Archive for September, 2010

29
Sep
10

Album Review: Philip Selway – Familial

By SlickTiger 1 Comment
Categories: Album Reviews
Tags: , , , , , ,

There’s no two ways about it, drummers are a special bunch. Quiet and stoic, they have a gentle way about them not unlike idiot savants or people with severe autism.

This is, of course, a gross over-generalisation. There are at least three drummers that come to mind who are exceptionally gifted with both intelligence and musical ability, and one of those three is Philip Selway.

 

 

Selway was well on his way to becoming a full-time academic back in the early 90s, studying English and History in Liverpool, before he joined arguably the best alternative / indie / experimental rock band of all time, Radiohead.

There are only a few drummers in the world that boast the chops and muscle that Selway does behind a kit and can still pull off the shuffling, syncopated twists and turns that gave Radiohead classics like “Idioteque” and “There There” the bones to stand tall and strong.

Question is, is Selway worth a damn as a solo musician, or does his material sound like watered-down Radiohead B-sides?

Huh. Not an easy question.

Click here for the whole enchilada…

-ST

28
Sep
10

Happy Birthday TFW!

By SlickTiger 1 Comment
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Today marks exactly one year since this site went live.

 

 

I feel like I should post something momentous to mark the occasion, like maybe a bunch of bullet points that clearly highlight my favourite moments since I started blogging or something, but I’m not going to do that cause you and I both know that nobody gives a shit about that shit.

I got a better idea.

Let’s get drunk. Fuck it all. Let’s get drunk and sing old Velvet Underground songs, who’s with me?! HUH?!?! WHO’S FUCKING WITH ME!

AWESOME! Ok, here, you get started on this fine bottle of single malt and I’ll tell you about a friend of mine, name of Jimmy Brown, he ain’t got nothin’ at all.

Not a shirt right off his back. He ain’t got nothin’ at all 😉

I’ve enjoyed writing this blog for all you crazy fuckers out there, you’re good people, exactly the kind of people I started writing this site to attract. Crazy diamonds.

 

 

And I’m sorry you know? Sorry if recently the content’s been thin and posts are few and far between, I still got all these fightin’ words in my head, just not the time to get them out in the right order.

I think this site might be here forever though. I think I’m re-thinking the whole thing with a long term goal in mind to just keep posting and posting and posting. And in time you’ll be able to cut through all this material like a saw through a tree and you’ll be able to read the circles in the trunk and tell the good years from the bad.

It’s like a beat-up old spaceship floating aimlessly through the ether and inside it are a tiny handful of people, my friends mostly, getting fucked up in the lamplight and talking a bunch of shit, sometimes laughing.

Other people, they get on and off, and in the credits of this movie they only appear as “Man By The Teleporter” or “Woman Playing Ukulele” and that’s fine, they have no place here, they’re free to come and go. I don’t mind.

 

 

So pour us another drink, easy on the ice, while I tell you about old Ginger Brown, walks with his head down to the ground, they took the shoes right off his feet and threw the poor boy right out in the street.

And this is what he said.

“Oh sweet nothin’
She ain’t got nothin’ at all…”

-ST

27
Sep
10

The Tiger Loses At SA Blog Awards, Drops Trou

By SlickTiger 11 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

What can I say guys? I failed you. I failed you all and I’m a lousy, good-for-nothing faily-failure who gets right to the finish line and then fails.

I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it…

 

 

I mean things started out well enough. J-Rab and I got all suited up and hit the One & Only for the pre-drinks at 5.30, made some pleasant chit chat with the people there and took sneaky hits off my tartan hip flask when no one was looking, on all counts it was a great start to the evening.

Oh, and did I mention that J-Rab looked smokin’ hot? You feel like the King of the world with that girl on your arm, no shit. You walk in there head held high because you know you’ve got the hottest girl in the place and nothing and nobody can fuck with that.

 

 

From the pre-drinks we were ushered downstairs where the blog awards were taking place and given fucking mind-bendingly strong tequila cocktails that went down like a freight train. Naturally I had one or two to take the edge off my nerves and then possibly another one or two because I needed something to do with my hands.

Next thing I knew we were all being asked to take our seats for the awards to begin which they did with an opening address by JP Naude that stressed a number of points to make the poor guy look better in the face of all the accusations being levelled at him that the nomination and voting procedures for this year’s awards were retarded.

Personally I couldn’t give a rat’s ass. I got to the final two in my category so I was happy.

The highlight of my evening was our Honourable Premier Lady Z’s speech she made at the awards. She’s a great public speaker and was actually really funny too which I wasn’t expecting at all.

 

 

Then came intermission during which J-Rab turned to me and in no uncertain terms said, “Babe, if you win there’s no question about it, you’ve got to go onstage and drop trou.”

“Huh. That’s a pretty crazy idea.”

“C’mon! You have to do it, this whole awards thing is so stuffy and boring. You have to drop trou if you win!”

“Lemme have a tequila and think about that…”

(3 tequilas later)

“Fuck! You’re a genius! I’m SO dropping trou when I win that fucking award! Ah man, this’s gonna be PRICELESS!”

“Atta boy!”

“I even practised in the bathroom, getting my jeans off, this is gonna be AMAZING!”

 

 

And so I marched purposefully back to my seat, really happy that I’d girded my loins with my “Tiger Scants” when I was suiting up earlier (the Tiger Scants are very sexy black undies with a growling Tiger’s face right where your junk sits).

I think there’s only one other pair of undies more badass than the Tiger Scants, but they’ve been universally banned because they killed a subway full of people with their sheer awesomnity.

I was ready. I was going to do it. I was going to unleash the Tiger and I already had four people waiting to give me a standing ovation as soon as my jeans hit the stage.

But yeah, in a profound Sad Trombone moment they didn’t read the name of SlickTiger that night, no, they read the name of Brainwavez and your poor buddy ol’ pal Slick’s hopes and dreams were shattered against the jagged, rocky shoreline of reality where he isn’t the blogging demigod he thinks he is.

He’s just a man with a clunky laptop banging out fightin’ words, a crazy man, maybe one day a great man, but not today.

 

 

From there things got a little blurry, but the anti-climax of not being able to drop trou onstage proved too much for me to bear so I spent the rest of the evening dropping my jeans at any given opportunity and “unleashing the Tiger” to large groups of unsuspecting people who reacted in much the same way they would had I unleashed a real tiger.

On that note, if anyone out there on the interwebs manages to unearth pictures of me “unleashing the Tiger” or just any pictures of me and J-Rab at the awards, I’ll reward you handsomely for your efforts by posting the pics IMMEDIATELY and writing a humorous limerick about you that you can show your friends.

Needless to say, we didn’t stick around for long after the awards. I could sense I was dangerously close to committing the kind of Tiger faux pas that gets you tarred and feathered in blogging circles. So we caught a taxi to The Fez instead and boogied on down with some of my closest and oldest friends who consoled me with drinks, pats on the back and kind words like “Fuck those fucking fuckheads man! You did good dude, you got the the top 2 IN THE COUNTRY! I mean that’s fucking impressive, that’s th – wait, are you even listening to me? Oh Christ, the tiger underpants again…”

To sum up, I’d like to quote one of my favourite novels of all time:

It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further… And one fine morning –

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

This is not the end.

-ST

20
Sep
10

Tequilas on me!

By SlickTiger 3 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

It’s a fucking done deal guys, thanks to all your support and the endless hours you spent voting, revoting and re-revoting for Klap Gym Boet, it’s cracked the FINAL TWO for the SA Blog Awards!

I found out last night and started bouncing off the walls like a piece of loose shrapnel with J-Rab while the two of us laughed our asses off that a post about KLAPPING GYM could ever get so huge.

 

 

We drank Savannas because that’s all we had. We ate fish and rice for supper in our wooden shed and fantasised about being rich and famous.

But seriously you guys are the best. Without all you crazy fuckers backing me on this, God knows I’d still be banging out these words, drunk and belligerent, to an audience of about twelve people.

Big up to my good friend MJ though, she’s up against the Tiger for Best Post with this gem she put out there last year that gives a detailed overview of how District 9 was marketed on the web. It’s an excellent and well-researched piece of writing and if MJ bags the award on Saturday, I’ll be really stoked that for once, the good guys finished first.

 

 

In other news, you may have noticed that the site’s been a little thin on the posting side of late but truth be told, life, the universe and pretty much everything is scrambling for a piece of me and like I said in last week’s post, I’m bleeding time like nobody’s business right now and there’s only so much of me to go around.

I’m working on creating more of me though, but it’s proving tricky because to do that I need to KLAP 3 SESSIONS OF GYM, SMASH 6 PROTEIN SHAKES, 12 RAW EGGS, 5 STEAKS, 9 CHICKEN BREASTS and 3 INJECTIONS OF DANGEROUS ANABOLIC STEROIDS EVERY DAY!

So guys, tequilas on me this week and wish me luck for Saturday. If I KLAP this one, maybe some kind folks will help me redesign my site for free because let’s be honest, it’s getting a little ropey and I got plans to p1mp it out flippin’ HECTIC charna!

Good times I tell ya. Good times 😉

-ST

13
Sep
10

The Home Stretch

By SlickTiger 2 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Wattup Party People.

It’s been pretty heavy going recently, I won’t lie. Work is boxing me in on all sides right now and I’m bleeding time like nobody’s business.

It’s weird, I’ve never felt like I’ve had such a loose grip on time before, it’s just sliding through my fingers continually and no matter how much of it I try to catch, it just spills out.

Blink once and it’s September already. Blink a second time and the year’s done. Too crazy.

Good news is that some crazy shit is in the pipeline so watch this space, things could get interesting 😉

 

 

Oh yeah, and before I go, a subtle message from the folks here at SlickTiger Industries:

 

VoteSlickVoteSlickVoteSlickVoteSlick

Yep, this is your last week to klap some votes for your buddy ‘ol pal in the 2010 SA Blog Awards. The previous post I wrote about the awards was BULLSHIT. You can vote every 24 hours for the blog you want to win, so let’s all of us KLAP this flippin’ interwebs popularity competition and VoteSlick every day for the rest of this week!

Then voting closes, I attend the awards ceremony, I win a kief prize and everyone lives happily ever after.

Here are the best reasons to vote for me:

  • This site klaps an average of 350 hits a day, 500 with a decent post and anywhere upward from 1000 for the good shit, so the stats are solid
  • I’ve gotten where I have with no advertising on the site and no sponsorships. I’ve hardly done any kind of viral marketing, the site isn’t SEO optimised or tweaked in any way to boost Google rankings or site views. I’m just too plain stupid to work ANY of that shit out
  • The content on this site is 95% original. It bears mentioning because most blog sites just act as aggregators for content they mooch off other sites. Me, I actually take the time to sit down and write all this crazy shit from scratch, irrefutable proof that I have indeed lost my mind
  • The pictures are funny
  • I got plans for the FUTURE. Plans to use this site for what it was originally intended. Secret plans that you’ll only find out if you VoteSlick EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF THIS WEEK!

I honestly wasn’t going to go the grovelling for votes route, but then I read the mail that a certain wildly popular, lifestyle-oriented SA blog site sent around last week and fell off my chair laughing.

What kind of a Tiger would I be if I didn’t give my readers a chance to fall off their chairs laughing too?

A pretty lousy Tiger I tell ya, a pretty lousy Tiger indeed…

Until next time 😉

-ST

07
Sep
10

Gig Review: Basement Jaxx

By SlickTiger 6 Comments
Categories: Gig Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Remember back in high school when school socials would roll around and you’d get all excited about rocking out at them and having the time of your life, and then the big night rolled around and you realised all it was was a bunch of bored-looking people crammed into your school hall wishing they could get their hands on some booze?

Yeah. In one, long convoluted sentence, that was Basement Jaxx last Friday.

 

 

I’d never been to the Waterfront Lookout before, but the name conjured all kinds of majestic imagery of an open-air concert venue with a perfect view of the harbour and grassy banks where concert-goers could drink in the sights around them while taking a break from the manic crowds dancing like their lives depended on it by the front of the colossal stage.

I pictured giant luxury cruise liners floating by the Lookout with people in tuxedos and evening dresses sipping cocktails on the poop deck while the moon’s reflection shimmered silver on the ocean’s wavy surface.

Instead I arrived to find a fenced-in patch of gravel next to a hall that would be awesome for bingo. At the one end of said hall was a queue seven people deep for a drink and the other a cramped-looking stage with a couple of big screens and lighting rigs.

The patio on the other side of the hall ‘looked out’ at the back-end of the waterfront where the ocean gently lapped random pieces of trash while the wafting scent of rotten fish rolled in misty waves over the people gathered there to smoke and stare in disdainful silence at one another.

 

 

I don’t want to sound like a whiny bitch here, so I’m going to gloss over the performances of all the supporting acts and just say that they were all really, really nice (if you eatlivebreatheshit 5fm) and that I definitely would have boogied on down to their phat and original beats had I spent the afternoon drinking rubbing alcohol / had a large portion of my brain removed.

Then the main act took the stage! We knew this not because they came out guns blazin’ and instantly blew everyone’s minds, but rather because like magic, the queues at the bar disappeared and we could make an earnest effort at getting plastered on overpriced Millers.

Basement Jaxx played with very little heart and the crowd could tell. Halfway through their set most people had already left to beat the traffic home. It was embarrassing.

Sure, there were moments when they rocked out and got the crowd pumping, but sadly they were rare. Most of their set comprised of remixes of other artist’s material (including “Sex On Fire” which, for me, was a definite low point) with one or two Basement Jaxx classics thrown in and a long-ass middle section of beats that went nowhere.

 

 

However, this is not to say the night wasn’t still awesome for me. Here, in bullet-point form are the parts I liked best:

  • The part when my buddy-down-from-joburg The Glaze lost his mind in the drinks queue, shoved his money into my hands, said he had to go outside for some air and then dropped like a sack of potatoes on the stairs in a dead faint. I missed the whole spectacle (CURSE YOU DRINKS QUEUE!) but reliable eye witnesses said he threw his arms back dramatically in the air and keeled over in a graceful backwards swan dive. Haha! Priceless.
  • The part where my buddy Barbarian took an entire MDMA cap in one go because he thought security was watching him crack it open to take a hit and then spent the next hour fighting to keep his shit together. He ended up going home with two girls he’d just met. Legendary.

So the evening wasn’t completely wasted, but you can pretty much bet your ass any parties that crop up in future with the words ‘5fm’ or ‘Waterfront Lookout’ in them will not be graced by this Tiger.

But hey, that’s just like my opinion, man. I’m sure this will no doubt be greeted by the usual slew of personal abuse my writing seems to attract.

I mean fuck. No one wants to hear it like it is. But that’s a story for another time kids 😉

-ST

02
Sep
10

To Everyone Who Reads This Site, Thank You

By SlickTiger 10 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

I cracked the final 10 for Best Post Of The Year in the 2010 Blog Awards guys, how fucking amazing is that?!

Klap Gym Boet is apparently a firm favourite amongst the other nominees, but taking home the award isn’t going to be easy.

If you liked the post, hit me with a vote. Then wait 24 hours and hit me with another (weird I know, but yeah, everyone can vote twice as long as 24 hours lapses between votes).

Together we can KLAP this one charnas.

I love you all more than you could ever know. C’mere. Let’s hug it out.

 

 

To the people who have supported me throughout – J-Rab, Civilian, Guitar Jon, Peggles, Stikey, The MAEN!, El Guapo, Mr C, Tara, Desrie, Stickman, Jono, Toffee Boy, Flavid, Rich Willis, and everyone else I’ve by mistake forgotten – you guys fucking rock 🙂

-ST

01
Sep
10

Album Review: Wavves – King Of The Beach

By SlickTiger 1 Comment
Categories: Album Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Picture a random house party when everyone’s sitting around at 3 in the morning and the guy who’s spent the last hour drinking tequila straight out of the bottle picks up a guitar and starts trying to jam.

Now put that guy on stage in front of hundreds of ticked off fans and you’ve got a situation much like the one that happened last year when Wavves played their most notorious gig to date,  the Barcelona Primavera Sound Festival.

 

 

Nathan Williams (frontman, singer and guitarist for the low-fi stoner rock band Wavves) ingested a cocktail of Ecstasy, Valium and Xanax before taking to the stage at Primavera last year and behaved like a giant asshole kid which, at the tender age of 23, is exactly what he was.

Well, good news is Williams is 24 now and has put such childish things as his highly publicised and cringe-worthy meltdown behind him to surge forward with Wavves third album, King Of The Beach.

Read the whole enchilada here…

-ST