Foxwood and East Steels at Otley Carnival 2017

If it is the third Saturday in June it must be . . . . .

Otley Carnival. Yippee! How welcome are we! Back in the day Foxwood played this gig alone, but really we didn't have enough players so we invited East Steel to join us. But this year . . . . .

There was only Lynn and Anne from East Steel. Foxwood was actually in double figures.

As it happened my mother had just been moved to Wharfedale Hospital that week. Morgan I said, mum, I am going to visit her. Do you want to come with me? I said Mig, on Saturday we play Otley Carnival and Wharfedale Hospital is in Otley. That was a coincidence too far.

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And Mig played Otley Carnival. Giving us four soprano players. Which, om a float means two either side. So good. Also, I was on the float with three of my own children. No words.

All in all Foxwood was/were me, Daisy, Vicky, Georgia, Morgan, Natalie, Charlotte, Gary, Amy and from East Steel - Lynn, Anne.

It was a lovely day. Our van was brock so John lent us one. I don't recall any real disasters, so here are some pictures.

Foxwood and East Steel at Otley Carnival

It's the third Saturday in June. It is Otley Carnival. We are Foxwood Steel and East Steel. And this is our umpteenth time playing it. It never disappoints.

This year East Steel is me [Victoria], Bex, Sophie, Vicky, Wanda, Wendy, Maddie, Lynn, Joyce, Jeanette, Anne, Pippa.

Foxwood Steel is  me [Victoria], Bex, Sophie, Vicky, Natalie, YiBai, Amy, Gig, Charlotte.

Guest Doves are George, Millie.

That's nineteen players, twenty-six, cut down ex-oil drums, twenty-six stands, four banners and two sets of bunting.
















I make three float diagrams, distributing the high and low sounds as enely as possible while retaining friends and families [Wendy-Jeanette and me-Georgia], and four setlists. I leave behind two setlists and two diagrams, but I chain my setlist to my handbag and never lose it. A first!

We play our usual Carnival tunes setlist, ruin Matilda/Soca Junkie, then make them all play/sight-read Rolling in the Deep, Fix You, and some other moving slow one.


Our driver was Daniel at first, then he wasn't allowed cos it was his first float drive and we got X who had driven us 3 years ago. Driving out onto the Leeds Road continues to be very scary. We hang on for dear life then burst into Boardwalk, or whatever.

Thanks as ever to Rhona and the crew for organising it all, and asking us over and over. Thanks to Kirsty T for the static shots.

turning into parade ground

cab backing up to float

Foxwood Steel and East Steel at Otley Carnival 2015

After a van booking mix up I was glumly contemplating fitting a 22 piece steelband into a Ford Transit, in fact my Ford Transit. But it's nil desperandum for me, whom a friend once described as "relentlessly cheerful". And it's nil desperandum for Bex, considered by some to be UK champion van-packer. So we decided to:

 

 

 

 

1. Abandon the big basses

2. Give Wanda the drum kit to put in her car

3. Bring as few doubles and triples as possible

4. Pack carefully

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, we did all that, and two players didn't play [one never was, and one asked did I mind?].

 

 

 

So Otley Carnival June 20 2015, Foxwood, East Steel, one Sparrow. Gig now works Saturdays, Ash was at a wedding. Bex and I already had abandoned big bass and cellos, and set up our soprano [ex-tenor] pans. Eyes glued to the songsheets I sight-read my way through tunes that I knew in bass motor-memory. Vicky and Sophie were "invited" to do the same. There was a time when everyone wanted to play the melody, seen as being the lead singer of the band. Now we are all too cool for such things.

 

 

 

Did I mention the Dalek?

 

 

 

Then Tim phoned to say he thought four drummers was too much. I assured him that, in Trinidad steelbands had more than that in their percussion section. When we arrived he realised I meant two drum-kit with four people sharing, and otherwise playing other percussion. Too amusing! Four drum-kits! In the little blue van! No!

 

 

unloading

 

 

 

So, the day dawned with threatened showers. I was changing gears with the second drum pedal. I was braking with the central struts of the collapsible stands - not true. Poetic licence]. Everybody gave everybody else a lift. It was all going too smoothly. And it never stopped going smoothly. True California Girls was a minor disaster. Then Daisy shouted "Restorative Song!" and then it was Clocks.

Dalek coming home

 

We were me [Victoria], Bex, Vicky, Charlotte, Amy, Sophie, Wanda, Pippa, Claudia, Kirsty, Tim, Natalie, Yi Bai, Anne, Wendy, Lynn, Jeanette, Daisy, Maddie and Katie. And Andrew came to take photos.

 

 

That's it. Left the pans, and the ladders in the Little Blue cos tomorrow it's Foxwood at Cross Flatts Park.

 

What a lovely day.

 

 

 

 

Debriefing
 

 

Foxwood Steel and East Steel at Otley Carnival aka The Wrong Van

Well Debs, I'd say it was tempting fate when Karen turned up with paper decorations! Did it rain, then? No, Debs it hailed! On June 15th, it hailed.

First off, me and Rick [okay, Rick and I] park the vans end to end, then Bex and me [okay, Bex and I] load pans from one to another [or back into my front room of course]; eventually Tim hoves into views dragging a ton of ironware that is our second drum-kit.

Setting up the float, we found that we had only left behind the second hanging tom on this occasion, a great improvement on forgetting the snare. However, life was about to take a strange turn for the worse!

First we unloaded the van, then Rick moved it to the organisers' designated area; I asked Wanda to start putting the empty cases back in the van; Wanda asked someone which was our van; someone pointed to a white van; Wanda pointed the key fob to said van, went over, it was open, put the cases in. Then Tim realised that the clutch of the hi-hat was still in his cymbal case, and the cymbal case was now back in the van, and someone went back to the van, but the van that the cases had been put in had gone. So, the wrong van. Hmmm. We tied the hi-hat cymbals together, and advised Tim against fretting.




Debs, all this excitement and we hadn't even set off. Anyway they've levelled the road surface at the turn out of the cattle market, so that bit where your stomach lurches was all in the anticipation and not in the reality.

At first the rain just sparkled a bit, threatened, then withdraw. Next minute, Debs, it was all hail let loose, and heaven help me, Amy, Anne, Lynn and Cathy and all of us on the windward side, Otley High Street.

We were me, Lizzie, Gig, Natalie, Bex, Varshika, Daisy, Vicky, Tim, Amy for Foxwood Steel and Anne, Wendy, Lynn, Becky, Peter, Wanda, Wendy, Kirsty, Jeanette, Ruth, Karen, Alli and Joyce for East Steel.

Foxwood and East Steel at Otley Carnival

Well, Debs, I guess you don't want to know how good Otley Carnival was.

After the glowering skies of Cross Flatts and St Barts, the downpours that were Adel, Berkhampstead and Beckett Park, and the ex-gazebo that was Donovan's Allsorts, we had just decided to fashion mini rain shields to attach to the front of our pans. Karen and co made theirs out of laminating pouches; I left mine uncut at home, and when I tried to saw the perspex up later it cracked. Back to the workbench for me.

I have however been working away at this idea for a couple of years now. Every so often Andy A and I have a design discussion, and this flaming June [so to speak], this raining June has focused my mind to see this idea properly realised.


Meanwhile the rain held off . . . .  and off . . . .  and off. Obviously Daisy, Charlotte and Georgia aren't wearing these shades against the bright sun!


As we turned into the lower fields, we overtook the Djembe truck and for a while we jammed along with each other. Ace.

 The crowds, as ever, wonderful, but, sadly no Jimmy Savile hanging out by the bridge this year. In honour of Whitney and Robin we calypsoed I Will Always Love You and Words. Banana! I threatenned them with Gary and Andrew's  Sing, but luckily for the increasingly restless bands,  I ran out of time working it out. [Since then I have met Sophie J and the sheet music, and in fact it never was that straight-forward.] I forgot the ladders - again, but luckily Jacky and Kenny live in Otley. Here we are below celebrating the borrowed ladder. 


[Jacky and I were in a rock of rock band together back in the day. We were rubbish, but it was better than hanging round while the boys took centre stage, and we even had articles written about us in the NME, one by my friend, Ziyad, and one by Swells [Seething Wells]. Both somewhat exagerated our importance upon the Leeds and Bradford punk rock scene i.e. gave us any, but we didn't care. In fact we were quite proud.] 

In one or both bands, playing Otley Carnival 2012 were Alli, Karen, Peter, Jeanette, Ruth, Lynn, Anne, Adele, Wendy, Vicky, Katie, Amy, Lizzie, Daisy, Charlotte, Natalie, Georgia, Joe, Bex and me.

Otley: A Right Proper Carnival

Dear Debs

Taking a break from gigging, I headed south to the big Anti-Acadmies Alliance conference in London last weekend. Of course, pans must go on, every summer weekend, and so Natalie and Carrie-ann held the fort, taking the Silver Robins from City of Leeds school to play for Little London Community Day, while Mrs Durkin and Miss Holt looked after our gorgeous Little London year 5 Percussion group.

But suddenly it's the 3rd weekend in June, and now it's Otley Carnival. Like Brotherton and Byram, it's a proper, old-fashioned carnival with floats and proper fancy dress, troupes and marching bands. Foxwood, East Steel, Doves and you and Caroline from South Steel. And, then a dancing troupe from Leeds Museums, with West Indian style costumes, as you can see below, and some well-practised dancing.

Two things fell off the float after we hasd stopped; one had a happy ending; one not so.

One: Taking her phone out of her pocket, Natalie watched in dismay as her ring of white gold and with sentimental bounced behind a banner and out onto the ground below. Happy ending; it was mostly gravel and such grass as there was was short. I found it.

Two: Karen from East Steel/Steel Rising was not so lucky: getting off the float, and sad ending: she knocked her elbow on the lorry, and finished her day at the first aid tent. Now, with her arm in a sling she needs to be practising one-handed, methinks!