Hometown Bound
Pasadena’s Upstream rock their ‘West Indian Boogie’ at two local concerts this week
By Bliss 07/29/2010
Reggae Splash events used to be highlights of the July-August club scene calendar in Old Pasadena, with Pasadena’s own Upstream headlining the party-band lineups. But the demise of venues like Domenico’s ended those colorful summertime gatherings — and most of Upstream’s local gigs. The soca-reggae quintet kept busy on the reggae circuit in LA, Ventura and Orange Counties, but rarely plays in their hometown.
So this week should be good news to fans: Upstream will be playing free park concerts in Arcadia and Altadena on Thursday and Saturday. According to bandleader Haile Blackman, they’re also preparing two live albums for release.
Blackman co-founded Upstream in 1989 in his native Trinidad before moving here in the early 1990s. Soca is literally in his blood: His father, Lord Shorty, nee Garfield Blackman (who named himself Ras Shorty I after converting to Rastafarianism), created the genre, drawing from calypso rhythms and Indian drones. Blackman hears a lot of soca and reggae these days, albeit much of it hybridized under the “world music” umbrella.
“When they say ‘world music,’ they don’t give a definition to anything,” he laments. “They just call it ‘world,’ you know? I hear so much of reggae and soca in popular music today. You hear songs on the street that are soca songs, but they call it pop, or pop artists are doing it. Or they call it reggaeton. But it’s actually West Indian music; it’s the music that we’ve been playing for years.”
He lets out a deep, warm laugh when asked if American and Trinidadian audiences differ: “Big time.” Despite Trinidad’s lasting hold on his music, he does not perform there.
“I’ve always been different to the music that was in Trinidad,” he says. “My dad … created music [soca] that everybody dug but it was different, and it took a while before they accepted that, you know what I mean? But once he created that, he moved on, because he was always different. He walked to his own drum. He didn’t follow a trend. All of his children are the same way: we put our music the way we feel, however we want to play. So we create our own scene and just do our own thing. … For an average listener, it may seem Caribbean, but it’s still different from a Trinidadian point of view.”
He lists Machel Montano, 3 Canal and Square One among the Trinidadian acts still captivating his interest, but admits he’s “straight-up old school.” So how does he describe Upstream’s energetic sound?
“West Indian boogie.”
Upstream plays from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday at City Hall West Lawn, 240 W. Huntington Drive, Arcadia (626-574-5400); and from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday at Farnsworth Park Amphitheatre, 568 E. Mt. Curve Ave., Altadena (626-791-3747). upstreammusic.com
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