My first blog

Well, that's not entirely true. More like "My first blog with blogspot" or "My first blog in ages" or "My first blog of the day". I can go on for weeks, but I won't.

Last night I spent the evening at Tanz Cafe with the inimitable Paul E. Flynn (Sugardrive) and Cito (Wonderboom) watching their concept band, Absinthe. These are two guys that I used to idolise in High School and now I work with them professionally.

Wonderboom was my first concious experience of South African music. My buddy Jord and I saw them open at Live's South African concert in 2000 (remember "Lightning Crashes"?). I had actually seen them the night before when I went to the concert with all my other friends. Jord had graciously given me his ticket so that I could invite someone else to come with us. That person's long gone. Anyway, I digress. We both became fans and spent the week listening to the EP "Never Ever Ever". It was like nothing we'd ever heard before. The following week we decided to go to our first gig. The gig was at Bugsy's in Randburg and obviously being only 16, we weren't allowed in the venue. My mom called the venue manager (his name was Steve I think) and told him that her son and his friend just wanted to come to the gig and were not there to drink. Steve told her that if she could put that in a letter and get Jord's mom to do the same then he'd allow us entry to watch Wonderboom.

Jord and I were dropped off at the door and went on to show the bouncer our letters of permission from our mothers. After consulting with Steve, he let us in. That's right.. I was allowed entry into my very first gig thanks to a letter from my mom. Reminded me of primary school days when a letter from her would get me out of the cross country. Aah.. bless flat feet!

Jord and I followed Wonderboom as much as we could and thanks to them we were introduced to the music of Sunways, Sugardrive, Boo! and well, thanks to the snowball effect every other South African band I listen to today.

I never tire seeing Paul and Cito perform together. We spent the rest of the night after the gig talking shit, discussing the awesomeness of Oasis, laughing, watching my video clips from the Sound Relief Concert (more on that at a later stage but it was Kings Of Leon and Midnight Oil we were watching) and having my new converse shoes stepped on by Cito ("you gotta get them dirty!").