Music. The one thing that somehow links us all together with an invisible pulsating thread. This thread is infinite and has no boundaries, it stretches across oceans and it stretches across deserts and it stretches across every square inch of land on this rotating beautiful rock called Earth. And I have hope to believe that it stretches even further than that; when asteroids collide with en-tropic planets, a resonating bass ripples throughout the universe like a giant perpetual boom box, forever releasing melodies and symphonies, like a colossal festival among the stars; if you will.
This invisible thread pulled me to Cape Town, the land of rough beautiful oceans and equally rough and beautiful music.
We stood waiting on the corner of a road in Seapoint for the taxi which would inevitably lead us to a destination erupting with tunes and people vibrating with energy. On the exterior of our conveyor to town was a mammoth Coke advert, in essence the taxi looked like a giant Coke can which had been dropped down several flights of stairs, but instead of exploding with acid-like liquid, this can exploded with fragments of kwaito laced with reggae. Entering this taxi was quite similar to cutting open the side of a speaker and crushing your body into the interior of said speaker. Once in the taxi we moulded ourselves around the people who inhabited it; mothers with children, students with earphones and businessmen on their way to important meetings. Spluttering and coughing the taxi dragged itself along the beautiful promenade of Seapoint and into the roaring iron jungle of the city.
In The Taxi, Relaxing
On upon entering the city we knew we were in the right place, all along the streets of town were old men sitting on wooden crates playing guitars and young men singing; if Cape Town was a face these musicians were the beautiful freckles scattered all over it. Much like when entering a bakery you smell the aroma of breads and pastries being made, when entering the city you hear the sounds of chatter interwoven with melodies.
Oh, The Beloved City
In the city we stumbled across a trio of Rock ‘N Roll cowboys who had hitchhiked their way to Cape Town with nothing but their guitars and jungle-like hair. They christened themselves Alice-D and in exchange for a few cigarettes they played us some of their songs. We ended up spending the whole day and most of the night with them.
That first night out with Alice-D we found ourselves sitting in a circle on a littered sidewalk in Long Street singing our hearts out to Wonderwall by Oasis, slowly but surely people passing by joined our small musical sphere, and our little circle grew and blossomed into a beautiful acoustic session.
This is an example of how music is not only found in those bars and clubs that your friends force you to go to, but rather how music is everywhere. Music is found in that middle aged man strumming his pen on the desk waiting for work to finish, music is found in the clapping of hands when a little kid gets ice cream for breakfast, music is found in the clicking of fingers at a poetry slam and music is found when you bite into that taco at Mama Mexicana, music is found everywhere.
Alice-D gives off this wave of ” I don’t give a fuck what you think, we’re here to play music and fuck you if you don’t understand us”, which is immortalized in their vicious guitar playing and dirty screams.
We had no intentions of hanging with these guys for the whole day let alone the whole week but the fact that we could sit down and talk about music for hours united us. That is the unbelievable thing about music, all the differences that we accumulate over the years are white washed by a simple yet beautiful element called music . Music unites us and strings us all together in a way that nothing else can.
Bring on the days of reckless abandon.
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Words & Images by Cassandra Pohorille
