I like this song Sunday! - Beatenberg, Rafael

So I'm home for a while after spending the best 5 weeks in the UK, and all that time in Asia. Have missed a ton of SA bands playing at festivals and events and am a bit behind on whats happening and whats good with local music at the moment but heard Beatenberg the other day and was reminded of this song they released a little while ago, enjoy!

I like this song Sunday! - Hozier, Take Me To Church

(I realise its not Sunday anymore or yet but a scheduled post didn't seem to work here so Wednesday it is!)

I don't write enough about music on this blog and there's so much good stuff I've heard in the past few weeks that I need to share, so this blog has just given birth to "I like this song Sunday". Songs that I like that I hope you will too:)

First post has to be Hozier. I recently took a trip to Ireland and saw him play at Electric Picnic Festival (loads more on that later). He was so great and hes a lovely Irish man too! The entire crowd was singing along to all his songs I couldn't help but become a fan girl right then and there. I made sure I got hold of all his songs when I got home so this has pretty much been on repeat for the last two weeks:

Ansan Valley Rock Festival!

The annual Valley Rock festival was held right outside the city I live in here in Korea. Usually held at the Jisan Forest Resort and called the Jisan Valley Rock festival, this year the venue moved and the festival was held on Daebu island which is about a 30 minute drive from Ansan. The lineup was pretty great and although I missed Vampire Weekend and The XX.. I know :( it was still a really great festival. I did however get to see the Stereophonics, Skrillex, Yellowcard, Steve Vai, Fun, a bunch of other super cool Korean acts and... Foals!!! It rained for a lot of the festival which made the already swampy land on Daebu pretty much a mud bath but we threw on a couple of plastic ponchos and kept going.

I find that it always brings a certain feeling of pride when an international act plays in your country. Its kind of a big deal when any international bands or acts come play in SA and they usually only come one at a time and do individual shows. Being able to see a bunch of big acts from all over the world at one festival was pretty great and they were playing in my home away from home which made it even better.

                     

Bus hangovers from Noreabanging till 8am the night before.

Some videos of the festival:

Its Wednesday, here's some music

A bit of a mish mash of a couple of songs that I've been playing on repeat for the last few weeks:

Matt Corby - Brother
 This voice. These eyebrows.
And while I'm at it, There's this too, it is so great..
Laura Mvula - Green Garden.
 My new go to apartment dance party for one starter
The Preatures - Is This How You Feel? 
Another goodie for my apartment dance party for one

HAIM - Falling

Solange - Losing You.
This isn't new but someone I met when I first arrived in Korea reminded me how great this song and its video is and its been a favourite ever since (The video because it was shot in South Africa.. obvs)

Shortstraw - Good Morning Sunshine. Some hometown Joburg favourites
Al Bairre - We Move On. Another SA band making nice music.

DFA too old to be new, too new to be classic

I found this cool little documentary on we-are-awesome the other day. DFA record label is 12 years old this year. They have launched a bunch of different bands and artists careers in the past 12 years, bands that I am a really big fan of.. Its interesting to see the inner workings of a label like this, a label that has produced some super unique sounds from different artists like The Rapture, LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip. Other than travelling the world, this would be my dream job, well one of them anway..

And a few of my DFA favourites that always get the shoulders shaking, watch these too

Also also if you haven't had a listen to the new Daft Punk album you really should, like now..

LCD Soundsystem once did a song that is pretty fitting for that at the moment :) K I'm done

That is all

So I've missed RHCP and Rise Against. The Kooks were announced  the other day and now Alt-J is going to be playing in Joburg too... Seriously bands of the world, could you not have picked another year to play in SA?

I'll just be here watching this:

In The City and 5Gum events... eventually..

This post is suuuper overdue but here are a few pics of two pretty brillo shows that happened in Jozi a couple of weeks ago:

First up was the Bloc Party In the City event at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown. Bloc Party were soooo good and besides the shortage of bars and girls who wanted to bitch fight everyone (true story) it was a pretty superb night!

They had these red carpets set up with photo booth things attached at the end, it was so hard walking past them and not having a few snaps taken, we may have overindulged a tad :D 

Next up later on in the month was the next installment of the #5gumexperience held at a 'secret' location. Remember the last one when they brought out Two Door Cinema Club? This time they treated us to two super cool dj's A-TRAK and Hudson Mohawke. The whole night was organised perfectly, as 5Gum does, from the bus that took us to the secret location which turned out to be the old train station next to the Nelson Mandela bridge! (So awesome!) to the ease of not standing in one single queue the entire night, win!

I managed to take a couple of snaps (literally a couple, like 2 haha)

Here are some pics from @5GumSA's twitter feed from the night: 

So all in all two pretty fantastic weekends were had :)

In the City.

This weekend Bloc Party will be hitting our shores!! Vodacom Unlimited is bringing them out for one night in Joburg as part of the first annual In the City event at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown.

Its pretty ridiculous how excited I am to see them so expect a super long Bloc Party story next week ;) If you're going to the show here's a little awesomeness to get you in the mood... or persuade you to come if you don't already have your ticket!

FOMO setting in

What would normally be the most exciting thing to happen like ever has become a bit of a bummer for me. As a bit of a live music fanatic and uber fan of both these bands, the amount of talk surrounding RHCP coming to SA in Feb next year and Rise Against coming in March next year has been a bit of a bummer to deal with. I would normally be really excited for all this talk but my plans of teaching abroad soon mean that I won’t be here to witness the greatness that is coming to our shores :(

Although I’m almost 101 percent sure that I will be leaving the country before the end of the year, a serious amount of Fomo has set in.

Fomo: "Fear of missing out. The fear that if you miss a party or event you will miss out on something great"

Not to be confused with this fomo

Fomo: "A fake homosexual man who tries to score chicks by being sensitive and by dressing very well, also called a metrosexual."

Haha! thanks Urban dictionary

Anyway to cure my fomo (for now) Here are some of my RHCP and Rise Against faves :) Enjoy!

So sweet, Oppikoppi 2012!

About two weeks ago I celebrated my five year Oppikoppi anniversary! (I feel like I need a medal for this :P ) and it was yet another flippen cool weekend. The theme this year was ‘Sweet thing’, kind of ironic as the widespread thorny Oppikoppi farm is anything but ‘sweet’. It is however dusty, rough, loud, drunk, dusty oh and did I mention dusty? The increase of crowd capacity to 20 000 people probably added to that extra bit of dust but made it one epic weekend :)

The after effects of the weekend of cold and dust got me bad, and after sounding like a teenage boy going through puberty for a week or so I’ve finally regained my actual voice just in time for this post.

Highlights:

• Arriving and having camping space reserved and a tent set up already (Courtesy of my buds Rox and Kaylee :) no Kreef Hotel needed!)

• After their couple of year hiatus, finally getting to watch Thieve perform live

• Desmond & the Tutus… always

• Persuading Rox to brave the Koppi and watch PH Fat with me

• Making new friends after being left on my lonesome to watch Fokof.

• Fokofpolisiekar… also always :)

• Enter Shikari, Wow!

Lowlights:

• Paying money to charge my phone and then no one responding when trying to get hold of them :|

• aKING’s sound… so bad, hence the PH Fat mission.

• Standing on a rock trying to catch a glimpse of the action at the Red Bull stage… falling off rock :| (must have been the wind that blew me over, it’s not like I overdid it on my first night there or anything, lolz :D )

• Being left with no phone and no way of finding anyone to watch things I wanted to watch with.

• 13 year old boy voice syndrome..

So all in all Oppi fifth year = another great year :) Thanks again Oppikoppi for a super cool festival :)

Le TDCC story :)

Most folks would know that Two Door Cinema Club, once a little, now pretty massive, indie band from Northern Ireland hopped onto our shores this past weekend, played a spectacular show and possible made my life.

I really should have blogged about this earlier but didn’t in fear that I would get way too excited about them coming, be really unlucky and not win tickets and be forever bummed out and vent my sadness on twitter by using #emotweet everyday…

But heyooooo! That doesn’t need to happen because I did win tickets and I did go to the show and after this weekend I am as happy as a pig in poo :)

It all started on the 8th of February when the twitterverse exploded with the news that 5 Gum SA was bringing TDCC to SA for two shows in March. Joburg on the 2nd and Cape Town on the 3rd.

I died a little then came back to life then died a little again, let out a high pitched squeal of excitement, then walked around with a stupid massive grin on my face the entire day.

That grin got a little smaller when it became known that we couldn’t buy tickets but had to win them. I tried to remember the last time I had won anything or if I ever had won anything in my life; nothing came to me, panic set in and prayers started straight away.

When 5 Gum eventually announced how we could enter I got on the frantic entering train, liked 5 Gum SA on Fbook, went onto the #5gumexperience app and sent about 15 applications through to win tickets. We could apparently only enter once but I felt a little luckier every time I entered so it made sense to go overboard.

Ten days later winners slowly got their tickets sent to them. Starting in Cape Town they made their way alphabetically through the list of winners. Joburg started, so did constant refreshing on my Gmail account. Friends sent messages saying they got tickets, I started freaking out and eventually I saw that little one message received icon and my entire year (so far) was made!

Fast forward to last Friday night :D

The venue was incredible. I wasn’t too sure what would be done to Nasrec Expo centre because it is practically just a super large room, but wowzers it looked amazing! There was a massive stage with plenty of space to get your dance on, big screens in case you didn’t manage to push your way through to the front and lights creating a cool ambience (if you will) hanging from the ceiling. It all worked and worked really well.

Isochronous and Desmond and the Tutus opened for TDCC. Isochronous were pretty fantastic and are brilliant live but I’m not sure if they quite fitted in 100% with the rest of the line-up. Little too serious for that gig.

The Tutus rocked it as usual, making me dance the dance of all dances :P

Desmond & the Tutus

A little break and Two Door Cinema Club were on! The band that I had longed to see since forever were finally here!

I managed to make my way to the front(ish) and with the help of some friendly faces, sang every word, danced to every song and had whistling matches because I was convinced that just cheering and clapping wasn't loud enough :D

Alex Trimble & Kevin Baird from Two Door Cinema Club

The band was so together and slick. There wasn’t one bum note and every little unique sound that you hear on their albums was there, sounding 10 times better too. They also played a couple of new songs from their upcoming album that they’re currently working on. If those few songs were anything to go by, the next album is going to be something else.

The night ended with more dancing with Haasbroek supplying some cool tunes for all the kids longing for the awesomeness of the night to carry on… (me).

Haasbroek

5 Gum really knows how to put on an incredible gig. A million thank yous aren’t enough for a life-making, super well put together show :)

Found this video on He who says hmm’s blog. Its TDCC performing What You Know at Nasrec at the Joburg show.

Music Niceness :)

Being out of the country for 3 weeks I missed out on 3 weeks of repetitive radio play on certain songs yay!But also missed out on some amazing new discoveries that are getting radio play right now.

I heard this song for the first time the other day and I've heard it probably 3 times since then but I really haven't gotten sick of it.. not even a little bit.

This guys name is Gotye. Hes a Belgian Australian (strange combo yes) but wowzers does he make some cool music :)

Have a listen to a bunch of his other stuff here

Also, this news is a tad old but...The Tallest Man on Earth is coming to South Africa!

Hes coming and hes excited. He said so himself here

Best song:

Hes playing a Joburg and Cape town Show in February. For info and tickets go here

Nerds & Followills :)

Halloween and Kings of Leon all in one weekend?! Bonus! This is pretty much how it went down:

A couple of weeks ago Converse SA announced they were giving away 1000 free double tickets to the Halloween Block Party in Newtown that happened on Friday. I totally jumped on that bandwagon:) We went as the nerd herd.. easy outfit but super effective. I found myself introduducing myself as Gertrude the whole night. Had to have the complete character in order you know:)

What a party though! Desmond and the Tutus performed dressed at the Parlotones, Shane the singer stood with a megaphone in hand eating Kfc with a pretty terrible Kahn Morbee receeding hairline wig on... Brilliant!

3 fifths of the nerd herd

Finally broke in my Converse :)

Saturday was the Kings of Leon concert....finally!

There was sooo much speculation about whether they were going to come or not, you know, the whole cancelling thing in March and then the too drunk to perform thing a couple of months ago.. anyway all that aside, I dont think I've ever been more excited to see a band in my life :)

The show was phenomenal. I am kicking myself for not getting into the stadium early enough to watch Shadowclub but download their live performance at the show. I did and I've listened to it over and over to try make up for missing out.

Die Heuwels Fantasties were fantastic, Im a bit of an uber fan for them and all things Belville and I've seen them a bunch of times but that performance was by far one of the greatest.

Then of course Kings of Leon played. no words... too brilliant. Sure they didnt interact with the crowd as much as we would have liked but then again they probably fitted in a bunch more songs because they didnt talk so much... bonus!

Only problem I had is that we stood in general standing, never again... I totally lost my voice because I had to compensate for the lack of singing or lack of fun that the people around me were having... seriously dont go to a show if you arent even gonna hum the songs.. its annoying! So conclusion is next time I go to any show. GC all the way! GC - I've noticed its what the cool kids in golden circle were calling it... sigh...

This songs been in my head the entire time I wrote this post. Enjoy :)

Para Para Paradise!

Its here! Its here! The long awaited video for Paradise from Coldplay has arrived on the interweb..
Why so special you ask? Because it was filmed right here in this very country! Thanks for the awesome show and for making our country look as fantastic as it is :)
Enjoy :)

Coldplay weekend :)

This is a tad behind schedule but whatevs, schedules are for sheep :)

Last Saturday was the Coldplay concert at Soccer City in Johannesburg. A bunch of us rented bus combi type things to take us there, fully stocked with some drinks for the road and good attitudes. Me being stoked was a bit of an understatement :)

It was Ay-may-zing!!!! A highlight of the night was when we were filmed for the bands new music video for Paradise, okay.. we being the entire stadium full of people, but I was in that 60 000 person crowd:) Watch this space for when it comes out..

I really forgot how pretty Coldplay songs are and was pretty teary eyed when Chris Martin played Fix You, the Scientist and pretty much every other song on the set list..

It was a super night though, like really really good. Took a few snaps on my little camera, edited the crap out of them and made a collage <3

Kings of Leon on the 29th! So much of excitement!

Story of the Koppi 2011

It’s been exactly a week and one day since Oppikoppi Unknown Brother ended :(  I should have blogged earlier but I was a little too busy finding my voice and curing my liver... Sorry liver...

What an amazing weekend. It really was an awesome party this year. Although a lot of the really well known local acts didn’t play, a whole whack of new stuff was added to the line up. Here’s a little bit of  how it all went down.

From what I remember Friday started out pretty relaxed and chilled... After exploring the Oppi surroundings with a few first timers I managed to watch a bit of eF eLs last ever show and finished off the night with some Fuzigish before trying to find friends that decided to arrive at Oppi in the dead of the night... The 5am wakeup to leave Joburg that Friday morning didn’t really work well with the partying routine... We were all Mr and Miss Collapse-o’s at about 1am.

Saturday began nice and early, well Oppikoppi early, so about lunch time haha! A busy busy day was ahead of us. I was super impressed by Mr Cat and the Jackal even though I only watched them from a distance. Holiday Murray was by far one of my favourites. I think I may have found my new indie obsession. After watching their performance on Studio 1 on mk last week as well, I’m a fan :)

Heres their video for their single Jirey. If you haven't already seen it, its a total must.

Holiday Murray - Jirey [Official Video] from Holiday Murray on Vimeo.

Hot Water was yet again phenomenal... Those crazy eyes and Jew fro of Mr. Donovan Copley, Holy moly... that band is something else on stage. Seriously, do yourself a favour and check out their music.. Amaze!

I’ve never really been a huge fan of Jax Panik’s new stuff; I always thought I much preferred the old songs from his first album, but wowzers what a party! The energy that came from that stage... So much fun. Next I had my feet going nuts to Desmond and the Tutus. I don’t need to say much about them because they are pretty much the best thing since sliced bread if you’re looking for a good party. A lot of shenanigans and fun times happened after Desmond, it’s all a bit of a blur, but I’m positive it was fun nonetheless.

Ah then came Sunday bloody Sunday. The last day of Oppi. bitter sweet because the acts we had been waiting to see all weekend were finally going to be on those stages, but it also meant the amazing weekend was going to be coming to an end in 24 hours.

It started with a 5 litre Vodka lime and water, and Wrestlerish. After that was Dance You’re On Fire... we danced...then I’m not too sure what happened next (vodka got us down). We then watched a big Nigerian called Killer-man-jaro wrestle a guy called Tornado. Oh yes I forgot to mention there was a wrestling ring right by our tents... a little strange but hey, thats so Oppi!  and then we were back for P.H. Fat. Good afternoon I’d say.

Out of the international acts I was really amped to see The Used. Being a little bit of an emo kid at heart, it’s where my excitement was going... They took an hour to set up which meant they only played for about 45 minutes which meant they had to cut their entire set short. I wasn’t too impressed. Loved what I heard from them but just wished it went on for longer.

Sum 41 on the other hand was kind of mind blowing to say the least. 15 years of touring definitely pays off, these guys knew exactly what they were doing and made every person in that 16000 person crowd love it. I am a reborn Sum 41 fan :)

The night continued with me wandering around finding my people, somehow we all got lost in the party but I eventually found some and we partied at the Red Bull stage over the koppi till our faces exploded. Not literally... duh! But it was THAT cool!

I would  post some of the pictures I took at Oppi but they are pretty horrific.. Instead, feast your eyes on the amazingness of Sean Brand pics.

So like a well spoken Narrator of a lovely heart-warming movie I will say: And that my friend was my Oppi experience for 2011.

Oppi 2012... I’m waiting for you.

4 more sleeps!

Four more sleeps until dust, drink and AY-MAY-ZING music!!! Oh em gee! Oppikoppi is this weekend and I couldn't be more excited, amped, scared for my liver and ready for one fat party! This is the fourth year I'm going and its apparently going to be the biggest so far too... eeeeeeeep! Besides having my old emo screamo and punk rock fantasies fulfilled by The Used and Sum 41, I'm generally just looking forward to the vibe, having a party with my friends and making new friends along the way:)
So here's to this weekend, will be back with pictures and possibly no voice... success!

For all the info go here