Greetings greetings!
I just wanted to clue you all in to my new postal address. Many thanks to my host counselor, Tony Godrich, for receiving my mail up to this date! I've gotten a new address a bit closer to home. You can send me love thru the mail at:
Lynsee Melchi
p.o. box 11302
Hatfield
Pretoria
0028
SOUTH AFRICA
And now for the props!
First, hats off to my friend Tom Coleman for a really cool project he's been working on in Illinois. He is working with a friend to try to bring movement and speech to those that can't move or speak due to physical disabilities. For more information check out:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2007081355942000.htm&date=2007/08/13/&prd=th
Second, hats off to one of my old friends from Girl Scout Camp...Mumblebee Tuna. Well her parents call her Tamera...but that's so boring! She's started a company that makes puppets and other ghouls and ghostly type things. You can check out what she has to offer at:
www.gobbledygookdecor.com
or
www.gcdecor.com
Finally, many thanks to Dan, Molly, and Nat for sending me a package in the mail! I just received it, and it was great! I got really SWEET new homemade music from a little spirit we like to call Quaid. Thanks a million!
Much Love to you all!
Lynsee
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Dust of Retreat
Dust
Dust
Dust in the sky
Dust on the prairie
Dust in my eye
Dust
Dust
-From the movie “Under California Stars” as sung by Roy Rogers
Greetings loyal blog readers!
I’ve just returned this past weekend from Oppikoppi, one of the biggest music fests in SA. www.oppikoppi.com if you want more info. I was also interviewed as an “Oppikoppi virgin,” so you can check out my interview at: http://www.24.com/entertainment/music/?p=feature&i=632774
There are quite a few festivals that happen all over SA. SA doesn’t have the huge fest scene like we do in the USA, but they do what they can with what they have. One of the major festivals here(more of a hippy shindig) is called Splashy Fen and it happens in Underberg (near the Drakensberg mountain system) in KwaZulu Natal in April. There’s another fest at the same time that’s called Woodstock (rip off!), and it’s more of a rock fest. There is another smaller fest run by the Oppikoppi people around that time, but, as far as I can tell, the August Oppikoppi is THE fest to go to in South Africa. It’s all I’ve been hearing about at the radio station since I arrived. By the way, ”Oppikoppi” means “on the hill” in Afrikaans. “oppi” is a cute/affectionate term for up or on top of and “koppi” is a cute/affectionate term for a hill. “Kop” is hill. “Op” is above/up/on top of. It’s predominantly a rock fest, but this is a very limiting label. There were also acts representing hiphop, electronic, and other genres I can’t think of right now. If you want to see a “Hollywood” version of Oppikoppi, rent the movie “Bunny Chow.” I haven’t seen it, but it’s about a group of guys that goes to Oppikoppi as performers (I think…). It has a GREAT South African soundtrack too, so you’ll really be getting a good dose of current SA youth culture!
Going to ‘koppi was a great experience because it was like feasting at a musical smorgasbord…and I’m still hungry! I have read about a number of bands in SA, but haven’t had the chance to see all of them yet. I was able to move around between 4 different stages over the course of 3 days tasting and sampling the best and biggest in SA music (and even a few international acts). Like being at Walmart…only in a musical sense. One stop shopping. It’s really huge that there were international acts (like Groove Armada) because big acts from overseas, especially the USA, almost never come to South Africa. When these bands do come over…people go nuts. South Africans will go nuts over the lamest acts (in my opinion) too. Example…Guns n Roses was supposed to come over here a few months ago and people here were going ape. Axl Rose punked out, but SA went crazy all the same. Some other bands like Hoobastank (best band name ever), 3 Doors Down, etc have gotten a lot of interest here just because people in SA are so hard up to see international acts. K’s choice (remember the song that played for a second on Q101…”I’m not an addict”) is REALLY huge in Pretoria. That group was a blip on the screen in the USA, but has a huge following here. It’s pretty random. But I think K’s choice makes good music and deserves the rabid following South Africans (in particular Pretorians) lay down. Jimmy Eat World, Violent Femmes (Milwaukee, WI…represent!) and Youngblood Brass Band (Madison, WI…represent!) were some of the other international acts playing. When I was in the USA, I was very lucky to be near Chicago and to live in Champaign-Urbana, such that I was able to see a lot of major bands perform live: Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, KRS-ONE, Talib Kweli, John Prine, They Might be Giants, Method Man, Counting Crows, ?uestlove, and more and more and more. When I’ve been talking at the radio station about some of the bands I’ve seen in the USA, my colleagues get really annoyed and frustrated. The bands they love from overseas just don’t come to SA. It would probably be lucky if those bands could even locate SA on a map! You can barely buy rock t-shirts here, let alone see those bands live on South African soil.
I cruised to the fest w/my friend Raoni, from Brasil (that 's' is for u Raoni!). E!merica and BraZil in the house! He’s also a music junkie, so he was a great partner in crime for a fest of this sort. It would have been no good to go with a person that just wanted to hang at the camp or at the beer tent! Migration is a must! We checked out the bands/groups/acts:
The wedding DJs, Unit R, Love Jones, Jimmy Eat World, Youngblood Brass Band, Lark, Blunted Stuntmen, Groove Armada, Violent Femmes, Sweat X, Fokofpolisiekar, and Stanton Warriors, Koos Kombuis, Chris Chameleon, Push and Shove, Paul Riekert and Anton L'amour, Desmond and the Tutus, 7th son, Strings and Skins, some guys from Napalma, kid fonque, DJ Kenzhero, HHP, Selaelo Selota, Zuluboy, Kwani Experience, Tidal Waves, Angel...and probably more!
Highlights were definitely Groove Armada (just about anyone you ask about the fest raved and raved about Groove Armada). Groove Armada rocked the fest with a live band. They are more of an electronic act and I was really excited to see them play with a full band and guest vocalists. I needed a BIG space for dancing cos I went absolutely crazy when these guys performed! They played Superstylin’ (one of my fav songs), I see you baby (shakin’ that ass), and many other great songs. Not much representation from the Lovebox album, which is one of my personal favs, but all in all a wicked act! Anything that gets me dancing these days is a winner in my book!
And…Wisconsin, represent! There were 2 acts from Wisconsin…which was rather odd if you ask me. Youngblood Brass Band is a jamming brassy wall of sound that also tends to make you want to ask “do fries go with that shake?” They call themselves a ‘riot jazz’ act…if that means anything to you. We only caught the end of their set, but it was a wonderful set of songs! I kept shouting ‘Wisconsin!!!!’ during the quiet parts such that other crowd members kept looking at me. One guy even started to talk to me because I was being so loud. I just explained to him that if he was in Milwaukee, WI and some band performing said “yeah we’re from Pretoria” that he too would be shouting his head off. I mean how often does one end up in the bush of the Limpopo province in SA jamming out to a band that lives just an hour away from where your father lives in Wisconsin?? Not often…so hootin’ and hollerin’ was definitely on order!! If any of you in the Midwest get the chance to see Youngblood Brass Band…I highly recommend them. You will not be disappointed. And how could you be disappointed with brass, brass, and more brass???
The SA groups were also incredible. I could probably write about 5 pages about each wonderful act I saw…but I’ll be as concise as possible for your sake! My absolute favorite act from SA was a group called Sweat X. It’s very difficult to describe this group, but I’ll try. Picture 2 guys dressed in florescent darshiki/tunic shirts and white plastic rimmed sunglasses cranking out FAT beats reminiscent of the late 80s/early 90s. One guy’s an MC and the other guy is the DJ. But the DJ isn’t spinning records. He’s got one of those crazy machines that stores samples and makes the beats on the spot. DJ Krush had a similar set up when I saw him in April. When I say FAT beats…I’m talking that sweet sweet 808 sound my friends. Salt n Pepa, booty house, and other nasty numbers from the days when ‘teen’ was still at the end of my age. The type of bass that sounds like it traveled through a sweet viscous syrup before it reaches your ears. Wonderful stuff! And another group where booty-shaking is obligatory. You are more embarrassed if you are not dancing than if you are dancing!
Sweat X was the cornerstone of a trend I noticed at the fest, particularly in the electronic music sector. As we all know…decades come back to haunt us. Yes, the 80s are back. It’s sad really. I didn’t think they were that great the first time around…but apparently people have found things to revere from that decade: fashion, music, the mullet (d’oh!). To be fair though, I was rocking Alabama, Hank Williams Jr (There’s a tear in my beer is the first song I remember playing on a jukebox), and Kenny Rogers back in those days…so I was sort of out of the florescent whirlwind that was the 80s. I do admit to a healthy obsession with NKOTB. Joey McIntyre, babies! No explanation of those letters…if you are down then no explanation’s necessary! But somewhere inside this 80s resurrection the 90s are also putting a bit of their flavor down. So what I’m getting at is that I recognized a melting of the 80s and 90s in the electronic music that I saw at ‘koppi. It was really really interesting to me. I felt like a musical anthropologist cutting my way thru an audio jungle. This rising of the 80s/90s phoenix shows up in the fashion, the samples, and the types of beats present in the music. For example…there was this DJ tag team I saw that was really interesting to me because of the above described phenomenon. They played (seriously) “Where’s your head at?” during their set. Normally I would have chucked my beer cup at them for this faux pas, but within the context of their set…it was great! This group (Push n Shove) also represented a lot of raver electronic in their set, but it wasn’t lame at all. It was super super FAT. Their set took a turn for the worse at the end, but the beginning had me scribbling notes in my mental field book for further anthropological analyzation. The funny thing is that I feel I can recognize these items from “my decade” but I can’t tell if the folks sporting these trends and spinning these tunes understand the cultural relevance of the random pop culture items they are picking from the 80s/90s. And especially here in SA…where USA pop culture has come thru a filter. Does it matter if they recognize? I’m not sure about that either. And I guess I don’t care that much as long as I can hear Salt n Pepa samples ‘til the cows come home. The moment I hear a sample of “Doper than Dope” I will know nirvana isn’t far behind.
Or maybe this just means I'm getting older...
I know in hiphop circles at home that the 90s (in particular the late 90s, ’98-ish) has been resurrected for awhile now. I mean if you look at the Gymfloors mixtape that Spinnerty graced us with a year or so ago you can see all the old jams. The name of the mixtape even evokes the atmosphere you heard those songs in for the first time (the middle school gym during one of those wretched school dances). So hiphop has been doing this for a bit. But this 80s/90s mindmeld I was witnessing was something else and it was very interesting indeed. If you want to comment…email me. I’d love to hear comments and Qs and debate on this subject from the other music fiends in the group. And I’m sure that some of you might be able to comment on this a bit better than I. So…hit me up! I’d also be interested to know if anyone else is picking up on this trend at home.
Some other fantastic acts absorbed at Oppikoppi include Koos Kombuis, Desmond and the Tutus, Selaelo Selota, Strings and Skins, Kwani Experience. And more…I think there’s a music overload in my brain, to be honest.
Koos Kombuis is a Carlos Santana/John Prine/Arlo Guthrie-ish figure in SA. Old skool folky guy, but came up in the 70s-80s, so a bit less psychedlic than the aforementioned singers. He was very revolutionary when he came out because SA was still very much controlled by an apartheid-embracing government. His songs are all about “let’s get together folks.” “We travel in style” Koos started out as a poet turned to music and has also written over 20 books. He sings in English and Afrikaans and is generally the type of act that could be enjoyed by the young and old. I didn’t know anything about him before I saw him, but really enjoyed his set!
Desmond and the Tutus was your average garage rock band with skinny white boys wearing even tighter pants and sporting bad hair. But I really dug their vibe. They sang a song called “Saggy Bottom Speedo” with the message that you can do whatever you want…even wear a saggy bottom speedo as long as you are happy and doing your thing. I will definitely see them again.
Selaelo Selota…was a more traditional South African musical act. But that’s also a very limiting moniker. I guess you could compare the music to seeing an old blues act in the USA. Guitar-driven rhythm and blues. The South African spin comes in with the lyrics (which were sometimes in a language I don’t understand…yet) and dancing. ‘Traditional’ dancing here (think animal skins and stuff) usually involves a lot of high kicking and stomping. Imagine the girls on a chorus line, but when the dancers put their foot down on the ground it’s with a forceful stomp and backed up by a crashing cymbal or drum hit. This band included elements of the traditional into their act, but it wasn’t like they were running around in skins and stuff. I guess it’s that elusive mixture of traditional and modern. That is always an interesting thing to pick up on. How folks in modern South Africa “keep it real” with respect to their “traditional” cultures. A sticky tightrope to walk, to be sure. I really liked this guy’s music though! One of the songs was about how you should listen to the mountains because they teach the rivers how to flow and pay attention to the birds because they teach the young ones to fly. Very nice!
Strings and Skins was a band that Raoni and I just stumbled upon in our wanderings, but what a find! I’ve seen them on the bill at a place in Pretoria, but have never ventured out to see them. The group is one guy on exotic strings (bazookie, ude) and 2 guys on exotic skins (1 drum kit, 1 tabla…and Indian drum). This combo was incredible. I think that’s all I can say about this…
Kwani Experience was a live band rocking the hiphop. They were beautiful. A lot of the hiphop acts performing were doing so with live bands…which is always a beautiful thing. There are those that will claim they don’t like hiphop music, but I think those naysayers have never seen a live hiphop band perform. Because they would be converts after that point. This group had an MC and a FABULOUS female vocalist that just kept the great tunes coming. I also look forward to catching them again!
My absolute fav moment of the fest was hearing my favorite Beck song being played up on the acoustic stage. Our posse was moseying up to the acoustic stage to chill out and as we walked up I heard the wonderful sounds of “Satan gave me a taco” wafting on the evening breeze. ‘Satan gave me a taco’ is a very obscure song off Stereopathetic Soul Manure…so unless you are a diehard Beck fan, you may not have heard of it. I’m talking pre-Mellow Gold here, folks! The song is a 5 minute meander thru some random story that starts of with the singer eating a taco that the devil gave him. The taco is so nasty and makes him sick with hot sauce that burns, aphids on the lettuce, and rancid meat. After eating this taco the singer goes nuts and starts to tear off all his clothes. An old lady walking by starts to beat up the poor guy with her handbag because she thinks he is a freak…which causes him to get bloody and bruised. The police come and take him away because he’s now naked, bloody, and beaten. They throw him in jail and while the singer is in court (being sentenced to death) he realizes that the court is fake and he’s really on the set of a rock and roll video. So at this point the guy joins the band. They make a lot of money, but then the band gets killed. So the guy decides to make a solo career where he “won all the awards and drank all the beer.” (My fav line of the song) At the end of the song, he opens up a taco stand with the devil thanks to the funds earned from his solo career. “Cooking with the devil, frying down in hell.” What a GREAT folk song, to be sure! I love how it comes full circle, although as you walk thru the lyrics you wonder where this thing is going. It's one of the most random songs I know and to hear it being played in the middle of nowhere in South Africa was a feeling I just can’t really describe!!! Wow.
At the beginning of this post it is possible that you asked yourselves 2 questions. 1) Why is Lynsee quoting Roy Rogers? 2) What’s with the dust, dust, dust?
1) Roy Rogers is the man! I mean, he has a fast food chain named after him. That is so American! The dude stuffed his 2 favorite companions from his movies when they died…Trigger and his dog (Bullet, I think). Morbid? You be the judge. I’m surprised they didn’t stuff Ol' Roy and put him on display when he died. Also, the man had cowboy style coming out of his ears! Suave cowboy hats, pimp bandanas tied around his neck, and hot hot western cut shirts. Like I said…Roy Rogers is the man! My best friend, Julie, and I used to watch his movies all the time as youngsters. I even remember trying to jump on and off horses like he used. We would practice on Julie’s horses, but we were like 7 and 8 years old…so we never quite made the leap as good as ol’ Roy.
2) It is impossible to accurately convey the experience of Oppikoppi without talking about dust.
Dust, dust, dust. Oppikoppi takes place in the bush. Thornveld to be precise. Remember “veld” is the Afrikaans word for bush or grassland. Maybe you could even stretch it to mean prairie. There’s not really prairie here…but there is definitely grasslands. At ‘koppi the dust was thick. The moment you got there the dust overwhelmed you. Washing your feet during the day took on an almost religious tone. People were handing out dust masks for free…and people were wearing them. Not as a fashion statement but as a testament to how much they really loved their lungs! I think a bit of the thornveld dust is still in my lungs. If you could hear me talk right now, you would think so too. My voice is a few more octaves lower, so I’m even more sexy sounding than Kathleen Turner! Hardcore! The dust got everywhere…like going to the beach, but without the wonderful ocean. You know, sand in your sandwiches even if they were wrapped up tighter than mummies in plastic wrap. Everyone’s car had a new skin. Every person had a new skin. Every bag had a handful of dust in the bottom after the end of the week. Craziness!
At this point I would like to share some revelations I came to at ‘koppi as far as the Afrikaans people go. I think there are 3 symbols I could use to explain Afrikaans people to you. The rusk, thornveld, and biltong.
A rusk is a very hard biscuit that is commonly enjoyed with coffee in this country. I’ve eaten rusks before (I’ve even made them before…thanks Helen!), but a few months ago there was a plate of rusks hanging out at the radio station. I was really hungry, but the thought of eating one of those rusks was really scary to me. Even just approaching that hard biscuit turned me off. It took about 2 hours for my hunger to win over my wariness of the hard tack. If you’ve never seen a rusk before…well it’s a sort of frightening looking prospect. It’s hard and dry. I equate the Afrikaans people to a rusk in this sense. They seem very hard and dry when you first encounter them. But if you take the leap, a rusk is a fantastic thing to eat. It’s got a great flavor and if you know how to dip it in coffee, well, it’s a really wonderful breakfast treat. Plus rusks are often made by grandma (Ouma…in Afrikaans) and anything made by loving grandma hands can’t be wrong in the end! The Afrikaans people are the same to me. Maybe scary at first, but if you take the leap then you will see that they are tasty and sweet.
Symbol #2, the thornveld. Raoni and I sat at the top of one of the hills on the first day we arrived and looked out at a sea of hard, dry, scrubby, thorny veld dotted with big hills. If you’ve ever been to Iowa county in Wisconsin…it looks sort of like that, but with less hills, more thorns, and much dustier. As we looked out on this barren landscape I began to think about how this landscape shaped the Afrikaans people that came up in that area. Man, you have to be one tough mother to survive that landscape. It’s hot, dusty, and every tree is trying to get a piece of you with its spiky thorns. But even as we looked out at this landscape of nothing…you could see an inherent beauty in it if you looked a bit closer. Again, I think this is a very fitting way to think of the Afrikaans people here.
Biltong is another great symbol of the Afrikaans people. Biltong, as you may remember from past blog posts, is dried meat. It’s a SA national obsession. The closest thing we have to it at home is beef jerky. I was chastized on a past post that biltong is in fact DRIED meat and jerky is SMOKED meat, but who am I to split hairs over sinews and muscle tissue? Biltong is a survival food. You just killed a big animal. You got no refrigeration. How will you make it last? Biltong! It’s interesting to me that a form of food/the culture, that no doubt played a big part in survival at some point in time, has survived to this day as a cultural icon. Rugby in this country cannot be enjoyed properly without beer and biltong. Heck, I even eat biltong about once a week. Chili sticks from the Blue Bull kiosk near my house are the best.
In conclusion, on the Afrikaans people tip…
Destiny’s Child and the Afrikaans people have 1 thing in common…they are survivors, baby! Yes I did just compare an entire culture to Destiny’s Child…deal with it!
Tangential thought complete…back to Oppikoppi. We were lucky enough to camp with a group of Oppikoppi veterans (the guy that organized our camp was attending his 10th Oppikoppi). Cassie, a DJ at TuksFM, was kind enough to help us organize a ride to the fest with his girlfriend and to welcome us into his campsite. These people were prepared. They apparently take this camping at ‘koppi thing as a science. I think they hold Masters Degrees in the art. They had shade (important!), chairs (important! all the ground is dusty and thorny), food, and every other little thing on lockdown. Raoni and I were really lucky to be able to set up camp with them. It was nice because Cassie’s friends are really fun and we had something to be a part of when we weren’t wandering around enjoying music. A home, of sorts, to come back to. So, big ups to Cassie and his crew! It was really fun to chill with them!!!
Another nice thing about a fest is the people. When you are enjoying a similar experience with a group of strangers, it is easy to strike up a conversation. Well, even easier for me, to strike up a conversation. Raoni and I met a bunch of really cool people just by chance. People we shared a beer with over a fire. People we shared a laugh with. People I played hacky sack with (woohoo!). A lot of people were like “Whoa you guys are from the USA and Brazil! Did you come to SA just for Oppikoppi!” People were really excited that we were there enjoying something that has come to be a staple of the South African musical culture. It was cool. I even saw some of my friends that I went to school with in Pietermaritzburg back in 2002. Colin and Niall. The last time I saw them was in March and we also happened upon each other in a random fashion at that time. The first hour Raoni and I were at the fest we walked by these people when I heard “Hey Lynsee!” I looked over…and there was Colin and Niall. I think that these ghosts of my South African past will keep popping up when I least expect it. It’s great! I don’t mind at all…especially if it means randomly seeing some very down KwaZulu Natal boys from time to time!
Yeah so that’s my fest experience here in SA. It was a very cool time and I look forward to enjoying next year if I can!
You can see my scant few photos of 'koppi (and August's day in the life) at: http://picasaweb.google.com/lynseemelchi
Enjoy and don't do anything I wouldn't do!
Much Love
Lynsee
Dust
Dust in the sky
Dust on the prairie
Dust in my eye
Dust
Dust
-From the movie “Under California Stars” as sung by Roy Rogers
Greetings loyal blog readers!
I’ve just returned this past weekend from Oppikoppi, one of the biggest music fests in SA. www.oppikoppi.com if you want more info. I was also interviewed as an “Oppikoppi virgin,” so you can check out my interview at: http://www.24.com/entertainment/music/?p=feature&i=632774
There are quite a few festivals that happen all over SA. SA doesn’t have the huge fest scene like we do in the USA, but they do what they can with what they have. One of the major festivals here(more of a hippy shindig) is called Splashy Fen and it happens in Underberg (near the Drakensberg mountain system) in KwaZulu Natal in April. There’s another fest at the same time that’s called Woodstock (rip off!), and it’s more of a rock fest. There is another smaller fest run by the Oppikoppi people around that time, but, as far as I can tell, the August Oppikoppi is THE fest to go to in South Africa. It’s all I’ve been hearing about at the radio station since I arrived. By the way, ”Oppikoppi” means “on the hill” in Afrikaans. “oppi” is a cute/affectionate term for up or on top of and “koppi” is a cute/affectionate term for a hill. “Kop” is hill. “Op” is above/up/on top of. It’s predominantly a rock fest, but this is a very limiting label. There were also acts representing hiphop, electronic, and other genres I can’t think of right now. If you want to see a “Hollywood” version of Oppikoppi, rent the movie “Bunny Chow.” I haven’t seen it, but it’s about a group of guys that goes to Oppikoppi as performers (I think…). It has a GREAT South African soundtrack too, so you’ll really be getting a good dose of current SA youth culture!
Going to ‘koppi was a great experience because it was like feasting at a musical smorgasbord…and I’m still hungry! I have read about a number of bands in SA, but haven’t had the chance to see all of them yet. I was able to move around between 4 different stages over the course of 3 days tasting and sampling the best and biggest in SA music (and even a few international acts). Like being at Walmart…only in a musical sense. One stop shopping. It’s really huge that there were international acts (like Groove Armada) because big acts from overseas, especially the USA, almost never come to South Africa. When these bands do come over…people go nuts. South Africans will go nuts over the lamest acts (in my opinion) too. Example…Guns n Roses was supposed to come over here a few months ago and people here were going ape. Axl Rose punked out, but SA went crazy all the same. Some other bands like Hoobastank (best band name ever), 3 Doors Down, etc have gotten a lot of interest here just because people in SA are so hard up to see international acts. K’s choice (remember the song that played for a second on Q101…”I’m not an addict”) is REALLY huge in Pretoria. That group was a blip on the screen in the USA, but has a huge following here. It’s pretty random. But I think K’s choice makes good music and deserves the rabid following South Africans (in particular Pretorians) lay down. Jimmy Eat World, Violent Femmes (Milwaukee, WI…represent!) and Youngblood Brass Band (Madison, WI…represent!) were some of the other international acts playing. When I was in the USA, I was very lucky to be near Chicago and to live in Champaign-Urbana, such that I was able to see a lot of major bands perform live: Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, KRS-ONE, Talib Kweli, John Prine, They Might be Giants, Method Man, Counting Crows, ?uestlove, and more and more and more. When I’ve been talking at the radio station about some of the bands I’ve seen in the USA, my colleagues get really annoyed and frustrated. The bands they love from overseas just don’t come to SA. It would probably be lucky if those bands could even locate SA on a map! You can barely buy rock t-shirts here, let alone see those bands live on South African soil.
I cruised to the fest w/my friend Raoni, from Brasil (that 's' is for u Raoni!). E!merica and BraZil in the house! He’s also a music junkie, so he was a great partner in crime for a fest of this sort. It would have been no good to go with a person that just wanted to hang at the camp or at the beer tent! Migration is a must! We checked out the bands/groups/acts:
The wedding DJs, Unit R, Love Jones, Jimmy Eat World, Youngblood Brass Band, Lark, Blunted Stuntmen, Groove Armada, Violent Femmes, Sweat X, Fokofpolisiekar, and Stanton Warriors, Koos Kombuis, Chris Chameleon, Push and Shove, Paul Riekert and Anton L'amour, Desmond and the Tutus, 7th son, Strings and Skins, some guys from Napalma, kid fonque, DJ Kenzhero, HHP, Selaelo Selota, Zuluboy, Kwani Experience, Tidal Waves, Angel...and probably more!
Highlights were definitely Groove Armada (just about anyone you ask about the fest raved and raved about Groove Armada). Groove Armada rocked the fest with a live band. They are more of an electronic act and I was really excited to see them play with a full band and guest vocalists. I needed a BIG space for dancing cos I went absolutely crazy when these guys performed! They played Superstylin’ (one of my fav songs), I see you baby (shakin’ that ass), and many other great songs. Not much representation from the Lovebox album, which is one of my personal favs, but all in all a wicked act! Anything that gets me dancing these days is a winner in my book!
And…Wisconsin, represent! There were 2 acts from Wisconsin…which was rather odd if you ask me. Youngblood Brass Band is a jamming brassy wall of sound that also tends to make you want to ask “do fries go with that shake?” They call themselves a ‘riot jazz’ act…if that means anything to you. We only caught the end of their set, but it was a wonderful set of songs! I kept shouting ‘Wisconsin!!!!’ during the quiet parts such that other crowd members kept looking at me. One guy even started to talk to me because I was being so loud. I just explained to him that if he was in Milwaukee, WI and some band performing said “yeah we’re from Pretoria” that he too would be shouting his head off. I mean how often does one end up in the bush of the Limpopo province in SA jamming out to a band that lives just an hour away from where your father lives in Wisconsin?? Not often…so hootin’ and hollerin’ was definitely on order!! If any of you in the Midwest get the chance to see Youngblood Brass Band…I highly recommend them. You will not be disappointed. And how could you be disappointed with brass, brass, and more brass???
The SA groups were also incredible. I could probably write about 5 pages about each wonderful act I saw…but I’ll be as concise as possible for your sake! My absolute favorite act from SA was a group called Sweat X. It’s very difficult to describe this group, but I’ll try. Picture 2 guys dressed in florescent darshiki/tunic shirts and white plastic rimmed sunglasses cranking out FAT beats reminiscent of the late 80s/early 90s. One guy’s an MC and the other guy is the DJ. But the DJ isn’t spinning records. He’s got one of those crazy machines that stores samples and makes the beats on the spot. DJ Krush had a similar set up when I saw him in April. When I say FAT beats…I’m talking that sweet sweet 808 sound my friends. Salt n Pepa, booty house, and other nasty numbers from the days when ‘teen’ was still at the end of my age. The type of bass that sounds like it traveled through a sweet viscous syrup before it reaches your ears. Wonderful stuff! And another group where booty-shaking is obligatory. You are more embarrassed if you are not dancing than if you are dancing!
Sweat X was the cornerstone of a trend I noticed at the fest, particularly in the electronic music sector. As we all know…decades come back to haunt us. Yes, the 80s are back. It’s sad really. I didn’t think they were that great the first time around…but apparently people have found things to revere from that decade: fashion, music, the mullet (d’oh!). To be fair though, I was rocking Alabama, Hank Williams Jr (There’s a tear in my beer is the first song I remember playing on a jukebox), and Kenny Rogers back in those days…so I was sort of out of the florescent whirlwind that was the 80s. I do admit to a healthy obsession with NKOTB. Joey McIntyre, babies! No explanation of those letters…if you are down then no explanation’s necessary! But somewhere inside this 80s resurrection the 90s are also putting a bit of their flavor down. So what I’m getting at is that I recognized a melting of the 80s and 90s in the electronic music that I saw at ‘koppi. It was really really interesting to me. I felt like a musical anthropologist cutting my way thru an audio jungle. This rising of the 80s/90s phoenix shows up in the fashion, the samples, and the types of beats present in the music. For example…there was this DJ tag team I saw that was really interesting to me because of the above described phenomenon. They played (seriously) “Where’s your head at?” during their set. Normally I would have chucked my beer cup at them for this faux pas, but within the context of their set…it was great! This group (Push n Shove) also represented a lot of raver electronic in their set, but it wasn’t lame at all. It was super super FAT. Their set took a turn for the worse at the end, but the beginning had me scribbling notes in my mental field book for further anthropological analyzation. The funny thing is that I feel I can recognize these items from “my decade” but I can’t tell if the folks sporting these trends and spinning these tunes understand the cultural relevance of the random pop culture items they are picking from the 80s/90s. And especially here in SA…where USA pop culture has come thru a filter. Does it matter if they recognize? I’m not sure about that either. And I guess I don’t care that much as long as I can hear Salt n Pepa samples ‘til the cows come home. The moment I hear a sample of “Doper than Dope” I will know nirvana isn’t far behind.
Or maybe this just means I'm getting older...
I know in hiphop circles at home that the 90s (in particular the late 90s, ’98-ish) has been resurrected for awhile now. I mean if you look at the Gymfloors mixtape that Spinnerty graced us with a year or so ago you can see all the old jams. The name of the mixtape even evokes the atmosphere you heard those songs in for the first time (the middle school gym during one of those wretched school dances). So hiphop has been doing this for a bit. But this 80s/90s mindmeld I was witnessing was something else and it was very interesting indeed. If you want to comment…email me. I’d love to hear comments and Qs and debate on this subject from the other music fiends in the group. And I’m sure that some of you might be able to comment on this a bit better than I. So…hit me up! I’d also be interested to know if anyone else is picking up on this trend at home.
Some other fantastic acts absorbed at Oppikoppi include Koos Kombuis, Desmond and the Tutus, Selaelo Selota, Strings and Skins, Kwani Experience. And more…I think there’s a music overload in my brain, to be honest.
Koos Kombuis is a Carlos Santana/John Prine/Arlo Guthrie-ish figure in SA. Old skool folky guy, but came up in the 70s-80s, so a bit less psychedlic than the aforementioned singers. He was very revolutionary when he came out because SA was still very much controlled by an apartheid-embracing government. His songs are all about “let’s get together folks.” “We travel in style” Koos started out as a poet turned to music and has also written over 20 books. He sings in English and Afrikaans and is generally the type of act that could be enjoyed by the young and old. I didn’t know anything about him before I saw him, but really enjoyed his set!
Desmond and the Tutus was your average garage rock band with skinny white boys wearing even tighter pants and sporting bad hair. But I really dug their vibe. They sang a song called “Saggy Bottom Speedo” with the message that you can do whatever you want…even wear a saggy bottom speedo as long as you are happy and doing your thing. I will definitely see them again.
Selaelo Selota…was a more traditional South African musical act. But that’s also a very limiting moniker. I guess you could compare the music to seeing an old blues act in the USA. Guitar-driven rhythm and blues. The South African spin comes in with the lyrics (which were sometimes in a language I don’t understand…yet) and dancing. ‘Traditional’ dancing here (think animal skins and stuff) usually involves a lot of high kicking and stomping. Imagine the girls on a chorus line, but when the dancers put their foot down on the ground it’s with a forceful stomp and backed up by a crashing cymbal or drum hit. This band included elements of the traditional into their act, but it wasn’t like they were running around in skins and stuff. I guess it’s that elusive mixture of traditional and modern. That is always an interesting thing to pick up on. How folks in modern South Africa “keep it real” with respect to their “traditional” cultures. A sticky tightrope to walk, to be sure. I really liked this guy’s music though! One of the songs was about how you should listen to the mountains because they teach the rivers how to flow and pay attention to the birds because they teach the young ones to fly. Very nice!
Strings and Skins was a band that Raoni and I just stumbled upon in our wanderings, but what a find! I’ve seen them on the bill at a place in Pretoria, but have never ventured out to see them. The group is one guy on exotic strings (bazookie, ude) and 2 guys on exotic skins (1 drum kit, 1 tabla…and Indian drum). This combo was incredible. I think that’s all I can say about this…
Kwani Experience was a live band rocking the hiphop. They were beautiful. A lot of the hiphop acts performing were doing so with live bands…which is always a beautiful thing. There are those that will claim they don’t like hiphop music, but I think those naysayers have never seen a live hiphop band perform. Because they would be converts after that point. This group had an MC and a FABULOUS female vocalist that just kept the great tunes coming. I also look forward to catching them again!
My absolute fav moment of the fest was hearing my favorite Beck song being played up on the acoustic stage. Our posse was moseying up to the acoustic stage to chill out and as we walked up I heard the wonderful sounds of “Satan gave me a taco” wafting on the evening breeze. ‘Satan gave me a taco’ is a very obscure song off Stereopathetic Soul Manure…so unless you are a diehard Beck fan, you may not have heard of it. I’m talking pre-Mellow Gold here, folks! The song is a 5 minute meander thru some random story that starts of with the singer eating a taco that the devil gave him. The taco is so nasty and makes him sick with hot sauce that burns, aphids on the lettuce, and rancid meat. After eating this taco the singer goes nuts and starts to tear off all his clothes. An old lady walking by starts to beat up the poor guy with her handbag because she thinks he is a freak…which causes him to get bloody and bruised. The police come and take him away because he’s now naked, bloody, and beaten. They throw him in jail and while the singer is in court (being sentenced to death) he realizes that the court is fake and he’s really on the set of a rock and roll video. So at this point the guy joins the band. They make a lot of money, but then the band gets killed. So the guy decides to make a solo career where he “won all the awards and drank all the beer.” (My fav line of the song) At the end of the song, he opens up a taco stand with the devil thanks to the funds earned from his solo career. “Cooking with the devil, frying down in hell.” What a GREAT folk song, to be sure! I love how it comes full circle, although as you walk thru the lyrics you wonder where this thing is going. It's one of the most random songs I know and to hear it being played in the middle of nowhere in South Africa was a feeling I just can’t really describe!!! Wow.
At the beginning of this post it is possible that you asked yourselves 2 questions. 1) Why is Lynsee quoting Roy Rogers? 2) What’s with the dust, dust, dust?
1) Roy Rogers is the man! I mean, he has a fast food chain named after him. That is so American! The dude stuffed his 2 favorite companions from his movies when they died…Trigger and his dog (Bullet, I think). Morbid? You be the judge. I’m surprised they didn’t stuff Ol' Roy and put him on display when he died. Also, the man had cowboy style coming out of his ears! Suave cowboy hats, pimp bandanas tied around his neck, and hot hot western cut shirts. Like I said…Roy Rogers is the man! My best friend, Julie, and I used to watch his movies all the time as youngsters. I even remember trying to jump on and off horses like he used. We would practice on Julie’s horses, but we were like 7 and 8 years old…so we never quite made the leap as good as ol’ Roy.
2) It is impossible to accurately convey the experience of Oppikoppi without talking about dust.
Dust, dust, dust. Oppikoppi takes place in the bush. Thornveld to be precise. Remember “veld” is the Afrikaans word for bush or grassland. Maybe you could even stretch it to mean prairie. There’s not really prairie here…but there is definitely grasslands. At ‘koppi the dust was thick. The moment you got there the dust overwhelmed you. Washing your feet during the day took on an almost religious tone. People were handing out dust masks for free…and people were wearing them. Not as a fashion statement but as a testament to how much they really loved their lungs! I think a bit of the thornveld dust is still in my lungs. If you could hear me talk right now, you would think so too. My voice is a few more octaves lower, so I’m even more sexy sounding than Kathleen Turner! Hardcore! The dust got everywhere…like going to the beach, but without the wonderful ocean. You know, sand in your sandwiches even if they were wrapped up tighter than mummies in plastic wrap. Everyone’s car had a new skin. Every person had a new skin. Every bag had a handful of dust in the bottom after the end of the week. Craziness!
At this point I would like to share some revelations I came to at ‘koppi as far as the Afrikaans people go. I think there are 3 symbols I could use to explain Afrikaans people to you. The rusk, thornveld, and biltong.
A rusk is a very hard biscuit that is commonly enjoyed with coffee in this country. I’ve eaten rusks before (I’ve even made them before…thanks Helen!), but a few months ago there was a plate of rusks hanging out at the radio station. I was really hungry, but the thought of eating one of those rusks was really scary to me. Even just approaching that hard biscuit turned me off. It took about 2 hours for my hunger to win over my wariness of the hard tack. If you’ve never seen a rusk before…well it’s a sort of frightening looking prospect. It’s hard and dry. I equate the Afrikaans people to a rusk in this sense. They seem very hard and dry when you first encounter them. But if you take the leap, a rusk is a fantastic thing to eat. It’s got a great flavor and if you know how to dip it in coffee, well, it’s a really wonderful breakfast treat. Plus rusks are often made by grandma (Ouma…in Afrikaans) and anything made by loving grandma hands can’t be wrong in the end! The Afrikaans people are the same to me. Maybe scary at first, but if you take the leap then you will see that they are tasty and sweet.
Symbol #2, the thornveld. Raoni and I sat at the top of one of the hills on the first day we arrived and looked out at a sea of hard, dry, scrubby, thorny veld dotted with big hills. If you’ve ever been to Iowa county in Wisconsin…it looks sort of like that, but with less hills, more thorns, and much dustier. As we looked out on this barren landscape I began to think about how this landscape shaped the Afrikaans people that came up in that area. Man, you have to be one tough mother to survive that landscape. It’s hot, dusty, and every tree is trying to get a piece of you with its spiky thorns. But even as we looked out at this landscape of nothing…you could see an inherent beauty in it if you looked a bit closer. Again, I think this is a very fitting way to think of the Afrikaans people here.
Biltong is another great symbol of the Afrikaans people. Biltong, as you may remember from past blog posts, is dried meat. It’s a SA national obsession. The closest thing we have to it at home is beef jerky. I was chastized on a past post that biltong is in fact DRIED meat and jerky is SMOKED meat, but who am I to split hairs over sinews and muscle tissue? Biltong is a survival food. You just killed a big animal. You got no refrigeration. How will you make it last? Biltong! It’s interesting to me that a form of food/the culture, that no doubt played a big part in survival at some point in time, has survived to this day as a cultural icon. Rugby in this country cannot be enjoyed properly without beer and biltong. Heck, I even eat biltong about once a week. Chili sticks from the Blue Bull kiosk near my house are the best.
In conclusion, on the Afrikaans people tip…
Destiny’s Child and the Afrikaans people have 1 thing in common…they are survivors, baby! Yes I did just compare an entire culture to Destiny’s Child…deal with it!
Tangential thought complete…back to Oppikoppi. We were lucky enough to camp with a group of Oppikoppi veterans (the guy that organized our camp was attending his 10th Oppikoppi). Cassie, a DJ at TuksFM, was kind enough to help us organize a ride to the fest with his girlfriend and to welcome us into his campsite. These people were prepared. They apparently take this camping at ‘koppi thing as a science. I think they hold Masters Degrees in the art. They had shade (important!), chairs (important! all the ground is dusty and thorny), food, and every other little thing on lockdown. Raoni and I were really lucky to be able to set up camp with them. It was nice because Cassie’s friends are really fun and we had something to be a part of when we weren’t wandering around enjoying music. A home, of sorts, to come back to. So, big ups to Cassie and his crew! It was really fun to chill with them!!!
Another nice thing about a fest is the people. When you are enjoying a similar experience with a group of strangers, it is easy to strike up a conversation. Well, even easier for me, to strike up a conversation. Raoni and I met a bunch of really cool people just by chance. People we shared a beer with over a fire. People we shared a laugh with. People I played hacky sack with (woohoo!). A lot of people were like “Whoa you guys are from the USA and Brazil! Did you come to SA just for Oppikoppi!” People were really excited that we were there enjoying something that has come to be a staple of the South African musical culture. It was cool. I even saw some of my friends that I went to school with in Pietermaritzburg back in 2002. Colin and Niall. The last time I saw them was in March and we also happened upon each other in a random fashion at that time. The first hour Raoni and I were at the fest we walked by these people when I heard “Hey Lynsee!” I looked over…and there was Colin and Niall. I think that these ghosts of my South African past will keep popping up when I least expect it. It’s great! I don’t mind at all…especially if it means randomly seeing some very down KwaZulu Natal boys from time to time!
Yeah so that’s my fest experience here in SA. It was a very cool time and I look forward to enjoying next year if I can!
You can see my scant few photos of 'koppi (and August's day in the life) at: http://picasaweb.google.com/lynseemelchi
Enjoy and don't do anything I wouldn't do!
Much Love
Lynsee
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