well it was a strange night – never frequented a hiphop scene in my life and this was something entirely new to me. martin – documentarian of the etc crew – was there, someone i went to visit partly and to see the etc people themselves perform (they’d recently been well-received lightly in roma and italy among other places, i hear – good for them!!? it surprised me nonetheless (although it shouldnt) that capetonians take their hip hop /rap seriously. its refreshing to see other people than the usual hips and indie skinny-jeans (indie in CAPE TOWN BRU!!?!) kind who i avoid more than episodes of family guy.
the entire setup was in a boxing ring, and the opening performance was by jitzfinger – a coloured guy who seemed very into what he was doing. i lost track about halfway through his act (martin was distracting me with social commentary) and returned to see jitzfinger was suddenly accompanied by other people with guitars. they began to change mood with more folk type songs, i think this didnt work as well as the rapping.

however i think etc stood out better as an act – em-see logikal involved the crowd in rapping with, ‘step up if you want to keep the rep up’, ‘etc the most ominous threat’ and so on and so forth. i liked this stint they did with a dial-tone telephone, called ‘mcmission’ i think, during which dj white knight (??!!) receives a ‘fone call’ from the mc’s, who recount some or other anecdote over the song’s beat.

(maybe my memory is getting fuzzy, at least i think it was in that order)

am going to see them again – i think they are worth watching.

dala calitz tjailatyd

next venue at assembly august fifteenth

i’ve always wanted to trace the point of jackson’s demise – was it perhaps the 1993 allegations of sexual molestation against jordy chandler? dangerous always seemed a strange album, an especially strange effort after the more down-to-earth ‘bad’ (my jackson favorite) – dangerous seems to fully embrace jackson’s popularity with the kind of cheap early-90′s chicanery that makes me cringe to this day. teddy riley’s production on this record (ironically also on jackson’s 2001 album ‘invincible’, jackson’s worst effort to date) tries so hard to be hip. bullshit in-your-face-ness of opener ‘jam’ just.. ugh..

‘new jack swing’ – what the fuck?

in my opinion, three people are to blame for jackson’s downfall – chandler, riley and

the show was among the worst i’d seen of the group, but not due to their performance. the lights and power to the instruments cut out twice (2 2 2 ??!?!) during their opening song, and jay kruger wonderfully kept drumming, encouraging the rest of the band to do a little impromptu improv (unplugged). when it happened again, after restarting the opener with lights and sound, the band were getting annoyed and didnt feel like improvising again. after hearing the familiars, i decided to stand in an area where the terrible reverbrations inside the assembly didn’t make my ears bleed. i’d never been to a gig at the assembly, but so far i think it’s pretty shit venue (acoustically etc)

however i dont wish to detract from the point – the beams were great, as usual, but something frightens me about the prospective of the band’s future. will there be more shows? will there be a decline in attendance?? are paul and bøskø and the other two gradually drifting awayy from practices? can a famous artists touch kids??
band began with excited droning of ? (we just know it as the song that goes “shake shake shake!!”) and paul quitely ” individuals… summer recreationals…” and come and “SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE!!?!! SHAAAAKE-ah” and so yet another cacophony of radio-friendly and not the least neurotic dance-rock stuff/ the show started. among my personal rating, this show scored easily among the top three in the eight (nine?) times i’ve seen the band. paul was active with antics as usual and the only annoyance was the psued-hip rasta disk jockey who assured us that he did have the cure and new order, but later realised he didnt (after transpiring hours with shitty beat-mixing and edgy-ness)
anyway the show was great. i walked out tired and sweaty, always a good indication of a decent performance. i think richard and myself irritated bøskó with our incessant demands that the band play ‘glow’. unfortunately they didnt play ball

-i asked paul today they didnt play ‘glow’ that night, and he claimed that its something disagreeable between himself and the others, what with their departed keyboardist evan having played the melodies which kept the song together. he remarked that perhaps with one practice they could string it together with bôskø’s guitar filling in this part, but their lack of frequent practice times doesnt allow for this in the near future (i imagine) -SAD
i still dont know why they don’t play chemical wisdom. good song

well i arrived late for the ticket-taking /didnt pay a price for entrance yet the setup was something other than what i was expecting: people (hips, youngs people and the such) sitting in chairs surrounding a ground-level stage platform, where i shyly walked into the very lovely sound i was hearing. kesivan naidoo, drums player from babu jazz group (i saw at armchair once) was doing something nice – a roll around in-a-haystack thing i enjoyed when i walked in.
the two people who actually comprise cabins in the forest then did some stuff by themselves, something which reminded me of jack johnson (boo) but not quite as gay.

i wasn’t able to fully partake in the show as my company was restless and wanting to booze

but i’d see them again

post-script there are rumours that naidoo is looking at purchasing the now-defunct armchair theatre and possibly turning it into a jazz venue

because robert smith ran until his heart burst

because robert smith wants to be taken for a walk

the synthesiser is too good

much child nostalgia that makes anything else nostalgic seem irrelevant (who needs to be forever young when they can be taken for a walk)

because robert smith remembers everything

supposedly the only song of the cure’s which robert smith’s mother likes

never released on lp, rather on japanese compilation

there is no audible lead guitar in the song until that very charming jingle at the end /the synths do the work

because robert smith is adamant that he remembers everything

it features a theremin

yesterday saw the release of the new nine inch nails album (not the new one which was released a year ago, and not the newer one which was released two months ago, but an even newer one). it seems that trent reznor is trying to achieve prolificity before the axe falls

initial impression
i dont think it’s any surprise why the album seems stupid to me. department continual sci-fi themes of a republican-ruled warzone fifteen years from now. why does a reference to a twilight zone episode make me shudder? the lately output features some of the worst lyrics i’ve ever heard from the reznor camp and while trent reznor has hardly been very talented in that department, some of his lyrics were almost so atrocious that they were charming (‘that’s what i get’) like early depeche mode. but this is inexcusable. many albums are deemed unnecessary and this is among the flock of shit which needs to be wiped up. no direction, no real advance and what looks like a token opportunity to pull an example of ‘internet-inventiveness’ which music journalists seem to link reznor to nowadays. how

completely minimal, lyrics have colapsed entirely like an amphetamine/mandrax smoker’s oesophagus

i think, now that i’ve listened a second time, that perhaps ‘lights in the sky’ is my favorite, although still comparatively weak when compared to previous output

the beams are playing on may 14 at zula bar and may 24 at the assembly (i’ve never been)