Ay ay, look who!
http://www.bcraw.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1443:t-t-rock-the-both&catid=22&Itemid=22
Photograph by Nigel Crane. Image manipulation by Kai.
My name is Gary Hector and my rock 'n' roll band, jointpop, has just released it's sixth album, The Pot Hounds.
I’m not a musician. I’m a rock ‘n’ roller! I wouldn’t want to play rhythm guitar for Machel Montano. The boy’s doing fine on his own. I wouldn’t mind having his budget, though.
I used to ask the people who criticised me for playing “white music” if they liked Brian Lara, Dwight Yorke and Russell Latapy. And when
they said, “Of course", I would say, "Well, they play white sports".
In my band, we don’t think about where we “come from”. We are just telling our stories. The good the bad and the ugly of TnT. We are not interested in any formulas for anyone.
It would be the easy thing to say that the name jointpop is about ganja, but its really about various pop music styles joined together. A bit of old school British Invasion , classic rock, blues, country,rockabilly, punk and indie. Hey: it’s only rock n roll.
I grew up in one of those two-bedroom duplex-type government houses, opposite the plannings in Mon Repos. We did not have much, but all we needed was a football. Our playground was the San Fernando Hills, not the half hill they have now.
I started playing the guitar in the plannings and would go there to watch the resident Reggae band practice. The keyboard player was Junior " Ibo" Joseph, who is a top producer now. I became close friends with the two guitar players in the band, even going on to be the best man for the wedding of one. They would come to my house and teach me chords and later on I would teach them rock n roll guitar licks.
Who is that Mick Richardson cat credited as songwriter on our first album, Port of Spain Style? An alter ego maybe? He was born in New York City when we toured there, like Bowie being Ziggy and Aladdin Sane and, well, Bowie. It's also clear its some bastard son of Mick and Keith .
I have two sisters, Susan and Jackie. Susan lives here and Jackie lives in Canada. My mother, Clara, lives in Canada. And my father, Joseph, lives on Love Street, Heaven.
My favorite subject was Geography, it was the only one that kept my mind focused. I failed math six times, but I do know jointpop got five members.
I was never a fan of fights and confusion in school. It was all football for us. And some cricket and classic old talk.
My romance is for my family, my band and TnT football.
My wife, Wendy, and I have been together for 23 years. Our son Cheyenne is 22 and our daughter Rainbow-Sioux is 20. I'm not sure they resent their names sometimes and now I'm scared to ask. Wendy always said if we had a third child we would have called the child John or Lisa or something normal just to confuse people. It wasn’t a "hippie" thing, but more to do with my fascination with Native American Indian culture and beliefs, of which I own and read lots of books on.
I was raised in a BIG Roman Catholic family. LOTS of family but I was the only one christened as an Anglican. The only church available at the time. So at ten years old I re-christened as a Roman Catholic. Not sure why, maybe so I have have communion with all my cousins.
Outside of a wedding or funeral, I have not been to church for a long time, but I hope there is an afterlife. I don’t need any more long cold sleeps.
I don’t think about favourite colours, or about colours at all. The other night, for a gig, I wore a red pants and a purple shirt and my daughter said I look like a box of crayons. But I do like red,white and black for some reason.
Some people want it, but I don’t think there is a race problem in Trinidad and Tobago. But TnT will survive them. Ask the Caribs.
I have never hit anyone in anger. But if the people who trying to destroy TnT football continue, then I might.
We wrote and recorded "Little Giants" back in 2001 for the national football team. And we have a TnT flag with “JOINTPOP FC” written on it that we’ve put up at every gig for the last 16 years. It’s part of our fabric.
Every December we do a gig called Noise ‘n’ Toys. Patrons are asked to bring a toy along with the entrance fee and we collect hundreds of toys which we give to various underprivileged kids homes. We do insist: No Toy Guns. This year the gig is at Shakers on the Avenue on Wednesday coming, December 12. Which will also be the concert launch of our new album The Pot Hounds. It’s been in local CD stores and on digital downloads sites worldwide since last November.
We knew some people would get confused about the album name. lt's a bit like "The Pot Hounds " being a fictional band. Somewhere from the mid-70's. Kinda "almost famous". Plus with the TnT connection with the pot hounds being the neglected street dogs, just like jointpop.
We get people complaining all the time that we haven’t stayed true to what one critic - BC Pires - called the “calypso rock” of our first album, Lost in Space. But if I have a head ache, I wont ask them to take the Advil.
It might be strange that I only write [songs] at night, and I can only do it in a certain part of the house. Which I have to find repeatedly, as I move house so often. Just like a pot hound.
In a film Walt Lovelace made about the recording of our January Transfer Window album, I said, “God sends songs”. Someone asked me about that. I said, “Are you implying that God is from Liverpool?” Well, I have to show respect for my gift of songwriting cause I pass the ball like Marvin Andrews and bat like Courtney Walsh, so all I can do is write songs, and when I do, I try to be honest and open with it. So I do believe songs come from a higher place. But I have to have a word with God because I noticed he sends the better songs to Rihanna and Nickleback. At least according to our local radio stations.
I don’t have a favourite from the album yet. But Sweet Nothings and Man Dog Millionaire are quality songs.
There’s a line on Man Dog Millionaire: “Money won’t get you to Heaven/ But you sure see Hell without it”. I first heard that 20 years ago from the late "Christian Soldier", Edmund Hay, the older [street character] guy who used to be outside Pelican [Inn] all the time. It stuck in my head all this time. So I fit it into a song.
Let's Pray for Rock ‘n’ Roll always turn on fans when we tour the UK, but they could not buy the song, so we recorded a new version for this album. So it's now available to them. We also redid The Water Supreme because it fits in with the feel of the album. Both were last minute decisions.
The best thing about recording The Pot Hounds was just to think there was a chance of us not recording another album and we actually did it. The worst thing was the grand cost of rum and cigarettes.
A Trini is everything.... Everything.
Trinidad and Tobago means everything to jointpop. So tell them people to leave us alone
