With Notting Hill Carnival just days away, I've booked a chat with Gaz Mayall, proprietor and mainstay DJ of legendary club night and soundsystem Gaz's Rockin' Blues. This iconic fancy dress stage has one of the best locations, and its live music policy and laid back ambiance make it an obligatory stop during Carnival. Who better than Gaz to get us in the mood for a Bank Holiday party?
Gaz is in fine form this morning, and obviously busy. I'm touched he's made time to talk and amused that he's clearly running a big production at the same time. The interview is punctuated by occasional shouts from our man along the lines of 'you'll need a bucket for that', 'no don't lean that on that!', and 'can all those really fit in the same one?' It lends a certain hilarity to proceedings and coupled with his wild enthusiasm means I basically can't wait to see the results of his hard work.
So Gaz, how long have you run this thing?
Gaz's the club started in 1980, we've been doing things at Carnival since '82. I've come since 1976 and never missed a year, but we got our dream spot in '89 and we've been doing fancy dress and themes since 1990.
What's the theme this year?
Cuba, 50 years of revolution! We're calling it Club Havana and we've got a giant Fidel, some missiles, a huge Santeria skeleton with a top hat, a 1950s car, boxing gloves... and loads and loads of Panama hats. And Cuban music.
Any exciting acts?
Yeah! We've got Rico Rodriguez, the legendary Jamaican trombonist who played with the Specials, playing with The Trojans on Sunday... and Mick Jones of the Clash singing 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' with the Rotten Hill Gang on Monday. Also on Monday The Delegators who have a young black singer who is just awesome, they play rocksteady and they did Glastonbury for us and they are just fantastic.
We've got Ska Cubano who are sort of like Buena Vista meets the Skatalites, fantastic musicians. Also, really exciting!! Duke Vin is playing, he's the top, original Jamaican sound man who set up his system in the 1940s, around at the birth of ska, and he's playing a set both days.
What else do you want to see? Will you have time?
Thing is, we've got a perfect microcosm of Carnival on our spot. No police blockades, the best food stalls around us, The Globe which is sort of like HQ, Jah Observer playing great dub on the corner, we're next to Portobello Road so you can pop over and watch some floats... so you can have a really good day where we are.
But will you get out and follow the floats?
Well yeah, my day sort of always goes like... leave my place around 9am at the top of Ladbroke Grove and walk straight down following the first floats before it gets too crowded, maybe grab a cocktail on the way, then I loop round All Saints in time to get to our spot.
What time do you kick off?
We normally tickle the sounds at 10am then really kick off at noon but it's all a bit earlier this year, we'll start playing around with the equipment a little after 9am.
Will there be a Gaz's afterparty?
This year, probably just at The Globe where some of our guys will play again and we'll have a few drinks. Sometimes we end up having a massive thing with thousands of people in the Stables, but I can't vouch for that. But we'll carry on. We usually just get the drums out wherever we are and keep dancing.
What's your favourite time of the day?
Five 'til seven. When it's really built up, when everyone's been drinking all day. On Sunday that's the peak of the fancy dress thing, and on Monday I'll have lots of pretty girls dancing on the stage with me. It helps with a little bit of sun. When the sun's shining there's nothing like it on earth.
How long is the set-up process?
Weeks but the last fortnight it really hots up with people coming to the yard the whole time dumping props and scavenged bits. We go out skip-hopping, blagging damaged stuff from garden centres and trying to turn scrap into something else. This year we've got shed-loads: tons of bamboo, palm trees everywhere, all we need now is a colonial Cuban house which we've got to build in the next two days!
So how many crew do you have?
It's just mates except for the Saturday beforehand when we get scaffolders and pro sound men in. Just good mates.
At this point, Gaz has to move. I know this because he starts yelling 'come on, get in the car, I can't explain I'm on the phone - an interview, yeah it's nearly over come on get in *CLUNK* we'll be back in an hour bye' *VROOM* he sticks me on speaker and asks if there's anything else. Nearly time to leave him to the madness...
One more question. Do you have any dream guests?
We've had Prince Buster and it would be a dream if he could turn up again this year. He's stuck in Miami with health problems, I don't know what's going on, obviously his health comes first but if he's well enough to fly, that'll be a dream come true.
Oh, and Ken Livingston would be good. We all hate him 'cos he wanted to extend the congestion charge. And Ken and now Boris have been making noises about moving the Carnival or some silliness so it would be great to have 'em down as guests. We'd like 'em to come and see how effing brilliant it is and how it has to be kept on the streets.
Genius! Thanks to Gaz for taking time out to talk to us.
Make a point of visiting him this weekend.
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