Puma and the Sassy Vampy Tutu Waves

A couple of weeks back I was lucky enough spin a set alongside with one of the best lineups I've joined all year. Puma invited The Tututs, Vampire9000, Tidal Waves and your's truely to play Joburg's incredible Puma Social Club. I can't fan out enough about how fantastic this space is and I'm so happy Joburg will have this wonderful pop-up-club gracing our city every Friday night for the next few months.

Below, a video from the night. Soundtracked by a super-SMACM hit; Vampire9000's "Jazz Spazz" as remixed by Jaysynth & Sassquatch, the video gives you a good sense of the fun we were having. That said if you do wanna get a feel for just how great this space is, the only way to do this would be to hit the club up yourself!

You are invited to Travellin' Brother in the Fridge!

The currently undefeated post-post-post-rock heavyweights known as The Brother Moves On will be punching Pretoria and Joburg in the face this weekend! I was lucky enough to see the champs dish up a mountain of knock-outs this past weekend at Shakisha and I can safely say the boys are in top form.

The band have assembled Travelling Blak, The Fridge & LoveGlori to join them for this pair of shows which should be nothing short of deadly! If this weren't cool enough, if you pay for the Pretoria show you get into the Joburg event free!

RSVP here!

You are invited to help us keep sticking it to the man.

In case you missed it, Eyes Like Mirrors are raising funds to self record and produce our debut full length.

The next adventure of this crusade goes down this Thursday at Amuse Cafe.

RSVP here!

You are invited to all kinds of awesome!

Super exciting show this one!

Cape Town's lovely Beatenberg are coming for a visit up north and as a part of a pretty extensive tour, the unbeatable Ri Botha has put together something really special! I can quite safely say this has to be one of the most excellent lineup's I've been lucky enough to be a part of all year!

Joining the Cape Town Trio, Ri has enlisted the super power's of SMAC-darling Vampire9000 and genre-warping art-machine known as The Brother Moves On! The lineup will be completed by Ri spinning a set under his Plaat Japie moniker, plus DJ-goodness from A Million things and your's truly!

I can not stress enough how good a show this is going to be!

RSVP here!

Interesting side note: almost to the day, this party will correspond to my DJ-birthday! 7 years ago, somewhere in late October 2005, I played my first DJ set alongside my dear friend; Riaan Botha. This debut Sass-set was at a Secret Party in a now dead venue called the Horror Cafe, a space that, after some changes over the years is now called Shikisha and just happens to be where we'll be having this particular grand old time come Saturday night! So, not only is this gonna be a gig of most wonderful proportions, it will also be a very very apt DJ birthday for this old Sassquatch. Happy birthday to me!

Al Bairre - Right here in July

A couple of weeks back I posted up the debut music video by Al Bairre, my favourite new gem from the shores of South Africa.

Today I finally get round to posting up the bands second video, which proves to be just as much fun as the first.

Enjoy!

You are invited to help my band record our first album!

I'm very lucky to be a part of a small band of cinematic rockers called Eyes Like Mirrors.

You may know us from some smokey night somewhere in Joburg or Pretoria or Potchefstroom.

 

 If you don't live in one of those cities, maybe you know us from Crusades, the 5 track EP we released last year.

Recently, we took a little break from playing live and in that time wrote a bunch of new songs. Along with one or two that we were already playing before the break, we'd very much like to record these songs and share them with the world as our first album. We'd very much like to record and produce said album ourselves. We think this would be a pretty neat way to go about things, but we need microphones and a good soundcard to do this right. Here's where you come into this story...

To realise our dream of a self recorded, self produced debut album, Eyes Like Mirrors will be throwing a series of benifit shows. The money made on these nights will be going stright to buying us the gear we need to record this album (and in effect, any other singles, EPs or LPs worth of songs that we dream up in the future).

This "help ELM" record an album adventure starts tonight! The first show of the series goes down at Amuse Cafe and for R30 you can become a part of us trying to bring a little more beauty into this world!

RSVP here!

Free Music Friday: Yo grapes - I need a lift!

Our most regular Free Music Friday star is back!

If you're any kind of regular here Yo Grapes should need no introduction, so let me just say:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
YO GRAPES
I NEED A LIFT

Hooray for Humans: Gil Hockman album kickstarter!

The oh-so-excellent Gil Hockman is gearing up to record and release his second album and he needs your help!

Following on his lovely debut, Gil is the first South African awesomeness-creator (that I've heard of) making use of Kickstarter to make an album a reality.



Head hear to kick start this thing!

You are invited to Puma Social Club!

This is a pretty damn neat one...

This Friday I'll be playing The Puma Social Club & I'm really stoked to be involved in it. Open every Friday night of this month, the line up of every episode is simply great. But, that said, I couldn't be any more stoked to be a part of the particular lineup I'll be joining. Firstly there's SMAC's own prince of wonky-pop, Vampire9000! Then there's the high-five-inspiring champs of kwela-punk, Desmond & the Tutus, the brilliant and much-adored reggae-rockers Tidals Waves and some Sassy action from me to top it all off.



Entrance is R20, but if you register here you get in free! The club can only hold 300, so make sure you get in there early to avoid standing in the streets of Braamfontein waiting for someone else to leave the party!

Free music Friday: The Dollfins!

For all of you fans of Cape Town's most wild, unhinged marine mammals, this one will surely have been on heavy rotation already. But in case you've somehow missed out on it, here's my overdue share of one of my favourite recordings to come out of South Africa this year!

 

The self titled debut album from the Dollfins is pretty much perfect in my eyes. Not perfect because it polishes out any imperfections, but perfect because it embraces them. All too often, South African bands who are fantastic live, land up releasing lifeless and flat sounding recordings. Generally this is becasue said awesome band have spent a whole bunch of money on creating what they hope will be a slick, professional product, but it's ultimately it's totally over-produced, over-polished and sucked dry of any soul in the process. Thankfully there are some who avoid this hyper-polished-crap-trap; with some of the finest examples being Make Overs, Us Kids Know & now The Dollfins.

Recorded in the apartment of 2 of the 3 band members & produced by their friend Andy Islands (who plays synth with said members in the also excellent Beach Party), "The Dollfins" LP is, as I said, perfect (well perfect to me anyway. Maybe you'd have liked some more sax or a bit of accordion here and there). Other than being perfect, it also happens to be free which means you can...

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

"THE DOLLFINS"

NOW!

All pics by Kent Andreasen - check out the whole set of neatness here!

Gateway Drugs - Airwaves

A couple weeks back I included a neat little synth pop song as a part of the Home Movie Factory promo video soundtrack. Today I'm happy to share the official video for this song with you!

Airwaves is a shockingly good first single for a brand new band like Gateway Drugs. The music video only helps to make this something even more awesome. Directed by Xander van der Westhuizen (who just happens to play drums with the Gateway Drugs in their other band, Beach Party) the video is a lovely journey through space, stars and synths. Enjoy!

You are invited: Need for Swede 2!

South Africa's only home-made movie event is back!

RSVP here!

After a highly successful debut night in August, Need For Swede returns to The Bioscope on Thursday the 27th of September. The event will be the second installment in a trilogy of nights designed to celebrate hand-crafted movie remakes in the spirit of Michel Gondry's “Be Kind Rewind” and we want you to get involved!

Create your own DIY remake! Use what you have, get your friends involved, craft your own piece of sweded magic and see it on the big screen

of Johannesburg's only independent cinema! It's fun! It's easy! It doesn't even need to be good!

For the second Need For Swede we will be screening all 4 of the first South African swedes, created for last month's event:

THE GOONIES
by Tess, Henco & Mark

CASTAWAY
by PJ Kotze and his magical Open Window students

SIGNS
by Lovechild

DISTRICT 9
by Cool your Jets

PLUS all new swedes created for NFS2!

PLUS PLUS PLUS bonus swedes from our American friends at Swede Fest!

(side note, all Need For Swede films will be sent over to Swede Fest to be screened at their events across the US. WOW!)

To get involved mail benrausch at gmail dot com

PRIZES!!!

Joburg super-blog, Another-Day, will be running a contest to find the most popular Need for Swede entry! After the third episode of NFS, all swedes will be posted to the blog where people can vote for their favourites!

Greenside's Odd Cafe is sponsoring a full dinner in their basement exhibition space for the winners!

Runners up will win prizes from a dream team of local DIY brands, including:

Vouchers from vintage fashion super-store Asseblief!

Exclusive NFS edition of vinyl stickers from decor wunderkids Mikado!

T-shirts from design monsters Doktrine!

Music & merch from local record labels KRNGY & SMACM!

Plus movie tickets from our home, The Bioscope!

We do this all the time: Need for Swede 01!

REBEL ALLIANCE 8

Need for Swede 01

The Bioscope Independent Cinema

11 Aug 2012

document by Olivia Mortimer

You are invited: SUPER-MEGA-DELUXE EDITION!

Whew! I'm getting all giddy just starting to write this post! Okay, here we go...

If any of you don't know, Joburg is really picking up! The amount of exciting stuff going down over the last while has been insane. This coming weekend confirms this and actually suggests the ammount of awesome events we'll seeing is only going up! Today I'm very happy to invite you to an awesome party for every day from Thursday to Sunday, PLUS a fantastic exhibition gracing the city for the next 10 days! I'm gonna have try keep this brief, but hot damn - IT'S ALL SO EXCITING!

First, Free Particle is the latest piece of brilliance delivered to the people of South Africa as a part of The France/ South Africa Season's 2012-2013 (I recently posted on the Home Movie Factory that was brought to Johannesburg as a part of The Season). The amount of cool stuff planned for Free Particle is really quite ridiculous, so let me just tell you to visit their page, RSVP to the facebook event and check out the flyer (which I was lucky enough to be asked to illustrate) for this cutting edge wonder!

Now, onto the parties!

THURSDAY:

Two of my favourite live acts invade my favourite dance club! The fantastic Yo Grapes and SMACM's own Vampire9000 will be hitting Kitchener's and I am one excited Ben! The lineup also include Matthew Mole, who I have yet to see, but have heard great things about!

RSVP here!

FRIDAY:

My own band, Eyes Like Mirrors, haven't played live in months. The good news: we're coming out of hibernation with truckload of new songs and they're pretty damn neat if I say so myself. The best news: our return happens to be in support of the return of albinobeach! I have ranted at length on this blog about my love for this band, and complained for ages to friends about how bummed out I was when they stopped playing shows almost three years back! But come Friday I won't have much to be bummed about as albinobeach will once again crack open the heavens and bring their colossal soundscapes to my ears!

What's more, the poster for this event just might be my favorite one for any event I've played with any band ever. The work of albinobeach's own Ian Finch, prepare to give your eyes a monster hug with this sucker!

RSVP here!

SATURDAY:

I'll be back in Kitcheners and you better be right there with me! Disco De Moda continues it's own tradition of serving up a refreshing dose of quality dance music in the face of the endless sea of sooooo much lameness. This month the of-so-soulful D.D.M. presents an event called "You say indie, we say disco"! The lineup features Casioheart, Data Takashi, Corvair & Rakkie, not only 4 of my favourite DJs, but also 4 of my favoruite people in our city of johannesburg! On top of that, the night will be headlined by one of my favourite people from another city; Cape Town's deadly Tommy Gun! This one really is gonna kill me!

RSVP here!

SUNDAY:

If I manage to make it off the Disco De Moda dancefloor alive, I'll be very happy to be out in the sunshine enjoying Sunday Jive! Expect rooftop bliss, soundtracked by another 4 of my favourites, Charles Leonard, Andrew the DJ, Plaat Japie and Rosie Parade! As if this weren't enough the event will feature a live set by the João Orecchia/ BLK JKS stellar lovechild, Motèl Mari!

 

RSVP here!

There it is. What an awesome time to be living in this city!