GroundUp: The New Generation Taking Over South African Alternative

SPEAKER_02 0:46

All is, always, always with the race card.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I'm leaving that part.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Always with the race card. All the time, eh?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

All the time. Always, always, dude. Always. Sick. Welcome back to another episode of Sludge on the Ground. We are doing the ground up for August. We missed July. Shit happened. Life happened. It fucking is what it is. We're gonna talk about some cool stuff that's happened in the month of August that is still coming up in the month of August. And yeah, it is myself, Marcel, and Naz. He is here with me too.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

How's it going, guys? Thank you for joining us on another segment of Ground Up. As Marcel mentioned, we missed last month, but we are back, so we're hoping to give you guys something uh wholesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, yeah, something to to keep to keep up with the times and see what's happening in the world of South African alternative music. Uh, you uh mentioned to me earlier that you have been doing exam rewrites, you haven't had the chance, you are once again locked in a fucking cage and haven't really been able to go out to many shows.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

Yeah, that's literally been the case. Uh however, it's been really dope just seeing everything happening sort of online as well, you know, on social media. There's a lot that's been happening the last couple of months. Uh, but we're obviously gonna get into all that there as we go along in the episode. I know that you've been attending a lot of shows and we're probably gonna be talking about more of that. You've been shooting a lot of shows as well. Uh, so maybe you could get us into all of that there and all the gigs that have been happening.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

So I was at that Winterfest in July, obviously, because you know, we missed the the July Jul. Uh or fuck July Jaw is a whole other show. But yeah, so we missed July. I was at Winterfest in July that was organized by Jethro, you know, the Tasers. That was a fucking sick show. They uh set up a skate park at Sonage, uh, which was super cool, bringing a whole bunch of skateboarders in and a whole bunch of local bands playing across the two stages. So and Sonage with the main stage and then room two downstairs, and then there's just a big ass fucking skate ramp in the middle of everything, which was really fucking cool. Had an old school DJ as well doing an actual like proper turntable shit. That was super cool. Uh yeah, the what a what a sick show. Uh, is a bit month a bit of a month late talking about it, but if you were there, super cool. If you weren't, you missed out because it was really cool. Sponsored by, I believe, Monster Energy as well. They're the ones who provided the ramp. Uh, the skateboarders were super sick. I've never filmed skateboarders before, so have fun laughing at me trying to film skateboarders with the b-roll that will be coming through on uh with this this uh segment. So yeah, uh and then yeah, towards the end of July was July Joel hosted by by Emileth Vence. That was also pretty, pretty sick. Myself and Dizzy Khaki did some live performance videos there, which are looking pretty, pretty spicy. They're gonna release uh soon. We did two for three, actually. We did for Walkie Skies, Sunken State, and No Closure. So be on the lookout for those. Those are gonna be dropping uh relatively soon. My ring light is going to give me an epileptic fit if it keeps flashing like this. I'm probably going to have some kind of stroke, but you know, the joys of of life. So July Joel was also pretty sick. Um, that was towards the end of July. I I thoroughly enjoyed that show. I had a lot of fun. I nearly I think I ate shit behind the stage at one point. I tripped over a fuck on the drum ramp. So you know, like behind the stage, it's only just the stairs up to get up to the drum uh rise. Yeah, uh, I was coming from the other side where there aren't stairs, and I fucking tripped in a moment of silence, like during sunken state set, and you can just hear my knee fucking bang into the stair. So that's cool. If I'm not tripping over shit, and it's already old man knees, bro.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

So it's like I can imagine it's like infinity damage, bro.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Dude, dude, haven't been the same ever since. Thank god it wasn't that hard of a surface, you know. What are the shows that I shoot? I've been to a bunch of like small, kind of like in-between shows. Uh, I was at what was supposed to be the uh EP launch for Days Without Incident at Sonage. Okay, unfortunately, I believe the vocalist's name is Rudy. He had a bit of a medical emergency, and the that's a pull-out of their own EP launch, but the show still went on. But I did get to catch a couple of sick bands. Um, one of them I saw for the first time, The Usual Suspects. Um, pretty dope. I highly recommend going to go and check them out if you are into like of a more indie like alt-rock vibe, they were super cool. Uh the Heda played that as well, Afrikaans pop punk, some of my favorite lads around as well. I filmed them a couple of times, and then I got to see my uh some of my favorites from all time, as anyone who's watched the show might know, Manner's Machine. I got to catch them again for the first time in over a decade, which was fucking rad. That was super cool getting to see Manner's Machine and getting to chat with uh KJ, the drummer of Manner's Machine, who was obviously a band that like I looked up to and idolized for the longest time while starting out with music and the the alternative scene. So getting to have a chat with him, his thoughts on the local scene, it was it was interesting, it was great.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

No, sick. I mean, one show, I mean, the last show that I attended, uh, and we actually never got to talk about this because of obviously missing the previous month. Um, but it was the Battle of the Bands final that was happening here in Durban, uh, that was hosted by Marsh. Marsh slash reverberate. Uh, so those guys have been doing some incredible things. So on that lineup, there was Blackburn, I think there was Pink Slip, and obviously the winners Shaw break. I actually did an interview with Shawbreak because they're the ones who ended up winning. Um, so that was a really good one. Uh I attended that one, and I must say I felt for the first time like you know, a bully there because uh, for the longest time we've been mostly like when you and I started out, we were like the part of like the younger sort of guys coming into this, and then now just looking at the newer bands that are coming out, they're a lot younger, so I definitely felt a lot older. Um, I think yeah, uh my my knees also are probably just you're fucking 30 as well now.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

I forget that you're also you're 30. You you turned 30 this year, you fucking dude. That's crazy when you think about it. Because when we started this, we were in our early 20s. I I yeah, we started this 10 years ago. I was 22, you were fucking 20. We were those like so. It feels weird going to a show and it's like kawabunga, my dudes, and it's like yeah, you're a bunch of like 18, 20 year olds, and you're like, I I I promise, I promise I'm cool. I've been I've been around.

SPEAKER_03 7:59

Like that felt so weird, man. It felt really weird, but also it was really I think I enjoyed the aspect of there being just you know younger, fresh sort of blood coming into you know the space. And Durban has been in need of like new bands coming in. So uh it was really nice seeing the kids, you know, do their thing. Uh it's it's it's really awesome. And uh I felt like it was uh not really like a turning point for Durban, but you know, like it's it's just nice, it's something fresh, it's something new, you know, from everything that we often see this side. So I really hope that those bands do continue to push on. Um, I know that there are a couple of shows that are coming up where we're gonna be seeing some of them on the lineups as well. So if you haven't seen the Shaw Break episode, do check it out as well. Uh the guys in Shaw Break, I mean, they won the Battle of the Bands, uh, deservedly so. So yeah, do check them out.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah, dude. Like I'm so stoked, like, especially in Durban, there's a lot of young, young bands. I mean, again, uh Pink Slip, Shorebreak, and who was the other one? Uh, it was Blackburn. As far as I'm aware, they're all all super young, like none of them is above like 25, as far as I'm aware. Like when I saw the Shawbreak interview, they're all like between 18 to very early 20s. Again, that's super dope. Yeah, dude. I saw a band recently uh here in Joburg. Uh I was at a show filming for uh an event called Soire Afrikaans, which was vast majority of like Afrikaans bands on the lineup. And the opening band was a band called The Agenda, which also super young lads. Like, I I would be I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were still in high school, uh, to be brutally honest. Of course, they did the very Afrikaans band thing of there had to be a cover of Foucault Polisica somewhere in that set, uh, which is pretty much par for the course for any Afrikaans band that's either starting out or even established for that matter, because I know I think there were like three bands that covered Folkhof Polisica that night. Yeah, so it's like kind of part of the course, to be honest. But again, seeing young guys, and it's like y'all are better than I was when I started. When I started making music, I was fucking terrible. I mean, you go back to the original running from a full moon videos when I was like 20, and we went great. I mean, go back to what the customer party videos. Do you do you not look back at that and be like horrible, horrible, horrible?

SPEAKER_03 10:28

Yo, that's true. I want to send a shout out to Pink Slip, uh, because their vocalist uh is blue, and you might recognize them from a couple of our quickies that we've done in the past with uh Bryn, aka Danadonic. Why did I just say Brynn? Because Danadonick isn't Bryn. Like, what the hell am I even saying? So they're the the vocalist of that band, Pink Slip. Do check them out as well. Shout outs uh to them.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

I remember meeting them at a show in Dobin, one that I went down to with uh Walk These Skies, it was Recoil, hosted by Devil Nest, and seeing them at the show, seeing them in so many videos, they hang out quite regularly with Josh, uh, who's regularly known online as Poe La Panda. And seeing them go from attending these shows to finding a band, and then to now performing with that band has been such a wholesome thing to watch. And I I genuinely wish them and the band all the fucking best. Keep going, it's so fucking sick to see. I'm so stoked. I'm so stoked to see that it's it's happening.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

Yeah, dude, a spider literally just because like I've been feeling something like and then I'm like trying to pull, trying to see what this is, and like this black spider just drops and it runs off.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Oh, it's because it's a black spider, all right? If it was a white spider, it would be fine. That's racist.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Always, always, always with the race card. I'm leaving that part, always with the race card, all the time, eh? All the time, always, always, dude. Always.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah, sick. And then in terms of upcoming shows, uh, is there anything happening in Durban that's coming up that you're you're super stoked for? There are a couple of things that are happening in Durban.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

So reverberate is hosting a delicious show that is gonna be really scrumptious. It's uh the return. So basically, on that lineup, uh, I know that they have uh it's gonna be Black Math, Hawema, and Blackburn, one of the bands that we actually were speaking about just now, the younger guys. So it's gonna be hosted at the German club in Westville on the 22nd of August. Um, so yeah, I mean, Black Math, that's royalty when it comes to just Durban. It's really cool seeing reverberate who are part of like the younger, not really the young, young, young crowd that's coming up now, but they had like a moment, you know, where they sort of brought everything back uh a couple of years ago or a few years ago. So it's really cool seeing them. But they were like quite a while after that black math era, uh, where we had, you know, you'll remember it was like black math, it was um fuck we interviewed Mini Vand, yeah, the Taekwondo, yeah, all those The Sisters, ETC. So it's nice seeing reverberates link up with you know the royalty that you know that was during that sort of like Winston era in a way. So yeah, that that show is going to be coming up on the 22nd of August. And then there's another one that's gonna be hosted uh by Durban Rock City, actually, and it basically it's like an all-age event. Uh oh yeah, it's Rockfest, obviously. So it seems like something that's really prominent because you know, Rockfest, ever since it started, you know, it's had some brilliant bands on the lineup. Um, so yeah, we've got Rockfest that is coming up. Uh, it's gonna be on the 29th of August, and uh basically for that one, that'll be a Saturday. Entrance is free. Uh, so it's all it's only just a matter of registering on Quick It, uh, according to obviously the poster and everything. And on the lineup, there's gonna be Pilgrim Soup. Uh, Goat Boy is gonna be coming down. I know that you are a fan of Goat Boy, yes. Um, you even captured some some footage for them at one of the shows. Um, and Grimrid, which I've lost Grimriddle uh is also gonna be on the lineup for me, and I wanted to say this uh after one of the events in Durban, but they are some of my favorite performers. I think you know, when I'm looking at like Durban bands, I really look at Grim Riddle and I feel and I even told them the one time I was like, you know, I feel like you guys should just like tour the UK or something as well, because they're that good, and I feel like they'd fit, they're super tight, and they should be playing like Glasto, dude. That's that's how I feel like. And you know how in Grim Riddle the the dude has the the the telephone. I don't know if you remember, but yeah, yeah, yeah, using it as a mic and stuff. It's it's a pretty wholesome um sort of it's fresh it's refreshing, dude. It's it's fresh. I've never seen it being done before, and the performance is insane, so they're really good. Distorting the still is gonna be on the lineup. Blackburn again. We've seen Blackburn you know more often in these lineups. Pink slip, yeah. Pink slip, as we mentioned. Shout out blue, um, you first, and then it's gonna be Gavin Ferguson. For anyone who's uh been, you know, who's been with us from like the OG like sludge days 10 years ago. I believe you did the Gavin Ferguson interview, or was it me? I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah, I think I think so. At at Fergins. Damn, that was still sitting in a car. That was still sitting either in Fergus at Po at Pav uh or sitting in the parking lot in the car at Pav, you know, um doing those interviews. So I'm pretty sure Gavin Ferguson is from that era, like it rings a bell, but I don't he is from that era.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

Way, way, way back. He's he is from that era. Uh, and it's actually so good seeing that he's still active because if you had to look back at you know some of the bands that we have interviewed over the years, some of them don't even exist anymore. So shout out to Gavin Ferguson for still pushing.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

It's two fucking dope events. Uh I saw Black Math recently, actually, at Winterfest, got some footage of them. Nice. Holy fuck, just as good as I remember. Because Black Math was my introduction to Durban music. I don't know if you remember, I had been living in Durban for like less than a month, met you guys for Thorns for the first practice, had known all of you for approximately four hours, and then you all dragged me out to the Winston to go watch some bands. And yeah, it was sick. I had been here for like a a week or two, it was some stupid shit like that. And Black Math was like the first Durban band. Like, so like you're saying, the myths, black math. I can't remember who else was on that lineup, but black math stuck with me for that one. And then seeing them again at Sonage on a stage that big, fucking cool, honestly. What a what a dope band. And again, so great seeing them again. Stoked that they're finally making a return down to Durban. That's fucking amazing to see. And yeah, dude. Yeah, uh black. Uh I've also got some cool shows coming up this side. Uh, most notably, uh, that's the soonest that's happening. Uh, this episode's coming out on Wednesday. So that this coming Saturday, there is a show hosted by So Below, and that is called State of the Nation. Now, some of you might have been to a State of the Nation show before. This one is fuck off ambitious. Um, we are looking at, I believe, 15 bands, and I'm gonna give you a quick rundown of this lineup because it is South African metal fucking royalty at this point. Um, we are looking at Days Without Incident, Sunken State, Walk These Skies, Freedom for Your Life, Facing the Gallows, Raptor Baby, December, Borgasm, No Closure, Black Nature, Grift, Diverted Disorder, Marshmallow, Among the Absence, and Human Nebula. All on one lineup, all in one day, two stages, rumors lounge. It's gonna be a fucking ripper. Insane. Yeah, uh, it's gonna be fucking insane. I am gonna be doing there some video there. If you see me looking dazed and confused, I am have probably not sat down most of the day. So I am super stoked for that one. Gallows is always a fucking ripper to watch. Uh yeah, if you're gonna be around and the rumors uh vicinity, then fucking send it. Come through, come say hello, come watch some sick bands. Because some of them, for instance, Freedom for Your Life is a band that was, I think, relatively big, like in the 2010s. Uh I missed them in that era, but Liam convinced them to come out of retirement for the show. So that looks like it's gonna be sick.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

I did an interview recently, dude, uh, where someone mentioned them. Uh, I just forgot which one it was. Oh, yes, it was the Raptor Baby. It was a Raptor Baby interview, and Sean mentioned that they're coming back, and some of the footage that I found to start to sort of add his B-roll for that moment where he was talking about them, insane, dude. It takes me back to like fucking peak, sort of like crab emo type vibes, dude.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Winnie 10's metal call, that's from what I understand. And like, so how from what I gather from how this happened is that the guys got together and they were like, let's just fucking jam out some of our old songs. Um, let's find a place to like just jam and play some of our old songs together. They ended up uh reaching out to Liam from Sobelo and used his studio, and he literally stood there and was like, You'll have to play a show, you'll have to make a comeback. Nice. And they were like, No, we just wanted to get together and jam. And he was like, No, you're you're playing State of the Nation. He he fucking Liam bullied that band out of retirement. They literally just wanted to get back together, play a couple of their songs for all time's sakes, and that motherfucker bullied them back into playing a show. So if you were a fan of Freedom for Your Life, you have Liam to thank.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

It makes me wonder, dude, in terms of the sound, I'm actually I've got a particularly keen interest on them for that like event and lineup. Because it's like considering that they sort of stopped back then, are we getting sort of the same music? Just a different, like, is it gonna be different now? Because obviously there's been a shift from that era, you know, that that sort of 2010s instead of like dress sense is different now and everything. Are we still getting the same sort of moves? You know, are we getting the the crab? Are we getting essentially everything that made that era what it was? Or is it just same dudes, a little older, same music?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, but that's that's how I can see. I'm I'm gonna see the I'm gonna go to the show next week. I I will let you know in the next ground up. We'll do a we'll do a follow-up and see how see how that went, how that goes. Second, and then looking at some uh of the releases that happened uh within the month of of August. Uh after Agatha did a sneaky little drop of uh I don't want ice cream, I want respect. Uh it was a music video of a live performance that they did at Misty Waters, which uh caught me off guard because I didn't know this was going to be turned into a music video. I did help shoot this one, I was uh there. It was a super dope performance. This video turned out fucking great, thanks to the one and only Dizzy Khaki. Again, if you do not follow Dizzy Khaki, I highly recommend you do. Just going through his backlog of stuff of the local scene is like a super sick entry point into like the history of the alternative scene just from a visual medium. But the after Agatha music video came out super, super sick, and I personally love it. I love those guys as well. They were also involved when uh Sobolo threw that Ren Party for me. They were one of the bands that volunteered to play, and great guys, super wholesome. Uh absolutely love them to bits.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Hey, that's dope. Uh, obviously, uh a couple of the more extreme bands also then dropped. Uh, I know that uh the Fallen Prophets actually dropped a really sick music video as well, um, about a month ago, if I'm not mistaken. Uh, it's for Ritual of Endless Suffering. So if you haven't checked that out, please do check it out.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

That band has an unbelievable work ethic. And then again, definitely that's with uh film by Kelvin, uh, who is just a fucking absolute unit of a videographer. He's so fucking good. And he's recently teamed up with uh Cape Town Metal Realm and they're doing content together, which I don't know if you've seen what it looks like. It looks insane, dude. It looks so sick. It's absolutely wild. Absolute powerhouse of a team up. Cape Town is in good hands. Oh fuck it. I'm loving it. For sure, bro. And then Pariah Studios uh did a live session with Walk These Skies. Walk these skies are just the busiest fucking clowns in the scene at the moment. Like they are the most serious, unserious band. I have said this before, because they just act like dipshits online, but no one fucking works harder than they do. Uh, because they did the France the Planet live studio session, they've done this Pariah Studios live session. Um absolutely sick. Uh also go check out the Pariah Studios YouTube channel, whole bunch of sick bands on just doing live performances on that platform. Absolutely worth like checking it out. And if you are a band wanting to do a live music session, reach out to them, find out what their process is, what it's gonna cost to do it, uh, what the requirements are. Okay, so I want to take a moment to talk to you, specifically you. This episode is sponsored by us by Sludge Underground, and we need you to show some interest in our merch. We have a merch store online, we have a variety of cool things like that beanie that Naz is wearing, like this cap that I am wearing, and a couple of six shirts. Naz, do we have hoodies? Yes, on the on the store, definitely. We have hoodies as well. So, what you're gonna do is you're gonna go to the Sludge Underground store online, which you can get to through our website. There will be a link to it in the description of this video. If you love us, if you love what we do and you would like to represent outside of the internet in the real meat space, go and check out the store, buy a shirt, buy a cap, buy a beanie. We'd love to see you guys out and about. There has been a guy at shows that I've I've never met or spoken to that I've been seeing wearing slut shirt. Whoever you are, if you're watching this, you're a pretty tall and I think you're ginger. I fucking love you, dude. We've never spoken, but thank you for buying our shit. In global uh music news, we've got some interesting news that Spotify have finally decided to do the right fucking thing. Uh, and have now decided that they are going to be marking AI generated content on their platform. So if a song is AI generated, they are going to mark that content. So you at least have the choice to decide if you want to listen to that or not, and not be duped into thinking you really like something only to find out that it's been fucking AI generated. I think this is a great move. I don't think that they've done it out of any desire to do the right thing. I think they've just suffered so much public backlash and so much uh pressure to do it that it's kind of the only choice that they had in order to kind of prevent uh more backlash from building up. I don't think the corporation's done it in any sense out of the kindness of their heart. I think it's to save their own asses more specifically. So yeah, what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Yeah, dude. I mean, the most important thing is that people know what they're sort of getting into and what they're listening to. It brings me to something Bryn once said, you know, about in the in our Discord. We're still gonna plug that. But um, you know, Bryn mentioned that, you know, essentially we can have all these discussions at the end of the day, people want to consume what they want to consume. And as much as we may be people that don't really, that aren't really in line with listening to anything AI or whatever, but there might be someone out there, uh, you know, an older Tunny who wouldn't really care, you know, whether that's a band or someone real, as long as it sounds good to them. But for anyone who sort of you know goes in there, at least they know now it's like hey, okay, this is AI, they can make you know a more sort of like informed decision. Yes, that's the one. Thanks, bro. Yeah, so I think it's something dope.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I think that's cool. I I do 100% feel like at some point we're gonna run into the issue of people being flagged as AI generated, and the problem with that is that AI music has obviously been trained off of real people's music, like there's an unfortunate reality that something is gonna be AI generated that's gonna sound like a real person because it was fucking trained off of real music. So there I've seen a couple of like false accusations flying around, and I have I guarantee you in the near future there are going to be artists who are gonna be falsely flagged as AI generated content when they're not, it's going to fucking happen as it inevitably does. Um, I think I've had one of my videos flagged as like AI generated and it's motherfucker, it's me. I'm on a camera, like I'm a real fucking person.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

I was having a similar conversation with Mike because uh with some of the thumbnails uh for for the episodes that I do, like I obviously make them. The ones that I don't make, I'll ask Mike to sort of you know, sort of take care of that. But majority of the ones that you'll see on my episodes are the ones that I've made, and I remember running one of them through like uh one of those like AI checking things when when Mike and I were having a conversation about remember when that dude was exposed, some dude that was like design allegedly designing stuff, yeah. Yeah, so I was like, let me just run this and see what it says. And one of those AI software thingies that I identified was like this is like 95% AI. I'm like, what? You know, like how does this even work? I guess I'll go flick myself. I totally see what you're saying, and it's actually scary because how do you how will artists actually get away from that? How do you how do they prevent that?

SPEAKER_01 28:41

There's ways of proving it. So there are ways of proving, but it again, it's like it's a bit invasive because now you you could obviously show your project, your project files for your music. You know, you can show the the studio session and say, check, this is all you know, real, like you know, this was all recorded by real people. There are ways to do it, but it's obviously it's invasive, it's a pain in the ass, and it's it sucks that you have to do it. We have a really good example of this recently actually happening, but uh inadvertently proving that they used AI to do it. Uh Dedario, the string uh company, uh released a string demo for a new like uh thing of strings, like a new set of strings that they are releasing. The fucking audio was AI generated.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

Yeah, shit.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

So you can imagine the controversy behind this happening of this is a guitar string company releasing a new set of strings and the demo for those strings being AI generated. Um there was a massive fucking fallout and investigation about it. Uh Diotario vehemently denied having used AI for it, but it turns out the employee that did it kind of fucked up and did use AI because they provided a project to show that hey, this isn't AI generated, but then when people ran that project next to the audio from the video, they didn't match. So it just devolved into a massive fuck up. There are there are YouTubers out there who have covered the story in great fucking detail. I highly recommend you go and check them their videos out of it because I'm obviously paraphrasing a lot. It was a fucking disaster.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

One one more thing on the international side. Uh, I don't know if you well you might not have seen it. I just want to inform anyone who might not have, but it's nice to sort of expand your sort of palette when it comes to music. There were some comments by uh it's a hip hop artist globally. His name is Tiger. You might be familiar with him. 2015, he had some of the biggest hits, ETC, whatever. He came out with a new album where he's sort of experimenting. Fontano and all the international guys were on that in terms of reviews. It is one of the worst albums, according to critics, in the past like century. The worst album ever, according to them. But now, one of the quotes, yes, do check it out. So, one of the quotes or something that uh Tiger said was that he definitely utilized AI. Uh, you know, I don't know whether as a tool or whatever, but the one thing that he said that I want to get your opinion on, Marcel, and anyone who might be watching this. Um, he said that AI is literally just a tool, it is exactly like auto-tune. You know, people have been using auto-tune and they don't seem to be throwing a fit as much as they're throwing a fit about AI. Now, you'll remember that Shinesh did mention that it's completely different because autotune is actually programmed by a sound engineer while they're working on a project and AI automates it. But I want to get your opinion on this. Is AI just a tool? Can it be used in that way?

SPEAKER_01 31:48

The way that I see this right is yes, AI can be used as a tool, but it is very rarely used as such in music. For example, an AI that I consider a tool is an auto subtitler. That's something that I use for videos. Uh, because motherfucker, I have spent time sitting for four to five hours at a time manually subtitling an entire video, and that fucking sucks. Okay, I'm not detracting from any sort of creative process. I'm not you understand where I'm coming from. A lot of the time when they're like, oh, AI is a tool, motherfucker. You are generating a song from scratch. Okay, you are entering a prompt saying, give me uh thick booty beat bitch, like bit bitch booty, like I don't know if I can beat, and it's gonna do that all for you. Okay, there is you you typed a sentence, or maybe six, and that is not a creative process. That is not using a tool, that is just straight up fucking laziness, as far as I'm aware, and not creative at fucking all. Because you know what? I'm gonna sit down and be like, you know what, I want to make this type of thing. How would I go about doing it? And I'm gonna pick up a guitar or I'm gonna what fucking ever, and I'm gonna part of the fun is figuring it out. And you know what? You might end up creating something that you didn't intend to create, but is actually pretty fucking sick. That's how some of the greatest hits, some of the greatest albums of today exist entirely by fucking accident. But it's not gonna happen with a prompt. You might create something that's a banger for like you know, a week, but it's such like commodified slop that it's gonna be a hundred things, just fucking like it within an hour. So no, I don't you know, it's like I kind of the the mixing and mastering AI tools are kind of a gray area. As correct me if I'm wrong, I'm probably gonna have a mix engineer fucking twist my balls off for this. Oh disculture torsion, like tungsten ball sack. I don't fucking know. I cast tungsten balls! I find that those are like a kind of gray area, but it's been proven that those tools sometimes like kind of change your track, they kind of change the things that you've been doing. Um yeah, I'm I'm not a fan, man. Like people are gonna do what people are gonna do, you know. According to Sam Altman, uh oh the sorry, not Sam Altman, the CEO of Suno, no one enjoys making music.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

Uh that's that the creative process is a fucking I unleashed testicular torsion on that guy for saying that. Yeah, fuck that guy.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

And tungsten ballsack. But yeah, dude. Um so moving swiftly along because the two of us can fucking run endlessly about this. Uh yeah, so those are the things happening in the international scene. Yeah, so there's this interesting thing happening in Cape Town now. Um, NAS. This might just be a white boy thing. I don't fucking know. Did you ever like see like the the 80s dark fantasy like type movies, things like the never-ending story and those type of movies?

SPEAKER_03 35:07

No, that's definitely some some white boy shit. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Probably. But now that's that's kind of like a very how do I want to say I don't want to say like a lost form of media, but it was a very specific and a very like curated type of aesthetic. And a lot of the people who got into that type of like media as a kid, they tended to be more geared towards like the alternative scene. A lot of them got into like making music or into like alternative music, they tended to be a little bit weird, like most alternative people are, a little bit strange and into like different things. Now, it was all done with like practical effects, very little VFX and those type of things. Uh, so this is a creator on TikTok, her name's Aaliyah, and she is a filmmaker.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

What if I told you in a world being taken over by AI, we're doing something handmade, and we only need 150 strangers to help out. Hi, my name's Aaliyah, and I'm a 23-year-old filmmaker from South Africa. And this is Pubri, a film inspired by 80s dark fantasy nostalgia. Every creature, every costume, every prop is all gonna be handmade. No AI, no VFX, just pure human grip. We're planning to film this film in just three weeks. We're so close to making this world real. We only need 150 people to donate 50 Rand to reach our goal. So if you're a fantasy lover, filmmaker, or someone who just believes in handmade stories, please help us bring Pari to life.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

So, what Leah is trying to do is she is creating a starting off with a short film. She wants to do all the props and all the stuff handmade. There is going to be no VFX, to the best of my understanding, from what she's explained to me. And absolutely zero AI used in order to do this project. Now, what she has done is she's created a Kickstarter, I believe, to get the project off the ground. I'll leave a link to that in the description. And yeah, uh, a lot of people who grew up fans of alternative music were definitely a fan of that particular aesthetic. From my discussion with her, she has got a few people involved already, especially a composer. However, she's expressed an interest in someone creating an outro theme for this. So from my side, this is kind of a shout-out of hey, if there are any other local musicians, producers, anything in the alternative scene who would like to be involved on that project somehow, reach out to Leah and have a look and see if you can be involved somehow. I think it's a really cool initiative, especially with the zero AI. The aesthetic is super cool, not something that's rarely done in modern days, especially not without heavy VFX or AI generation, unfortunately. So I think that's a super cool project. I find it extremely wholesome, especially with how she's trying to go about it and how she's trying to do it.

SPEAKER_03 38:05

Uh, just also on top of that, do support Alia. Do like check out all the descriptions and everything. It's all in the description, basically, all the links that you'll be looking for. As well as some, you know, what did you call it? Dark 80s dark fantasy. If you guys have any recommendations, 80s dark fantasy. Yeah, 80s dark fantasy. If you guys have any recommendations, uh, as we jokingly said, it it is white boy vibes, so I haven't checked any any of it out. So please drop the recommendations in the uh comments. I'd love to check that out, actually. It's it's insane.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Sweet, and yeah, that's it from us. That is our ground up for the month of August and a little bit of July because we fucking missed that. Uh, a couple of things before we check out. Uh please, please join the Discord. Become a part of the conversation. We would love to hear from you. But just come say hi. Come hang out with us. We appreciate you.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

Remember to check out uh and submit your music uh on Sahara. Obviously, it's a platform that we uh published not so long ago where we are basically think of it as like an archive where every release that's coming out, you know, you'll find all the latest sort of music on there. I gotta shout out Rowan for being uh the the brainchild of that, and then obviously putting it together as well as he did together with Megan. Shout out to you guys. But if you haven't checked out Sahara, we've got the link in the description. Do check it out. It's something really insane and really incredible. You uh if you're in a band and you're watching this, if you have any new release, be sure to head on there and check it out because yeah, it's something that really just benefits the scene as a whole. It's sort of like a hub where everyone can sort of, you know, they're looking for new music, new bands, ETC. Uh that's the sort of like central hub where everyone can sort of go and find all the latest releases and so on. Um, and then obviously, as Marcel mentioned in the ad, uh check uh, do get some of our merch as well. It is available on our websites through the shop on there. Uh it'll take you straight through. We got some beanies, we got some hoodies, we've got everything. So please do support. It's one of the best ways that you can support the show.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

And then another great way to support the platform is through a monthly subscription. We have a platform where you guys can donate a set monthly amount to us ranging from a dollar to ten dollars, and any support is greatly appreciated. A massive shout out goes to Mike Pacock as well as Renee for their subscriptions and just contributing towards keeping this platform afloat and helping us continue to do what we do. We cannot express how much we appreciate you guys and the support that you've shown us. And if you can find it in your hearts and in your wallets, thank you so much.