Photo by: Christelle Duvenage, we-are-awesome.com/

 
The video for ‘Tattoo’ has just come out, what’s the reaction been like? Are you guys stoked?

We are really stoked! It’s rad and super simple and people seem to be enjoying it.

Mnusic is releasing soon, how did the production of the album go in comparison to your first?

Our first album had a kind of low budget, DIY feel to it, so for our second one, we decided to go more high production. We produced it in Greenside with Eric Broucek, who had done a few of our friends’ albums before. It was great.

The Infomercial and current website design, how did this concept take form?

We came along it by chance really, we wanted to rip off one of those pamphlets, but in a funny way. We were going for funny, but it came off weird, I think. We might have rubbed some people up the wrong way but it was never our intention to offend. We just thought it was a humorous take on a certain idea, and had a lot of fun shooting and editing. Shooting especially was super fun.

Is humour an important element for you when it comes to performing?

We’ve developed a personality for our band, if we tried to do something serious it wouldn’t go down well. Like if an emo band tried to be funny. No.

Your Facebook page says your interests are Jiving, where are we likely to find you out and about? Where are your favourite hang outs?

Usually whenever we play a gig, we’ll stay out for a while afterwards. Other than that, we hang out at my brother’s coffee shop a lot. Oh, and we like to go bowling.

Not so much the hedonistic, Rock ’n Roll lifestyle for you guys then?

We keep it pretty clean. In the early days none of us drank. Now we drink a little, but I wouldn’t call us alcoholics or hedonists, but we still like rock ’n roll! It’s pretty hard to play a good gig if you’re drinking, so we keep it clean.

Photo by: Christelle Duvenage, samusicscene.co.za

Which local bands are you supporting at the moment?

Beach party. We only saw them live once but they were great! New Loud Rockets, they’re fantastic. Eat This Horse, we found them on MySpace. Isochronous, dig them live.

What genres are your favourites and who have been your greatest influences?

We all obviously have different influences, but we all like dance music and surf punk.

And then of course, there are those bands that make you remember your late teens and driving in your moms car, like Bloc Party.

In 2010 you toured Japan, tell us a bit more about that. What are your favourite memories from the tour?

It was the best time of our career so far! Three weeks of being in a super foreign place with our best friends, playing every night, getting home super late, then waking up early for sound check.

The Japanese also love to buy memorabilia and scream and shout for you when you’re on stage, and after every show we were brought little gifts backstage. It made you feel like you were in a “real” band. That was REALLY cool!

So for the Mnusic tour – any plans for taking it overseas?

No plans as of yet, but that’s always the best part of releasing a new album: touring, so hopefully! We just have to organize it, I guess!

Finish these sentences:

Mnusic will… make you happy.

Damn all you… fortune cookies.

Make sure you always… pack an extra shirt for a gig. (Courtesy of Mic the bassist)

This little… piggy went to market.

Desmond and the Tutus might not be your typical rock stars, but they’re clearly doing something right.

desmondandthetutus.co.za

Interview by: Jocelyn Richter via phone

Photography: Christelle Duvenage

Highly anticipated for a release on our shores, The Bang Bang Club film was finally close enough to home for me to catch it; turns out that anticipation is as much as the film could build.

The story is inexplicably told retroactively by Taylor Kitch’s inaudible version of Kevin Carter which is the first in a long list of unnecessary and impotent stylistic choices. The eyes and ears of the audience is mostly Ryan Phillippe’s Greg Marinovich, who keeps his performance subtle enough for us not to notice the excessive overuse of local lingo. However, much to my disappointment most of the remaining cast end up sounding more like caricatures of South Africans.

Putting aside my petty gripes on linguistics, the biggest problem I found is the lack of direction within the film. Steven Silver is a first time feature director, but with his extensive documentary experience I feel he might have let things go on too long as is expected from that style of film making. The bullet pacing of the film doesn’t allow for us to build relationships with anyone other than two of the four members of the Bang Bang Club and a handful of bit parts along the way. Standout performances, Neels van Jaarsveld (in the role of Joao Silva) being a prime example, beg for more screen time but is given so little. Events in the personal lives of The Bang Bang Club simply happen without much tension or investment. Greg’s relationship with his wife for example just happens and you feel cheated out of caring because we’re forced to simply accept it, not want it. Side characters are introduced who are supposed to be important and then disappear until a quick mention later on while others hop on later and play no significant role other than “they were there.”

Having said that, the film is not without merit, where Steven Silver lacks in narrative direction he excels in recreating the carnage of those turbulent years in South Africa’s history. You almost feel the heat from the fires and you might find yourself clenching the seat as The Bang Bang Club run in to take that shot while dodging bricks, pangas and bullets. The imagery was brutal without being too graphic and it really gives you a sense of how cheap life was in a time where at least four factions were at each other’s throats. I suspect Steven Silver’s documentary experience lent in no small way to how real the conflict felt; finding myself anticipating the next big photographic excursion. The cinematography is excellent, every frame oozing the gritty nature of the conflict and drawing you into every frame; Miroslaw Baszak knows how to make grimy attractive. He will find his niche in the horror genre I bet in the years to come although considering the subject matter of this film Baszak fits like a glove here.

In summary, The Bang Bang Club has some good to offer and historically it’s important (I get that), but as a piece of entertainment it fails to bring itself across as an experience. It’s more a bullet point of events told without the emotional attachment that it so strongly needed for a human interest story about four dedicated men braving the most intense riots in our nation’s history for that perfect picture.