Posts Tagged ‘ashtray electric

03
Oct
12

Rocking The Daisies Must-See Bands (Part 3)

By SlickTiger 1 Comment
Categories: Radass Videos and Sick Tracks
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

bloc-party-050629-799747Excitement for this year’s Rocking The Daisies 2012 is mounting party people! Three sleeps and I’ll be there, cracking open a cold one at Camp Tiger and letting the good times roll.

So in this, the last instalment of my must-see bands, I am going to be tackling the bands you can’t miss on the main stage on Saturday.

Sure, there are other stages and other bands I could be covering, but as mentioned before, I can’t research every band at the festival so if there are other acts you think deserve some love, hit me up in the comments section.

If you’re also in this for the long haul from Thursday to Sunday, then Saturday is either going to make or break the festival for you.

Thursday night you’re probably gonna go balls to the wall and the same goes for the entire day on Friday so by the time Saturday rolls around you’re going to feel like you need a blood transfusion to boost the level of blood in your alcoholstream.

 

 

The trick to getting Saturday right will be to take it as super easy as possible during the day. Go for a dip in the dam if you’re feeling brave, indulge in a hot Woshbox shower, get a hearty breakfast in you and down at least a litre or two of orange juice and as much water as you can handle.

Flush your system out, rest up as much as possible and don’t even think about hitting the sauce until at least 4 or 5 in the afternoon because it’s gonna be a looooooooooooooong night and you want to be as fresh as possible when the big acts of RTD12 take to the stage to melt faces.

Though the main stage kicks off at 10am, I’m probably only going to mosey on over there at 12.10pm to catch Southern Gypsey Queen (featuring Al Frost).

It’ll be a bit like holding a defibrillator to my chest, cranking it to 11 and hitting the “charge” button (watch the video below and you’ll see why), but I do love me some loud, bluesey rock and roll.

This is the band sans Mr Frost – throw him in there and you’ve got a guaranteed recipe for face-melting good times.

 

 

Dig that drummer. What a flippin boychay.

After that it’ll be time to grab a bite and head back to your campsite for some R&R in the shade. Or go have a float in the dam (inflatable lilos are a must. Or you could go the Tiger route and take an entire inflatable BOAT. Bada-BANG!).

At 2.20pm Moving House are lighting up the main stage, a supergroup of sorts consisting of Andre Pienaar (Ashtray Electric) and Rob Davidson (ex Zebra & Giraffe).

I haven’t been able to find any of their material, but if I can summon the strength, I’ll definitely go check them out just based on the merit of their two previous bands.

The next band to watch out for will be Jeremy Loops at 6.05pm, who is one seriously talented guitarist and songwriter.

As the name suggests, this guy’s loop pedal skills have to be seen to be believed. One man. One guitar. And here’s what he’s capable of:

 

 

Insane sheeit right?! People who use loop pedals like that fascinate me because if they fuck up one of the loops, the whole song falls apart. So yeah. No pressure.

After that it’s Desmond And The Tutus on the main stage, but I’m gonna leave that one totally up to you guys.

The new single (“Zim Zala Bim”) has been murdered on local radio to the point where when it came on 5FM the other day the guy in the lane next to me deliberately swerved into oncoming traffic.

But let’s not forget what these guys are capable of. Here’s “Tattoo” off their most recent album Mnusic in case you need some reminding:

 

 

After that, run away.

Arno Carstens is up next and he’s probably going to play material off his new album, Atari Gala which, if the first video “Two Dogs” is anything to go by, could very well send you spiralling into a post-90s, ballad-rock depression guaranteed to kill whatever buzz you might have been feeling up until that point.

My advice would be to go line your stomach and start drinking heavily. It’s time to up your game, once Arno clears out it’s going to be two and a half hours of bone-rattling badassery, starting with Shadowclub, the made-in-SA version of The Strokes.

 

 

Funny story is I interviewed these guys back in ‘08 before they skyrocketed to fame. I used to do this fucked up show on UJFM called The Tuesday Night Bandslam With Rick Hunter And Al Burton (I was Al Burton).

Myself and Graumpot would go around with a roving mic and arrange to interview bands in weird places like bowling alleys, the Zoo Lake, the planetarium and in the case of Shadowclub, the putt-putt course at Fourways.

Our sound equipment kept fucking out and Jacques from Shadowclub (frontman) had this look like he was smelling a fart throughout the interview.

Then we started playing putt-putt so we could record some funny, random shit like we did for all our shows but Jacques was so over it by that stage he just walked from one course to the next hitting his ball into the water, kicking it around and generally just making it known that he thought the whole thing was a load of shit.

 

 

We ended up throwing the interview in the bin. The bassist at the time (forget his name) felt bad and suggested we try again when Jacques was in a better mood.

Second time around, we just interviewed them at Fuel Bar one night before they got onstage to play a gig at Carfax. The interview went a lot better and Jacques seemed to be much more chilled until about 30mins in when he started laughing in this really creepy way and told us he’d taken a large quantity of acid before the interview that felt like it was kicking in.

Crazy cat that guy. In my experience a bit of a douche, but I can’t fault the band, especially not Isaac the drummer, he’s a real stand-up guy and one of the best drummers in the business.

 

 

After that, it’s time.

Get your head in the game, smash a tequila or three, go take a long pee, fight for a spot nice and close to the stage and steel yourself.

Bloc Party, this year’s headline act are up at 11.20pm and trust me, you are not gonna want to miss this one.

This band was instrumental in kick-starting the indie movement that’s been rolling out in its various guises over the last decade.

Here’s their best track, “Banquet” which I’ll be losing my goddamned mind to when they rock it live:

 

 

So those are my must-see bands on the main stage on Saturday, like I said before, holler if you think any other bands deserve a mention and I’ll gladly show them some love.

Otherwise I’ll try have a review up by Monday / Tuesday after the festival has ended, so watch this space because I have a feeling Daisies is going to be pretty damn epic this year.

You can still get tickets from www.webtickets.co.za so get on that if you haven’t already.

Oh, and if you see a guy with a Tiger on his head missioning around, don’t be a stranger Winking smile

-ST

06
Mar
12

Slicky-T Hits Up The 5Gum Experience, Has Face Melted Off

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Being Slick, Events and Gig Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

5GumThere are going to be a couple of these 5Gum posts sprouting up all over the interwebs and rightly so because the 5Gum Experience on Saturday was a textbook example of how to throw a KILLER party.

I only got back from Thailand last week and have a lot of shit occupying my soupy Tiger-brain at the moment, so I’d all but forgotten about the gig until Saturday morning.

I love surprises. Always have, always will. So I was totally fine with the venue for the gig being a big secret but holy shit, NOTHING could have prepared me for what the legends at 5Gum had organised for us.

But let’s start from the top shall we? Rewind to the Wednesday before I left for Thailand and my main man Mike SharMAEN comes ambling into our offices with a whole bunch of BELTER dancers who start doing the exact routine the dancers in the Two Door Cinema Club do in the “What You Know” video.

 

 

After that, he drops off a pair of SICK Skullcandy headphones along with every imaginable flavour of 5Gum (which is a great substitute for actual toothpaste if say you’re stuck on a long-haul flight to Bangkok and you packed your toiletries in your hold luggage like a douche) and tickets to watch Two Door Cinema Club play at a secret venue.

Fast forward to Saturday night and J-Rab and I are boarding a bus at the overflow parking next to Cape Town International and heading directly into the heart of what I’m pretty sure is Nyanga.

I pack a hip flask with scotch for occasions like these on the off chance that instead of the big surprise blowing my mind with atomic force, it makes a sound like a turtle farting and bashfully shuffles off in shame while I drink the place interesting.

No need for that though. Shit was about to melt faces.

We pull up to what looks like a derelict prison / abandoned textile factory in an area where I’m pretty sure people get stabbed with rusty screwdrivers for their shoes and everyone in the bus is saying the same thing: “No wonder they kept it a secret. No one would come otherwise.”

 

 

But deep down we were all intrigued and the minute we’d all stepped out the bus and were able to take our surroundings in properly, we quickly realised that the venue was like NOTHING we’d ever seen before.

I was lucky enough to attend the press conference before the show and the band straight up said they don’t think they’ll EVER play a venue like this again, which I thought was a nice thing to say, but probably total bullshit.

 

 

I now know that it was the honest-to-God truth.

I’ll be VERY surprised if they play a venue this sick again and I don’t mean that to sound like a slight to the band at all – it’s a compliment to the event organisers who deserve some kind of fucking trophy or something for finding that venue.

We arrived just before sunset, grabbed a couple of beers and headed to the stage where we were totally blown away by both the setup and the sound, which rang out clear as a bell in the awesome natural acoustics of what looked like an old warehouse.

 

 

The Plastics were the first band to take to the stage, a band I’ve only seen play live once before (that I can remember) but even that one time, I remember being seriously impressed by their performance.

Their set on Saturday was nothing short of brilliant. They’re like a re-imagined version of early Arctic Monkeys meets The Kooks with enough of their own flavour to keep things interesting.

I dig the way they switch tempos effortlessly mid-song, rocking the indie / stoner rock vibes like a buncha pros.

I’ll definitely keep an eye out for them in future, I’m fucking ashamed I haven’t latched onto them sooner. Christ what an asshole.

After that I hit up the VIP tent with The MAEN, slammed some tequila and avoided security at all costs because The MAEN snuck me in there and they were eyeing me like they were measuring me for a coffin.

 

 

After that we hit a bit of a low-point, the only one of the entire evening.

J-Rab started feeling hungry. So we found the only place selling food, a tiny pizza caravan, and joined the back of the queue.

Two minutes passed and we didn’t move an inch, which was about all the patience I had at that point. I took a sneaky stroll right to the front of the queue, conveniently ran into a friend of mine waiting there and slipped in.

Before the people who were waiting in that queue go hating on me because I did what all of you wanted to, I’d like to point out that even though I did that, I still missed pretty much an hour of the show and didn’t see Ashtray Electric at all.

So I suffered too, ok? Although the rumours going around were that some people waited for 3 hours in that same queue.

What the fuck guys. Never wait for that long in a queue for ANYTHING. You’re better than that. Just brave the dirty looks and make a bee-line for the front. We aren’t cattle fer chrissake!

We ate our pizza just in time to get back to the main stage for Two Door Cinema Club’s set and all I can say is wow. I honestly never thought it was possible for a band to breathe that much life and fucking energy into a live performance.

 

 

Their album is good (Tourist History), it’s got some great hooks and is solid, dancey indie that has just enough substance to stay fresh a good couple of listens down the line.

But when that band takes that material to the stage all of a sudden the album starts to come alive in ways you could never imagine.

The chorous of “Come Back Home Home” hit like a haymaker, the crowd swelled and surged like an ocean during “Undercover Martyn” as we all screamed “To the basement people! To the basement!” and when they unleashed “I Can Talk” during the encore, the raw energy all around us reverberated through the busted concrete factory with the kind of intensity that would have brought the walls down if they were still standing.

 

 

What was also so great was how humble the band was throughout. Frontman Alex Trimble seemed genuinely happy to be there and was loving every second of the gig which I think was a refreshing change from other international acts that have played in front of SA audiences looking bored to tears.

When it was all over, I staggered outta that ruined factory feeling pretty ruined myself. I was totally spent, my muscles aching from how crazy I went during the show, my veins pumping cheap whisky and burned out adrenaline and my mind retreating into a warm, contented fog, satisfied that the evening couldn’t possibly have ended any better.

 

 

To Mike SharMAEN and the gang at 5Gum, I salute you. It’s gonna take one helluva event to top that show and I will personally chew my way through 100 miles of your gum for another experience like that.

Group hug.

-ST