South African Rock Encyclopedia

Riaan-Combrink

The SA Rock Encyclopedia is one of my favourite sites:

http://www.rock.co.za/

A wealth of detail wrt SA rock over the years. Coolest feature is a set of family trees, where you can see how musos migrated between bands.

Take Trevor Rabin as example. Year is 1966. Tree starts with him aged 12 and his brother on drums. Later Rabbit drummer, Neil Cloud, aged 11, plays in contemporary band The League of Gentleman (into Fripp at age 11??!! Although, think Fripp's League was late 70's early 80s, so these Joburg boys had the name first!!). Follows Trevor through Rabbit and eight (yes, eight) different Yes line-ups and beyond. Fascinating, if you like this kind of stuff.

http://www.rock.co.za/files/trevor_rabin_tree.html

Cheers

Manfred-Klose

Has any one ever heard of Patrick Canovi, his band(Metallic Sun) won the battle of the bands in 1974, he is about 55 years old, and still performing 3 nights a week.

He performs in the cape town area,Santana, hendrix,clapton type of stuff.

Riaan

Wow...that really brings back memories, going through that site. I remember those late nights, lying in bed with a radio against my ear, listening to what was then Radio 5, before it became 5FM. Whenever I hear Herb Alpert's "Rise" - used as the theme tune of one of the late night shows - it takes me straight back.

Going through those lists, I realise how many superb artists this country has produced. It's a pity we don't hear those songs more often. It would be great to hear Julian Laxton and McCully Workshop again, for example. Would be interesting to hear what happened to all the artists of those days, what they're up to nowadays etc.

Riaan-Combrink

Manfred Klose wrote Has any one ever heard of Patrick Canovi, he is about 55 years old, and still performing 3 nights a week in the cape town area,Santana, hendrix,clapton type of stuff.

Yeah, we perform on the same circuit, so I see him quite often. Great guitarist. First saw him years back when he did a Hendrix tribute with his band Kiss the Sky.

Very distinctive look with his cowboy hat & boots and long grey hair. Cool guy. We're not friends as such, but just bump into each other on the circuit.

Would recommend anyone in Cape Town area to catch him when you can.

We have the same booking agent (Bands4Africa). Patrick's artist link on their site is here:
http://www.bands4africa.co.za/artist_popup.asp?action=view&id=36

and this is my band(!):
http://www.bands4africa.co.za/artist_popup.asp?action=view&id=114

I believe Patrick is playing at Quay 4 in the V & A Waterfront on Sunday afternoons from 1 - 5 pm during July and August.

Cheers

Riaan C

Manfred-Klose

I love patricks pirate outfit, he's got a lot them, his wife deisgns his clothes, and he got a few pair of cowboy boots, and some red ones.

And he has got a big collection of guitars, and even 2 that he made him self, he prefers them over his 1959 les paul, american start, prs santana etc.....

I played on his handmade guitars a while back and they are truely nice.

Riaan-Combrink

Riaan wrote Wow...that really brings back memories, going through that site. It would be great to hear Julian Laxton and McCully Workshop again, for example. Would be interesting to hear what happened to all the artists of those days, what they're up to nowadays etc.

Julian Laxton runs a music venue up north called Julian's Place where they apparently have massive Sunday jols.

Mike MCCullaugh of McCulleys Workshop is still very active in the Cape running many of the big corporate tribute shows for places like Grand West Arena, Barnyard Theatre, etc. The original line-up also reformed for a gig a while back, but I couldn't catch it.

I tracked down 3rd Ear Music's Hidden Archive site - they have a feature called 'where are they now'. It includes Laxton and a few of the other greats. Check it out here:
http://www.3rdearmusic.com/hyarchive/hywhere.html

I have a special affinity for the late John Mair (ex Sweatband), whom I was blessed to develop a friendship with before his untimely passing in 2002. John knew the peaks and the valleys of the local rock scene (both original & cover), and I'm sure many musos have got great stories to tell about him. He is very widely regarded as being one of the absolute best guitarists to emerge from the RSA, and I decided long ago to write a proper tribute for the Players section of the SAGF. But I need to have sufficient time to do the man justice. In the meanwhile, check out the Sweatband page below:
http://www.rock.co.za/files/sweatband.html

You can also listen to some Sweatband samples here, where it was posted with the publisher's permission:
http://www.freshmusic.co.za/retrofresh2002.htm#2002

Riaan, I'm going to make it one of my projects to try and find out where and what most of the legends of yesterday are doing today. Stay posted ...

Riaan C

Wessel

My father worked with Patric Canovy way back at Tram boys.He said his hair was the same back then and he use to roll it up.

sepheritoh

Riaan C wrote
http://www.rock.co.za/files/trevor_rabin_tree.html

Cheers

Thanks for that very interesting link. I am a self confessed Rabin fan. If you are interested, you can listen to a recent interview with him at http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?cat=18 where he make some interesting comments.

sepheritoh

A shocking bad news I just read at the encyclopedia:

Kenny Henson: Passed away 24th May 2007