It is acknowledged that Joan Jett has been an inspirational figure for female musicians since the 1970s. Not a musician but just a young teenaged, girl growing up in apartheid South Africa, her questioning of gender stereotypes gave me hope for a better future. Read more →
We are very excited about the movie Johnny is nie Dood nie, which hits South African Cinemas on 5th May 2017. Here is a synopsis of the plot, kindly provided to us by the team behind this new movie. It’s 2002. Four friends are having a braai on the Sunday after Johannes Kerkorrel’s suicide. They reminisce about their days as… Read more →
Before Bernoldus Niemand, before Johannes Kerkorrel and before Voëlvry there was a South African punk band called Wild Youth. Exploding out of Durban, for a few years they blazed their way through South Africa, leaving many lesser bands in their wake. Known for their incendiary performances which left even James Phillips (who would later record under the alias Bernoldus Niemand)… Read more →
This is a story, written by Michael Markovitz with photos by Steve Hilton-Barber, about Voëlvry that appeared in the Sunday Star on the 30th July 1989. Thanks to Mark Pautz for sharing this wonderful piece of memorabilia. Read more →
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 →