Music Diary
I wish I had kept a diary. I wish I had taken more photographs. Mostly, I wish that my memory wasn't in such bad shape. The following picture-history is of some of what I remember about playing music while I was in Johannesburg. For those whose pictures I don't have or who's contribution I forgot I apologise.
In 1981 I was working in City Books Bookshop and I saw a guy browsing in the musical section. After an hour or so I figured he must be trying to read his way through the entire section. It was a slow day so I went up to him and asked him if he played an instrument. He said "Yes, I can play anything". ..."Anything?" I asked. "I can play trumpet, piano, guitar and drums." he answers. "Let's jam" says I.
He had no piano or trumpet or drums but he did have a guitar. After an hour or so I say "I need a drummer." "I'll buy some." He says. We need a singer too. "I'll find one." He says. His name was Eric Loos and he brought along Fernando Perdigao. We got a practice room in the cellar of the Mighty Bites fast-food outlet in Joubert Park. And thus was born Suburbia. (a name since used by another South African band) We had two guitarists and a drummer. We took a vow never to play a cover. (I kept to this vow for many years. It was a mixed blessing.)
Green as we were and with only eight songs we played at a birthday party. I think everyone stood at the door and watched us. We played ok but something was wrong.
[From Music.Musicians] : Myself at the first gig.
With my Fender Jazzmaster. serial no. 96091
[From Music.Musicians] : Rehearsing with Fernando.
The guitar I am using was modified by Greg Van Schaik.
Stolen from my car, alas.
Fernando was learning how to be a studio engineer. He said there were possibilities of us doing something if only we had a bassist. But there were no bassists to be found. But we could find keyboardists and we conned a succession of them to play keyboard bass for us. Somewhere along the line we moved our rehearsal space to a fashion college's premises that overlooked The King of Clubs and Q's night-clubs. We were about 5 stories above the ground. We had lots of ambition and no confidence whatsoever. One day we heard a lot of noise coming from the street. We looked out the window and saw people standing outside looking up at us and applauding.
Perhaps we were onto something. Eric, who tended to take a walk on the wild side, got us connected to a guy who owned some clubs. He was Hungarian and I'm not so sure everything he was connected to was that legal. This guy tried us out at The Cowboy Club which had the best sound-system I've ever had the pleasure of playing through. The fidelity onstage was so good it felt like I had head-phones on. But it was a bit weird playing hard rock to a bunch of people who were dressed like Texas ranchers. Nevertheless they danced and applauded. Which is all one can ask for.
The Hungarian fellow then got us to play at Club Africa which was one block from a mining hostel that that was notorious as a Zulu stronghold. The entrance fee for the club was that one had to wear shoes. They drew the line at hobos. hehe.....this was sooooo bizarre. The club was entirely black and into black (African) disco music. We started playing and immediately cleared the floor. Everyone stood and stared at these insane white folk playing rock music. It felt like we were aliens from another planet. They formed a huge semi-circle about 30 feet from the stage and gawped. They must have felt sorry for us because a women went through the crowd and then walked up to the Fernando and threw money at his feet. (Apparently this was because they liked him.) My most vivid image is of two white faces sitting at the back of the hall behind this sea of black. My girlfriend, Yvonne Ward-Smith, and her friend Lizanne Scott. Looks of sheer terror on their faces.
We eventually got around to playing at The King of Clubs. We were determined to unravel the mysteries of gigging and becoming known. We figured that this club was going to be the start of something. We set up and play and the audience barely responds. In the second set I flash that there is a Mohican haircut pogo-ing in front of me. (I tend to black out onstage.) We had drawn an audience from the street that was heading to another, more hip, club. We had pulled a punk audience !!....and here we were thinking that we middle-of-the-roadish. We were trying our damndest to compose pop.
[From Music.Musicians] Fernando at Ovation Studios.
Those early memories are the most vivid I have. A lot of what we did became a blur. Soon after that Fernando had got his chops together as a studio engineer and somehow wangled a way to get us into Ovation Studios (Johannesburg) for free. He must have told his boss that we had potential. By this time our line-up had settled as Fernando on guitar and voice, myself on guitar, Eric on drums and a new friend of mine on Keyboard Bass. Her name was Mara Jo Scop and she worked with me at a bookshop. We talked about music and how I didn't have a bassist. She offered to help. I asked what instrument she played. She said "Nothing." I figured that this was a Good Start Point and offered to show her what to play if she was disciplined enough to stick with it. I eventually landed loving her sense of experimentation. (Actually, I love all people who play music. Even although they don't believe it since I used to be a rather tense person. I have been known to clout Eric onstage for "showboating". ....much to my shame.)
The recording was, in retrospect, quite good. But we were ignorant of how to proceed and landed up doing nothing with it. Which is a pity. Fernando landed up unable to concentrate on studio engineering and a pregnant girlfriend and the band, so left the band. (He has since won awards for engineering.) By this time we were rehearsing in Mara's garage. Which must have irritated the neighbours somewhat.
Eric, Mara and myself reinvented ourselves as Harpo Speaks and played what other people called Experimental Music. We thought it was POP FOR FUCK SAKES !! And out of sheer necessity I became The Vocalist. Mara hung out with the "arty" crowd and knew someone at Jameson's. Which was a stronghold for university students and the place where Mango Groove and a lot of other Johannesburg bands had cut their teeth. Everyone of note had played there. For those of you who are not South African there is a strange phenomena when on every major holiday the Johannesburgers pack their families in a car and trek down to the Natal coast. This leaves Johannesburg pretty desolate of all but the poorest students. Which was good for us since all the name bands went to the coast too. So Harpo Speaks cleaned up in the months surrounding Christmas time. We played regularly at Jameson's. We even had large crowds. But we never developed a "following". Although Mara did seem to attract her own bunch of guys that used to stare at her from the foot of the stage.
[From Music.Musicians] Playing guitar to the pigeons in a park in Amsterdam with Yvonne and her sister Eve.
[From Music.Musicians] Checking out the mysteries of the Cmaj7 chord with Greg Van Schaik.
One night we had been onstage since 9pm and it was 1am and we had run out of songs and we were tired. But the crowd was enthusiastic and I wanted to cool their ardour so we could go home. I told the band to play a thing we did to warm-up at rehearsal. It was called Random Jazz and it worked like this : anybody could play anything they felt like playing, at any tempo they felt like playing, so long as it was in C Major. I figured it would clear the dance-floor. But noooooo.....they danced. Bastards ! Someone even came up to me and complemented us. I've since learnt that it is very difficult to predict how things will be received. I think we stink and they say it's great. I think we cooked and they say we sucked. I think that audience enjoyment of music is more often a function of drugs and alcohol than it is of the musicianship.
[From Music.Musicians] Eric and myself at Jameson's
Mara knew someone in the Cherry-Faced Lurchers and got us a guest spot with them at The Oxford Hotel. In the audience that night was Kevin Botha. He approached me in our break and asked if we needed a real bassist. We now had a bassist. About that time I started going out with Angela Hill. We practised 4 times a week. How does one have a relationship and play in a band ? I did the obvious thing. I invited her to play in the band. She had feint traces of memory regarding the piano and I figured I may as well have a complete line-up of naïf players. Why the heck not ? Because I now had to "pay attention" to two highly-strung women in the band is why not. Kevin was much more focussed on making it in the pop market so our music moved in a different direction although we were still without a specialist vocalist. Kevin and I shared vocal duties. Kevin, at that time, was dating Claire Johnson from Mango Groove. We landed up guesting for them on occasion but we were nothing but a breather for the audience. They were the phenomena just waiting to happen. My favourite memory of this line-up was in 1985 at one of the gigs at Jameson's when we played second-banana to Bright Blue who were also on the verge of their first number one hit Weeping. We were very tense the first night and they killed us. I realised that Eric's polyrhythmic-Keith-Moon-on-speed style of drumming wasn't going down with the dance-oriented yuppie following of Bright Blue. I sat with him for an hour at 1am in the morning in Hillbrow trying to convince him to clean up his snare-shot and concentrate on the down beat. He wasn't buying it. I think he was too embarrassed to be associated with something as simple as trying to sound "disco". I begged him to give it just one attempt since he had nothing to lose. He could blame me if it didn't work. Lo and behold, the next night Eric cleans up his drumming style and the audience dances for us but not for Bright Blue. They sat around in the kitchen at the back making all kind of excuses. "We're having an off night", "I feel sick" etc....They made a cardinal error regarding warm-up bands. (In the course of playing for many years I have found that one's first set is always a "give-away" in that the audience is not quite ready to party and usually sit around drinking. The trick is to keep the great songs until the second or third set.) On our first night we played the first set and our performance stank so much that Bright Blue must have figured that we couldn't do much damage if they put us in the second set on the second night. Then they would have time to relax and socialise between their own sets. Bad Move.
That night taught Eric more about playing live than any amount of theory could have taught him. (Not that he would ever go and actually pick up a theory book.) I have found the same problem in every novice drummer I've played with. Especially the schooled and jazzy drummers. They forget that the only thing that an audience twigs on is the kick and snare drums. If that is clean and simple then the audience taps their feet. Simple. Drummers love crash and splash and ride cymbals and tons of toms and bits and pieces for them to hit. But the audience doesn't hear most of that. They certainly can't tell the difference in the subtle differences in the toms and usually can't even hear a ride cymbal unless the music is soft. Drummers tend to set up their kit as if they are getting ready to play a drum solo or back a jazz band. It is a real treat to watch Charlie Watts hold down the gargantuan Rolling Stones sound with a rudimentary set-up.
Mara decided she needed to fight with her own demons and left the band. Then Kevin decided to create a band with Edward Jordan and Steve Cooks and left also. Angela learnt how to manage two keyboards and play bass lines on one while holding chords with the other. I didn't have money for a real keyboard stand and so made one out of wood. It stood six foot high and Angela was almost hidden behind it. But she was a trooper. The music mutated again. Every time these things happened meant periods of rehearsal with no live gigging and these barren periods were to become more frequent in the future. We also moved out of Mara's garage and I convinced Eric to get an electronic drum-kit so we could practice in my flat. All I remember from this period is a our last gig in October 1987 when we decided to Do Our Own Thing at The Oxford Hotel.
[From Music.Musicians] Eric, Angela and myself as Harpo Speaks at The Oxford Hotel.
The deal with the Oxford was that they had a hall that was unused except for weekends and the band had to make all the arrangements regarding the sound-system and gate. We were so naive that we took over the previous band's set-up instead of renting our own. We tried the stuff out and it didn't work. After wasting a few nights I finally called Kevin who brought in Steve Cooks who played guitar for him and who was also an aspiring engineer. We finally got it working. Kind of. And we only had one night left to earn some money in. Panic. I invited Kevin to test-drive his new band, The Midnight Hour, there. I also knew a guy called Piet Lourens from WITS University with a new band, Mystery Roach, needing to cut their teeth. This band had Clifford Van Ommen in it who would tie up with me later. We now had 3 bands to fill the evening and hopefully attract a crowd. It took place in the twilight-zone. All I can remember is that Claire Johnston said she liked my guitar solo and that just made my evening. The whole event was Too Little, Too Late. The only people who got paid were Eric, Angela and the lady who manned the gate. But it was a great learning experience. Eric then got called up for army service for 2 years during 1988-1989. And he wasn't even a South African citizen. Geez...That was the end of Harpo Speaks. What to do ? I spoke to Clifford Van Ommen in early 1989 about the possibilities of us getting together as Piet Lourens had gone to London and Mystery Roach had broken up. Clifford played bass and he brought in Wayne Houghton on drums. Another musical mutation. The 3 of us recorded a small demo at Kevin Botha's new studio and played once at Jameson's. It was not a night to remember. We made the music too complex for our own good. (Cliff and Wayne were Real Muso's and Wayne was also a sharp pianist and composer.) All those jazzy changes meant we had too much to remember and we were playing at our mental and physical limits and in one song we got completely out of sync and landed up playing a bar apart on some rapid changes. We blushed. But I don't think the audience even noticed.
During this period (I think. My memory is gone.) I then got an offer from Edward Jordan who was going solo after the band he was in with Kevin came apart at the seams. I spent a few months in rehearsal with him but I never felt confident with what I was doing. I was in awe of his enormous talent. At that time he had a hybrid style on piano that was somewhere between Madness, Sting and Joe Jackson. The chord changes flew by so fast I couldn't relax. I suggested he just entertain people by playing piano. But he never did put on the suit with tails and do that. He said he wanted to go to Hollywood and the experiment was over. (He never did go to Hollywood and has subsequently made a few albums with a more professional backing band and found chart success.) Nevertheless, I had some great meals with his very cool family. Thanks for the grub Ed. *hug*
One day in 1990 I was talking to Steve Amory about his talents as a singer and guitarist going to waste. I had played a few gigs with a band band in the early 80's and he hadn't touched his guitar in ages. We made a deal. I would provide the backing band for his project if he would compose the songs. He talked to his sister Hayli to assist in composing and singing and Wayne brought in Neville Austin on keyboards. This project became Sister Moon. The stuff they came up with was pretty good and we recorded some of it at the SABC studios where Neville worked and some was recorded at Kevin Botha's studio. I loved their harmony work. They had been singing together since they were kids. The SABC tapes are missing. Damn ! But after a few private party gigs Hayli had to go to Bop TV to work in Bophutatswana. Cliff had to work on his Honours degree in Psychology. That ended that. The band split up.
[From Music.Musicians]
Ed Jordan onstage at the last Free People's Concert in 1987 with Kevin's band The Midnight Hour.
They blew Mango Groove away.
Come the hour, come the man. Ed was awesome.
[From Music.Musicians] Steve Amory at the SABC.
[From Music.Musicians] Hayli Amory and Neville Austin at the SABC.
Eric came out of the army in 1990. He then bought an acoustic drum-kit again. After Sister Moon I then asked my friend Edward Holcroft to play bass so I could reform Harpo Speaks. We would share vocals. We tried a mixture of covers and originals. The gigs available for original bands was drying up. This lasted a few months and then Steve Amory came on board at the very end. We only played in public once. At his 1991 New Year's Eve bash. (Ed has great parties.) My equipment was all stolen from his house. This was the 3rd time I had lost equipment through theft and I was feeling battered. Edward had to pull out of the band because of work and family commitments. But I got my revenge. He now runs Comrades with me.
I moved to a new flat and I decided to create a rehearsal room in my flat because Ed had provided the previous one. I first sealed all the cracks in the window with silicon so that the window couldn't open or close. I Then bought a huge piece of maisonette that was 2 inches thick and raw-bolted it to the wall over the window. I then sealed that with silicon. I also put rubber in the door frame so that the room was hermetically sealed. I got rubber cut into circles so that Eric could deaden the drums. Voila ! No complaints about noise.
Steve needed money as he had a new family to support and the clubs for original music were closing down. Jameson's, The Oxford, King of Clubs and a spate of others all disappeared. So we decided to do covers. I would play bass and he would play guitar. The band name changed to Crash Landing. We spent almost a year learning about 70 cover songs. We went to Steve Cooks' fledgling studio and cut a demo. We were serious about this. Full of confidence we went to a new club, Tandoors, and asked about gigs. The owner says he only allows original bands. I almost hit him.
We played many low-key gigs as Crash Landing. One that stands out is a gig we did at a comedy club called Charlie C's. It was the middle of winter. The streets were empty. We set up on a beautiful stage and waited for the punters to arrive. It was deathly silent. An old couple comes in for dinner and then leaves. Still no-one. We decide to start playing and hope that the noise pulls people in. After an hour of playing a brilliantly tight set to the bartender who sat on a chair and watched us in that vast floor-space he takes pity on us and gives us some bucks to cover the petrol costs. He lost money on the evening. I think he was more depressed than us.
In October 1992 we got an offer to play in Joubert Park by someone who misguidedly believed that it would be a good venue for music and poetry. Hayli had come back to Johannesburg and joined us in our endeavour. We set up with our 300watt speakers. We started playing. It was at this point that I learned a valuable lesson about outdoor acoustics. 300Watts played indoors can sound like Armageddon. 300Watts outdoors sounds like a transistor radio. With this puny sound we were going to play to a few acres of rolling lawn. It was a disaster. The people in the park gathered in a crowd in front of us about 30 feet away looking in our direction. If one squinted one's eyes one didn't really notice that our audience was mostly made up of the park hobos. I don't even know if they heard us because there were boom-boxes there that could have drowned us out. Steve completely spaced out and developed complete amnesia regarding the chord changes. We blushed. The audience couldn't have cared less. We made an interesting diversion from sleeping on the park benches.
Hayli went back to BopTV and our final gig as a cover band was for the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Annual Party held at the Auckland Park Bowling Club. Since everyone knew Steve and loved him (he's very loveable) a fun time was had by all. In spite of the iffy acoustics.
We then did a nameless project with Steve at the helm where we started composing original stuff again. This was recorded at Kevin's new studio but it kind of petered out as Steve had to devote more time to his homelife.
At about that time Kevin said he needed to audition some women as lead singers for his band and asked if I could help him out. All that was left of his previous band was Wayne Houghton who had linked up with him in 1991. I said yes. His new band became Pressure Drop and he never told me to leave so by default I landed up playing with him as a sideline to my Master-Plan-to-conquer-the-music-world which at that point amounted to myself and Eric wondering what would pop up next. Kevin went through a succession of singers. The first of these was Danielle Nobrega and the second was Candice Somebody-or-other. Meanwhile I just shut up and played the guitar for him.
In 1994 Dave Robinson, who I knew from my days of working in a bookshop, mentioned that he wanted to learn guitar. I said that learning bass was easier and that I needed a bassist and said I would help him learn if he undertook to play with Eric and me. He liked this quid pro quo and we started our journey. We spent a year going through old blues and rock 'n roll songs. Dave became The King of Boogie. At the end of that year I gave the guys a choice. Take the show on the road as a bluesy cover band or devote a year to songwriting. They chose the songwriting. We set a target of 4 songs per night. I was stoked on the idea of speed-writing and by the end of 1995 we had 160 songs down on tape. It was an excellent creative and learning device. Meanwhile I was still moonlighting with Pressure Drop. During 1996 we prepare to go onstage. Ha ! This was complexified by Kevin's band having mutated into The Dream Babies with a new lead singer Nadine Zylstra. This band was booked into Steve Cooks' studio Cut 'n Mix. With a budget and serious intentions regarding the pop charts. The Dream Babies line-up at this stage was Nadine Zylstra on vox, Izzyboy Masedi on vox, Kevin on Bass, Antony Coleman on drums (Kevin went through drummers like he went through vocalists - Wayne decided to pursue a slightly more lucrative career) and myself on guitar. Since I had a vested interest in the songwriting collaboration with Kevin I suspected I better be part of the deal in spite of the fact that I was burning out and my wife, Janine, was not a happy puppy.
Dave Robinson. King a da Boogie.
[From Music.Musicians] Back row : Antony, Moses, Kevin.
Front row : Nadine, myself, Izzyboy Masedi .
The Dream Babies at Cut 'n Mix Studio.
[From Music.Musicians] I light a candle for Antony's future career in acting after he decided that music was a bad-paying gig.
Go Antony!!
Nadine had a horrid time in the studio which wasn't helped by the pressure that Kevin was feeling to complete the job. After a spate of gigs she makes way for Tracy Scerri on vocals and went on to acting and film-making. Anthony Coleman was replaced on drums by That-Weird-Drummer-Who-Sometimes-Missed-Gigs but he sat in on guitar for a while before he left altogether to pursue acting as well. This drummer was replaced, in turn, by Jason Horsler.
The weirdest gig I did at that time was when Kevin booked us into Roxy's Rhythm Bar and forgot that he was meant to take a bunch of schoolkids to the Boer War memorial sites in Natal. Well, he tells me this a day before the gig. "Should we cancel the gig ?" I ask Kevin. "We can't afford to annoy the owners." Says Kevin. "How do we do it ?" asked I. "You play bass and Anthony plays guitar." Says Kevin, forgetting that I don't know the basslines and Anthony doesn't know the guitar parts. Being the consummate professional that I am, I undertook to play the bass so fast that it sounded like a guitar/bass/string-quartet. Part of the solution was to put my band on as a warm-up act to reduce the amount of songs The Dream Babies had to do. A bit of damage control. So I sang and played the first set as a guitarist and then The Dream Babies took the stage with me on demonic bass. Kevin's entourage of fans who came to see a normal gig must have been highly amused or offended. I never stopped to ask.
The Dream Babies became South (Now called Concussion Girl!) somewhere along the line of attempting to record the album. Apart from singer-problems Kevin had a further problem with Steve Cooks' brain, the synapses of which had already moved to Canada. Which was where he was immigrating to. Kevin went into the studio with a light poppish concept that had mutated into a heavily guitaristic wet-dream. And the mixes sounded leaden. South played the rest of the year out with Tracy. There were sporadic attempts to improve the album. But Steve Cooks left South Africa and the job wasn't finished. And Kevin owed money. In the beginning of 1997 I was in a new house that I had bought. I created a practise room in the basement. This was great. A permanent set-up with a kettle for the coffee. (practises always go better with Lots Of Coffee) And chairs for us all to sit on. Which wasn't actually by choice since the ceiling was so low that no-one could stand up in it. Sooo....Dave and Eric and I start the year with good intentions but I soon figure that I'm burning out fast. My marriage was dicey and between playing in two bands and trying to stay fit to run Comrades and working I wasn't in any mental shape to lead the band much further. I ask if anyone knows any vocalists. What we really need is a tenor voice that can play a bit of guitar. Dave says he has a singer friend. "Does he sing well ?" I ask. "Very Well." Says Dave. "Does he play an instrument ?" ...."No"..."Has he sung in a rock band ?"..."No"..."What kind of singing does he do ?"...."He does choral work." Says Dave......"So we'll have to teach him ?"..."Yes"...Keith Krut Joined us and because of the type music we were doing we took the name Praying Mantra. Which was kinda appropriate since our practices revolved as much around philosophic, religious, political and educational discussions as it did around practising music. We mostly took the songs from our mammoth writing year and used that as a template to work from. It was slow going but we had been there before. Keith had a bass/tenor voice and that left me on a tenor(ish) harmony and Eric on high harmony. And I suck at harmony. I poured another coffee...
To every thing there is a season.....and Nurit Graf became Kevin's new singer. Kevin found some more money and we went to retouch the vocals and do some new tracks at Ian Osrin's Digital Cupboard studio. Neal Snyman was the engineer and told me some horror stories of the rich and famous he worked with in London. But I'm sworn to secrecy.
[From Music.Musicians] Jason, Tracy, Izzyboy, Myself and Kevin as South.
[From Music.Musicians] Nurit singing with South at Roxy's.
[From Music.Musicians] Izzyboy and Nurit outside the Digital Cupboard studio.
This long saga of the South recording project was making me severely depressed and frustrated with it's lack of progress. I figured my pissant band could show Kevin a thing or two about speed and economy in recording. So I spoke to the guys, in a coffee break, and Praying Mantra booked itself a session with Izzyboy Masedi in the down-time at Dave Gresham Studios on 14/9/1997 to do a "Beatles" type recording. 12 songs in 12 hours. Except for an extra session to do some guitar work and mixing we did the job. I then got Lynette Hendrikse from Rock Dog to do the cassette inserts. I ran off cassette labels on a LaserJet printer. I got a company to run off 100 copies of the tape and I put the whole package together myself. The album was called Cry Love. Considering the time and low budget it is actually quite excellent. The total cost of this exercise was :
R1000 1st Session (Recording)
R500 2nd Session (Touch-up & Mixing)
R360 Colour Cassette Inserts
R75 Loop
R495 100 Cassettes
R75 Avery Cassette Labels
R2505 TOTAL =R626.25 per member
Praying Mantra used this tape to get a few gigs. But they were lean times and the pickings were slim. The people at Roxy's never seemed to be able to find a slot for us. We only played at Wings Beat Bar. We even got billed on their "Folk Evenings". The stuff went down quite well although Eric lost his mind completely one night when his parents came to see him for the first time ever. He treated the whole evening like it was one long drum solo. It sounded like the Israelites at the walls of Jericho. I must be getting mellow in my old age because I didn't hit him this time.
December 1997. Kevin's new singer is Connie Foster, a professional. He now has very little money left to complete the recording and she can work fast. The downside is that she lives out in the bush and doesn't come to practices as it's a long way and she figures that South need to tighten up without her around. One day we get a gig on very short notice and Kevin decides to quickly rehearse only the beginnings and endings of his songs. We go onstage with a guest saxophonist and the obvious happened. In the middle of one song Kevin forgets the chords to his own song ! We were playing a complete tone apart from each other and he was playing the chords in the wrong sequence !! I mouth "wrong chord". Connie glares and makes slashing signs across her throat. Kevin holds his ground. The saxophonist is oblivious. The song degenerates into a polyphonic mess as Connie stops singing and the saxophonist jumps at the opportunity to do a solo.....in what key ? The song grinds to a shuddering halt. The Saxophonist turns to me and says "Wow, far out man, that was so cool !!"
1998. My annus horribillus. Divorce was staring me in the face. My housing bond was at 21%. My neighbourhood was looking like Bosnia. I'd lost all my passion at work. The gigs went on. And Kevin got a new lead singer after Connie decided being a housewife was more fun. The new singer was Beverley Slabbert (Now Beverly Jayne)and she hung around long enough for the band to tighten up. It also helped that Kevin moves his rehearsals to my basement where there was coffee aplenty. And chairs. This version of the band probably had the best audience response just through continually getting up there and doing it more often. And Kevin's backing line-up had been stable for a year. I sleep-walked the gigs as they went so smooth and I had my mind on other things. Which is why I can't remember any of them, barring the very last one we did at Hoods. It was filmed. I haven't seen the footage though.
[From Music.Musicians] South with Connie on vocals at Roxy's.
[From Music.Musicians] Izzyboy, Kevin, Beverly, myself and Jason as South. (Now called Concussion Girl.
[From Music.Musicians] My last gig with South at Hoods. Beverly Jayne on vocals.
Praying Mantra also rounded up it's activities as I prepared to go to Perth. They undertook to hit the studio One More Time to try and do a fast recording. But I was completely out of it. My synapses had been fried. To make matters worse my house was broken into the day before the recording. I was of no use to anyone and the recording subsequently suffered. I was in Perth when they got around to mixing. Sorry guys....
[From Music.Musicians] Keith Krut singing with Praying Mantra at Wings. One More Time. Louder, Longer and with Passion Please.
[From Music.Musicians] Playing with Leigh Jurkovic (R.I.P.) and some Aussies in Perth.
2008: Now what ?.....I'm sitting in Boulder, Colorado. I bought an iMac and am using ProTools to record my musical musings. Not for money. Just for the pleasure of creating.
2012: The above sentence was written many years ago. I did some recording, but a whole lot more of being a parent. At this point, I cannot finish all the music I wanted to do. I have, therefore, decided to make the stuff I have publically available.
2016: I am now in Los Alamos. In 2016 I completed a 4th collection of tunes call Mad as a Bag of Ferrets that has David Fellenz on drums. See link below.
2017: I completed a 5th collection of tunes called Earwigging that has Dave Fellenz on drums and Joey Mentoni on keyboards. See link below.
2019: My latest album "Krazy in the Keppie" can be purchased at Apple Music, Amazon, or Google Play)
The rest of my music is at http://crystalcortex.bandcamp.com/
There are 5 other albums available at http://crystalcortex.bandcamp.com/ (They are free downloads.)
This is my Latest album: