Plus-sized pop from Wrestlerish

jezebel chats to Wrestlerish about the Other Cape Town, dirty takes and making up your own words…

(bear breasted for Wrestlerish)

Arnold’s. One o' clock. Queen is warbling in the background, we’re arguing about Freshlyground, and Jacques has a split end on his beard. This is what 8 years in music industry and 8 months in the ring do to you.

It's the day after Daisies, nobody’s eating the all-day breakfast and I’m wondering about poetry, semantics and grammar. Grammar doesn’t really matter to Wrestler…ish but Dave, Gav, Jacques and Werner have oiled their instruments to fit their sound somewhere between your winter woes and your summer throes of ecstasy. Or, as Gavin puts it, “Dude, seriously, I’m pulling it out to show you. “ (he’s talking about the split end, but it’ll do as a lead-in as well)

Wrestlerish regularly receive kudos and compliments from the cloister otherwise known as the underground in-crowd (as in, INvolved, INvested, IN all the way, not just putzing around pretending to play an instrument). But when I mention them being part of the marvellous music that comes out of Pretoria and INcludes the likes of Isochronous, they promptly (and politely) correct me. “we’re actually not a Pretoria band. We’re a Gauteng band.” (ok what exactly do you think that means? Is this like Bellville versus city bowl again? Or bowl versus ‘bosch? Sigh…)

With roots in SHU, half of them have been at it for almost a decade. So, couldn’t they just skip the apprenticeship and board the wow-ship? No way, they say. They might have previous experience, a deal with a major label dangling in front of them and the honour of opening for Dear Reader’s upcountry album launch (well, I think it’s an honour, anyway), but they want to be tight as a junkie’s jugular before they go large. “It’s kind of refreshing TAKING the steps,” offers vocalist and guitarist Werner Olckers, “you’re less likely to fail in the future.” It also gives the band time to synergise their live act, which is something no amount of previous playing experience can affect without practise.

In the interim, support seeps from diverse avenues in social media and snaps happily along many of musical lay lines that connect musos and local live music aficionados across the country. Wrestlerish is a bit bewildered by it, really, and really quite grateful. “We don’t feel like we’re part of the clique. The stuff pushing the boundaries is definitely coming from Pretoria. But the best rock bands are in Cape Town without a doubt. “

So the guys are happily honing their honeysad pop melodies on the live scene. They call it ‘paying your dues’ (which sounds a bit like ‘playing to the clueless’) and when I ask how they feel about awkward slots at festivals they talk about climbing the ladder as a new band. ‘If you play an awkward slot, you have to take the positive from it. We don’t want to stand out negatively. We feel we’re not there yet. I do want people one day to walk away from a show and go’ wow that band really put everything into it’, but we aren’t there yet.’

So where are they? Totally independent. Touring. And on time for interviews. Which makes up for their in/appropriation of the word wrestler. Ish.

We argue about mixing and mastering and mumbles in recording. Wrestlerish like mistakes. They want you to see the bones in an album, because it’s more honest than overproduced pop. Personally, I’d rather not hear you cough and curse when you hit a flat note, or fluff up the lyrics, (though I’ll forgive Ben Harper’s heartbreaking sobs and Jeff Buckley’s haunting howls, and Bon Iver‘s anything). Their strongest argument for bits and pieces being in the mix-down is aural authenticity. “I don’t ever want to be part of a band that records something and can’t perform it live…”

But then the other extreme is the act – I’m dubious about ‘applied performance’ - onstage energy that’s created by effort instead of charisma. But on the issue of rocking out (even if you feel like passing out), they’re impassioned. “You have to step up to perform better. it’s not an exaggeration; it’s an extension of the song. You have to communicate with the crowd. The live experience is one of the main reasons we do it. You can’t see performance on a CD.” You also can’t see the creative process.

So when it comes to penning and strumming songs they let it flow. “We don’t over think it, we write a song, we move on. We just like writing hooks. If Gavin’s humming it afterwards, it’s a success.”

Seems they agree there, but try getting them to agree to a genre. After throwing a few hybrid monosyllables around, we settled on folk pop-rock (or was it country?)

The bassist must intercede “ I don’t hear the folk.”

“Bluegrass, then” someone butts in while I’m looking down at the keyboard and trying to keep up.

“No way, bru!”

I roll my eyes, and decide for them. “Bru-Grass, boys; it would be Blues but it’s too happy, it would be Bluegrass but it’s not that snappy… it’s you.”

Is it? don’t quote me, quote them : “We don’t perform drunk. When you’re drunk it’s harder to say the name.”

http://www.myspace.com/wrestlerish

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wrestlerish/6120187389?ref=search&sid=522285516.2374068578..1

Wresterlerish – sjoe!

Crap. I did it. I bought a band T-shirt in a sudden flurry of fanaticism. I was totally sober. In my defense, I was also drowning in my lungs, but that’s no excuse for breaking a vow to never get the T-shirt (seeing as I get everything else, including the rude names). i sat, deliriously, impatiently, through a tedious Jeff Buckley tribute (voice has promise, the songs need narrative), and a mellow man-and-guitar with more charm than charge last night at the Waiting Room. (ha. yes. Touché.) I should have been in bed. I’d come anticipating that the hype about Wresterlish isn’t hollow because people I trust said it was worth it. (tip. If you want to know what’s what musically, ask serious musicians, Miles, Chris, someone who represents decent bands or decent design and marketing). The funny thing is, there’s all this buzz about the band, but most people need a lesson to say their name, let alone to read it, which just gets messy. Pronounced, I suppose, “Ress-ler-ish”, it’s a mouthful from a happy handful of hopefuls, and by my merry little ears, I declare the hype has heart. (at least, for me)

Months ago someone wanted one of them to come and crash in my lounge on an impromptu tour that never came about. we only shook sweaty (his), feverish (mine) hands after the gig, but our online introductions (via a certain red-bekked debenite) were quite candid. And cute (for two peole who've never spoken). It went something like this :

(To the viking)
hi werner

yes. as i am in the business of music, and a gypsy at heart, i know what it's like to be homeless and hopeful, so do come and stay at mine if your feet don't smell. i know your bum smells, but i'm not a dog, so we're ok there. are you down for ramfest, or what?

i heard your music today. tis beautiful. and i'm not that easy to please. (ok. so i have a weakness for voice and guitar. it's my mother's fault, she brought me up on simon and garfunkel and cat stevens and that other hairy guy)(o wait. that was a girl. ja, but anyway, you get the idea)

jezebel

(from the Viking)
hello from the dry heat that is pretoria!

so after a week of trying to scrape together a couple of shows around ramfest. i am bummed to say that we failed. BUT luckily we have hooked up and started organizing an amazing tour for the end of april! so if everything goes according to plan we'll be in both your towns around then!

jess! big digital high 5 for the simon and garfunkel! i recently bought the graduate sountrack on vinyl and fell in love with them all over again! thank you very much for the kind offer of possibly housing this cowboy!

roger! you are a legend! thank you times a billion for all the contacts and effort you've put in for us! may you be blessed with a thousand (legal aged) aKING groupies! ;)

ENJOY RAMFEST!!!

werner

I did. Almost as much as I enjoy “Cocoon”, a wonderful, wailing track from Werner’s previous aural incarnation as a shu. Its long been on my hit list of favourite tracks to drive irritably through traffic to. (I have lists for all sorts of things, not all of them as inane as this one, but then this was for girls who need a map to find their own clitoris). [note to self –ask Neil about the subliminal sonic structure in the timeless power of certain songs.] And before you start rolling your eyes at my odd taste in music, the way Zeno does about my loving Dear Reader, remember what the one thing the Blk Jks would like to ask detractors. “what makes you think somebody else won't like it just because YOU don’t?” (that's Mpumi)

Well, now. How about me thinking that somebody else might like it because I do? Problem...

Basically, for other bands, Wresterlish is Bad News. I’m borrowing a bit from their wit here. i mean it metaphorically, but Bad News is also the name of their newest single, an apt (if exceptionally cheerful, yet strangely self critical) sonic summary for a band who’d better put out an album pronto, or their journey is going to be slower and harder than it needs to be(grab the bull by the balls, if you will). They’re solid, diverse within their desired genres, and damn do they know how to put on a show, even WITH a kak rig . They’ll steal aKING’s mellower fans (while New Holland will steal the testier, younger ones), and become the next band to have tattooed on your butt. Why?

Because they’re the kind of musicians who are genuinely pleased and surprised every time the crowd roars or squails in response. Because they have a generous on-stage energy, an intensely engaging presence that proves that closed eyes are not a sign of insecurity. Because there are qualities in those vocal chords you only hear when it’s loud and live. Because the lyrics are intelligent. (“if nothing ever dies then why do I feel buried alive?... I let you take me alive”). Because the compositions are nipped and tucked and clipped and plucked in all the right places. Because their songs can be silly or serious without being static, because they’’ll arm the drums with four sticks like it’s a joke (when actually, it works), or leave a song to strings and breath alone that has you holding yours till it suddenly ends on a high note. Because they know how to prep a set list so that you get the best of their country/rock/pop arrangements and succinct compositions, and slide through it like a pro, not a wide-eyed amateur. Because they left the Waiting Room wailing for more like cats on heat.

Anyway, that’s it. got the T-shirt. I’m a wrestler. Ish.

Catch them where you can…

3 Sept – Klein Libertas Theatre with The Plastics and 3rd World Spectator - Cpt
4 Sept – Deer Park Café with The Lottery Tickets - Cpt
5 Sept – Puma- Rudolf Dassler Schufabrik Side –Projects at &Union in Heritage Square - Cpt
12 Sept - Firkin with Zebra and Giraffe - Centurion
3 Oct - Aardklop - Potch
10 Oct - Rocking the Daisies - CPT

P.S. Just before you get all clever on me, my Guns wifebeater doesn't count as a T-shirt; it's a collector's item (and besides, it doesn't have sleeves).