Voelvry and Shifty and a South African flashback.

Ray

X-rated Bob wrote: PS. Sorry, Ray.

Hey?

Psean

X-rated Bob wrote: This afternoon I watched a most enjoyable DVD about the Voelvry movement of the mid 80s.

Sounds very interesting. What's it called?

Bob-Dubery

It's called "Voelvry: the Movie". I got the DVD as a package with the book "Voelvry: The Movement That Rocked South Africa" by Pat Hopkins. The book did not sell well, so if you van find a copy it may be cheap. The book/DVD combination is worth while if you have an interest in this part of SA's musical history.

Ray

Cant find the book but the movie and some CD's available on kalahari and loot. And you can download the songs off itunes. I see a whole lot of Corporal's songs on itunes as well. Then on Shifty site you can get stuff as well. I dont know about the book though.

Bob-Dubery

I must check. I have a Voelvry CD (it has a great live version of "Snor City") but I think it's licensed from Shifty rather than issued by them. Shifty is still going, but AFAIK Lloyd Ross is not running the show any more and they have a lot of stuff just sitting in their archives. There's real history there. A large chunk of James Phillips' output is available, but not all of it.

I've got the first Johannes Kerkorrel album at home on vinyl, and I really should get a CD made from that.

I think I've said it on GFSA before, but a decade that's become a bit of a hiss and a byword for it's pop music, the eighties, was, for me, a golden era of South African music with loads of marvellous stuff being recorded. A lot of it didn't get a lot of notice from major labels and chart compilers in real time, but it was there and it was fab and exciting, and some of it has survived.

I was at a Corporal Punishment recording session sometime in 1979. Those tracks never saw the light of day. The tapes that must be lying around in people's attics...

Psean

X-rated Bob wrote: It's called "Voelvry: the Movie". I got the DVD as a package with the book "Voelvry: The Movement That Rocked South Africa" by Pat Hopkins. The book did not sell well, so if you van find a copy it may be cheap. The book/DVD combination is worth while if you have an interest in this part of SA's musical history.

Thanks. Interested to find out more about that movement.

Bob-Dubery

Psean wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote: It's called "Voelvry: the Movie". I got the DVD as a package with the book "Voelvry: The Movement That Rocked South Africa" by Pat Hopkins. The book did not sell well, so if you van find a copy it may be cheap. The book/DVD combination is worth while if you have an interest in this part of SA's musical history.
Thanks. Interested to find out more about that movement.

I think it helps if you were there. Some of the impact may be lost without the context of the times. A song that gets a lot of exposure in the DVD is Johannes Kerkorrel's "Sit Dit Af!". I started thinking about that song, and it's very bound to a specific time. Lines like "ek vat jou nou 'n wet/al die bure het M-Net" were hilarious and hard-hitting at the time, but might not hit the mark now.

There's some talk about then current debates at Universities. EG should students be allowed to dance in such a way that their bodies touch?

It's hard to understand what they were kicking against, or perhaps to believe it.

It's like Kombuis's response to the charges of being bizarre: The mainstream then was so bizarre that the Voelvryers couldn't have matched it for weirdness if they tried to.

chris77

Thanks Bob, will defenitely look out for a copy.
Koos Kombuis's book Sex Drugs en Boeremusiek is a great read as well and I loved his anecdotes about Voelvry in it - but he only touched on the movement as a whole. It will be great to get a bigger picture of that era and more details on the other artists that were part of it.

Bob-Dubery

I just dipped into the book on google books. You can't get all of it, but it was a fun refresher. I'd say it adds a lot of value, with details not explored in the DVD. So buy that package if you can find it.

Ray

X-rated Bob wrote: I was at a Corporal Punishment recording session sometime in 1979. Those tracks never saw the light of day. The tapes that must be lying around in people's attics...

Can you remember which songs?

Bob-Dubery

Ray wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote: I was at a Corporal Punishment recording session sometime in 1979. Those tracks never saw the light of day. The tapes that must be lying around in people's attics...
Can you remember which songs?

There were three or four. The ones I remember were "Welcome to the City" and "Rock and Rolls Royce". I think that's what it was called:
"Hey rock 'n roll!
Where did you go
When the people started moving to the disco?
Won't you tell me if you're still around
Because I ain't going to listen to that factory sound!"

WTTC sticks in the mind because it had that sort of James Bond introduction. Also I heard them play that one live a lot.

Bob-Dubery

X-rated Bob wrote:
Ray wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote: I was at a Corporal Punishment recording session sometime in 1979. Those tracks never saw the light of day. The tapes that must be lying around in people's attics...
Can you remember which songs?
There were three or four. The ones I remember were "Welcome to the City" and "Rock and Rolls Royce".

Oh! And "Brain Damage"

Bob-Dubery

X-rated Bob wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
Ray wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote: I was at a Corporal Punishment recording session sometime in 1979. Those tracks never saw the light of day. The tapes that must be lying around in people's attics...
Can you remember which songs?
There were three or four. The ones I remember were "Welcome to the City" and "Rock and Rolls Royce".
Oh! And "Brain Damage"

And "Darkie". Another song that was.... errr... STRIKING to say the least.

So that's four now. Might have been the whole session. I think so, but it was a long time ago and so I can't say with certainty.

Ray

OK because I've got an old vinyl EP with those songs on them lying somewhere at home. I think the third one is Johnny's Conscience. But I cant remember buying it. Maybe picked it up at their digs or in Dave Davies record bar next to the Plaza round the corner and up the road from the Riebeek across the road from the Palladium. but you can download them from itunes.

Bob-Dubery

Ray wrote: OK because I've got an old vinyl EP with those songs on them lying somewhere at home. I think the third one is Johnny's Conscience. But I cant remember buying it. Maybe picked it up at their digs or in Dave Davies record bar next to the Plaza round the corner and up the road from the Riebeek across the road from the Palladium. but you can download them from itunes.

I've got some Corporals songs on CD - a James Phillips retrospective thingy. Must check which ones. I certainly remember "Johnny's Conscience", and I also remember Dave's record bar and the legendary Riebeeck hotel.

Bob-Dubery

It's possible they recorded those songs multiple times. The night I'm referring to they cut a 4-track (MAYBE 8-track demo). I don't know who ended up with the tapes. They might have recorded them again for Shifty.

This recording session was the first time I met and heard them. A bit later I went to some show in some warehouse in Johannesburg and they were there but now with Herbie Parkin playing guitar as well. Then I went on a tour with them (story for another time) and then at some point some recordings came out on the Shifty label - which is probably what you have. It wasn't a whole album, more like a mini-album. Then they split up for a bit.

Psean

X-rated Bob wrote:
Psean wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote: It's called "Voelvry: the Movie". I got the DVD as a package with the book "Voelvry: The Movement That Rocked South Africa" by Pat Hopkins. The book did not sell well, so if you van find a copy it may be cheap. The book/DVD combination is worth while if you have an interest in this part of SA's musical history.
Thanks. Interested to find out more about that movement.
I think it helps if you were there. Some of the impact may be lost without the context of the times. A song that gets a lot of exposure in the DVD is Johannes Kerkorrel's "Sit Dit Af!". I started thinking about that song, and it's very bound to a specific time. Lines like "ek vat jou nou 'n wet/al die bure het M-Net" were hilarious and hard-hitting at the time, but might not hit the mark now.

There's some talk about then current debates at Universities. EG should students be allowed to dance in such a way that their bodies touch?

It's hard to understand what they were kicking against, or perhaps to believe it.

It's like Kombuis's response to the charges of being bizarre: The mainstream then was so bizarre that the Voelvryers couldn't have matched it for weirdness if they tried to.

That kind of history fascinates me ?

Bob-Dubery

Psean wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
Psean wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote: It's called "Voelvry: the Movie". I got the DVD as a package with the book "Voelvry: The Movement That Rocked South Africa" by Pat Hopkins. The book did not sell well, so if you van find a copy it may be cheap. The book/DVD combination is worth while if you have an interest in this part of SA's musical history.
Thanks. Interested to find out more about that movement.
I think it helps if you were there. Some of the impact may be lost without the context of the times. A song that gets a lot of exposure in the DVD is Johannes Kerkorrel's "Sit Dit Af!". I started thinking about that song, and it's very bound to a specific time. Lines like "ek vat jou nou 'n wet/al die bure het M-Net" were hilarious and hard-hitting at the time, but might not hit the mark now.

There's some talk about then current debates at Universities. EG should students be allowed to dance in such a way that their bodies touch?

It's hard to understand what they were kicking against, or perhaps to believe it.

It's like Kombuis's response to the charges of being bizarre: The mainstream then was so bizarre that the Voelvryers couldn't have matched it for weirdness if they tried to.
That kind of history fascinates me ?

There was a joke amongst the intelligentsia at Potch university: You had to be careful not to be caught having sex whilst standing up in case the rector thought you were dancing.

I think a lot of the context of these events is lost already. Lots of things from that time aren't well recorded. Or maybe history takes a while to swim into focus. It was a strange time, thinking back on it.