24 August 2012
Have you finished sticking sequins to your feather headdress yet? It’s Carnival again, with a million people taking to the streets of Notting Hill over two days of the bank holiday to blow whistles, eat jerk chicken and shake some serious booty.
We’re all familiar with the steel bands and outrageously colourful floats that will journey through Ladbroke Grove. One of the other Carnival institutions is the static sound system, 36 gigantic speaker set-ups that fire out anything from hard techno to roots reggae from their sites on the streets all day long. Some of them have been in their spots for decades, including Jim Angell and Matt Brown, aka Sancho Panza, two Holland Park-educated locals who have been entertaining festival-goers for 20 years.
Who better to advise on the sound-system experience than two fortysomethings who’ve been coming to Carnival together, first as fans, then as DJs, since their teens? They’ve put their heads together and come up with some pointers:
Nick Garrett 