Cape Town music
There's a lot of stuff to do in Cape Town for the musically inclined. There is the Armchair Theatre in Observatory, where every weekend the arty set of Treacletown gather to loiter stand-offishly in their ripped jeans and listen to avant garde electronica. Or there is Mercury Live just around the corner from my house, where the fare and crowd is of a more studenty nature. Or there is Zola on Long Street, which plays.. Well, to be honest I don't know because I keep away. Think there might be drumming involved.
Waiting for the magic...
Point is, after six months here, there is no reason at all to feel bored, or miss the vast range of entertainment in London. Or the feeling of people actually bothering to coming to see great bands. Oh no, sireee not here noooo... Er.
It's not that this place lacks talent. Some of the acts are great. It's that the people here are morons. Let me give an example.
On Wednesday, a band called Harris Tweed played their first ever Cape Town gig (they are from Joburg) at Armchair. Now, they do indie pop in the Cardigans meets Tori Amos tradition, and they do it well. To illustrate how well, let me just say they have been invited to play South By SouthWest (sxsw) in the US this summer.
Don't ever start listening to rubbish bands, boy!
There was quite a crowd already when we sauntered into the venue around tennish. But they were there not for Harris Tweed, the acclaimed Joburg band that is heading, presumably, for a end-of-series prom night slot in some US telly drama like the OC. Oh no. They were there for this grinning muppet lunatic Rory Elliot, a local who plays his own crap music that he presumably wrote after reading the first fifteen pages of David Gray's bestselling book "How to make millions off simple guitar tunes" before he got to the part that reads "and now, try playing in a different key".
Gaah! I won't even link to his Myspace page because his tripe deseves NOT any more airtime. Bad enough that anybody like that gets to play on a stage anywhere. But, as I was averting my eyes from his t-shirt-and-crap-cd-throwing hideousness I saw that, around me, everybody was singing along! Not even drunkenly, but in that 'oh you sing about me. ME!' way. USELESS! Then, most of them left in time for Harris Tweed to come on. As I said, morons.
Then, of course, there are the trance parties. You can travel to South Africa and, bang, be moved back to the summer of love oh yes. Mid-1990s is what most of us associate with trance. The rest of the world has moved on, but Cape Town on new years eve (or at least the woods thereabout) revert to being Goa circa 1992.
Lark is a good SA act.
What to do? Well, there are good things. Cape-Town based Lark deserves a much bigger audience than it can get here. And a more ethic vibe comes in the guise of Freshly Ground, a band that plays afro-fusion jazz whatever and which is extremely popular down here.
Failing that, you can always make your own music. Sister and some swedes and I hung out at the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens last night to sing carols by candlelight (from whence the pictures above). Seeing as Sister and I both spent 9 years in various music schools we approach these cozy musical get togethers with cynicism. Too many turns performing xmas songs to senile old biddies in each and every one of Stockholm's old peoples homes will do that to you. But in the end, and with the help of some of Simon's excellent Rose, we got into the seasonal vibe.
Happy xmas everybody!
Waiting for the magic...
Point is, after six months here, there is no reason at all to feel bored, or miss the vast range of entertainment in London. Or the feeling of people actually bothering to coming to see great bands. Oh no, sireee not here noooo... Er.
It's not that this place lacks talent. Some of the acts are great. It's that the people here are morons. Let me give an example.
On Wednesday, a band called Harris Tweed played their first ever Cape Town gig (they are from Joburg) at Armchair. Now, they do indie pop in the Cardigans meets Tori Amos tradition, and they do it well. To illustrate how well, let me just say they have been invited to play South By SouthWest (sxsw) in the US this summer.
Don't ever start listening to rubbish bands, boy!
There was quite a crowd already when we sauntered into the venue around tennish. But they were there not for Harris Tweed, the acclaimed Joburg band that is heading, presumably, for a end-of-series prom night slot in some US telly drama like the OC. Oh no. They were there for this grinning muppet lunatic Rory Elliot, a local who plays his own crap music that he presumably wrote after reading the first fifteen pages of David Gray's bestselling book "How to make millions off simple guitar tunes" before he got to the part that reads "and now, try playing in a different key".
Gaah! I won't even link to his Myspace page because his tripe deseves NOT any more airtime. Bad enough that anybody like that gets to play on a stage anywhere. But, as I was averting my eyes from his t-shirt-and-crap-cd-throwing hideousness I saw that, around me, everybody was singing along! Not even drunkenly, but in that 'oh you sing about me. ME!' way. USELESS! Then, most of them left in time for Harris Tweed to come on. As I said, morons.
Then, of course, there are the trance parties. You can travel to South Africa and, bang, be moved back to the summer of love oh yes. Mid-1990s is what most of us associate with trance. The rest of the world has moved on, but Cape Town on new years eve (or at least the woods thereabout) revert to being Goa circa 1992.
Lark is a good SA act.
What to do? Well, there are good things. Cape-Town based Lark deserves a much bigger audience than it can get here. And a more ethic vibe comes in the guise of Freshly Ground, a band that plays afro-fusion jazz whatever and which is extremely popular down here.
Failing that, you can always make your own music. Sister and some swedes and I hung out at the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens last night to sing carols by candlelight (from whence the pictures above). Seeing as Sister and I both spent 9 years in various music schools we approach these cozy musical get togethers with cynicism. Too many turns performing xmas songs to senile old biddies in each and every one of Stockholm's old peoples homes will do that to you. But in the end, and with the help of some of Simon's excellent Rose, we got into the seasonal vibe.
Happy xmas everybody!
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