The Chiz

Syd Kitchen has been on the SA music sce4ne for a very long time. So it sonly right that I post a very long interview....

I can also recommend you go and check out his site, which is where you canget his records.. www.sydkitchen.com

1) 1964 to 2008, 60’s rock n roll through acoustic folk, jazz, rock, African and more. Syd Kitchen’s done it. Or have you? Do you harbour some remote ambition yet unrealised?

The thing is….......this road I’m on was chosen for me by God………the talent (whatever it is I have) was given to me with a mandate……..I’ve seen hundreds of compadres/fly-by-night’s/flavour-of-the month’s come and go over the years but there has never been a choice for me……..I’ve always felt that if I don’t do what I do and continue to do what I do (irrespective of “that success”) God will fuck me up in Heaven one day………simple story……..I call it my Van Gogh-ism…….that stupidity that propels me forward despite failure………all my albums go instantly ZINC……so fucking what?........so to answer your question………I am just starting out sir

2) Reading your history on your site, the story unfolds in a flowing organic manner, as if you moved smoothly from one stage of music and craft to another. Was this really how it all happened? Were there never the questions over a job, a “real” career and life?

Apart from a short period of 5 years when I owned and ran SYD KITCHEN’S GUITAR SALOON in the early/mid ‘80’s I have survived off my talent as a musician and a teacher……..nothing unfolds effortlessly…….it’s always a struggle and the older one gets the more those in power become judgemental in their take on you and thoughts of Age-ism creep into the equation of whether you’re worthy or not of being booked for that next festival……..but you know what?........even though I have to pitch for a place every year, I am the only human alive who has played EVERY SPLASHY FEN from day one……..fuck sake…..they’ve even got SYD KITCHEN Avenue in the fucking village but those in power there make me crawl across the ground every year to play at the festival…….I have no idea whether I am playing there in 2008……..so my “career” is a total busk……I have to continually invent my career…..day by day…….hour by hour……..but God is watching

3) By now you must be regarded as one of the largest and broadest repositories of guitar music in this country. Do you have any specific plans for making this knowledge available? Using it as part of whatever you do next?

My talent is available to anyone who asks of it……..that’s why I’m a good teacher……..I’m not scared to show you what I know……the role of the teacher is to make him/herself redundant……..whether I would like to have instruction books or videos out there like my brother Tony Cox and others depends on if a publisher is reading this shit and determines I’m worthy enough of investing in……..I’m too busy dancing as fast as I can in the perpetuation of my next breath…….my School of music is small because it’s a means to bond-paying and not the final focus of who I am……I am a poet/performer/guitarist…….but I learn from everybody

4) Recently you seem to be making great in roads over seas, with tours and sale etc. What is happening out there and how are people reacting to your unique brand of South African music?

We create our own reality and I remember clearly standing in front of the mirror years ago and saying “you will play all over the world”……..and that’s happening now……..in 2004 I played at the Glastonbury Festival in England, the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in Norway, in Wales, London, Denmark…….last year I played the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland as well as record an album in Paris with the legendary Mike Dickman…….this year I toured the States playing San Fransisco, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Los Angeles (including THE shrine of acoustic venues McCabes in Santa Monica), Joshua Tree in Nevada (where Gram Parsons died), Bath, Brunswick and Kennebunkport in Maine……..also toured the UK this year with appearances at the Belfast Arts Festival, gigs in Dublin (including the famed Cherrytree) and gigs in Norwich with my brother Pete…….so my reality is manifesting externally……..’cause let’s face it…….if I carry on running around SA like I have for the last 36 years I might end up staring up my own asshole…….probably am already……..but they loved me “over there”……..people recognize and respond to energy wherever you play…….so I gooie……..whether its Norway or LA…….people are the same everywhere

5) Our industry has laboured it seems, under a perpetual inferiority complex that endures even today, despite democracy, open access and a more level playing field. To what do you ascribe the average South Africa’s seeming in ability to recognise and value the power and validity of their local culture?

Simple story……..air time……..if “they” heard me on the radio as regularly as one gets to hear some people (no name’s mentioned)……I’d sell shitloads…….my music is as appealing as anyone’s……..you just don’t hear me on the radio……or find me in the stores…….this business is driven by perception……..controlled by “gatekeepers” who Austwich-like allow one in or not……..I wrote a piece called “Golf and the persuance of Afro-Illumination”…….sums it up for me………I’ll attach it here for you

GOLF AND THE PERSUANCE OF AFRO-ILLUMINATION

Is it “Simunye we are one” or “Simunye we are one helluva cock-up?” 

I have to ask this question when I think of the negative perception that white South Africans have of their music and how little respect is often shown to local musicians.  Departing from my own experience of perpetually “going Zinc”, I have to ask: How do my low CD sales explain my popularity at concerts?  Conversely; why doesn’t my concert success translate into proportionate CD sales?  Hmm!  Suppose this!

Its 2006, and the used car you just bought (sans warranty) seemingly breathes its last, coughing to a standstill on the outer-ring road.  What are you able to do?  You can get it “FIXED!”  So you do, and shortly thereafter notice that you’ve developed a truly disturbing, overwhelmingly scary hatred toward all used car salespeople everywhere.  Fortunately you’re able to go to therapy and also get that problem “FIXED”.  In fact, we can “FIX” anything today.  Or can we?  Can we “FIX” a perception?  Aha!  Can we heal a perceptive consciousness as sick as that recognized in white South African music appreciation?  Suppose this!

Soloman Dube (fictitious character), main honcho at SONY Records (real entity) is playing golf with his Music Industry equals one sunny Sandton afternoon.  As he’s tee-ing off for the 7th green he observes a big titted blonde woman out of the corner of his eye bending down to retrieve something of unknown origin.  This distraction and resultant lack of concentration causes the golf club (which you will recall was en route to the ball) to strike him solidly on the back of the head.  Thwuck!  Goodnight Soloman.

To the Sandton Clinic, where Soloman wakes up with Sister Beatrice Mhlongo hovering over his bed.  He screams, reaching for his beard.  His BEARD?  WHAT BEARD?  Soloman never had a BEARD!  What’s going on?  Aha!  Suppose this!
Imagine that the knock to Soloman’s head has somehow caused him to wake up as someone else; like in the Kafka story.  Only Soloman doesn’t wake up as a cockroach.  He wakes up as PAUL KRUGER.  Yep!  THAT dude. 

Fast forward through convalescence to Soloman back at the office, where he quickly discovers that the South African white Music Business is mortally ill with delusions of un-local grandeur.  So what does he do?  He “FIXES” it.  Vragtag!  He takes two weeks unpaid leave from SONY, and with his cousin Sipho, proceeds to the location of the “lost” Kruger millions; the precise whereabouts he now knows of through his metamorphosis.  There they dig up the gold and sell it to a cross-eyed Korean businessman from Kempton Park for so much money you can’t believe.

Well!  Soloman’s “FIX”, now propelled by lorry-loads of money, rapidly proceeds.  He buys SONY RECORDS (tee hee).  He buys all the record outlets in the country.  He buys the SABC and then commences flooding the market place and the airways with ONLY local music.  After an initial implosive period, these exercises result in the emergence of a proud, National perception of local music in the consciousness and buying-patterns of so many people you can’t believe.  Now bring on my music!  I bet in this climate I’ll sell a moerse klomp CD’s and reaffirm what my concert popularity suggests should be happening.  Just like sport.  Vragtag Soloman!

Which brings me to Ian Glenny (real name), a dear friend and master potter who lives on a farm in Dargle (real place).  Why Dargle?  Surely the logistical nightmare in getting raw materials for his craft all the way inland to Dargle, far outweighs the congeniality of a hip country life?  Nee boet!  Our Ian is long, long Afro-Illuminated.  He moved there precisely to AVOID having to import funky Japanese clay for his pots.  Dargle is absolutely crawling with groovy AFRICAN clay right at the bottom of his fucking garden.  He’s laughing all the way to the kiln.

Turning to the moral of the story.  It seems that Afro-Illumination and its resultant shift in perception can be induced in anyone; even Record Company Executives and other assorted Media Moguls.  All that’s needed is the convergence of golf and a three headed woman resulting in a thwuck to the cranium.  Should this seem altogether too painful for you, I suggest you try the following alternative, holistic method.  Yep!  Buy a used car and head for Dargle.  If you get there tell Ian I sent you.

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Copyright SYD KITCHEN 2006

6) Listening to some of your lyrical content now and coming as you do from the protest tradition of the 60’s its clear that you believe in the power of music as a catalyst for social change. But mostly, that just isn’t a concept many artist trade in these days. Are the times ripe for a change, or has it all just been done to death?

In the early/mid ‘80’s my band the UTENSILS used to do Dylan’s “I shall be released” at every gig and dedicate it to the eventual release of Nelson Mandela…..when we achieved democratic emancipation and had our great ’94 General Erection, everyone said to me  …….so what is there to sing about now?......fuck it………are you serious?……..my song Amakoologik talks of Globalization…….Imperial thrust……colonization in another guise……..and what about fucking Bush and his megalomaniacal deliberations?......nothing to say?……sorry…….. don’t agree………I’ve become more militant as I’ve got older and wiser and able to see what’s going on in this fuck-up of a world

7) You’ve also always been an independent artist. Was this by accident or design? And watching the slow decay and relevance of major labels in the modern scene, how would you play your cards now?

Never had the luxury of anyone being interested in me……back to Van Gogh…….if he never had canvas to paint on he painted or drew on paper or skin or what the fuck……no red paint?......he cut himself for that colour…….so I released “Waiting for the Heave” independently in ’86 not because I wanted to but because every fucking record company turned the Utensils down…….same story to this day……..only now …..with the new technology and the decline of “signed” status……..suddenly people like me are HIP and “they’ve” caught up with us……….funny thing life

8) How are you finding the process of trying to appeal to a more youth oriented market now in South Africa? Is this still an important agenda for you, or are you more of a “Build it and they will come” kind of guy?

I had 7000 kids singing my songs at Splashy Fen this year……majority of them younger than my daughters…….awesome…….I felt like Robbie Williams…….once again……..people respond to energy and sincerity…..I don’t do anything other than what God wants me to do…..the moment you take your eye off your ball and focus on the market place……..you’re fucked……you become another statistic

9) Apart from nurturing skills on several instruments, you are also a skilled repairer of string instruments. How did this come about?

My cat knocked my guitar over one day and the headstock broke off and there was no one to fix it…….so I did it myself and things progressed from there to the point where I opened my own store blah blah……..I don’t do much of that anymore but must say that I loved taking an instrument (particularly an old one) and giving it a new lease of life……..something very Zen in that

10) Your history gives the impression that you were largely self taught, and picked up stuff from friends, band mates and other guitarists.  How valuable has this approach to making music been to you in terms of discovering and creating your own unique sounds and voice?

We are the sum total of everything we’ve experienced and I’ve always (and continue to) approach life on the basis that I can learn from everyone and everything……my students show me moves I’ve never thought of…..and of course…….playing with the likes of Steve Newman, Tony Cox, Greg Georgiades, Madala Kunene and many others hasn’t done me any harm………my unique voice as you flatteringly refer to, became evident to me when I started playing internationally…….some serious musicians over there thought I was pretty unique which surprised but gladdened me…….we are what we is if we aint what we are

11) Commentators on SA music are fond of identifying “explosions” which are uniformly heralded as the start of the take over of world music by SA acts. It has happened in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and there is a big rise now too. What’s your opinion on this? Do we have what it takes? Or are we just mistaking the natural cyclical nature of music for more?

White SA musicians seriously live under the disillusion that they’ve “arrived”……fuck-off…….we don’t have a population to support a jock strap in this fucking place………its criminal the way the media and the industry will take someone or some group with marginal talent and bloat their fucking egos to the point that they believe they can change the world……in Los Angeles there are 200,000 bands trying to make it at any one time…….all of them with better lead singers, lead guitarists from hell and general all-round appeal than any thing locally pouted to be the ”next big thing”……..the music business is a business……..either you’re saleable or you’re not……and if you’re not (like me) you find a way to stick around and play 19 Splashy Fen’s in a row……..its great on the periphery

12) If you had the power to change one things in the music business here in SA that would make greater things possible, what would that key factor be that you would change?

Apart from changes to the Quota System and all relevant side-issues there-from, I would ask God to give wisdom to Record Company Executives in general that they have the insight to recognize the next Ry Cooder who crawls across their carpet looking for a deal and not say the obligatory……..”you’re pretty good but”

13) Now in your fifties, still playing, still writing, still moving forward, what do you have to say to anyone starting out? Apart from Get out my way shipper snapper!

Unless you’re prepared to take the klaps…….rather be an architect or whatever……because believe me……..this business …….(like Africa)……. is not for sissies