Author: dpelser

Skemervonkel In 1980 Ralph Rabie did one of his first live performances at a Skemervonkel event at the University of Potchefstroom. The setlist for that evening makes interesting reading because it reveals that, at that time, Rabie was still performing mainly cover versions of songs with English lyrics. The set included one original Rabie composition, which was also in English.… Read more →

A video that was made for the song, “Die Ander Kant”, which appeared on Johannes Kerkorrel’s last album, later took on much more significance in the wake of Rabie’s suicide. In an interview, the poet, Johann de Lange, who was a close friend of Kerkorrel, described how alarmed he had been by the imagery of the video. Rabie appears in… Read more →

These are the liner notes from the Johannes Kerkorrel compilation album, “Pêrels voor die Swyne”, which was released after his death. The liner notes give a very complete overview of Johannes Kerkorrel’s life and are reproduced in full and unedited by me. It’s a big read, but very worthwhile because you will learn a lot about the life and times… Read more →

After the Gathering After the bands Corporal Punishment and Illegal Gathering broke up, James Phillips went on to form the Cherry Faced Lurchers. Phillips had decided to leave Rhodes University to complete his degree at the University of the Witwatersrand. In Johannesburg, he reconnected with Lee Edwards who he had met while living in Grahamstown. In the interim, Mike de… Read more →

Akademie vir Dramakuns Gerard Scholtz was a lecturer at the Akademie vir Dramakuns when he first noticed a young man, dressed in an army uniform, who would sometimes play piano in one of the school’s rehearsal rooms. When Scholtz needed a singer to play the piano for guests at a function at the Paarl City Hall, he remembered the student… Read more →

Johnny is nie dood nie, a movie set during the Voëlvry era and directed by Christiaan Olwagen recently won a number of awards at the annual Silwerskerm Festival. Read about it here. This new movie got me thinking about the influence that Ralph Rabie and the other Voëlvry musicians have had on contemporary Afrikaans musicians. KKNK 2003 After Ralph Rabie’s… Read more →

THIS POST IS IN HONOUR OF JAMES PHILLIPS (22 JANUARY 1959 – 31 JULY 1995) Corporal Punishment After the band Corporal Punishment broke up in 1980, Carl Raubenheimer moved to Cape Town and James Phillips enrolled at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. Read about Corporal Punishment here. There were many reasons for the break up of Corporal Punishment. Phillips said that… Read more →

Koos was a very influential band whose music was truly ‘alternative’ although the band hated that label. A previous post about Koos has appeared on this blog you can read it here Thanks to Donald Ferguson, who took many photographs of the Voëlvry and other bands, some new photos of Koos have emerged. This post adds to the previous one… Read more →

A new documentary about the Radio Rats was screened at the 2016 Durban film festival. This got me thinking about the impact that Radio Rats had on the musicians and bands who were part of the Voëlvry tour. In 1978, the Radio Rats, who had signed a contract with Jo’burg Records, booked a day in a studio to record a… Read more →

In the 1980s South Africa seemed to be poised on a knife edge. Unrest erupted in black townships and PW Botha’s government was forced to broaden the activities of the South African Defence Force (SADF) to include maintaining order in the townships as well as to protecting the country’s borders. Thousands of young, white men were conscripted into the army… Read more →