For the love of Alternative Music

In South Africa today, many people’s music appreciation goes beyond the tastes and preferences of the mainstream, and takes a dip below the surface, to the murky depths of the ‘underground’ or alternative music scene where your boots won’t be stepping on any bubblegum pop, but rather you’ll be immersed in raw artistic integrity that has escaped the greedy clutches of the mainstream music fat cats.

Alternative music in South Africa has been around for decades, and is fast growing, and becoming more established in our country’s society. The 1990’s saw the emergence of a vibrant alternative music scene with the popularity of rock bands such as The Springbok Nude Girls and the establishment of alternative rock festival Oppikoppi in 1994. Another major rock festival to come out of the North West Province, was Woodstock later in 1999. The alternative music scene in South Africa exploded when people began realising their intellectual independence post 1994.

Today, the alternative music scene is focused around four major parts of the country, Cape Town, being a hot spot for more experimental underground music, Joburg, Durban, and Bloemfontein where a large Metal music scene thrives. The scene, with its strong sense of community, sees artists, promoters and venues all actively working together to develop the local talent in our country.

Many would agree that the band Fokofpolisiekar turned the South African music scene on its head by introducing something that’s never been heard before, Punk Rock music sung in Afrikaans. They are indeed the symbol for Afrikaans Rock and attracted a mass following of fans and inspired a wave of new bands, which jump started the scene to a whole new level. Spawning from this Bellville super group came the various band member’s side projects, Van Coke Cartel, who recently won Best Rock Album at the 2011 SAMAs, Die Heuwels Fantasties and AKing, all contributing to the ‘VanFokKingTasties’ music scene.

The perfect platform to showcase Fokofpolisiekar and other similar bands is the music channel on DSTV, called MK. This channel supports rock music in South Africa, but to the dismay of alternative fans, it has to cater for a mainstream audience too. And so to keep their alternative music fans happy, and still interested, MK created a show which premiered last month, called MK Ondergrond. With its Tales from the Crypt inspired, Metal-head, animated presenter Mr Grimbles, as well as the hilariously drawn caricatures of famous mainstream acts like Locnville, or the ‘not everyone’s cup of tea’ Jack Parow ( or 'Zack Power'), to laugh at, MK Ondergrond supports its slogan of “Pasop Mainstream”. It features music videos of international and local alternative bands, from sweetly mellow Indie to the head banging, fist punching guitar thrashings of Hard Rock and Metal. There is no other show like it in South Africa, or the rest of the world for that matter. Be sure to check it out.

South Africa supports its local alternative scene with events such as gigs and music festivals. Oppikoppi, located in Northam, Limpopo Province, has progressed over the years from only having rock bands to including more alternative, electro dance outfits. In Kwa-Zulu Natal, the Splashy Fen festival hosts the best in alternative rock and reggae. Cape Town, sees two main alternative festivals a year, Ramfest at the beginning of the year in Worcester, and Rocking the Daisies later in the year in Darling. These events provide the bands with exposure, and the fans with the coolest ways to see their favourite bands perform live.

Some of the most prestigious, established alternative bands in South Africa:

• Chris Chameleon’s band Boo! have been around since 1997, and are still raking in new fans. They have performed to crowds in the US and Europe. In 2002 they’ve won a SAMA for Best Pop Album.
• The Narrow, formed in 2002, have played a festival in Europe.
• Taxi Violence, SA’s popular choice as an opening act for International bands like Billy Talent and Kings of Leon performing in South Africa. They’ve won a SAMA for Best Alternative Music Album for Untie Yourself, in 2008.
• Lark, after disappointing their hoards of fans with the news of their break up in 2008, Lark still comes back to the scene to perform every once and a while. In 2007 they were given a SAMA for Best Alternative Music Album for Razbliuto.
• The Plastics worked with international producer Gordon Raphael (who produced international super group The Strokes first two albums) on their 2010 album Shark.
• The Dirty Skirts have toured the US, UK and UAE.
• Desmond and the Tutus, SA’s Indie-darlings, have toured Japan recently.
• Die Antwoord have performed our local slang to crowds in New York, and fellow zef counter-culture Afrikaans rapper, Jack Parow, has had success in Holland.

As long as alternative music fans continue to show their support to our local artists as much as possible, who knows how much the alternative music scene in South Africa will grow. It’s great that our local artists get to tour overseas, but they should remember that South Africa is the heart of their true fan base, and they should continue to remain true to the local scene, right here.

Written by Cassandra Rowley for SA Men

Photos taken by Pieter Reyneke www.flickr.com/photos/peter-rey/

For all my friends back in South Africa

What seems to be the Officer, problem?

We all know how it goes. Friday night, time to cast off that worn out, sombre demeanor from the tiresome work week and transform into that wild, fun person all your friends know and love as you get into the celebratory end-of-the-week festivities. We all have our own preferences for winding down on a Friday night, whether its curling up on the couch with your cat in front of SABC 3, or surrounded by all your mates somewhere in a place where the challenge is on over who can speak the loudest and who can hear themselves over the array of blaring voices.

If your preference is closer to the latter then you will, possibly, be found either in a bar or club, or at a friend’s home. What will be the focal point of the evening? Alcohol of course, and quite possibly, copious amounts of it. Picture this scenario:  you’re at friend’s party at their house, the drinks are being poured, and it’s only seven in the evening. The night is still young. After two and a half hours, and two empty bottles of whisky you all decide to take this party elsewhere. This of course, requires transportation to the destination decided on, and with you being the more sober one out of the group the car keys get tossed your way. You think to yourself, ‘yeah I can do this, it’s not like I’ve never not pulled it off before’. As all six of you squash into your not too spacious sedan, you notice the vital ‘beers for the road’ placed between the legs of your maniacally-grinning intoxicated friends and your booze-fuelled spirit soars. Time to continue this party on the road for the time being. You crank up the front loader’s volume and off you go.

You’re halfway on this fun adventure, carrying on like you never even left the party, you ask one of your buddies to pass you a beer. Just as the refreshingly cold fluid passes through your lips and down your throat you turn to your right and find yourself face to face with a policeman’s scowl, who’s sitting in the car adjacent to you. You’re thinking that this is just your luck as you’re instructed to pull your mobile party machine to the side of the road. And you can imagine what happens next. Or can you? Do you know the consequences for being caught driving under the influence of alcohol, whether you even feel drunk or not? Well firstly, you will be asked to blow into a merciless pipe, the first step into your demise, which will notify you shortly just how skrewed you are. After you fail the breathalyzer test miserably, you are then handcuffed and taken to a police station to proceed with a blood test. That was the easy part. Now the nauseating downward spiral to give you the biggest wake up call and crash land you into a reality check is just beginning. You are put into a holding cell where you’re usually made to spend the night in. There you will spend the next possible 12 hours with your back against the wall while your prison-tattoo clad cell mate and their unmerry men eye you up, in the least. Your mommy and daddy couldn’t feel anymore further away right now.

After that traumatic ordeal is over you’ll be summoned to court where you can receive up to a R120 000 fine or a ten year prison sentence, or sometimes even both. If you exceed the legal blood alcohol level limit of 0,05 grams per 100 millilitres of blood, which is basically equivalent to only two drinks for men and only one for women, you will have to face up to the penalty awarded for what you might have thought of as ‘harmless’ driving while under the influence of alcohol. Worth it? No. Rather scrounge for some change and split a taxi, appoint a designated Dave, or just remain where the party started and claim your friend’s comfiest couch in advance. Don’t be a fool, only drive sober and be, well, cool.

Written by Cassandra

Showing Skin : An article I had published on SAMen Online

How much skin women choose to show is determined by a matter of taste and preference of both the individual and the observer. Through the ages women have been dressing according to the norms of society, which has undergone some drastic changes since the beginning of last century.
 
Women choose to dress provocatively for some of the following reasons:

• Primitively speaking, to attract a mate,
• to attract attention to their self-deemed gorgeous bodies,
• to get free drinks from men, or
• to seek the one night stand they’re after.

Bear in mind, when you see young girls going out wearing next to nothing that they might just be expressing their youth rather than their sexuality because in most cases they’re too young, and maybe naive, to realise the message that their way of dressing is conveying.

Going back a hundred years

In the old days, women weren’t supposed to show their ankles, their dresses had to practically drag on the floor. Think of the Voortrekkers in South Africa. In Victorian times, even the legs of the piano were covered in case they gave men dirty thoughts. You couldn’t get more conservative than that!

NMem/Royal Photographic Society/Science & Society

1920+
Things began to change rapidly after 1920 when women of the Western world got the vote. This newly gained independence brought about shorter skirts for American and British women. The World Wars also gave women a greater sense of independence after they filled jobs previously occupied by the men, who had left to fight in the war.

1960+
The 1960’s boasted the shortest skirts of all when the miniskirt became popular in London, endorsed by famous model of the time, Twiggy. During the economic ups and downs of the West
Flickr R.L Huffstutter 
people joked how skirt length was a predictor of stock market direction. Short skirts indicated a time of general consumer confidence whereas long skirts depicted a time of general fear and gloom.

In South Africa, during this time, the Afrikaans society was still very conservative in their cultural beliefs, and the women in their way of dressing, compared to Britain and the USA. With the government’s opposition to the introduction of television, and it’s late appearance only in 1976, a Western influence through media took a long time to manifest in our country.

Today
These days if you look at Afrikaans music videos on a channel like MK on DSTV, groups like Die Antwoord and Snotkop keep up with the standard of overseas Hip Hop videos with the use of women who look like they’ve just climbed off the nearest strip pole, or come off a porn set.

Yet, Western culture hasn’t become completely numb to the idea of nakedness, because society still limits how much skin is allowed to be shown through censorship and social morals. However, some people do push the boundaries, with examples like Lady Gaga and her skimpy outfits in her music videos, and some rather proud exhibitionists on some of our beaches in South Africa. There are those women who like to show as much skin as possible as often as possible, then there are those women who like to leave a lot for the imagination by covering up with just a hint of skin showing, enough to entice you.

Most women do know that if they’re looking for a long term partner they need to cover up and show respect for themselves in order to attract a man who is looking for someone to get serious with. Johnny Depp fell for his long term partner Vanessa Paradis from seeing just a flash of the back of her swan-like neck. That’s all he needed to see of her to make him want her.

This is made illustrious by the timeless style of Coco Chanel, who adopted elements from male attire for women to use, like women’s slacks. Her style is a great guide for any woman who wants to dress sexy, but still appropriate.

“Elegance does not consist in putting on a new dress” - Coco Chanel

The real question remains, how do you men feel about the way women are dressing these days?

Written by Cassandra Rowley for SA Men

http://www.samen.co.za/index.php/date-women/594-women-dress-article

Marked for Life

And so we watch the sun come up

From the edge of the deep green sea

“What does your tattoo say?” asks a curious stranger. “Oh, it’s a line from a song by my favourite band The Cure, it has meaning to me,” I reply, slightly annoyed at the intrusion. Then I sigh realizing that this of course would happen after putting words on my back.

I always wanted a tattoo, but not necessarily an image but rather words. I love words. I love a great piece of writing. My search for the perfect combination of words to have inscribed forever into my skin ended when I realized who was responsible for the most beautiful words that I hear everyday. Robert Smith of The Cure. I listen to this band on a daily basis. They feature on every mix CD I have made over the years and they own rightful place on every playlist I’ve made on my Ipod. I just can’t get enough of his words, or rather, his lyrics. Being a massive music fan I decided a lyric would be more sentimental to me than a quote.

Most of The Cure’s lyrics have meaning to me and my life, but I found one in particular which was something when read by others would not give away too much private details, and the meaning it had to my life would still remain unknown to others.

Perhaps some people think it was a bad idea, but I don’t care what they think. Pfft. Whatever. Haha. I know that these two lines will always have meaning to my life and I definitely know that after all the years of adoration for The Cure, I will never get over them.

If you haven’t heard the song from which the lyric comes from, feel free to check out the link to a video of their performance of ‘From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea’ below.

http://youtu.be/YtgtC31Emec 

A piece of writing from a virtuoso

Here is a beautiful excerpt from one of my favourite stories, The Fisherman and his Soul by Oscar Wilde. Enjoy.

"Every evening the young Fisherman went out upon the sea, and threw his nets into the water...and one evening the net was so heavy that hardly could he draw it into the boat...He tugged at the thin ropes...But no fish at all was in it...only a little Mermaid lying fast asleep.
Her hair was as a wet fleece of gold, and each separate hair as a thread of fine gold in a cup of glass. Her body was as white ivory, and her tail was of silver and pearl. Silver and pearl was her tail, and the green weeds of the sea coiled around it; and like sea-shells were here ears, and her lips were like sea-coral. The cold waves dashed over her cold breasts, and the salt glistened upon her eyelids.
So beautiful was she that when the young Fisherman saw her he was filled with wonder, and he put out his hand and drew the net close to him, and leaning over the side he clasped her in his arms. And when he touched her, she gave a cry like a startled sea-gull and woke, and looked at him in terror with her mauve-amethyst eyes, and struggled that she might escape. But he held her tightly to him, and would not suffer her to depart.
And when she saw that she could in no way escape from him, she began to weep, and said 'I pray thee let me go, for I am the only daughter of a King, and my father is aged and alone'.
But the young Fisherman answered, 'I will not let thee go save thou makest me a promise that whenever I call thee, thou wilt come and sing to me, for the fish delight to listen to the song of the Sea-folk, and so shall my nets be full.'
So she made him the promise he desired and sware it by the oath of the Sea-folk. And he loosened his arms from about her, and she sank down into the water, trembling with a strange fear.

Every evening the young Fisherman went out upon the sea, and called to the Mermaid, and she rose out of the water and sang to him. Round and round her swam the dolphins, and the wild gulls wheeled above her head.
And she sang a marvellous song. For she sang of the Sea-folk who drive their flocks from cave to cave, and carry the little calves on their shoulders; of the Tritons who have long green beards, and hairy breasts, and blow through twisted conches when the King passes by; of the palace of the King which is all of amber, with a roof of clear emerald, and a pavement of bright pearl; and of the gardens of the sea where the great filigrane fans of coral wave all day long and the fish dart about like silver birds, and the anemones cling to the rocks, and the pinks burgeon in the ribbed yellow sand. She sang of the big whales that come down from the north seas and have sharp icicles hanging to their fins; of the Sirens who tell of such wonderful things that the merchants have to stop their ears with wax lest they should hear them, and leap into the water and be drowned; of the sunken galleys with their tall masts, and the frozen sailors clinging to the rigging, and the mackerel swimming in and out of the open portholes; of the little barnacles who are great travellers, and cling to the keels of the ships and go round and round the world; and of the cuttlefish who live in the sides of the cliffs and stretch out their long black arms, and can make night come when they will it. She sang of the nautilus who has a boat of her own that is carved out of an opal and steered with a silken sail; of the happy Mermen who play upon harps and can charm the great Kraken to sleep; of the little children who catch hold of the slippery porpoises and ride laughing upon their backs; of the Mermaids who lie in the white foam and hold out their arms to the mariners; and of the sea-lions with their curved tusks, and the sea-horses with their floating manes.
And each day the sound of her voice became sweeter to his ears...With lips parted, and eyes dim with wonder, he sat idle in his boat and listened, listening til the sea-mists crept round him, and the wandering moon stained his brown limbs with silver.
And one evening he called to her, and said: 'Little Mermaid, little Mermaid, I love thee. Take me for thy bridegroom, for I love thee.'
Bu the Mermaid shook her head. 'Thou hast a human soul,' she answered. 'If only thou wouldst send away thy soul, then could I love thee.'
And the young Fisherman said to himself, 'Of what use is my soul to me? I cannot see it. I may not touch it. I do not know it. Surely I will send it away from me, and much gladness shall be mine.' And a cry of joy broke from his lips, and standing up in the painted boat, he held out his arms to the Mermaid. 'I will send my soul away,' he cried, 'and you shall be my bride...and in the depth of the sea we will dwell together, and all that thou hast sung of thou shalt show me, and all that thou desirest I will do, nor shall our lives be divided.'
'But how shall I send my soul from me?' cried the young Fisherman.
'Alas! I know not,' said the little Mermaid: the Sea-folk have no souls.' And she sank down into the deep, looking wistfully at him."

Some creative writing

Beams of moonlight cascade down on her from the bright, white, swollen moon above, bathing her in light while she wanders alongside the black lake and into the dark shadow-filled forest. She treads upon the sand of the shoreline, dipping her toes into the icy, murky water. She bends down and rests upon her knees and looks up to the bright shining object illuminating her in the darkness. At that moment she realizes that that same ball of brightness is shining down on him and his scarlet-lipped concubine, over their sty of satin sheets and feather pillows. They’re making love in the light beams of the swollen moon, the very same moon keeping her company on this dark, lonely night.

Antique Vinyls

Recently I was going through my parents old records from the 1970s and 80's. Man they were cool! You can't help but admire the artwork on the record covers. A lot of work went into designing the cover art. Fortunately today we can still get hold of old vinyls and even record players. The sound quality is to me, personally, better than that of CDs. You hear that crackling sound as the needle delicately caresses the vinyl and it just gives it such an authentic sound. I suppose today technology geeks would disagree, and since I'm not one to really appreciate advancements in modern gadgets, there is something divine about vintage technology. Compare the effect of modern digital photographs to dark room developed photos taken with an old camera.The difference is immense.
Okay, I'm not going to replace my colour TV for a black and white one anytime soon, but there are still certain things we can appreciate that were created in the 'old days', and I'm so grateful that one can still get their hands on them these days. Newer is not necessarily better kids

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