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Describe the atmosphere and live music at a local pub, restaurant, festival, church or temple, club night.... inspire other people to check it out!
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Musician: George Brade
Location: Holloway, London
Instruments: Steel Drums
Music: Montserratian/ Steelband
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HOW I CAME TO THIS MUSICÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýWHERE I PLAYÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýA FAVOURITE SONG |
  
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 ÌýÌýListen (5'30) to George's steel band
Where I Play:
I’m the caretaker here at the Whitington Community Centre. When I first started to work here, about six years ago, the manager was a lady called Margaret Kennedy. She was very, very good. They used to have a little carnival up and down the road here. So I said to her 'I’d like to do steelband' and she said 'Go ahead'. That's how it started. Now we come together and play the pans every Friday evening.
Most of the people who play in the band are from Montserrat though we've a white American guy called Jay, a very nice man who has been with me from the very start. We have people of all ages in the band. We’ve got a couple of band members who came over here because of the volcano back in Montserrat in 1996. There's one young girl who plays with us who came over then. She’s doing very well, she’s very quick because she was born on the island and so she’s got the rhythm of the island music. I went back to Montserrat in 1998 to see for myself what the volcano had done and I can tell you, it was bad. It was a real disaster!
I make and tune all the pans for the band. I make them just from ordinary oil drums. Each pan takes me about two weeks to make. The ones up front are the tenors. We got three tenors, two double tenors as well as three guitar pans. I play one of the tenors, although I could play anything in the band. I teach music part time in a local school. I also teach some little kids here before the big band on a Friday.
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