728 x 90

Basson Laubscher and the Violent Free Peace

Basson Laubscher and the Violent Free Peace

When did derivation come to be equated with inferiority? In some music cultures, being able to reproduce Old Masters of the art brings legitimacy. Not so in the West, where copyright coins cash. In this context, Shakedown is not so much a shakedown of the genre as the evolution of a covers band that hasn’t fully exhaled

When did derivation come to be equated with inferiority?

In some music cultures, being able to reproduce Old Masters of the art brings legitimacy. Not so in the West, where copyright coins cash. In this context, Shakedown is not so much a shakedown of the genre as the evolution of a covers band that hasn’t fully exhaled the heady influence of smokey Mississippi blues, or indeed broken on through to the other side of imitation.

Lyrical strains of The Band’s “The Weight” stream through “Brother”; “Cage Blues” recalls Hendrix’s “Sweet Angel”; while “Killing Me” stalks alongside Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You”. Nevertheless, songs like “Bad News” and “Shakedown” boldly foot-stomp towards a more definitive sound, giving a taste of the rollicking plaas-blues-ruk‘nrol that continues to ripen on the Stellenbosch side of the winelands.

Funnily enough, it’s the haunted, haunting “Swamp Thing” (forget that there ain’t no swamps in the R.S. of A.) that is, frankly, nothing less than inspired – in the most creative sense of the word.

PowlowNiber
ADMINISTRATOR
PROFILE

Posts Carousel