Posts Tagged ‘saron gas

30
Oct
12

SlickTiger And The Terror Island #5GumExperience

2012-10-27-132Shit guys. I don’t even know where to start with this one. I think I’ve thought up about a hundred different ways I could slice this post, but it would all be lies I tell you. Shame-faced lies.

Which is probably the route I should take here because if blogging has taught me anything, it’s to never, EVER abuse the freebies you get by being too honest (Synergy review, I’m looking at you…).

But unfortunately in this case I don’t really have any other option. I love you 5Gum, I think you guys host killer events and look forward to all your parties and telling everyone I know about them, but yeah. I botched Saturday’s party completely so please forgive me for what I’m about to write…

It all started at about 2.30 in the afternoon last Saturday. The sun was shining, the weather was sweet and J-Rab and I were hitting up a good buddy’s 30th birthday party.

 

 

Soon after arriving, I realised that I was the biggest ou at the party by a country mile which is a very bad thing because without the threat of someone bigger than me putting me back in my place if I get a little rowdy, well, I get a little rowdy.

So I began putting the double whiskies away like nobody’s business and administering life to the party like some kind of human defibrillator.

Sure, I might have been a little douchey, but at this stage I was still on the level so a great time was had by all until we had to duck out at 6pm to start getting ready for Terror Island.

The tickets we had said dress Halloweeny and the party was called Terror Island, so naturally my drunk-ass brain put two and two together and was like “PIRATE!”

 

 

But my brain was like: “No… That’s not Halloweeny enough…”

Which of course lead to: “GHOST PIRATE!” and me spending the next hour in the bathroom with these Bostick face-paints we had leftover from the Soccer World Cup, trying to do my make-up like some sad, sorry, drunken clown getting ready for a 6 year-old’s birthday party.

J-Rab came in half-way in to find out what the hell was taking me so long with the white stick of face-paint and as I turned to show her the killer job I was doing of turning myself into Carolyn Manson (Marilyn’s lesser-known cousin), what was left of the white stick of face-paint fell out of its lipstick-like holder and plopped into the loo.

In a flash I was elbows-deep in that basterd to save the white face-paint (don’t worry, J-Rab and I are meticulous flushers so there was nothing dodgey in there) which I did and um… dried it off and um… why am I telling you guys this?!?!

 

 

Anyway, we got our shit together and cabbed it to Grand Central for the big party only to realise that maybe 20% of the people at the party actually made an effort to dress up.

Not that I gave two shits at that point. I was a GHOST PIRATE MUTHUFUKKAH! Shiver me muthufukkin’ TIMBERS, BITCHES YEAH!

That’s the closest approximation I can give to what my internal dialogue sounded like at that point. It was 7.30.

We were eventually shown the way to go to the #5GumExperience which involved walking past a gigantic taxi rank on our left ripe with the smell of old urine.

It added perfectly to the terror J-Rab was feeling at this point and rightly so. Her knight in shining armour had been replaced by the village drunk who would have been as effective as a balloon sword in a knife fight if any shit went down.

Luckily none did though and the evening started off really well as J-Rab and I befriended all the crazy party people who had also gone all out to dress up in the Halloween theme.

Which resulted in the following pictures:

 

 

 

 

By my estimate we probably jammed with the people in the pictures above for about two hours, after which point I headed to VIP to say WAZZUP to THE MAEN!

At this stage, I think I’d drunk about three quarters of a bottle of whisky over a 7-hour period. I was gone daddy gone. Then this picture happened, apparently:

 

 

After that we headed to the main stage where someone was playing.

I got down on the dancefloor (READ: flailed my limbs around like a frog in a blender) until I had cleared a sizeable circle around me, then I schloomfed off with J-Rab to get some food, then I ate that food in a terrifying massacre of melted cheese and salami and then I felt like a nap so we went home.

It was hands down the worst attempt at rocking out at a gig since I went to watch Saron Gas when I was 17 and had five tequilas and about 10 Redds (Redds! Hahahaha!) before we’d even arrived.

Twenty minutes after we arrived I proceeded to smash my head against a low concrete ceiling on the upstairs balcony at The Doors in Edenvale which scrambled my brains so badly I staggered inside, puked on the actual bar, was promptly thrown the fuck out and had to be driven back home with all my buddies because we’d shared a car to get there.

Fun times.

 

 

To the organisers of the Terror Island in CT, I am truly, deeply sorry. It’s not my style to be the guy so blitzed he can’t remember if he had a killer time or not and you have my word if you guys throw another one, I’ll at least show up sober like a normal human and actually write a decent event review.

At this point, I’d be hugely grateful to anyone, anyone at all, who can jump onto the comments section below and tell me how Terror Island actually was.

There’s a lesson to be learned here kids. NEVER put on face-paint that’s been in the loo. It instantly becomes toxic I tells ya!

Face –> palm.

-ST

28
Jan
10

The Parlotones Irritate The Living Shit Out Of Me

There are very few SA bands that I actually like, in fact I could probably count them all on one hand and most of them don’t play anymore.

Anyone remember Squeal? Early Nude Girls (before Carstens became a jerk)? Boo? Sugardrive? I used to dig those bands, they had a great sound and put out a good couple of albums that were pretty decent.

 

 

I find the bands playing these days largely uninspiring with a few exceptions, one of which is Lark – Inge Beckman is the kind of girl you wouldn’t look twice at walking down a street (well, depending on what she was wearing) but on stage she’s all kinds of sexy.

Then there are SA’s favourite bands, the Prime Circles and the aKings and the Goldfishes of this world and whatever you do, DO NOT fuck with their fans. They are fiercely loyal and won’t hesitate to swear at you loudly for ‘not supporting South African music’ if you tell them that those bands are shit.

And lastly, there’s the Parlotones. If you don’t know who the Parlotones are, then I’m not quite sure what you’re doing reading this post. Crawl back under the rock you’ve been hiding under and stay there, because fuck man, the Parlotones are EVERYWHERE!

 

 

That song that plays in Outsurance adds? Parlotones. The free album that came with your Sony Ericsson W995? Parlotones. The band that played at the last big corporate function you attended? Parlotones. The band associated with Gigabyte laptops? Parlotones. The only SA band to launch its own wine? Parlotones. The band you hear playing in your worst nightmares? Miley Cyrus. But when she’s too busy working the pole, you bet your ass, it’s the Parlotones.

To be honest, I didn’t really give a flying fuck about any of that. You think it’s easy for SA bands to actually make a living out of gigging and selling albums? Think again buddy, it’s fucking difficult. At least 95% of SA bands have day jobs because the music industry in this country is miniscule in comparison to the rest of the world and the sad reality of being a musician in this country is that is doesn’t pay the bills.

So by all means, get in bed with a couple of sponsors, why the hell not? Cash in on your hard work, atta boy!

BUT there is a line. And the Parlotones crossed it when they got in bed with that giant behemoth of the fast food industry: KFC.

‘We driiiiiiiiiinnnnkkk, we driiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnkkkkkk, we driinnkk from the cupa LIE-YEE-IF!’

If I have to see that advert once more on TV I’m going to tear my fucking face off.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s part of this new series of adverts KFC has shot that all feature this nerdy, glasses-wearing girl who’s wetting herself because she’s on set for the filming of the Parlotones new video.

Amidst the hustle and bustle and action of everything going on around her gets all flustered and in one ad has a Parlotones SnackBox thrust at her and in another one, an ice cream. I don’t understand the logic behind either of these adverts, but I think the underlying message is ‘Eat some KFC and shut the fuck up.’

 

 

I found both adverts cringe-worthy, but the newest one, in which our nerdy heroine is pretending to jam Parlotones frontman Kahn Morbee’s guitar in a dressing room when he walks in on her, is definitely a new low for a band that I didn’t think could top their previous efforts at whoring themselves off to the highest bidder.

Are they on crack?! What band in its right mind would agree to have one of their songs (I presume it’s their song) butchered by a girl with the acting talent of limp celery?

What’s even worse is after Kahn walks in on her and asks for his guitar back, she bashfully stands up, edges towards him and then lunges at his face for a snog.

Aaaaarrrrrggghhhh! WWWWHHHHHHYYYYYYY?!

The saddest part of the whole thing though is that in researching this piece (yes, I actually do that sometimes, don’t look so shocked) I got a hold of both Radio Controlled Robot and A World Next Door To Yours (the Parlotones 2005 and 2007 albums) and I have to admit, grudgingly, that they’re OK. Not mind-blowing, not life-changing, but also not utterly crap.

 

 

I even took things a step further and found out how much it costs to hire the Parlotones for a corporate function and get this, the booking fee starts at R70k which, after you’ve divided it up between their agent, their manager, their technicians, logistical costs of moving their equipment etc, etc, etc probably only works out to be a couple of thousand, if that, for the band.

A couple of thousand to stand in front of a room of fat, balding men and bored, middle-aged women while you belt out songs about how colourful you are. That’s gotta start destroying your soul sooner or later.

Maybe what this piece should have been is an indictment against the South African music industry and how it forces bands who want to actually make it big in this country to turn themselves into big fat whores in order to do so, but the music industry in this country has always been like that. It’s not going to change, no matter how much we bitch and moan about it.

Local bands would do well to take a page out of Saron Gas / Seether’s book. They had the talent to make it internationally and so that’s exactly what they did. Sure, they’ve been called traitors for leaving SA and turning their backs on the country that made them, but seriously what the fuck else were they going to do?

Have their faces plastered all over KFC SnackBoxes? Fuck. That.

 

 

Making it big in Europe or the States should be the end goal for any local band because the sad fact of the matter is that the music industry here doesn’t have the money and resources to properly support and promote local talent unless you sell out in the most degrading way possible.

Never do this though. No amount of money in the world can replace your integrity as an artist and once that’s gone, it won’t be the cup of life you’ll be drinking from my friend, it will be the cup of crap you’ve irritated out of people.

1 Band 1 Cup, now featuring the Parlotones!

I rest my case.

-ST