What happened to Durban’s punk misfits from the 1980s? These paleface kips were never well-regarded by the apartheid government, and yay for that – who would want to be accepted by a bunch of fascists and their police enforcers?
Some of the misfits managed to settle their restless souls in their home town, most went to London to immerse themselves in the alternative culture and underworld that open-minded Londoners embrace, while the odd borderline trendy moved to Cape Town. (But they don’t count because they played it too safe anyway.)
Sadly, too many of the anti-establishment misfits who dabbled in mischief became a little too careless… Uptown Saturday Night, Downtown Sunday Morning is dedicated to those who fell over the edge.
“The music of change has removed the Durban of this work. The clubs, people, venues and places are gone. What remains is the charged spirit and the memories, embedded indelibly in all those it made its mark upon,” gonzo author Gari Joubert writes.
He was a survivor, living to tell the tales through the narrator, James Jingo.
Gari met his wife, Sehrazat, in London and made the decision to live life rather than lose it to the evils of narcotics.
He proudly shows his visitors around the farmhouse on his farm on the lush KwaZulu-Natal coast, where he’s lived for 10 years, explaining how he built it, simultaneously explaining how he built the novel.
“It’s a work of fiction, the main characters are an amalgamation of people involved in the alternative club scene at the time – a few less offensive types got to keep their names,” he grins as we sit on homemade chairs.
Given the extent of narcotics and chemist junk consumed in the novel (breaking into pharmacies to steal the prescription medicine to get high), one can appreciate the need for the truth to be mixed up in fiction.
Knocking out sailors who had picked up hooker friends and stealing their money, rather than the poor, pretty prostitutes settling for the smaller amount the sailors would have given the girls? “Yeah, these things did happen, but it’s a work of fiction.”
Ah, truth and a good story.
The chapters were originally written as short stories. Evenings spent indulging with a reprobate posse, driving around Durban in his old cabby, a Volksiebus in real life, a Mercedes named Dead Joe in the book, partying at 80s clubs Faces and Divisions, or at Speakeasy in then-Point Road, Monks Inn and the Lido. And then at his home on a Sunday, sleep-deprived and hedonistically trying to keep the euphoria going.
James Jingo fluidly meanders into his memories of the army days into which he was unfortunately conscripted.
Unfortunate because the youngsters who had groovy hair and an interest in books-art-music-fashion, would leave the army with cropped hair, shin splints and a more wounded spirit.
“I was based in Kimberley, Pretoria and Namibia, a non-commissioned officer working with counter-intelligence. It meant nothing to me – every day was a countdown to getting out of there. I had honed detachment long before I got to the army,” says gonzo. Teenage years in a foster home after surviving boyhood with a beast of a father could make the strongest among us meander through life semi-detached.
Whereas James Jingo was a survivor, his accomplice and fellow apprentice, Vic Voodoo, wasn’t as well-equipped for life. Good-looking and stylish with his Bauhaus goth look, Voodoo was so keen on his debauched lifestyle that he managed to convince his girlfriends to work as escort agents to support his habit.
“Yeah he could be cold, that geezer. The girls loved him,” Gari says of the real-life geezer. “But he was my good friend. He continued that in England, he rarely worked, and swayed his girlfriends to work in clip joints there too.”
I first met Gari when I was 14 and he was a 23-year-old hairdressing apprentice in 1987. I had met “Vic Voodoo” a few months earlier when he used me as his hair model and we came first in a competition.
Voodoo was quiet and attentive as his mentor, Pascal, insisted on perfection. Voodoo never gave anything away. Didn’t even share the prizes we won.
Gari had a boy-wonder quality. Manically washing my hair, he asked if I’d ever taken a trip. “No, I’m too young.” He squished my head some more and nattered on.
A week later, I returned so he could practise more styles on my hair for a competition. This time he was sullen. I didn’t ask what was wrong – I was still too young.
Now, reading about those heady years, I keep wondering which episode may have happened the weekend before which made him so pensive and worried: a police raid at Faces, a raid at his flat, the cops mistreating the long-haired “moffie”, or angst with his Daily News reporter girlfriend?
Back in Durban after the army, Gari immersed himself in the punk-rock scene very quickly. “I got into tripping and opiates. Working as an apprentice hairdresser just didn’t cut it for me.”
So at the time, drugs saved your life, I muse. “It’s official, drugs saved my life,” he guffaws. “There’s a sound bite for you journalists. And music.”
He goes quiet before adding: “It’s the reader’s choice whether to believe it.” And that’s why we love fiction.
All satisfied with his life now on the farm surrounded by rescue dogs and growing vegetables, I ask him one of those “if Adam had said no thanks I’d rather have a banana”-type questions.
Well, yes, he would probably make the same choices – except for the relationship mistakes (date this one, avoid that one) – because he gets to tell the story of Durban’s punk-rock culture circa 1987. It’s fascinating and validates all the choices he’s made. Or didn’t make. Who can say?
An alternative soundtrack plays throughout: at the clubs, at Jingo’s abode and in his car, strictly records and tapes.
Readers can find all the songs on a playlist on YouTube (go to Uptown Saturday Night, Downtown Sunday Morning on YouTube to listen to the soundtrack while reading the book).
The novel has a cult classic feel to it, from the good ol’ days when there was more to life and the social scene than smartphones and keeping up with a Kardashian.
* Ike’s Books in Lilian Ngoyi (Windermere) Road, Durban, will host the Uptown Saturday Night, Downtown Sunday Morning book launch on August 28 at 6pm. Open to the public. Call 072 602 5868 for more info or e-mail [email protected]