“Turn around, look at what you see, in her face, the mirror of your dreams…” – Title theme of The Neverending Story by Limahl and Kajagoogoo.
Opinions on all things Alt scene Cape Town and music in general. Some copies of my reviews and interviews. Its kinda like an online backup of bitchin rants.
Monday, August 15, 2011
We came, we saw, we came again
Thursday, July 14, 2011
God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't.
LMG 50th Issue Party at Mercury Live, CT Zonnebloem
LMG the Live Music Guide to all things epic celebrated the release of their 50th free music magazine (yes, entirely free) on Friday night in
Taxi violence opened the event around 21:30 and impressed the hoards with their acoustic set featuring some friends from other local bands, We Set Sail and The Sleepers. Then it was over to the baby-dolls of Rockabilly, Peachy Keen followed by the kings of 80s attitude SABRETOOTH and finally Taxi Violence’s more energetic stuff with a glitter-clad axel-grinder man. (True story.)
Taxi Violence’s acoustic set was pleasantly pumped and got the people moving, Skinheads and Hippies alike (fascinating, I know). I couldn’t see anybody standing still while Peachy Keen took to the stage. They’re a duel fronted hillbilly rock poppy blues jumble band with very sexy vocal harmonies by tattooed fifties pin-up dames Dominic Otto and Alex Wise. I am ashamed to admit it was the first time I’ve seen them play and I am officially a devoted fan. They absolutely put the roll back in Rock’nRoll which I do applaud but I was far more interested in the hard rock part of the evening that only metalheads could bring.
The changeovers were so seamless that I only noticed SABRETOOTH had set-up because they hauled their signature fans (as in electric hair-blowing machinery not fleshy miscreants) on stage. They blasted the room with 80s inspired progressive hard-rock. The technically brilliant masters of their craft shredded their way through a powerful and ballsy set straight to the heart of the chaos. Stage diving fans hurled their bodies off stage into a writhing pit of muscles, leopard-skin, headbands and hair. The band was tighter than their leather pants and the only things beating faster than their drummers pedals were their man-crushes’ pulsing hearts.
Gyppo-pirate-hooker-rockers, punks, drunks and afro-funks hit the floor in a big way to party in honor of LMG’s contribution to the Music industry. The bizarre combination of patrons is a testament to the diverse appeal of the music magazine. Shout out to Mike ‘LMG’ Smith and his crew: “Hail!”
Bands like Enmity, A Walk with the Wicked, Heathens, AB Turbo, Fox Comet and The Sleepers rocked-out in the crowd showing their support.
What a sterling night! The foot of the stage was packed with sweaty happy people bumping about from the very first band until the DJ booth put forward some good old one-hit-wonders and some classic 70s/80s tunes till 3ish… everything after that gets a little messy.
Quality drink specials all night may or may not have been a contributing factor to the anorexia of my wallet! And the contrasting growth of my belly!
After a killer international standard event like this I am proud to be a supporter of local music. If you love music and you love
Epic flashback to the 90s
Hog Hoggidy Hog and The Rudimentals
The self-proclaimed kings of pork-rock, Hog Hoggidy Hog, got together with Cape-Tonian bred ska band, The Rudimentals to fill Mercury Live with sweat, screams and skanking. The much anticipated event kicked off to a full house with their more hardcore friends, The Summer Underground.
The Summer Underground’s performance can be remembered for one or two winning elements; one deliciously 80s intro, they committed to their energy and were fronted with zeal and they performed another number in a style reminiscent of Motorhead (which is always a good thing to hear). However, this was not the wind-milling crowd, time or place. Not yet anyway. The crowd that later proved to be phenomenally exuberant were unswayed by the performance and clearly had one thing on their minds; Skanking.
The Rudimentals brought their brass ensemble on stage with brass balls. The eight-piece ska/reggae/afro-beat band piled on stage to teach the people life lessons. Politics, social-comment, stereotypes and of coarse, how to dance! Building up and chilling out they led the bobbing, skanking, dancing, singing, hopping, jumping, bumping crowd on the journey through the Rudies set. Teboho Bobo Maidza rocked the mic and got literally everyone hollering back and forth. The rest of his crew joined him with harmonies, and unapologetically fun, African dance moves all while playing their instruments. They’ve got mad skills! They teased the audience with tiny selections of jumpable madness interspersed with their mellow groove sound. The audience, now packed like sardines from the foot of the stage right to the doors, was gagging for a release of this pent-up energy. Knowing that the Hogs were on the way only multiplied the tension.
In true Hog Hoggidy Hog style, the pork-rockers blew the roof off Mercury. Not a single intro was complete before the masses went absolutely mental. From their very first lines to the very last word, the audience sang, screamed and skanked to their tunes… more than the band!
Stage divers took their life into their hands diving (and more frequently drunkenly falling) into the middle of an epic typhoon of thrashing, flailing, falling, maiming, skanking, moshing limbs. Everyone, from the rebel kid that looks like he’s ten to the girls that look like Brenda Star, ladies and gents that haven’t done this in a decade and grey-haireds holding fort for the rockers of ages past, were united in a diabolical tangle of liveliness and sweat.
Beers were spilled, hair was tangled, clothes were ripped and make-up smudged. Heels, nails and ankles were broken. Dignity and faces (and sexy ladies) were busted. All in all, exactly what you’d expect from the Hogs!
What a send-off for Hog Hoggidy Hog who are about to take-on the world on their biggest tour yet.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Interlude
-Shameless Pimp.
But true to form, I’ve still been up to my tricks. This month’s hilarious revelation of Idols SA season 7 on m-net and on the idols channel 199 on DSTV as well as the release of Playboy’s launch party pics in their latest magazine have cemented three glorious truths:
1) I was photographed in Playboy magazine
2) I was on t.v.
3) I did both in little more than hairspray and sequins hahahahaha
Seriously though, the CT Music scene’s been exploding with quality events of late! What a promising start to winter! How better to hide from the cold than with a liquid blanket and a good band.
The most epic string of mid-week and weekend events include the notable HOGS and RUDIES (back to the nineties) revival gig at Mercury Live followed by this Friday’s YOUR LMG 50th issue party featuring the legendary SABRETOOTH, Peachy Keen and Taxi Violence. In between were massive parties filling up the Purple Turtle with bands like Fox Comet and Zula put on a couple of classy events in Long Street.
Meanwhile back in the home-front of Observatory, the likes of ROAR and Gandalf’s kept the ball rolling with a continuous onslaught of quality metal and cheap booze.
Official reviews of these and other live events by dani diamond can be found at:
12th Avenue Album Lauch: www.voiceofrock.com
Chromium (JHB) Tour to CT: www.voiceofrock.com
Playboy Launch Party (CT) : www.entertain-sa.co.za
MacGyver Knife: www.entertain-sa.co.za
"Look mom, im in Playboy Magazine!"
The Official Playboy
On Saturday 7 May 2011 trendy young
At 8pm, in
Thankfully, once in doors, the star-treatment and miniscule outfits remind oneself that this is Playboy. Pimping all things deliciously deranged, the event was a mix of beauty and the bizarre.
Local Play Bunnies tempt and tease their guests, pimping and preening in photographs. Still, the curvaceous bunny-girls were only one of the attractions. 16 entertainment acts including a line-up of top DJs rocked the booth, keeping the party pumping well into the next morning. There was also a Goat-man creeping around in long, furry hooves entertaining the audience, while burlesque dancers twisted and twirled through the crowds in strings of pearls and fushia-pink feathers… and very little else.
A promising beginning for the brand in our country with a brilliantly successful launch in bag! Already available are Playboy SA magazines showing our local talent and national and globally related articles. If this event is an indication of excitement to come we can expect a whole lot more from Playboy; energy drinks, clothing lines, excessive and exclusive parties and of coarse what Playboy does best - entertainment!
Check out my featured review of the event on Entertain SA’s website: http://www.entertain-sa.co.za
Thursday, May 26, 2011
MacGyver Knife’s Sewing Legend launch with She Man Lion.
Supporting act, She Man Lion rocked up and rocked out. Two words:
Most of their stuff sounds like Brit indie bands like ‘The Feeling’ so I found their material rather easy to predict but also easy to listen to, dance to and dig!
Their set was like mainlining feel-good
energy straight through your temples to your brain!
Their home crew were singing along to tracks like ‘Dark side of the sun’ and wiggling their hips while the dudes on stage had an absolute jam! Their passion and playfulness was infectious. I found myself literally giggling out loud to some of their songs. What a front man! They appeased their followers with an encore of ‘Jaguar’ to end the night.
If M
Find the OFFICIAL review on www.entertain-sa.co.za by yours truly, Dani Diamond.
Photographs by Gavin Collins of Pretty Trendy
All phenominal photographic representations of the night and other spectacular showings of his skills on http://prettytrendy@tumblr.com
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Running away with Circ du Soleil!
The awesome internationally acclaimed Circ du Soleil swung into Cape Town’s entertainment scene with an almighty ‘whoosh’ of magical mayhem. My pursuit of leisure led me to Grand West’s main arena for the spectacular spectacle that is Circ du Soleil! Sold out nearly immediately, they consented to add another five full days of performances to the Cape Town leg of the circus’ South-African tour and even then the packed arena was near capacity! Yipee!
Monday, March 7, 2011
RAMFEST 2011
“The healthy being craves an occasional wildness, a jolt from
normality, a sharpening of the edge of appetite, his own little festival of
Saturnalia, a brief excursion from his way of life.”
Robert Maclver quotes
“'Rock' [music]. . . is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to
Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the
experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their
defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental
force of the universe.”
Pope Benedict XVI quotes (German Pope(2005), baptized Joseph Alois Ratzinger (b.1927))
Metaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Rock’nRolling in the doh!
Money hadn’t quite made it there originally but if there were to be a Rock’nRoll New Testament it sure as hell would be in there!!”
-Dani Diamond
Rock’nRoll has those vital idols. The monster that came to suck all the free love and love of music out of Rock is not drugs or alcohol or rave even. Its money. (Monymony! Monymony!) The simple hunger for money and being rich has well overshadowed the desire to rock and to roll. When kids think Rock’nRoll they’re thinking superstardom, mansions, big cars, golf courses, limos. Come on! There’s nothing Rock’nRoll about golf or a limousine! They’ve pretty much turned Rock’nRoll into the Kardashians.
With the copying and downloading laws as loose as a pornstar’s vagina, musicians embraced the downloading trend. Billions of killer tracks are ‘illegally’ clogging up our PCs and being enjoyed by fans. The sharing factor has its highs though because through networks and easy distribution of illegal (and some legal) tracks, many more people are exposed to tunes by bands they haven’t heard before. Potentially this could be a great thing for bands all over the world.
With all the production, engineering, manufacturing, cropping, styling, designing and pimping involved in the grand money-making ploy that is Rock’nRoll, we are advanced enough to turn even shocking vocals into radio-play. We can all think of hundreds of examples… I’m tying to think of the one that is least likely to get me sued. I’ll get by with a little cash from my friends. Oh here's a winner: Joe from that reality show 'the real housewves of the Orange County' bought herself a recording contract:
It is also much harder to write what you want as opposed to what people want to hear if you just need to make some money.
Cape Town is brimming with talent and culture but sadly not quite as much money. It is rife with opportunity. The small market for specific tastes and genres like metal and rock are hugely eclipsed by our highly praised trance scene for example. Yes, with our aids rate one might assume that the average joe was totally in to sex, drugs and Rock’nRoll, but no, in fact the average joe is digging Kwaito. Even pop people have banded together in the form of Idols SA to try and get all the local celebs to unite in support of one effort. The whole idea being that there would be more buck$ behind the brand.
Limited funds and resources in music is like a pizza with too little cheese. When its all piled into one place there will be dry, crusty bits with very little going on in other places! The alternative is a bit of an unappealing tasteless pizza with only a tiny bit of cheese on each slice and no one slice of thriving music industry. There are limited places for bands to play and limited funds to pay them. Quality musicians are driven overseas on a quest for money. Not to make starry-eyed millions (though I’m sure that would be epic) but even just to make enough to live with music as their job.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Infiltrating IDOLS
Anyway, it started as an adventure on a whim. Dani heads off at 4 in the morning in a tiny rokkie and my (security-blanket) cowboy boots only to find a place in a queue behind the REALLY keen hundreds that had the idea before me.
Literally four hours later, once all the boredom that waiting around brings subsided and the very oddest of talents emerged, we were let in the big glass (public) doors. Since any hint of pretense had long worn off, the directors shamelessly subjected the (first lot of) thousands to an hour long round of whooping and waving for the ‘judges’ that actually only arrive three days later (unbeknownst to first-timers like myself).
Then from the whooping and cheering in the lobby we were herded like pigs to the slaughter up the escalators… well not quite to the slaughter yet. In fact, we still had a good few hours loafing in a big room on chairs before being numbered and grouped and sent out to meet our first opponent. A little cheesy classic Grease number, ‘Hopelessly devoted to you’ originally by Olivia Newton-John and the enemy was won over with my dazzling inner-diva.
Round 1: DANI-1, Enemy-0
Aaaaand then the reward: Wait around till 5pm to find out that the whole process happens again the next morning. Win.
Day 2 was far more eventful. Ha! 8am start and in a less retarded outfit than before. Still rolling the cowboy boots though… and decidedly UN-daytime makeup! We walked straight in today and got our numbers. Hours passed by like minutes now that you know some people and you’ve kind of built up immunity to waiting around. The energy is hyped. It’s called the director’s cut. Basically there’s a room chockablock with everyone you’ve caught a glimpse of in an Idols shirt. They sit there in a row or two and you stand on a mark and perform. I launched into a powerful rendition of Celine Dion’s ‘I’m your lady.’ Thankfully they either have bad taste in music or were looking for nutjobs or both so that was right up my alley! However, they are apparently anti-pants (a movement I fully endorse in my spare time) and told me to glam-up a bit for tomorrow. Yes, they totally let it slip! Haha. Oh well. If it’s glitter they want it is glitter they’ll get!!
Monday. 7am. Dressed in a sequined mini-dress with tarty heels especially bought for the occasion, I slow motion model-walked my entrance, hair-blowing and everything just like you’ll see on TV! (I kid. They totally edit that stuff hahaha but If it looks awesome then I swear I’m just a morning person.)
After some modeling and pimping in front of my fellow fine 50 and some decent jams and REALLY embarrassing footage collection, I got to the front of the telly-line. Eek. I waltzed into the room, mellow on herbal remedies and planted my killer heels firmly on the floor.
“I rocked so hard they all quit their jobs to join my
fanclub” - Flat Out Lie
Unathi is definitely my biggest fan. She told me to forget IDOLS and hit the Grammy’s baby. So that’s the second yes!! I only needed one more to go to Jo’burg. Gareth. I’m pretty sure he’s dyslexic or something and mixed up ‘Hell-yes-she’s-my-hero-baby’ with ‘no’.
So it was that my 3-day pop career ended before the Golden Ticket. Beaten by a brilliant but bald bassist and a bisexual who as far as I know, isn’t even a musician!! I did score slutty heels through the deal though. Oh, and an offer to do a porno.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The most metal gift of all; Disappointment.
Being the awsome fan such as I am, it was a hard knock for me watching the Kirstenbosch concert on Jan 23rd. Dan Patlansky, Farrel Purkis & Inge Beckman.
After much hype (and deserved hype because these muso's own) the late afternoon gig took the form of 3 songs by each accomplished musician and then a massive collaborative jam! It promised to be a stunning entertainer! I was especiallylookig forward to Ms Beckman's solo material. Antici... ...pation!
However, much like celibacy vows of Hank Moody, it was a promise unkept. FML. I was sorely disappointed by the whole thing. No sooner had the door swung shut on Lark's tight backside than the former frontwoman's creme de la crem performance turned sour like week old yoghurt thats been lying in the sun!