- Jack Hammer – “Street of Love,” “Sarajevo”
Piet Botha has kept Jack Hammer going as the parallel project to his solo career as Afrikaans rocker and on paper this Southern rock influenced band sounds exciting. I saw them play at a disastrous rock festival in the Good Hope Centre in the late Eighties and they were an impressive live act. Unfortunately, their early recordings, at least the CD albums Ghosts on the Wind (1994) and Death of a Gypsy(1996), from which these two tracks are taken, don’t do the music justice. The mix is terrible, with the vocals upfront and the guitars mixed way down, making the performances sound muddy and powerless. Where the band should roar and scamper, it merely bleats and plods. These are the most irritating set of mixes since the All Night Radio albums, which have the same issue. It is only with The Pilgrim (2005) that the production values are excellent and showcase the full extent of the band’s live power.
Apart from the ill-conceived mixing, Botha’s vocal styling, of not actually singing but kind of intoning, in a portentous ponderous fashion, his “meaningful” lyrics, tends to drag over the length of the songs, never mind the duration of a full album. This would have been mitigated had the guitars behind his voice been louder and more assertive, but the focus is so intently on the vocals that the irritation factor is quite high.
I bought these two albums because I’d read about Jack Hammer, remembered Piet Botha from the late Seventies and dearly wanted to love the music because it seemed that Jack Hammer played exactlythe kind of Southern guitar rock I like a lot. I was terribly disappointed and have hardly ever listened to the albums after I bought them.
Piet Botha might be legendary for his long musical career with Jack Hammer and as solo Afrikaans act, but these two songs, at least as the tracks of the respective parent albums, are nowhere close to it.
- Just Jinger – “Sugar Man”
Art (now Ard) Mathews ran Just Jinger and then Just Jinjer from 1997 to 2000, and operated in the anthemic rock realm, also occupied by Watershed and Prime Circle, both of which are still active, which is not exactly my fave but these bands generally have a couple of good tunes one can sing along to a a festival while waving a lit Bic lighter.
In just Jinjer’s case “Shallow Waters” and “Stand in Your Way” represents the best of the bunch but there are other good, if unfamiliar to me, tunes on the Greatest Hits(2001) album, probably the only Just Jinjer record one needs to own, which also includes the reverent cover of “Sugarman,” a signature song of a real legend, Sixto Rodriguez.
This version of “Sugarman” is nice enough but it’s not so different to the original or just a quirky interpretation to make it interesting, and neither the band nor this recording are legendary. It’s not even remotely the best the band did.
- Koos Kombuis – “Who Killed Kurt Cobain”
Although there are many Afrikaans speaking musicians in South African rock bands, and quite a few Afrikaans rockers, this list mentions only Piet Botha and Koos Kombuis. Valiant Swart must be as “legendary” and I suppose the list is of its time, 2002, and might look a lot different if it were more contemporary but I would seem, for whatever reason, that Brian Currin has never seen fit to update his picks. Perhaps he simply has no eyes for South African rock released in the 21stCentury.
“Who Killed Kurt Cobain” is from Madiba Bay(1997), Kombuis’ 4thalbum, and possibly the last good one, where he is an Afro-optimist, still basking in the light of the newly democratic South Africa led by President Mandela, still something of a rebel and fringe artist though he was already heading to the mainstream at a good clip. He was shortly to be disillusioned by the new regime and its egregious failings, and in his later records he comes across as the chubby, White, middle class, ex-rebel he’s become. Nowadays he is in the mainstream, a national treasure.
Anyhow,Madiba Bay is the first, and possibly only, album where Kombuis performs a mix of Afrikaans and `English songs, possibly an attempt to pander to his English language following or to get some international exposure, who knows. “Who Killed Kurt Cobain” is a predictable conspiracy song. It doesn’t number under the best songs on the album and has never become a Kombuis classic, and rightly so.
- Julian Laxton – “Celebrate”
Well, here’s a bone fide legend, innit? Laxton was the guitarist for Freedoms Children and an in-demand session guitarist after that and, as far as I know, owns a popular bar in Gauteng and possibly still plays low key gigs.
Post Freedoms, he kicked on with a solo career and with this tune, and “Blue Water,” from Celebrate (1977) he gave us two prime examples of the fusion of rock and disco he called “glot rock” that are still exciting to listen to, especially at high volume. Pretty much dumb entertainment but joyful nonetheless.
- Little Sister – “No Man Shall Fall,” “Dear Abbie “
Because the band is led by sisters Debbi and Jenni Lonmon, one could see them as South Africa’s Heart, especially the late period, big power ballad Heart. Little Sister was a good, solid workmanlike ensemble, for the decade between 1989 and 1999, with no brilliance but some heart-warming tunes, such as these.
- Mauritz Lotz – “Six String Razor”
How a faceless session guy could be a legend is a good question; perhaps he’s a legend in the studio amongst his peers and the acts he plays for. This track is the title track of his 1990 debut.
- McCully Workshop – “Buccaneer”
McCully Workshop is a bit of a local legend, one of the pioneering South African progressive bands from the late Sixties / early Seventies, who found themselves with a couple of pop hits in 1977 with “Chinese Junkman” and “Buccaneer” and the latter, in particular, is still the one song by which most people remember them. There may have been other, earlier hits, but I don’t recall any. I disliked both these songs when they were released and I still can’t stand them.
My only memory of the band is of a performance at a University of Stellenbosch “Karnaval” gig around 1974 or 1975 (pre “Buccaneer”), where they were the headliners amongst presumably the cream of the then Cape Town bands, and performed a rousing version of “Midnight Special,” in which they used the F-word to outrage the nice, god fearing Afrikaans students. I have no clue what the other songs in their repertoire were because this was the first, last and only time I heard the band perform. (I was too young to be allowed onto the festival site and was forced to experience the gig from the other side of a fence, with the bands out of sight.)
For now McCully Workshop is just a nostalgic memory, and if they still perform, it’s far and few between. I guess it’s good to be remembered for at least one hit but it’s a pity that it’s “Buccaneer,” a rather silly, inconsequential tall tale song with a hummable tune and lovely harmonies but nothing else of distinction.
- Morocko – “Bowtie Boogaloo”
I don’t know who JB Arthur is or where he is now, but this 1981 release seems to have been his one and only shot at stardom, backed by names I recognise as some of the top session men of the day, and with a catchy tune that is borderline schlock. The SA Rock Encyclopedia bio mentions Prince as an influence; this is stretching the bounds of credulity. The music sounds like a throwback to the bad disco of the Seventies with no hint of innovation or that, in fact, the Eighties have arrived.
- Otis Waygood Blues Band – “Fever “
For some reason I cannot recall, Otis Waygood Blued Band was the first local band (they hailed form Rhodesia, as it then was, but made their bones in Cape Town I took note of when I was about 10 or 11 years old and not very knowledgeable about pop or rock in general.
I bought the eponymous debut album from 1970 in its RetroFresh CD format in about 2003, and the second and third albums a couple of years later, and was mightily impressed. The debut was an impeccably produced mix of blues, rock and progressive flute trappings that could stand its ground against anything of similar nature recorded in the UK or USA. It is a landmark album in the annals of South African rock.
Their feisty take on “Fever” is highly entertaining but the other tracks on the album are as good.
Simply Otis Waygood(1971) and Ten Light Claps and a Scream(1971) are hugely disappointing, not only because the band no longer plays blues but also because both sets sound like uninspired, often piss-poor, improvised studio jams recorded in a day to fulfil contractual obligations. The records are not literally unlistenable but I can’t think why one would want to waste time on them when the inspired, energised and inspirational debut album is available.
Otis Waygood should have broken up after their debut and their legend would have been wholly untarnished.
- Peach – “Nightmare,” “Complicated Game”
In the wake of the success of Clout, there was a bit of a rush to manufacture the next all woman band, and there were a couple. Pantha gave us PJ Powers. Peach was the punk / New Wave group, with a male guitarist, released one okay-ish album On Loan for Evolution,and also competed for a Sarie award with their debut single “A Lot of Things.” They wrote most of their own songs except for “Complicated Game,” an exemplary cover of an XTC song.
It seems that the band members were of Johannesburg Greek extraction and every chose a nom de plume,of which Carol Wood-Greene was the most un-punk but possibly the most subversive too.
I prefer “A Lot of Things,” to “Nightmare” but that could just be because it’s the tune I heard first. The music is gritty and tough, the attitude is suspect and one can’t escape the suspicion that this was band made by male promoters who discarded them quickly when there was no more money to be made.
- Rabbitt – “Hold On To Love,” “Charlie,” “Hard Ride”
Rabbitt represents my first experience of how a band can be hyped and if they started as session musicians with serious chops, and a neat version of Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath,” it was soon more about image, and the pretty boy good looks of a post-Bay City Rollers rock band and teenage female hysteria. Rabbitt-mania, anyone?
“Charlie” was the first and possibly biggest, hit, a lovely, sweet ballad dedicated to a guy named Charlie, yet the music was mostly rock of a rather highly tooled sort, with the accent on the chops and sophistication of arrangements. Never really my taste because it was too smooth and over produced for my liking.
The band broke up after two albums, probably because they too, were screwed by management and label, and the various members went their own solo career ways. Duncan Faure, ironically, played for a late version of the Bay City Rollers. Trevor Rabin joined Brit prog rockers Yes and wrote their biggest ‘80s (and probably ever) hit, “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” Neil Cloud and Ronnie Robot achieved far less success.
For a while Rabbitt-mania was a thing, if heavily hyped and manipulated, and it was as exciting as it was short-lived. South Africa was just not big enough to support the career of an ambitious rock band and at the time, trying to “make it” anywhere else was not in the cards for SA rockers, hence the quick, bitter demise.
- Radio Rats – “ZX Dan”
“ZX Dan” was released in late 1978 and kind of in the wake of Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing.” Both songs featured lengthy, delirious, tuneful outro guitar solos that made them, to me, instantly memorable. The lyrics of “ZX Dan” told a banal sci-fi story of an alien who wants to tune in to rock and roll, and reminded one of Bowie’s “Starman,” though the comparison was unfavourable.
Having said that, the tune had a lot of airplay on Radio 5 and became a solid chart hit, the first and last The Radio Rats ever had. Into the Night We Slide, the parent album, is a mix of consciously weird, yet not very tough, rock ‘n roll that was a bit of post New Wave fresh breath of air in the local scene but forty years later it sounds twee, amateurish and not nearly as strange as it might have been at the time. For all it’s rather terrible lyrics, “ZX Dan” is by far the best thing on the record.
Jonathan Handley, songwriter and guitarist, apparently kept Radio Rats going, and even developed a couple or other bands, but has never been more than a brief entry in the annals of SA rock.
- Margaret Singana – “Tribal Fence”
Margaret Singana hubristically called ‘Lady Africa,’ as if she were the only African female vocalist ever, became famous in South Africa, at least amongst the White public, as the voice of the recorded version of the musical Ipi ‘n Tombi and then achieved cachet with White musicians and radio as the acceptable face of local Black music. “Tribal Fence” was written by Ramsay Mackay of Freedoms Children and Singana’s recording must have been designed to be cross over hit for her between Black and White popular music, much as PJ Powers and Hotline, albeit a few tears later, attempted the same. Nice enough and perhaps a tad daring but hardly epoch shattering.
- Neill Solomon – “Roxy Lady”
I don’t recall ever hearing this tune from 1980 by Mr Solomon and the Uptown Rhythm Dogs but maybe I did because I think of it as yet another pseudo sophisticated jazzy funky pieced of pablum. The title is cringe worthy and though the band may have been amazing musicians, it’s a retro snooze fest.
- Stingray – “Better The Devil You Know”
As I understood it at the time, Stingray was a project band formed from seasoned session musicians with an eye on the kind of AOR rock success enjoyed by Boston, Toto and similar melodic metal bands of the time. this kind of soft rock, pop crossover was tepid, by-the-numbers heavy rock with no nous, no verve, no power and no glory. This release was from 1979 and the band never saw the ‘80’s.
- Suck – “Aimless Lady”
in 1971 Suck was a shock rock band, apparently specialising in cover versions of heavy bands of the era, such as Grand Funk Railroad, whose tune this is, King Crimson, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, and which released one album, Time to Suck, and disappeared, becoming legendary probably because of obscurity rather than the quality of their music. It’s extraordinary that a cover band could have been able to release a record and it’s probably a grand testimonial to the ‘underground’ scene of the time but none of the performances on the album are essential listening other than for the historical record. The band didn’t quite suck, but they kinda blew.
- Sweatband – “This Boy”
In 1984 and 1985 Sweatband, fronted by the young, sexy Wendy Oldfield and the guitar god John Mair, played venues in Stellenbosch, trying to make a name for themselves, and then moved North to the Big Smoke of Johannesburg where the career took a massive leap forwards, with big management and a record deal. When Sweatband returned to Cape Town in 1986, they had a swagger second to none and a bunch of great tunes on a rather good debut album. “This Boy” and “Shape of her Body” were the best songs but, apart from one weak track, the album was all killer and no filler and arguably the best SA pop rock album of the decade. Mair could write a catchy tune or riff and play them with the insouciance of the truly talented. Sadly, the band fell apart after a few years, apparently, typically a victim of their own success, bad management and a debt crisis. Oldfield had a briefly successful solo career while Mair went back to paying solo gigs in bars, drank too much and died. Sweatband ought to have been much bigger than they were but the Eighties were not the best time to be a South African rock musician with aspirations.
- The Spectres – “Be Bop Pop,” “Teddy Bear”
In about 1987 The Spectres, like so many other Johannesburg bands, played a bunch of gigs in Cape Town, probably during the festive season and impressed with high energy and a bunch of tuneful pop rock songs. At the time The Believers, with a similar line up, were active in Cape Town one could make a direct comparison between a Cape Town band who was accomplished but seemed to put style before substance and the Johannesburg group who were as accomplished and yet more fun to listen to.
“Teddy Bear” was the big hit, a rather twee piece of fluff pop, and I was surprised by it because from the gigs they sounded more serious than that but I guess lyrics often didn’t translate well in a live situation, because of poor club sound.
The Spectres had a couple of radio hits, then disappeared without trace. Their one album contains the hits and filler, which suggests that the talent wasn’t really much to speak of. Tara Robb, the vocalist, died in 2000.
- Tribe After Tribe – “Damsel (As I Went Out One Morning)”
I went to see Tribe After Tribe play a New Year’s gig at the Weizmann Hall in Sea Point in probably 1984, and for the first 30 minutes or so Robbi Robb did nothing but harangue the crowd, whether he was genuinely pissed off about something or it was simply a device to get the blood going, until the audience, who put up with his abuse, was audibly pissed off in turn, yet stayed put, and then the band played a blistering set of the toughest, loudest, densest rock I’d ever heard from a local act, comparable only to Sweatband’s home coming gigs in 1986, after making a breakthrough in Johannesburg, and Arno Carsten’s New Porn collective in, of all places, Wellington, in October 2004.
The original rhythm section comprised of Fuzzy Marcus (bass) and Bruce Williams (drums) previously of Baxtop, while Robb came from Asylum Kids; hippy rock roots with punk / New Wave roots.
“As I Went Out One Morning (Damsel)” (the correct title) is a take on a Bob Dylan song from John Wesley Harding, a surprising choice for a cover, especially of a Dylan tune, and though well played, not that captivating. Perhaps it was the only palatable song from the debut album that the SABC was prepared to give airtime to at the time.
Robb took the Tribe After Tribe brand to the USA, Los Angeles to be exact, and followed a longer career path there than he did in South African and I don’t even know whether the band has ever played in SA again.
- Via Afrika – “Hey Boy”
Via Afrika’s early Eighties mix of electronics and African rhythms still sound revolutionary and innovative to this day. René Veldsman had a brief, unsatisfactory solo rock career before Via Afrika, before she hit creative pay dirt in a collaboration with two comrades who were not necessarily the greatest musicians but had attitude and the inquisitive, we-can-do-anything energy of youth.
The two albums, Via Afrika(1983) and Scent of Scandal(1984) are South African classics and, for my money, both number among the top ten best local rock albums of the decade. Nobody else sounded like this and more than 30 years later the records still sound avant garde. “Hey Boy” was a club hit in Cape Town in the late Eighties.
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