Boxes. Balls of wire.

I enjoyed reading Mark Gungor's take on the difference between the brain of a man and a woman. He says a man's brain consists of many small boxes. The boxes get taken out and opened one by one.
The boxes do not touch.

A woman's brain consists of a big ball of wire and everything is connected. It made for a rueful laugh, as it rings so very true. The tall man says he suspects there are smaller balls of wire leading off from my big one.
And I am convinced that he has at least one large box full of wire...

There was a concert this week. Heartstrings... wires, electricity, emotion. Call it what you will. Mine were sparking. Willy Mason: boy from the north-east. Such charm and wit, such talent. Smooth talker, voice like molasses. One understands what makes girls throw their underwear at musicians and wonders why no-one did,

last wednesday night.

By the time Cat Power cantered onto the stage, I was a quivering crow's nest of live wire. Useless at photography: two black frames, three blurred. Found wanting. Chewed up, swallowed whole.

Over the moon.

She reminded me that famous people are normal people too. And then. That voice.

Today finds me cooking hero food - food that will find it's way to a film set. Cooking this kind of very specific food is a dubious honour - perhaps our Nooi van Benoni doesn't actually like bobotie. Most definitely, if they do many takes, there will be a bucket for her to discreetly spit unchewed mouthfuls into. Maybe Mr Penn decides bobotie is just too weird and calls for fried chicken instead.

There's buttered yellow rice too. With raisins and honey.

But by the time they serve it, we'll be far away.

I know a Sugarman.

Photograph courtesy of a very tall man.

A performance by Rodriguez last week thoroughly warmed the cockles of my heart. By song number two, tears were rolling down my cheeks. Around us people young and old sang along. A man behind me yelled: you can do anything - we love you man!

Exactly.

Because, you see, it wasn't just an old man
singing his songs.

It was my eight-year-old self playing with the family hound, a grumpy daschund, outside my brother's bedroom window, listening to Cold Fact.

It was my eighteen-year-old self, leaving home, taping that vinyl record to take with me to university. On the other side of Moondance.

It was my nineteen-year-old self posing my boyfriend cross-legged in a hat and a purple vest, for Photography 101.
(He told me I looked fat
in my favourite cheesecloth dress)

It was countless parties and barbeques and trips
in a car.

It was hours of sulking on my bed.

It was wondering, wondering... is there someone who will understand me, is he listening too?

In this job I do, I have built up a network of people and many have become loved ones. I visited a couple yesterday, both in their late seventies. They own a small antique shop and often help me to find the things that I need. Now and then I am invited to their beautiful home - a large stone house next to the sea, with very high ceilings. It is filled with two lifetimes of collecting.

They have recently lost a good friend - a young artist. His self-portrait is on display in the living room and music spills through the house. Was it a huntsman or a player that made you pay the cost...

Rodriguez again. She has her own memories - we were driving to the coast and playing this song, we were laughing so much. And then she winks at me and says: oh that man - he has such a sexy voice - ahhhhh!

heartstrings

Wandering around Kalk Bay this morning, I stopped for a chat at the Railway House and heard the entrancing thrumming of fingers on a drum. I walked around the corner and fell in love.

Mwalasha and Mateo. Their music did something to my heart. I'm listening to their cd right now. So happy and slow and beautiful. There's a number for bookings: 079 577 2737.

C'mon friends - lets pool together and have a party!

Like a string of lights.

For months I read reviews and I tried to do what the people said. My slow connection just about drove me to drink. Then in the wee hours of Sunday night, it dawned on me. I'll just piggy-back existing files. Share and share alike. And if those links expire at some point, well that's just the nature of things. Ha. I now have my own online storage facility.

Do I have any qualms about music sharing? No way José. It's about discovery and spreading the love. Already it's steaming ahead and here I borrow a quote from a charming thank you note I received last night:  In the words of Louis Austin "..music makes the people come together.."

So pop in at the resurrected disco for a taste of things to come.

City Soirée at Haas Collective

Last night we sat in a row on a velvet settee, beer in hand, while three musicians took it in turn to play for us. And I realized: there is no place I'd rather be. During the interval we spoke about different musical instruments and their limitations. For example - the piano - how far can you push it's abilities?

This is something I have learnt from watching Righard Kapp play his guitar: he can make it sound like almost anything. He throws his whole body into it, he plays it until his fingers bleed. It's wonderful to see how he uses every bit of that instrument. I'm not a musician, so I don't know what other guitarists do with the end of each string, but Righard leaves them standing haywire, and when he shakes them they become a delicate rattlesnake snare.

The show started with a classical guitar performance by Nina Fourie-Gouws. Her hands are startling - the movement of them so contained, but hummingbird-fast.

Mark Fransman played next. His alto-saxophone is a mesmerizing instrument. Dully gleaming, foxed, mysterious keys and buttons. I learnt that it can also be pushed to sound like a thousand other things. I heard a slowly beating metronome and I heard his voice rushing through the wind.

It was extraordinary.

"Open rehearsals and incidental madness"

Thunder and lightning, buckets of rain, broken wipers, missing keys, a moon of horses in total eclipse, one drummer gone amiss... a huge blazing fire, cauldrons of heartwarming soup and a bottomless glass of red wine. And the band. And the band.

❤

Next month, same time, same place?

Mose Allison, he plays it like it is.

I love the "notes" on the sleeves of old records.

According to Mose, "Transfiguration of Hiram Brown Suite" is a serio-comic fantasy based on a perennial theme. Hiram Brown is the naive provincial who dreams of a life of opulence in the city. He goes there, is overwhelmed and disillusioned, longs for his youth, realizes that this too is an illusion, despairs, goes through a crisis and is "transfigured". This is Mose's own interpretation. He hopes that this Suite can be enjoyed from a variety of viewpoints and, most of all, that it swings. - Teo Macero

It had been a long time since they had sat at the same table. He said he felt out of sorts - a little queasy with apprehension. She drank coffee, he drank tea. An Afrikaans expression crossed her mind: koeitjies en kalfies. For a while they spoke of small cows and calves. That is to say of things that didn't bear weight or importance. Music. People. Four tears were almost shed - one from each eye, but only because she spoke with longing about his children.

They shared a messy sandwich.

He gave her the record and they said goodbye on the street.

After that he sent her a message:
I thought I had lost you.

She didn't write back, but if she had, it would have been to say: It's a combination. You have, and you haven't. This, now, is something else.
 
She remembered reading years ago about a choreographer, she couldn't recall his name. He spoke about the people he had met in his life - a succession of friends and lovers. He ended by saying: That's life, that's love, that's the world. It had angered her. But that was when she'd believed in the myth of one true love.
 

There was a time when even her skin hurt from missing him. Around her were holes in the shape of him. But as she looked at him across that table, unblinkered, she saw not the centre of a universe, but a man.
A man of flesh and blood and bone.

Happy Birthday Bob Dylan.

Well you see, I had three older brothers. They spent all of their pocket money on LP's and seven singles. Every Saturday morning something new for a little girl and her Barbie to dance to.

I wish I had a fraction of that collection. I'm going to start the day by listening to my favourite album. Desire. It's the fiddle and the poetry and it's Emmylou - looking for that record with a sore heart.

Happy 70th birthday Bob Dylan.

Rock on.

❤

The things we do.

Ahh. The life of a freelancer. Any time is red-wine-o-clock (a problem for some) and how easy it's been to slip into the habit of sleeping in. Making up for all of those four in the morning call times perhaps...

A lovely Indian Summer's day yesterday.

We did a little loitering, one long-legged man and I.

Saw Sanell Aggenbach's exhibition Some dance to remember some dance to forget at Blank Projects in Woodstock. Such evocative and beautiful images. I left feeling nostalgic and homesick for something I couldn't begin to describe.

Popped in at a few shops, chatted to some people on the street. Saw our friend Paul Painting's exhibition Phantasmagoria at Salon 91 in Kloof Street. The film industry has it's fair share of moonlighting artists and musicians. It seems a little unfair sometimes. One wants these people to paint more, play more. Nevertheless, I'm so impressed that this dedication and talent exists. I loved his ink and bleach paintings. Beautifully expressive brushwork, pink pencil lines...

Drank coffee in slanted sunlight. Came home, listened to some records. Went out for sushi and saw COAL play at the Waiting Room. Three sweet-voiced girls and one nimble-handed guy. Ross Campbell from Benguela
is drumming for them now.
More dedication, more sheer talent.
 

I'm over here on number 9.

Sweat and tears.

So if you weren't at the Burn and you weren't at the Harley Davidson Club last night...

Them Tornadoes said on FB this morning that we rocked the club inside out. We certainly did.

I admit to having a bit of a fan crush on the Ferguson brothers - they're rockabilly stars after all. Dave was wearing one of my wardrobe favorites - the pin striped pant. Matt was there in his kilt. I've written all about them before, so suffice to say: it was a fantastic send-off.

I loved Peachy Keen.

And the girl fans.

If you ever wondered what the magic box of tricks looks like:

and twenty-four-odd harmonicas...

So long Dave and good luck.

You'll be missed.

Lonesome Dave and his magic box of tricks.

We went to see Dave Ferguson at the Granddaddy last night as the sun set. A true one man show. Nary a roadie in sight. There's a man, his voice and a harmonica. A flesh and bones beat-box. An array of tiny controls at his feet. He records live loops and then he layers and overlaps them to make songs. A silent projection behind him shows old blind blues singers, couples dancing swing, people clapping on a night similar to this one, lost in black and white.

Oh, what a crooner is he.

It always surprises me that there aren't hordes of girls throwing underwear, at least.

Watch the video to see how he turns a familiar song into something new. Last night it sent shivers down my spine.

Listen to some of his own great songs at myspace.

 And if you missed him last night, there's one more chance to see him before he leaves for Europe.

Saturday 30 April at the Harley Davidson Club, 64 Canterbury Street, 9pm onwards.

Along with Them Tornadoes and Peachy Keen.

See you there!

Lay down in the tall grass.

1. "Creepers". The songs that grow on you after a few plays and become keepers. This is how I came to love TV On The Radio, Arcade Fire, Eels, The XX, Electrelane, Dead Man's Bones, Angus & Julia Stone... a never-ending list.

2. Then there are the songs that have you from the first beat. Like falling in love. They have that elusive something that's missing from the others.

Tindersticks: Tony Soprano watches his beautiful neighbor from an upstairs window. She's hanging up laundry in the wind to Tiny Tears.

Can: dancing under the stars in the Hex River Valley to She brings the rain.

Captain Beefheart: driving alone through the Karoo to Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles.

It's very seldom that a band makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise, song after song.

Enter Timber Timbre.

Performance in it's truest form. In the old days Taylor Kirk would have been a troubadour. Poetry to music. This music could be the unreleased soundtrack to True Blood. It's cinematic, dark and brooding. There are violins, an organ, lap steel guitar, rattlesnake percussion, a discordant saloon piano...

The arrangements are sparse, stripped down, permeated with the sonic left turn, full of sway.

Stripped down, yes, but with moments of lush orchestration and exquisite crescendo. Not one to shout, the man croons intimately about love, loss and the abyss. Not a single note in excess. Even the silences in-between have weight.

This is music of spectral beauty.
Shocking in it's sincerity.
 

It glows in the dark.

Image from Abandoned Theatres, by Julia Solis.

amplified

your light
can't help but
penetrate
through the cracks
of my boarded up soul
in shafts of colour
you turn me into a disco

Time Flies at the Bellevue Lounge and one morning in New York City.

There's something about having a party at a house on a Saturday night, with an almost full Sugar Moon... something pretty wonderful. The Time Flies must be one of my favourite bands. They evoke that feeling you get just before lift-off. They ended their set with a rocking dirty version of "Blue Moon". A young girl said to me, breathlessly: I always thought he was cool, but John Trafford is GOD!

DJ Appletart dusted off the decks and played for the first time in two years. I'd forgotten how nice it is to fill a dance floor.  Halfway in, the tall drink of water joined on percussion and MC Mr Nimbus had the crowd shouting. Thanks to the Cutie with the eyeliner for keeping me cool and watered for two hours and to Be, for twiddling the controls.

2h30 Found me... still at the party. Knowing that I had to get up at something to do with a four again. 

Is this what people mean when they talk about a midlife crisis? If so, I like this part. 

I felt like a teenager with no curfew.

Like an egg in a whisk.

Dawn in the city. We shot an iced tea commercial in a play play New York.

The day passed by like a dream.

〷✠⚡◀THE▶⚡✠⚡▶WILD◀⚡❖⚡▶EYES◀❖✜ ✝ ✞

A saturday night to remember.

A fire in the garden. Lamb kebabs. Fresh mint sauce. Eggplant and pomegranates. A big dish of hummus with everyone dipping in. Night swimming. Then dancing at Assembly till two.

It bothers me that we pay only R40.00 to see music of this quality. This is entertainment! The Wild Eyes. How I love them. Nikhil's glam rock persona enthralls. Afterward, we went backstage to give Len a hug. The Shrek of a bouncer picked me up by my forearms and deposited me at a safe distance. Very rock 'n' roll.

Spoek Mathambo and Mshini Wam. A kwaito and techno mix up. Who would have thought? It's incredible to see Spoek Mathambo moving on with something so different from Sweat-X.

Sunday morning means piles of dishes but I'm smiling.

Balkan Beat Box.

6h57. That's when I stumbled home this morning.

I admit to believing that the whole Balkan thing is passé, but last night's party was dazzling. Even though I still won't rush out to buy the record, Balkanology now has my undying support. This is the kind of music that you need to see live. You need to feel the booming against your breastbone. Get swept up by the crowd of Gypsy Funksters in their nimbus of patchouli and dope smoke.

Kudos to the belly dancer on stilts. And to the friendliest crowd I've ever come across. And to my darling friends: I'm so lucky to know you.

❤

What do you do when you're feeling blue?

You take a last look at photos of a place you'll probably never go back to, have a good long cry and decide:

Then, you go and see a rockin' rockabilly band.

Them Tornadoes. I'm their number one fan.

How can you not like this trio of madcaps? Simon Perry on the bull fiddle with teeth. Matt Ferguson - he stands and bangs the snare. In a kilt. And the inimitable Ian Arrow, main snake charmer. Him with the rubber limbs. They were joined for a few numbers by Lonesome Dave on the harmonica. That man is the king of the harp.

Their happiness as they make this music is ridiculously infectious.

And the roof of the Grand Daddy Hotel was the perfect place for it.

She wore them with a popeye dress.

Spotted in the stairwell: a dress made of maps. One flight up there is a suit.

Oh. And: happy birthday Elvis!
❤