.

Colin (01:00:30):
After my first stint in the port, which was the longest,
I was about 30 years, right.
Then I went to TD Post managingdirector, right I was the first
local managing director at TDPost.

Corie (01:00:38):
Yeah, yeah, congrats, that's good.

Colin (01:00:40):
And then I went copyright organization, right, and then I
went to NCC.
Oh, you went to NCC, yeah, Iwas at N and executive chairman,
okay, and then CEO for most ofthe time.

Corie (01:00:57):
Gotcha.
Yeah, that was lovely.
So you're a qualified man.
You went through it.
You went through the trainingand things.
Study over there and apply itreally.

Colin (01:01:04):
Yeah, I tried.

Corie (01:01:05):
Well, I see now why you ain't leaving anything for the
things Heavy hitter in thecorporate world too.

Colin (01:01:17):
I wouldn't consider myself a heavy hitter.
You know it's amazing if you'rereally paying attention.
And the more you learn, themore you know that you don't
know it's amazing.
So every day, on any job I everhad, was a learning experience.
I remember going into the holdof a ship big ship at times went
down with them fellas, we wereworking only as night, right, I

(01:01:39):
decided I would take a littletime with them down in the ship,
going down there with them, youknow, putting my helmet, safety
thing and so on.
Yeah, and first thing, a slinglooking to come across and I was
going to touch it and I justfelt I can't do so and pull away
my hand.
So I look, fella said, boss,you can't touch that without

(01:02:03):
gloves on, and he held it.
He held it If you saw thelittle barbs and thing in that
way if I had just touched it.
He said no, boss can't do itwithout gloves.
So on and so on.
And every day we go to pick upa container, the crane.
The crane's struggling.
I'm working on his TV, don't Iknow?

(01:02:24):
He said tell it the driver dothat.
He said that's too heavy.
You know, when they went toweigh it, a standard ISO 40 foot
30 tons, those days it was 40tons and just how the crane was
straight go and weigh that again10 tons over, it would have

(01:02:50):
split, you know.
so I enjoyed.
And today, if I go anywhere, 10tons over, it would have split,
mm-hmm, you know.
So I enjoyed, you know, andtoday, if I go anywhere, I'm
going with what I know, but Iwant to leave with what I didn't
.

Corie (01:03:00):
Yeah, I understand.
Yeah, I understand.
That is the thing.
Yeah, that curiosity built intoit.
Mm-hmm, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Colin (01:03:08):
So your time in Jamaica influencing the choices of songs
that went into their footballdance because it was a sample
from Asward or some of the othersongs.
If that had been eight yearsbefore, I would have said my
influence would have been key.
But by that time you had peoplelike Oba and Ting in the band.

(01:03:28):
By that time reggae was itselfemerging.
When we started playing reggaeas a new band in 76, 77, people
used to call us the reggae band.
You know, okay, and that wouldimply that all we played was
reggae.
But no, we were just the onlyband that played reggae.
Right, we played everything, butbecause we were the only band

(01:03:49):
that played reggae, peoplestarted referring to us as
reggae bands, but that changedover the next eight, nine years.
So by that time of footballdance, reggae was finding its
own engine yeah, it was, it wasand um.
Couple of the songs that that,that we um I forgot the correct
term for it that we, for want ofa better word parodied right um

(01:04:12):
, were themselves popular at thetime.

Corie (01:04:15):
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, you know.
And hearing local voicessinging it, I think made it
special for people.
And it came out of nowhere.

Colin (01:04:23):
in his song too, everything came out of nowhere
in his song.

Corie (01:04:25):
Keep having surprises the more you listen to it.
So it's been a rung, so youshould talk to them now.
I feel like if we bring backsome of them we have a better
chance to qualify this time.
There was nobody else saying,as a youth, you couldn't think
of Trinidad not qualifying in 89.
At that point you think you'resure, you're dead sure.

Colin (01:04:46):
And you know I was behind the goal post when the ball,
yeah, and I look in Willie and Isign up next to each other and
the ball, I remember it was along, long, long, long, long,
long shot and I said, willie,willie, yeah, willie, I like how
that looking you know, poof Inthe back of the net.

Corie (01:05:03):
Heartbreak.
Yeah, that was heartbreak.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But we make it eventually and Ifeel like we'll make it again
fingers crossed.
So you fast forward now.
Now is a selfish time, right,let me take care of the woman
issues, right and needs you know?
Yeah.
So, dollar, why I hear youtalking about.
I was going to ask you, when wewere writing that, how you come
up with this cent fice andtencent dollars, I think, but I

(01:05:24):
hear you talking about theorigin it was a joke, and I tell
so old in Trinidad.

Colin (01:05:31):
Trinidad had pound sterling as its currency, so it
was farthing tuppence shillingpound.
That is how old that joke wasin its original state and it
evolved and morphed and camedown through the years and I
said you know, I have to make asong about that.

(01:05:53):
But now the joke is horizontal.

Corie (01:05:58):
The original joke it's horizontal, it's horizontal,
it's horizontal.
So the premise is the same.

Colin (01:06:04):
Yeah, I just thought to make it more acceptable on the
airwaves and you know things.
Spatially acceptable, I wouldverticalize it.

Corie (01:06:15):
So wait, wait, wait, because you teach me a whole
lesson in your song, right, youteach me how to make a house of
wine.
What did?
He was teaching Vertical.
He was teaching a new bride.
Are you serious?

Colin (01:06:28):
That was the original joke.
A guy was teaching his newbride I like it how to
reciprocate it.
And the story is when sweetnesstake us what she say.

Corie (01:06:41):
It's pong, pong, pong, pong pong.
Now I'm starting to understandwhy my wife like like it's so
original.

Colin (01:06:49):
She living vicariously through the song.

Corie (01:06:50):
That's right, that's right.

Colin (01:06:53):
No and and and.
So I had the idea.
And then I kind of got lazywith it.
Two things happened.
I had mentioned it to Robin inmy show Right, and he kept
asking you wrote that song.
Yet I said, robin, I think I'lldo that next year Because I'd
already written one which wasgoing to be on the album.
Okay, because I'd alreadywritten one which was going to

(01:07:18):
be on the album.
He said you see, just how youexplain it to me, that could be
a real big hit.
Then I went to a show inSpectacular and out of the blue,
tommy Joseph gave that joke Outof the blue.
I touch to his neck and I saythat's a sign.

Corie (01:07:40):
Yeah, it must be the reaction to the joke too.
It must be.
No, he has something there forsure.

Colin (01:07:43):
I said that's a sign and I went home after the show and
started writing Right, Right youknow by that time you were
performing with Taxi still, orsolo.
Well, I had started being amember of Taxi, right, but we
hadn't started performing yet.
Ah, okay, we were in prep mode,right, the latter part of 1990.
Right, we were prepping tostart Oliya's Night and go

(01:08:05):
through the season.
I see.
So I hadn't played yet.
I see, and when?
So when I told Robin, okay,I've started it and so on and so
on, he said tell me when Icould come in here, because I
did it in my band room, right.
So when they say, robin, youcould come in because you know
you sequence all this stuff, andthen you go in the studio, you
put it on, then you put live, soremember, on a silver painted

(01:08:38):
stool in the bathroom.
So I pressed start and it went,and robin went so I stopped it.
I said what he said has a hitalready.
I said, robin, you haven'theard a word, you haven't heard
a melody, nothing.
I haven't heard a melody,nothing, I don't care.
His words were you cannotpossibly do anything to spoil

(01:08:59):
that.
I said what is your story?
He said you cannot possibly doanything to spoil that and I was
like okay.
So I started it again.
And Robin is like this and he'slike this, and if you see him

(01:09:20):
honestly, and he's like this andhe's like, and every time like
I sing a line or whatever, hewould be like.
And he was sitting with one ofhis legs crossed right and his
foot was just going like this,not at the beat of the music, it
was just, it was a nervous,kind and I was like Robin, it is

(01:09:40):
a man of custom.
Yeah, he said Robin he saidColin, trust me, that is our
number one sir.
I said okay, thanks for youknow your voter confidence.
He said Colin, so that's howyou ain't feeling it?
No, I I number one, sir.
I said okay, thanks for youknow your voter confidence.
He said Colin, so at that timeyou ain't feeling it?
No, and with my mother, mydeceased mother, one day when I

(01:10:02):
was working, I knocked on thedoor because it was that band
room was home.
Same culture crossroads, yeah,the band room too.
And back of the band room wasan open garage and we had
clotheslines there, so my momwould hang clothes out there
from time to time.
She knocked on the door and shesaid what's that you're working
on?
I said I'm working on a soccerfarm thing.

(01:10:23):
She said why?
She said the rhythm is hangingclose here and I'm dancing.
I said when you have time I'llsing a thing.
She said okay, she came in and Isang a song for her and she
said she said I'm no meaning,she's not a a thing, an

(01:10:48):
authority on soca music.
She said I'm no authority onsoca music, but that song, that
song, that song, and Robin, Itell you, robin, robin was like
you cannot possibly spoil that.

Corie (01:11:04):
Yeah, boy, hell that opening up to today it you can't
do nothing else when theopening play, that thing is
paralyzed here, you know it's aweird opening, yeah, it's
aggressive as hell.

Colin (01:11:14):
A fella who a you can't do nothing else when the open
play, that thing is paralyzedhere.
It's a weird opening, it'saggressive as hell.
A fellow, a guy who had taughtme a lot of music in Jamaica, a
guy he's deceased now, charlieRoberts.
Now the song became popular, sohe was accustomed to the song,
but he didn't know that it was Iwho did the song.
So we were out of touch foryears.

(01:11:35):
And then the year after I hadto go to Jamaica again and we
got back in touch and I was byhim and he was telling me the
story.
So he said people telling me,boy, you hear this Dalla Wine
thing man.
So he's playing it.
So he puts it on and he saidthis man here are crazy Him play
a minor bass line in a majorchord.

(01:11:59):
Because, as really what's goingon?
Really, the chord is G major,it's the key of G major, right,
but the brass line is G minor.
Ta-na, ta-na, ta-na, ta-na,it's a minor.
Ta-na, ta-na, ta-na.
Is it minor?
That's minor.
He said this man here is crazy.
So when he found out it was me,he said yeah, no man.

Corie (01:12:23):
And why Robert can't sit still.

Colin (01:12:26):
Yeah, it was minor and a couple of musicians abroad, you
know like why would you come upwith that?
What would make you think aboutthat?
I do not have a clue.
I had the chords down.
I actually did the major atfirst and something just wasn't

(01:12:47):
right.
So, just out of idleness, Iplayed the minor and I was like,
yeah, keeping that, so itwasn't any brilliance.
So it wasn't any brilliance,gotcha, it wasn't any brilliance
no, it wasn't brilliance, itwas distance sound.
Try that and okay, keep that.
Yeah, so what's?

Corie (01:13:04):
your reaction when you start, but I guess it hit radio
and it go on.
It had no time between when itlaunch and it pick up right.
Yeah, it launch and it pick upright.
Yeah, the food it was like aweek pick up Right.
And how long it take youwriting and all that kind of
thing.

Colin (01:13:17):
It take some time, or that song Mm-hmm About three
sessions.

Corie (01:13:24):
Yeah, and you're done, yeah, yeah, in three sessions.
Three sessions and that thingthat will.
I like to call them your songs,forever songs, because I lived
in Jamaica for a while too.
Yeah, 2008 to 2010.
And I couldn't understandJamaica soaker scene.
It seemed to be a hop-tonguething and people who go in
regular parties don't listen.
Soaker, it's that dancehallthing.
And them days it's the heightof war with Movado and Cartel.

(01:13:47):
So youth, that's what they'relooking for.
And I'll tell you somethingright, I used to look and that's
why I argue with anybody todaythat some fellas make a top 100
soaker the other day.
I don't know if you payattention to it, but I don't
know if you could make a top 10soaker without dollar wine.
And I used to go to them fets,where it is hardcore dancehall
and the dances on them isborderline violence.

(01:14:08):
Because if Muvado come in whenCarter is problems, and in the
midst of that, with all the menand Dolla Wine will come on To
me.
It was that at that point intime, destro with respect to who
they were always on Destro atthat time, because a lot of
Destro songs was covers ofpopular music like Carnival and
Tea and Jamaica music is likethat right, Plenty of reggae is,

(01:14:28):
but Dalla Wine is coming in themiddle of the hardest center
dance at the moment.
Man boy, man, dalla in and itstarted.
I'll keep watching it.
And I was like, but wait, how'dthem come up with this?
How'd them know this song?
It's so strange becauseeverywhere I go you don't hear
Soka.
But Dalla Wine was always inthe mix and it even led to the
creation of a kind of daggeringmovement.

(01:14:49):
If you never heard, I will sendsome of them for you besides
that whole, it is an era fromabout maybe 10, 2010, 11, 12.
Okay, plenty of the music.
As soon as a senator, you starthearing it, okay, because that
dollar wine was so, so powerful.
Then and I'm sure it's yourexperience, that is global reach

(01:15:11):
.
This is just every year it has.

Colin (01:15:12):
It has done well.
Um, it has reached a lot ofplaces.
It's modest.
You know what?
What somebody told me once, aJamaican guy.
He was complimenting me on hissong and I said but thanks, you
know, like he say, you neverknow where me hear it first.
You know.
I said where.
He said it's in a jukebox in atrench down in ohio.

(01:15:35):
That's what I mean.

Corie (01:15:37):
What is that jukebox in a ?

Colin (01:15:39):
trench town.
That way me get for no dollarwine.

Corie (01:15:44):
I said yeah, everywhere, everywhere.
So when I hear people talkingabout soca, I was like I'm not
sure if you could make that listwithout a song Now performing
it for the first time.
Well, I guess you're on stage.

Colin (01:15:59):
The first time was the port where Hyatt is, right that
side there on the waterfront.
There there was a high-endparty there Soka party Right,
and it wasn't even on the airyet.
So it was a a high-end partythere soccer party, and it
wasn't even on the air yet.
So it was a little thing.
But Robin said no, so you'regoing with this one too.

(01:16:21):
Yeah, robin, he was the leaderof the band, he called the shots
so I could have my opinion but,if Robin said, we play him this
that's what gotcha?
and from the get-go it was that.
And people just flocked thestage and so on, and by the end

(01:16:41):
of the set they were saying playit again.
Yeah, and played it again.
And by the next set they werelike play it again.
And but remember, that year too, there was um sookie, sookie,
sookie.
Oh god, hey boy, that mashupfine like chili, chili, baby.
Remember that year too.

Corie (01:16:53):
Mm-hmm, there was Soki, soki, soki, right, oh God Boy
that mashup fine, like chili,chili, baby.

Colin (01:16:58):
I can imagine, I can imagine.

Corie (01:17:01):
That was a mashup.
Yeah boy, yeah boy.
Another one that will juststand in time.
We play anywhere anytime, youknow.
Oh yeah, Monster hits.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, that's nice.
Who would have been theoriginal Sookie?
Sookie was written and done bywhat?
By Robin.
Oh, it was Robin who wrote the?
Song Mm-hmm.

Colin (01:17:16):
Oh, okay, we live and we live.
Yeah, robin.
Robin is an amazing talent.
Somebody could come to Robinand say I want to hear this song
and Robin could tell you ifit's going to be a hit.
Yeah, he had that.
Something touches him.

(01:17:41):
When it's going to resonatewith the public, he feels it I
have.
While I was in taxis there weresongs coming out, songs that I
would just put my head on, andRobin was saying that one ain't
making it.
You see that one?
I said Robin that that oneain't making it.
You see that one.
Yeah, is it?
I said Robin that the personhim singing in key.
He said trust me, you know theword.
He was never wrong, never whatkind of record is that?

Corie (01:18:05):
Yeah, yeah yeah, once he says it's going to make it trust
me to pick Dollar Wine then toopen.
He had to know something youknow what I mean.

Colin (01:18:13):
If he had to okay, anybody.

Corie (01:18:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now his song Writing in DollarWine, I think, is one of the
things that I have.
We were talking about missingthe band era, right, I feel like
in today's music you miss a lotof what you would have done in
music then, because if youlisten to the song, you listen
to the song, the dollar, dollar.
It looks so powerful, but ifyou listen to the song it's
really, it's a story.

(01:18:35):
It's a story Beginning to endyeah, full, complete story.
So you almost listen to thesong and you have to find out
what happened next when you youknow the chorus, you hold on to
the chorus.
There you do the dollar, butyou're waiting to hear.
It even ends by saying, um,five to one.
I want to ask you, where areyou feeling going Up?
Nowhere, I don't know.

(01:18:57):
But it's a five to one.
It doesn't mark the time too?
So it's such a, it's such a.
That's what I mean when I saythe literary part.
You know a real story and um,deliberate, when he was writing,
then yeah.

Colin (01:19:11):
Just as beats are.
You don't sit down in your homethree months after a song is no
longer repeatedly playing onthe radio and remember a beat in
.
That's true, you remember astory.
You know, yeah, when the beat,when the song is on and that
drive in you, but that appealsto you at a particular level,

(01:19:33):
right driving you, but thatappeals to you at a particular
level.
Stories go much deeper intoyour psyche because it forces
your brain to make links.
So come in the party and you'regoing to say I like how you're
moving and show me how now, andsay, well, hello, gosh, also
you're teaching her, and so onand so on.
So, yes, I'm now.
The story allows you toreconnect with the joy you had

(01:19:59):
for this song and move into thesong and dance into the song.
So even the stupidest of songsI will write must have a story,
must have a story.

Corie (01:20:19):
Let me ask you about that because a lot of people refer
to songs like um, you had umiowa butterfly shadow.
Remember when you released thissong there was a story behind
that.
There was it is it connectslike the first time I heard I
said, but this song in likeyou're just trying to find a
dance.
Again I said, but but that songnow, even today in France, you
know people would.
Can you give me the backstoryto?

Colin (01:20:33):
that I was with Sound Revolution in Toronto.
I was not a member of the bandby then, but I used to gig with
them.

Corie (01:20:42):
You know they would call me and say oh, so you used to
perform with them, so I used togig with them.

Colin (01:20:46):
Yeah, Went up to do this gig in Toronto.
Mm and the sequencer God.
I used to use the sequencer forcertain things and the
sequencer broke down Right.
So all that could happen wasthe rhythm Right.
So we're trying to fix it downand the crowd started to get a
little restless.
So Derek said what are we goingto?

Corie (01:21:09):
do.
Do you want to stop?
Oh, this is the onstage.
This is not before.
Okay with you.
So this is your on stage.
This is not before.

Colin (01:21:15):
Okay, with you On stage and crowd watching, crowd
watching.
So I say here what happened,let me do some dances.
I say everybody know the Iowaright, jump up and kick up.
This place is a tamash up.
So after four I want everybodydoing the Iowa.
So the two Iowa we played thefull with Iowa Butterfly had
come out that year too.
I'm with Byron.

Corie (01:21:36):
E Butterfly butterfly.

Colin (01:21:37):
I said, all right, I do the butterfly.
And between butterfly minutesgoing, I'm looking back shadow,
shadow jump up on one spot, thisplace, and everybody know it.
A wave mashup and everybodyknow to wave.
All right, okay, all right,let's put all together now.

(01:21:58):
So I were butterfly, shadowwave and we did that and the
crowd went totally crazy.
So directly heard me and say,hmm, yes, I'm using that because
I gonna gig with them.
But I'm of course, of course hesaid using home, of course, of
course.
He said are you using that?
I said oh, I mean of course.
Derek came back.
When the band came back inDecember and Derek called me.

(01:22:23):
He said listen, since you leave, we've been using that Iowa
Butterfly Shadow Wave everysingle time we play out.
We don't have to have anytechnical problems, we just use
it because it works so well.
Yeah, people respond yes, youknow, Colin, you think it was
bad the day you did it.
It's like part of our thing now.

(01:22:45):
You said you were going towrite a song.
Have you written a song?
I said well, no, I didn'tremember that.
You say I think you're going towrite this song.
He said because if you don'twrite it, I want to write it
Because it's guaranteed it.
I said give me a couple of daysnow and I'll tell you.
And he called me back.
He said made up your mind?
I said yeah, I think I'll writeit.

(01:23:05):
And he said okay cool.
Now how many people would havehad the decency?
Yeah, I suppose You're sittingon something that you're now
working because you've beendoing it for months.
It's a guaranteed hit.
Basically, you've been seeing Iwasn't seeing it, they were
seeing it but yet he picks upthe phone because I was the

(01:23:30):
person who had the idea first todo it.
And he picks up the phone andcalls me and says are you still
going to do it?
And even though I said, well, Ihadn't done it yet, but I think
about it, and he gave you time.
He still gives me the time tothink about it.
And then, when I said, well,yeah, I'm going to do it, he
says, well, he's going to.
How many people you know?

Corie (01:23:50):
would have done that, not many.
That is special.
That is special, yeah, yeah,yeah, because I suppose he has
fertile ground to test it everytime.
He knows, he knows, so he knowshow to work out.
So you're telling me you writethis song, live at the end of
the day.
This is the chorus, right Inreal time.

Colin (01:24:08):
Yeah, it was written in real time, just in real time,
just so.

Corie (01:24:10):
Yeah, I love it when I hear the like.
The first time I listened to iton the air.
You know, you know the highway,you know the butterfly.
Then they say jump up on onespot.
One time you had jump up on onespot.
You think shadow.
But then they say the song RevCrew.

Colin (01:24:22):
You know how that is right.
I tell you they had a song thatwas to shanley and it was a
jump up on once, but this placestarted, so they actually had
released that that year, Iunderstand.

Corie (01:24:36):
so it's a lot of which, yes, but that's what I mean with
these stories.
You know them, things isconnecting away, and then them
days you put videos out, towhich, in that era, so it's
sticking, even if you get, well,radio playing here, tv playing,
like you see mommy, come andsee you.
And I wonder sometimes aboutthe music today, like, maybe you

(01:24:56):
put it right, like it get veryrhythm focused, even if the idea
of many, many artists singingon one rhythm and then there's
not much, well, definitely notenough.
Four verse and chorus and thingAgain a whole song is a minute
and a little bit, no long intro.
Neither you had to get to itquick and I wonder how you feel
about that.
Like you feel like this storyis missing and I wonder as well,

(01:25:18):
with Dollar Wine being such aglobal or globally recognized
hit, and the joke was the joke.
The story is the story, but Ishould say without this story I
don't know if it would havereached that far.

Colin (01:25:31):
I doubt it yeah, I think all music now is one of these
things that might be keeping itback from going as far as it is
yeah, yeah, honestly, and it'sdifficult for someone like me to
have credibility sayingsomething like that, because

(01:25:51):
there are artists out theremaking millions from what
they're doing.
Now I make millions.

Corie (01:25:56):
So who am?

Colin (01:25:56):
I to be offering advice on how to attain success, but
the fact that we haven't reallytoppled that international
market yet speaks volumes.
We need to listen to thatsilence.
You know we need to listen tothat, yeah.

Corie (01:26:18):
Yeah, I see it more and more where the song is not that
this, I mean the songs peoplefetter and they're having a good
time and them kind of things.
But the staying power I know, Ijust talk more internationally
the staying power of a song weekto week during the carnival, or
sometimes carnival to carnival.
They die off.
They die not fast, it's not Idon't know how much forever

(01:26:38):
music we still make.

Colin (01:26:40):
A friend of mine coined the phrase once minimal residual
value.
So, after the fact, there'snothing that you can take away,
nothing you can keep, you knowyour vibes and your vibes, your
hype and your hype.
And then your vibes come out,go on and you go home.
Next month, next week, nextyear, something else?

(01:27:01):
Right, it's difficult tointroduce a new genre to the
world without memorable musicand not memorable from the party
last night, memorable frommonths ago.
And yeah, something mustresonate with the new.

(01:27:21):
You know, to make millions ofpeople out there who are not
privy to the culture every dayand the music is what's going to
be their connection.
You need to have something todraw them to that connection.
Of course it must be memorable.

Corie (01:27:40):
Yeah, it's like and you know, sometimes even like Dollar
Wine.
You know some songs, the hook'sso strong that people might not
have listened to really get thestory.
They might have never heard it.
It's just so strong and Iwonder if now the focus is so
much on the hook.
I try not to name no song,right.

Colin (01:27:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Some of these songs this year.
It's strong Hook-centric.

Corie (01:27:57):
Yeah, that's it, and some of them are great.
It's great songs too, but Iwonder if you feel it's the
audience Like today listen to astory and a song well, the
audience is being taught not tolisten for certain things this
is what you're saying about theChinese music right we being,
yeah, with you.
Was it also the rhythm thing,though?

(01:28:18):
Because that was not somethingthat you I think you all as band
leaders.
You're so iconic in your musicand your presentation, your
sense of style and everything.
Everybody was so focused.
You presentation, his sense ofstyle and everything.
Everybody was so focused.
You know the personal brandsand you talk about Colin Lucas
or Ronnie or Carl David rather.

Colin (01:28:39):
There's nothing or no one in this world that is all good
or all bad.
Right Right, one can argue thatwriting in rhythm gives several
artists an opportunity tointerpret a rhythm differently
and deliver on it differently.
Quite often, though, if youplay them one after the other,

(01:29:06):
unless the voice is veryunnoticeably different, you
don't know where one stop whenwhere start?
where one stop, yes, and thatcould undermine the very thing
I'm the undermining, theopportunity I'm talking about.
So it's not.
It's not a mechanism thatappeals to me personally.

(01:29:29):
Right, I prefer to write stufffrom scratch so that you know
it's like a little baby and yougive it its character and you
know you fashion it from start.
Right, if you give me a babytemplate, then All the babies
will say yeah, yeah, you knowit's like I heard you say in an

(01:29:49):
interview.

Corie (01:29:50):
You say almost like per capita, we have the most, most
amongst our talents in thecountry in the world in the
world if you count all themusicians, including all the
panelists and so on, and putthat, divide that by 1.5 million
, there's no other country inthe world that has that high a
fraction of musicians and ofcreatives, yeah, yeah, and I

(01:30:14):
think now carnival is like, Idon't want to say reduced, but
what you see when you look atthe credits for songs that make
it in a carnival season is yousee a handful of writers two or
three people.
You also see a handful ofproducers two or three people
who produce all the rhythms,they play, they write all the
songs and they give it to ahandful of artists.
So they kind of all.
You know, I'd turn here onetime and he said turn.

(01:30:35):
I say we need more of us.
I love the way he put it,because it seems to be just
getting smaller, you know, interms of the net, and it's
making me worried, you know,when I look at it.

Colin (01:30:44):
So now, when your grandson carnival monday on
tuesday, you will hear three Sitdown on the Grandstand.
Carnival Monday.
On Tuesday you will hear threeif you're lucky songs.
You'll hear one 400 times.
You'll hear another one maybe30 times.
This year was, I think,slightly different.
Yeah, at least I had a racethis year and you'll hear a
third one.

Corie (01:31:03):
Four times In my day.
You hear one song 300-somethingtimes.

Colin (01:31:05):
Another song 300-something times.
Another song 200-somethingtimes.
Yeah, in my day you hear onesong three and run something
times Another song three and runsomething times Another song
two and run something times youknow.
So you got variety.
Yeah, you know.
Now it's well, there's the onethat's supposed to win roadmats.
Everybody had to play that.

Corie (01:31:23):
Yeah, that could have happened all the time, with
bands, men like Robin decidingwhat they want to play on the
stage.
It's not that thing.

Colin (01:31:32):
Well, you could decide what you want to put forward to
the people.
But then the people are soengaged by again, the airwaves,
the airwaves telling them this,and you actually have presenters
now going out there, a coupleof days before carnival, and
saying, yeah, this is the oneonly choosing for roadmatch,

(01:31:53):
right, this is come on, manthey're playing on the trucks,
you know.

Corie (01:31:57):
So they're setting it up, you know.
I mean, you see a lot of it nowplaying on the truck.

Colin (01:32:00):
You play it on the truck.
Yeah, they're coming in, showsthat are, and shows on radio you
see it a lot.

Corie (01:32:05):
It's something that you see a lot and especially I love
the way you describe it like Iwould have never thought of it.
But when you look at a pan side, how much musicians there and
untalented people all around thepan side so even the ones who
have been playing on the nightyou really we have a large pool
of talent, so it's unfortunatesometimes that it comes down to
such a small yeah, small youknow now I have a story to tell

(01:32:27):
you before we go about my timein the band room right there.
Yeah, I have a story to tell you.
One more song I want to ask youmy tune because frontline
singers long time men whining,encouraging people whining and
things.

Colin (01:32:40):
But you have a song called Do Whine, yeah gyrate,
rotate, oscillate, and the storyof that really is oh god,
everything is whine, whine,whine, everything.
Everything.

Corie (01:32:55):
I see, that's right, I got done really so it's really a
response to the guy she was madwhen she cornered me in the
party.

Colin (01:33:05):
You're going too far with this whining ting, ting.
Oh god, that's ok.
From now on, gyrate, go behind.
Make your body rotate, that'sfine.
Make your bumsy oscillate.
Now roll your belly.

Corie (01:33:22):
Roll your belly one more time you know how people
responded to that back thenpeople take it in.
That one, bro.
How people responded to thatback then People take it in.

Colin (01:33:30):
Yeah, no, that one really pulled through the last, last,
last week In terms of peoplerecognizing this guy, this DJ.
We were real close MiltonPrimus, I forget, he was a big,
big, big DJ name.
Close, Milton Primus, forget it, he was a big, big, big DJ name

(01:33:53):
.
But Milton Primus, right when Ibrought out the song you know
the season earlier, I saidMilton, you see, when people
know coming in and down, justget a little play now and see
what will happen.
And then Milton said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But all due respect here,milton, I wasn't hearing it, you

(01:34:13):
know, because we'd come and youknow.
And I said Milton, he said boys, them young boys and them
controlling the sets yeah, yeahyeah, I didn't name but them
controlling the set.
Come down to the weekend beforecarnival weekend.
Right, we finished play a setand I'm walking through the
crowd and thing you know, justgetting the vibes in, all of a

(01:34:37):
sudden I reach by Milton, wherehe set up.
Right.
I say he say cool.
He say production sounds.

Corie (01:34:48):
Ah, okay, okay, okay, right yeah.

Colin (01:34:52):
He said wait, wait, wait.
Next thing I know he put onGyrate.
Should I watch him?
So he said wait.
When it reached the chorus hejust pressed mute and the whole
crowd, gyrate, put back to thesong Mute Rotate.
I said I'll watch him.
He said it surprised me too ora song mute rotate lock, lock
lock or sell it.
I watch him for the why he sayit surprised me too, he say.

(01:35:14):
But since last week this washappening, he so cool and it
ended up being one of the threemost played songs on the road.
I did not really on the roadall through Tonga going on this
gyrate and people singing, I wasreally pleased.
That was that is nice.
That is nice, I matured.

Corie (01:35:32):
That that is something else, boy, and I like I heard
people referring like somebodywriting and those things they
say it's parody when you'rewriting you.
You had that in mind, like yeah, yeah, I do.

Colin (01:35:40):
Oh, you had a lighter side of it yeah, if you, if you
check every, every song I'veever written, the last verse is
what I call reverse, reverse,right.
So, like in Dola, I wasteaching her to whine first and
second verse, but in the thirdverse she's looking to teach me
Gotcha Right, put your hand inthere and shake it.
Last verse, she pulls her hand.

(01:36:01):
You ready.
I know how to do this and she'stelling the corner, put your
hand in there and shake it Stay.
You know I sing oh God, stay.
In the last verse she is okay,stay.
Almost every single song I'veever written there's a revert,
because I like humor, parody.
Everything was you know,something there must hook you.

(01:36:23):
Subconsciously, that's theintention that something must
hook you, so that Subconsciously, that's the intention that
something must hook you, so thatsome little trigger will say,
oh yeah, I remember that song.
You know I remember that song.
Yeah, why again?
And your subconscious willstart to push the memory up to
the conscious.

Corie (01:36:40):
Same thing like rewind fast forward, jack, yeah, yeah,
man cussing like hell them timeinfected, right, but to hear
them.
Songs stay around a long, longtime.

Colin (01:36:49):
But that idea was Roger Boothman's, you know.
Yeah, brother, roger hadactually written a whole song,
but his song wasn't my style tosing, so I, when he brought it
to me, I said I love the idea,but can I rewrite the song?

Corie (01:37:04):
okay, and he said okay ah , nice, nice, I see them.
Stories behind these songs.
Important Roger God Okay.
And he said okay, nice, nice,nice, see them stories behind me
Song's important God rest hissoul.

Colin (01:37:13):
May he rest in peace.
He was good.
He was a good one.

Corie (01:37:15):
You know Mark Laquan as well.

Colin (01:37:17):
I knew him yeah.

Corie (01:37:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was talking about that too.

Colin (01:37:20):
But I'll give you a joke.
So I was a member of CourtBoard, right, right and.
And the day I come in thismeeting and see this new guy, I
said hi, please, let me join you.
And we had a meeting.
After the meeting, we sat downin line and talked, all of us,
and we talked about the music,because it was carnival time.

(01:37:41):
Talking about music, and Istarted to talk about this song
I can't remember the name of thesong that I found was the most
perfect song I'd heard for theyear.
It was so amazing the structure, the words, everything, how the
chord moving, everything,everything and everybody looking
at me and laughing, smiling,kind of thing.

(01:38:01):
They thought I was mama, guyand mark.
It was a song mark had writtenit was mark.
I didn't know, I see, I didn'tknow who, I just know this song
I hear him.
And for me it was just thisblissfully perfect song, right,
right.
And I thought so when Isomebody said, realized like
wait, maybe they say you know,there's a guy who I said no,

(01:38:24):
they say yeah because you knowhim, but not connected.
So you really didn't know.
I said no, I was being totallygenuine there.
I was like fuck, he was boy.
You really do understand lifesometimes.

Corie (01:38:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was sad, but I remember this person.
Yeah, the parallel between meand Mark Luke one is an
interesting one to me in termsof that creative side and that
corporate side, like being ableto balance both.
You know, it's always one that,like you, would be in a fap
where people come to see you andpay to see you and you perform

(01:38:59):
for them and watch them down inthe crowd at night and you have
a meeting with them the nextmorning and the minister
somewhere is a realjuxtaposition.
Well, let me give you aridiculous story.
You know, got a ridiculousstory.

Colin (01:39:07):
You know, got a new border report Right and I'm
making some point.
Mm-hmm, some people arepresenting so on and so on.
And a female um commissioner,mm-hmm, I must be done five,
seven minutes in the thing,right.

(01:39:27):
I said, um, she looked kind ofquizzically at me so I said are
you with me still, commissioner,before I go ahead?
And she just said you have toforgive me, mr Lucas, I'm still
trying to extract from my mind.
In my truth, with psycho shotswhining on the stage telling me

(01:39:50):
put my hand in the air, justgive me a few minutes and start
again.
And she said that couple of theother new commissioners said I
have any same problem.
I was a completely new born manso they didn't have, you know,
benefit, knowing me for years ofcourse.
I was having the same problem,I can't even say, but he used to
tell benefit, knowing me foryears, of course, of course he
said I was having the sameproblem as this man.
But he used to tell me wine andthings.

(01:40:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, youknow what?

Corie (01:40:14):
I mean All those new serious presentations and so on.

Colin (01:40:16):
Rosalind product yeah, yeah, I mean he said just
forgive me, yeah.
Just give me a few more minutesand I will, so I'll get that
image out of my mind.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Corie (01:40:29):
I don't know if we'll know we lost in Mark, you know,
because he was such a, you know,just straddling both sides, and
he wasn't average on eitherside.
No, he was excellent.

Colin (01:40:38):
Now he's on a different class from me.

Corie (01:40:39):
I know everybody right, that's what you say the whole
time.

Colin (01:40:41):
You know every time no, no, no, no, no, I don't know
Honest and modest rhyme, but itdon't mean the same thing, you
understand.
I am not saying that I have notmade a contribution.
I'm not saying I am withouttalent, right, but I don't know.
You know To be grounded, Idon't know where exactly.

(01:41:02):
I wouldn't hire me now to goand put on keyboard tracks and a
song.
No, no, right, I wouldn't.
I wouldn't.
You know, I forget this.
I drum too.

Corie (01:41:17):
I wouldn't hire me as a drummer, so I have a story for
you Give me a bit of a story, soI'm going to scale one.

Colin (01:41:21):
Yeah, you may have this one.

Corie (01:41:23):
As I look.
I was born in 1980.
And I remember going into thatband room, that.
And I remember going into thatband room, that song riff band
room, where it says it's inCountry Crossroads and it is the
single loudest sound I've everheard in my life.
I never hear nothing like that.
I was so confused because Imean, I guess I like music, I
know what I want to do at thatpoint in time, but I didn't know

(01:41:44):
what part of the culture Iwould play, Just small and while
people might be going, ifthat's on hearing music.
You could hear a saxophone, youcould hear the lead singer.
I couldn't hear nothing.

Colin (01:41:55):
Just loud.

Corie (01:41:55):
I just hear a noise.
It's one of the most powerfulthings, and what remained with
me over the years is that, morethan hearing it, you felt it.
It's just a kind of hitting.

Colin (01:42:05):
It's not a big, big room, right?
I guess musicians are in tightspaces, right?
Yeah, yeah yeah.

Corie (01:42:09):
So I say, when I come and talk to you today, I'll tell
you about how would I end up.
I compress your chest.
Yeah, a little bit.
You know what I mean?
I was telling Colin before westarted I'll go into a chest
doctor as soon as we leave.
You might be part of the reasonfor that, especially when you do
a good job.
So I want to tell you how I endup in some of them places.
I want to give you some namesand see how good your memory is.

(01:42:30):
You know a fellow named KenKobe.

Colin (01:42:33):
Of course, ken.
Well, I'll give you anotherstory.
Tell me Now.
Sunwave was, apart from vocalsand horns and things in the bed,
was keyboard-centric.
There are two keyboard playersright, one guitar player.
There are two keyboard playersright One guitar player.
There are two keyboard players.
So the bed was very keyboardcentric.

(01:42:53):
When Ken joined the band,willie made it more guitar
centric.
The bed became for Soka,because Ken was just so
remarkably talented that the bedthat he created was a little
more exciting for Soka than thebed we created.

(01:43:15):
Yeah, yeah.
So the, the, the, the, the, the, the.
The timbre of Sunrev changed alittle bit when Ken joined the
band.

Corie (01:43:27):
Yeah, yeah.
So that's how I end up in thatband room.
Ken is my band.
Yeah, yeah so that's how.
I end up in that band room.

Colin (01:43:33):
Ken's my father.
Oh, that's why you look likehim Slight.

Corie (01:43:36):
Slight.
So they was like Ken called meLinda Shepherd and she listened
to every episode.
They too excited to hear that.
They hear yeah, so they give mea long listen, though they say
boy, to call him Morda.
He had to talk to call himMorda.
So that's back then.
That moment.
I'll never forget Ken's sad,you know you know he's sad.

Colin (01:43:54):
He's how he hears so good .
It's just from the first time Iheard him play.

Corie (01:43:57):
I said yeah, yeah.

Colin (01:43:59):
And from the time Willie heard him, willie was like wow,
you see, for a long while TonyVoisier, you know that, yeah, I
know Tony.
Oh god boy his interpretation.
He and Warwood.
You know Tony was the roots.
Imagine one band had two guitarplayers like that.
Yeah, I can't understand.
Well, our answer was Ken.

Corie (01:44:17):
Yeah, I can't send this man to the hospital.
I can't let this man hear this.

Colin (01:44:21):
No, no, no, it's phenomenal, phenomenal how he
heard things, how he heard chordprogressions, you know, and how
I can't even explain it.
He was just, you know, and soWillie just used to make sure
yeah, that was that became thenew bed for the song of Soca

(01:44:44):
Sound.
Yeah, and oh God it was.
It was beautiful, it was lively.
It was yeah, yeah, yeah, God itwas, it was beautiful, it was
lively.
It was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Corie (01:44:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, who are willing to come
and talk about some of thesestories.
I feel like sometimes they'renot as documented as they should
be.
And I mean there's no amount oftime we could take to really

(01:45:15):
cover your story, but I'll giveyou a glimpse into it and I
appreciate that a little bit.
You're very welcome.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel like alittle boy back in that band
room doing this today, so Iappreciate it.
How old were you when you camein band?
Could it be Well, when he toldme the time he was in Stronger
if he was talking about in theearly 80s 82, 83, 84, so I might
have been five, six years oldmaybe and I just passed him

(01:45:37):
through.
He used to pick me up.
My mom lives in St James.
She was living on AndersonStreet Still.
We still have the house onAnderson Street so.
So sometimes he'd pick me upand they'd pass back in the band
room and whatever it wasrehearsal or whatever, I'd just
sit down and I'd take it in.
Maybe it's why I'm here now,you know, because I can't escape
.
I can't escape.
It's amazing to me now, likegoing back and listening to some

(01:45:58):
of the music.
Now I try to say I wonder if Iwas there when they was playing
Stay boy, you know that's why Iwas here.
It's just like one loud sound.
Yeah, you know so it was aspecial time, special, special
time.
Thanks very much, brother.

Colin (01:46:11):
You're very welcome Appreciate it Thanks.

Corie (01:46:12):
This was nice, thank you.

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Episode 231 | Colin Lucas

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 231 | Colin Lucas