Good weekend. Donaldo MacaDonaldo and the Theater Invaders

ARRRRGGHHH! It's a report back on yet another damn good weekend!

(Warning - bizarre changing of tenses ahead) I spent Friday night hanging out with Col and Pat. We watched a film I haven't seen in years, the hilarious Japanese comedy “Welcome back Mr. McDonaldo”. Shot in the mid 90ies the film revolves around the production of a radio drama. Featuring “superstar” radio-actors, weeping truck drivers and of course the return of Donaldo MacaDonaldo, the film is super funny and so worth hunting down. I woke up early on Saturday and spent the whole morning and most of the day animating visuals for The Curse of Monkey Island. It was just elements from the flyer I drew, but I think the visuals turned out pretty sweet.

Kyle, Kathy and Jason swung by my place to join Anja and I on the Pretoria adventure. A misplaced DJ mixer delayed our departure from Jozi a little, but we still made it to PTA by 4:15, leaving us a good 45 minutes to enjoy the very first Skim Grot Saterdag...Not!

It turned out the times MJ had sent out with his first email about the DIY market had since changed. Meaning we arrived to the very depressing site of people packing up beanbags, candy floss, classic video game consoles and cocktail making supplies. Luckily for us the shop itself was still intact leaving us to hook up some lovely products. Anja got one of the Doctrine/ Delight shirts. I got a Mikado mustache, a sticky antlers badge and a great drawing of a hamster in a ball. Christian also hooked us each up with a beer to make up for us having come to Pretoria 5 hours before the night's party only to miss all the fun.

We left Doktrine HQ and grabbed some Chinese food for dinner. I got pomegranate aloe juice to drink, so I was pretty happy.

We went to the Capitol at a time that seemed really early. We hung around for a bit, but before we knew it the party was already going down. Colin kicked things off with a great little set that featured, big Ben favourites, Errors and We Have Band. Rox took over, then Marc Latilla. Inside Mr Sakitumi got the crowd grooving to his unique, ninjatune-tinged take on dance music. He was followed up by Isochronous. They were as ridiculously good as ever, but what was great to see was the spell they cast over the massive crowd. Seeing 500 people totally hypnotized by Iso's magic was incredible.

While stupidly grinning at the effect of Iso's phenomancing of the crowd, Lourie runs up to me to fill me in that I need to get ready to take over from them. We head backstage and I start flapping through pages of my CD wallet trying to find something to follow up such awesomeness. I settle on LCD's "Big Ideas". The boys finish, I get up on the stage and have the best time. I'm never fully comfortable with being on a big stage - being more than an arm's length away from the dancefloor just doesn't feel right. Still I have a great set that just improves as the Tutus get up on stage and start checking their gear in time with my songs. It's obviously just coming through the stage monitors and no-one else can hear what they're doing, but it's yet another gem in this evening of treasure.

(I see that in that last paragraph I just switched from past to present tense. Oh well...)

Once the Tutus start playing the place goes nuts. I dance/ fight my way through the crowd towards the second stage. Cam's playing and in 3 seconds he makes me feel like the most unrockandroll DJ ever. He's spinning Dananananaykroyd which launches me right into a massive spazz out as soon as I hit the floor. I stay there rocking out till 10 minutes before the Tutus finish and I start my next set.

I watch the last 3 songs of Tutu power from behind the stage and can't help but rock out with them. They finish with Peter. Nic gives his bass to the crowd. The crowd go crazy. The Tutus leave the stage, but the crowd is screaming for more. The band gets pushed back on stage, Nic's bass swims it's way back to the front of the stage and the boys kick into an encore. I notice that one of the guys from visiting Cape Town act PH FAT is setting up his gear on top of the CDJs. Whether it's miscomunication that he doesn't know I'm playing between his band and the Tutus or assholeism, and this is the first time an act has intentionally tried to steal my slot, I don't know. To be honest I don't really care because this gives me the perfect excuse to go jam head to head with Colin who just started on the 2nd floor.

Joe sees me leaving and tries to stop me. For about 15 seconds it seems he's set on telling PH FAT that I'm up after the Tutus, but when he sees how excited I am to jam with Col he makes a 180. He put his arm around my shoulder and sends me off to the second floor with very clear instructions to "make that floor rock!" and "grab anyone that wants to go home and get them dancing again!" Once I reach the second floor I can see that I'm not really gonna need to do either of these things. The floor is already rocking and I'm not seeing anyone heading through the front door.

"The Kodiak vs. The Sassquatch" is a furious battle. People are loosing it. Henk comes over and tells me PH FAT are playing and that we need to try get the crowd over to the the main stage. I tell him I promised Joe I'd make this stage rock, and that chasing the dancefloor back the main stage would be braking that promise. "Fair enough".

Rox joins in on the one on one madness. I drop something and hit the dancefloor. Spazz out. Khyle and Kathy steal me away for a couple minutes. They guide me through some darkened corridors and staircases. Next thing I know we're in the actual theater part of the Capitol. Tonight's the third huge party I've been to at this venue, but this is the first time I've gotten inside the (now condemned) old theater. It totally takes my breath away. It's massive. We're right at the top of the whole thing and staring at the screen on the opposite end to us everything get's hazy somewhere in between. It's really heartbreaking that this venue hasn't been used in decades. This is where we should be dancing. Forget the fact that we'd need 4000 people in here for to full it up, this space is too majestic not to be enjoyed anymore.

We head back down to the floor. I play a couple extra songs and dance to a whole bunch more. Anja's falling asleep on her feet so I rally our forces and we pile into my car. Over the past year my CD player had been getting progressively more and more fucked. Now it just refuses to play any discs. Except, we discover, the "New Health Rock" single by TV on the Radio. I'm not sure how many times the 3 songs on the single repeat before we're home but it's a very pleasant drive back to Joburg.

Jason and I land up hanging out till 4:30. This isn't too weird, but the fact that at 9AM I wake up and can't fall asleep is. I deiced to take this opportunity to catch up on some quality time with my much loved copy of Fallout 3. Anja surfaces at 12ish. We get some lunch and then climb into bed to read some comics. This results in us both passing out, waking up at 5:30PM having effectively slept/ gamed the entire day away. My weekend ends the way it started, watching a great comedy with Patrick and Colin. This time the dudes are over at my place and we're watching High Fidelity. I haven't watched this film since it came out at the movies. I'm kinda horrified when Patrick tells me that was a decade ago. So it goes.

We pray for moments like this XVI - Joburg - 20 Feb 2010

So where we left off the gang and i had been making robot décor and outfits all day... At around 5ish we head through to the venue to soundcheck and set up the décor. The sound hasn't even arrived yet, so soundcheck's gonna be a bit delayed. There are two extra stage blocks creating a kind of ramp out from the tiny stage. From the top down it looks like this: Lex and Kel are saying they won't be walking down it like Bono or something, so Joe moves the two blocks next to each other, extending the whole stage so it looks like this: This is totally cool, except it creates a pair of pretty massive holes between the permanent stage and the extra blocks. Everyone's showing some major concern about these deathtraps. Joe reassures the band with the promise that if anyone falls into one of the holes, he'll buy them an extra bottle of gin. We start hanging all the cardboard ghosts we've been crafting over the past month and a bit. A crapload of fishing line, tape and prestick down the line and everything's looking pretty cool, although the band have only just stared setting up for soundcheck. We leave them to sort things out and head back to my place for a quick shower. Then back to the venue, collect the band, grab dinner and Roxy's again. 30 little things making us late mean that we miss most of the amazing Eyes Like Mirrors. Missing the Mirrors is a rather depressing start to the evening, but it's pretty hard staying bummed out, seeing how much effort kids have put into their outfits. By the time Us Kids Know start pounding out their joyful twee-piece weirdness I'm wandering around the venue with a massive grin glued to my face. Christian and Lizelle show up with the Ghosty keyrings they made as Delight. They look fantastic. I skip some of Us Kids Know to pack these into the goodie bags along with the Mikado, Hello Fox and KRNGY prizes we already have. Lizelle offers to finish packing the bags so I can catch the last bit of Us Kids Know power. I happily take her up on this offer, grab a few finished bags to give out and head into the crowd. The kids are majorly on form and all too soon their set is over. I suddenly realize this means it's just Yesterday's Pupil and then we're up. I try to head upstairs to the DJ floor, but along the way I run into Renate from Ke Ai. She hooks me up with the 10 awesome vinyl bears they're sponsoring. I head backstage to add these final prizes. By the time I'm done Peach has started. I catch as much of his set as I can before we need to start getting ready to go on after him. I grab my keytar, which somewhere along the way on this tour has been named “Sea Fox”. Peach finishes and we get onto the stage. There's a mob of kids that are just standing there screaming. Yelling out the names of the band members and their songs. It's the kind of thing you'd expect at a KISS show, but over the course of the SA tour, this is the first time it's happening for Jo Fo. Once we're ready to start it's clear this is gonna be a pretty insane show. The crowd, while a lot smaller than it was the night before, are just going mad. Singing along to every song, hugging one another, screaming. It's awesome. At some point one kid tries to hold onto Sea Fox, and suddenly everyone around him thinks this is an awesome idea. We're having the best time on stage until suddenly the bass dies. I look over to the right of the stage and Kelly is gone. Just gone. Look down and realise she's plunged down one of the death trap holes. I get on my knees and try help her out of the hole. Given her tinyness and the height of the stage it's a little tricky but we manage. I look over to my laptop and see it was only a couple centimeters away from following her down the hole. I check everything out and it's still fine. Kelly's setup however isn't looking as good. Somehow, in the fall, the British plug converter powering her pedals has broken. I'm freaking out, feeling like this could cut the entire set really short. Lex on the other hand just rolls with the disaster, grabs a bunch of goodie bags , throws them into the crowd and tries to hold conversations with kids yelling at him from the dancefloor. Before long the buzz of Kelly's bass washes over the stage and it seems she's gotten the plug working again. We kick back into the next song and tear through the rest of the set. By the time we're done I'm destroyed. We retreat backstage. While we're catching our breaths Joe shows up with some kid. “Hey mense! This guy drove all the way from Durban to see you guys!”. Mystery boy suddenly becomes the hero of the backstage. I give him the prize for best dressed boy – he doesn't even have a robot outfit, but if he was willing to drive from Durban to Joburg for this than i figure he deserves this brown bag full of awesomeness. The band are chatting to hero Durban boy for ages. And then move outside to meet the small army of kids that have been hanging around to meet them. I feel like a dick when I come over and steal the band from the kids, but the Tutus have started and there's no way they can miss this. As the Tutus wrap up their set I realise I still haven't partied on the DJ floor all night. I head up and spend the last part of the evening rocking out the The Go Team and a variety of other happy noises. Eventually it looks like our little army of robots are being chased out of venue. The band, Anja and I head home. Our friend Eddie comes by with a crapload of pizza. We hang on the balcony, wolf down the pizza, talk about our night of awesome kids in robot suits and then crash, crash, crash. P.S. All photos by Paris Brummer.

Dynamo Jo Fo: Sponsored prizes.

Dynamo Jo Fo is going down tomorrow night! We've been collecting photos of the fantastic prizes our sponsors will be hooking the Dynamo family up with. I have to say, this is by miles the most absurdly massive, awesome collection of free stuff we've had to give out at one of our parties EVER!!! DIY fashion phenomenons Delight have hand made 50 of these zuber-rad ghosty plushy keyrings: Accessory royalty Hello Fox have graciously assembled 10 rings and ten sets of earrings for the girls. Asian pop specialist Ke Ai have given us 10 five inch Popbe bears. Pretorian awesomeness factory KRNGY are sponsoring a great collection of their handmade badges... ... plus the last remaining monster plush in their Slime-o-saurs series. And finally high-art plastic terrorist Mikado are sponsoring crap loads of their wonderful perspex accessories. This massive collection of prizes will be given out over the course of the night to the partY's best dressed boys and girls, so be sure to rock that cardboard! And if this collection of sponsored prizes weren't enough - check out what Jo Fo's label Best Before Records have sent us to give you too: How freaking cool?!