kagablog

For some perverse reason I am awake at 4am. But worse than this, the metallic grey false dawn light is tainted with the soundtrack of maudlin 70’s love song, “The Day Before You Came”. It’s ricocheting around my skull. Some woman is warbling it over and over in precisely the overly sentimental way that two years of singledom has resulted in me hating. I stare resentfully at the monochrome beige curtains until I subside into the last hour or so of sleep, dreading the technicolor immediacy of the dreams I know it must bring. My last waking thought is, ‘Well maybe it is.’

When the alarm rings at 6am, I am waist deep in amorphous green/blue goo, wielding a strangely light-filled broad sword and baying at the top of my lungs while joyfully cleaving heads from the bodies of weird alien beasts. It takes several bleats from the cellphone alarm to calm my racing heart. I open my eyes slowly. The familiar dimensions of the bedroom assert themselves upon my unwilling consciousness. It might have been crazy, but slaughtering those beasts was fun. Do I want to return to the mundanity of my four, somewhat dirty white walls, beige curtains and hideously mis-matched bedding? I am groggy from the sudden intensity of the hour or so’s sleep. It takes me ten minutes to remember waking up previously. It is only in the shower that I recall the song, and sing, ‘This is the first day of the rest of my life’ ironically under my breath to myself. I soap my pits, my balls, my arse; vigorously scrub my leg, chest and back surfaces and my arms, before hosing myself off in the pungently chemical city water supply. Invigorated I step from the shower, whip a razor across my chops and look to don my armour for a day in the world.

Popular wisdom would have one live each day as if it was your last. And while I relate to the sentiment, I cannot see that having sex all day every day is really going to make for much of a life. But the idea of noting the exact nature of every passing mote of time and detail registers a harmonic in me. To make every detail important and to celebrate it. A series of tiny, static nows that are examined and remembered, as opposed to bundled into minutes and hours which are devoured by the processes of being alive and making plans to live. My Buddhist under-mind smiles as my reptilian mind recoils and I am left smiling humourlessly at the idea of holding down a job while making every moment of life holy. But I feel that if this is the last day of life as I know it, because it is the day before she arrives into my existence, maybe I should be recording it. Maybe I will need it later to remember what it was that I left behind. One always needs to know where one came from.Primarily to stop you from heading back there I feel, but mainly in order to have some sense of progression. Nature tends towards inertia, decay, but consciousness strives for change. My body and mind war with each other over these drives while I hold down the job that buys us the luxury of time to have the debate. It would be nice to have some other source of meaning in the ritualised actions of my days.

None the less, I am mindful as I drink my fruit juice and chew my banana. I count every stroke of my toothbrush as I clean my teeth. The sun feels comfortingly warm on my back as I close the door to my flat and walk to my car. In fact, the sky is a clear crisp blue that looks like brand new tissue paper, begging to be wrinkled. The sun is bright and my shoes make a musical scrunching on the concrete. Bird song drowns out the traffic noises from the main road. I press my remote control and with a smart chirp, the car springs open, deactivating the alarm and the immobiliser. I reflect for a second that, on the last day of my life as I have known it, it would be so much more perfect if I didn’t have to think about the mundanities of actually staying alive.

When the day is the last , the sky takes on a whole other texture. Trees stand out in stark relief, more like sculptures than paintings against a background. Cars shine and gleam as they pass by in the road. By the time I have driven to work I am aware of two things. One I am very, very wide awake. And conversely, interestingly, I am tired. My head feels like an over-full letterbox. The combination of the two sensations is like an effervescent multi vitamin going off in my heart. I am elated, I am clear headed. The fatigue feels GOOD. I sit at my desk wallowing in this for a few minutes while my machine boots up, the virus scan runs and the updates download. Every single day begins like this. I have not altered my routine; I have merely paid attention to it. What an interesting world I live in. I haven’t spoken to another living soul, and already I feel more at home in the tiny corner of the world I have carved myself. I don’t feel like I an peeping out from between curtains at a parade anymore, I feel like I am handing out cookies from my front door as the participants file by, smiling. Ridiculous, I think.

If I was to die tomorrow, this day would have been wonderful. I haven’t had sex, I haven’t got high, and I haven’t bought any toys. I just started taking mental note of everything. Looking right at things instead of through. It’s not possible to live like this everyday, is it? You’d take so long to do anything. You’d be sidetracked and unfocussed. Right now though, I am not sure I care much about those side effects. I decide to make a cup of coffee while my email downloads. My day is ordinary. I have two or so hours now to write some reports, to reply to emails, answering queries and so on. Then I have a couple of calls to make, quotes to chase, information to gather. Then I have a lunch with a client, and the afternoon has been cleared for admin. I need to catch up on paperwork. I look at my to-do list as I sip my coffee. I know most of the people I am about to call. My client is male. I know all the staff here. If this is the day before she comes, I am not sure where she is coming from. Realising my mistake, I look at tomorrow’s diary. Pretty much more of the same. I am not doing anything after hours on either night. I am just living this life. This life that until today I had thought was mundane. If tomorrow she is in my life, what is she going to see? My boredom and repetitions of the same actions and ideas? Or my new excitement at the colour and depth around what I do with my time? What would I like her to see? If today is the day before she comes, isn’t there a good chance that I already know her, I muse. I mean, my dairy shows no opportunity for meeting anyone new. Will I bump into her in the check out queue at Pick ‘n Pay? At the ATM? Will we do the strangers tango in some public place, each starting in the same direction as the other until we laugh and look into each others eyes? Will one of my phone calls result in an unexpected meeting, and it’s her? Will… Ah. Ja, whatever.

The time until lunch flies by. And even though I am focussed on my work, I am conscious of writing my emails differently, I am conscious of patience; of perspective of the time I have to do things. Before I know it, my outlook calendar pops up my 30 minute reminder to go to lunch. I stand; pick up my folder and notes for the meeting. I look around my office, straighten papers on my desk, push the chair in, walk out and close the door. Its autumn and the crispness of seasonal change has crept into the highveld air. It’s not cold, but I am not moving in a pool of heat and oil like two weeks ago. I note the sensation of cooler air across my lungs. My chest seems to expand easier, I suck in more oxygen, my eye sight sharpens, as if the water content of the air has dropped and my vision tweaked accordingly. The short walk to the car is full of sensations: the feel of things through my shoes, concrete, stones, cracking of dry leaves. I look around the car park but I am the only one here. A Hadeda squawks by in the sky, calling for its mate. The car alarm pips twice. I open one door and slide back inside its familiar cocooning.

I am early for the meeting, having left too much time to get to the restaurant. As I walk in, I note the hostess. She is tall, brunette, beautiful. I think for ten seconds. I am 40 years old. She must be 25. I shrug and approach the front desk. She smiles at me.
“Good afternoon sir. Do you have a reservation?”
The smile is perfect, but her eyes maintain the same constant glow. There is nothing in front of her that she is waiting for. “Yes, for 1pm,” I reply and give her the client name. She picks up 3 menus and escorts me to the table.
“Would you like something to drink while you wait?” she asks.
I order a glass of water, lemon, no ice, and she leaves to relay my order to our waiter. I look around. The joint is half full and there are women dotted around the room at various tables. I tally up how many fall into the right age bracket and so on before stopping myself. If this is the last day of my life before she comes, isn’t it true to say that she is a factor about which I don’t know? Again, is it someone I know or not? I just don’t know. Then she is just as likely to be 21 as 45 and therefore any sectioning of the women I see might be to begat the process. I sigh and sip my water. I’ll just talk to everyone.

Ten minutes later a woman approaches my table. She is about 30-ish, attractive, and smartly dressed. I was engrossed in my cell phone and didn’t notice until her body cast a shadow over my table. I look up, see her and smile.
“Hi.” She says
“Hi.” I reply, wondering what this is about.
“Um, you’re not Victor are you?” she asks, realising that I am clearly not expecting to meet someone I don’t recognise.
“No.” I reply, but realising her predicament, I add, “But I get mistaken for him all the time.”
She smiles, clearly uncomfortable, but grateful, “Oh, I am so sorry, thank you,” and heads off to the table a few down from me where another man sits alone. This one is right, she sits.
The client arrives and all chance to observe the world around me is obliterated. The meeting proceeds.

As we are wrapping up, another woman approaches our table, an ex colleague of my client’s assistant, they talk, hurried introductions are made. Our eyes meet, she looks away. 2 minutes later she is gone and the bill is paid and we are walking out the restaurant. At the door, we part and I turn and bump into another patron on the way in. It’s a woman. We both apologise, pat each other reassuringly, hurry off away from the scene as quickly as possible. Back in my car, I tally up four new faces. Some I considered, some I did not. There was no electricity and no-one seemed to want to stay to find out more, and I felt compelled to detain no-one. I shrug, start the car, head back to the office.

The building is quiet. It is nearly 4pm, and I have an hour to get on with some admin. The brighter ones have set up 4 o clock meetings so as to be able to go straight home. I pull the tray of paper towards me and start to process. At five thirty, one of the PA’s on the floor pops her head in to say she is leaving and I am the last one left. I start, looking at the time.
“Oh,” I remark inanely to her smiling face, “lost track of the time! I will be leaving now too then.”
“OK” she smiles; “I’ll start turning the lights and things off then.”
I smile back and start to shut down my machine. Once that is complete, I grab my jacket and car keys, lock my door behind me and fall instep with the PA as we leave the office. She’s been here a while, but I don’t know her name. She nice though. Not that one is ever interested in colleagues, way more trouble than it is worth. I smile at the thought. My last working day before she came is now over and I am walking out the office ticking women off an imaginary list. She catches me smiling.
“What’s so funny then?” she asks with a smile of her own.
I laugh, “Oh nothing really, I just feel a bit silly for losing track of the time there.” I reply, putting any words into the spot between inverted comma’s so as not to have to say what I am thinking.
She laughs, “Well, don’t worry, my lift is often late for the same reasons!”
We reach the exit to the building, and there is no car outside for her. “Like today,” she adds, “No lift yet.”
It’s getting dark, and we don’t work in a very nice part of town. I volunteer to stay until her lift arrives.
She looks at me as if gauging my reasons. “You really don’t have to you know.” She says soberly, “I can stay inside the building until she arrives.”
“I know,” I say, “But at least this way you’ll have some company.”
We wait together for a companionable 15 minutes, exchanging inane small talk until a blue Honda Civic pulls up. We push through the doors into the street, and she opens the door, hops smartly in and winds down the window, “Thank you for waiting with me, it was kind of you!”
“And I am sorry you had to,” chirps another voice from the driver’s side.
I bend over so as to be able to see in through the window.
“I…” I manage.
The driver blushes
“It was my pleasure.” I choke out.
“Sorry,” says the driver, still blushing and looking up and down fast. Then our eyes lock.
“I’ll be early tomorrow, just to be sure,” she says to me.
Her sister laughs
“I’ll be out here waiting.” I say
She smiles and bites her lip slightly.
“I’ll be here,” I repeat.
She throws her head back and laughs, engages gear and drives off. Both women wave.
here? There seem to be a few too many words for such a punchy ending - DONE]

Tomorrow, I think, what am I doing tomorrow?

order the book here

“Dave Chislett is one of the few body builders in Joburg who sings opera. He shoots a mean game of pool when he’s drunk, which is often enough for him to be considered a regular guy (despite the opera singing stuff). If you know anything about opera you’ll know that the pinnacle of achievement is hitting the top “C” which is a note the other guys can’t get to even if they stand on tip toe. Chislett’s short story writing is all “top C”, the notes are smooth but backed by solid muscle.”

ak

published in the cape times, friday, 10/12/09

In the shadows of the tube station wall I can see them lurking. There are about six of them: children. No more than ten years of age or thereabouts. They have chosen their positions well, just out of the range of the station cameras, under the lip of the station overhang, where the high street station cameras cannot reach. I process all of this information just as I walk into their trap, caught out by a quirk of architecture and my own absent-minded strolling.

“Just keep walking Gov,” says an unnervingly young-sounding old voice as two of them fall in alongside me, their faces obscured and voices muffled by the hoodies they wear pulled right forward over their faces. I look rapidly over my shoulder, but there are two more behind me and I can see something gleaming brightly in their little fists in the dull street light’s glow. The one who spoke chuckles dryly as I look back ahead of me at the three more of the group that have taken up position, two ahead to close the box, and one on point about 100 meters further ahead.

“Take it nice and easy like, we won’t hurt you,” the Hoody voice speaks again, “Just nice and easy up into the park here and then you can go n your way.”
Checking their height and the voice, I mentally confirm that the hoody and tracksuit wearing people are no more than ten. They barely reach my elbow, and with voices most certainly nowhere nearing breaking. I have located the knives, or sharpened bicycle spokes, screwdrivers and whatever else they clutch in their hands. They are playing this nice and easy, but they know what they are doing, they have done this more than once before, that’s for sure. Probably a hundred times. Our little formation formed so fast I hardly even saw it, the look out wasn’t even part of the group at the station wall; he must have already been ahead, sweeping the path that we are now taking.

While the two boys on either side take care not to look at me directly at all, their hands with knives gripped tightly in them never leave my side, hovering about 4 inches away from my sides, just behind my arms. The two behind are no more than two steps behind and they are watching me like a hawk. The escort pair up front are more casual, but I can see there are keyed up and jumpy, just waiting for the sound of the slightest thing going wrong behind them. And our sweeper up ahead has so far shooed away an old homeless guy and a gang of kids on bikes. This stretch of road is deserted. They know their craft.

Despite my lush overcoat and briefcase however, I know they are going to be very disappointed when we get into that park and they demand my stuff. My pockets are entirely clean. I handed my travel card to a pan-handler at the tube station exit. I paid for it with exact change when I entered the tube system on Oxford road. I do not even have a wallet in my pocket. The bulge in my left trouser leg pocket, is a wadded up tourist guide, not a cell phone. My briefcase may seem to be covered with expensive leather, but is in fact a very old and solid steel framed piece of junk. The truth is, I have no money, no valuables at all and these seven little criminals have come here expecting a rich pay day, and I know they will not take it lightly when they find it out.

For two weeks I have been commuting the route from Oxford road down south to Brixton. It’s the ideal route really because the previously run down area of Brixton is going though one of those periods of what the Poms like to call gentrification. So, while there are plenty of care-in-the-community mad people on the streets, homeless clutching cans of super brew, and dope selling Rasta’s, there is also a good proportion of upwardly mobile young people who like the “edge” of the area, and who have bought one and two bed roomed apartments set a little away from the main tube station and are creating their vision of an ideal city life. I look just like one of those. I have made sure of that. My training may be from another time and another place, but my skills hold up. My old handlers made very, very sure of that.

Setting up my character, I dropped my briefcase on the station floor on the second day of my commute. A cellphone, calculator, phone charger, note book, cheque book and lap-top computer all spilled out. I hurriedly swept it all back into the case, and looked around nervously. As I thought, there were a few kids hanging around the photo booth and the newsstand watching. I straightened up, walked past the two Bobbies with sniffer dogs, waiting patiently at the entrance. Reviewing that memory, it is impossible to tell whether any of these kids were there that day. Their faces remain totally obscured.

Once outside the station, I walked back to the flat I was renting in a pretty direct route, no deviation, not looking over my shoulder once. But I kept my ears open and heard the footsteps tailing along behind me. I wasn’t fooled by the gang of kids on bikes that circled endlessly around the road, nor the skateboarder stunting off the council estate steps. But I just walked, remembering everything.

Over the next two weeks I bought a paper, a week travels pass, took some photo’s, bought lots of chocolate, stopped off at the supermarket and bought 3 bags of groceries, all as close to the tube as possible. The walk to the flat might have been short, but it was uphill and carrying plenty of parcels was never pleasant. I am patient, used to sitting in trees in the burning bush, in shallow foxholes, in freezing cold and searing heat. I feel nothing. This little expedition is simple by comparison.

I recall Steyn, my spotter and tracker from the bush war. My last mental image of him is a black and white Photostat of an article from the Times in London. They used an old picture from just after we left what was then the SADF. He looked young and eager. But he was dead. Killed in a mugging. The article seemed to imply that it may well have been a gang of children. I was stumped. Steyn was an assassin and killer, trained by one of the most lethal armies in the world at the time. A reconnaissance soldier who had trained US Navy Seals, British SAS and Israeli Mossad operatives. How could he be dead at all after what we survived? I flew in the next day.

We are approaching the gates to the park when I start talking, “So, you boys work this patch quite a lot then?”
“Shut-up” growls Hoody back at me.
“You know I heard that there were gangs of feral children around here when we bought,” I continue smoothly, “but the police assured us that it was now under control.”
“Just shut the fuck up and keep walking,” the child next to me growls, starting to sound a little rattled. By now we are in the park and the street is out of sight, the tranquil stillness a sudden contrast from the street noise. I judge my time and slow my pace slightly, and my two escorts drift two paces ahead of me, while the two behind me almost bump into me.

“In fact,” I say, “You look exactly like the kind of child that is taking this city over.”
Before anyone can react further at all, I swing the briefcase back fast, hitting my right rear escort in the balls with its sharp lower edge. As he goes down I chop back with my left arm, smashing the edge of my hand into the throat of the child behind me to the left. They may be street smart, but they are just under-nourished council estate children. They fall under my hands like wheat in a strong wind. As the two crumple, my side-by side escorts realise how far they have drifted and with the two front runners, turn and move in towards me, weapons now openly bared. Swinging the briefcase in an arc, flat side on, I hit the talking hoody so hard on the side of the head that he flies into his mate and they go down in a tangle. Stepping smartly up over them, I kick the right-hand charging child in the balls and punch the left as his momentum carries him into range.

With six of the gang down, the sweeper has disappeared from sight. Five of the boys are totally immobile, one just too petrified to move. Two are unconscious, two probably needing another half hour to recover from their squashed testicles, they lie there, vomiting quietly, too stunned to speak. I feel nothing for them. Again, my handlers trained me well. But I search their tracksuits, pulling their hoodies back to reveal their faces. The gang has done their job all too well. The street remains deserted as I pull from their pocket s profusion of cellphones, old wallets, loose cash, expired travel cards, A-Z street guides and external hard drives. It is only when I find the battered green and gold embossed South African passport that I stop searching. I open it up and the face of Steyn van Rensburg stress back at me. My best friend, bunk buddy and patrol wing man from 32 Battalion.

I heft the passport in my hand. I walk up to the first kid; show him the passport and the photo inside. His eyes widen, but he doesn’t know what to expect. I makes sure they are all to some extent conscious and show them all the passport. Their faces tell me what I need to know. With six quick twist of the wrists, I snap all of their necks and leave them lying in the gutter. Without a backward glance I head off at a trot down the path to track the sweeper. I don’t mind where he has gone, I was trained to track light footed animals on dry sand and stone by a Bushmen elder and I can certainly follow a nine-year-old punk in this concrete jungle. It’s child’s play.

david chislett

Chislett is a Johannesburg-based writer. He has had a number of short stories published in South Africa and was the editor of a South Africa edition of unlikelystories.org in 2006. He is currently working on a collection of short stories as well as a new novel, David works in the media. child’s play was first published in african writing online no.6

After launching ‘What Will Boys Be?”, their first collaborative graphic short story, Chislett and Moon return with a more traditional horror story, “Death Is A Warm Embrace.”

A dark and to the point tale with a lovely, horrific twist at the end, Death Is A Warm Embrace is a classic horror tale. But to say more would be to give the game away.

“We were pretty happy with the reaction to our first collaboration,” says Chislett of the process, “So we wanted to carry on with it. We are seriously considering printing up some actual copies in the future as well. This story was a nice one to do as it also shows a whole other angle of what Manik and I do… it’s a different genre of story and the illustration style is different as well.”

Moon was the creator of the Evil Barbie comic strip from the legendary but now defunct GTFO magazine, and started the band Abstract Evil Barbie as a real world spin off from the strip. His work was first published in Andy Masons’s Pre-Azanian Comix (P.A.X.) way back in the eighties and he eventually edited the last few issues. He has also published his own ‘zine ‘Substitute’ for a while, featuring an ongoing project ‘Karoo Rats’, set in a post apocalyptic South Africa. He has also done commercial cartooning for Savana Cider, I-Week and Something Wicked.

Chislett is the originator of the Urban series of short fiction for new and exciting writers. He played in various bad punk bands in the 80’s and early nineties, culminating in a support slot for The Prodigy in the Cape Town hard electronica outfit Anti Gravity. He is currently in the process of publishing Urban 04, an anthology of his own short stories and a beginner’s guide to the SA music industry.

“Death Is A Warm Embrace” will be published in week day installments on www.thechiz.co.za starting on 10 November 2008. The full collection of plates will be available in physical form on demand at a later date.

Take overly creative minds, a dose of ennui, some existential angst, stir in some socio political reality and a good dose of mania. The result is “What Will Boys Be?” an online graphic story by Chris “Manik” Moon and David Chislett. The first panel is now live on www.thechiz.co.za

A gritty story of suburban dystopia and of the dream gone wrong, “What Will Boys Be?” tracks the degradation of the South African middle-class mind visually and textually. Based on a short story by David Chislett, the graphic is an interpretation by Manik Moon adding a surreal yet hard-hitting comic-book aspect and extrapolation to the narrative.

Moon was the creator of the Evil Barbie comic strip from the legendary but now defunct GTFO magazine, and started the band Abstract Evil Barbie as a real world spin off from the strip. His work was first published in Andy Masons’s Pre-Azanian Comix (P.A.X.) way back in the eighties and he eventually edited the last few issues. He has also published his own ‘zine ‘Substitute’ for a while, featuring an ongoing project ‘Karoo Rats’, set in a post apocalyptic South Africa. He has also done commercial cartooning for Savana Cider, I-Week and Something Wicked.

Chislett is the originator of the Urban series of short fiction for new and exciting writers. He played in various bad punk bands in the 80’s and early nineties, culminating in a support slot for The Prodigy in the Cape Town hard electronica outfit Anti Gravity. He is currently in the process of publishing Urban 04, an anthology of his own short stories and a beginner’s guide to the SA music industry.

Together, Moon and Chislett bring a unique outsiders squint on current reality. “What Will Boys Be?” will be published in week day installments on www.thechiz.co.za starting on 1 October 2008. The full collection of plates will be available in physical form on demand at a later date.

23 June 2008

Last night I compounded the average melancholy of your basic Sunday night by going to watch “Joy Division” at the Encounters Film Festival in Hyde Park. A documentary film about the band of the same name that arose from Manchester in the late seventies, the film is the latest offering from Grant Gee.

Aside from being a gut-wrenching peek into the inner world of one of rock’s more tortured proponents, “Joy Division” really got me thinking about where we as South Africans sit with culture and its importance in our lives. In one interview snippet, the legendary photographer Anton Corbijn remarked that he was surprised when he met the guys from Joy Division because they looked so pale and thin and undernourished. Coming from the Netherlands as he did, where the social system really looked after the people, he spoke of these young northern English lads as you might of a poor cousin or distant relation. And what the film made me think was that in a key way, South Africa is like that poor cousin to the rest of Africa. But it is our culture that is destitute, not our economy.

The Present Has Passed…

We may be an economic powerhouse, but our concern for culture is often a minimalist and alarming feature of our day to day lives. The lament from our artistic community is almost universal: we are starving and we are battling to make a living. Sitting as we are, in the middle of a social revolution and re-invention, it is a telling indictment of our leaders, ourselves and our structures that it only the economics of our world that receive attention. It is revealing that our artists suffer. For is not the artist the mirror of society? Are we not then all suffering under the aspirational yoke of the new consumerist madness that has taken over our collective consciousness?

The Future Is Uncertain

I would love to see an Ian Curtis rise from the ranks of hip hop, kwaito or Afro-pop. Someone that would not be scared to stand up and bare their tortured soul, confide the devastation that living the modern South African life is wreaking. A powerful voice that expresses the discontent that is all around us. The economic view of art is so pervasive that many seem to feel music’s ability to act as en effective social catalyst is exhausted. But as music moves rapidly out of the commercial mainstream, and onto the internet and peer to peer recommendation, perhaps its ability to galvanise, inspire and inform can be re-ignited. If one artist could appear and shout out loud about the injustice, the iniquity, the need for real change, is it not possible that our youth might listen? Might start worrying more about the state of the nation than the likelihood of a new BMW?

It certainly is possible, but likely remains contentious. But in our wild-west landscape of here-today-gone-tomorrow chances, there is very little that MAY not come to pass. All it takes is a vision….

this article originally appeared on dave’s blog at thetimes

by dave chislett

A little while ago I wrote a rant about how what I perceive of as the spirit of rock ‘n roll has been subverted. Well, last Sunday I was asked the question if there was not a new place for rock n roll in South Africa, and in particular, for the rebellious spirit that it for so long personified and advocated. And yes, there is, as the asker of the question went on to point out. Which got me thinking…

Rock ‘n Roll has always been a working class phenomenon: The voice of the underprivileged, of the people who sweep streets and clean up after the rest of society. For that reason alone, rock in this country has long been treated with suspicion as here rock is mainly made by nice middle class boys who eventually will put their guitars away and go and take up Daddy’s offer of a job and get on with life. Right here and right now in South Africa, we are ripe for a voice of dissent; a voice that speaks of inequity not from a racial or gender or political point of view, but from a sense of outrage, from a sense of injustice, from a sense of very real anger.

Because fuck me, we have got a lot to be angry about right now. No matter what your colour, the rich are just getting richer, and the poor apparently poorer. More money is in fewer black hands now than it was after the ’94 elections. The middle class, as is always the case in these situations is being squeezed in a vice, and no-one seems to have a voice. The moment dissent is raised, racism, corruption and vested interests are cited as the reasons for the dissenters actions. And I don’t understand how we as a nation collectively are not more sick of it. Fuck it. We need a rock n roll band that is going to say what we are thinking. The Sex Pistols took pot shots at The Queen, the Beat took shots at Maggie Thatcher, The Dead Kennedys ridiculed anyone in power. Damn it, rock n roll is festooned with the annoyance of the people against their governments.

the finger

Frankly, I don’t give a damn what justifications Eskom is giving for the power situation. It should NEVER have got this far. I am sick of hearing about bread price fixing, now its milk apparently as well. A couple of years back it was cars. No-one ever did do anything about cell phone price collusion. But even simpler than that. I am sick of well fed yuppies in R700 000 cars parking badly, not indicating, sitting superciliously in expensive bars and restaurants pontificating about how much change in necessary as long as their lifestyle doesn’t change.

I am revolted to my stomach with a culture that sees brand names, conspicuous consumption and a lack of cultural appreciation as badges of honour. That sees the rapid growth of the economy as more important than raising the bar for everyone. I am sick and tired of angry young men taking to drugs and crime to assuage the greed that our country’s emphasis on material wealth ignites in their souls. I am sick and tired of otherwise sensible women insisting on C-section births to preserve their vagina’s when all they are really doing is preserving their doctor’s golf handicap. This country has got a fucked up world view and we are all only too happy to go along with the game. We know it’s wrong, we are all guilty. We all drink like fish after all. Apparently SA, with a population of 44 million, consumes 4 times as much beer as Nigeria with a population of 120 million. And they are the ones with the dangerous cities???

Anarchy-red

I want a Johnny Rotten to stand up here and yell into the microphone, “Wake Up You Dozy Bunch Of Cunts! You are all fiddling while Rome burns!” We need some rebels who are true to only one thing: that this system is broken and it is breaking us. Not a another gang of misinformed yahoos seeking only to enrich themselves, but a group of people who believe in the wrongs they see and are prepared to shout about it.

If I hear one more Pop Idol “doing it for the love of music” one more rock band saying, “We don’t really have a message”, one more hip hop artist rapping about his bitch or his bling I think I am going to spew up my internal organs. Fuck it! Wise up! Let’s look at what’s going on around us!

Bring back the old school rock and roll. Elvis may have died high on drugs eating a cheese burger on the crapper, but at least he got an entire generation to THINK, to break out of their central parental constraints. What’s going be on your fucking headstone punk?

this article was first published on the chiz

Singer/song-writer Josie Field has been making a name for herself off the back of some great radio play ( a number 1 on 5FM) and a persistent live gigging presence. She is young beautiful and new to the scene. So, being the old grouch that I am, I decided to have a wee look and see what it is all about. This Q&A with Josie is the result. Enjoy!

1) Josie, you’re a well known name suddenly thanks to tonnes of great airplay off your debut album. Where on earth did you come from?

I’ve lived in Joburg all my life. Started playing guitar early high school, started writing songs as a kind of diary entry, had a few guitar and vocal lessons. Grew a collection of songs that finally became Mercury only because I’d met the right manager and producer, I’d been reaching for, for three years. But it didn’t happen overnight, I’d done loads of demos before that I wasn’t happy with and when I found this team, we recorded, Gallo loved it, and that’s how things started.

2) Right now, you easily fall into that category of singer / song writer. Are you happy with that label or does it chaff? How do YOU define what you do?

That is exactly how I’d describe what I do. I like the idea of fitting into a ‘song-writers’ box because I think it’s the only real thing that differentiates me from other female singers, I guess I feel I’m a songwriter above everything else. I also quite like the idea of being in the “Chapman/Dylan/Morisson club”

3) With your deeper voice and less-than-blonde looks you are far from being a typical female POP star. What affected your decisions to take the angle you have with your debut album and the start of your music career?

I always had a very definite idea of who I wanted to be and with whom I wanted to be associated. I guess my persistence and the lack of wanting to be swayed from where I knew I wanted to end up, helped me meet people who believed in my mission, things just fell into place. There were times of desperation when I thought I might have to compromise myself to get where I wanted – I’m just glad I refused those temptations and waited for the right people to come along who understood my art enough to appreciate it for what it was.

4) You’ve had management with you all the way, unlike many new artists in South Africa. How much of you success do you attribute to the help, advice, knowledge and contacts that this relationship has brought to the party?

I owe my complete career to Adrian King who manages me - I don’t think he will ever know how grateful I am for saving me. However, having said that, we also needed a product to sell and that’s where Kevin from Darkstar Studio came in – Adrian introduced us - without a record we wouldn’t have been able to go very far and Kevin was the producer I’d been looking for – he understood my music and where I wanted to go with it. I owe everything to these two wonderful men.

5) With a recent trip to Germany in your head, how do you see your future?

Bright. It was a great trip and a wonderful experience and I hope some good things will come out of it, but I am pleased to be home and able to get on with my career here. I still have a lot to achieve in South Africa and I’m excited to get cracking, whatever comes out of overseas trips are just bonus’s as far as I’m concerned.

6) Do you find that the amount of radio play you are receiving helps with feet through the door at shows? I mean, is there a noticeable spike in attendance when you get a new single on air? Or are more traditional live marketing methods more reliable?

I think everything helps. There is no doubt that having air play increase awareness drastically and I am very grateful I’ve got that but I think you just have to keep on pushing from every angle. Its not as if the day my songs went to radio the gigs were packed, it’s just a slow steady increase, which is fantastic.

7) Despite being a live music performer, your off-stage demeanour seems pretty demure. Is it an effort for you to put on live shows or are you able to switch between the real live Josie and the onstage one?

I think I have two people living inside me so its not too hard. I live for live shows as well as studio work and sitting by myself at home writing song in my pyjamas. This job for me is an emotional rollercoaster and quite draining sometimes but I wouldn’t change it for anything.

8) As a songwriter, your actual life clearly provides plenty of fodder for songs. As you grow more successful does this worry you, sharing your heart like this?

I’m surprised at how often this question gets asked and I always wonder why being honest and truthful in songs should bother me. I write songs because I feel strongly about something, if I didn’t feel strongly about something, why would I bother writing about it? But at the same time I do see that this ‘sharing my heart’ thing might poison me, complicate relationships, embarrass me or make people hate me – I just don’t know how to write any other way right now.

9) You have managed to get going at a pretty young age, and should you pursue music for a while, you’ve now got a great base to work from. Was music always your plan A, or did it just happen?

I think it just happened but I did often think about how cool it would be, I just didn’t know how it was going to happen, I guess that’s why I started recording demos and looking for people to work with when I was still in high school.

10) As an instrumentalist, how fussy are you about what you play? Do you have a preference for certain guitars? Acoustic or electric?

Well I play an acoustic guitar on stage because that’s what I play off stage, I guess I’ll experiment with different things in time. I would really love to own a 12 string, bass and a cello one day.

11) What does Josie Field think about when she is on stage? The next song? The next riff? Or do you go where the songs are from, reliving memories etc? Is live a pleasure for you or perhaps an emotional crucible?

I love singing my songs and replaying my emotions in my head. I think about what I’m trying to get across in each particular song and I hope that an audience can see that.

12) Who would you really like to collaborate wit in the SA music scene right now? By which I mean write a really cool duet with?

I’ve never really written a song with someone before so I don’t know how it would work but some of the bands I really enjoy at the moment are Jim Neversink, Arno Castens, The Hellphones, Voodoo Child, Lark, Cassette, Harris Tweed etc…

13) Tomorrow you have the power to take over the world. What would you do first?
What does ‘take over the world’ mean? Does it mean fame and fortune? (because I’ve learned those two don’t always go hand in hand) does it mean having a powerful presidential type role? (because I’ve learned that you may or may not having the backing of your people) This question is too big for me, oh stuff it! I’d buy a Ferrari!

this interview first appeared on thechiz.co.za