The fade: When a song doesn’t have the guts to end properly. Continue reading “The fade: More than just a haircut”
Tag: music
Lark + Taxi Violence + Plastics = BEAST
Review: BEAST, SMOKE SWIG SWEAR (2013)
BEAST is South Africa’s supergroup. They’re our The Traveling Wilburys or The Raconteurs, and they’re just as super. I’ve been wanting to do this review since about 10 minutes after I first heard their album when it was released a few month ago – it’s really, really good.
So, charisma abounds with Inge Beckmann (Lark), Louis Nel and Rian Zietsman (Taxi Violence) and Sasha Righini (The Plastics) on drums. The Taxi Violence guys both play bass, so there’s no ‘regular’ guitar, which for most of us just means we want to describe the music as ‘dark’, but we’re not sure why. Continue reading “Lark + Taxi Violence + Plastics = BEAST”
‘I just want to be treated like an ordinary … legend’
I went to see Rodriguez live in Cape Town the other night, and it was totally worth the R420 I paid. Wait … 420 bucks!? Is that a Big Concerts joke I only just got?
Anyway.
Because of one thing and another, I never got to see any of Rodriguez’s previous concerts in South Africa. After watching the documentary I rued not seeing that first concert in Cape Town, which looked so incredible and heart-warming, although a friend insists the reality was very different to the celluloid; that Rodriguez was so intoxicated he could barely sing, and that the crowd were more confused and disappointed than the enraptured and awed they appeared on screen. Don’t know if that’s true or not.
This time around perhaps the concert was lacking in other ways, after all Rodriguez is 70 now – and quite an ‘old’ 70, when I think of my sprightly 83-year-old grandfather. But it was still one of the best musical experiences I’ve ever had. Just to hear those great lyrics live, and that voice, which really hasn’t lost much since 1970.
Continue reading “‘I just want to be treated like an ordinary … legend’”
The best live act in Cape Town
Review: Lark, Gong is Struck (2012)
Lark are one of South Africa’s greatest bands EVER. I really believe they deserve to be world famous; Inge Beckmann is a most awesome frontispiece[1], and their live act is the most powerful thing you’ll see. They released their fifth album, Gong is Struck, in July.
Project Jennifer 
