I have been observing with keen interest the furor over the government’s statement of being committed to Bajan talent for Crop Over.

Government stated that they could not allow a situation to occur where foreign acts would be brought here to headline our premiere Crop Over events over local acts. So what the ass is the matter with that? That is a government policy we should applaud and as artistes we should be jumping with joy when we hear it.

I know you will start saying “Boyce you working with the NCF doing Cavalcades now and you supporting them” . That is not true, my position was always the same.

The Boyce position was well ventilated in several posts I wrote in 2007 including a famous Open the gates my ass where I cursed the previous administration over not only having a Trinidad act headlining our Party Monarch show but a radio ad with the Trini inviting us to our own Bajan national event.

Also last year the previous government had their ass royally kicked whem they had a Cohobblopot which featured Jamaican, Mr. Vegas causing the event to be scorned by the public who chose to attend the competitive 100% Bajan event “Euphoria” instead.

So without any reservation we need to applaud and endorse the stated government policy to highlight our Bajan entertainers during our Crop over season.

Well it has made a significant change in the way music can now be acquired by collectors. Music is now absolutely free and especially to the young demographic, purchasing music is no longer in their spending patterns.

In the 90’s when Madd operated a music store in Bridgetown called “Rue Rue”, it was the usual practice that every Saturday morning we had teenagers who would faithfully come and buy cds to their favorite artistes. Beres Hammond, Garnet Silk, Boyz to Men and Krosfyah sold like hot sugar cakes.
There were no cd burners in computers facilitating pirate activity and nothing called ADSL, so if you wanted music on cd you had to get it from a store.

Now the young people of today just stay home punch the name of their favorite song into the computer download it into their mp3 collection and enjoy it on their ipods and phones with out paying a cent. Damn wunnah internet people then, you should be shame!
There are teenagers out there who don’t know what a music shop looks like furtherless why you would take $50 to buy a cd

So that’s why we should take your hat off and admire the following; John Edwards of Power Station, Valerie Greaves of Number One Record Shop and Norman Barrow of A& B Music, for continuing to survive against overwhelming technological theifing odds and continual support of the music industry.
If you are not going to take your hat off, at least cut your hair…

Boyce is leaving the “theifing music” computer

Theifing blank cd

Me in a serious coordinating mood, yuh idiot….

Guess who is coordinating NCF Cavalcades this year?
If you said Peter Alphonzo Boyce you would be right.
“What” you should exclaim almost shattering your computer screen, “Peter Boyce working for the NCF?? No Freaking Way!”

Well you are freaking wrong! Peter the Boyce through my events management company Supreme Events has been engaged to work with the National Cultural Foundation to make Cavalcades 2008 the best ever.
I have been working for the past few months planning, coordinating and meeting artistes and their management.
This year you will find that all the crowd pullers Lil Rick, Peter Ram, Captain Sawyer will be back on the Cavalcade stage.

Not only big names but you will also be seeing new talent being brought to the fore and exposed in a manner that will benefit young artistes.
Gone are the days when “the Cavalcades” were used to victimize artistes who certain ex CEOs did not like or as a threat to the existence of calypso tents.
Delivering a quality event with the acts you want to see will be the number one priority, Cavalcades 2008, its going to be Great!

Around this time you should be saying “hmm so Boyce working for the government now? So he sell out…”
Well I would like to curse your ass now but I am outta time…

Log on tomorrow when I will answer your questions and queries and if needed curse you royally…..

Boyce is going to coordinate…..

 P.S; This is not another April Fool’s joke, though it sounds like it…

Yesterday I blogged about “Nothing” today it is “Something”.
The challenge of finding “something” new….

This is a Herculean challenge that our tent managers and calypsonians face on a yearly basis, producing new material in order to feed that voracious entertainment monster we call Crop Over.
Krosfyah releases a great album this year and regardless of how good it is by the next Crop Over it is expected that they go back into the studio and release “something” new. In contrast our international counterparts would release an Album and then over a period of the next 2 to 3 years release several singles from that same album, giving the material more longevity.

Let’s look at shows, Bacchanal Time produces a quality show with dancers and special effects etc and by the end of Crop Over regardless of its excellence it is deemed dead and we must go back to the drawing board and produce ’something” new.

“Cats opened on Broadway in 1982 had 7485 performances and closed in 2002

Internationally now, we have Broadway musical shows that have been running for years.
Productions like “Grease” “Cats” Phantom of the Opera” and the longest running production ever “Les Miserables”, this production has been running for 21 years and is still going.

So all like now we should still be running our 1995 Bacchanal Time featuring triple crown winner Edwin doing his “Obadele” song.

But no, Crop over is again upon us and the question people are asking is “when you gun bring something new?”

So Edwin RPB Kidsite, Asiba and Bacchanal Time are all busy trying to find “something” new to be readily consumed by the coming 2008 Crop Over monster.

Now that’s “Something”!

Heres one of the hardest Barbadian videos you will ever see, directed by Selwyne ‘Get Bizi’ Browne of Zotikos Studio.

This is a music video to Keisha Christain’s song “Totally Unacceptable” which tells the story of a woman who comes home unexpectedly and finds her man in bed with another female, her reaction becomes the basis of the storyline.

I find the video effective because it uses “real” looking people to portray the characters, the man looks like the “guy from next door”. The acting is superb and really brings you into the action, the editing and camera angles also enhance the on screen violatile situation.

Watch for the effective use of a “Matrix” effect in the video, it is to die for…

When you see the impressive work done by Selwyne Browne in this video you are left wondering “How can Barbadians be doing creative video work to this level and it is not being seen on our local CBC TV?
That is a question which begs to be answered….

They say a picture is worth a thousands words, so what are the millions these pictures are saying?

Our Poll asked, Is Chris Brown good enough for Rihanna? 29 votes (36%) people said yes, 5 (6%) said no, not sure 6 votes (8%) said not sure and a massive 40 votes (50%) said they don’t give a Rat’s ass!

Well you should care dammit! the rest of the world does, I think we need to find out exactly what are Chris Brown’s intentions towards Rihanna Fenty?

Does he plan to change her last name?

Lets take a Boyce Voice look at some pictures which were taken of the couple at various places around the world.

Here is Chris and Rihanna, do they make a cute couple? I don’t know you tell me, if Rihanna were in the picture alone that could have worked for me….

What is Chris telling Rihanna here, is he showing her how his phone works? I don’t think Rihanna cares.

Or maybe Rihanna is asking about that text he just got, and he is giving an explanation

Its pretty late to have Rihanna out at a night club ,

Rihanna cannot even take a dip with out Chris butting in, he is pretty smitten or as bajans say, Bewitched!

Looks like our own Ingrid has her sights on Chris, guess Asiba will not be happy about this, If Rihanna is going to be horned at least its by a bajan…

This Jennifer girl here also looks pretty close to Chris, will do a lick mout lou thing and send this photo to Rihanna and end the happy union..

Time for a Boyce Voice flashback!
Click to see the now defunct band Square One featuring Alison Hinds in their first music video back in the 1992. I just spoke to Alison to get the year this one came out and she told me she does not even remember the lyrics to this song.

Attention All Square One Fans, you can wipe your tears away, have you heard about the big Square One reunion show which is happening on 26th July this year?
Thats right, Andy, George, Mexican, Cecil, Alison all the original members reunite for one big massive concert.
Remember you heard it on Boyce Voice first, unless you heard it already which means you heard it here third.
Click to enjoy a young Square One featuring Alison with “This One for the Road”
(check out the fancy editing you dont see this in music videos any more)

The Plymouth Jazz festival is coming up on 25th April in Tobago, looks like an event not to be missed.

Featuring major acts like Rod Stewart, Shakira, Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Peabo Bryson, En Vouge, James Ingram and Steel Pulse.
Whoa, that’s quite a line up!
My first question, what do any of those above mentioned artistes have to do with Jazz?

Rod Stewart with his “if you want my body and you think I am sexy” no jazz there…

I love to see Shakira shaking those hips of hers while she is singing but she don’t do Jazz.

Whitney Houston belting out how I am all the man she will ever need, but no freaking jazz there either.
I challenge you to identify one of those acts that are even remotely connected to Jazz.
Is it that promoters are “selling out” by not booking jazz purists in order to attract more patrons?
At least when Chris Harper of Notes to Note puts on his Jazz events at the Plantations, he features “real” Jazz acts, and so does Gilbert Rowe with our Barbados Jazz Festival.

The next question I would ask is why do they call an event such as this a “Jazz Festival”?
When you to come to Bacchanal Time calypso tent don’t you expect to hear calypso? So when you go to a jazz festival should you not hear jazz?
If you will not be hearing Jazz not even once, why not change the name to more accurately reflect the musical fare offered,So it should be the “Tobago International Music Festival” then every thing would be covered, including Shakira shaking those hips!

I always keep my promises except for when I don’t.
Last week I mentioned how lia deserved her own write up, and here it is.

                                    This is Lia

I first met Lia Gajadhar back in 2004 when Madd was working on a dance idea to the song “Hard Ears”.
It came to me that we could use an idea similar to “Thriller” with ghouls dancing with our lead singer Eric Lewis and choreographer Trevor Priddie recommended Lia and told me she was good, just returned from studying make up in the States.

So Lia came to the Madd office and told her I wanted her to make up dead people to dance with Eric, so she asked exactly how intense to I want them to be as she can do some pretty gruesome stuff.
And I was saying to my self “yeah right” who is this lil girl claiming she can do make up gross people out?”
Well I could not have been more wrong, look at this picture…

Here is Eric with the Trevor Priddie and his dancers made up by Lia, she did some make up that was so horrific that patrons actually scampered from the dancers in horror when they went into the audience.
Even Eric’s own daughters became afraid of him after seeing him performing with the “duppies”.

Lia used a technique where she started with one level of horror make up effects that intensified as the season progressed, so you ended up with the dancers looking like accident victims with chunks of flesh hanging from their body.

I remember once being back stage when lia was finished working on the “dead people” and they looked like bodies that had started to decompose. “It was freaked me out and I had to leave. It reminded me of seeing Ingrid with out make up once.
 

Because of the excellent make up effects from Lia and effective choreography by Trevor Priddie and his dancers “Hard Ears” became one of the most effective live presentations Madd has ever had in Bacchanal Time calypso tent, my only regret was that I was in it as an undertaker and didn’t get to sit in the audience and enjoy the spectacle of it.

Lia making up Soca Queen Alison Hinds

We are always talking about the front line performers and not enough on the talented people behind the scenes, Lia Gajadhar is one of those people.
The ultimate testimony to Lia’s talent how ever is what she did with Ingrid Holder, a make up person that can make Ingrid look beautiful has got to be good!

Boyce is leaving the computer before Ingrid finds me ….

It is a picture of a Rock you idiot, you don’t know what a Bajan rock look like? I had to caption it…? cheese don bread..

When I first started writing Boyce voice I had a couple of ideas as to how it could be an interesting site that people would want to visit.
One of the ideas I put to Darron was to have an element of “gossip” where you give readers some glimpses into the personal lives of bajan personalities similar to the drivel publications I criticized yesterday.

So Boyce Voice would have done some bits about Lil Rick’s personal life, who Jon Doe is seeing on the side and about DJ Dave Smooth’s “play ground”.
Would have gotten some hot news on Alison Hinds and dug up something about Edwin not about who is the “Voice in his head” but who is the new voice whispering in his ear.
Then I would have done a piece on Peter Ram and where he got his last name from.

I was all fired up and ready to go, then it dawned on me how big Jon doe is, Could you imagine dropping a remark about Jon Doe and having him come to look for you?
Not to mention Peter Ram, Ram is a serious man when it comes to those things,
As for Lil Rick the Hypa Dog, I don’t think it would be any fun being attacked by a dog. Believe me, Rick and ram are people you do not want to get on the wrong side of.
I was going to do a piece on who Santia is seeing now since she is too small to attack me, then I realize she was a lawyer and could sue my ass to kingdom come

Then I realized people like Dave Smooth are on the radio constantly and would just take an afternoon and castigate me on the air, or Alison Hinds would just meet me and knock me down with her behind.
When I started to consider the dangers of being attacked physically and verbally by enraged entertainers I decided it would be safer to stick to attacking the Government, NCF and the Police.
I also remembered the saying’s ‘people who live in glass houses should not pelt rocks” and “let him who is with out sin throw the first boulder”, take those wise words with you as you go through your day.

Boyce is leaving the computer as a Rock comes flying through screen….