Archive for the 'Events' Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
09
Dec
11

Foy Vance Gig Tonight

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Events, Radass Videos and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , ,

foy-vance-300Here’s the dealy-o – at this very moment, there is a singer / songwriter in Cape Town that I had the privilege of hearing last night who is not only phenomenally talented, but is also a stand up guy on all counts.

His name is Foy Vance and he was flown out here from Northern Ireland to play a gig at a brand event we were working on yesterday.

I was standing not 2 meters from the stage while this man was performing and just the memory of that, I shit you not, is giving me goosebumps.

I’m not going to go into a description of his style, I’ll let the videos below speak for themselves, but what I will say is that Foy is a rare example of a musician who can not only bring the entire room to a standstill with just an acoustic guitar and the power of his voice, but can also plug in and rock loop and effects pedals to make it sound like he’s an entire fucking band.

 

 

It was amazing to watch this man live. For one track, he detuned his top string to play the bass parts and then deftly started layering the track he was playing, one riff at a time, adding harmonising vocals as he went and even singing into the pickups inside his guitar at one stage, which created a vocal sound like nothing I’ve ever heard before.

South African audiences might not know him but he’s toured Europe and the States, generally performing to smaller crowds and his music lends itself better to intimate clubs and bars than it does to gigantic, vapid spaces.

His father was a preacher in the Church Of Christ in Northern Ireland where the only accepted form of music was acapella singing, instruments of any variety were forbidden. Despite this, Foy’s father played the guitar and taught his son everything he knew starting, as you do, with House Of The Rising Son.

Foy speaks fondly of the man who taught him how to play and passed on his love of music and singing to Foy at a young age. Foy’s love of music is a bond forged in blood, something he feels more than he understands, a religion to which he has fully committed his life.

 

 

Being a brand event, the audience were receptive but distracted by the fine whiskey that was being served, which was what got me and my new partner in crime Texx thinking.

What if we could get Foy a gig in a venue slightly better suited to the whole singer / songwriter vibe where he could play to a crowd that would love him the same way we did?

Ten minutes later, Texx was on the phone with the Powers That Be at &Union and I am fucking excited to say the second they Googled him and heard his stuff they were like “BOOK HIM”.

So tonight, for the first time ever, Foy Vance is going to be playing at &Union, kicking off sometime between 7.30 and 8 so let’s show this man some fucking love people!

Dig this video of him playing “Hold Me In Your Arms”. I tried to find out if this is his song or if it’s a cover but couldn’t find out enough about it.

I don’t think it matters though. It’s a deeply moving, incredible song performed with a lot of heart, that’s what counts.

 

 

You guys HAVE to be at &Union tonight.

Until then Winking smile

-ST

05
Dec
11

Slicky-T Hits Up A Brandy Tasting, Learns Stuff

By SlickTiger 1 Comment
Categories: Being Slick and Events
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jamie5-high-resI’m lucky enough to have attended at least 7 or 8 whisky tastings over the past four years and have completed two training courses to be a whisky presenter because I really, really love the stuff.

Being part Irish, a good deal of my DNA is actually comprised of whiskey, which is why I’ll drink you under the table without even breaking a sweat, or in the case of my good buddy Mr D, down a flight of stairs (long story).

So when asked by the good folks over at Oude Meester if I’d like to attend a brandy tasting I was more than a little sceptical.

“Taste brandy? Who tastes brandy?! You throw some coke in that bad boy, knock back a few doubles and go find the nearest oke to moer, end of story right?”

Wrong.

What I soon realised when I arrived at Blake’s for the Oude Meester tasting last week was that my ignorance when it comes to brandy, and the Oude Meester brand itself, is pretty shocking.

Prior to the Jamie Foxx ads for Oude Meester that have been playing on TV, I hadn’t been exposed to the brand in any way, shape or form, so naturally my Cro-Magnon brain put two and two together and was like “Jamie Foxx! American advert! Oude Meester must be an international brand!”

 

 

That was the first thing I learned shortly after arriving. Oude Meester is as South African as boerewors and Bles Bridges.

The second thing I learned is that the new ad with Jamie Foxx isn’t shot in America, it’s shot right here in Cape Town.

To make it look more American, they flipped all the street shots so that it looks like they’re driving on the right-hand side of the road. But that hotdog vendor stand is in town somewhere, as is the boxing gym, and the recording studio is the SABC studio in Seapoint.

We got to watch all the behind-the-scenes footage from when they shot the ad and were given some insights as to why Jamie Foxx was chosen as the new face of the brand.

 

 

Simply puy, Foxx has street cred with a younger target audience and with an older, more sophisticated crowd and like Benjamin Franklin, Jamie Foxx is a man of many talents and was actually going to pursue a career in music before he tried his hand at stand-up comedy and acting.

Then we got to the actual tasting itself and tasted all four brandies in the Oude Meester range – the VSOB, Demant, Oude Meester 12 Year Old Reserve and Oude Meester Souverein 18 Year Old.

 

 

Here’s what my soupy brain remembered:

  • South Africa has extremely strict guidelines when it comes to brandy production, making ours some of the finest brandy in the world. By law, it has to mature for a minimum of 3 years in a barrel (French Oak is most commonly used) so the quality of our brandy is exceptionally high
  • What we call brandy, the rest of the world calls cognac. This blew my mind. How have I lived for 28 years without knowing that?!
  • As a general rule, brandy is a lot softer on the palate than whisky as it doesn’t have the same amount of spice or peat in it, but because they toast the inside of the barrels, there is a hint of smoke in brandies like the Oude Meeste 12 Year Old Special Reserve that lends a lovely scotch-like character to the spirit
  • The Oude Meester Demant is a seriously underrated brandy. It’s the newest in the Oude Meester range and has some wonderful apricot / fresh-cut grass flavour notes, complimented by subtle hints of tobacco and chocolate that makes it great to drink on its own or as a mixer (more on that later)
  • 18 year old brandy is the shiz! Dark chocolate notes abound in the Oude Meester Souverein, followed by fruitier notes of apple / pear and ending with a velvety almond / ginger finish

The tasting was followed by one of the best selections of food I’ve ever seen at a tasting, the highlight of which were the honey glazed beef ribs. Even writing that last sentence is making my mouth water.

The things I did to those delicious hunks of perfectly-cooked meat are not fit to be published on a site that children might accidentally stumble on, so let’s just say I loved them like no man has ever loved ribs before and leave it at that.

 

 

It was a great evening and while wizzo will always be my weapon of choice, if I’m ever in the mood to change it up a little, brandy will definitely be my go-to drink.

Oh, and if you’re looking for a badass cocktail this summer, buy yourself a bottle of Oude Meester Demant (retails for roughly R140 if I’m not mistaken), mix it with ginger ale, add a dash of bitters, a slice of lemon and some ice and tell me that’s not a great cocktail.

It’s called a “Franklin” and like the man himself, it’s right at home on a lilo in the pool on a scorching summer’s day, surrounded by flippin’ hot BELTERS Winking smile

-ST

28
Nov
11

Synergy 2011 FUll Event Review

By SlickTiger 20 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Gig Reviews, Good Times and Killer Posts
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Synergy CrowdWhat can I possibly write that could ever do justice to the fucking awesome time I had at Synergy this past weekend?

After building it up in my head to be this epic event that was going to change my life forever, I was pretty sure the actual experience would never live up to that, but after a bit of a rocky start, everything came together in the best possible way and we had a truly epic weekend.

The Good…

I actually started writing a full, blow-by-blow account of the entire weekend, but after I got to 2000 words I realised I need to keep this punchy.

So instead, here are some bullet points on what was awesome about the festival:

  • Boschendal is STUNNING! Surrounded by majestic mountain peaks and flanked on the one side by a river perfect for dipping your toes in or, further down, jumping in for a swim, the whole area is really beautiful and perfect for a festival

 

  • The organisation is pretty damned sick. At festivals you expect to spend a fair amount of time queuing for food and booze and holding your breath as you walk into porta-loos that look like hell, but Synergy was really well organised that way. Every toilet I went into was actually spotless, even right at the end and the food stalls were plenty and not too expensive either

 

  • TAXI VIOLENCE! These guys put on the best fucking show I’ve seen them play EVER! It was fucking electrifying, the crowd was loving every second of it and George and the guys were giving it their all. Great job, you blew everyone the fuck away!

 

 

 

  • LMG STAGE – a great place to discover new talent. These are the bands that will one day be tearing it up on the mainstage, no doubt. We caught snatches of bands playing here, but to be honest were too busy missioning around to remember who any of them were. DEFINITELY should have spent more time there, big fail on my part

 

  • The rides! We never went on them, but DAMN they looked like fun!

 

 

  • The river! On Saturday morning we went down to the river and spent a long time sitting or rocks slowly getting drunker, talking shit and splashing around in the river. This is what festivals are about, getting away from it all and doing something as simple as sitting with your feet in a river, not giving a shit about anything

 

  • The sun cream girls! Spraying everyone that needed sun cream with sun cream. VERY cool idea, a nice touch to make sure people didn’t get fried in their own natural juices

 

 

  • Our gazebo. This, more than anything, is a festival essential if you’re going with a big group of people. The gazebo united us. It provided much needed shade when the day started getting baking hot and it was the perfect thing to lie under and drink cold Bloody Marys all afternoon

 

 

  • Playing the messiest game of Kings ever! You know it’s a good one when the cards end up all over the camp site once the game has disintegrated into random shouting, laughter and drunken chants of “Down it!” All thanks to the genius “every time someone pulls a black card, everyone drinks” rule. That’s a recipe for awesome right there…

 

  • THE COMEDY TENT! Who goes to a music festival to listen to comedy, right? What a total waste of time, right? WRONG MUTHUFUKKAHS! On Saturday night we wandered randomly into the comedy tent and caught Dylan Skews’ set (who also happens to be a friend of ours) and basically spent the next hour crying with laughter. I’ve known Dylan for a couple of years through friends of ours, but never heard his stuff – it was the funniest comedy I’ve seen in YEARS. Great job man, J-Rab and I love your work

 

  • JAX PANIK! Possibly the biggest crowd I saw at the main stage all weekend – not really the kind of music I go for, but they were fucking AMAZING! The crowd went crazy for them and they delivered the goods. Definitely watch out for this band, they put on a great live show, one of those moments that makes you proud to be South African

 

 

  • ISOCHRONOUS! Ok, anyone who was at the festival is probably starting to pick up a general trend here – yes, we basically missed all the bands on the opening night except Taxi Violence (a lot of tequila happened. I blame you Ebz, I blame you… Joking! We had a badass time, sorry we missed you the rest of the festival!). But we caught Isochronous, who have a strong Muse-flavour to their material, and are face-meltingly awesome to watch live

 

  • Morning bacon and egg rolls for R15! That’s all we need to say about that one

 

  • VIP bracelets – thank you to the festival organisers for hooking J-Rab and I up with these, we put them to good use on Saturday night when, on a random mission to arrange a photo pass, we headed backstage to the production office and ended up…

 

  • MEETING BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB! Well, actually we didn’t really meet them so much as round a corner and find them sitting literally five feet from us being interviewed by MK89. For this BRMC-obsessed fan, it was fucking surreal to see the band so close, but we were asked to please leave by the band’s manager, not in a shitty way, in fact they even listened to me gush for 15 minutes about how amazing I think they are even though they’ve probably heard it a million times before. It was a perfect moment seeing them so close in this quiet, random corner of the festival and one I won’t soon forget

The Bad…

Of course, it can’t be all sunshine and lollypops, there are a few bad points about the festival that I feel I need to mention, namely:

 

  • The fact that I had to wait for over 2 HOURS for those aforementioned VIP passes! Thank God I managed to win a ticket to the festival through Bangers & Nash or I never would have gotten inside to find the festival organisers in the first place. It was a kak way to start the festival, but things were chaotic for the organisers so I understand, but still, 2 HOURS waiting alone under the Synergy arch?! That was painful

 

  • The nights. They were FREEZING cold! Friday especially – you could see your fucking breath it was so bad. J-Rab was practically crying she was so cold. Next year we’re taking backup blankets, that’s for DAMN SURE!

 

 

  • The drunken douchebags camping near us. Who, at 6 in the morning, think it’s cool to shout “Show us your pussy!” to the girls walking past their camp site. Don’t be a “show us your pussy” kind of guy, no one likes guys like that, especially not at 6 in the morning

 

  • The Redbull Stage. Not that the music was bad, the music was pretty sick for the most part, but the people listening to it, phwoar! Ease up on the MDMA guys, you look like a bunch of Gummi Bears bouncing here and there and everywhere, high adventures beyond compare…

 

  • The trek from the parking to the campsite. I guess this is to be expected at festivals, but you had to lug your shit for a good 20 mins before you hit the campsite and then at least another 10 before you found a spot to camp

 

  • This is a bit of a sad one, but after all that hype, after building it up for so long, it pains me to say that one of the bad things for the festival for me was Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. We fought our way right up to the stage, about 5 metres from the band and stayed there, basically in the mosh pit for the next hour before finally leaving before the band had even finished playing.

 

I mean, they NAILED some of the songs – “Conscience Killer” was INTENSE! They banged it out full of sound and fury, “Ain’t No Easy Way” was also fucking brilliant, as was “Six Barrel Shotgun”, but to be perfectly frank, for the most part the band looked a bit bored.

Leah (the drummer) came alive for one song maybe, the rest of the time she stared ahead with the same blank expression on her face, Peter (singer, guitarist) played like a fucking MACHINE, tearing his fretboard to pieces and banging out some seriously badass bluesy rock, but was also expressionless throughout.

Robert (singer, bassist) was the most animated of the three – he has this cool way of playing his base guitar like he’s aiming a rifle and MAN can he play that bass. He also swapped it out for a normal six string a couple of times, he’s a fucking talented musician.

 

 

In fact, they all are. You cannot fault them on that point and I will always, always love BRMC, but I just feel like their performance was missing something. I’m stoked I got to see them live and like I said, I loved a lot of songs they played, but they fluffed a few tracks too, which was a bit sad.

 

The Ugly…

And then there are the moments you kinda wish you hadn’t ever seen, like when…

  • It was 5pm on the OPENING DAY OF THE FESTIVAL, and I watched a girl falling all over the place, drunk as a mineworker and splashing white wine everywhere while her buddy tried to walk her back to her tent

 

  • One of the drunken douches camping next to us passed out at 6pm on Saturday night with his head out his tent so he could have a nice, hearty chunder while J-Rab and I were eating our sammiches not 10 feet away from him. Yummy.

 

  • On Saturday night, a guy ran straight into a car. It was actually hilarious. There was one solitary white polo parked off to the side the main stage, you couldn’t miss it, but this genius ran right into it, BANG! Hahahaha!

 

The Amazing…

I don’t want to end this on a shitty note, so let me sum up by first thanking everyone who made our festival experience possible, Tchavdar and the crew at Synergy Live, New Sound Artist Management and of course Mr Dan Nash.

Our plan came together in the best possible way and we had a fucking amazing time!

 

 

Sure, I didn’t catch half the bands I wanted to see, but there will always be time to watch them play in and get the interviews I want to sometime in the future.

The bands were amazing, the organisation was top notch, the good times kept rolling and the shower and nap we had after we got back home yesterday was fucking glorious!

You bet your ass we’ll be at Synergy 2012 and so will you guys because it’s a brilliant festival.

Here’s to an amazing weekend of sick bands, sunshine and good times Winking smile

-ST

25
Nov
11

The Road To Synergy: Part 5 – Lock And Load Bitches!

By SlickTiger 2 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

open-roadToday we pack our shit up and hit the open road.

We drive until the city melts away behind us and we are flanked by mountains and vineyards and farmhouses that look like they were built 100 years ago (they were).

We drive until our city lives are far behind us and for two days we forget the stresses and the pressure and the deadlines and the endless pursuit of a meaningless things to give our lives meaning.

From here on in, it’s all about the music. Forget about your King sized bed and hot shower and lemon-scented exfoliating balm, your big screen TV and your shiny laptop, your Saturday grocery shopping missions and your froo-froo girly cocktails.

We’re going to rough it for a few days, camp on top of one another, get a little smelly, get a little dirty and make some memories we’ll be happy to look back on one day when we’re wrinkled old farts.

Me, I got my eyes on the prize. I’m there to reconnect with SA’s best bands, meet some fucking crazy kids and take the first few steps down a road I hope will take me where I need to be.

And of course, I’m there to watch Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and, if I play my cards right, hopefully meet and interview the band.

 

 

I’m old enough to know that I’ve probably built this up in my head to be something much bigger than what it’s going to be when we get there, but I honestly couldn’t give a fuck.

I’m living in the moment until Monday morning 8am and right now the moment couldn’t be better.

To get everyone in the mood, here are my top 5 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club tracks to drink whisky to while you tear howling through the night, one from every album the guys have recorded.

 

“Love Burns” (off their self titled first album)

“Six Barrel Shotgun” (off Take Them On, On Your Own)

“Lien On Your Dreams” (off Baby 81)

“Shuffle Your Feet” (off Howl. The story of my life)

“River Styx” (off Beat The Devil’s Tattoo)

See you guys there. I’ll be the guy with my face in a puddle on the floor Winking smile

Expect an EPIC review on Monday.

Until then never forget that ours is not to question why.

Ours is but to do and die.

-ST

24
Nov
11

The Road To Synergy: Part 4 – SUCCESS!

By SlickTiger 6 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Radass Videos and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

wtf_catYOU GUYS AREN’T GOING TO MOTHERFUCKING BELIEVE WHAT FUCKING WENT DOWN YESTERDAY! THE CRAZIEST SHIT, LITERALLY THE CRAZIEST SHIT YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE!

After that mopey “I give up” post I wrote because I’d completely lost hope that I’d ever get tickets to Synergy and get to interview Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (one of my favourite bands of all time), EVERYTHING changed!

Thanks to Mr Dan Nash, the organisers of Synergy, a little badass called Paula K and most importantly, Grant Gelt from New Sound Artist Management I now not only have two tickets to the festival, but a photo pass so J-Rab can get shots from the photo pit and they’re doing what they can to arrange an interview on Saturday!

How fucking crazy is that shit?! It just goes to show, if you want something badly enough and throw yourself into it face first (with a cat on your back) sometimes, just sometimes, it actually works out.

Throughout the day one thing after the other was falling into place and then last night, at about 9pm, an email came from New Sound Artist Management saying they’d read my posts and wanted to basically help me get as close to the band as humanly possibly!

If you guys could’ve seen me last night you would have thought I had actually finally lost my fucking mind. Air punching, screams of “FUCK YEAH!” and practically having a full on seizure is how I spent the better part of an hour.

 

 

Then I promptly passed out from exhaustion, woke up this morning and continued the air-punching, seizure-inducing marathon that will probably only stop on Sunday.

This is going to be the best fucking festival EVER! I can hardly sit still I’m so fucking stoked – how the hell I’m going to get through the next 24 hours without physically detonating from excitement is anyone’s guess.

Batten the hatches boys and girls, the Tiger’s tearin’ up Synergy Winking smile

 

 

That was “Weapon Of Choice”. They’ve changed their drummer since recording that video, so you won’t see that dude (Nick Jago) behind the kit. But don’t be sad, they replaced him with a total belter!

 

 

In all my BRMC-inspired obsession, I realise that I’ve completely neglected to mention the killer SA bands that I’m going to be supporting at Synergy.

There’s a shitload of them, so not sure how I’m really going to be able to fit them all in, but here’s my festival wishlist:

  • The Plastics
  • Shadowclub
  • Taxi Violence
  • Zebra and Giraffe
  • Good Luck
  • McCree
  • Sixgun Gospel
  • Tumi & The Volume
  • Desmond and the Tutus (it’s been WAAAAYYYY too long!)
  • Isochronous
  • THE NARROW (HELL’S YEAH!)
  • Captain Stu (if I survive until the bitter end – please guys, stay to watch these guys, besides being awesome guys, their music is guaranteed to melt faces)

Life, my friends, has a funny way of working out sometimes.

To everyone who made this possible, thank you again, I won’t forget this Winking smile

-ST

23
Nov
11

The Road To Synergy: Part 3 – Restless Sinner

By SlickTiger 3 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Radass Videos and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , ,

Kalifornia brad pitt 03Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have a lot of killer songs, a lot of shit-kickin’, badass tracks that make you want to drive screaming into the night, firing a shotgun out the window of your buddy’s pickup while he swerves at breakneck speed through Nowheresville.

But it wasn’t until I heard “Restless Sinner” that I really started to take this band seriously, because for me, that song cuts right down to the bone.

It’s very seldom I can listen to it without some long buried memories clawing their way back out while I stare through the walls glassy-eyed, remembering…

It’s getting tired now, this constant pleading for tickets to Synergy and besides that, begging fucks with my pride.

This would have been a great opportunity for someone, an event sponsor, a partner, the event organisers themselves (God forbid!), to hook a brother up because the coverage I’d give them in return would have been epic. Their loss, the retards.

 

 

Instead, I guess I’ll just have to skip Synergy this year. I can’t afford R820 to get me and J-Rab there, because that’s not the only cost. It’s also another tank of petrol and it’s the booze and food while you’re there.

Add it all up and you’re looking at the business end of at least R1500 and we just plain can’t afford that at the moment.

I had this dream of meeting the band, swapping some war stories, connecting with them as people, flesh and blood and finding out what makes them tick.

In that dream, I asked the frontman Peter Hayes about “Restless Sinner”, what the song was about, why he wrote it, what it felt like to play it, but he didn’t say anything, just crossed the room and unlatched his guitar case…

 

 

-ST

22
Nov
11

The Road To Synergy: Part 2 – Radio Silence

By SlickTiger 3 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Radass Videos and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

insaneLife is fucking funny.

I’ve been thinking about my buddy, Guitar Jon who once, in a very drunken state, decided to tell everyone about ROCK AND ROLL!

We were varsity students getting fucked up in some bar or other that had a clever name and was wildly popular on Sunday nights in Jozi, but I’m pretty sure it closed down at least 3 years ago.

Guitar Jon was feeling low and disillusioned and like no one understood him (we’ve all been there), so he stood on one of the tables outside and delivered the following diatribe:

“Everybody shuddup! Shut the fuck up and LISTEN! Because I’m here to tell you, all of you, about ROCK AND ROLL! OK?! Because it’s something you FEEL! And it’s fucking ALIVE man! And it’s the best FUCKING THING that ever happened to us, to ANY of us! People forget that! But you just gotta BELIEVE! Because ROCK AND ROLL is the ONLY fucking thing that can save us! OK?! It’s… only fucking thing…”

He said. And one or two people looked at him, but mostly they just carried on drinking like nothing had happened, nothing at all.

 

 

So Guitar Jon got off the table and I think we patted him on the back and ordered him another round and that was that really.

I think in his mind things went differently – maybe people cheered him on or raised their voices in a passionate “Fuck yeah!” or two, but real life never works out that way.

I got in touch with the Synergy Live guys again yesterday and was told because ticket sales are going so well, they’re not issuing any media comps, which is why I’m climbing on the table to tell you guys:

“STOP BUYING FUCKING TICKETS OK?! YOU’RE BUYING TOO MANY TICKETS! IT’S NOT GOING TO BE THAT COOL, RATHER SAVE YOUR MONEY FOR RETIREMENT OR SOMETHING! OK?! YOU’LL NEED IT MORE WHEN YOU’RE OLD AND UGLY AND NOBODY LOVES YOU!”

But seriously guys, my big fucking plan is going nowhere.

 

 

I emailed Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s management and climbed on the table (again) to explain, in a passionate diatribe, how much I love this fucking band and what it would mean to get an interview with the guys while they’re in SA and so on and so on.

They probably printed my email out and then took it in turns to wipe their asses on it before filing it in a rather unpleasant smelling cabinet labelled “Interview Requests From Blogger Wankers” and all had a good laugh.

Or, like the crowd that witnessed Guitar Jon’s epic revelation, they probably just stared at it blankly for a few seconds and then pretended nothing had happened and quietly pushed the “delete” button.

I know it’s still early in the game and things could change, but right now the Road To Synergy isn’t really leading anywhere except to the nearest bottle of whisky and then after that, the street for some drunken swearing and public nudity.

I wish I had better news for ya folks, but that’s all she wrote.

Now if anyone needs me, I’ll be drawing an unhappy face on the head of my penis (adds a hilariously sorrowful undertone to the flashing) and listening to this track from my favourite band of all time, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, who I probably will never, ever get to see play live.

Ever Sad smile

This one’s called “Sweet Feeling”.

 

 

Don’t say it’s over so soon

We’ve tied to the day every wrong

We can wait in the shadows of mourning

But to wait just betrays what’s to come

There’s nothing, there’s no one, no cause

And still we believed in it all.

The sweet feeling’s gone

The sweet feeling’s gone…

-ST

21
Nov
11

The Road To Synergy: Part 1 – Shitting On The Dream

By SlickTiger 8 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Radass Videos and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Black-Rebel-Motorcycle-ClubSo on Friday I got all deep and philosophical on your asses and wrote about how I’ve been dicking around for too long and it’s time to step up to the plate and start slugging for the fence.

Well, I good couple of people who read the site and know me personally started asking what the hell I was on about was all about and why I was being so goddamned cryptic, so I decided I’d just spill the beans and give it to you guys straight.

My plan is to figure out a way to meet Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the guys headlining Synergy Live this year and one of my favourite bands of all time and I’m going to write one of the best goddamn features you’ve ever read in your LIFE about that experience and use that piece to start doing what I’ve always wanted to.

Write about rock n roll.

People are forever asking me what my site’s about and I’m forever answering, “I have no fucking idea. I just wake up that day and whatever comes into my head – BANG! That’s what I write about on that day.”

 

 

But for a long time I’ve been seriously considering steering this site in a musical direction so that at least I can say it’s about something.

Don’t freak out though, there will still be the random, awesome shit there always has been, I just want to have more of a focus on local and international music.

I guess it was that post “That Intangible Moment…” that I wrote awhile back that cemented the idea for me. If music means that much to me, if it’s such a powerful force in my life, then why not write more about it?

Of course, for my big plan to work I first have to get to Synergy, which is proving a little problematic.

 

 

See, I’m dirt broke at the moment. In fact, less than dirt broke. I’ve been living off my goddamned credit card the past two weeks and I’m so far in the red I’m contemplating robbing a bank just to tide me over.

Can I afford the R410 for a ticket (x2 for my photographer J-Rab) – fuck no.

So of course, being arguably one of the best bloggers in the country who has gotten free VIP tickets to U2, Rocking The Daisies and Kings Of Leon to mention a few, I contacted the event organisers to see if they could help a brother out.

Here’s how that went:

ME: Hey guys, I fucking love at least 15 of the bands playing at this year’s Synergy and am the BIGGEST Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Fan in the entire fucking world, do you have media comps available for Synergy this weekend? I’ll give you HUGE love on my site.

THEM: No. All gone.

ME: Ok, um, well do your sponsors maybe have any tickets available?

THEM: That’s our sponsors prerogative.

ME: Huh. Well can you please send through some contact details so I can get in touch with them and see if they can help a brother out?

THEM: (verbatim) “Why would we share our sponsor details with you and why would they issue you with tickets? If you are such a big fan why don’t you just go and buy a ticket from webtickets or outlets?”

That made me feel like a gigantic asshole. So I wrote back and said the following:

ME: (also verbatim) “It’s quite simple, you would share your sponsor’s contact details with me and they would (hopefully) issue me with tickets because I’d do a great write up of the event, hopefully get an opportunity to interview some of the bands and generally give your event some positive exposure on my site and through Twitter.

But judging from your tone in that last email, I can see I’m wasting my time. You think I’m just another snot-nosed blogger angling for free shit.

There’s a little thing called reciprocity, which is a principle I live by and one that can be loosely described as helping people in the good faith that one day they will return the favour. 

You should try it sometime.
-ST

Not long after sending that, the guy I was communicating with (Person A) called to give me a piece of his mind over the phone, but to his credit ended the conversation saying I should call Person B and ask if they had any tickets available.

I called and was told the guy who handles the media comps is Person A and that as far as Person B knew there weren’t media comps left, but she’d chat with Person A and get back to me.

And so here I am. Less than 5 days before everything kicks off and I got zip.

Anyone out there know anyone who knows anyone who can hook me up with media comps for Synergy?

In the meantime, here’s one of my favourite BRMC songs, fittingly entitled “Ain’t No Easy Way” (people are naked in it, so if you’re watching it at work, maybe check over your shoulder first…)

 

 

Imagine them rocking out with that shit live! That song is going to MELT FACES on Saturday.

Hopefully I’ll be there to rock out with you guys, once I’ve finished wiping all the shit off my dream…

Stay tuned folks. The Tiger’s hitting up Synergy one way or another and when he gets there, he’s meeting Pete and the guys from BRMC and getting the best fucking interview out of them anyone has ever gotten, EVER.

Amen.

-ST

27
Oct
11

Kings Of Leon Melt Faces In Cape Town

By SlickTiger 3 Comments
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Gig Reviews and Good Times
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

26102011430“If it bleeds, it leads,” is generally accepted as the first rule of journalism, which is why I should have been sceptical right from the outset when I heard that Kings Of Leon were cocky, arrogant arseholes who were known to give the middle finger to crowds who don’t hang onto every note the band plays.

Their performance last night in Cape Town was anything but cocky and arrogant, which proves that either the rumours were a load of utter shite, or the band were suitably impressed by their reception last night when they took to the stage and melted our faces off.

I was lucky enough to have been given VIP passes by the kind folks at Nokia, but even better than that was the fact that I also bagged one of 20 VIP parking tickets that were randomly put into the 200 media packs they handed out.

It’s the only way to go, seriously. J-Rab and I drove right INTO THE STADIUM after passing through security checks that were so intense, at one of them they unleashed a sniffer dog on us to make sure we weren’t packing any bombs to blow the place up (luckily I’m saving the bomb for when Maroon 5 come to play so I was safe).

Once inside we hopped in the lift, shot up to the fifth floor and sauntered into the Nokia suite where, like a typical blogger, I immediately started abusing the free drinks and taking pictures of the food.

 

 

We managed to catch the end of Shadowclub’s set which I was really impressed with. It’s a bit sad the stadium was basically empty at that stage because the guys put on a great show and played some killer blues/rock in the Strokes / Wolfmother / Black Rebel Motorcycle Club vein that would have gotten the crowd pretty pumped if there was one.

What quickly became apparent though was that while the Nokia lounge was seriously p1mping, it was pretty far away from the stage, and even with my camera on full zoom, this is what everything looked like:

 

 

A plan would have to be made… but not before another few rounds of drinks / bowls of biltong.

The Black Hotels followed Shadowclub and played a decent set, but sadly we missed quite a big chunk of it thanks to the varied distractions of the VIP lounge (whisky).

Unfortunately when it came to the SA bands, they were given such limited stage time that it felt like they were over before they’d really begun. On the plus side, their sound was surprisingly good and for once it didn’t sound like they were playing through rusty tin cans.

By the time Die Heuwels Fantasties took to the stage, the place was starting to really fill out and energy levels in the crowd were rising fast. Die Heuwels played like seasoned stadium veterans, but it wasn’t until Jack Parow joined them onstage for “Die Vraagstuk” that the crowd really started going batshit crazy.

From there on in, the night belonged to Kings Of Leon and I for one was truly blown away by their performance which, coming from a cynical basterd like myself, is saying a lot.

 

 

I started following KOL when Because Of The Times dropped and within weeks of getting my filthy mitts on that album, picked up Youth And Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak. 

For me, the material in those three albums is some of the band’s best to date, which was why I fucking loved their set last night.

Sure, they played the four tracks that make up the entire catalogue most South Africans know (ie. “Sex On Fire”, “Use Somebody”, “Radioactive” and “Pyro”), but they also played at least 7 or 8 tracks from Because Of The Times and some classics like “Molly’s Chambers” and “Taper Jeans Girl” from their first two albums.

It was a nod to their die-hard fans to remind us that before they exploded into the mainstream with Only By The Night KOL was our band, not 5FM’s, and the music they wrote was the soundtrack to our lives that we heard at random house parties and played on epic road trips.

 

 

I know I sound like a typical music snob saying it, but there’s a very close connection you feel to a band before they get picked up by the mainstream that is never quite the same after their material gets blasted on high rotation on every radio and TV station known to man.

And don’t even get me started on remixes. I’ve heard “Sex On Fire” remixed so many times I start twitching involuntarily whenever I hear that song butchered on another “doef doef” beat.

In a sentence, I loved KOL’s performance last night because it made me remember why I used to love this band and judging from how fucking nuts the crowd went, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the people there last night go out and buy their first three albums.

 

 

Also, Nathan Followill is a fucking SICK drummer. If you’re going to watch them in Joburg, keep an eye on that man, he’s truly amazing to watch live – he pounds the living shit out of his skins, it’s beautiful.

Joburg, prepare yourselves for a concert you won’t soon forget, but take my advice and go out there and get their first three albums because listening to those songs live is nothing short of breath-taking.

Big up to Nokia for hooking a brother up. I love your work guys, after the concert we partied at the VIP lounge until they turned the lights on and then J-Rab asked if she could have the flowers and kind folks at Nokia were like “Sure, go wild.”

 

 

But most importantly – Kings Of Leon, thank you for an amazing show, you made a believer out of this cynical music snob and for the two hours you were onstage, became our band again Winking smile

-ST

23
Sep
11

The Tiger Hits Up The Nokia N9 Launch, Champagne Ensues…

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Being Slick, Events and Good Times
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Marko AhtisaariWhen Marko Ahtisaari, Nokia’s global head of design, began speaking at the Nokia N9 launch, the entire room went quiet.

Not because he was overbearing, not because he dominated the room with his presence, but because he spoke with a kind of humility that endeared him to his audience almost immediately.

Listening to him, I got the impression that he was carefully measuring every word as he spoke, yet his speech flowed so freely it felt like he was just shooting the breeze with us as he explained how he and his team designed the Nokia N9.

His bio notes that Marko is a keen observer of the patterns of human interaction and it’s through observing these basic patterns that he came up with some of the fundamental philosophies the N9 is based on.

Smartphones have changed the way we interact with one another and not all those changes have been positive. It’s become all too common to go out and see groups of friends or couples or families with their heads down, furiously communicating with everyone but the people they are sitting across from.

 

 

Marko’s main goal in designing the N9 is to give us that interaction back by designing a phone that’s so intuitive you can use it and still interact with the world and the people around you.

Back in the day Nokia phones had two great things going for them, you could use them with one hand and you could do that without having to glue your eyes to the screen.

Touch phones changed all that. Try typing an SMS on a touch screen phone without looking at the screen and the results would end up in an Autocorrect email before you knew what hit you.

 

 

Marko explained that the N9 is an attempt to create a user experience that doesn’t require you to put your life on hold every time you want to use your phone.

To borrow from the press release, one of the key features of the Nokia N9 is its ability to return users to the home screen from any open application by simply swiping from the edge of the device. It makes menu and application navigation extremely simple and slick which, combined with the fact that the N9 doesn’t have any physical buttons, all contributes to the overall look and feel of the product which I can tell you from using it first hand, is very impressive.

What really blew my mind though was the integration of Near Field Communication (NFC) into the N9. What this means, in layman’s terms, is that you can pair the phone with other NFC accessories like headphones and speakers by simply touching them together.

 

You can also share images and content with other NFC devices which means if I want to share a pic with you, I can literally tap my phone against yours and BANG! The pic transfers to your phone.

The only slight downside is the fact that they’ve downsized the camera from the monster 12 megapixels that the N8 comes packing to 8 megapixels in order to keep the design of the product more neat and tidy (the N8 camera is such a beast it actually protrudes from the body of the phone, so I can understand why they decided to go with something a little tidier for the N9).

BUT, like Marko pointed out to me when I spoke with him about the N9’s camera, the shot-to-shot time on the N9 is lightening fast and with a lens aperture of f/2.2 and dual LED flash it performs amazingly well in low light conditions.

All in all, the N9 launch was definitely one of the more memorable launches I’ve been to recently. The champagne flowed endlessly, the horse doovers were delicious and the dancers who went up on stage to perform were even so kind as to spell out a “T” for Slicky-T.

 

 

So watch this space boys and girls. Really hoping the kind folks at Nokia will hook a brother up with the N9 so I can give you a better idea of how this sexy little piece of technology actually performs, but until then, here are some more pics to drool over.

 

 

 

 

Have a killer weekend party people, see you on the other side Winking smile

-ST

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »