who are the real pawns?

 

Against all odds, aKING have made a kak second album and lost a former fan. I’m sure they don't care, though, because riding on the respect and attention they deservedly received for their Dutch courage debut and clinching catchy,  tried-and-tested formulas in round two, they're going to be making lots of money with this abortion. I mean album.  Album! 

Luca Vincenzo broke it down brilliantly here    but forgot only to remind us of the one thing we always knew:  this was coming all along. While we somehow opted not to believe it when we were busy being seduced by ‘I Believe’ and tucking in to ‘Safe As Houses’, it was clear from the start that aKING targeted a commercial audience, and would continue to do so in their professional and personal commitment to their blossoming careers. When their music had merit, I had no issues with that - success stories are sexy. But things have changed. By their own admission, the members of the band are getting on.  Babies might be made and bonds will one day want to be paid. So why on earth would they keep sleeping on people's couches as paupers? The transition from talent to tuppence is not new in our flailing (creative) economy -  some of the most inspired music makers have managed to make music make money for them. After a decade of delinquent Monkipunk creativity, our own Kris Akkedis sat down with his guitar, a sweet smile and a casual suit, and bought himself a farm from singing someone else's poetry. The mantra is obvious - why starve when you can sell? My question is, can we imagine a world where we can sell (and buy) music that hasn't sold out to the aggregation of mass taste ? And do we know how we perpetuate the catch-22 that keeps commercial kak?

 

Beyond the bruises of a bad album (all it takes is a good one to be friends again), it's the hiatus between the media, the music and the public that I suspect encourages creeping mediocrity, extracting craft rather than creativity from the arts.

 

Considering the high quality and unique character of their first album (arch, accessible pop rock), and assuming they've consciously invested their musical intelligence in their second round compositions to make them even more accessible than the first's (though, yes, deeply diluted and almost without identity – perfect for high rotation), would they be focusing on the pop side of life if they could make money from the music they hear in their heads? One wonders. And while their undisclosed answer is their truth (because maybe they want to make music this way, and maybe that's great, or maybe they'll never admit how much of a motivation money is in the way they make music - though we do try ) in the absence of any answers, we turn our eyes to the System...

 

With its monopoly on local minds, mainstream media successfully breeds mediocrity in print, pixel and widescreen by discouraging critical content and punting PR-esque coverage to the local music it does feature (when advertisers allow). Those who try to place content about music with character or tell the hidden stories about a creative sector responsible for cultural commentary and potential cohesion are quickly and frequently shot down and shut up (and then, when they then do it independently, they are shot down again. But never shut up.).

 

For its part in the pie of compromise, it seems the public is not quite ready to relinquish the critical blindfold bequeathed it by a dead dictatorial regime, either (one that threatens to rise again in a new, politically correct skin. showerhead included). It refuses to think for itself, taking its cue from what it sees and reads, which is ripped from the band biog which was written by someone’s adoring girlfriend.

 

Continuing the conundrum, mainstream media knows almost nothing about local music, and rarely bothers to learn anything, taking its cue of cool from the SAMAs and MTVs of the world, saying ‘but our readers don’t care about music’ or ‘no, no, that band isn’t trendy enough, I don’t care if they’re changing the way Stellenbosch dresses’. Speakerbox is entirely exempt, of course. And not just because they let me use rude words.

 

And music, for its part, struggles and hobbles along, sometimes brilliant, sometimes bad, generally ill educated in business strategy, replete with addictions and identity crises, defiantly independent or leashed by a label, trying to make a living off itself and get its message out there.  The result? No meeting of minds. No synergy. No, local is not lekker, people will say. Because they don't know. Or won't.

 

So.

 

if media realised that local music is a cultural commodity worth generating content about,

 

if the public explored the love of local and discovered something new to do at the weekends,

 

if music had a bit more self respect, set some boundaries when it comes to gig fees and good PR and demanded decent sound rigs and sound engineers,

 

we might, against all odds, be able to invest in and enjoy and profit from a form of entertainment so powerful it reaches right into the South African subconscious.(or you could just blow your vuvuzela  and feel part of the love)

 

In any case, whatever aKING does next, or music, the media or the public don’t do, we deserve a new mantra.  Beware of the wolves, my baby.

 

why Taxi Violence rocks

(donkey by kimzumwalt)

It’s one thing to rip your T shirt off, fling your guitar around and sweat all over the stage, it’s another to get my vote as a great band.

and

there are reasons for this.

Music is a mistress with a white hot whip; she takes no prisoners. In pretty, self-conscious Cape Town, everyone (and his cousin) wants to be a ‘musician’. Few are willing to engage themselves with the committment required to pull it off. Live music is becoming increasingly popular as a social backdrop, which is great – we‘ve got a lot of sweet noise to offer our sleepy citizens - but we must remember that not all ears (and tastes) are yet delicate enough to tell the crap from the rap, or the shit from the hit - ahem - popularity and prejudice go hand in hand with ignorance and notoriety. Having thousands of friends on Myspace or fans on Facebook doesn't mean you rock. So what does?

Brilliance demands a certain something that is hard to explain and approximates angelhood. It ties the effort, the attitude, the vision, the action, and the business sense inextricably into one sublime sound. I give you Taxi Violence as my prime example.

why taxi violence rocks

It’s taken so many sizzling gigs for me to assimilate a description for the word that sums them up: synergy. Why? Well, duh. Because synergy means seamless, and to describe something, you have to pick it apart. I couldn’t pick their music apart... I had to wait for it to fill me to overflow, and it spelled itself out to me through a whiskey (e for Irish)-lubed brain at the Gecko in Hermanus last weekend. Here it is, the sound that sings in my sleep. Break it down:

In Taxi’s violence, a single element never drowns another. It might lead. It might blend. It might play alongside. But it always lends itself to a composite fusion that transcends hearing. It’s emotional. It’s powerful. It’s indescribable. ‘Overtone’ is a tongue in cheeky way to describe the way the bass and electric strings blend and bump. They underline and sometimes overtake the vocal lead’s rise and fall with a grace that leaves no space for discord. The drums hold it all together; give it its bite and its bleed. As the bloodline, they build the body, and the bass blends the rhythm. The electric guitar bends bad and bliss with feeling and finesse and a large helping of I don’t-give-a-fuckabouthis. And Solos are simply a chance for the other instruments to listen to their compatriots keenly. Solos break the beauty and rebuild it with their singular strength, but never isolate the ear from a sense of unity. It’s like you’re standing naked under a new sun. and you’re not alone. But beyond the music?

While the scene is rife with bloated ego and empty wallets and open legs, these boys are humble. They’re Serious about music, not imperious about their social status or the sweet, sexy sounds they coax out of metal, strings and throats. When it comes to good, better and best, they make no bones about appreciating others’ talents; they celebrate it. Instead of letting it fuel their egos and up their ante, they acknowledge excellence in others with a reverence that informs their musical revelations. Brilliance urges them to be better at what they do, to give more of themselves to the music so that the music can give more to you. It's a sustainable and mature attitude for boys who are going to go very, very far and still stay close to home. It’s undoubtedly a wise way to go about things. Especially creative things. Which are so difficult to regulate, anticipate, or estimate.

And in the grip of this muse, their decorum and diligence proves their dedication. They’re professional to a fault, and respectful of everyone. They’ve turned down blank contracts to be totally independent. And they can justify it with their work - it’s their own, from shitsexy music videos made on R400 budgets and/or edited in forty minutes, to the world-standard self-styled and stitched album, to the last drink at dawn before wandering back home in a swill of inspiration and exploration. They are lead by a need to express, relate and exchange. And the strength and conviction that comes of believing in what they do, being led by the muse, and bleeding for it (sometimes literally) lends their music its prowess.

So spare your loose change for Taxi Violence at Mercury on Friday 15 June 2007.

and i'm not the only one who thinks good things about taxi. but this man is far more succinct and eloquent than i manage to be: http://www.24.com/entertainment/music/default.aspx?p=feature&i=584271