The Ooms, the Ass-grabbers and the Cherub People :: Good ol’ Folk at Schivas Rock [PTA]

Walk into Schivas Rock on a Friday night in a dress and you’re going to get your ass grabbed. By a boy or a girl. But this is not a deterrent for the new generation of alt-kids who have added to the mix of soiled wrong-side-of-forty rocker locals who call this quintessential dingy Pretoria dive ‘home’.

A gent mans the door, peering in at the crowds through the windows when no-one is looking. Walls painted mustard yellow to resemble sandstone make the place feel like it is closing in on you.

Hipsters in rokkies huddle around the dance floor while a table of Oom Schalk Lourens lookalikes perve from a dark corner highlighted by peachy tones. A pool table and players hog the back end of the dancefloor. We’re all here for a long-forgotten enigma in the South African music industry: soulful, back-to-roots, guitar-fuelled folk rock at Shivas Rock’s ‘Rock & Roll is Hard On Living’ night.

Bushy-haired Tim Burns is hammering at his guitar when we edge our way to the dancefloor. He fills calculated silences with the raw syrupy grit of his voice, conjuring up images of moody-blue velvet. Mr. Burns’s Donovan-like tunes, folksy and dead honest and pure, with anxious animation breaking through the confines of artistic internment, are like a rock shandy on a hot sunny day. Bitter-sweet, refreshing, brusque and alive.  It’s been a long time since someone so grounded and authentic has graced a stage in Pretoria.

All too soon he has left the stage and the oomies break free from their longing for the old days. I set about exploring through the gunky cloud smoke. Locals gather around a pool table in the back and foxy girls with ribbons in their hair and bright-fuchsia lips flit around the centre of the room, making themselves seen.

“You pretty ladies look like you need a ride home,” says a pimply middle-aged man as he hands over a laminated taxi-service card. Subtly, my friends trickle away from what has now become a montage of the worst and most dissonant pick-up lines I’ve ever heard, leaving me to lose the dud without pissing off his hairy wingmen sniggering in the corner.

And then Naas Veld, a laid-back set decorated with a banjo and guitar, take to the stage, allowing me to make my excuses. Groupies of some sort gather in electric anticipation. Naas Van Jaarsveld of éF-éL fame is the man behind the sound, lanky and blonde and ambitious, fervent and passionate. And here, the banjo half of tonight’s duo adds a touch of cheeky nostalgia to the sweet beatific harmonies that burst from the mellow pair. It’s a hint of inspired Eddie Vedder with a little more purity, a little less gruffness – and a lot more Van Jaarsveld in it. It’s refreshing and fascinating, and the crowd laps it up, rightfully so, calling for encores and chanting along.

Between sets we are sky rocketed back and forth from playful reminiscence to hardcore internal head banging, with the kids magnetically drawn to the dance floor and the ooms shaking their heads in derision. Professor Mystery is discoing behind the decks, whiskey is flowing, and B-movie-style robot monsters escape from the speakers.

A hippy with hemp ribbons tied around her head loses her dinner in the bathroom basin and fumbles back to the bar where she shoves her tongue down a scrawny guy’s throat. My friend gets her ass grabbed. She’s wearing a dress. I chat to a girl about the pros and cons of dyeing one’s hair pink. She is the poster child for pro.

When Them Frog take to the stage after an epic sound check, the crowd is desperately craving their presence. Sexy people fawn at the stage front, moody kids linger coolly on the fringes.

Them Frog are a raging volcano of crashing and melodious lyrics. But through the smashing there is a lot of soul. Guitars chug and the bass pops, while heavily percussive reverberation fills the room . Gusty vocals and a primal but sharp sound permeate the crowd and drag them into delirium. But they are too big for this bar and the low ceilings and drunk fogies don’t do them justice.

All too soon the mist has descended around the outskirts of the bar, and the soul that came with the music has been stripped from what is now evidently a plethora of murky sleaze. I’ve become too comfortable in the all-too familiar Pretoria hospitality. It’s time to go. The dim light forms deep shadows on the creases of leather skin and mascara-soaked cherubs. And things start to get a little creepy.

Ah Pretoria – how we love your ways, your soul.

Photo contributions by Pieter van Jaarsveld