Señor Gomez Speaks on Mas'

Mr. and Mrs. Gomez

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Staff Article
Interview Recorded: May 15, 2005
Posted: June 12, 2005

I left and went to Venezuela

I left and went to Venezuela somewhere around 1967 or 1968. At that time my father had already passed on and I started working on the ship. My mother passed on some years after. I always say, it is a pity that they are not around to see their offsprings and where I have reached, where mas' has reached, but it is a passing parade, it had to be at that time. My father was nice. He could not read and write and before I started to make mas' I played interschool sports and a picture of me came out in the newspapers. My father used to buy the papers and he couldn't read, and they would say, "Look him there read it!" And he would say, "No reading, look him there, he win the prize." They were teasing him. My father was nice, both my parents could not read and write. They emigrated from Venezuela. I am the only boy from about five of us that is alive, the rest died. It is only three sisters and myself, but I am still hanging on.

I went to Venezuela and I started to make mas' and bring out band there. But long time Carnival was water, and they still had water when I reached there, but they restricted it to the Capital. There was a guy named Desmond from South; he had all the nice girls playing Indians in his band. I met a friend named Rudolpho from Belmont; that is their family. He was from Red Army, they used to call him Ras Man. He said, "Boy, what you doing here? You here, so you have to bring a band with me." We decided to bring out a little band and I called it 'A Touch of Trinidad' and I won Best Foreign Band. The bands and them were the Brazilians with their samba business, the Columbians and the Mexicans. I came first. When it was prize-giving and when they came and they gave me my prize, they were telling them, "He is a Venezuelan in Trinidad that come back over." They gave me a nice plaque. It was nice out there. I did a band twice there and then in the third year I left and I went to New York then I came back and I spent two weeks here in Trinidad

I went to New York and I brought out a band called 'Undersea Kingdom' with one of Cito's brothers whose name was Hue. I think that was the year Mc Williams played 'Bucco Reef', because it was just before I did some mas' and so on. Cito told me about the cardboard work he saw for Mac and they made all these fishes. I was going to play with birds, but then change around to the 'Bucco Reef'. It was around 1971 I played that mas'. Then I made other productions and I spent a few years in New York and I brought out one or two bands with Errol Payne.

After a few years outside I came back home and the first man I ended up working by was Stephen Lee Heung because Bambi had left him. I went there and they had put me on a trial with the bending of the wire. That was the year when Saldenah played 'A Jewel Fantasy'. I went back with Sally and I started to work with him again.

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