Hello, friends! Well, as you know by now myself, Nick “Dragon” Frost and Ian “Eagleheart” Kay have upgraded the Eiffel Tower, and a new era has dawned. While our new house will be less of a frat house, we promise that the sacrifice will have many benefits…
That said, the blog is finally being moved to www.thewildwest.co.za early May and I have been brainstorming about ways in which we can interact more personally with our readers… besides partying with them of course.
So, what I suggest is a new Category on the site entitled “Scribes”. This section is not for us to fill with content, but for all of you lazy bitches. Have you written any articles, poems or short stories, taken any photographs or recorded any video but you don’t know where to post them? Send them to us along with your name, and we will post it under the Scribes section for you, either under your name or anonymously; whichever you prefer.
Over the next week or two I will be collecting content, and when the blog gets moved to the new domain I will unveil the new section for your reading pleasure.
I hope you all enjoy The Wild West blog as much as we do.
Up until and including New Years’, the wild western dwellers made their mark on Stilbaai, if not in the figurative sense, then definitely in carbon-footprint sense.
So Stilbaai was hectic. Apart from the horde of psychedelic party-lovers who spread their wings and flew on over to Rezonance for New Years, Stilbaai seemed to be housing (or should it be ‘tenting’) most of South Africa’s populace. Or at least a great variety of them. Luckily we seem to fit right in with the people who don’t fit in.
Ian managed to throw-up on a bar-lady, so he was quite well-popular around the area; Dennis almost killed our entire campsite with, upon investigation, what appeared to be a wine-bottle grenade. But as far as leaving their mark goes, Shadowcat took the cake, clocking in a rough man-handling from the pigs, a night in the slammer, and a looming court-case for an outstanding DUI.
Another weekend has come and gone; and now Monday is molesting me with hard labour.
However, there is a bright side; I now have to try and recall all of the events from the past weekend so that I can relay them to you in a timely and entertaining fashion.
Let’s see how I do…
If you have been reading this blog faithfully, you will remember the first post we ever did in The Chronicles section. It was entitled ‘The Weekend We Almost Took Over The World‘ and in all sense of the phrase, that weekend was the start of Season 1.
It was also the weekend that we met the Durbanville girls; and if you want to know about (most of) the chaos that ensued, go read it bitch.
In any case, Friday would be the first time since back then that we would see them again, and we were looking forward to it. But I am getting ahead of myself, so let’s take a few steps back.
We were approached by Moshpit Muse to play a gig in Bellville at a venue called Ellingtons Saloon. We were slightly apprehensive as to what the place would be like, but Nick agreed as he was quite keen to play again. Tonight was the night!
We had planned the night in advance, and at the end of the day we decided that (for the most part) the core bro’s would all attend this particular night.
So, present were myself, Nick Frost, Dennis, Ian Kay, Roxy and Loki Swanepoel (who had just returned from Amsterdam 2 days prior) … we were ready for a night on the town. Now, Roxy is obviously not of the male persuasion but The Bro’s and I have long since established a short-list of girls that qualify as a “bro” – meaning: ‘does not get in the way on a bro night‘ and ‘holds their own‘.
So we were off. We were, predictably, late and we hadn’t even left Somerset West when we recieved a call from Kirsty asking where we were. Shocking.
Thirty minutes and a load of lucky detours later we arrived at Ellingtons, only to find that it was right across the road from Danskraal; a name that I had hoped never to have to ever type in my life.
We sucked it up, and started unpacking.
The venue inside was surprisingly clean and spacious, but I do take offence to the fact that it calls itself a “saloon”. It didn’t meet the criteria that I feel comes with such a name:
1. No swinging saloon doors to burst through dramatically. 2. No guy playing a piano that suddenly stops and looks over his shoulder on my entry. 3. No shady characters sitting around a table playing poker that also stop what they are doing to look at me as I enter.
However, on the upside, they had the shady clientelle covered. To be fair, besides the Moshpit Muse crew and the bands and their friends, most of the other patrons were very clearly of the Bellville persuasion.
I distinctly remember one of them wearing a “Bellville Breker” t-shirt, and he was one of the classy ones. I kid you not. This one giganticly fat asshole was a particular fine example of what a genetic cul-de-sac looks like. You know the type; sitting in his corner drinking beer out of what looks like a trough; shouting insults at whoever chooses to not actually pretend that they are a farmer just because they have a 4×4.
FUCK OFF with your “jean pant”, please!
Okay, but that all said and done, I did have a lot of fun. When we arrived we joined Kylie, Kim and Kirsty (The KKK) and a few of their other friends at a table and sat back to watch the bands.
First up was The Faded.
You know when a band goes on stage and you take one look at them and say to yourself: “Oh no…” because you realise that you will have to sit through eardrum-destroying screeching for the next 45 minutes? You know that feeling? Well…
I WAS WRONG.
Let me be the first person to apologize for judging a band just because they seemed young and nervous. Hey, don’t judge me!
The lead singer (Ricky) wore his cap backwards on his head. I had all the right in the world to judge…
…and then they started.
Wow! I love hearing fresh talent with real potential on the scene. These boys have a very mature sound, were solid enough to be taken seriously and handled the few covers that they played with super-serial style; PLUS, the lead singer has an impressive voice, especially considering his age (and size).
He pulled off the songs with almost NO slip-ups, but I did find myself thinking that the nature of the songs don’t do his voice justice – he projected well in the few parts where he had to cut loose and sing a bit higher.
This is what he should definitely focus on. Their lead guitarist also had a lot of potential and handled some complicated guitarwork with definite prowess.
I don’t want to seem like I am singling out those two in particular though – as a unit, the band were surprisingly good.
I have to admit that they won some points with me for covering “Check Yes Juliet” by We The Kings. It normally gets stuck in my head for days.
Next up was Killing Nights. We were looking forward to seeing them since Nick knows Kevin (lead vocalist) and I used to be in highschool with Albert van Zyl, the lead guitarist.
I don’t feel quite safe commenting on them since it was not my style of music, but Albert entertained me with some good guitar work and Kevin was pretty solid on the vocals. These guys shouldn’t have too much of a problem with popularity since their style is very much on the Prime Circle side of things. If that is your scene, definitely look these boys up – they will definitely get your party going.
Third up was NFM. It was way past eleven, and after 10 minutes of sound checking he was good to go.
The Bellville crowd did not know what hit them. I won’t say more about this… I would rather have the footage speak for itself!
When Nick was finished, we decided to have ‘one more’ drink before heading off. The Durbanville girls had a destination in mind and since we were hanging with them, we followed.
On their request we headed to Edwards Street, a side of the world that I am also not very familiar with, but I knew my way around. Not long after, we were in Cafe Venizia and the music was pumping.
It isn’t a particularly large venue but the barstaff were quick to help and the music wasn’t all that bad, not being quite my taste.
So, all things considered, a cool little place… expensive though. (I do realise that my concept of pricing is a bit different seeing that in the Wild West you can buy a double + mix for less that a draught).
After 2AM somewhere, we decided that it is time to change locations. The girls suggested that we go down to the dam near their house. This sounded fantastic, so off we went! We made a pitstop for a few bottles of wine and some blankets, naturally, so we were set for the rest of the night.
The dam was a very cool spot. A few cars drove past us suspiciously, but I don’t think we looked the criminal types… not sure if that is a good thing. A few people decided to stay in the cars, including Nick and Kylie.
In any case, we found a bench and Kim and I annexed it first, shortly before squeezing up to make space for Loki and Esna. The rest of the crowd had to stand, unfortunately, but at this point I was too cold to care… at least we had wine, cigarettes and good company.
Not too much later Dennis and Esna decided to hit the road, at which point we realised that not all of us are going to be able to fit into my car. I gave my keys to Nick so that him and a few others could go on a cigarette run and myself, Kim, Ian and Kirsty decided to suck it up and walk home. It wasn’t that far but try it at 4:30 in the morning in the freezing wind…
I’m not complaining! Really!
In any case, we arrived at Kirsty’s house way before the others came back from the cigarette run so we decided to make ourselves comfortable on the tarmac outside the garage. More wine did the rounds, but we were all dying for a cigarette and hunger was starting to set in.
Luckily we managed to drown it with some good conversation and a few good laughs. Really cool girls, those.
Not much later the rest showed up and after chilling for a little bit more we decided that we had to mission home. Yes, folks… it was getting light and we were still in the heart of Durbanville.
We said our goodbyes and off we went. The drive home felt like it took for hours…I kept myself pretty sober so I was the obvious choice to drive but at that point in the morning, fatigue started to set in. Not pretty. We made it safely home as always, and after acknowledging a really cool night, myself, Nick and Ian went our seperate ways to try and catch some shut-eye. This was about 6am.
Way too soon…
SATURDAY
My alarm started screeching at me at 9am. Yes… 9am.
Did I mention that my alarm started screeching at 9am? I did? It was the morning of our first “Wake & Bake” shoot so we had to perform.
So I begrudgingly got out of bed and I walk over to Nick’s room to try and wake him; it was like trying to wake someone up from a coma. I decided that it was way too much effort to try any further, so Itook a shower to wake myself up first… only to find that the water was freezing. Someone had turned off the geyser and forgotten to turn it back on, most likely me. Dammit.
With no milk for coffee and no shower to wake me up I realised that time was moving scarily fast. A half an hour later we were on our way to Stellenbosch. A quick pitstop for some beverages and I was feeling better too.
We arrived at Bello’s at about 10:15, and nobody was there. Ian had lent me his phone so I frantically tried to find anyone involved’s number on facebook; but to no avail. I went back to the car and decided that at least we had time for some extra planning.
At around 11, the rest of the crew showed up; namely Fourie Pretorius, Lize Kay and Simon Gerber.
Simon and Lize both represent LifeAfter5 with whom iamlovechild has built a relationship and Fourie owns Bello’s, drums for Heldervue, and is a close friend of ours.
Lize was cast to be our first guest-presenter since she has made quite a name for herself on MFM and MK, as well as her very honest band/gig reviews.
The filming.
We took about an hour or so to pre-plan what we were about to do and I used most of that time to prep the location and set up the camera shots. I was filming using a tripod and Nick was going hand-held to give the takes a very dynamic feel.
I am going to reserve my thoughts about the filming besides that we were busy for about 4 hours and I had loads of fun, and we managed some GREAT footage – for whoever is reading this, keep your eyes peeled for “Wake & Bake” … you are going to love it!
If you are interested in seeing the teaser trailer, check it over HERE:
I left Stellenbosch tired but extremely happy. I really can’t wait for my next taste of show business, so hopefully we will manage to make it a regular affair.
I raced home and jumped in bed. Until about 6pm I was dead to the world! Not long after I had woken up, Simon Gerber arrived for our next round of filming:
Getting Drunk For Science
Glacau Vitamin Water had sent LifeAfter5 a case of mixed flavour vitamin waters so that we can test whether it alleviates a basic hangover. We thought this a good and entertaining cause so for the next few hours we filmed (very scientifically, I promise) each of us either drinking alcohol mixed with the water, alongside the water or without the water so that we could compare hangovers. We had a fun night – participants were myself, Nick Frost, Simon Gerber, Loki Swanepoel and the lovely Roxy Bayman.
If you are curious about the results, watch this space – we will have the video up soon!
SUNDAY
On Sunday, time and space became completely irrelevant. I was woken up at some ungodly hour by… I have no idea who. I really don’t. In any case, a cup of coffee was shoved in my face and I had to slowly start waking up to do the last session of filming: the morning after.
As my brain started gearing up I realised that the fact that it IS actually gearing up is quite a surprise. I felt quite fatigued but I had no headache; no other symptoms; essentially no hangover.
Turns out that our experiment was a resounding success seeing as Loki (who was not drinking the vitamin water but was drinking the same amount as us) looked like death incarnate and according to him, he was convinced that he was dying.
Big ups to Glacau, I say!
The rest of the day was a blur of movies, series, food, cigarettes and laziness. I decided that I was not going to make the Akelian Circus, since my funds were running quite low. It was heart-breaking. Never miss an Akelian Circus until you have been to about a hundred – and even then, only one or two misses are forgiveable.
True story!
All I know is I headed to bed around 1am, and the house was still void of life… but I also know that I was woken up not too long after with a Big Mac McMeal being presented to me by the Frost and Roxy.
That’s how we roll. That, however, is the end of my tale. More to come soon… I promise.
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