At Burn, before Avatar get on stage, Manuvah to Land play. Members of THOTS, Pocket Change, and Fruit ‘n Veg are in the crowd. At the Wreslerish/The Arrows/kidofdoom gig, all these plus Gonzo Republic, City Bowl Mizers, South Jersey Pom Poms and Fire Through The Window (although they’re just there to hand out flyers) fill up the crowd.
In Durban it seems all bands are interested in other bands. Mostly there is a lot of hanging out together and many deep conversations about stylistic issues. In some cases there is a sound developing and, while there are exceptions to the rule, it’s obvious that there’s a punk attitude, reggae sounding style at the centre of it.
Even metal act Sheep Down has skank roots. Pocket Change and Manuvah to Land are the super chilled, lying on the beach proponent with a bit of dub thrown in. Fruit n’ Veg are the revolutionaries and few other bands don’t have at least one skank break in a set. But it's not all just a stolen skank riff here and there. Durban ferments real revolutionaries. Something about the heat, I don't know. The thickness of the atmosphere, the slow shush of waves and palm leaves, perhaps, but Durban folk don't lie down. There is enough complacency in the atmosphere.
Durban seems like a slow town, but the balance lies in the fact that below the surface its people are on it, more culturally charged than anywhere else in the country right now. It shows in the music, in the low down dirty mix of musical styles that lie half cast off by audiences around the city’s venues. That’s the main problem: the musicians give a fuck; the crowds do not.
It takes a Durban band leaving town for Durban to claim them as their own, to clamour to the occasional Botanic Garden gig. There is a lack of respect for the music here that is disquieting. It's almost as if by staying here, there must be something wrong with you, a reflection perhaps of the low status Durban seems to have in the eyes of other cities. But I'm not here to trumpet Durban - it has its own problems and its own beauties. And one of those beautiful things is the way there is a mutual respect between musicians and music industry peripherals based on a love of music. Sure there are the fat shark operators who prey on musicians’ need to pay rent, but these are a dying breed. The Department of Economic Development (yes, yes, the D.E.D) and serious key players in the industry are working towards building systems that standardize music business practices and methods.
One of these is the DC, Durban Collective, the brain child of no one in particular, which involves Andrew Loubscher (director of Slingshot Productions, responsible for some of the city’s bigger festivals) and the likes of Angus Joseph (writer, filmmaker and general revolutionary type), Bullet (Promoter of Hip Hop and champion of the previously disadvantaged) and amongst others, the organisers of the Uprising Festival, the boys from Sibling Rivalry.
The DC is also pulling in the support of other collectives, like the KZN Music Co-Op, the Bat Centre and members of PANZA . They are pulling in those in business (and we're talking about the business of original live music) so musicians, managers and sponsors can work together to find ways of acting with integrity in order to grow business and to generally get the locals to see what's under their noses. It's not just talk - budgets have been allocated, a researcher is already employed, and an administration system is going up. It seems, in Durban, the atmospheric complacency is countered by people who are actually standing up for the music.
This reflects across the board. It’s why there are so many good bands, so much instrument swapping, jamming, grooving, getting on top of it all. All types of actions are happening here. For live music in Durban, sure, some of the venues may be small, but four nights a week and Sunday days you are spoilt for choice, from Steve Newman to Steve Fataar, from Syd Kitchen to Fruit n Veg, From T.H.O.T.S. to The Otherwise, Esjay Jones to Gonzo Republic. Venues like Burn and Yossi's, event managers such as Luna Lounge and Slingshot, all of these things come together to mean that Durban produces good music, like it produces good art and good hearts.
I would like to wrap it all up neatly and say yes, there is a definite Durban sound going down and it's this or it's that. But it's not a sound so much as a rock ‘n roll attitude with a beatific smile. It's all the young punks and the old folk working together, playing better music all the time, rocking the crowds, high five-ing the sun, and generally being in it for the love of it.
It's infectious. No wonder Durban's exiles do well in other cities Pure hearted mostly and talented most likely, they work odd hours, compulsively, doing more, being more. Maybe I'm generalizing, maybe I'm from here, but I was away for a while and never knew what I was missing until I saw it again. Durban people, embodied mostly in a surf lifestyle, I guess, just don't want to be hassled man, but this does not mean they are lazy. The meaning of "being hassled" must be broken down. Durban's music doesn't take any shit; it's going to do what it wants to do and damn the torpedoes.
Am I making sense? Maybe you have to be here, but there is a beautiful explosion of many different heartbreakingly good kinds of bands or incarnations of bands happening in Durban right now. It has to be experienced to be believed. If I was to analyze it, I guess I could say it's a national phenomenon, this out-bursting of new music. But nowhere I've been in South Africa right now displays the cohesiveness of spirit this scene does. Here you will find the most unlikely legends unplugging in corner bars, smiling happy, playing their songs, sweating in the night, and at any one of those gigs you will find, in the audience, splinters of other bands, of so many bands, of so many good bands, because right now in Durban, there is a scene going on.
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