It’s impossible to be everywhere at once. But I do try.
On the whole, this Friday night is looking awesome for goodnoise across the city, but for one lone lass, it’s a bit too much at once. How’s this for a line up?
| Zula | |
| José Gonzáles | Tafelberg Tavern |
| | |
| Armchair | |
| Tonight We Die and SHU (pta) | Mercury Live |
| | |
And that’s not even scratching the surface. There’s still affliction, the royal waiting room, and manyvarious clubs. Pubs. Bars. Cars. Streets. sheets… I’ll never get to my sheets at this rate; I’ll sleep in my car! If I sleep! Which I do. admittedly.
What I’d like to ask the booking agents is : why do you cram the full fare of the city’s soundgods into two short nights over the weekend? The answer’s implicit, innit? Money.
Money, money, money. We all know that venues make their cash off our co-dependent licquorific indulgences. And while a lot of us could easily notch ‘alcoholic’ on our weekend Hobbies list, most of us are beholden to its diametric opposite for survival, the Other Addiction. Another four letter word. WORK. (work? What’s that? .. ah. the thing you stop doing when you finally need to rest. Rest? What’s that? And so it goes on. Like I’m going on). It’s a bit hard staying up drinking beyond the witching hours just to listen to heart-wrenching, earth-stomping, soul-lifting sounds and still perform like human clones at work the next day. coffee is a thin disguise; the rampant abuse of the night before the morning after is all in the eyes! Shades look plain silly indoors. Bosses might be beasts, but they’re not dithering idiots. And anyway, besides being unable to afford it professionally, we can ill afford it financially! Which is probably the cruise control anyway. It seems as long as we can afford it, we’ll live the limits to the max, né?
So gigs are stacked up like a bed on bricks, Friday, Saturday, and sometimes Sunday (for the diehards in denial who wish Monday was a band name. As if. (I checked. It isn’t) We all know musicians don’t graft. Right? Wrong.
Don’t believe that some nice sound that makes sweetness in your ears is easily come by.
Have you seen the plastered fingers? Have you seen Kesivan after a particularly passionate gig? Elated. Exhausted. Etc. Music comes from the heart, but it grinds through the body, the brain… it’s no easy task, channelling. And there’s all the unseen stuff that goes into the audio synergy you see on stage– the preamble nitpicking and fiddling together to find a groove(noja, that’s the easiest part, perhaps), holding the frontlines at your day job to pay the bills and betties, scrounging around between the debts for more bucks to buy decks or a decent geetaar, explaining to your Beloved Other why you’re back at four am when the gig finished at twelve (“networking, darling”. “jou ma se networking” comes the terse reply), backstage haggling and pottering about around ums and aahs and how much of managers, bookers, venue owners and groupies to find the right slot on the right night… and then the delivery - music makers put their hearts and souls in the songs, and on the stage. They give us their grief and joy and ego and edginess. We soak it up, saturated by their humanity and talent. We feel ourselves through them. We feel each other. Yes. We do. (but CT boys are mostly well behaved, actually.) We should be grateful. And we are. Most of us are not able to be grateful seven days a week, however. (Unless you’re me, and you can’t help it) (of course, if you’re me, you’re also notorious for falling asleep at gently rocking retrogigs like Mikanic last week. Seeriyuss. I slept through five of the hottest tracks.)
Which brings me back to my gripe. Why all on one night? Yes, weekends are big. Big cash. Big easy. Yes, ok. But so is the demi-weekend, the Wednesday night that tides us over till our weekly dose of two-day freedom arrives). Why can’t we put more great gigs on this night? Coz I’m scuttling around like one of the million minion cockroaches that midsummer has spawned trying to keep up with the lineups. And I keep on missing fucking great stuff.
The consolation is : you’re spoilt for choice. So be a brave new world junkie, and gorge on good sound. (but don’t be too much of a drunkie driver, or you’ll end up looking like a pug. And it won’t be profound. I guarantee you.).
Put your money where your mouth is and let the love move through you. And have a drink on us. ANY day of the week….
(while I catch some zzzs in a cosy corner somewhere. Eish!)
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