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M�nage � Trois

Ménage à Trois, more than a threesome

By Robert Laing

When I first heard Pretoria band Ménage à Trois perform Voodoo, I thought it a catchy South African Bush-bashing song:

and the twin towers of Babylon 
fell straight from the sky
and a sleeping city realized mortality
for the first time
and so did I

It turns out the lyrics are far more personal than that. Ménage à Trois' singer-songwriter Auriel Lefebre was actually in New York City on 11 September 2001.

"My mom worked for the embassy in New York. I'd just graduated from high school and was about to come home when everything came crashing down. That song was my farewell to New York. I just wanted to come home where nobody bombs us."

Another song on These are birthmarks titled 34th indicates Auriel's time in New York was generally happy.

"We lived in 34th Street for a while, which is the street the Empire State building is in. It stimulated me to read a lot of Allen Ginsberg and go down to the West Village and enjoy all that music and art.

Having a mom working for Foreign Affairs also gave Auriel a stint in London while she was growing up, which inspired which inspired Bakerloo Blues — a protest song about South African expats tendency to whinge about their home country instead of improving it.

She sings "watching my country's greatest export in young minds who would rather slave away in some first world country than walk the line now, who's gonna bring on the change?"

Back home in Pretoria, Auriel became flat and bandmates with Rokkeloos frontlady Petro.

Auriel brought her guitar along (bad luck as it later transpired) and performed live on my 1485AM radio show a new song called Brick Wall, written after These are Birthmarks was recorded.

She got a lift to the radio station with her replacement in Rokkeloos, Tessa. With Tessa playing Auriel's guitar, they performed a Rokkeloos song Auriel originally composed and sang, Baked Beans en Cocaine.

Off air, Tessa asked Auriel what that song was about. It was written the morning after her room-mate blew all her waitress earnings on the high life, leaving her to survive on a can of baked beans.

Ménage à Trois started out as a trio of musicians: Auriel doing vocals and guitar accompanied by drummer Jaco Loots and bassist Garth de Meillon. These three still make up the core of the band, but both on the album and in live performances a stream of guest artists appear on different songs.

"It started out as a threesome, but grew into this group gang bang thing," Auriel explains.

A really great afternoon pre-recording the show ended on a sour note for the girls. I got this e-mail from Tessa a little later:

"You won't believe how the rest of our day turned out after the interview. My car was stolen along with Auriel's guitar which was in the boot. And when we listened to the recording of the show we realized that I was the last one to play the guitar and you eerily noted that I was going to play a song on Auriel's guitar....

"Strange things. But do not despair, the two of us are going to go shop for guitars today."

That's what I find so inspiring about getting to know young Gautengers via the radio show. To quote Fuzigish's latest album title, they roll with the punches.

• www.myspace.com/menageatroissa
• www.bandstand.co.za/menageatrois

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