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South African Punk Rock

DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
edited October 2013 in Strut Central
This is my "something new you learn every day" for today - in South Africa in 1979, there was a "non-segregated" punk band called National Wake. Back then, I'd have expected the NME to have written about them, but I've never heard of them before.

A FOF interviewed them today for a book he's writing about apartheid-era SA music. They're re-releasing their back catalogue soon. They managed to sell only a few hundred copies of their first single before they were banned by the apartheid government. Apparently John Peel played them once. The ??70 royalty cheque they received was the most money they ever made.

Now you know as much about them as I do.

  Comments

  • LazarusOblongLazarusOblong 896 Posts
    Light In The Attic has reissued the LP along with a full LP of additional material:



    http://lightintheattic.net/releases/923-walk-in-africa-1979-81
  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    Yeah, I didn't realise LITA were putting it out until about two minutes after I posted it. It's fascinating stuff - not as self-consciously amateurish as some of the Western material of the time, but there's something refreshingly unforced and genuine about it. I guess living in an actual fascist state doesn't leave much time for the kind of posturing many UK bands engaged in.
  • LazarusOblongLazarusOblong 896 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    Yeah, I didn't realise LITA were putting it out until about two minutes after I posted it. It's fascinating stuff - not as self-consciously amateurish as some of the Western material of the time, but there's something refreshingly unforced and genuine about it. I guess living in an actual fascist state doesn't leave much time for the kind of posturing many UK bands engaged in.

    That might well be, especially since there was not much chance for commercial success.

    And of course some of the bands in Northern Ireland knew what living in a police state was like.
  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    LazarusOblong said:
    DocMcCoy said:
    Yeah, I didn't realise LITA were putting it out until about two minutes after I posted it. It's fascinating stuff - not as self-consciously amateurish as some of the Western material of the time, but there's something refreshingly unforced and genuine about it. I guess living in an actual fascist state doesn't leave much time for the kind of posturing many UK bands engaged in.

    That might well be, especially since there was not much chance for commercial success.

    And of course some of the bands in Northern Ireland knew what living in a police state was like.

    They all did. Oddly, very few of them felt an obligation to sing about it. Stiff Little Fingers actually came in for a lot of criticism for writing about "The Troubles", especially when it was discovered that their lyrics were written by their manager who was a Daily Express journalist at the time. Others were somewhat more euphemistic.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    This is more at the new wave end of things.

  • LazarusOblongLazarusOblong 896 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    LazarusOblong said:
    DocMcCoy said:
    Yeah, I didn't realise LITA were putting it out until about two minutes after I posted it. It's fascinating stuff - not as self-consciously amateurish as some of the Western material of the time, but there's something refreshingly unforced and genuine about it. I guess living in an actual fascist state doesn't leave much time for the kind of posturing many UK bands engaged in.

    That might well be, especially since there was not much chance for commercial success.

    And of course some of the bands in Northern Ireland knew what living in a police state was like.

    They all did. Oddly, very few of them felt an obligation to sing about it. Stiff Little Fingers actually came in for a lot of criticism for writing about "The Troubles", especially when it was discovered that their lyrics were written by their manager who was a Daily Express journalist at the time. Others were somewhat more euphemistic.


    Both bands were favorites of mine at the time. But I don't recall that info about the Fingers manager - that's interesting.

    In interviews at the time they would talk about the difficulties of being a band with both Catholic and Protestant members. It was the first comparison I thought of when reading about National Wage.
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