Band From Space - sung by “Crazy”

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‘Band From Space’
sung by “Crazy”

2023: Tune of choice | LH Pan Groove - Trinidad & Tobago Panorama

Tune of Choice 2013 | Our Boys | Couva Joylanders - Trinidad & Tobago

Tune of Choice 2007 | Desperadoes | Renegades  | Pan Glow  | Pamberi  | San City Steel Symphony | - Trinidad & Tobago

Tune of Choice 2007 | Pantonic| Adlib | Sesame Flyers  |  D'Radoes  | - New York
 
Tune of Choice 2007 | Pantasia| Real Steel | Croydon | Glissando - United Kingdom



‘Band From Space’
Music by Amrit Samaroo
Lyrics by Edwin “Crazy” Ayoung

‘Band From Space,’ Amrit Samaroo explains, is a true ‘pan song’ in every sense of the word. He wrote it for the New York stage side steelband he plays with and arranges for, Steel Sensation, and they have performed it. It was also the Panorama tune of choice for Pantime in St. Lucia for 2006.

‘Band From Space’  - There were different lyrics then for the song, but Amrit says he “wasn’t too happy with the topic” so this time around he redid the lyrics. “The perfect man for the whole thing was Crazy [Trinidadian calypsonian who resides in the US]; it was a crazy topic.” He enlisted the assistance of fellow colleague and steelpan arranger Kareem Brown, who is also versed in studio production and operations, to turn out a musical product that would be favorable with the wider steelpan fraternity.

Both Brown and Samaroo have won scholarships from the Music Literacy Trust fund, which enabled them to study together at the University of the West Indies. Furthermore, Amrit says that the young arrangers like himself, Brown, Cheo Cato (arranger for the 2006 Junior panorama champions, St. Augustine Senior Comprehensive Steel Orchestra) and others, continually ‘bounce ideas off each other’ to have a sense of where the [pan] music should go.

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