Source: Clair Cantrell (Underground Press 22 May 2009)
Twenty years ago I was in pink leg warmers – not a care in the world. The world consisted of school and childhood education that would form my mind. Like a blank computer I sucked up the world and all it would give me regarding music. While the rest of the “Big” world were making art and making statements, I sat in my childhood bedroom dreaming of what it would be like to be a grown-up and how it was going to be for me to be the fat lady that ended the show. Opera was what I had my lil’ heart set on. As times changed and I grew older and my ambitions changed – along with it so did the world. Albeit that is stayed the same.
When I first became the Audiophile (labels are so much easier, yes, it is music that dominates my life), becoming a musician of sorts myself and landing up helping to run One F Music (in more recent years) – KOOS appeared across my path, through strange and twisted tales best left for bottles of wine and other recreational conversations, but I digress.
The subject of this article, the self-titled album by the band KOOS (originally The Black Tape) was made when I was 10 years old and at 31 years of age, blew my f**king mind!
PINK LEGWARMERS AND KOOS
It had to be released! It had to get out there! People had to hear it! There was no other option! So Paul Riekert, Warren Siebrits and Marcel Van Heerden hopped on it like this was the last thing in the world worth releasing. Paul restored the original audio in One F Music studio, Warren gave us the means financially and Marcel sorted through his memories of his friends, some painful, and all of which very personal.
KOOS is still by far one of the most innovative albums that have crossed my path in the last 10 years. It is still relevant today as it was all those years ago. The social commentary, the noise – that all made sense – to fit together into a fantastic product that very nearly slipped through the cracks, had it not been for the visionaries at Shifty records. Lloyd Ross, Warrick Sony and their record label, that in those years had the balls to record artists like the late Bernoldus Niemand, and of course KOOS, are fully within their rights to take credit for this one – bless them! For without them it would indeed have slipped through the Calvinist, suffocated music industry of the time. In 2009 it was time for KOOS to rear its deserving head.
Without being put into a political timeline. They stood on their own, they didn’t need a Voëlvry to boost them – they had what it took, just by being who they were.
The majestic Megan Kruskal stood head and shoulders above the rest, an underground Maria Callas, equal to Nico and Eve Libertine. She sent shivers down my spine as we digitized the KOOS rehearsal tapes that were screened on the launch date at the Warren Siebrits Gallery, the night KOOS was re-born from Black Tape to digital, and carefully handed to the public nurses to go and play within their audio nurseries. “Breed like rats!” she wailed at us all – relevant today? I’d say.
With the primitive technology of the time they managed to get an original sound and machined it to sound like nothing else, although there are influences like Nick Cave’s original incarnation, The Birthday Party and Neubauten in there. Fred De Vries in his book Club Risiko writes extensively about the life of the band KOOS and the people involved in its creation. People like Neil Goedhals, Kendell Geers, Marcel Van Heerden, Velile Nxazonke, Gys De Villiers and the enigmatic Megan Kruskal. Sadly, the members of KOOS went their separate ways in 1990 and left us with a legacy that cannot be broken by time, not then, not now, not ever!
Saddest of all is that shortly after Neil Goedhals committed suicide by jumping from a block of flats in Yeoville the JHB Art Gallery bought some of his works. The KOOS album is a beautiful tribute to Neil, may he rest in peace. I was lucky enough to hear Marcel speaking about Neil and all the others in the studio while planning this album. With the greatest respect and reverance he said that KOOS were privileged and honoured. It was incredibly moving. I wish that I could have captured that moment forever.
People like Johan Van Wyk (one of my favourite South African poets) wrote the lyrics for some of the tracks. Speaking out against what was happening in South Africa of course didn’t sit too well with the authorities at the time, but they steamed ahead – they was no silencing them. Songs which feature on the album such as “Sing Jy van Bomme”, “Tsafendas” and “Suid Afrikaanse Herfs” portray a country in turmoil, a country on the brink of something big, political unrest and states of emergency, like we experienced in 1985.
The limited edition copies of which only 500 were printed contain a copy of a flyer that was dropped from a helicopter over Soweto on the 16th of June, warning people to stay inside for their own safety! This album stands to show us that we are free to say what we want now – there is no problem with having a black drummer anymore – and that music is finally were it should be. Thank you, KOOS, for not being scared – for giving us a timeless collectors’ piece that showcases how easy it is for us now to create what was so difficult for you. You broke boundaries; you Dada’d us into belief that the music industry isn’t lost to our folk genre contemparies.
WE CAN SAY WHAT THE HELL WE WANT TO!!!! AND HOW WE WANT TO!!
This is an inspiring album, a truthful album and an album that wants you to get up and scream AT the world that music is still art and doesn’t have to be formulaic to be good
– IT JUST HAS TO BE SPECIAL – and this album certainly IS that with no excuses! Opera for me? Nah – I’ll stick to the real street stuff thank you …
Clair Cantrell