J o e   B l o g

Joe Blog's cowardly disclaimer: I did not attend Balkanology so have no idea if it was as bad as this musician writing under a pseudonym claims.

BalkanoPorno 2009 — Cape Town is good for it, We’re not

By Kallak Jonesic
14th November 2009

Balkanology was a musical fiasco that I could only describe through the firsthand experience, a simple journalistic narrative if you will. Making a simple review by mentioning the historicity of the organizers and artists of this musical catastrophe will never get the intended message across, and I do not intend to publicize them (the individuals) in any shape or form. I call them “Them”.

As soon as I parked I knew that something was rotten: hundreds of cars and a meandering queue that slithered lethargically to the street; and there an even greater lackluster horde killed time, as in a 90’s Bosnian soup line. It asked itself whether the wait was worth any of this. Why wait so long for mere bouillon, and an expensive one at that? The time was 10.30.

It’s time to get the hell out of here, I thought. Eleven-thirty seemed like an appropriate time to go down the road and get drunk. The line hadn’t moved for some time and a big-eyed Turkish girl was becoming overly agitated at the situation — I found that extremely sexy…

The effects of the few beers and tequilas we drank beforehand were wearing off and the last thing I needed was to grow drowsy and go home. Two friends had come with: a Serbian drunk who had inhaled fourteen beers and by now was pushing for an exodus back to the Bohemian pub where we had started, and a Canadian musician who country-hops with the intention to get inspiration for his own melodic undertakings.

“Let’s go man — screw this, I can’t wait any longer,” said the Serbian. The only thing that deterred us from going back to the Bohemian was the talentless band that had chased us out of there in the first place. I decided to smoke another cigarette and had a chat with the Turkish girl’s friends who had attended a couch surfers gathering earlier in the day and had come, like us, to scratch at their nostalgia with the promised sounds of the East. The conversation was at surface and as I was taking the last few drags of my cigarette, a friend of ours came from within the venue and told us that if we wanted in we’d have to shove to the front of the queue and hope that the bouncer liked us. The Turkish girl followed — she was sent as the scout in case the arrangement of slyness was successful. I hate pushing ahead in queues and receiving telepathic fuck yous from the crowd; it’s like paying one of those firms at the home affairs to get your passport renewed faster.

After paying the Nigerian at the door, we had successfully bribed ourselves inside and I was beginning to enter a state of trepidation. It was chock-a-block and the music was foreign… even to us, a bunch of Eastern Europeans, me being the only Bulgarian. Must be some sort of warm-up act, I thought. Then we queued again for drink. The beer and tequila were finished and that made us angrier. The Turkish girl had now reattached herself to her fellow countrymen who had followed suite and like us had infiltrated the facility, also in a guileful manner. We never saw them again — they must have left minutes later, and unlike us must have in trice seen the chicanery; just another advantage of not being an excessive drinker. We, however, stayed and drank cheap cocktails at thirty bucks a shot. Other drunks were tottering around us and one of them almost knocked the plastic cup from my hand.

“If this doesn’t get more comfortable I’m leaving,” said I, but the Canadian was having heaps of fun and it didn’t look like we were going anywhere. And I knew why: with a couple of African prostitutes at 44 Stanley and all in all a month’s stay in the City of Gold, no Canuck would ever think of leaving a party like this!

We took our sorry, sour “Gypsy Love Potion” cocktails - Caipirinha-like imitations renamed to fit the occasion - to the middle of the throng and smoked some crappy weed that made me introspective and I began listening to the music. There were around seven or eight-hundred people in the olive garden at 44 Stanley, once known as the Colour Bar, and around three hundred and fifty getting ripped off at both bars — one of which had Emir Kusturica’s Black Cat, White Cat film on repeat. I thought that it wasn’t a bad touch, but the film was purposefully played on silent and as I stood there in the garden, I wondered why we weren’t listening to it. As a self-proclaimed writer and journalist I knew that I should do my research and find out who the DJ was, so that I could sink him, at least in my circles — then there were two more and the real atrocity began; fair enough, there were motifs of Balkan music, but only of the cheesiest variety, and I am willing to bet that much of the music came from the Czech Republic and Poland…

-break-

- - -   *BREAKING NEWS**** Polish and Czech NOT = Balkan - - -   
-break-         

Songs would begin with a house beat, and then one of those Balkan motifs would creep in; usually a midi-generated fiddle or clarinet, and then back to the cheese-ball nineties rave beat. I believe that I know what turbofolk is, and I’m not proud of it, but this wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity. At times, the whole balkanology element would disappear and many of us felt like we were attending a H2O party somewhere in the East. I was awaiting the foam, but it didn’t come. It was in those moments that you could spot the socio-demographic rift, and sure enough, the crowd that came with the intention to experience this new thing out of Cape Town; that thing that is supposedly capable of making your blood boil like a Spaniard’s and have your undergarments sweat like gypsies in heat, saw right through it, and by 00.30 a third queue was fashioned, but this time at the exit.

The other side of the rift was occupied by the characters whose only reference to Eastern European culture was Sacha Baron Cohen’s new-world connoisseur alter ego, and they, like him, would wear mustaches to show their allegiance to something that could only be described as cutthroat branding and maybe a little bit of their own ignorance. Understandably, many people expected much from their first night: they knew they would lose their virginity to this pulsating ogre residing in the East, and were fervently prepared for it; their attire complementing the supposed and long-awaited introduction. But instead, they themselves became a cog of the subterfuge, reaffirming to us that unawareness still reigns supreme in Africa’s most progressive of metropolises. The rest of us saw only milk teeth biting at marshmallow candy; the ogre had unknowingly sent his pariah son to convey the wrong message to many credible diplomats of world music.

The Serbian was trashed and I thought he needed to take the weight of his feet before he splashed across the water feature in the middle of the court. We went to sit on some silage that was brought in for the donkey(s), which I didn’t get to see and had by now been taken back, perhaps because they too couldn’t take the atmosphere. Whilst seated amongst the hay I chatted to some female friends of mine. The Serbian was justifiably angry and like a true member of his clan began to pull sordid faces at everyone who walked passed. We, most of us, were mawkish at this particular moment in the morning, around two am. Later I found out that the Canadian was playing with some prostitutes in the toilets at the same time of our farm existence reconnection (all Eastern Europeans are villagers of course). We then went with the girls and tried to dance a little, but it didn’t feel right at all. The Canadian brought a six pack of beer from somewhere and that happened to be the happiest twenty minutes of the night. When the girls went home I played Taxi Driver and drove the Cunuck and Serbian to their dwellings, much to the Canadian’s disapproval who didn’t realize how lucky he was not to have woken up in a prostitute’s bed in the heart of Hillbrow the next day. The time was 03:00 AM

I woke up the Sunday much angrier than the night before. I made a triple post on facebook renaming Balkanology to Pornology and this wasn’t well received by many of my friends. Some called me a snob and others could not understand why I was so annoyed with a stupid gig. I will not waste time here by excusing or explaining myself. I know that balkanology’s first team was not present that Saturday night, and that such parties may have been more successful and authentic some years ago down in the Cape. But I only hope that upon my arrival in the United States in January next year, they won’t make me listen to John Mayer and tell me it’s the blues, because then I may have to grow a scarf.

*Kal**

Add a review or comment on Balkanology: a hater's perspective: