Sounds of Cape Town: Extraordinary Expeditions for the Traveling Musician

Sounds of Cape Town: Extraordinary Expeditions for the Traveling Musician Part2

siyaya — Fri, 2 Nov 2012 02:55:00 GMT

Ilitha Ilanga

siyaya — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 09:49:00 GMT

Sounds of Cape Town: Day 4

siyaya — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 23:55:00 GMT

4 October 2012 :

To some relief to our ‘night-before’ bodies, today was yet another rainy day... We looked through the videos and realised that we had way more footage than we would actually be able to fit into a three minute video. This meant we had to reorganise our clips and discuss how we would like the story to flow. We decided on the footage we thought we still needed to take.

After running some errands, because yes, life goes on even when you’re shooting, we went to the Eastern Food Bazaar in town. This buzzing place never fails to amaze me! You can find a variety of Indian, to Chinese to Middle-Eastern cuisine all in one spot. The food is but one part of the experience! The whole place’s decor is overwhelmingly interesting: There’s a big old bronze typing machine, huge ancient-looking wooden statues and a variety of other eye stopping objects.

While there are hoards of customers placing orders, the staff works at maximum efficiency, and the mere chaos of this place makes it special! Also, I don’t think there is any other place in Cape Town where you can get a full tray of well prepared food for as little as R30!

With our bellies full, we headed to Sgt Pepper’s, a rock ‘n roll themed bar and pizzeria in Long Street. They have posters of Led Zeppelin, Elvis Presley, The Doors, Queen and the like on the walls. Naturally the music they play there is brilliant, and in my opinion, they make the best pizzas in town. Not only can you count on the perfect, thin, crisp base, but the toppings are anything but ordinary...for example, their cleverly named “Wild Thing” with kudu, red onion, pecorino and a side of mustard! Yummy!

The barman and one waiter are in a band together, so we ended up chatting music and whiskey for a quite a while... After kicking some ass on the foosball table, Olof and I headed home to rest our souls.

Lion's Head pt2: Interviews

siyaya — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 02:45:00 GMT

Sounds of Cape Town: Day 3

siyaya — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 02:19:00 GMT

3 October 2012 - Day 3:

Today’s weather was horrid! We realised that it would not be a good day for hitting the markets as planned. Olof decided to use this time to visit some people he was planning on seeing later during his visit. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to do some journal writing of our experiences so far. I also did some research on events/gigs happening in Cape Town for the week to come. (Obviously I ended up jamming for the rest of the afternoon...)

At about 7pm Olof and I met up at &Union, a local music venue. What makes this venue special is not only their no-fuss outside bench setup but also the fact that they are the renowned craft beer bar of the town (and the first in South Africa). Their menu offers a variety of flame-grilled German sausages of the best quality. As well as stakes, Prego-rolls and hamburgers, all grilled on the open flame to make sure you drool long before you are served!

One of the best things about this place is their friendly, well-trained staff whom are eager to serve you another Bucket ‘O Love (3 of your choice of craft beers served in a bucket of ice, at a very reasonable price).

As soon as our bellies were filled, the band of the evening started their set. Sannie Fox, the leading lady, definitely knows her blues. She hits her notes gracefully, and the soulful moans together with her crisp clean guitar work, interprets every song’s story spot-on.

Whilst manoeuvring around the stage, we bumped into one of Olof’s friends who told us that there was another gig happening later that evening at Carnival Court. So as soon as Fox’s set was done, we marched over to the backpacker cum bar cum music venue.

This place had such a warm and welcoming feel to it! The fact that it is a backpackers, gives it an international vibe where everybody seems to be ready to make friends! While a friendly barman served us some drinks, the band set up... I discovered that the guitar-playing lead vocalist is actually the owner of Carnival Court, after he jokingly told me, “This is the only place where they let me play!”...

The rest of the band was just as interesting...The drummer (my personal favourite) was a well-over-his-60s, tall and skinny man, with long grey hair and an even longer grey beard! He was dressed rock ‘n roll style: jeans, t-shirt and a badged-up waistcoat with a tattoo lurking from underneath his sleeve...The bass-player was a relaxed gentleman with a stylish, black leather cap on and boy, did know his stuff! Olof’s friend also added some harmonica and pretty awesome vocals to some of the songs.

Afterwards, a small lady with a BIG voice took to the stage with the bass player whom then showed us that he also plays excellent jazz guitar! Together they ran through some jazz classics that had me singing along all the way!

Before we knew it, it was already past 1am, which meant it was time for the journey home!

Sounds of Cape Town: Day 2

siyaya — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 00:41:00 GMT

Quite early, the sun peeped through the blinds to remind us that we had lots to do for the day! After breakfast, Olof and I took a minibus taxi to the V&A Waterfront to catch and interview some street artists performing there.

As we arrived at the entrance of the V&A, there was a marimba band ready to greet the camera with melodic tunes and rhythms! While they were taking a break, I asked them some questions regarding their instruments and songs. My favourite part of the interview was when Sipho (the ‘lead vocalist’) introduced me to his soprano marimba, saying “Her name is ‘Ilitha Ilanga’...” which means ‘Sunbeam’ in Xhosa! A perfect name for such a cheerful instrument! They quickly jumped back into their second set and it was really interesting to see them rotate between the different marimbas and drums with ease - and passion!

We then took a short walk along the harbour before we discovered some suave looking gentlemen, all dressed in red collar shirts, setting up their instruments outside. There was a bass-guitar, amp and all, connected somehow to somewhere with a lead running through the wooden deck (...probably plugged in at some nearby restaurant)! They formed a cosy ensemble called ‘Mr. Peterson and the Boys’ consisting of: Mr. Peterson himself jangling his banjo; a bad-to-the-bone, beat-maker bass player with a pair of shades concealing an eye patch; a fellow with a 50cent G-unit cap on, curling around his accordion (whom by the way is a splitting image of famous guitar-player John Lee Hooker); and of course, a savvy saxophonist jamming out some familiar jazzy melodies. Together, these cats proved to be a swinging sensation! They were also very eager and friendly interviewees!

Afterwards we found an interesting African ‘can-guitar’ and drum stall inside the Waterfront’s indoor market...which inevitably ended in a jam session...

We then took a minibus taxi to the CBD (central business district) and it wasn’t difficult to find more street artists. There was a large group of young girls singing and dancing. All of them were wearing ankle chains with cut-out aluminium can tops attached to them – making a distinct sound as they were stomping and moving.

At Green market square (with even more stalls selling drums, beads, art etc) we had some freshly baked calamari, beer-battered fish and of course ‘slap-tjips’ (sloppy potato fries).

After also feeding our internet addiction, we scouted for some unknown bars, hidden spots and live music venues. Before we knew it, the sun started to sit low, so we took a taxi back home.

We had some wine and watched through the videos we had taken to that point. It was rewarding to see our story come together, but it was also good to see where we could improve our camera and presenting work. We discussed what we needed to film the next day, had a shot of vodka and hit the sack.

Sounds of Cape Town: Day 1

siyaya — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 22:36:00 GMT

1 October 2012 - Day 1:

Olof arrived in Cape town at about 1pm and I was pleased to see that he had brought the sun with him! His timing was immaculate since there is no better time to climb Lion’s Head than during a full-moon! We fuelled-up for our planned climb with a Austin Powers pizza at Primi Piatti (...hehe). During our meal we discussed the general structure of our video.

With a fully charged Canon 60D we started our hike. We were both in awe of the scenery around us –this is truly the best way, in my opinion, to get a 360’ view of the cape peninsula and Table Mountain! Along the way we got some scenic shots and were lucky enough to be just in time to witness some tandem paragliders take their big leap!

After about an hour of fair climbing we arrived at the top. The view makes the last intense session before you reach the top, well worth it! There was quite a number and variety of people up there and the air was filled with appreciation and excitement of what was to come... Even a sense of relief that the climb was over by some! As the sun set, the sky became a canvas with hues of red, pink, purple and a creamy blue –and the cameras were going wild. Two champagne corks were popped by some clever climbers! The people were in the right mood for some interviews...

When the red ball finally sunk into the ocean, we turned around to see the glittering city lights going on, on the other side. The grand finale was definitely when the orange moon started peeping out its head from over the mountains and the thin layer of clouds in the far! You could hear a number of gasps and sighs as a result of this spectacle.

A friendly German and his new photographer friend came to offer some ‘papsak’ (boxed wine), humour and anecdotes. We all sat on a flat rock watching the moon, chatting and defending ourselves from the cold wind by making sure the glasses kept full! We finally embarked upon our journey down, which to your reassurance isn’t so difficult to do on a moonlit evening. We decided to go for a bite at Rafiki’s bar, but their kitchen was unfortunately closed, so we settled for some beers and eventually a “BP- pie” (at the petrol station’s convenience store) just before bed! Wow – what a day!

How our story began!

siyaya — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 03:47:00 GMT

Around the 25^th of September I received a message from Olof on Facebook with only the link to this competition. As I started reading the details, an uncontainable excitement filled my body! My mind automatically started coming up with ideas and ways in which we could do this...The catch however, was that I live in Cape Town and he lives in Pretoria...I phoned him immediately to confront him over the fact that he had sent me information which left me excited and frustrated at the same time: ”We’ll have to work together and there is a proper distance between us!” He laughed and to my amazement asked when I’m available and whether I have somewhere for him to sleep...A few days later he took a 22 hour long bus ride down to Cape Town!

Watch this space...we'll update our daily journal entries, so you can read about our whole experience!

My Scholarship entry - My Kind of Adventure

siyaya — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 01:58:43 GMT

Culture is expressed through sound -So what better way to introduce Cape Town than giving you a tour of its street music, the people and instruments that create it and naturally the sights, flavors and stories that inspire these sounds! We start off with an inspiring climb up Lion’s Head, followed by a street-view music montage and end off with a sunset at Camps bay!

Filmmaker: Olof Bergh. "I play guitar in a blues band called The Smoking Mojos and I do some freelance camera operator work for audio visual staging companies, the occasional wedding and other boring corporate productions. I recently had the opportunity to work as a camera assistant on a travel and cooking show and learned a lot from some experienced dp's. I would love to go to Rio and seek to capture it's essence trough my lens"

Presenter: Reeds Erasmus. "I have never presented before, but have always silently done so while travelling around! (I’m a Globe Trekker junky!) This is definitely something I’m going to keep doing! Winning this would be the cherry on top of an already very rewarding and insightful experience...you’ll see more of us either way!"

Let music be the vehicle to uncover