Share

I will NOT Full View Labels: , , , , ,



This goes out to all the haters.

To be brutally honest: 

You need to understand that you are one of the many major problems with the world. It may be easy for you to convey hate in order to fabricate your “egotistical” existence. You have an unhealthy attention seeking complex and your addiction is the limelight. Unfortunately, the world doesn't revolve around you nor does it need any more negativity. The world is haphazardly wired in a way that we all behave as competitively as a fat person at an eating contest. People compete for attention and are always trying to be the most important.


What the kwaicore revolution wants you to understand:

is that everyone is important. Humanity is meant to work as a single entity. Without unity we have no collaborated effort, thus stunting our communal growth. Once we learn to love and appreciate everything, then we will live out our full potential which is as vast as the stars in the Milky way.
We, the kwaicore revolution,don't care if you don't like our music but please keep your negativity to yourself. There is enough hate crime, violence and abuse without your 2 cents. Lets all be friends because its just more fun that way!


A song that reflects what's wrong with the world and rebels against segregation and violence through collaboration and music. Kwaicore is soon to follow in these footsteps.
 it’s not about me.  it’s not about you.  it’s all about we.

Haters gonna hate, Potatoes gonna potate... Full View Labels: , ,

Some things just go together, Spaghetti would not taste the same without meatballs, peas are just broken families without their pods, Mickey is just a mouse without minnie, bacon isn't breakfast without some eggs. Ironically the scientists of sound and the masters of music have found through intense investigation and experimentation that the relationship between two complete opposite music genres can have unpredictable and explosive results.

It has come to my attention that two opposites attract. Hardcore punk rock has formed a magnetic connection with the South African genre, Kwaito. The connection alone is explosive and the genre is sure to hit your ears with aggressive intensity and a powerful soul.

Kwaicores Agenda:

We want you! To join the ranks and stand in line as part of one of the greatest armies in history. With our instruments as our weapons and our voices as our war cry. For the sake of all that is underground and sacred we will protect and express the secrets of our youth. We vow to speak our minds and spread the truth with brutal honesty. We vow to support the locals, drink lots of beer and sing sober thoughts. We don't sleep at night but when we do we dream of freedom. We are part of the revolution and we welcome the urban rebel youth to unite under the Umbrella of Kwaicore. A movement of music that moves you. This is the music that will bring us together as we vow to never forget where we came from, always look out for each other and keep our cities safe from mainstream. We are the rebel youth, we are non-conformists and we have "no bullshit" policy. We don't care if you like us but we'd love if you joined the Kwaicore cause.


Peanut-butter and Jam sandwich Full View Labels: , , , ,

Disclaimer - We are hardcore Full View Labels: ,

I don't know how many times I've gone to a party with every intention of capturing every drunken moment of celebration but woken up with a hole in my memory and an empty camera. Sometimes I wish the camera would just take a life of its own and do the job my incomprehensibly inebriated is incapable of doing.
A new trend in the 031 is gig photography which consists of up and coming local photographers being hired to capture all the night's partying madness. I know a couple of photographers around Durban who are passionate about what they do and have taken the most showstoppingly stunning still images I have ever laid my eyes upon. However photographing gigs is not the piece of cake everyone thinks it is. Although you are exposed to a wide variety of music genres at absolutely no cost(in fact you get paid) and get to meet great artists, staying sober amongst a crowd of people whose sole purpose is to party their tits of is no easy feat.

 Being a photographer at a huge live music event is as easy as doing maths while watching TV. Mixing work with rawcus drunk rockers, music so loud you feel the floor shake and free flying alcohol is never a good idea.

 Here are some issues one photographer has found:
Long Hours –I don't enjoy the job until it's over. When I am on day three of working from noon to four AM and then editing photos until 8am I am not happy about it. I am in fact miserable. Which brings me to clients.

 Clients Need Photos Right Away – Most of the time I shoot an event a client needs the photos by 8am the next day if not sooner. So when everyone else is going out to party you are stuck in a hotel room or on a friends couch editing and uploading photos. Clients don’t understand why you can barely keep your eyes open the next day and half the time they don’t even do anything with your images until Monday. Still, I always make sure to have a fast turn around to keep clients happy. Nothing pisses off a client more than a photographer taking forever to get them photos.

 The Weather – No matter what happens you are expected to get the shot so if it rains you better be prepared. I don’t mind getting wet so I rarely bring a poncho but I have weather gear for my camera and my camera bag. Music festivals are often in the summer so the sun can be brutal, but then it can get freezing at night so you better have a jacket because you sure as hell can’t go back to your hotel. If the sun is bright your photos can suck, if there’s no sun your photos can suck. No matter what festival you are photographing something nature is going to do to you is going to make your job harder.

 Festival Press People - Before I bash all these PR people that work music festivals I have to point out that they have a hard job. It’s not always their fault that **** is ****ed up and they are dealing with journalist after journalist yelling at them for the same things. Because of this they tend to be extremely bitchy and unhelpful especially if you are working for a smaller outlet. Fortunately, I shoot a lot of this stuff for Village Voice Media and I have a little more pull than if I was shooting for my blog, but it’s still a huge pain in the ass dealing with getting credentials, getting the right credentials, getting access to whatever you need access too, etc. An amazing amount of stress is put on a photographer just because we have to deal with people who for some reason want to make our jobs really difficult for seemingly no reason.

 Band Press People - Music publicists are often a weird breed of people and the more successful they are the harder they are to deal with. I don’t even run a music blog and I get hundreds of emails a week from these people but when you need a favor from them they often don’t respond to emails or give you a hard time. Some of them are great at their jobs and a pleasure to deal with, but I have dealt with so many bad ones it’s hard not to include them on this list. The biggest problem though is with these insane contracts PR people try to get you to sign if you want to shoot bigger bands. Acts like Foo Fighters, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears all have these crazy contracts that say the band owns the photographs once you take them. They are total bull****, legally suspect and I never sign them. All other photographers should do the same.

 Photo Pits - Photo pits are the bane of my existence. They are the three feet in front of the stage full of photographers. At big festivals like Lollapalooza the stage is 15 feet in the air and you can’t even shoot the bands without a telephoto lens shooting straight up at them. Often you can only enter them from the far side of the stage so you have to walk through a crowd of thousands of kids just to get to the pit. They are filled with photographers who all are getting the exact same shot and you have to pretty much shove people out of the way just to get an unblocked. I am generally a very friendly photographer to work with in a pit and always there to help people and make sure everyone gets a good shot, but recently as more and more amateurs show up in photo pits I have started to become a dick. Which brings me to my next point.

 Other Photographers – I have been shooting music festivals for more than 15 years and I started shooting bands for a little zine I published when I was in high school. I didn’t really know how this **** worked but I was trying. I am sure I pissed off some of the seasoned pros, but it wasn’t as big of a deal because there were never more than a handful of us in the pit. With the advent of blogs and digital cameras more and more people are getting media access to music festivals and most of them have no idea what they are doing. So many kids who have no experience are willing to shoot these things for free because they want to go to the festival but they have no idea how to act in the pit. Now I truly believe that if you are a good photographer you can get the shot you need with nearly any camera but filling up the photo pit with kids with kit lenses, point and shoot cameras and iPhones is insane. If you are shooting with a lens that can’t even fill the frame you are just wasting everyone’s time and getting in the way.

 Other Photographers Part II - Some photographers are so obnoxious they need a second section. For some reason people with no photo pit experience decide they need to lift their cameras in the air to get a better shot. Doing this gets in everyone’s ****ing way and ruins shots for everyone behind them. If you need to lift to get the shot do it from the back of the pit so you aren’t in anyone’s way. 90% of the time you are going to get a horribly composed shot anyway because you are just guessing wildly. When I see people do this I will grab their arms down because I don’t really respect them enough to ask nicely. Keep your ****ing cameras at eye level. On this same point, almost every festival has a no flash rule so take your flash off your camera so it’s not in anyone’s way. Also, if you have a good place in the pit shoot a song there and move so someone else can get their shot. You want a variety of angels anyway, not just a shot right in front of the lead singer.

 Videographers – I have a lot of the same complaints with videographers as I do amateur photographers but the videographers are worse. They hold their cameras up in the air and look through their monitors and get in everyone’s way. Often they have fuzzy microphones or big lights attached to the top of their cameras and it ruins shot after shot of the photographers behind them. On top of that 99% they aren’t even supposed to be shooting video and if they get in my way I will rat those mother ****ers out so fast.

 Three Songs, No Flash – Three songs, no flash is the standard rule at most big concerts and festivals. Basically it means that the photographers get to be in the pit for three songs and they can’t shoot with flash. The flash part makes perfect sense as most concerts should be lit well enough that you don’t need one. Flashes get in the way of other photographers and they are distracting to performers. The three songs part completely sucks. I get the idea. You can easily shoot 100 photos in three songs and then you get the hell out of the fans way… the problem is that the first three songs are never the songs you want to shoot. I would take the last three songs every time. If you are dealing with a rap group some times the whole group won’t come out until half way through the set. You are never going to get a photo of a special guest performer or an amazing encore. Imagine if three songs and out was the rule in the 60s. No one would have ever caught Jimmy Hendrix setting his guitar on fire or the Who smashing their equipment. On top of that every photographer gets the same exact shots and they don’t capture the real essence of the performance. Plus you only get to hear three songs and then you move on to the next one. I have photographed so many bands multiple times but I couldn’t tell you anything about their set from the fourth song on.

 Photographing DJs – DJs are usually boring to shoot anyway but if you can’t shoot them from the stage you are just waisting your time anyway. Photographing a DJ from the photo pit is completely pointless because you can just see the top of their head over the table and their laptop. My favorite DJ’s to shoot put on a show and get away from their table. I will shoot Steve Aoki, Girl Talk or Major Lazer any day because they put on a better show than most bands, but for most DJ’s I don’t even bother. I just turn my camera away from them and shoot the crowd.

Bands Suck – One of the most over looked things about music fests is that most bands suck and a lot of the ones that don’t suck are really boring to photograph. If you are just going to stand there and play music you might as well stay home and just have someone play your CD for us. 75% of bands have terrible live shows and 75% of those make awful music anyway. If you are working for a festival for a client you often have to shoot band after band that you hate that you don’t even want to look at much less photograph.


Otherwise it's the most amazing job in the world...
A picture says 1000 words- Photography Full View Labels: , , ,

Kwaicore, the music genre that is causing a revolution of rebellious collaboration is yet to a live gig and lets hope Durbs is the first to host one. The music is made up of two completely different genres and will see the coming together of two completely different audiences. Although the gigs will bring together the true rainbow nation that South Africa is known for I can't help but wonder what the reaction will be. How does one dance to Kwaicore?

 The rockers:

Hardcore punk rock music constitutes for agression, neck spraining head-banging and brutal moshing during particularly fast paced songs. No, we are not trying hurt each other, in fact the mosh pit is a place of extreme love. The action of moshing exerts your love of pounding heavy aggressive music in the most brutally physical way that is still legal this side of the equator. It's all a rather friendly high paced interaction of shoving, punching, pushing and kicking. An elaborate expression of appreciation for the artists. The pits are not dangerous and rules are that if someone falls down, fellow rockers will pick them up and push them to safety. Moshing is a lot like life, you get pushed down and punched but you get back up again, dust off the dirt and carry on.

Watch out!:

If the crowd suddenly divides into two columns and any song as hardcore as Lamb of god's "black label" plays I sincerely suggest you move out the way. After the kick thousands of bodies rush at each at full speed resulting in high impact collisions and the atomic bomb of all mosh pits.

The Townshippers:

I don't know much, but this is what I've heard.. Pantsula is the name of the dance traditionally associated  with the Kwaito music genre that set the South African youth free from parental dominance and it gave them freedom without prejudice. The Pantsula dance is described as a flat footed African tap-and-glide style of dance. The Zulu word "pantsula" means to "waddle like a duck or alternatively to walk with protruded buttocks," which is a characteristic of the dance.

 So is this going to be a mosh pit full of violent, angry and abrasive wobbling ducks? 
Thats me in the mosh pit...
Moshing around whilst getting down? Full View Labels: , , , ,

Technology is taking over the world, it's in our pockets, in front of our eyes, covering our ears and is glued to our fingertips. I-pods, apples, blackberries and kiwis have become the fruits of technology. I always thought it might be cool to have some sort of robot that cooks and cleans for you while you get the important stuff done but the people in Germany have thought of something better.

Imagine Travis Barker with 4 hands and Jimmy Hendrix with 78 fingers accompanied by the best bass in the world. Unless medical studies found some crazy way to mutate to mutate us, bands like this could never be human. So what exactly am I going on about.

I introduce to you Compressorhead. The robotic trio - Bassist "Bones", guitarist "Fingers" and drummer "Stickboy" are the world's first Robo Rock n roll band. They are capable of producing live music that humans cannot even begin to imagine playing themselves. These metal heads show extreme precision and jaw dropping skill.


The band has their own fan page where they are portrayed with realistic punk personalities.  Their online gig requirements are a "Competent and sober audio operator" and "Microphones and other audio equipment to suit bitching 3-piece metal act."  They've covered songs by all the greats such as ACDC, The Ramones, Black Sabath and have many more in store for the world. Not only do they cover the songs but they also improve upon them. The only criticism I have is that it lacks soulful vocals that give the songs emotion but then again what can you expect from a robot without a heart. 

 Despite the lack of humanity, the band is actually  pretty impressive and the technology is super advanced. I think they might be able to even produce a couple of Kwaicore songs in the near future as they have a hardcore influence. Maybe one day we'll see them on South African stages, come to think of it how much does a metal gig this heavy charge for entrance? I might bring along my kettle and my iron, they don't get out much.

 Check it:


Oil is thicker than blood - Compressorhead Full View Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

HOME | ABOUT

Copyright © 2011 Pulp music! | Powered by BLOGGER | Template by 54BLOGGER