Dear Reader : five places
If you write about South Africa you could write about a lot of rather unpleasant things like political and ethnic issues. You could point out the problems that the world cup 2010 might bring. But on the other hand you will miss to understand the counrty as a living and evolving society with an active arts and music scene.
So this is about an Indie Pop band who used to call themselves Harris Tweed untill the fashion company of the same name threatened them with legal actions. The new name seems to fit pretty well and the last year was a very good year for the band from Johannesburg. In 2009 Europe discovered Dear Reader and soon Dear Reader started touring to discover Europe.
I asked Darryl Torr (bass, loop station, vocals) about 5 very special places.
Johannesburg (South Africa) A place that I call home. Besides being labled as one of the most dangerous citys in the world, Johannesburg has some of the friendliest people. I dont think that I would enjoy living in any other city in south africa.
Leipzig (Germany) A place where I feel at home. I love going to Leipzig. This is where our sound engineer lives and we always feel so at home there. I think that it would be a great place to have a studio and to create and record music. There is a real creative spirit in Liepzig, I am not sure if it is just the people or the place itself or maybe it’s both.
Haldern (Germany) A place for a music festival. So this year we got to play at Haldern Pop festival. The sun was shining and people were jumping into the lake and listening to music, it was every bit as awesome as we were told it would be and even a little bit more. I really wish that I got to spend more time there than just half a day.
Paris (France) A place for sight seeing. So the first time that we played in Paris we went sight seeing as this is what we were told we should do. The problem is that we could only go after our show. This meant that we only got to the eiffle tower at around 1 in the morning. As well as it being the middle of the night it was also the middle of winter. Yes it was cold and there was no one around but still we walked from one tourist spot to the next. At around 3 in the morning we got tired and decided that we were to cold to carry on and caught a taxi back to the hotel.
London (England): A place where I know a lot of people. Besides the really bad traffic jams I am not to sure how I feel about London. I think that maybe London is just too big. It feels like a place that you really never get to be part as it is always changing. We do have many friends that live there and to be able to visit them and have coffee is great.
