Latest news with #RogerWaters:TheWall
The Citizen
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
Lefokolodi: Play it freaking loud
'We're just four regular guys who love music.' It's lekker, it's loud and its moshable. It's punk that's let of some steam and what Nine Inch Nails would sound like if it were on steroids. The music is good, and what makes it even better is that you know, for sure, your parents would ask you to turn it down, because it's that good. Joburg outfit Lefokolodi's music is road rage and a slap of protest in between humour and deep thinking. The band's young EP The Milk Was Finished Because We Were Thirsty is now available on all major streaming platforms. It's not streaming, really. It's tsunami-ing your senses with grinding guitars and rock and roll, like it should be, He was a line ranger musician looking to make a home, and guitarist Shinesh Ramballi wanted to start a band. He had no scene connections, no network, and did what any guitarist in his position would. He went to Marshall Music in Woodmead, Johannesburg and tried to recruit strangers. 'No one gave me the time of day,' he said. 'So, I just started playing through some amps. Loudly.' Two guys noticed while browsing, liked what they heard, and suggested he speak to a drummer named Yakean. He was looking for a band Quickly, a jam session was set up, but before it happened, Shinesh got a message from someone called Lerato. 'He was a bassist looking to start a band,' he said. 'He and Yakean knew each other from a project they called Headmistress.' They met up. They played. It worked. 'The chemistry was instant,' Shinesh said. 'We decided to start a band on the spot.' To christen their new collective, Lerato had a notebook filled with band name ideas. One stood out. 'Lefokolodi,' said Shinesh. 'It means millipede in Sotho.' What they did not realise at the time was that Lerato could also sing. 'We went through a few vocalists,' he said. 'But no one was right. Then we heard Lerato do vocals. That was it.' ALSO READ: 'Roger Waters: The Wall' is an epic watch of powerful music The final piece was Sidney. 'We were adamant. It had to be Sidney, who was in a band called Drumfish. He is on bass,' said Shinesh. The band members go by their first names. They all have day jobs, too. The line-up has been consistent since then with Lerato on vocals, Shinesh on guitar, Sidney on bass, and Yakean on drums. 'We're just four regular guys who love music.' They rehearse weekly and record when they can afford to do so. 'We self-fund everything,' said Shinesh. 'There's no label. No manager. No one is telling us what to do. It's just us.' Hard rock roots The EP is not a concept project, even though it may sound like one. 'These are just songs we wrote over the last few years,' said Shinesh. 'It was not planned. It just happened to fit.' The tracks are true to their hard rock roots, and Shinesh ran through some of the emotional logistics of the somewhat cheekily named songs. Butt Hurt deals with heartbreak. 'It's about unrequited love. The kind that leaves you angry and frustrated.' Mozzie takes aim at social performance. 'It's about people who pretend to be perfect and look down on those who are not,' he said. 'Trying to live up to that standard sucks you dry.' The track Snake Dick is a confidence anthem with a sharp edge. 'It's about knowing your worth and how that upsets people. The 'b**ches' we refer to are the ones who fear confidence. Also, we just wanted to have fun with hip hop.' 8 Tit Bitties is a track about self-acceptance. 'Learning to love yourself, even the bits you do not like. It's about survival, really.' There's a weed anthem Za Za is what he called their weed anthem. 'A love song to marijuana. And the community it creates,' said Shinesh. 'It's about ease, honesty, a sense of peace. And it's just us appreciating the culture we're a part of.' They record the same way they write. He said it's done collectively and without overthinking it. 'Ninety-nine percent of our music comes from jamming,' he said. 'Someone brings an idea, and we build on it.' They have been called punk, post-punk, grunge-adjacent and a bunch of other things. The band do not care. 'That label came from other people. We are not trying to fit into anything.' Authenticity matters more to them than genre. 'Rock is not mainstream like it used to be, but people still connect with it,' he said. Their songs are noisy, riff-heavy, and deliberately unpolished. 'We're not interested in clean,' he said. 'It has to be loud, honest and true to us.' NOW READ: We listened to Katy Perry's latest album, but you don't have to
The Citizen
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
‘Roger Waters: The Wall' is an epic watch of powerful music
'Roger Waters: The Wall' sees the rock star explore his emotional nostalgia. Music can be powerful. Incredibly powerful. It can agitate for social or political change, lament or celebrate love and speak for the collective. Other music speaks directly to the soul, the afraid in each of us, the trauma and the hurt. It can teach us lessons, inject new ideas, inspire and decelerate thoughts or speed up personal metamorphosis. Such is the power of Pink Floyd's music. And it's been around 45 years since the band released The Wall, toured the album and produced the first cinematic incarnation of the music's narrative. Yet, it's as relevant today and inwardly touching as it was on the first day of release. And Apple TV's now put the Roger Waters 2014 epic live concert documentary on its menu. It is a must-watch, a must-collect. But it makes you wish that you were in the audience, then. The film is long. It stretches over two hours with beautifully shot cinematic scenes of Waters on another kind of journey. While the music and the Alan Parker-directed 1982 film tells of the character's progressive journey as a reluctant rock star and the walls – demons he must manage inside – the clips spaced between the live performance tell a contra-narrative. Waters explores his emotional nostalgia, in many ways quietly faces his own demons and traces the actual moments and people in his family, like his dad and grandfather, who lie at the base of the original music. Biographical account of Waters' life Roger Waters: The Wall, after all, is a biographic recount of Waters' life, his struggle with the death of his dad in the Second World War, and being bullied at school. It's a treatise to the mistrust of the State at a grand scale. The film is Nietzsche's existentialism coupled with Orwell's Animal Farm, along with a measure of emotional turbulence that can resonate with both the dark and lighter side of our inner selves. Roger Waters: The Wall is in forward and reverse motion at the same time. And despite the long running time and numb-bum risk, it's an epic watch. The show is a far cry from the Dome performance in South Africa during the same tour. Here, Waters was close to unplugged and intimate. On stage in the film, he conducts a larger-than-life audiovisual spectacular that showcases his showmanship. Also Read: U2's 'How to Reassemble an Atomic Bomb' is a satisfying throwback If you are a Pink Floyd fan and followed the angry split between Waters and the rest of the band – the copyright punch-ups and mutual dislike between the parties – this is the moment to forget about it and just immerse yourself in the music. Drummer Nick Mason reunites with Waters in the film and, at the end, the pair answer questions from fans around the world. The two also spend some time talking and tracing nostalgia at earlier intervals. Last year David Gilmour joined Waters in celebrating the 45th anniversary of the album. Best-selling double album of all time The Wall remains the best-selling double album of all time with 30 million copies sold and ranks just behind the band's Dark Side of The Moon. The latter musical sortie holds the collective highest sales tally at 45 million copies. Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 – the anthem off The Wall – has been streamed well over a billion times. The band's progressive rock is not for everyone, and is for everyone at the same time. Because the truths in the lyrics are not unlike our own prayers for emotional asylum. Roger Waters: The Wall brings it all full circle. Of course, there are naysayers and when the film was first released it suffered some pretty nasty reviews from critics who relegated the entire effort to an ego trip. But when you watch the work and experience the music, it's easy to see the codswallop and ignorance of negative impressions. To fully understand the show, audiences new to Pink Floyd or anyone who has not seen Bob Geldof as Pink in the original film, must watch it. It is a cinematic masterpiece of its time and a sensory ride unlike any other. From the Nazi references to the evils of conformity, war and inner conflict, The Wall was an explainer film like no other. Roger Waters: The Wall sees it coming full circle. Also Read: Nasreen's the thinking Swiftie's kind of music
