The opening track of the Fruit Vendor Giants EP is here! Featuring Jerome Rex, The Route and DjHearin Aid and the awesome guitar work of Adrian Rogowski: A Million Pieces. Share the Fruit!
I wrote this song while I was taking the Metrorail train from Bellville station to Brackenfell. It was written out of pure frustration in response to Metrorail’s poor customer service and the trains that are constantly delayed or cancelled.
One of the only things that you can do while waiting for a delayed or cancelled train is to watch other people milling about on the platform. Not only do Metrorail’s customers look like millions of lost souls waiting aimlessly on the landing like characters out of a Beckett play, they also seem burdened by a million internal wars that rage endlessly behind their tired faces. These are faces that have grown accustomed to this corporate giant’s empty promises. A Metrorail train is a liminal space where you can only go nowhere slowly, like you’re on the river Styx and the train platforms are tired, forgotten places where promise is an exception and hardly ever a norm.
With just 18 days until the Giants EP Launch, the drive to get tickets sold and get feet through the door is upon us. I’ve been saving a lot of video marketing collateral for just such an occasion, so expect to see a lot of content coming your way.
This Saturday past, award winning illustrator Roger Williams (State of the Art Illustration) and I created a wall art mural to augment the Giants EP experience from not only a sonic one, but to a visual one as well! Somewhere between sweating our butts off and getting high off of spray-paint fumes, we shot the promo clip you’re about to see. What do you think of my latent TV presenting skills?
Eden Myrrh
Make sure you get your tickets and share the video – any and all support is much appreciated! More details:
27th February at Kaleidoscope Cafe in Claremont. The show starts at 8pm!
Featuring performances by the smokalicous Eden Myrrh(opening act, backing vocals and keyboards) and the formidable Jerome Rex (opening act and rhymes), underpinned by the solid accompaniment of drummer Jason Skippers, bassist Rosco Keenan Roman, guitar maestro Adrian Rogowski and turntablist DjHearin Aid! My featured hype-man is emcee The Route. Tickets are R100 (Fruit Vendor Street Team), R120 Pre-sale (buy direct from me or any of the band members) and R140 at the door.
Finally, the long wait is over! I present to you the Fruit Vendor Mini-Doccie, a film by Ro Su Engel. Starring Fruit Vendor, my aunt Mary Ann Wilson and my dad Richard Prinsloo. Be a Giant and please take 7 minutes, watch it and share the Fruit.
If you dig what you see here, this is nothing compared to what is gonna hit you if you come to the Giants EP Launch on Saturday 27th February at Kaleidoscope Cafe in Claremont. The show starts at 8pm!
Featuring performances by the smokalicous Eden Myrrh (opening act, backing vocals and keyboards) and the formidable Jerome Rex (opening act and rhymes), underpinned by the solid accompaniment of drummer Jason Skippers, bassist Rosco Keenan Roman, guitar maestro Adrian Rogowski and turntablist DjHearin Aid! My featured hype-man is emcee The Route. Tickets are R100 (Fruit Vendor Street Team), R120 Pre-sale (buy direct from me or any of the band members) and R140 at the door.
PS: I’m playing at Kirstenbosch on Sunday, get your tickets before it’s too late.
I spent the day working on the title track off my upcoming debut Fruit Vendor EP called Giants. This song has to be one of the most loved songs I’ve written, since people always want to hear it sung at events. As can be expected, I want the recorded version to sound just as good as the live version, if not better. I never intended the song to be done only in an acoustic way, so where the live solo version only features acoustic guitar, the recorded version includes piano, cello, organ, double bass, turntables, synths and drums. Interestingly enough, when I did this song with my live band at Mountain Arts Music Festival early last month, it not only featured DJ Eazy on turntables but also the very talented Didier Richards on alto saxophone – and man, it killed.
I’m fortunate to have Mountain Arts Promotions come on board to fund the physical CD, which I couldn’t have funded on my own. They have a really cool deal that they do with indie artists: they fund the project up front on the condition that their logo appears on the CD cover and on the actual CD. The artist then pays them back off sales as product gets moved – no fine print, just a good old loan. Excess units then belong to the artist to sell for profit.
I’m extremely grateful to have been as busy as I have been, particularly in the latter part of this year. I quit my desk job at the end of July in attempt to break free from what I experienced as a humungous deficiency in my life – doing what I love. Whether that be acting (The Caveman Calamity, Skalie Skinnerstories Tref Stoffontein, castings etc…), music (see below) or writing (as a freelancer for B’Jazz magazine).
The Caveman Calamity Comes to an End
After taking a break of just over a month and zoning in on what it is that I really want to do with my life, I saw an ad on Facebook for the industrial theatre roadshow called The Caveman Calamity which I worked with over the last 3 months. I played Cody the Caveman – it was loads of fun! It ended last week Monday and I actually quite miss it. That said, I really am enjoying the holidays – mostly doing nothing, well not quite!
DJ Hearin Aid
Brightly Clothed Boy EP in Production Phase
I’ve immediately resumed working on my first solo music offering after a 2-3 month hiatus, a 7 track EP called Frame of Notions for my Brightly Clothed Boy project. I’ve composed all the music and recorded most of the vocals so far with a few more additions being added shortly by two of my favourite local rappers Jerome Rex and my cousin Earl AKA The Route. The EP also features vocals by Juju van Wyk, guitar work by my buddy Adrian Rogowski (also producing the project) and cuts by DJ Hearin’ Aid (Jerome’s DJ).
Brother & Brother and Side Projects
Adrian and I are also working on a rap-rock track inspired by Rage Against the Machine and another protest song for a competition. In addition to that, we are also going to start pre-production on the new Brother & Brother EP (hopefully it will be finished in time for our performance at RAMfest 2014). Have a listen to the title track off our debut 3 track Bombs EP which was also recorded and released this year (and which got us access to play at RAMfest):
If that’s not enough, I also had a rehearsal with the Cape Town Gospel Choir last night for two performances next week (one at the V&A Waterfront Ampitheatre and the other at Meadowridge Baptist Church). I’ll be joining them on bass (my first time playing bass for full orchestra and choir).
Also got two private jazz gigs this month with Keenan Stevens (former resident guitarist at my Soapbox Jazz Jam Session & Open Mic) and Gemayel Kroukamp (drummer of the CueCumber Jazz Band). One of the gigs is a New Year’s Eve party, also another first for me! Have a look at how we held it down at the Soapbox Sessions:
In addition to all that, I’m contributing vocals to an album by a Botswanian Christian rapper called Da Genirol. This is my first time recording via long distance correspondence, with the internet as my tool. At times like these I’m grateful I spent all that cash on home studio equipment.
My First !Xaru
!Xaru
This morning I was hanging around at my aunt’s house and in the backyard I saw a bunch of branches and twigs lying around (she’d recently trimmed the huge tree in her garden). I’ve had it in my mind to incorporate a lot more indigenous ideas into my music for a long time now and would love to showcase that in my festival performance at Woordfees (Word Festival) 2014 (after the show I co-produced at the same festival early this year was a roaring success). My instrument of choice: the !Xaru – an indigenous Khoisan instrument recently made popular by local world music musician Pops Mohamed and young Cape Jazz visionary Kyle Shepherd. It’s design is simple, it’s basically a string on a bent branch stuck in the inside of the player’s mouth. You then beat the taut string with a twig repeatedly to create a note. There are ways to vary the pitch, but right now the only note I’m getting out of it is a C. It took me all of half an hour to make this instrument, at retail level (same design and everything) – mostly as a tourist, you’re looking at paying between R150 and R300. Hectic! I’ve already composed my first song on it. Getting back to my roots!
2013 has really been a year of many firsts – I’m hoping 2014 brings even more!
I wrote this song while I was taking the Metrorail train from Bellville station to Brackenfell. It was written out of pure frustration in response to Metrorail’s poor customer service and the trains that are constantly delayed or cancelled.
Fruit Vendor 