March 11th, 2010 by Sarah Dawson
The Academy Awards are total bullshit. As an accolade, its function is to give the okay to bourgeois audiences to do some chin-stroking rumination with one hand, while they dig for dollars in the wallet with the other. It has nothing to do with the reality of global cinema, but rather the incestuous world of Hollywood boys’ club ego-fluffing and the perpetuation of its own delusions of grandeur – and, ordinarily, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass which person takes home which Golden Phallus. read more…
March 11th, 2010 by Diana Gross, images by JR Onyangunga and Kevin Goss-Ross
Music festivals have always been a bit of a piss take for me. Never having had to pay for one in my life (luv u journalistic skillz), I lack the fundamental respect or reverence (that music journo’s usually endow themselves with) for the whole hallowed business of rounding up a bunch of bands and their fans in The Nature, and milking them of their money and dignity over three or so days. read more…
March 11th, 2010 by Kate Crew, images by Kevin Goss-Ross
Saturday, the 6th of March, saw the citizens of the concrete jungle substitute sports attire with summer garb as a much awaited RAMfest made its northern debut at the picturesque Emmarentia Dam. The thatch roof stage played host to a diverse array of acts with genres ranging from Wrestlerish’s introspective folk rock to Lark’s alternative take on the same thing. read more…
March 10th, 2010 by Samora Chapman
Everyday for the past 6 months, the Durban Metro Police have been rounding up street children, often beating them, and throwing them in the back of vans. According to Tom Hewitt, founder and CEO of the street children’s organization Umthombo, children are being harassed, beaten and pepper sprayed in these ruthless round-up operations. read more…
March 10th, 2010 by Mungo Adonis
Contra by name, contra by nature: young pop-smiths hurdle The Difficult Second Album(tm).
It’s easy for certain South Africans to hate Vampire Weekend. They’re trendy, bookish and pretentious. Oh, and they name-check Peter Gabriel instead of Oliver Mtukudzi. read more…
March 9th, 2010 by Roger Young
Look, I’m not going to fuck around, you’re going to need better speakers than the ones you have in order to fully appreciate the new Van Coke Kartel album, Skop Skiet en Donner. At times it gets so ridiculously heavy and overblown that it becomes nothing short of glorious. read more…
March 9th, 2010 by Brandon Edmonds, image by Black Koki at Love and Hate Studio
The Waterfront is a re-purposed commercial zone. It used to be exclusively about ships and shipping, and now you can shop, date and see movies there. (All made possible by a dubious Dubai consortium, of course). Anyway, commercial re-purposing of surpassed industrial sites is universal. San Francisco, New York, Singapore, London. Cape Town. Not Detroit. Poor Detroit. read more…
