I’m spending my morning with dead bands who were buried in South Africa.
Our music industry isn’t kind to the alternate scene. Goths, metalheads and rockers are too often consigned to ashes before reaching maturity. Their killers are corporations and demographics. Corps because we can’t compete in the money game. An overseas band lands as a million dollar package (videos, posters, adverts) that’s worth more than our whole scene combined. Demographics because there are 10 black people for every white person. There’s no racism in that statement – just simple fact because rock ‘n roll, like almost everything after the alleged end of apartheid, hasn’t mustered willingness to cross the colour divide. Sure, there are rare exceptions such as the astounding Blk JKS but they’re like a lonely torch being shone in the deepest coal mine. In South Africa, Gospel, Kwaito and McDonalds Pop rule (in that order).
And let’s not forget, or underestimate, the universal fallibility of the human condition; that ability to self-conflagarate when egos become bigger than determination. We don’t live in an age where schools and parents teach their budding adult offspring to grow balls or confident clits. Continue reading
