• Raw power  -  music that is liquid electricity
• Lead vocals that overhaul your internal voice; patches/tears up your frame of mind and leaves you in awe of any word howled in perfect pitch. A voice that could render lyrics immaterial if the lyrics didn’t bury into your brainstem.
• Live performances which has you dancing like a puppet, suffused with joy.
• Technically brilliant –  tight live performances

I bought the Shadowclub CD after hearing Guns & Money on Tuks. It is good, a bit polished but head bopping hard core bluesy rock that makes you want to dance on the train. Then, dear friends, I saw them live at Arcade Empire in Pretoria.

They were sandwiched between some utterly inane little band who served only to get the crowd to the bar in the hope that alcohol would soothe assaulted ears, and poor Arno Carstens. I say poor Arno Carstens because he looked like an aging southern belle whose beauty and sex appeal are as current as her fluttering eyelashes and moth eaten satin gloves. The poor guy had to resort to Bubblegum on my boots to get a rise out of the crowd who were definitely post coital, I mean even I smoked and I quit years ago.

Shadowclub got on stage with little fuss and people started drifting to the stage. Please note that they were only known for the one song on Tuks. I told quite a few people we had to go to hear them live and that seems to have been the general trend. The thing is, they look like goddamn rock stars.Not some scruffy little band, not hipsters, not day jobbed string ticklers and steering wheel percussionists. ROCK STARS. They ooze cool.

Then they started playing. No foreplay. No sweet little warming up the crowd shit. Oh no. They started playing a wave of incredibly tight, raw, real music swept through the crowd. There was no going wild but there were smiles of genuine appreciation. By the time Shadowclub played the one song the crowd knew, it wasn’t so much a crowd as an amorphous whooping, sloshing pool of soundslutty joy.

I next saw them at Rocking the Daisies which was the most awful heat I have ever experienced (also, tents ftl). It was 38 degrees Celcius in the shade ffs.

Come(down) Sunday everyone was dehydrated, hot, tired and sunburnt and of course only vaguely knew about Shadowclub as they are a predominantly Gauteng band. They came on at midday, that would be noon…12.00…the hottest bloody part of the day. The Cape Town hipster/mountain crowd and the Pretoria rockers reacted exactly the same.

However, on that big stage, with such good sound, they really Rocked the Daisies. The only other band who managed that was Lark (about whom I will swoon later omfg). Shadowclub’s performance made the oppressive heat, vicious hangovers and filthy bodies seem a mild annoyance and by song 3 the crowd had not just grown but were fucking pulsing. The feedback energy between the crowd and the band was amazing. Man, I almost feeling like having a cigarette just thinking about it.

If you have not yet seen them, and not yet bought a CD, by all that is holy, GO. Make a plan. You cannot claim to love rock and not adore this band. They are SA’s answer to a bastard mix between Hendrix, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, The Black Keys and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. They will outstrip Seether, and soon.

©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.

I have the attention span of an ADHD gnat on smack. All I want to do is revel. I want to take big gulps of love/air, I want to be swollen with joy and beauty. I want to forget about anything but having my fingers swim through the air, away from here. I want to feel the heat and sweat of justice and to have those cells happily bounce because there is no moment better than this. No regrets of yesterday, no what ifs of tomorrow. Just maple syrup sunlight, top lip beads of sweat, braai smoke and chilled wine under The Wisteria Purple Patio.

I want to be moved by incendiary guitarists like Jimi & John Mayer (but of course). I want to feel CC‘s (Felix Laband Whistling in tongues,  Juno Reactor Conquistador Part 1) music goosebump my entire being. I want the notes of Hans Zimmer’s Elysium and Now we are free to soak into my muscle filaments and untangle the mess of too much Dell 610.

I want witty banter and lazy sauntering. I want to walk arm in arm and plait honeysuckle into my hair. I want to laugh so hard I crack a rib. I want to trace the skin of your wrist and watch you shudder with pleasure. I want to lie on the trampoline and feel half of me bake. I want to hear MM beautiful belly laugh and Rambo‘s deep voice caressing terse sentences. I want to say goodbye to my friend who is not even going all that far and see the bittersweet joy this will have him feel. I want to never forget this day or this weekend or this frame of my life.

I love my life, as you should yours.

1. Word of the frame: reverberate (The Sage: 5. ring or echo with sound, 6. have a long or continuing effect)

2. Insight of the frame: Being able to express exactly how you are feeling is like a first kiss.

3. State of the pool: gin and tonic

4. Joy of the frame: I will probably get all I want /grin

5. Awesomest lines: I freaking adore this woman. Yours and mine – Elsa Volschenk

My heart is humming to it
my mind dancing to it
my dreams chasing it

Your heart is closed to it
your mind unaware of it
your dreams untouched by it

Our worlds collide into it
but it’s different -
while bursting in my soul
it’s resting in yours.

©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.

It has been quite a week. I’m so knackered I can barely see straight. I am not the biggest sleeper in the world but 15 or so hours in 4 days is not ideal *blearily wipes eyes*. I am however happier than I was with the previous post so that should tell you something :).

And still for all the same reasons.

This weekend should rule though. Going to the driving range with the Rangineer**,  moving tomorrow morning, meeting up with Bambi and introducing one heart friend to 3 others (Brilliant Hungarian, CC and El the Legend) 2 more social engagements and then hopefully a very quiet and barely moving Sunday.

1. Word of the day: inherent (TheSage: 1. the nature of something though not readily apparent, 2. existing as an essential constituent or characteristic.)

2. Insight of the day:  John Mayer will always make me happy.

3. State of the pool: Limpid, barely rippling

4. Random thought: Wharrgarble

5. Awesomest lines: Elsa Volschenk - Jungle

complete am I in the lushes hush that i’ve nurtured into being
at peace am i out here where i believe I will not be found

no need to grow, mature or evolve

out here i act my mock age and belie my years on this earth
for obsessed i will remain by childish things

juggling the mask
i am not willing to become but for the blessing of Love
set free am I by a truth bigger than this jungle of mine.

*Tired – from Infinite Jest

** I’m tired ok. But I still think it is a good name for an ex game ranger turned engineer.

©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.

Factors contributing to said haemoglobin /bounce:

~ I love my job. I do. It has the odd icky bit but mostly it is wonderful. I believe in my company and our unique little snowflakeness. I love knowing that what we do make a difference in the world and though we may not be Google, we are on our way there.

~ I have my Dell (souped up Latitude D620). I know that it seems silly, and ownership is not my thing, but it is my first PC. The rest have been loans or gifts but this one is mine*.

~ Friends. Do you know what it is like to be in a feedback loop of got-your-back-love**? I have the great privilege of being allowed into the lives of the coolest people I have ever met. When lying on a trampoline while sunlight bakes you lazy and cold fresh baby-giggle-scented air wakes you and conversation sustains you, or witty gtalk banter that you wish you could show the world become meh, then life will be awful indeed.

~ Faith. Yes I know it makes most of you cringe and scoff but bear with me. Jesus died for me, washed me with His blood to save me from the wrath of the Almighty God. Me. The freaking oilspill, He washed clean. I can’t explain it and I won’t force it on you but I know it is true and it makes me so grateful that it brings me to my knees.

~ Maybe-love. /grin. “Vry is lekker en vry in die bondel die heel lekkerste”.

~ Rediscovering old friends. I told you about Bambi. How on earth do I try to sum up 14 years? Or last night’s +/- 4 hour conversation…the closest I can come: he and I are war buddies.  I understand why men (or women in combat) can have a more honest and true connection with someone they spent 3 months with in a war zone and didn’t even particularly like vs their wives whom they’ve known and loved their whole lives. .. And we have the added bonus of being way back when maybe-loves. Our lives are irretrievably entangled and that is wonderful. Hearing his voice is like coming home.

1. Word of the day: panoptic (including everything visible in one view – Sequence Publishing’s The Sage)

2. Insight of the day: Saying “I love you” and “thank you” and meaning it, is not done enough.

3. State of the pool: Sweet home made ginger ale.

4. Random thought: How bruised can your legs be before it is uncool to wear a little dress?

5. Awesomest lines.  Theatre by Elsa Volschenk ©

show me the room you’ve prepared for me

the space you’ve specifically decided
should be assigned to me

show me the passion you’ve let grow for me

the garden patch of your heart’s desire
you believe will only bloom for me

show me the love you’ve saved for me

the commitment and the soul
you are willing to share with me

rehearse your part and i will mine
so that it may all seem like the perfect act
of show and tell

6. Scripture line: John 3:16 (New International Version)

¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

*Full Metal Jacket rifle prayer

**John Mayer. He may be arrogant but he has a point. And he is a genius.

©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.