Tribal Fusion - Reggae on Kwajalein Atoll
My keyboard has been silent for a while. Partly because it has seemed that I have not done anything lately to live up to my trip to Ailinglaplap but mostly because I have been pretty busy with music. Around the end of February a Puerto Rican guy here named Ozzy asked me to play with his Latino band for a Hispanic Dinner Dance that was going to take place on Kwajalein. I had never played Latino music before but am rather fond of Mexican food so I agreed. The band was composed of 2 trumpet players, an acoustic guitar player, a drummer, and my friend Ozzy who played percussion and sang. Ozzy was the only Latino in the band. The rest of us were gringos. I started to practice with them and they had a list of about 10 songs that were pretty much the standard songs that gringos expect from a Latin music band…
So I had just started practicing with them when the singer in my old band announced that he wanted us to play at the Kaleidoscope of music. I had seen signs for this show and expected it to be a bunch of middle-aged ladies singing choir music. But it turns out they had quite a variety of bands and musicians. In typical Wise fashion (Wise is our singer and manager) he didn’t put this together until the week before. We were only going to do one song but we had less than a week to learn it. So I shifted gears and started practicing with them and ignored my Latino band for a while. We pulled it together though and did alright at the show. I am impressed with the talent here. There were some teen-age girls who performed songs and a wide array of groups ranging from a dude singing country ballads to a classical pianist, and then there was our reggae band. We were preceded by an all girl band (it had been quite a few years since any of these ladies would have been referred to as a girl) that did a cover of the rock classic “Don’t fear the Reaper”. We did a reggae version of “The Scientist”. I had never heard the song before but they said it was just as well because we did it completely different than the original. We received many nice compliments afterwards. The best was when I was gathering my equipment together and the base commander (a full bird colonel) turned to me, pointed a finger and said, “I want to talk to YOU!” I had some of the same feeling that a child has when he is caught with his fingers in the cookie jar (you can ask my mom why I know how that feels). I couldn’t imagine what I had done wrong but was feeling guilty nonetheless. I sheepishly walked over to him and he went on to say that he really enjoyed our show and that he would like my band to perform at a military ball that is going to be held. It made me feel very good.
Figure 1 Tribal Fusion at the Yokwe Yok Club on Kwajalein
The next week I was back to practicing with the Latino band. I think the show was the following Saturday night. The leader had sent us out a message saying we were supposed to dress up and wear long pants. I replied that I didn’t have any long pants except jeans and had no intention of wearing them. I felt they were lucky if I didn’t wear my old green shorts with rips in them (that I had worn for the Kaleidoscope of music). Our drummer said he was going to wear pants with the rear ripped out so he could moon the audience. But I did wear my nicest pair of shorts and my best aloha shirt. It was ironic because I had seen some ladies selling tickets to this and I asked them if it was formal and they told me no it was very casual. I think they have a different idea of formal and casual than I do. I told our leader he could just explain to them that I was from Roi. The night was pretty nice. They had catered a Mexican dinner. We opened up the show with our 10 songs or so. We did ok considering everything. I liked the song the “girl from Ipenema” the best because I could improvise the most on bass. A lot of the songs had too simple of a bass pattern. I might have spelt Ipenema wrong. After us they had a regular smorgasbord of entertainment. They had some people get up and do fancy Latin dances like the tango. The most entertaining I thought were the girls who got up in full costume and did a number of dances from various Latin American countries and even from Spain. They had one dance where they wore masks of old men and danced around in a very comical manner. I think it might have been called the dance of the old men and was possibly from Cuba.
Figure 2 Wise and Danny Jamming on Percussion
Having finished that show off it was time to get back to work with my reggae/rock band. We were preparing for the fourth annual Spring Break Music Festival. I wrote about my appearance in last year’s festival. It is a great day all around. Aside from the numerous bands, they have a beer tasting garden, a chili cook-off, and various ethnic foods such as Thai and Filipino. Regrettably, I did not get a chance to eat any of the Thai food (my daughter and I both love Thai food) or even some lumpia (Filipino egg roll). We had serious difficulty getting the entire band together to practice. The first couple of practices were just the singer/keyboard player, drummer, and myself. We finally got the two guitarists to come down from Roi but then the drummer didn’t show up for practice. I did my part to make life difficult by going to Majuro the weekend before the concert for the Cocoanut Cup. Finally the night before the concert we got the entire band together but could only practice for an hour as the guitarists had gone surfing earlier and we had to quit at 9 due to the rules at the CRC where we practiced. We got together for a short time the morning before the show but the singer was quite late so we lost a lot of practice time. Another problem we had was coming up with a name we could all agree on. Last year I had come up with the fantastic name “Labba Mout” which means blabbermouth in Jamaican. For some reason the guys wanted to change the name. We went through many iterations on email and could not agree on anything. One problem was I kept submitting names that had the word Dread in it. If anyone came up with a decent name I would always suggest we add dread to the name. My best idea I thought was the name “Dread Beats”. I thought it was quite clever but could not get the rest of them to agree on it. I guess I’ll save it for when I move back to the states and form a reggae band. The night before the show we were talking about how we were a fusion between reggae, rock, jazz, and blues and we just came up with the brilliant name Tribal Fusion. Even though it did not have the name Dread in it I thought it was good enough. The drummer wanted to shorten it to the Tribes but I wanted to stick to a name we could finally agree on plus I thought fusion described us better.
Figure 3 Author with New Guitarist Steve putting our best side forward
Right before us in the list of groups was the local Hawaiian band “Pure Aloha”. I always enjoy hearing them play but received an extra bonus when a very attractive Hawaiian lady did a hula dance in front of the stage. I really appreciate the art that goes into that dance and so it was probably my favorite part of the show. Amazingly enough we took the stage at 5:30 that day and pulled things off pretty good. We had added a second guitarist since last year and this guy was terrific. Our other guitarist is excellent as well so it gave us a good sound and freed up Wise to play other instruments like the congas besides just the keyboard. On one song the new guitarist played some kind of African Drum (I won’t try to spell the name). There were several more acts after us and the show was finished by a band called the “Zooks” which is sort of a fixture here on Kwajalein. They play a lot of good time music from back in the day so everyone enjoys them a lot including myself. I’m friends with most of the guys in the band and they are always trying to get me to jam with them. Unfortunately they are breaking up for various reasons.
Figure 4 Tribal Fusion with Guest Violinist
Wise decided that since he was DJing at the club the next Sunday that we should come and practice before he DJed . So last night we performed a couple of sets. The first set was pretty rough if you ask me. In the second set we did about 3 songs that we had never even practiced. One was a reggae version of “Sweet Home Alabama”. It came off pretty good. Our guitarist had never played it before but just figured it out in his head the day of the show. I was impressed. Our new guitarist couldn’t make it to the show because he was busy getting his advanced open water certification (for diving). The second set came off much better and people were asking us to play more when we told them we were finished so we played “Red, Red, Wine” as an encore. After the show I hung around some and the lead guitarist from the Zooks and his friend invited me over to their table. They asked me if I would like to play with their country rock band. I was too busy with my reggae band to play with them. I heard a lot of compliments. Some were from people telling me I was a killer bass player (believe it or not) and others from people telling me we were the best band on Kwajalein. Well, we’re big fish in a very small pond. It is kind of like saying I’m the best DJ on Roi-Namur. I am the only DJ on Roi-Namur. Nonetheless, it made me feel real good to hear people flatter me. I haven’t received a lot of genuine flattery in my life so I am always happy to be complimented about something that means a lot to me like my music.
Figure 5 Jamming with Guest Violinist
A problem that all bands have the world over is a needing a place to practice. We are quite fortunate in that the Vets Hall has agreed to let us keep our equipment there and to practice there as late as we want. In return, they would like us to play for them once a month. Wise is negotiating free beverages for us if we play. We don’t come cheap.
Next Saturday we are playing at the Outrigger bar here on Roi. I will probably not send this to you until then so I can add some more pictures.
Figure 6 One of the last known Photographs of my Guitar Chord being used by guest Musician who did not return it to me
NEXT WEEK As promised I am finishing this the following week. We played here at Roi-Namur to a delighted crowd of drunks. Everyone had a great time it seemed. We had some guest musicians. One was a Sri-Lankan woman who played the electric violin and sang the chorus for the song Angel. She also got up and sang a solo that she accompanied with an acoustic guitar. I can never remember her name so I just call her “the violin player” or else “the chic that borrowed my guitar chord and could not remember what she did with it when I wanted it back.” The other guest was a guy named Keith who used to be my boss. He is an excellent saxophone player (a real nice boss too) and got up and played the song Tequila with us. The only problem is that neither the 2 guitarists nor myself new the chord pattern for the bridge. The guitarist got away by faking it with a single strum but I needed to know so I just dropped out during the bridge. It was our worse song so we played it twice, once in the first set and then as one of our last songs. We have decided to practice before we play again. So far we’ve only practiced twice with the entire band and have played 3 gigs. I think it is better to practice more often than you perform.
Figure 7 Tribal Fusion – From Left to Right, Danny, Wise, Steve, Author, and Eric
Technorati Tags: Reggae, Tribal Fusion, Latino music, Marshall Island, Kwajalein, Roi, Roi-Namur
One Response to “Tribal Fusion - Reggae on Kwajalein Atoll”
 Comment by Richard Jones September 6th, 2007 at 12:23 pm |
That Author guy looks alot like this guy Glenn that I work with… wierd!!! |