If you’ve been following Splattermail for any length of time now, you’d probably have picked up that our refined tastes tend towards music of the rock/indie/ instrumental persuasion. But shit, that’s not to say we don’t also enjoy other genres. Both the salami and smg have been known to fuck mix it up on the decks, and although we probably peaked during our “experimental” Green Man years (the old and only venue, natuurlik), creative differences with ham-handed management (Lou Bega’s and Eiffel 65’s paper beat System F’s and Paul van Dyk’s rock) eventually saw us move onto other projects: a spot of house, a dash of trance and a liberal sprinkling of hip-hop. And some forgettable corporate events at the Pampoenkraal in Bellville which were embarrassingly heavy on the DJ Otzi, Grease Megamix and Billy Ray Cyrus. God, we were whores.
Which is why I’m quite excited that my old mate, and a consanguine collaborator of smg’s, is kicking up some dust with his cracking new venture, Listenup.za.net. Although our tastes differ markedly in some respects, we share a mutual appreciation of fine tunes and Homemixes. So much so, in fact, that on one occasion the UCT Radio station manager called in at around 23h30 to kindly request that we “fuck around on our own time, thank you very much”. Aaah, the memories.
Back to Listenup.za.net. The buzz is hot: FHM and 5FM have already run features, and you can listen to a Listenup.za.net mix on the Vinyl Frontier this weekend. Here’s the inside track:
“Where the hell can I find music from local club DJs and store it on my ipod/cd/harddrive for future listening pleasure??”. The answer is nowhere – until now, with the launch of a new site aiming to centralise South African DJ mixes in MP3 format..from house legend Peter Abrahams, to techno massives Killer Robot, to our largest success story in drum and bass, Counterstrike – you are now able to listen to these guys at your convenience and not just when rocking the floor with your dancing shoes on.
The site has been created out of pure and simple love of electronic music and an appreciation for the DJs who push the local scene – nothing else. It hopes to dramatically increase awareness of local talent, and in the near future will feature promotional tracks by South African artists for download.
Genre focus:
* Ambient
* Breakbeat
* Deep House
* Drum & Bass
* Electro
* House
* Lounge
* Minimal
* Progressive
* Psytrance
* Techno
* Trance
* and others…Focus is predominantly South African, but scope is limitless.
Sweet. Although I’m kicking back in Cape Town this week, the site is particularly appealling to me as a non-political refugee in London, as I can exploit my superamazingsexyfast broadband to dump the latest local party trends onto my iPod, lick back some MDMA, chug a whippet, shnort some amyl, rip off my rash vest and tear up the living room until my eyes roll back into my skull and my jaws are irreversibly pulverised. That’s what the kids these days are doing, innit? Innit? Crazy times.
Seriously though – always stoked to find a good music site, even more so when it’s local. Check it out!