THESE ARE THE CAPE TOWN CHRONICLES …

HIVA (lalalala) Sponsored by SAMGI in association with the British Council initiatied by THRU. This was a live recording project for world aids day 2003. It took place at the SABC on a sunny Ist December afternoon. It was attended by a capacity audience including film maker Christian from GERMANY . It featured the performances of over 60 musicians.

The inspiration was a character called HIVA born into cartoon strips to demystify the shame behind AIDS and to personalise the struggle to live with it as both a virus in the body and a negative influence on society. Hivalalalala a land of music was created whereby joy, love and harmony was a sustainable and living intention. When HIVA was to visit this land he was ensconced in miracle and alas through the heart felt expression of waves of thunderous applause in a proud and dynamic performance, HIVA was to succumb to the land HIVALALALA and his threat was to dissolve in a spirited upliftment of moral value and simple living.

World aids day 2003 through the support of the British Council and SAMGI this make believe model of "consciousness shifted" took its stage at the SABC auditorium. The epidemic of aids infection may not have been cured that evening however we went a long way to removing the con from conspiracy. How is it that when we speak from the heart, truths are revealed. At this point, only a small audience benefited from the vivid expression of the musical alliance remembered as hivalalala.

It is known that the aids infection rate never grew higher than 7% in Senegal . The reason for this is they have a tradition of 'griot'. Griot is the 'music man' who is entrusted with spreading messages of information and education to the people of the community. Thus when word of an aids epidemic broke, there was no hesitation to commission a force of the most well known musicians to share an important message with the people. And so the musicians took to the streets with loud halers singing songs describing the exact unexaggerated manner of the matter of aids and HIV infection in as non-verbose way as possible. The people got the story and made an immediate choice to live without the possibility of this problem.

* Songs recorded at the Women of the World festival 9 th August 2003 with the kind support of Laurence Mitchell and Patrick Mckenzie

* * Songs recorded at the Hivalalala festival World Aids Day December 1 st 2003 with thanks to Judith Smith and Ernesto of the South African Media and Gender Institute.

CD first compiled on World Aids Day December 1 st 2008 with special thanks to friends…

THE WONDERGIGS - THE SESSIONS AS THEY CAME AND WENT

19/01/02 : BLK SONSHINE : The series launched on a cool summers evening. The perfect conditions for enjoying music. Masauko and Neo, the dynamic Blk Sonshine duo, had just moved down from Joburg and stepped right into some serious Cape Town demand. They had been on Felicia's talk show, all over the radio and on the day of the show the Cape Times ran a cover feature. About an hour before the show was scheduled to start crowds began to gather outside the Beach Rd. Studios. It was an evening where some of the most beautiful music ever was made. It was so beautiful that all thoughts of commercial exploitation were forgotten. It was about the moment, you can't bottle that and sell it. And then it was discovered that the tapes had broken. The recordings wer lost but for back up onto DAT. (Of the two DAT's of that show I have one in my possession. I recall giving the other to one of the artists!)

26/01/02 TRIBE : Featuring Buddy Wells on saxophone, Mark Fransman on piano, Kesevan Naidoo on drums and Charles Lazaar on double bass.

02/02/02 : SAGTEVLEI featuing Alex Van Heerden on trumpet and accordion,zderek Griper on violin and Brydon Bolton. Conceptualised for the show brought together through a month of isolated rehearsals in Tulbagh.

09/02/02 : GOLLIWOG It was the perfect summers evening, we couldn't get anybody off the beach and as a result the gig was not full for the debut recording of a fresh funk band. There was a line of brass instruments and Kes going bos on the drums in his own little house the sound engineers had built for him on the stage.

23 & 24/02/02 : THE SHAPE OF STRINGS TO COME featuring Jimmy Dludlu, Alvin Dyers and Richard Caeser. The newspaper likened this three guitars collaboration to the three tenors!

02/03/02 ROBBIE JANSEN & THE SONS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN featuring Hilton Schilder, Hotep Galeta and Alex Van Heerden. A cool and quiet night at the Beach Rd. Studios, but a powerful evening of music. Robbie Jansen is Cape Town and I like the way he jokingly quipped after the show, 'was that what you wanted!'. Yes, indeed.

09/03/02 : ERNESTINE DEANE QUARTET featuring Brydon Bolton

16/03/02 : MIKANIC featuring Ernestine Deane, Jamie Jupiter and Sylvia Mdunyelwa. The gig was billed as a one hit wonder, no push, no hype. The violin and guitar duo of Mikani packed out the venue.

... end ... The opening run was an enormous success, through the proceeds from the door we were able to pay th musicians, so things got a little more extravagant in the second part. Enter Good Hope FM for the groundbreaking advent of live radio broadcasts from every gig ...

15/06/02 : MOODPHASE 5IVE featuring GODESSA. Brian the drummer arrived late as he was picking up his mom for this historic show.

22/06/02 : MAC MCKENZIE AND THE GOEMA CAPTAINS OF CAPE TOWN : Mac Mckenzie is a guitarist, bassist and composer who is everything that Cape Town is. He's a man of Tom Jobim proportion. Mac started the Genuines, that 80's band that was so inspired they could play jazz on one night, punk rock the next and goema the following. Hilton Schilder was in the Genuines too.

06/07/02 : SONGS OF THE BROKEN STRING featuring the Khoi Konnextion, Loit Sols, v Monica b and Lesly Javan. The collaboration was brought together by the management team the Kurus Gurus, and it moved amongst the most memorable expressions of being, just being. When the ghetto poet, Jethro sang his freeom song, Loit Sols couldn't help but pick up the clavas and v Monica b couldn't resist singing behind him. It was urban and it was rural, it was a collaboration of the folk tradition that is the Western Cape .

13/07/02 SKY 189 presents the David Poole quartet and Carla Diamonde, 5th Floor, Groundworks and Black Noize.

27/07/02 : SKY 189 presents the Brydon Bolton trio with Parliament, D-form, Ernie, Animal Chin, Mizchif, Devious, Raycliff and Black Noize.

17/11/2002 LAUNCH OF MOMENT IN CAPE TOWN CD

A moment in Cape Town launched 17/11/2002 with the generous funding of the Dutch council made everyone smile. Except our competitors which was the music industry which set out at once to exploit, strangle and suppress this collaborative and open hearted musical expression.

As an act therefore of defiance the wondergigs album release ‘a moment in cape town' were removed from the franchised monopolies that control printing and distribution and handed over for ‘exclusive' distribution' to the Somalian corner café.