SA Rocks

Yes it is that lovely time of year again. When the grass turns to a deep shade of green, the sky rolls over to a luminous blue and the clouds move along just enough to provide with comfortable amounts of shade.

This all means that it’s the perfect time for Rocking The Daisies and Rocking The Gardens to descend upon us and blow our minds.

It’s Summertime, in a nutshell. I am normally a Wintertime person but who can deny that the cooler things definitely happen in Summer.

So let’s cut to the chase.

Rocking the Gardens

is taking place at Emmerentia Dam in JHB on October 3rd, 2009.

The lineup is as follows:

Black Hotels
Ashtray Electric
340ml
aKING
Tidal Waves
Freshly Ground
Bed on Bricks
Just Jinjer

Brilliant. Now on to

Rocking the Daisies

The Lineup is sick –

Sunday
10:00 The Little Kings
11:00 Simon van Gend
12:00 Son of a Thousand Blues
13:00 340ml
14:00 Bed on Bricks

There is a Red Bull Studio and a Lemon Tree Theatre this year and RTD is always eco-friendly and rocking conscious.

This year at RTD there will be some very kick-ass, old school with a nu-twist, Photo Booths present at the event. Sponsored by The Grid. Make sure to pop in to the booth, get your photo snapped with your insane mates and post them to your various profiles, albums, social networks or wherever.

As per usual there is nothing left unturned at The Daisies event, Join The Grid Group (www.thegrid.co.za/rtd/home on your phone browser), follow them on Twitter, hit the Facebook event and so be sure to get your rock out.

Popularity: 10% [?]

At least it was declared a monument according to the organisers. But let’s be honest, who could possibly argue?

Klaus Bauer over at Zoopy did an absolutely sterling job of his coverage of Oppikoppi this year. If you can believe it, I actually watched a 6 minute video online, maybe we aren’t the 30second generation after all?

I love the fact that everyone shares a common understanding of why they attend the event and it is very simple: Music, boose, music and a couple of drinks. Simple, effective and jovial fun.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Yesterday I actually used social media to discover a new South African band that is putting themselves out there and sticking with the changing times.

The Watermark High started following me on twitter yesterday.

Luckily I was intrigued by the name of the follower and didn’t disregard them as one of the many twammers out there.

Why I immediately became intrigued by the band is simple. It’s not often that a local band will simply create music and give it away. The industry here is too tough for that. It’s hard work here to make good money from music so many bands keep it close, don’t release their tracks for free download before they’ve made it big in some way.

After mentioning that I discovered the music online I was soon informed that via one degree of separation I actually knew the social media muso. What a pleasure.

So what’s the deal? Simple, The Watermark High is a band from Gauteng, South Africa. Post-Rock / Electronica / Indie / Ambient. It’s that easy. You can download the EP from their MySpace page or just click here. It is the solo release from Paul van der Walt.

I am really impressed that the music doesn’t fit in to one of the more popular genres of the moment in SA. Right now you have rock, hip hop, rnb and pop in SA. This is what sells.

The ambient approach that The Watermark High takes to their rock is refreshing and listenable and I am in awe. It’s great.

When you download the EP you are confronted with 4 tracks and a Word document to read. This is what they have to say:

Hi

Thanks for downloading The Watermark High’s new 4 song EP, “Disappear With Me”. If you like what you’ve heard then please help us out by telling all your friends about us. Either encourage them to download the EP as well (by going to www.thewatermarkhigh.co.za), or feel free to burn them a disc. It’s free, we just want to get the songs out there!

We’d really love to hear from you. Please join us on Facebook and Myspace and comment! Also keep checking those pages for the latest information on shows, news, videos etc.

The Watermark High on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Watermark-High/7554472468

The Watermark High on Myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/thewatermarkhigh

We look forward to hearing from you! See you around!

Paul
(The Watermark High)

E-mail: thewatermarkhigh@gmail.com
Official Site: www.thewatermarkhigh.co.za (redirects to Myspace)

CREDITS

All songs were entirely recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Paul van der Walt, between January and April 2008, between his bedroom, garage and the band’s practice space.

Lyrics by Paul van der Walt.
Cover artwork by Zoology Design Studio (www.zoology.co.za)

The Watermark High Live: Paul van der Walt (guitar and vocals), Robin McDonald (drums and beats), Tjaardt Swanepoel (guitar) and Sandra Smit (bass).

Thank you for listening.

Reading that document I was sold. To quote: “Either encourage them to download the EP as well (by going to www.thewatermarkhigh.co.za), or feel free to burn them a disc. It’s free, we just want to get the songs out there!” That’s it, that’s the way music is going, going, gone. And they are right there with the movements of the industry. Lovely.

Just in case you aren’t convinced that the band gets it, here is where you can find them:

http://www.thewatermarkhigh.co.za
http://www.trig.com/thewatermarkhigh
http://www.purevolume.com/thewatermarkhi…
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Watermark+H…
http://www.sellaband.com/thewatermarkhig…
http://www.imeem.com/thewatermarkhigh
http://www.twitter.com/watermarkhigh

Popularity: 10% [?]

I haven’t featured a photographer from the SA Rocks Flickr Group in a while and thought this was a great opportunity.

Charlotte_ZA from on Flickr just added the following stunning photographs to the SA Rocks group on Flickr.

Charlotte_ZA has some absolute phenomenal photographs of bands on her flickr profile page so head over and have a look.

Popularity: 10% [?]