Kes The Band Kicks Off an “Endless Summer” at FRESH in Brooklyn 2014
Memorial Day weekend in New York was already packed with Caribbean parties in 2014, but on Saturday, May 24, FRESH brought a live Soca experience to Canal Plaza in Brooklyn with Kes The Band and GBM Nutron at the center of the night.
Julianspromos documented the event from several angles, preserving a full Kes The Band performance, an interview with Kes and Brooklyn producer Ricky Blaze, and a separate interview with GBM Nutron. The interviews were conducted for Julianspromos by Boston-based media personality Marsha Monelle.
The timing couldn't have been better. Kes had just introduced “Endless Summer,” produced by Ricky Blaze on the Uptown Julie Riddim, only days before FRESH. A contemporary review of the Brooklyn event remembers Kes performing the brand-new song alongside favorites such as “Thunder” and “One Day.”
FRESH Takes Over Canal Plaza
FRESH landed in the middle of a busy Memorial Day weekend for New York's Caribbean community.
Contemporary coverage places the event at Canal Plaza in south Brooklyn, describing the venue as a repurposed space with high ceilings and hardwood floors. Once the sound systems got going, the bass was strong enough to make parts of the building rattle.
That didn't slow the party down.
Music came from D'Enforcas of Toronto, Artiste Team from Trinidad and Road International from New York, keeping the crowd moving before the live performers took over. A brief appearance by Ziggy Bless came before GBM Nutron's set.
Then the night shifted toward Soca.
GBM Nutron Gets the Crowd Moving
Before Kes took the stage, GBM Nutron, referred to in contemporary coverage at the time as Mr. Nutron, delivered his own performance.
The review remembers Nutron getting the women in the crowd moving before the night's headline performance.
Julianspromos went beyond simply filming the set.
Marsha Monelle interviewed Nutron at FRESH, giving the archive a separate conversation with the artist from the same night.
That interview is especially useful today because it captures Nutron years before many of the records and collaborations that would later make the GBM Nutron name much more widely recognized in Soca.
The footage shows him at an earlier stage in that journey, performing inside a Brooklyn event where Caribbean artists from different markets were already crossing paths.
Kes The Band Takes the Stage
When Kes arrived, there wasn't much need for an introduction.
Contemporary eyewitness coverage remembers Kees Dieffenthaller suddenly running onto the stage and grabbing the microphone, immediately setting off screams from the audience.
The band moved between different eras of its catalog.
Songs documented from the night included:
“Endless Summer”
“Thunder”
“One Day”
Kes also worked covers of music by Machel Montano, Blaxx and Buju Banton into the performance.
That mixture gave FRESH more than a standard festival set.
It was a full-band performance from a group that could move comfortably between its own Soca catalog, Caribbean classics and different musical influences without losing the crowd.
The Beginning of an “Endless Summer”
The appearance of “Endless Summer” at FRESH is one of the most interesting pieces of the night.
Ricky Blaze's Uptown Julie Riddim had surfaced only days earlier. The project featured Ricky Blaze, Gyptian, Zoelah and Kes The Band, with Kes performing Endless Summer.
The song was written by Kees Dieffenthaller and Jamaican Jerm and produced by Ricky Blaze for FME Recordings.
The Fader was promoting the riddim on May 23, 2014, just one day before FRESH, calling attention to Kes' contribution while also noting that Kes was appearing in New York that weekend.
So when Kes performed Endless Summer at Canal Plaza on May 24, the Brooklyn crowd was hearing a song that was essentially brand new.
That makes this less of a routine old concert clip and more of a snapshot from the exact moment one of Kes' defining 2014 summer records was entering circulation.
Kes and Ricky Blaze Talk with Marsha Monelle
Julianspromos also captured the connection between the artist and producer behind the new record.
Marsha Monelle interviewed Kes and Ricky Blaze together at FRESH, creating a second piece of coverage from the event beyond the live performance.
The pairing was particularly timely.
Ricky Blaze was already one of Brooklyn's most accomplished Caribbean producers, with credits including major records for Gyptian, Vybz Kartel and other artists. His work regularly blurred the lines between Dancehall, Reggae, Soca, Pop and electronic music.
With the Uptown Julie Riddim, that crossover approach became especially obvious.
Kes brought Trinidadian Soca vocals.
Gyptian brought Jamaican Reggae and Dancehall.
Zoelah added another Soca voice.
And Blaze tied them together through one Brooklyn-produced riddim.
The interview therefore captured more than two artists talking backstage. It documented a Brooklyn-Trinidad collaboration at the exact moment “Endless Summer” was beginning its run.
Marsha Monelle Joins the Julianspromos Coverage
The FRESH footage also introduced a different correspondent into the Julianspromos archive.
Marsha Monelle, who was based in Boston, handled the interviews with GBM Nutron, Ricky Blaze and Kes for Julianspromos that night.
Monelle already had Caribbean media experience by this period. Her professional biography identifies her as a Boston-based singer, host and media personality who had been hosting 617Live TV's Caribbean Scene since 2012, interviewing artists across Reggae, Dancehall and Soca.
That made her a natural fit for the FRESH assignment.
The full archive package now shows the event through three different lenses:
the live Kes performance,
the Kes and Ricky Blaze interview,
and the GBM Nutron interview.
Together, they reconstruct much more of the night than a single highlight video could.
Memorial Weekend Was Just Getting Started
FRESH was also part of a much larger Caribbean Memorial Day weekend in Brooklyn.
Contemporary reporting from the same weekend documents parties including VERVE and the tenth-anniversary edition of SHINE, where Machel Montano, Beenie Man and Skinny Fabulous were among the performers.
That context matters.
FRESH wasn't an isolated concert arriving in New York without competition.
It was one stop in a weekend when Caribbean audiences had multiple major options and Soca artists were moving across some of Brooklyn's biggest holiday events.
Yet the contemporary reviewer singled out Kes' performance strongly enough to close the FRESH section by saying they would return if the event became annual.
One Night, Three Pieces of Julianspromos History
Looking back, FRESH works particularly well as one complete archive story because the surviving Julianspromos material covers more than the stage.
There is Kes The Band performing live.
There is GBM Nutron during an earlier chapter of his career.
There is Ricky Blaze immediately after launching the Uptown Julie Riddim.
And there is Marsha Monelle conducting interviews for Julianspromos, connecting Boston, Brooklyn and Trinidad's Soca scene in one night.
Most importantly, the footage caught Kes at the beginning of a song that perfectly matched the moment.
It was Memorial Day weekend.
New York's Caribbean summer was beginning.
And at FRESH in Brooklyn, Kes was already promising an “Endless Summer.”
