Regulars/Columnists

Better Red Than Ded: New York City: The Psychedelic Sno-Globe

The Black Angels and cowboys, vampires and fairy tales. Eliza Day goes to the Big City.

In one of my favourite stories there is a quote from the White Queen which goes, “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards”. What she was telling Alice was that using your imagination to anticipate the future is just as important as the memories you make and can recall. It’s all part of the process of experience and conjuring up themes and patterns without even noticing you are doing so, and can open tiny doors to a new dimension of fun.

So, to get to the point, knowing that I would be off to New York City and to see Spindrift and The Black Angels gave me lots of day dream ammunition. I set about drenching each day leading up to the trip in Big Apple flavours by watching Chelsea Girls and Gossip Girl, looking at pictures of Audrey Hepburn and Bianca Jagger, reading books about little girls getting lost and listening to lots of Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth. With a pocket full of these kinds of big ideas, it doesn’t matter what you do and where you go because it’s all going to be big, bright and exciting no matter what.

I’m proud to say that I spent the whole of that week in the world’s most electric city under the influence of many NYC clichés, ghosts and dreams whilst gently yet consistently inebriated thanks to the free Moet and Godiva chocolate. New York is as one would imagine, the most inspiring man made environment a creative soul could wish to be swallowed up in. Being strung out on champagne and sugar always helps too.

The night my brother and I went out into the bitter cold streets, black vampires huddled against the sides of skyscrapers under a glassy glaze of the city’s first snow. We were dressed to kill and ignorant enough to be killed yet we had a gig we were squeaking to see and a subway full of Halloween vamps and blithering tramps to conquer. The show was at the Williamsburg Music Hall in Brooklyn. We ran all the way from the underground turnstile to the entrance where musically spoilt teenagers were hanging around waiting to be let inside. Being young and wild in that city is a never ending joy ride of amazing party after party. Living there would give me a nose bleed. I have to admit.

Spindrift are to sum it up, the soundtrack to a Western Tarantino film. It’s a psychedelic kick in the dust of empty Indian graves stained with lysergic acid diethylamide. Kirpatrick Thomas, vocalist and guitarist is a stand up gentleman and his band put on a stand out show. And what were we saying earlier about synchronicity? Spindrift is one of the spin off bands behind the creative explosion that came out of the insanity that was The Brian Jonestown Massacre. So is Black Rebel Motor Cycle Club who confirmed their presence at Synergy during my flight home to SA. A great background story to that group of musicians to check out if ya’ll ever get the chance.

The Black Angels put on a sensational show that sounded perfect as a performance and may I just say that being right on top of the speaker in the front row was a damn good choice. I also got to see Christian Bland do some of the sickest guitar work out there. The show resonated kaleidoscopic colour that pulled you down, down, down and my brother said at one point I fell asleep while standing up. What a trip in every sense of the word.

That all being said, there’s no place like home as was so apparent to me the second I walked into a local gig recently. The day I see people actually dancing at a show and having a similar kind of hedonistic fun that they aspire to in all their idols, I’ll eat your ironic knitted beanie.

Blues bop, baby!Watch out, Suburbia. The girl next door is no more

She lives on the wrong side of the fence, this wayward child, with a nest of hair and insolent eyes. She drags her speakers around the house like legs on a dead thing and shoots at will…with orange plastic bullets, admittedly. This little birdy is more trickster than bandit, believe me. On stage you’re forced to take Roxy Robin seriously – her absolute ease, infectious charm and yogic voice leave shivers and grins in her midst.

Her fledgling band, The Red Robins, produces trotting amber song lines and crispy, swinging disco folk. She dabbles in trouble on the side with the freak folk act, Johannine. And we know trouble cannot be quantified, but can be analysed and definitely adored. That’s why Roxy’s sitting on the carpet in front of me, armed with uncovered legs and a naked smile.

jezebel: Who are we listening to?

Roxy: Alex, from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

Truth?

Yeah.

I dare you to decode VPL.

Jezebel is a Very Pretty Lady. [Grins]

You’re a very pretty lady.

You lie.

I lie and you tell the truth? Tell me the truth about love, then.

Oh god. Love is everything. Music is love. [now she’s on the bench]

That’s kinda twee.

I don’t care.

But you care about Johannine. Tell me?

At the moment it’s a project with me, Jonathan Velthuysen (Stepdog) and Beitel van der Merwe (Zinkplaat). Um. All the songs are written by Jon, and I came into the project after it had been going for about a year. For now I’m backing singer and occasional melodica player. But we’re going to be working together a lot in the future. I like that he’s taking me under his wing. I’ve learnt more working with him than I ever have.

He is one of the more able contemporary musicians. Why are you holding a gun?

I like guns. [shoots an orange. Point blank]

You should get a katty.

Like scout. In To Kill A Mockingbird. [kicks the orange]. If I were to have a daughter, I’d name her Scout. But I doubt I’ll have a daughter. [aims at herself in the mirror. Shoots. Russian Roulette. Sighs.]

Any other heroes?

Jezebel!

Doesn’t count.

My grandmother. She’s the most amazing woman I know. She’s had cancer about five times and written a book – a very, very big book about our history.

Is our history influencing music in Cape Town today?

Well, I think the music industry is taking other peoples’ history from other people’s cultures and using it as inspiration; Europe, America…

What about us?

Our history is ours, but….

You only know about your peoples’ music. Apartheid legacy. Do we have a chance at cross pollination now that it’s legal to be yourself? Blending sounds from different settings in South Africa, I mean?

It’s hard; I can only speak for myself, as a young artist. All I’ve heard coming from here is commercial music – Freshlyground, The Parlotones – and the independent rock scene. Our folk music is Afrikaans boere musiek, and that’s not the music I want to be making.

What is?

Music from the soul.

Currently, there’s a strong blues element in your material. Which is American? Which is African? Explain?

I was born listening to the blues. My family is the Blues Broers.

Ah, Albert et al. Did you take singing lessons? Ever?

No. I want to. No. I don’t. Um. [aims gun under her chin. Fires. Saved again.]

Roxy, what will save us from love?

We don’t need to be saved from love.

But you sing about it a lot.

I don’t sing about love. I sing about lust. I sing through love.

You’re so brilliant.

Am I.

*Hey there, Mister (or sister), The Red Robins have a Face, and I recommend you Google Johannine, too. Two Ns.

 

Legends: Carlo Mombelli – Prisoner of strange

“What is this article about? I’m not a legend.”

Carlo Mombelli is not well known. He knows this better than those who do know him: “What is this article about? I’m not a legend.” But those who do know his music go quiet when someone mentions his name; they raise an eyebrow; their senses zoom in. Most of them regard Mombelli and band The Prisoners of Strange one of SA’s most vital, arresting live performers. They consider him an important composer of New Music. Their eyes glaze over when you ask them what his last gig was like.

Mombelli is not a household name. Carlo Mombelli is not 7de Laan. This fits him like a glove. Performing his flexing, polymorphous compositions to a packed arena of 40 000 is not going to happen. He wouldn’t have it. All the noise. It would be 40 000 trespassers, brawling and howling and slipping on his gifted music; disturbing the flow of The Prisoners of Strange’s intensive flows.

Mind you, when I ask him about his favourite live experiences, he mentions The Prisoners of Strange’s 2010 performance at the acclaimed Moers Festival in Germany. The Prisoners were a hit – one review singling them and Bill Frisell out as the festival’s highlights (this from amongst many of the most acclaimed Experimental and Jazz artists in the world.) The band sold more than a hundred copies of their latest album Theory after their set.

I stared into my head

I was first captured by Mombelli’s music around a decade ago, listening to the live German recording Bats in the Belfry. The music was… Incredible.

The opening track consisted of around a minute of expanding silence. Then it became – the silence gently ruptured by the sonic slivers of performers settling around their instruments, discreetly readying themselves for performance. A scraping of shoe here; diagnostic puffs into a trombone or trumpet there; a tentative key; a muffled voice. By the time opener My Friends and I unfurled I was mesmerized.

The journey Bats in the Belfry takes you on is breathtaking – graceful, kinetic, cerebral, playful, intense. The musos so effortlessly tight it sounds as if they’ve been breathing the music for years. I was hooked. His subsequent albums immersed me ever deeper.

Abstractions

Mombelli has long been walking with music. At 8 he experienced the ballet Swan Lake and was drawn into its world, swiftly taking up classical piano. At 16 Mombelli’s instrument-of-choice shifted to electric bass, after hearing the virtuoso snaking of Jaco Pastorius’ Bass-redefining work with Weather Report. The future was aligning.

Being invited by guitar great Johnny Fourie to join his band was a watershed event in your life. You were also thrown into the deep end, so to speak, what with it being a 6 nights/week gig. Was this your public debut? What did you learn from it?

Mombelli: “My public debut was doing a cabaret show singing Michael Jackson tunes in my Dad’s restaurant at the age of 11, six nights a week. The gig with Johnny was my university of music.”

Major musical influences on your composition?

“ECM artists like Eberhard Weber, Bill Frisell, Paul Motion and Egberto Gismonti.”

What contemporary artists excite you?

“Paul Motian at the age of 80, Arvo Part, Avisha Cohen and Radiohead.”

Theory

Following a residency teaching music in Germany, where he recorded several albums with then-band Abstractions, Mombelli returned in the late Nineties. The Prisoners of Strange, whose seed was planted in Germany in 1996, became a shifting collective of musicians manifesting the right shapes and densities to communicate his challenging compositions.

By 2002 The Prisoners had settled around the glowing core of Johnny Fourie (guitar), Siya Makuzeni (vocals and flugelhorn), Marcus Wyatt (trumpet), Sidney Mnisi (sax) and Lloyd Martin (drums). Excepting occasional guests, the tragic passing of Fourie, and Martin’s recent replacement with Justin Badenhorst, the core remained.

The kinetic empathy (perhaps telepathy is more accurate), and sympathetic imagination of The Prisoners make for gigs that are simultaneously electrifying and sublime. And then there is The Bass. Elastic beyond belief, sinuous and robust, Mombelli’s bass-playing is a wonder unto itself. It blends into the unknown – drawing you into its worlds.

For more info on gigs and albums, climb into www.carlomombelli.com

 

 

Columnist: Sounds of The Underground By Eliza Day

Sounds of the Underground

Invasion of The Mole Men!! Crossing over Live to Eliza Day…

Those of you who have joyfully ejected yourselves from reality as we perceive it in yukky flesh and blood and embraced sexy cyberspace will get where this is all going. The sleepy sighs of the music ‘scene’, echoing through the concrete jungles of our world, are lacking in sparkle and devoid of magic. This is because sonic evolution is no longer being conjured up in production the way it once was in our physical environment. Music in all its transient mystery has eluded the real world and moved on into the immersive possibilities of the internet. That’s where it’s at ya’ll. Swag.

In the last couple of years, one of the great visionary, snake-hipped prophets of our time, David Bowie, has had his two-tone, misty-eyed burbling proven, “The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within ten years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in ten years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing. Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that’s really the only unique situation that’s going to be left. It’s terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn’t matter if you think it’s exciting or not; it’s what’s going to happen… ” (June 9, 2002).

The current music movement is a Technicolor dreamboat of themes, memes, mash-ups, sampling and style. Slowing down Screw style and speeding up to super-psychotic acmes of innovation that all takes place on social networks like Facebook, Rateyourmusic and Soundcloud, and secret groups in revolt against mainstream media.

Writing about witch haus, Seapunk, Lolicore and home-spun hip-hop almost goes against the point of this kind of production. In fact some of the most ardent witch house occultists deliberately remove all recognisable information from the internet in order to keep the ‘scene’ pure and avoid being put into a box, or just having to deal with people who don’t know what the ef is up.

Witch haus as an underground music movement is pretty difficult to describe or pin down. It’s not directly related to slowed down beats or horror like it is sometimes referred to by those who are only exposed to the more ‘commercial’ witch haus derivation bands like Salem. How it pretty much works is that a bunch of like-minded internet geeks all over the world spend most of their days online and smoking a lot of pot while their imaginations and DJ skills run wild on scintillating aesthetics and breaking music boundaries.

The most impressive part of this primordial pie in the sky is that the amount of production that is coming out of these online artists is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Due to the close-knit nature of the networks, music is produced all day, every day and then enjoyed by others the same day at parties or even remixing it and putting it on a mixtape for further sharing online.

The chat on the groups is like high school on speed after hitting fast forward on your VCR. Slang and style changes faster than you can send a trend and what was hot on YouTube last week is considered ‘classic listening’ today. You pretty much have to constantly contribute if you want to keep up.

Meme’s the word in the incredible secret society. Music’s also never looked so damn good; these fashionably correct creators really know how to put the swag in drag.

Finally a direct refusal to go down the shallow nasal passage of synthetic pop, ‘Cyber Wave’ is what is going to carry music, at least until the next digital development.

Now for South Africa to join the unreal world and get some serious broadband.

 

 

Inside The Machine

Inside The Machine

We Set Sail are almost done with Something Bout The Moon a new seven track album. “It’s been long awaited, we have had some bad luck on our side, Trinity was in a hit and run car accident” says bassist Thee Patrick. “She is fully recovered now. That’s given us and the CoffeeStainedVinyl Studio crew more time to work on the finer details”. Produced by the band, Teejay Terblanche, and mastered by Troy Glessner from Spectre in Seattle USA, the album is set to be released this summer. “We are planning on adding a few extra sounds to the album, which may include some extra instruments” concluded Patrick. “I’m not going to say too much; let’s keep that a surprise.”

The recent Loerie’s EMI Battle Of The Bands, gave away a recording contract to the value of 40 000 – an elephantine amount unseen by musicians not in advertising (compare it to the Frown video budget below). Still, Johannesburg The Privates International Band who took the crown, are worth the cash.

Apart from The Loerie’s, there’s an ongoing interest in music from the advertising industry. Like Heuwels-and-Locnville-sounding sextet 140. Their first single Say it Better echoes the words of ad guru Luke Sullivan: “First say it great, then say it straight”. And their name itself implies the Twitter protocol but the band insists “it’s not just a cheap way of getting into the minds of the social network obsessed youth market.”

MK has awarded R 60,000 to The Frown to make a video for their track The National out before the end of the year. A-making-of, shot by Joburg party monster/photographer Justin McGee, will be posted online. The band also promise “remixes by SA’s finest underground DJ’s and musicians.” In addition, The Frown are doing a one night only Opera – set to be out in late November, in association with Hell Records and The Alexander Theatre. They’re keeping mum about details, but said: “it will be a collaborative multi-media dark arts monster.”

Reburn plan to release a double single. “We’re still busy recording but its gonna blow minds bruv” says front man Scottie. “It’s a fresh new rock sound, a lot more mature and not as frantic, it still sounds like us but more defined.” Also, bassist Jono Templer had a kid and has been replaced by Mancunian, Liam McDevitt. “He’s solid and brings a new energy to our live show.” Scottie concluded, “we also want to tour the country nonstop next year” The first single will likely be We Are Here.

The Plastics are working on a new album. There are rumoured to be leftover tracks from the Gordon Raphael produced Shark. Also, guitarist, Arjuna Kohlstock posted online: “I’m thinking of changing my name. Which is better, Ramazuki, Flamegrill or Jethro?” We reckon Arjuna Ranatunga – that’ll make for some fun during rehearsal cricket games.

The Great Apes have completed an eight track album or in their words: “agt fokken lank hondjags tracks!”. Recorded in 5 days at Bloo Room Studio in Ladismith. Producer Jo Ellis employed the most primitive methods in an effort to capture the Apes’ chest thump live sound. The whole concept and design is still being finalised but “it’s coming and it’s going to be huge”. When asked about a possible tour the band answered “Ja ,to the ends of the earth buddy.” The Apes are also planning the most “befokste” Halloween party featuring machineri, Basson Loubscher, Dead Lucky, their new favourite band, and the chairman of the board Sailor Jerry. If you want to know if the Great Apes will be appearing at HorrorFest, see the next page.

Terminatryx’s Remyx v 1.0 global remix album is being released in November (see review on Pg.35). Paul Blom has stated “we’ll do a live launch, being streamed globally on-line from Sound & Motion Studios, Cape Town.” Find dates and updated info at www.terminatryx.com/remix. The bonus track Maciste Descends accompanies a scene in HorrorFest where a lead character is tricked by demons and sent to hell. Of the 2011 HorrorFest Paul mused “we wanted to diversify as widely as possible to include all media.” The annual fest incorporates music by creating original soundtracks to silent horror movies. Performed live to the screen by Makabra Ensemble – the Terminatryx-driven collaborative project. This year will debut a new soundtrack to a 1920 version of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. “All of these movies with their new soundtracks will be released on DVD in the future.” Paul concluded: “We’re looking into doing a HorrorFest after party, and will let you know if we’re able to slot The Great Apes in or not.”

HorrorFest happens 30 October 9pm at The Labia Theatre, Cape Town. For more info www.horrorfest.info

The Cape Music Industry’s latest research shows writing and recording film music in our own country, instead of exporting it, could be an opportunity for musicians and audio engineers in Cape Town to grow their space in the industry, greatly. The company is working on several ways to involve more local music in film. Most recently, they brought over Trevor Jones , award winning composer of Last of the Mohicans, GI Jane and Notting Hill fame.

MP Philip Dexter and Roscoe Palm are starting an NGO called The Indibano Foundation – aiming to give underprivileged musicians greater access and understanding to industry. They have some serious struggle credentials. Dexter’s band in the 80’s were accused of fraternizing with communists, during his 7 year exile he entered politics. And Palm’s band Retreats, wrote a protest song, Vote In Vain, before the 1999 elections. “There are plans to purchase land and build a studio. Our goal is to make it self-sustaining” said Palm. “At the launch we had several politicians to see what we were up to.”Arno Carstens and Beezy Bailey were also in attendance. “We’re at an embryonic phase. We’ve signed two promising hip-hop artists, and an amazing acoustic rock artists whose both Muslim and proudly gay” added Palm enthusiastically. “We have the specs. Our focus is on training artists with contracts, online, marketing and playing live – that’s how they make most of their money and how you get to know them personally. We don’t want to make products, we want to amplify their abilities, so they can stand on their own two feet.” Palm shows a real admiration for Motown, and Sub Pop as models, citing their sense of community. Rumour has it low-end estimates are R 350 000 – cabling alone is guessed at R 10 000. Palm concluded: “Musicians are more powerful politicians than they realise”.

Gauteng post-rockers The Makeovers are currently drawing animals on lapel buttons and t-shirts for the launch of their second album. There is quite a bit of talk in several savvy circles about them and rumour has them to be on Vice Magazine’s hit list.

Looking for new bands? Selections from musicians

Mapumba, DRC Afro pop guitarist:

“Simphiwe Dana: A soulful singer with a somewhat melancholic edge. It’s like taking a Bob Marley and the Wailers’ early recordings and smearing it on some South African deeply traditional sounds – so catchy you just want to hear it again.

Listen to: Mayine, Ndimi Nawe and, my personal favourite, Ndiredi.”

Kevin Rule, metal guru (rumoured to have bought the Devil’s soul):

“Devil Sold His Soul: Crushing, dark, atmospheric, poignant, and utterly enthralling. A combination of devastating force and haunting melody that’s hypnotic and moving. In six years, the band have inspired a devoted following in the UK underground, touring relentlessly and exercising an extreme level of quality control over their musical output, every release maintaining their signature sound while marking a profound leap forward from anything before.

Legends of Modern Music: Jeff Buckley and the stirring Beyond

Legends of Modern Music

Jeff Buckley and the stirring Beyond

“He was the best singer that had appeared, probably, I’m not being too liberal about this if I say, in two decades”.

Jeff Buckley is part of the Spirit World of music. Along with a small, esoteric group of misfits and oracles that include Robert Johnson, Nick Drake, Billie Holiday and Jimi Hendrix, he seemed to have been born with one foot already rooted in the Beyond. Already navigating worlds shimmering beyond physics. Buckley possessed a chameleonic voice able to harness such singular and potent energies as Nina Simone, Edith Piaf and Nusrat Fateh Ali Kan, so disarmingly that audiences could not but be swept up in invocation. This wasn’t mimicking – this was channeling. An otherworldly charge seemed present, lifting and harmonising his voice – kindling Fire from the hinterscapes of memory and experience.

Many will tell you this ‘otherworldly charge’ was in fact located in his vocal chords.

Dream Brother

Born on 17 November 1966, Buckley was raised Scotty Moorhead, only meeting his biological father, acclaimed folk artist Tim Buckley, once, at the age of eight. By his own account his childhood was one of “rootless trailer trash”, but steeped in music. His mother was a classically trained cellist, and step-father Ron introduced him to the key 70′s Rock and folk groups. He later recalled that everyone in his family sang, and that he’d stumbled onto his first guitar in his Gran’s closet. A voracious, near promiscuous thirst for music led him to adore such wide-ranging, seemingly irreconcilable groups as kitsch rockers Kiss; hardcore Punk outfit Bad Brains; Bob Dylan; Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; and Nina Simone. Earning his chops through playing guitar in a variety of Punk, Rock and Funk bands, Buckley found his calling through solo performances, where he was free to pounce between genres and sentiments.

His public singing debut and first major break came through a guest performance at a tribute concert for Tim Buckley, who had passed away at the age of 28, leaving behind an uneven but esteemed collection of Folk, Rock and more avant-garde musics. By the time of Buckley’s residency at Manhattan’s Sin-e’, word was not so much getting round as spreading like wildfire. The likes of Robert Plant, Chrissie Hynde and Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell attended his shows, and began championing the phenomenon U2′s The Edge described as “A pure drop in an ocean of noise”.

Says Cornell: “People talked about his concerts the way they used to talk about Hendrix. They’d sit there, wide-eyed, telling you stories about him. He definitely had an aura.”

A Swan to Sing

The grapevine electricity led to his debut studio album – the near unanimously acclaimed Grace [1994] – David Bowie naming it one of his ten desert-island albums. Buckley assembled a touring band and hit the road for two years – a tour that had Led Zep’s Jimmy Page gush, “he was the best singer that had appeared, probably, I’m not being too liberal about this if I say, in two decades”.

Following the tour the band began laying down recordings for 2nd album Mystery White Boy. The album would never be released. On 29 May 1997, his band was en route to Tennessee for re-recordings. By the time their flight had landed, Jeff Buckley was gone – drowned during an impromptu night swim in the Mississippi river; caught in the wake of a passing boat. He was thirty.

The Busker Transformative

To experience a song by Buckley is to be seduced. Whether live or studio-cut, an original song or an interpretation, a Buckley performance inevitably moves one – draws or wrenches one into an often intense, always touching journey. Buckley’s live appearances at Manhattan club Sin-e’ have become the stuff of legend. Armed with a lone electric guitar, Buckley would casually announce a song, perhaps preambling with an anecdote, without raising his voice above the general chit-chat sound tracking the venue. Then he would strum into wonderment.

Anyone who has experienced his renditions of Simone’s Strange Fruit or Cohen’s Hallelujah will experience shivers as they read these words. Nearly two decades later, in a quantumly different world, he still inspires awe. John Legend: “I think I can sing with just about anybody; but he’s one of the few singers who truly intimidate me.”

 

 

Classic Album: Zappa – Joe’s Garage

Classic Album

Zappa – Joe’s Garage

I’ll never forget the first time I heard the music of that Comic Rock guy Frank Zappa. At the time I was shoulder-deep in garage band bliss (‘Wiener Type Person’ thank you very much, in case you hadn’t heard of us), and eagerly plowing through the Rock Canon of years yonder.

For some reason I’d always skipped the opportunity to listen to Zappa’s stuff. Look, the guy had an enviable moustache -thingie going and it was kinda cool that they’d named a flammable liqueur after him (Okay I’d assumed it was named after him, and I was a kid okay – Zappa Sambuca was The Shit; more importantly, chicks loved seeing it drop down your gullet all saccharine fire), but he did look a bit like Weird Al Yankovic, which kinda sucked. Then my best-buddy-in-the-world-at-the-time played us some songs after rehearsal. Two-and-a-half songs at the back-end of a cassette otherwise consisting of Mudhoney and early Soundgarden.

The first song [Peaches en Regalia - Hot Rats] should have been uncool – kinda Circus-music-played-on-tinny-Classical-instrumentsy – but something about the curious twists in the composition perked my young ears. The second track was more of a song a-proper. A funny tune about some Eskimo kid taking revenge on a seal hunter [Don't Eat The Yellow Snow - Apostrophe]. The song made us giggle (and frown – “Is Rock music Allowed to be funny?”) And then – out of the blue – a blind barrage of solo guitar, about three seconds long. Our jaws dropped. We rewound. Our jaws dropped again. I was never quite the same.

A year later I owned around a dozen Zappa albums, and my Grunge and Rock collection was mysteriously being replaced by experimental Jazz and WARP Electronica.

Lyrics Exist For Those Who Need Them

Nowadays – aside from the handful of annual Zappa fests – most of his music is performed by internationally acclaimed Classical ensembles. A 4-metre high bust of the man overlooks a park somewhere in post-Communist Lithuania. Following Zappa’s death in 1993, American vice president Al Gore (of An Inconvenient Truth fame) sent a letter of commiseration to his wife Gail. Quite the hullabaloo for a man most remember as a 70′s Rock musician who wrote funny and crude novelty songs.

Sculpting around 70 albums over the course of a 28-year career, Zappa’s music is inexhaustibly diverse, and unmatched for sheer originality. Informed by a wacky palette ranging from 50′s Doo-Wop and Rhythm & Blues to the avant-garde experiments of composers like Stravinsky and Varese’, Zappa concocted a heterogeneous signature that is instantly recognisable despite the wild diversity of his compositions.

Don’t You Boys Know Any Nice Songs?

Joe’s Garage, his 1979 concept-album, is a musical tour-de-force. It explores a dystopian future where music and other perversions like free thought and sensuality have been banned because, well, they disrupt the efficiency of the carefully groomed workforce (otherwise known as society). The album’s narrative follows a by now familiar Orwellian arc: Naive hero Joe shrugs off Society’s prescriptions and, instead of joining the grotesquely bland assembly-line on offer, starts a band and tries to get a girlfriend. Oops.

Zappa being Zappa, the superficially formulaic storyline careens and swells to explore and poke fun at such phenomena as Scientology; the intrinsic contradiction of music journalism; the abject nature of Wet T-shirt contests; the melodramatic highs and lows of starting a band; pornographic robots; and the evils of selling your soul.

Instrumentally Joe’s Garage teems with wonder – From the impossible time-signatures of Keep it Greasy to the off-kilter Rock splendour of Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?; from mutant Funk and Venusian Jazz to the melancholic, grandiose eloquence of guitar solos on He Used To Cut The Grass; On the Bus and Watermelon In Easter Hay (the latter one of the most affecting pieces ever executed on six strings).

A great introduction into the quantum sonics of one of the 20th century’s greatest composers; and one of humankind’s most fierce and eloquent defenders of free speech and individualism.

 

 

You Look Like You Could Use A Little Volume…

You know you’re bored of your company when you start noticing split ends in your fringe and are combing them out all over your face and lap. Or when you blink one eye at a wall and then the other, just to get a different perspective of whatever you’re looking at.

“When did hanging outside on the pavement become an option?”
Personally, the music scene in SA has become a little dull. The company of some of my most favourite bands over the years is still there but what else is there? If I really think about it, I haven’t been introduced to anything new or exciting to emerge from the industry the entire year. Usually I’m the one amongst us who is always optimistic to say the least about local bands and sure, there is a lot of music coming out of the culture but I feel like the glitter of creativity is waning. Now, I’m looking at the line up for the weekend and well… will it be a case of showing face so as not to be boring or will it be boring to simply show face?

Disjointed as our music scene is and disappointed as those may feel, I am not one to just bitch and complain because I only watch the same three bands every month. So, just as when you are bored at work and start doing unusual little drum rolls with your pen and Google pictures of very big cats, I have been trying to do something different and go places for different sonic experiences. It’s a bitter pill to sometimes swallow but I figure feeling out of place like a douche is better than sitting at home and wishing I’d made the effort while listening to Grinderman 2 on repeat.

Most recently I went to a DJ set in Cape Town where the vibe was hard 80’s anthems remixed. I’m sorry. I did dance. I didn’t mean to but it was funny. For five minutes. Sometimes I feel like the music at clubs is just elevator music to those inside getting wasted and looking to get laid. The night ended early and felt like a waste of time.Before that I’d gone to a couple of fairly underground events where the beat was mostly commercial hip-hop, 90’s ecstasy inducing club crap and then occasionally with some sincerely interesting dance tracks. I felt weird, imagined my face gave away my feelings as it always does but still had a little jam on the dance floor and left politely.

Paying a trip to Durban a couple of weeks ago did leave me feeling slightly more optimistic after watching Tumi And The Volume at Unit 11. The band’s been around for ages but the performance was damn cool and proves there is still a high standard in SA music without a doubt. The set the DJ played afterwards was practically worth going for in itself. Give me some psychedelic rock and roll and I’ll dance till dawn. Says a lot about me and how open I am to innovation, doesn’t it?

I believe in dissidence to keep the strong, strong and the fire alive in everything, especially music. However, I don’t think this is the case with SA music. I think it’s all a little wishy-washy and has no significant direction as to where it’s going or what they are trying to do. It feels copied and characterless at times and could do with some radical intervention.

With the festival season fast approaching (I can feel it. My bones tingle) I hope to feel rejuvenated after this dreary winter of soupy music experiences. I’m not going to be checking the polls to see who’s in the running for Daisies or anything else. See what happens and hope to be surprised. Perhaps summer can produce something new, hard and solid that kicks us in the face and stops the dialling tone.

 

Whatever Happened To My Rock ‘n Roll?

Trying to understand why kids are burning their rock records for the sake of art.

I live with a true music lover. He’s passionate, informed, talented and all of a sudden refuses to listen to any kind of good music. I don’t know when this happened exactly. It’s getting worse though. Ironically he is also one of the coolest kids in Cape Town and I love him dearly. Charisma for days and hideously patterned Madiba shirts for weeks, his name is Bread.

Together he and Darren Laiben, the token New Yorker we picked up a couple years ago, have combined forces and really bad playlists composed of grungy 90′s hits, African House and A LOT of Prince. I’m not saying that rock ‘n roll and blues are the only way to go but who the hell can even entertain the thought of listening to Nirvana bang on about the sound of the generation? It’s too soon for that revival man. Both have the tendency to take the piss out of certain music fads by playing the jangly-pine-forest band of the moment for fun but you know a man is serious when he sells all his Zeppelin Lps.

Thing is; they’re not the only ones. There are a whole breed of kids running amok who look like The Breakfast Club and are boycotting great South African bands in favour of raving in their rooms to Grave Rave and The Thong Song whilst wearing shell-suits. Is it real or ironic? It’s hard to tell. So I asked and they made a lot of sense for a couple of artfags…

I was told I could only do the interview if I was prepared to hear some obscure dance track on repeat for the duration. So we got down to it over some vodka jelly shots in between the synths and keyboards that litter Bread’s room.

Why did you stop listening to rock ‘n roll and stop going to gigs?

Bread: Because I got bored. Why must I be loyal to one type of music? Music is consumed. We consume everything else, why can’t we consume and discard music? A person playing the blues now is totally irrelevant. Sure it’s good but it’s not art. That’s what I’m looking for in music. I feel sorry for people who call themselves artists and play the blues. Jack White should be hanged. South African bands right now like Mr Cat and The Dashboard who everyone loves for being so ‘quirky’ aren’t artists. Are they pirates? It’s juvenile and disassociated from reality. The bands that are doing well in this country are just trying to emulate something. It’s not creative at all.

Darren Laiben: I’ve never seen a group of people so dedicated to a type of music and who are so closed-minded to anything else. It’s like small town syndrome in Cape Town. South Africa is the place for opportunity because people are starved here. There’s no reason for them to be. We have the internet and access to every kind of music immediately to inspire but people just don’t do anything innovative here. These bands don’t push boundaries. But more people are getting smart and if we (Bread and I) did anything new, it’d be incredible.

I asked them which SA bands they thought were doing something relevant and Big Nuz, the Durban kwaito group who won a SAMA last year, came up. Apparently the only place to find something that reflects innovation is at the stalls by the taxi rank.

I don’t know if I buy it. They have a point when it comes to a need for innovation in this country but I don’t think throwing out Bob Dylan, even as an ironic gesture, tells us that you’re into relevancy.

I do agree that people are bored and looking for something more challenging to go and watch at a gig and it’s great that SA music taste is becoming more acquired.

Seriously though, making a statement about why music is and isn’t art and not making the music you’re talking about? Ramble on.

Author’s Note: Bread & Darren’s answers are a summarised version of a long, interesting conversation.

Written  By   :   Eliza Day

Photo: Andrew Moerdyk

Music News: Inside the Machine

If different genres were different drugs, metal would be heroin. You either end there by mistake or because the plunge made more sense than anything else. Its subscribers found the world on abrasive terms with its roots in technical Jazz and rock and roll and metal remains one of the few guitar genres still pushing the boundaries further, deeper, darker into the oily belly of its own self.

Despite having the most talented and obsessed musicians, who are often stubborn for change, having gone to extremes, metal is undoubtedly one of the least commercially viable genres in Southern Africa.

Which makes Terminatryx’s new video for Virus an anomaly with export quality production; the international metal world can and should take notice. In addition to Virus, Terminatryx are also working on a video for Siek+Sat an Afrikaans song, and they’re in pre-production for a video of one of the tracks which will be on the forthcoming remix album of their release, Remyx v1.0. Produced by Flamedrop Production, the album is to be released by ENT Entertainment after July 2011.

Remixes are not uncommon, but a rarity for bands (especially from SA) to have the entire album worked over. This is also an intercontinental project with remixers from 5 different parts of the globe, giving each song an individual take.

International remixers are: Martin Degville from Sigue Sigue Sputnik with Lloyd Price (UK); Industriezone (Austria); Sheep On Drugs (UK); Modern-e-Quartet (Greece) and The Awakening (USA / RSA).

Local remixers include: Battery 9, Nul, Axxon, and Mr Sakitumi.

Check www.TERMINATRYX.com

The only black band white folks care to hear and see, Blk Jks, are heading to Mali to record their next release. Not that interesting, I know. However word on the internet is they might collaborate with jazz marvel trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer and singer Hugh Masekela. Now say oooh and aaah.

The most famous unknown band, which featured in last issue’s Muse, The Brother Moves On, has finished a video for Rainbow Child. The video as the name of the studio, No Budget Productions, suggests, is cheap. However it somehow catches the song brilliantly. They get my vote for unknown act to play at Oppikoppi.

Looking for New Music:

John McDonnell of The Guardian called Brokencyde “the worst thing to happen to music.” The band are singled out in crunk-core, a genre that combines R ‘n B and screamo. Listen to: Freaxxx.

Kanivool a hard rock outfit who have distinct South African sound, despite being from Australia. They have been active since 1997 and have won several awards touring the world over. www.karnivool.com.au

The LA’s. A forgotten treasure of the nineties. Fronted by indecisive enigma Lee Mavers, who made his riches from the song, There She Goes – famously covered by Sixth Spence Non the Richer. Lee wanted to originally record the album on a Dictaphone and only ever managed to make one. A pop-masterpiece nonetheless. Listen to: Looking Glass, I.O.U (alternative version) and Son of a Gun.

Ard Mathews (pic by: Deborah Rossouw)

New and Upcoming Releases:

Gazelle are currently mixing and mastering their second album, The Rise and Fall of an Empire, at Dreamspace. The Merseystate owned and run studio are also recording Joshua Grierson’s latest and Ard Matthews’ solo debut. Ard has made the first recorded track Fire Within available on his website www.ardmatthews.com. It doesn’t sound a thing like Just Jinjer and leans heavily on electronic backing.

After a four month hiatus, and quitting V.O.L,  Kevin Rule has started new metal act With Dawn who are currently working on a yet-to-be-named EP. He just couldn’t resist a comeback.

Durban indie-pop sensation, The Otherwise, are currently planning their second album and a tour to Cape Town in July. Watch this space for more details.

Chris Chameleon has released As Jy Weer Skryf, an album that sets Ingrid Jonker poems to music. The album is available on Rhythm Records.

The Otherwise

The Wild Eyes have finally completed a follow up to their 2006 debut, Our Love has a Special Violence. The much anticipated EP is called Swastique. No surprises there. But expect this one to be plenty different.

Mr. Cat and the Jackal are presently filming puppets for the video of Bad Man He Comin. The video will be produced by Yesterfang Productions who are also working on a video for Captain Stu’s Tempo which should be ready in the next two months.

The Dirty Skirts’ new album Lost in the Fall is due for release in June 2011 [see our interview with the Skirts on Pg’s. 24 & 25]. According to Skirt’s guitarist David Moffatt “the sonic has changed on this album. We are closer to the experience that we’ve envisaged. We have deliberately preserved the grittiness of our pre-studio recordings. Some of the material is dark and hard, but there is loads of beauty and heart too.” Lost in The Fall  is co-produced by The Dirty Skirts and Neal Snyman and engineered by Brendan Rossouw.

Weird-but-revered-duo Witness to Wolves are currently busy with their debut called Porcelain, recorded between Down South and Frozen Heart studios. Only a limited edition of copies will be printed, but the entire album will be available for download. The group also plan to embark on a nationwide tour for a series of unusual shows.

Ex-Libertines frontman and most famous junkie on earth, Pete Doherty, has been sentenced to six months in prison. In March 2009, Doherty was one of four people taken into custody after 27-year-old filmmaker Robin Whitehead died from a suspected overdose in January 2009 . Doherty was charged with possession of cocaine and has pleaded guilty. This will be his third time in jail. To add insult to injury, his former lover Kate Moss is getting married to Kills singer Jamie Hince. The supermodel is also reported to have lined-up Snoop Dogg for her wedding.

Mick Jagger has started a new super-group called Super Heavy. With him in the band are Joss Stone, Damian Marley, Eurhythmics’ Dave Stewart and Indian musician A.R. Rahman. The band is rumoured to be in discussions for a major record deal.

Notorious B.I.G is to be marketed as a product. The rapper’s estate has done a deal with Brand Sense Partners who are planning to churn out a range of products bearing the rapper’s name.

Written  By   :   Johann Smith

 

 

The other side of the Lens: Cult, classic and crazy films : Where Vampires still have bite

This edition we investigate the possibility that Teenage, centrefold vampire hunks and hunkesses might, just maybe, not have driven the final stake through the coldly romantic heart of Western civilization’s favourite breed of monster.

The oneiric kiss.

Of all the creatures still stalking our screens and pages, inherited from the rich, European canon of myths, it is the Undead that reign. Zombies; vampires; more recently Frankenstein (that glorious Prince of the Id – the Werewolf – doesn’t count coz the bugger never died…) But it is the Vampire which deathlessly seduces.

While we find zombies, with their implicit symbolism of consumerism – stumbling, mindless, dispassionate hunger – morbidly fascinating, the vampire – condensing from a moist mist in the maiden’s dreams to hover above her bed; insinuating itself into the boudoir through the frosted window, by invitation – is inescapably romantic. Or was, until the teens took over. Here are three celluloid frames that retain the occult intrigue, dark eroticism, and cosmetic flair of the caped ones…

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola – 1992)

The definitive American version of Stoker’s gothic classic. Hovering over the bared, inviting neck of kitsch, it positively oozes with crimson and candles and darkness and bosoms and swooning blood.Coppola ingeniously recasts the brooding, claustrophobic horror of the 19th century novel as darkly simmering romance. “I have crossed oceans of time to find you,” Gary Oldman’s fanged seducer informs the on-the-brink-of-fainting Lucy.

The film belongs to Oldman, who brings a most unlikely sensuality and most improbable erotic intensity to the table, metamorphing from blood-drenched warlord to ancient, eerie mancreature; to werewolf; to chic, Transylvanian womanizer.

Tom Waits shines in an appropriately eccentric cameo, while the deliciously delicious Monica Belucci heads a bevy of orally fixated vamps.  Basically, it’s the shit.

Let the right one in (Thomas Alfredson – 2008)

A modest masterpiece exploring the myth from a fascinating, counter-traditional angle. The film focuses on the powerful friendship which develops between two 12 year olds – one a bullied, troubled school kid; the other a girl vampire who’s been twelve since forever.

Set in a small, Swedish town, the film’s dark frames are steeped in crisply white snow – the narrative unfolding in a kind of dreamy haze; crisp yet blurred; grimly contemporary yet retaining a fairytale quality.

Oskar is a gentle, almost feeble adolescent, who channels his frustration at being the sole target of a trio of school-bullies through violent fantasies of revenge, collecting newspaper clippings of violent crimes and murderers, which he keeps in a secret book. Into the sleepy, winter-trapped town of his life enters Eli, a young girl cautious of people yet aware of her incongruous power. Their opposite natures coalesce around their mutual, self-ordained solitude, and a tentative bond deepens into something beautiful and freeing. The film’s tone is cynically human: Pedophilia, violent abuse, parental depression – dark aspects of many children’s lives – are acknowledged, with the character of Eli bringing ironic redemption.

Great effects; endearing characters; and a contrapuntally hopeful score, conspire to make this one of the most touching films of recent years.

Shadow of the Vampire (E. Merhige – 2000)

Quirky, staged account of the filming of the Vampire genre’s silent classic, 1923′s Nosferatu. An abiding cult favourite, the original became the stuff of legend, central to which being the true nature of chillingly convincing actor Max Schreck, who portrayed cinema’s most atypical, physically repellent vampire. So bizarre, in fact, was Schreck’s performance, and his vampire’s twitchy physicality, that people became convinced it was too weird to be fiction.

In the post-modern take, Willem Dafoe – he of the erotically macabre mouth – climbs into Nosferatu’s skin. The film explores what could have been had the rumours been true – that Nosferatu’s director had coaxed an actual, dying vampire to appear in his film. Needless to say, crew members begin mysteriously disappearing, and rumours spread, leading to a situation of mutiny, the director too blinded by hopes of cinematic glory to admit that he might have made a deal with the wrong devil…

Intriguing, and truly creepy.

Written   By   : Mickdotcom