http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog Innovative, prolific and endlessly creative, Chris Chameleon is currently being hailed as a phenomenon on the South African Music front. He has a style all his own and a reputation for mesmerizing audiences with his four octave voice range and irresistible stage personality. His versatile and exceptional talent has won him rave reviews and a total of sixteen impressive awards over the past 3 years, including a SAMA and a Medal of Honor from the South African Academy of Science and Arts. eng http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:25:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=84 from my bed in amsterdam i realise it's been very long since my last blog. thank goodness for facebook and twitter. they make it a little easier to stay in touch. the reasons for silence are always the same: too busy. thank goodness i don't have a dog or a child or a wife, because the dog would've been dead by now, the child on the streets and the wife in the neighbour's arms. it's quite a privilege, being able to immerse oneself into one's work (and passion) to this degree, having arranged one's living circumstances to the extent that it is afforded without any guilt, neglect, or debt to any other party. sometimes i wonder if i might end up a forgotten old has been and wonder why i didn't make friends or maintain relationships. and then i just go: ah, screw that. i'm not counting on that happening and even if so, it's worth the journey. my two guy friends and three girl friends fulfill my social needs and understand my absenteeism. the recordings here in the netherlands are going very well. i have said many times that i am absolutely inspired and it has been a very long time since i've been so in love with my job as i am these days and now i'd like to reiterate that. the producer, frans hagenaars is a truly fabulous guy and his record speaks for itself. we've now finished the bass and drum tracks - those take a long time and are very important - and are now filling in the gaps with sounds which is a very exciting phase, because you start hearing the songs as they are meant to be. it seems the album will only be finished in may, which is an awfully long time to wait. but i've learnt from some of my recent projects that to squeeze it ripe just is no good. for now you have to excuse me, i have a vocal take to complete.]]> studio sweet studio, with boo! http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=83 i had an interesting week in johannesburg. having been forced to stay here because of the dentist's itinerary (talk about rock stars...) i got to get a take on jhb i hadn't experienced in a very long time. let me be clear, i am a huge fan of jhb. i was born and raised here and my memories are intrinsically linked to many places i can still see before me on a daily basis. i am by nature a sentimentalist, so this geographical attachment, however unenlightened it may be, has a remarkable influence on my state of mind. jhb is a ghost town around christmas and new year. what a lovely experience - seeing africa's supreme financial and industrial powerhouse turn into a sleepy hamlet for three weeks every year. reminds me a lot of will smith in manhattan in 'i am legend'. speaking of movies, i have seen some great movies recently too. most notably 2012 and avatar. both constitute what one might call mindless entertainment. i wouldn't want it any other way. if i am going to strenuously employ my grey matter, i'd like to get paid for it thank you very much. outside those requirements i like to vegetate in front of something that doesn't have to make a lot of sense, doesn't provide too much food for thought and entertains my basics. 2012 was great fun with massive effects and the culmination of all disaster movies. my favourite part was the conclusion of the movie - 'the drakensberg, south africa, is the new roof of the world'. this is after the whole world gets destroyed by quakes and tsunamis. what luck! there i have been, for the past three years working with some colleagues on a self sustaining village (verkykerskop) on the foothills of the drakensberg, only to hear that it is the one part of the planet that will be a safe haven after 'the global cataclysm' of 2012. talk about lucky investments. avatar was an even better movie. i got very annoyed with certain plot lines in the movie. i have been reading 'the art of war' and found myself frustrated by the unwise battle tactics of our hero tribe. they storm when they should wait in ambush and the shoot at helicopters with arrows when really all they have to do is get their flying pterodactyls to drop rocks on the propellers of the invading helicopter-like war craft. but it is a brilliant movie (3d) and a very exciting indication of where we're headed with the art of motion pictures. furthermore, i ma thoroughly enjoying my i-pod as you might have noticed by my more frequent facebook updates. (photo of me doing an impersonation of robbie wessels' "liewe ouers" video)]]> sweet home johannesburg http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=82 happy new year y'all. i hope it's a year of peace and success for you. i have high hopes myself for this year. my new year's resolution is to learn zulu and i've already started my language course. looming large on my list of priorities is boo, which i believe is going to invite a lot of success and fun and artistic fulfillment into my life. the writing of the album is going very well and the songs feel right - i haven't been in this space for such a long time and i got to say it feels marvelous. but a little hiccup occurred today: i have been a little uncomfortable in the dental area lately and dragged myself off to the dentist this afternoon. his findings weren't good. i need a root canal treatment. the specialist only comes back next week and so my plans to get to my ranch and start writing there aren't working out. apparently the treatment may take up to three visits and apparently it'll cost the gdp of a small african country. ah well. so it goes, there's still a lot to be thankful for, like.. 31 other healthier teeth. actually, that's a lie. adults have 32 teeth, but i have only 28. i never got wisdom teeth. along with a hairless chest at 39 and a rather feminine soprano voice, i'll add that to my list of physical oddities. there's more, but that's probably a little personal... ]]> is it 2010 already? http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=81 the miss s.a. gig was a rather interesting affair. when they asked me to perform there, they initially wanted me to sing to a backtrack of 'anywhere', of the shine album. as anyone who knows my work would know, i draw the line with backtracks. it's a complicated argument, and i'd be cautious to make sweeping statements about it. suffice to say that personally i find it unacceptable for what i do and that it invariably demotes its purveyors to the status of glorified karaoke singers. the problem is, this is a big event, broadcast on national television. no room for error. furthermore, anywhere, played live, is a three string effort - almost laughably minimalist. but i dug my feet in and eventually got my way (and enough rope to hang myself) - to play it live. it's hard to give feedback on the event and not sound like i'm boasting. let's just say that a whole lot of the contestants, judges, audience, organisers, even waiters and security gave the sort of feedback that supported the idea that there still is room for genuinely live music. i had a ball mingling with the beauties and what better status quo for any man than to be stranded in a jungle paradise with 1 beautiful girl to congratulate and ten others to console? i'll do it again, anytime.]]> the miss south africa contest http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:15:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=80 i don't think i have ever typed a blog from a more interesting location/situation. right now i am stuck at 2000m above sealevel in the mountainous desolation of the eastern central plateau of south africa. yeah, i got stuck without diesel. there isn't a better place to be stuck though. the moon is nearly full and it is a very pleasant mountain night. the silence is occasionally broken by the cry or call of some bird or animal in the indeterminable distance. i walked out up to an elevation and was lucky enough to get just enough cell phone reception (what would i have done 15 years ago?) to call a friend who is now on his way with a can of diesel. the weeks in europe have softened me already and the intensity of life (read: pollen) this early in a wet summer has me breaking records with sneezes per minute. it's ok though, it normally takes no more than three days for my system to discover that it is unnecessarily protecting me from something that isn't really bad for me and then everything gets back to normal. it's good to be back in africa. every time i come back after an extensive period abroad, i become aware, again, of how privileeged i am to live in such a beautiful, wild, and vast country. i love europe and it's cultural temples to the grand designs of man, but none of that can compare with the perfect simplicity of god made nature. i am going to confine myself at the farm for two weeks to begin writing the next boo album. it's been a while since i've been so passionate about a project, which is every indication that it is the right thing at the right time. ah, on the moonlit horizon i spot an approaching light...]]> who needs diesel? http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=79 the eurotour is intense. 28 gigs in 35 days takes it out of you. i'm glad i don't have to drink every night and that going for walks or runs is something i like doing and don't feel like punishment. i think that sort of thing help a lot with absorbing stress and making the workload easier to bear. can't say i don't miss home though. i am ready for some sunshine. i'm getting back to s.a. a week later than planned because i will be playing one more secret performance for some private function with dignitaries - more i may not say. i have been aching to get back home to start work on the new boo album. guess now i'll have to start here in the netherlands. it's been a while since i've been so excited about a project and i have a very good feeling about it. strangely though, my expectations are modest. for me it's more about an alternative vehicle of expression than anything else. gosh, i had some mcdonald's the other night and i got sick from it. i was afraid that i might be getting flu (body aching, headache, sensitive skin), but a day and a half later i was fine. guess i'm too healthy for fast food then. after the painful end to the currie cup (i like the bulls, but i love the cheetahs) i am happy that we can all scream for the boks together again. i'll miss it due to work, but in spirit i'll be with the boys. viva le bokke! ]]> intensity http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:25:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=78 it's been ages since my last entry. blog entry, that is... i have tried to compensate by posting videos of the tour's progress, but i am getting complaints and so here i am, cyber pen in hand. after the klassieke chameleon tour i haven't sat still for a second. it was followed by the cultivaria festival and aardklop and then that temple of afrikaans music expression - skouspel. i am happy to report that all three events were completely sold out and i am very aware of how fortunate i am to be treated by such attendances in these times. this year's skouspel was especially enjoyable for me, due to the fact that i was busier that at any other skouspel. time at skouspel goes by very slowly when you only go on twice in the 3hours45minutes show. but this time round i was almost constantly getting dressed, undressed and dressed again for the next part. i also think it was, in general, a better skouspel than the last two. that is, however, not the opinion of some others... one morning,as i sat having breakfast at the hotel, i heard one lady tell another that skouspel just isn't as good as it was without steve hofmeyr (steve hofmeyr is arguably the biggest afrikaans star of all time and no longer attends the event having thrown a cup of cold tea in the face of the editor of the magazine which is the main sponsor of the event. since then it seems he's simply not been the event's cup of tea anymore). after the last show on sunday, i went from sun city straight to the airport to fly to europe for my tour here. the tour is going along just fine and i have included an official belgian theatre tour for the first time this year (i've played belgium many times before, but not a theatre tour arranged by an agency as is currently the case). the response has been overwhelming and i think i have a few years of fun lined up ahead of me in belgium. my agent is doing well for me, and, like my dutch agent, seems to have a lot of faith in what i am doing. that is so important in this business: faith, belief. not only from fans but also the business types. for me the job is simple: go on stage and make sure everybody leaves the theatre going 'wow, that was something!'. i love playing for new audiences. because i know what it must look like: a guy walking on stage with a guitar in hand, sitting on a stool. of course the first thing you'll think is that you're in for one and a half hour of singer songwriter stuff and pray to the heavens that it isn't boring. i love that ripple going through the crowd when i start pulling out the tricks, letting the monkey out of the sleeve as we say in afrikaans. the other big news has been my decision to take boo! further again. i have noticed some confusion amongst many of my new found supporters at some of my antics, and that has lead me to decide to commit at least a part of that under my boo! banner, so as to facilitate these artistic transitions. i love all my fans, but all my fans don't love all of me and as it is me serving them, i have to figure out a way. i will (dv) record the next boo! album in amsterdam in february and i am looking forward to this outlet for monkeybusiness - watch this space! ]]> faith and belief http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=77 last weekend was quite something. we did the klassieke chameleon show at ushaka marine world in durban with dolphins. i had my doubts about how this could work, but i was pleasantly surprised. the trainers had actually rehearsed some moves with the dolphins and those beautiful sea mammals danced, twirled, splashed and posed to the music like a troupe of can-can girls. what a treat. the best for me was when, at the end of o sole mio, the oldest dolphin (38 years and the largest dolphin in captivity in the world) beached itself right in front of my feet and laid there posing like daryl hannah in the movie splash. saturday morning was a very proud moment for me. i took an experimental ride on the gautrain, the soon to be public transport system of the johannesburg pretoria conurbation. at 160km/h it was a smooth ride, very secure, very professional. i have been a firm believer in and a staunch supporter of gautrain ever since its inception and to get that complimentary experimental ride was a very special moment for me. there have been a lot of critics of gautrain, and, ironically, those are most often the very same people who complain that south africa lags behind the rest of the developed world in infrastructure and social management. naysayers and doomsdayers. they may emigrate to canada and leave us to sort ourselves out here at the southern tip of africa. i've discovered a new kick. this is good, it's better than a night of drinking or a line of coke or a whole afternoon at the fun park and mostly cheaper too: next time you do shopping, if you get to the till and you can see the person with his/her little basket of groceries is way less privileged/blessed than yourself, tell them to pass it through the cashier, you'll pick up the bill for them. the look on the cashier's, and especially your lucky beneficiary's face is completely priceless and, best of all, you feel pretty darn good yourself for much longer and more than you would spending money on most other things. really, try it, you won't be sorry. off to the cape tomorrow for the first show of my festival run for this next year. the show is called voila! and if tonight's rehearsal is anything to go by, it's a winner. darn, i'm excited. and darn, i love my job.]]> take a few dolphins, the gautrain, and VOILA! http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:20:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=76 hi all, it sure has been a while. the last few weeks have been utterly crazy. first i got myself into this situation where i took on the translation of the biography of one of s.a.'s greatest rugby legends ever. i had a very hectic schedule for its completion, as they had all their ducks in a row for printing and then i came to hear of the fact that there was no afrikaans version. no afrikaans version? and that for an afrikaans star? preposterous, it thought, and so i talked the publisher into giving me a shot at it. but the only way it could work is if i did it in a week. so, i did. and nearly killed myself in the process. i locked myself away on my ranch and sat in front of the computer for 16 hours a day until the letters started swimming in front of me. it was when they started doing hand-stands and summersaults that i realised i was going loopy and then i would rest a minute or two. but i got it done and i am proud to be associated with it, when it hits the shelves in nov i am convinced it will cause a great stir, as one of our country's most controversial secrets is resolved in this book then it was all klassieke chameleon. it's a huge production and a tight schedule. the show is almost two hours long and especially meeting the people afterwards is very exhausting. but at the same time totally gratifying, which is why i do it. then there'd usually only be about 5 hours of sleep before we had to get up and catch a flight top the next city. to all of you who have come out for this huge show, thank you very very much. i feel like we've changed the rules of engagement in south african entertainment with this show. i think we have given the audience something that will make them expect more from our artists in the future. rocking up at a show and doing a karaoke with your own cd won't be acceptable for ever, we need to change that about this country's entertainment if we are ever to make an international impression. lastly, i am overwhelmed at our springbok team's successes. we are now world #1, world champions, tri nations champions ( arguably the toughest international competition o the planet), super 14 champions, victors over the british and irish lions... there are no more accolades left to make our own at this stage. and so i will say good bye with some quotes from our national coach, peter de villiers. this guy is the first springbok coach that is not a white man. he is truly successful and comes across as an idiot in interviews and a genius on the field. personally, i think his wild media statements are a way of confusing the opposition. you just can't place a guy like that. and of course, as you can see below, the sheer entertainment value of his comments make it all worth the while! (comments taken from http://www.devillisms.webs.com/) "If I lie in hospital and I hear they are putting someone's head back on that was ripped of by Schalk (Burger) then I'd say: That's Schalk; he's agressive but he's not malicious." De Villiers defends his players. "In the church, there are preachers who preach, and those who don't listen, go to hell. I work with my players, and Nick works with his. If my players listen, we all go to heaven. - De Villiers in 2008 when he and Italian coach Nick Mallet were involved in a war of words. "If you look at those people who say all those things about me you will ask: How did God manage to create those people?" - De Villiers asks a fundamental question. "Those bliksems! Anything they ask me I will answer in Afrikaans" - De Villiers on how he plans on handling the Aussie Media in the 2009 Tri-Nations. "If Robbie Deans says it, then it's different. I mean, Robbie Deans is a good coach and I am not!" - De Villiers in response to a suggestion that he and Aussie coach Robbie Deans have a similar rugby vision. "There is nothing in Hamilton" - De Villiers' contribution to Hamilton Tourism prior to the Tri-Nations test against the All-Blacks in Hamilton, NZ in September 2009. "I believe life within your own country (South Africa) is sometimes a burden because you have to face it every day, but when you go outside your borders, you see it is actually worse" - De Villiers' interesting view of the world. "You work for an Afrikaans newspaper, man, speak Afrikaans!" - De Villiers in 2008 in response to a journalist from Cape Town newspaper "Die Burger", who asked De Villiers a question in English. ]]> the busy bee http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=75 today was a night mare and a fine reminder of the extraordinary powers the mundane hold over us. my agent and i landed in jhb from cape town this morning (after getting to bed at 2 and getting up at 5:30), waited long for the luggage (what's the deal with airports company south africa? i hope they have their stuff together by next year), went to the car, paid for a week's parking, got to the car and voila! no keys. i had left them behind in my house in gordon's bay. and so i had to leave my agent by the car to receive the key i arranged with a friend to pick up from my house in johannesburg and bring to the airport (a 40km drive) while i had to take a taxi for r450 but i talked him down to r300 because i thought it was exactly the absurd sort of pricing that harms south africa's image as an affordable destination (for the internationals reading this and who mean to come here for the world cup next year; this is africa, everything is negotiable.) came 15 minutes late for my meeting. the meeting went very well. i am going to translate the soon to hit the shelves official biography of a legendary south african rugby player. who is an all time hall of fame sport star in the heavenly game of rugby. (that's right, rugby is what they play when you've been good all your life, gave to the poor and said your prayers and go to heaven). it is an unusual task, but something i'm already enjoying tremendously and it sits better with my ways and skills than what might seem to be the case upon first glance. from there i got a lift with the player's manager to the sabc, where i did a lengthy radio interview (to be broadcasted on rsg at 9pm on friday night, 21 august on rsg). then i took a r70 taxi (again, rip off, i argued a still extortionate r50. the point is not whether or not i can afford it, rather whether or not it is a fair price) to get home. in the meantime my poor agent is waiting at the airport for the aa and a locksmith to come, since the key doesn't fit. it turns out i have been sitting with a nonsense key for three years. tell you what, toyota will have to foot the bill for all these unnecessary expenses. i'll keep you posted on my progress with them on that... my agent came in at 6:30, after 8 hours in the cold and the dusty dirt of a johannesburg airport parking lot and an unsuccessful mission to show for it. please post condolences and empathies for her, it will really help my case! man, i feel like a butt. especially since it was i who forgot my key in the cape in the first place. ah, all in a day's work. now i'm sitting backstage at the firkin in centurion waiting to go on stage and play another gig that is a boo! gig, but that won't be billed as such unless we really feel we kick some major ass with this setup. yee ha! ]]> i forgot my keys! http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=74 yep, africa is not for sissies and that's a pity 'cos apparently i am a sissy. here's why: the flight back from the states was grueling to say the least. i flew from denver to atlanta to new york to atlanta to jhb. i left at one in the morning on sunday and arrived at 6 in the evening on monday night. this was after a series of weather delays that each threatened to postpone my arrival in jhb by at least a day. fortunately i was given preferential treatment in these cases and bumped to the top of the standby list on account of the international connection. you may ask yourself why i flew to atlanta and then new york only to go back to atlanta on the same journey. so have i. but the only way to get to new york from denver with delta airlines is via atlanta, and i have to board my plane to jhb from new york, since that's where i flew in from. and yes, i did explain it to the airline and tried to drive home the idea that they'll have two empty seats they can sell to someone else since i've already paid for mine. of course this to and fro-ing seriously increased my chances to miss a flight somewhere along the line. anyway, i have two things to say to that: firstly, how can the airlines complain that they struggle financially when they waste fuel and the opportunity to sell two extra seats on a very busy route (atlanta - n.y.)? secondly, how is it that they can put people on the moon, build a nuclear arsenal, topple governments and come up with bluetooth, but they can't develop a system lets a guy stay in atlanta when he's going to be there again in 5 hours. by the time i got to jhb it was without my luggage. i got that 2 days later. but as for sissies... when i got through customs in jhb there was this one passenger who was welcomed by his homies with 'shosholoza', a southern african song in zulu that's about working hard away from home. and when i heard those voices ring out the sound of my birthplace, my africa that i missed so much, i turned into a sissy and cried all the way to the car rental offices.]]> sissy boy http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:00:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=73 from boulder i went to the badlands in south dakota via wyoming. to date i've been to 16 american states, and i can confidently say that wyoming is my absolute favourite. it is the least populated state, it's nickname is the equality state (speaking of which, i made a hobby of memorising all the nicknames of all the states and that is now another complete edition i can add to my mental encyclopedia of random facts) and it reminds me of the free state in south africa. yes the free state. and like the free state, it is grossly underestimated by it's countrymen and hold way more beauty and mystery than most people will ever know. that's an interesting thing about traveling the states as a south african. you're always seeing landscapes that reminds you of this and this and this place back home... the same, but different. visiting the badlands is a lifelong dream come true. ever since my geography teacher in 5 grade mentioned it as a perfect example of the worst kind of erosion, i've wanted to go (yeah, i know, i am a bit of a nerd). and it is indeed a godforsaken useless piece of earth from a human use perspective. that is, until yo can figure out that making a national park out of it is pretty useful and totally rewarding. i wish there were more 'useless' places on earth. from the badlands i went to mount rushmore and took a helicopter flight over the monument, as well as crazy horse. crazy horse is a monument under construction which, when completed, will dwarf mount rushmore completely. i feel very sorry for the american indians (or native americans, i can't always keep up with what is the latest fashion in political correctness). those guys certainly got the short end of the stick. i enjoy driving through or close to reservations and tuning in to their radio to listen to their music. it is totally wild and will make most other folks pretty edgy after a few minutes. en route to the yellowstone park i took a weird little turnoff and after some driving followed by much walking i got to 'the medicine wheel'. it's an indian spiritual centre where large stones have been packed out to form a big wheel. this place is very remote, high (about 3000m above sea level) and very lonely and exposed. one can sence that it is a sacred place. i also had a great experience in custer state park, getting caught in a herd of bison on a narrow road in a little canyon. to be completely surrounded by these huge (they are enormous) animals and totally hopeless is something i'd rate pretty close to spiritual. from there i went to yellowstone via devil's tower - the first national monument in the usa. it is and exposed volcano centre and a marvelous geological feature of gigantic proportions. i had a nice moment in yellowstone today. i saw old faithful, the castle geyser and the beehive geyser all blow at the same time. the chances of that happening all at once is once every few months, and i just happened to be there right then. perhaps i should go out and buy a lottery ticket now, since it's my lucky day. yellowstone is very beautiful too, and well preserved. it is on top of a mega volcano and when (not if) it blows it will drive most life on the planet to extinction, as it has done every 700 000 years for the last couple of million years. i'm covering my travels is the broadest sense here with fleeting descriptions. but the truth is i can wax lyrical (and probably, eventually will) for page after page after page. but this is a blog and not a novel. for now, i can say i am having the time of my life and i know now how much i love home, because i still find the time to miss it, sometimes terribly. ]]> wyoming is my favourite state http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=72 a friend warned me of the showers in some of the towns i've been staying. she says i should shower in flip flops, because there are all sorts of plantar warts and stuff to be gotten in these places (especially the towns with just two motels). but i have been traveling for 20 years in my line of work, the vast majority as a poor musician, and i've learnt how to avoid these dangers. only, now, traveling to america, i have no choice. and sure as hell, i had to get cream for an itch underfoot just this week. why? because here they make you take off your shoes when you go through airport security. there's no getting around it. i think americans and their visitors are, because of that, the nation with the crummiest paws. urgh. on the bright side, i went to boulder, colorado yesterday. now, ever since our (boo!) disastrous stint there in 2001, when we played for 4 people and i had a fever blister and my voice was a mess and our bus made so much pollution when it got started up in the bitter cold of the mountain winter that we practically got booed out of town, i've had a bad feeling about boulder. but yesterday saw the town (some say city, but i think it's a town) completely redeemed in my view. wow. what a marvelous place. outdoorsy, beautiful and full of great restaurants, excellent beer and beautiful people. by the way, colorado is the state with the lowest levels of obesity in the usa. and the reasons aren't hard to grasp. it's the perfect place to get out and celebrate the body. (photo not of boulder, but devils tower, wyoming. see blog on 30/07/09) ]]> the redemption of boulder http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=71 last night i went to a baseball game. that was world first for me. if you want an all american, and i mean archetypical american experience, i would recommend a baseball game. unfortunately, the team i rooted for (since i am a guest in their city) was the kansas city royals who lost horribly to the anaheim angels. in fact, the kc royals are the worst team in the country at the moment. the one thing i missed there was a corndog (a hot dog sausage on a stick in a fried maize flour dough), my favourite american fast food. i guess it's too old school. even americans look at me funny when i say i like corndogs the most. it's like saying 'pap en vleis' in paris. then, today, i went to oceans of fun (kc, near the geographical centre of the usa, is about as far from the ocean as you can get in this big country). it's a water fun park. i must say, it was a little tame. i think after the spoils of rock and roll it really takes a hardcore kick to raise the heartbeat. and then... what is it with the builders of supertubes that they don't make the segments fit with a flush finish? tonight i have two bruises on my back from the click click clicking of the joints as i go down the tube. it's like a hotel bed: the owner must sleep in it first before he allows any guest to do so, so he can know if it is comfortable. and tonight i went to see harry potter and the half blood prince. it's the third potter movie i see and i'm beginning to think it's rather good. so yeah, all's well, i'm getting loads of rest and relaxation and everything would be perfect were it not for the fact that i can't watch the springboks play the kiwis on saturday. but if life were perfect, i guess i'd actually be dead and in heaven. ]]> mr. baseball http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:50:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=70 well, that's it. mandela day has come and gone. months of planning, a week of travel and rehearsal from our base at the palace hotel in manhattan and it all comes down to about 5 minutes of action for me. i sang a verse in 'gimme hope joanna' with the whole south african contingent, the theme song for the event 'with my own two hands' with baaba maal and 'happy birthday' with stevie wonder and the entire cast. the event was exactly what i expected it to be as far as my own involvement is concerned. one thing that has thoroughly amused me has been the interviews with camera crews at the event and the telephonic interviews with journalists at home. they all seem to expect me to be a bubble of excitement at this incredible opportunity. did you speak to stevie? josh? aretha? cyndi? tim? morgan? etc etc. the truth is i wasn't excited. this is my job. don't get me wrong, i love my job, it is the best job in the world for me and i'd rather do nothing else. but on a good day i get the same joy from a night in the dorpstraat theatre in stellenbosch or the centurion theatre in pretoria than i do from the radio city music hall in new york. the truth is i didn't run around from the one star to the next gawking and gushing and blabbering eulogies. and i didn't see stevie, josh, aretha, cyndi, tim or morgan do that either. in fact, seeing south african artists do that annoys me, as if they have, in their minds, already placed themselves in a position inferior to these stars. there comes a point in a performer's life when you have to decide whether you are going to be a star or a groupie. both are great and the one needs the other. but you will find it hard being the one properly if you want to be the other at the same time. sometimes i get people coming up to me, ostensibly to pay their respects for the show i had just done. but in the way they speak to me there is a tone that suggests that they are perhaps envious, fishing for secrets (which, by the way, don't exist) and sometimes even subtly putting me down in the process. these are bad groupies. or perhaps frustrated artists. in any event, they are better off not doing the groupie thing at all. similarly, 'stars' who gush and gawk are likely to never realise their full potential, as they have not put on the shoe of the star and cannot embark on his journey. sure enough, all the aforementioned stars have far exceeded the sales of any south african artist. but there is a clear distinction between talent and sales, but if that were the standard to measure things by, van gogh would be a wannabe and the guy who made the coca cola logo the greatest genius of visual arts. the fact is, many artists with great talent have paltry sales and a whole lot of stars with massive sales stood at the back of the queue when talent was handed out, but they've had the fortune of auspicious timing and good business behind them. ultimately, i have seen 'the best' on stage and have been backstage with them (my reference here doesn't come from the mandela concert; with my esteemed colleagues of boo we enjoyed the company of coldplay, smashing pumpkins the white stripes, cypress hill, limp bizkit... to mention but a few) and from what i've seen, it is clear that there is some extraordinary talent in south africa. the economic restrictions and the size of the market often impair the development of this talent , but it cannot change the fact that it is there and that it is good. anyway, enough of that, suffice to say that i thoroughly enjoyed the mandela day concert. it was a great opportunity to do something special for a charity i believe in and n great honour to have been one of the south african representatives at this world class event.. right now i am in kansas city, which is like the bloemfontein of the usa. i will visit friends here until friday and then head out to the yellowstone national park which, no doubt, will get my pulse racing and stir excitement through my every bone. yeee ha! i can't wait! ]]> mandela day http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=69 dear fans and friends, it was with utter dismay that i witnessed the close of business in new york today. this evening i am meant to be on a plane to london to perform at the immergroen festival. for the past few months we have been hard at work with the festival organisers to make this gig happen, and to see it all come down to a visa that has come through too late is devastating, to say the least. our disappointment is further exasperated by the fact that the organisers of the mandela day festival which i am attending here in new york, have gone out of their way to accommodate me with the logistic intricacies involved in playing two gigs within 24 hours on two continents. i hope you will understand that these are circumstances beyond my control. for those of you who had purchased tickets in the hope of seeing me there, i hope that you will nevertheless enjoy the festival tremendously and i hope to see you again in the not too distant future. ]]> press release regarding immergroen http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:05:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=68 some things about the states i didn't know, and wouldn't know unless i got to experience it for myself: on american radio queen's 'we will rock you', is followed by 'we are the champions'! and led zeppelin's 'heartbreaker' is followed by 'livin', lovin' maid'. no matter which state you're in or which radio station you're listening to, this always happens. i've wondered if it is because these are tracks on the original albums that follow one another and that there is not separation between the tracks. anyone know something about that? in don henley's song 'boys of summer', he sings about 'a dead head sticker on a cadillac'. my manager, noelle, who is an american, pointed out to me that a 'dead head' is a follower of the band 'the grateful dead' and then she pointed out a dead head sticker on a car to me yesterday. so yeah, i'm learning. it's fun having your childhood mysteries resolved decades later. also, i saw an armadillo in the flesh for the first time the other night. i crept right up to it and would've touched it had it not been that i was told they carry leprosy. when it finally noticed me it went scurrying off into the bushes. what a strange little creature. you could blindfold me anytime and take me to the states from anywhere in the world and i would know i'm there from the smell. america has a definite smell to it. it almost always involves coffee, something sweet and something fried. but seriously, i'm not joking, the smell is everywhere and it is as quintessentially american as the star spangled banner. in 9 visits in as many years i can confirm the truth in this beyond any doubt. many people here have american flags in their cars or yards. the patriotism is tangible. i wish we could do a bit of the same in south africa. these guys don't always agree on all things, but the one thing they do agree on is that their country comes above all disagreement, and that is power that vastly increases the potency of any society. ]]> things i've learned about the usa http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=66 one of the nice things about knowledge in books is that it creates a theoretical world of information within which you are free to roam. and then you go out into the real world and you get to correlate the two worlds. but repeat visits to the same places under different circumstances can also change reality, or at least your perception of it. i am in the south east of the usa again. the last time i was here was in 2002 with boo. those were tough days. we had so little money that i can remember buying a big bag of muesli and eating it dry for 4 days straight, morning noon and night (does wonders for bowel action but not much for a general sense of well being!). doing the whole savannah, georgia and florence, south carolina thing now i have to say it looks a whole lot different. for one, i have a bit more cash and secondly, i have more friends here. obviously food is a big change now. and how. i eat like a pig, to say the least. and southern cooking doesn't exactly help. the food here is often fried and comes from a time before anyone knew what cholesterol, fat, sodium or sugar meant to the body. there are a lot of obese people here, you see it just walking in the streets, for obvious reasons. the weather is very hot and humid, you just don't want to move much (i have had to drag myself out of the house for my own jogs, and then, invariably, not gone as far as usual). and the food is made in such a way that you start salivating the moment you smell it. portions are huge and shops sell stuff in such a way that it makes sense to buy more for less. maybe, by the time i get back to s.a., i'll be i bit heavier, a bit thicker... but for now i'm enjoying it because next week it's the mandela concert and rehearsals and then it's all discipline and straight thinking again.]]> southern cookin' http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:25:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=64 18/06 sitting in the hotel room in kigali. just arrived here and when i'm done here i'll go for supper. the streets here are incredibly clean. it's really amazing, by far the cleanest i've ever seen in africa, including zimbabwe which for much of the last decade hasn't had any economy to afford much waste. there's a rerun of the bafana bafana game against iraq on tv and the guy who picked me up from the airport knows south african soaps like 7de laan and generations. apparently the south african economy and cultural influence reach further than i thought. the people here are friendly, but on the plane from nairobi and in the taxi on the way here i found this weird little thought pop up in my head every now and then: has that person, or that one or that one, ever killed another person? i know it's strange, but in the 3 months from april until june 1994 one million people were bludgeoned, macheted, shot and strangled in this tiny country in the highlands of central africa. surely the perpetrators of that genocide have not evaporated into thin air? 19/06 today we trekked up into the mountains, into the reserve where the gorillas live. it is a beautiful, tough walk up the slopes of these mountains. rwanda is the most densely populated country in africa, and very small too. the result is an africa far from the one you'd come to expect. every square inch is worked. they plant maize, bananas, potatoes, sorghum, coffee and tea everywhere and the land is completely tamed. except for the reserves of course. the climb from 2000m to about 2600m is through cultivated fields. then you enter the park and suddenly you're in real africa. we were very lucky, we stumbled upon the largest group of gorillas, 15 individuals, within half an hour of entering the park. i'm not going to try and explain this experience, as i might have to resort to cliches. suffice to say it is not what you'd expect it to be. there is something special indeed about these animals and it's a bit like a perfect sunset: great to the ey, but on a painting or photo, just plain old kitch. such is the nature of god's finest work, if you try to recreate or reinterpret it, it is downright kitch. i was very lucky with the gorillas though. a strappy young male decided that the path we were standing on was the one he wanted to follow. you should just give way, but not run or act nervous. we gave way so he could pass, but he somehow thought it necessary to brush me aside. see, that's kitch: oooh, i was touched by a gorilla! but i was and it was very, very cool. these beasts can rip your arm off with a gentle tug. and the sound they make when they beat their chests... it sounds like a drum beating. you can definitely feel the power. after that i attended a village seremony where the locals celebrated their culture. there they danced, sang, grinded sorghum, ate pap and milk, asked the medicine man for cures and even had a blacksmith do it the way it was done in the bronze age. i ate, drank, danced and talked and wondered how wise it was to decline the hepatitis injection the doctor recommended before the trip. ah, bugger that, i am african too. 20/06 today started really early again. i can't remember when last i actually had a decent night's rest. we attended the annual name giving ceremony for the new born baby gorillas. it's a big deal here in rwanda with thousands attending - the public, vip's from all over the world, entertainers, u.n. ambassadors, the rwandan prime minister and a host of military and security types. i was given the honour of naming one of the babies. i named her ingenzi, which means necessary, or indisposable. in my speech i said i did so on behalf of all the musicians of africa. and then i dedicated a song to this gorilla. i took a guitar from the house band and proceeded to sing. but then i was met with a horrible shock. i literally mean a shock. there was something wrong with the wiring of the guitar and when i touched the mike with my lips i got a good 220 volts through my gums. i nearly fell to the ground and i still don't know how i made it through the song. i touched the mike a few times during the song and basically it was a very uncomfortable affair. africa is not for sissies. couldn't have been too bad though, people were positive afterwards. the show must go on. i then drove to lake kivu, the 6th largest in africa. had a bad experience tonight with some american students though. i know so many great americans, kind, gentle, decent and smart people. and then you get a group of students who do their country no service with their crass and uncouth behaviour. won't change my mind about americans though, i still like most of them. but now i'm sitting in my hotel room wondering why there are people with aircon and internet that are in fact more stupid than gorillas. ]]> in rwanda http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:05:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=63 i guess readers of this blog can't be blamed for thinking my life is a great relaxation mission. right now i'm sitting in a beach house on the wild coast. in front of me the beach stretches 200m to the ocean and then it's the big blue all the way to antartica. they don't call it the wild coast for nothing. there is no one here. yesterday we walked about 5km along the beach, and came back in the dark, our way ahead well lit by the bright light of the full moon. in all this time we didn't see one person, not a single soul. the reason i'm always writing from my farm or a beach cottage is because this is the only time i get to write. i bought my car, brand new, two and a half years ago and now it has to go for its 135 000km service. during this time i spent at least 6 months abroad, which narrows my exposure to the car down to two years. often i fly to the cape and rent a car there. point is, i travel a lot and unlike dolf lundgren in the silversands poker advertisement, i don't work on my laptop whilst driving. last week about 50 whales beached near kommetjie, on the cape peninsula. many people came out to save them, trying, in vain, to get them to go back into the waves. the public managed to get about three whales back into the surf, but these soon turned around again and were met with their inevitable fate. this was sad - big, gentle giants and so many people struggling in vain. but what really frustrated me was the reactions of many members of the public when the parks board came to shoot the whales. many people became very emotional and threw themselves onto the whales in an effort to stop the parks officials. what folly. the whales are doomed, they can't be saved and the best you can do for them is to expedite their transition into their next incarnation with a fast, painless shot. the prima donnas who then start acting as if the parks board are mean men who thwart their good intentions do nothing to alleviate the suffering of these animals and, what's more, they don't serve the green cause either because they make environmentalists look like stupid, emotional numbskulls who are victims of their own wild emotions and are apparently unable to act sensibly. another thing that bugged me was that the whales were not utilised sensibly. that is a lot of fat and food and they should be accordingly processed so nothing goes to waste and the gift of nature is accepted with grace. that would lend more dignity to their deaths. i needed to get that off my chest. speaking of animals, in less than two weeks i'm going on a mission to find gorillas in the mist of the rwandan mountains. ]]> wild coast http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 28 May 2009 18:20:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=62 my manager has been pressing me, and lately some fans as well, for a blog entry. i can't believe how time flies. it's been a lifetime (surely of a fruit fly or something) since i last wrote one. this is what happens when your manager is ten thousand miles away. i guess musicians are a bit like children. they fit into a routine and respond to higher determinations and get completely lost on their own. i have been having a fabulous time though. after the rock tour in the netherlands i had to go to a masseuse to sort out the neck muscles i sprained on the tour. already, after he first night, i realised that this head banging thing was not going to work. but of course one gets into the show and the next thing you know you're at it again. one night my vision got completely blurred after the show and it wasn't until the next day that i could see fine again. if there are any doctors out there who can explain this phenomenon i'd like to hear from you. things haven't quietened down much since i've returned to south africa. my secretary's relocation to the cape had some very unforeseen inconveniences as a consequence. i find myself doing things i haven't done in ages, like waiting at gates for agents and electricians to finalise the selling of properties. i'm sending faxes and filling in forms. i'm waiting in queues at banks. i'm waiting in queues at city councils and licensing departments. it is amazing how much time these things consume and before you know it, the day is gone and all you've taken care of is the mundane. tell you what though, this has re-emphasised the importance of the secretarial function. viva secretaries! did get time to go to the ranch this past weekend and i feel recharged and i'm still very much under the impression of my own good fortune. ]]> just say no to admin http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 06 May 2009 12:20:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=61 aaahhh... had the most wonderful off day yesterday, the perfect blue monday. slept until 11, got up and took my time with coffee and breakfast. had a good old chat with the band about rock and roll and other fun things. cycled to zierikzee and met a long time dear friend. we went up the zierikzee tower together (it's a beautiful 550 year old 62m tall tower) from where you can see the whole city and far beyond. we didn't get too much of the view though, because we decided that it's a whole lot more exciting to indulge the pleasures of the flesh from this height. we almost got caught! today we played a festival in den bosch and at one stage i was perturbed when i saw a girl in the audience point at me and laugh. apparently i dance funny. jeepers, what a blow to my ego. i know i am a bit peculiar, i've been a nerd all my life. but i though my dancing was off beat, not downright goofy! well, i performed this dance for my colleagues tonight who agreed that it looks a little off. that's the problem with a great self esteem, sometimes you feel better than you look! ]]> dancing queen http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sat, 02 May 2009 21:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=60 i'm sitting backstage in tilburg, waiting to go on stage. whoa... the fourth gig i as many days. rock and roll is a beast vastly different from the seated storytelling gigs i have done so many of in recent years. for starters, your voice takes a lot of strain. a 45 min rock set is definitely more taxing than a 90 min acoustic set. you have to belt it out, you have to strut and pant and grind and gyrate and every morning the last few days i've felt like a train has run over me. i'm actually pretty fit at the moment, i also go for runs every morning, but this rock thing... man, i just ain't rock fit. of course the neck is the first to know. all that headbanging sprains muscles and slips disks. and of course i then tell myself not to do it the next night, but the temptation is so big and once the groove sits in your body you can call it a day. and of course, i am having an absolute ball. gosh, i wish i could do more of this type of thing. but the reality is that it's just not sustainable. perhaps that's a good thing, because as young as rock keeps your spirit, it ages the body big time. the tragedy with the crazy person who drove through a crowd to hurt the queen on queen's day in the netherlands (he killed 6 bystanders and himself) put a serious damper on the what was meant to be a festive day. and that is how the world works. evil is just so much easier. it takes a split second to break a window that took days to melt, shape, cut and fit. it takes a fleeting moment to kill a life that took decades to feed, grow, develop and live. the bad guys will always have that one up on us, the fact that they have the easy job. but we are many and they are few. and where evil destroys, good creates. and before you can destroy anything it needs to have been created first. good isn't dependent on evil in the way evil needs good to have it's work cut out. but i still believe that this is a world with more good in it than bad. (photo by chiara maffucci) ]]> goodness and graciousness http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:55:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=59 played the cape last night, play it again tonight, fly to jhb tomorrow to play middelburg, cullinan the day after and then i fly to europe later that evening. it's been a pretty eventful two weeks. i really enjoyed the klassieke chameleon gig in carnival city last week. 2500 people came to the performance. pyrotechnics, big screens great lights and some of the best sound i've ever had for this format of my shows. thanks to all of you who came out for that one, it was one of the magic nights of my career. of course it was election week in south africa this week. it has felt like the most important election since the first democratic election in 1994. it's been a tumultuous two years in south african politics. for the benefit of our foreign readers: our president (an aloof man who didn't like his opposition, but wasn't liked by his own comrades) was ousted, our police commissioner is on paid leave after an investigation into his alleged criminal activities, prominent members of the ruling party broke away and found a new party and the president of the ruling party had charges of racketeering and corruption against him thrown out of court. our political landscape is every bit as exciting and diverse as our natural landscape. the long and the short of it is that the ruling party, the anc, has lost it's two thirds majority, the democratic alliance is the main opposition and newly formed congress of the people came in third, with enough power to give them tangible presence in parliament. south africa is looking more like a balanced, modern democracy than it did a week ago. i believe in competition. it brings out he best performance in people. and performance is what south africa needs now. service delivery, infrastructure and management is at an all time low and the beast that is eating away at it is nepotism and corruption. so, thanks to all south africans who voted to affirm our democracy. i hope the next five years, until we go the the polls again, will see our country emerge stronger, more organised and a better place for especially the poor. let there be sun for everyone]]> let the sun shine in http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:35:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=58 the kknk festival was awesome! i did a show i call 'driekuns' (hat trick), which consisted of riaan van rensburg (noot vir noot) on percussion, jonathan crossley (all round axe supremo) on guitar, ampie omo (ex boo) as himself and myself on bass guitar. it was a great pleasure to rock out on bass again, very much the first time since boo i'd done so. the bass is a terrific instrument. it's very physical and you get to beat the crap out of it and after a gig it feels like you've had a workout. well, that's if you abuse the thing as i tend to! i was a little worried that the show would be too wild for a kknk audience, but i was clearly mistaken. each of the 4 shows were pretty much sold out and as the festival progressed, we got better at doing it. the penultimate and last being the best. i also threw in a 'klassieke chameleon' on the main stage of the open air festival grounds and i think it was the best i ever did that show. we also did the driekuns show at the rand at the rand easter show (named something else as of this year - i dunno what though) and man, that was pretty bad. i was seriously worried after that show - thought that we might be heading for a disaster. as it turns out, that was exactly the rehearsal we needed and when we hit the kknk we were as hot as as a jalapeno on the eye ball! our efforts were rewarded as i was awarded best male performer across all genre's for the festival. this award doesn't belong just to me. without the able assistance of my partners in crime it wouldn't be possible. after kknk i flew to durban from george, took a rental car and raced to the splashy fen festival 300km further in the drakensberg. the gig there was brilliant and those natalians made me feel like a real star, thanks guys! got home from a gig in pretoria toninght, at about 11 (aaahhh, love these early gigs - that's the best thing about my solo career!) and put on my running shoes and went for a midnight run. and now i have a pillow calling my name followed by ten zzzzzzzzzz's...]]> partners in crime http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:00:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=57 yesterday i climbed up the mountain behind my house, right up to the summit, which is 2300m above sea level. i had a 360 degree view and for as far as my eyes could see, there was not a single human in sight. a few heads of cattle, antelope, birds... but no people. the crisp air was profoundly silent. the sun was setting and a front of storm clouds was approaching and i could see the green fields, with a bright orange strip of sunset sky separating it from the grey purple of an approaching storm. in the distance swallows were playing, just playing, without any aim apart from their expression of joy in flight. the verreaux eagle pair that have their nest in the cliff on the ranch were circling above me. and at once i realised, rather surprisingly, that i didn't feel small at all. all this, the life and massive landscape were contained within my iris, converged into my eye and mind. and i realised that i don't feel alone at all either, for i am one with all i see and in perfect harmony. this is the deepest peace i have experienced in a very long time.]]> ambition http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:55:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=56 brotherhood and camaraderie are great concepts. for anyone who is poor or oppressed, that is. for the privileged people of the world, those with enough food, shelter and security these are annoying concepts, standing in the way of a life spent basking in all the privileges of one's situation. who wants to hear about the sorrows of others when you're just so damn glad your life is working out? who want's to waste time thinking about some oppressed goat herder in the ass end of the world when you're lazing back in your comfort chair sipping a green label? and let's be honest, if your brother can't get himself out of his miserable disposition why should it affect your own life, that you have managed to arrange to be just dandy? why must the have's of this world always be held back or be inconvenienced by these miserable people and their dire circumstances? what's so wrong with just enjoying your own good life? this, evidently, is the position of the government of south africa, who have, this week, refused his holiness the dalai lama of tibet a visa to attend the world peace conference in south africa. by these standards, 15 years is enough to catapult you from a brother in arms against oppression to a fat cat of power unwilling to consider the fate of those who find themselves in exactly the same inhumane position as you used to. today i am terribly ashamed of my government. and deeply concerned about the blistering devolution of its compassion. ]]> the dalai lama http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sat, 07 Mar 2009 03:00:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=55 tomorrow i fly back to south africa. it's been a hectic, yet very pleasant whirlwind tour in the usa. after philadelphia i went to los angeles. los angeles' popular name, l.a., is 3,6% of its full name, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula. l.a. is just as i remember it. that town will make you crazy. back in the boo days we always felt like we were on the verge of a big big breakthrough. they say some people live in that state for years... the difference between then and now is that i'm not trying to make it here. i came to check out the scene, and, more importantly, have a good time. i used to play rugby at primary school, and i was pretty bad at it, because i would always run after the ball in stead of waiting for it to come my way and then play it. that way i only got tired and accomplished very little. there's something about the way we toured in boo that reminds me of that. all that running around with a wish but without aim. from l.a. i went to sedona, a beautiful town in the arizona mountains with a very high concentration of hippies, spiritualists and the likes. (i'm the little guy in the photo below.) i had a good time there, walking a lot and going to vortexes to ... yeah, get vortexed. from sedona i went to phoenix. phoenix has always held a special appeal to me ever since i hear roger whitaker sing about it on my step dad's 21 greatest love songs cassette. phoenix is a great city, and, surprisingly, the fifth largest in the states. there's some great real estate deals there, courtesy of the u.s. mortgage crisis... from phoenix i came back to new york. had a gig in brooklyn last night. honestly? it was tough. i am used to walking into a sold out venue so quiet you can hear a pin drop. suddenly i'm here at a place in brooklyn where i am a nobody and the rules are all different. guess i just have to get off my high horse and eat humble pie again. this is a great exercise though, a back to basics experience that leads me to the rediscovery of some of those core issues of being a performer. today i went to ground zero. i was on top of one of the twin towers, not long before they were destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. terrorism is cowardly and no aim thus achieved vindicates the means.]]> the whirlwind http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:55:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=54 i like the usa. i was raised on a diet of trashy american culture - knight rider, a-team, purdy and a stream of one hit wonders in the 80's. the sheer nostalgic value of this background is sufficient for a lifetime's endearment. but then there are also the values of democracy, personal freedom and a general positive attitude that put the states right up there on my list of fine things. true, the modern american society is full of bad stuff: a pig out on capitalism that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, preposterous domestic policies on drugs and sex, an over exertion of global power, corruption at the highest level (who's bright idea was it to stuff the banks that ruined the party for all with a 800 billion bail out package??) and much more. but i can name an equally damning list of vices for any country in the world if i wanted to (except, maybe, the dutch, who are of course god's gift to mankind). we live in an imperfect world. which is why it is good to focus on the good. americans are the friendliest nation i know. i hear a chorus of voices crying out that this is a feigned friendliness... perhaps. but if i'm going to know you for 30 seconds only while i buy a soda, a burger and an antacid pill i prefer you to be friendly, regardless of the intent of that friendliness, because it makes the transaction smooth and pleasant in a life that is difficult and complex enough already. anyway... i landed at jfk, new york, three days ago after a 24 hour flight via a two hour transit in dubai (emirates is an excellent airline). spent today in philadelphia (i've travelled too much to be a typical tourist, but i made an exception for the philadelphia museum of art. like that great icon of my youth, rocky balboa (i saw all six films many times over) i also had to run up the stairs punching the air and singing ta da daa...) tomorrow i'm off to los angeles to further offset my biological clock. ]]> i like the usa http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:45:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=53 i just got back from filming my last week on the documentary i've been making for the last year and a half. it was a great last trip. we went up to the limpopo province, in the far north of the country. i had interviews with the border farmers there, they guys who see zimbabwe on the other side of the river. those guys are heros. they take a lot of punches for the rest of the country. i also spoke to tommie van zyl, the ceo of zz2, a vast and highly successful agricultural business. but the most impressive thing about their operation is not the big numbers involved, but the philosophy which underlines their business, which is one of respect, cooperation and care. i got a lot of hope from that encounter, it probably is the most inspirational thing i've seen this year. we flew from farm to farm with a light aircraft the one day and a helicopter the next. ah... to be a bird. the world is a bit different from up there - so much bigger yet so much more fragile. in the meantime, the album is being mastered tomorrow and will go off to the printers on monday. i leave for the usa on sunday and will come back two weeks later, by which time i should be able to get my crummy paws on a copy. that's very exciting, that feeling you get when you hold that first copy in your hand. it's about letting go, releasing it to the eyes and ears of others and subjecting it to opinion. always with a bit trepidation. the trepidation you get on the first night with a hot date that's really into you and you're really into her. ]]> flying over the borders http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:00:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=51 hey folks! it's that time again - election in south africa. this will be the most exciting and hotly contested election in our young democracy. the ruling party's two thirds majority is in jeopardy (read: healthy democracy!) and this is your opportunity to make a contribution to the wellbeing of our great country. so please, if you're not registered to vote yet, this weekend is your last chance. democracy: use it or lose it. with much love, chris]]> hey s'africans: register to vote http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:55:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=50 yeah, my ill communication continues... i would apologise if it wasn't for the fact that i know i'm using my time to make something i think will cause much pleasure! the album is almost finished. tomorrow i'm in the studio with a children's choir for one of the songs. the sound on this one is so much fuller than the first three albums. they say you shouldn't mess with the formula if it works, but i felt due for a change and it couldn't have come at a better time in a better way. the vibe at rhythm records is all excitement. the other day i had an interesting little experience in the studio when a television crew came in to film our progress. the cameraman was n black dude who, i could see, was not quite into it. now, for the benefit of all you non south africans out there i must explain that the racial divide in s.a. is still substantial. integration isn't commonplace and when it does occur, it often is through some forced commercial exploit. don't get me wrong, it is not absent at all and is growing by the day, but to say it is a common, general state of affairs just isn't true. this is, to a very small degree a consequence of some racism, but to a much greater extent the consequence of the class differences which still exist due to the economic imbalances from the apartheid legacy, and predominantly with the vast differences between the different ethnic groups in s.a. it's a bit like an average american not having much of a clue about balkan folk music. it has nothing to do with race, rather with cultural familiarity. anyway, there was this black dude, somewhat bored with the idea of filming afrikaans music (admittedly, us boertjies are best at many things in this world: rugby, gekskeer, braaivleis and making awful music etc). but when we turned the music up it took him a few seconds and then he lit up completely. afterwards he was all compliments. i guess it sounds a bit weird, but i was really moved by this, because the music had done what music is meant to do - break the barriers of all things including language and culture. call me a silly cracker, but that singularly made my day. that's what i work for.]]> the vibe is all excitement http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:05:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=49 the great thing about gifts is that they cause pleasure. not only to the one on the receiving end, but also to the one giving it. few things match the look on someone's face when you give them something they really like, need, appreciate or all of the aforementioned. better still, is when you can work in some sort of bonus for yourself (am i sounding selfish?!) as well. as for my manager's birthday present... well, that was a nice one to give. here's what i did: i got her the best seats on the plane to fly to victoria waterfalls, on the northern border of zimbabwe with zambia. zim is in the news a lot these days on account of their tyrannical and incomprehensibly selfish leader who insists on wearing his moustache in the same style hitler did, robert mugabe. although the sufferance and poverty in zim are abject, the folks at vic falls have managed to maintain a certain level of decorum, or, at least, something remotely resembling normality on account of the tourism that this world superlative generates. even so, the misery in the eyes of the zimbabweans on the street, the empty shops and the sense of hopelessness is highly tangible. we stayed i the ilala lodge (www.ilalalodge.com), a beautiful and luxurious hotel within walking distance of this natural wonder,which has managed to shut the hardships of the cruel world outside out of it's grounds. the staff of ilala lodge are very friendly and helpful, the food is good (especially considering the extreme difficulty it took to get it there in the first place) and the rooms large and very comfortable. props to the ilala lodge for maintaining this level of quality in the face of such adversity! i'm not going to try and describe the falls, instead, i will confess that the best of my creativity and whatever linguistic prowess i may possess is entirely inadequate for this purpose. from the falls we went home. but we did it the long way. we boarded the rovos rail (www.rovos.co.za) service from vic falls to pretoria. now, rovos rail is one of those quintessentially south african tourist experiences. of course many companies would call theirs the 'most luxurious train in the world', but if you ask jeeves, your first hit will be rovos rail. the great thing about rovos rail is that it is like traveling a hundred years ago with the luxury of modern invention. the coaches are all restored to their former grandeur and some extras added like aircon, showers and even baths! the catering was absolutely exquisite for all three meals presented in the most attractive fashion and they offered some of the finest wines our country has to offer. the service was out of this world and the crew seemed driven by not only duty, but also the desire to please the guests. every time you leave your room (yeah, cabin is the word but it felt more like a room on a train) you'll come back to it clean and tidied. who needs the responsibility of being a king when you can just take the rovos trip and get the perks without the work. we ate, drank (mmm... a lot, all liquor is included in the price) and played scrabble and made conversation for three full days and, i am proud to say, managed to not talk of work at all. i was a little sad when it all ended. that was a good way to let it all go for a while. but i am back at the studio now and realising that if my life was a song, the chorus would be something like: 'i am still the luckiest guy i know' ]]> natural wonder http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=48 i am sitting in a plane somewhere over the karoo typing this. i'm on my way from cape town to johannesburg. i've been quiet because i've been recording. now there's a strange beast: recording. it's perhaps the most intense aspect of this occupation. i clock in at the studio at 10am, and work until 6pm. then i go home (the first week i stayed in durbanville in dark chocolate, an excellent guesthouse in the comfort stay group), run along the beach, eat supper and get back to the songs, writing lyrics, finetuning tunes. and generally pass out at around 1am into a fitful sleep with a maelstrom of music haunting me until, thankfully, it's time to get up and go to work again. let's say i spend 8 hours a day on the music, that makes 96 hours after 12 days. for a 45 minute album it means i would have listened to the album about 128 times in the course of the recording. mmm... actually, i'm loving this so much that i don't mind one bit. my partner in crime, theo crous (who has recorded all my official solo releases so far), and those that have come in to listen reckon this is our best album to date. we've gone for a new sound, a departure from the sound we had created on the first 3 afrikaans albums. the sound is fuller bigger and more daring. i can't wait to release it. so far we have 9 tracks down. my apologies to those who have been mailing me or going onto the website for blogs and found nothing but silence and empty spaces. i am thus immersed in this recording that i can't get myself to do anything else. i open my mailbox during lunch, groan, and turn it off again, wondering why i opened in the first place. as for my reason for going to jhb now... i am taking this 4 day break for two reasons. firstly, because it's a good time to get some distance at this stage of the recording and write more songs and secondly, primarily, because my manager, noelle, had her birthday recently and i'm going up to give her her present. what is it? well, i'll have to tell you in 4 days time, because she'll be reading this and we don't want to spoil a big surprise do now we?]]> whole rest in 4/4 time http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:15:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=46 i started recording my new album yesterday. it was a great feeling walking into the studio with my partner in music, theo crous, again. theo and i come a long way together, since back in 2005 when we were both truly down and out. i had just come from boo where my colleagues had walked out on me and theo had just emerged from rehab having all but destroyed his health with the ravages of rock and roll. we both had nothing to lose and as such so much to gain. our first album together was an unlikely candidate for success and the industry was no less surprised by the success of it than ourselves. studio time with theo is one of those favourite delights of mine. the man is terribly funny and he sometimes has me sprawled on the studio floor in hopeless fits of laughter. this album constitutes a slight departure from the work i had done in afrikaans to date. i have never addressed the issues of the day in my music and with this album i sometimes come close to doing so. i like songs to be immortal, to be written in such a way that you can listen to them in 100 years from now and know what it is about. of course this almost impossible when you're dealing with current issues. so, lyrically, the challenge has been to write them about today in such a way that they'll still make sense in many years' time. (photo by Carina Laubscher) ]]> immortality http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:25:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=45 happy new year! i must confess, i never really get into the spirit of special days. but i can't deny that the emotional energy of so many billions of people about an ordinary day of the year charges the environment and myself with an extraordinary amount of energy. if it wasn't a special day before (like, say, winter and summer solstice, which are naturally special days with physical influences), it no doubt will be once billions ooze emotional intensity on the day. i have made, as usual, some resolutions. last year was the first year in some time that i failed to keep my resolution. usually my resolutions are about abstinence. now, it's easier to not do something than to actually do something. the year before i was vegetarian, the year before that i abstained from sugar. those were all possible and i stuck to them. but last year i had it so that i would do myga (because i don't know what yoga is) and my chi (because i know very little about tai chi) every day. well, i didn't keep it up. it's easy to slip up on that kind of thing whilst on the road and sleeping in different places every night and... hark! do i hear the unmistakable sound of excuses...? anyway, this year i shall use no curse words (because i suspect they don't let of steam, as is often argued, rather, they fuel the agitation that caused them in the first place) and i am not going to boast (i tend to boast, sometimes rather subtly, and it's quite unattractive when i reflect back on it). i hope you guys stick with your resolutions. 2009 is not going to be an easy year. but i am excited nonetheless because so many things seem to indicate that humanity is changing for the better. south africa too. this year we'll see an election which i believe will be the first in a series of steps to create better, more responsible governance here, a better democracy and a party in charge that no longer arrogantly pursues the selfish interests of individuals because the electorate have created an opposition strong enough to keep them in line. the american election turnout and results last year have also proven the desire in many people to become more actively involved in creating a better world. and that is why i am excited about this year. i'm looking forward to a humbler and more peaceful south africa, world and me. and i wish the same for you.]]> hny http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 26 Dec 2008 12:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=44 it's a day late, but i wish you a merry and blessed christmas nonetheless. we're on tour as usual, this time round along the coast. i spent yesterday with the family in gordon's bay stuffing myself full of lamb and potatoes and three different kinds of desert. is there anybody in the interior of the country at this time of the year? i wouldn't know, i always miss it. ever since i can first remember we've been coming down to the coast in december, first for holidays and now for work. the tour has been great so far and after my weeks in europe i've been made to feel rather welcome by the home folk. the hours in between gigs are devoted to songwriting, as i've begun focusing on the next album which my old partner in crime, theo crous, and i will start recording on the 6th of january. please take care if you're traveling - you're precious and you're loved. also... i might be in the oncoming lane and i'm really loving my life at the moment. i wish the same for you.]]> merry and blessed christmas http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=43 i'm spending the days rotating between the pool, the shady patch under the apricot tree down in the garden, the couch in the living room and the kitchen. i swim, meditate, write and eat and that's all. when i'm not doing performances it always surprises me how singular my life becomes. i come face to face with how simple a person i would have been were it not for my occupation. the same goes for my cooking skills. i have the most forgiving taste buds known to me. seriously, i can eat anything. and whilst this is a virtue that has kept my stomach full through the hardest times, it has also saved me from being a chef. i generally feel ill at ease in the kitchen and for the past week my diet has consisted of the following, without exception: coffee and cookies followed by pro nutro with milk, no sugar for breakfast. an apple for midmorning snacks. rye crackers with jam, honey, cheese and marmite for lunch. carrots for afternoon snacks. then, come the evening it's time to cook. then i put two cupfuls of frozen vegetables in the microwave for four minutes, mix a tablespoon of peanut butter into it and eat. the only way i'll ever get a good meal at home is if i get a girl who knows how and is keen enough. or a buddy, i guess (but what do you do after supper then??). my good friend dave, who unfortunately lives about 1000 miles from me, can make a good meal from anything. ]]> singulai http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:00:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=42 and so i'm back home. when i awoke this morning after coming in late last night from the flight back to south africa, i was struck by how beautiful it had become here. when i left it was dull and lifeless - that dry end-of-winter-on-the-highveld look. now the plants are bursting with the bounty from the rain, my apricot tree is bearing fruit for the first time in three years and i sit by the pool thinking about how blessed i am. the tour concluded with the sold out night at die kleine komedie and i couldn't have asked for a better parting shot. it was a fine gig, very fine indeed and i left with hope and excitement for the next tour. a special word of thanks to those wonderful people of the low lands who have made this past month such a huge pleasure. i'm off to the farm on wednesday for some mind expansion. oh, one more thing... as if the angels wanted a pleasant conclusion of the tour for me all the way back home, i sat next to gabriela martirosianaite, miss lithuania 2008 in the plane, on her way to the miss world pageant which is held in south africa this year. ]]> home sweet home http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=41 i spent yesterday in my most favourite place in the netherlands: the kroller muller museum within the hoge veluwe national park. the thing about the netherlands is that everything is planned and taken care of. every single tree stands within a row, every patch of land is accounted for. it's the kind of organisation and control that fills a south african like myself with both awe and dread. the veluwe is an exception in this regard. it is a piece of land that shows what this part of the world looked like 2000 years ago, before man had made his indelible mark on it. i walked for two hours in the dutch 'wilderness' and i got much thinking done. i thought about a lot of personal stuff, where my heart is at, where my life is at, where my love is at and where my work is at. i also wondered why any human would want to change this which we've been given for that which we have changed it to. then i hung out in the museum. i stood a foot away from van gogh, picasso, vermeer, and my favourite sculpture, unique forms of continuity in space, by umberto boccioni. and then i realised that we had to sell the art of god for the money of man to afford us the art of man.]]> kröller-müller museum http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=40 off days on tour are a rare treasure. today and tomorrow are off, and i'm lying on my back in the hotel groot warnsborn, typing a blog, listening to the rain and watching jamie oliver cooking for some girl who is very pretty but doesn't know how to put a fork of chocolate, cream and strawberries in her mouth without looking a little stuck up. i spent my previous off day on my back with a bowl of nuts on the one side, a bottle of elixir 'd anvers on the other and the american presidential election, alternating with old seinfeld episodes, on tv. well, as we all know by now i lost my bet on which way the electorate would go (i made this bet back in feb, before hillary and barack had their stuff sorted) and i have never been more pleased to have lost a bet. i am somewhat of a sceptic when it comes to the power of one man making a massive change in a beast with the nature of american politics, but on the face of it, the americans will have a neater frontman for at least the next 4 years and that should go a long way towards saving some of the face lost so far this millennium. the tour is totally fabulous. the attendances are almost always better than expected and i feel like i'm growing strongly here. one little sad thing for chameleon productions happened this past week though. my representative since 2002 (first with boo and since then solo) here in the benelux, marcel de groot, (pictured here with my manager, noelle baroody) and i are parting ways. it is a most amicable end to our cooperation and there's no bad blood. it's just that my increased activity here, the way things have been growing, and his responsibilities (he's actually a banker!) have made it increasingly difficult for us to get around to each other and so we agreed to take the pressure off our working relationship and keep the friendship healthy. marcel and i saw a lot of action all over europe and he has stood by me through some of my most difficult times - broken relationships, the break up of boo and long drives with a heavy heart. i am going to miss his energy and irrepressible optimism around my work. thanks marcellipop for all the years of great service, dedication, support and faith. chameleon productions will miss you sorely and remember you fondly. ]]> thanks marcellipop! http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:15:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=39 three weeks ago, just before i came to europe, i had some serious attitude issues with the european tour. at some stage it got so bad that i went to my kinesiologist to have myself checked out. this morning, sitting in rotterdam on a crisp and clear autumn day i'm wondering how i could have felt that way in the first place. i must be some spoilt brat. i mean, which south african musician wouldn't jump at the opportunity of a three week theatre tour in the netherlands? we first did england, followed by a week's preparations and now we're in full swing here. so far the performances have been great. the gig in antwerp, belgium, was a bit of an annoyance on account of the venue (immoral nincompoops that work there), but since then i've had nothing to complain about. last night i did an hour long show on radio 1 and we (the interviewer and i) had so much fun that it could have gone on for two hours. thanks for all the positive comments in my inbox this morning! when i got out of the studio i noticed that i had managed to get myself a 50 euro parking fine, which is ok, i consider it my contribution to the dutch government for allowing me to present my work hereabouts. today i'm off to leeuwarden, capital of friesland. it's a strange corner of the netherlands with an own language and secessionist tendencies. got myself booked into a boat house tonight, so if any sort of super flood should happen overnight i might wake up on the eastern shore of england, but wholly dry and well rested. most nights are spent in a holiday home in zeeland, in the south west of the country. it is an old factory which was built in 1862 to extract red pigment from roots. it did very well until they discovered how to make synthetic pigment three decades later which rendered it redundant. the curse of science! less than a week to go before the usa elections and i have $100 ( a bet with some folks from kansas city) saying mc cain's the next president. it'll be the best bet i've ever lost if i do... ]]> wanna bet? http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:40:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=38 came in from a dutch radio interview and performance a while ago and now i'm sitting in rotterdam watching a british documentary on american holidays. came in from england yesterday. i gotta say, i really enjoyed england. the gigs were great - well attended and i felt on top of my game. my favourite was the rock gig in the half moon in putney on friday night. i spend so much time sitting down in theaters all over that when i get to get up and shake it, i experience nothing short of a complete catharsis. the previous rock gig, in the crazy 88 in johannesburg, with fever and laryngitis, was pretty awful and friday was pure absolution. what was particularly strange was how my inherent schizophrenia kicked in the moment i landed in holland. i tend to adapt to whatever place i go to. when i used to go to the states with boo, i'd become a full blown american after 2 days. americans would ask me where i met the other two. i'd say in south africa, where i come from. and they'd be like: how come they talk with an accent and you don't? at which point my colleagues would usually interject and say that i'm the one talking with an accent, not them. same goes for england. two days and i get this posh little accent and carry myself in a completely different manner, like some kind of gentleman. it works in a society where class levels are still alive and kicking, gets me good service and attentive ears all round. and when i set foot on dutch soil, i was, again, a real dutch man. speaking of which... the past week saw luke watson disregard the springbok emblem and the national team. he also said rugby s.a. was 'run by a bunch of dutchmen'. now, watson's treachery is abonimable, it hurts a fan of the game like myself. but what i found particularly confusing was that he was purportedly lashing out at the apparent lack of transformation in the game. yet, this neo liberal idiot was employing the very prejudices he ostensibly abhors. the word 'nigger', or 'kaffir', has no room in a civilised person's serious vocabulary. they are words that have nothing to do with the true meaning of the word, words who's meaning have been altered to represent false, preconceived, negative and general notions about a particular group of people. the term 'dutchmen', in south africa is a similarly inflammatory term. it generalises afrikaans people as rogue, rude, crass people lacking in basic intelligence. just like 'nigger' doesn't mean 'from nigeria' or 'kaffir' doesn't mean 'heathen', 'dutchmen' doesn't mean 'coming from holland'. this sort of namesgiving (along with 'soutpiel' et al) constitute inappropriate name calling and are rude and unsophisticated. but employed publicly in an attempt to shed light on alleged racism, it is nothing short of complete idiocy.]]> halfmoon sunshine http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=37 i'm lying in my hotel room in sun city, south africa. last weekend and this weekend are skouspel weekends. it's the biggest afrikaans music event in the solar system. the production is big, the stars are bigger and the crowds love it. some of the music is dreadful, but that's always going to be the case when you throw the 20 biggest stars of a certain demographic together. 'it takes every kind of people...' did i forget to mention, i love it too. i am truly having a great time. when there are 7 nights of 5500 capacity sellouts in two weeks it's hard not to enjoy it. i gym once a year, here. the gary player country club has a lovely gym with a panoramic view of the golf course. whatever i get done here will have to last for at least a year. i hope the stiff muscles don't, however. it's a great resort, almost perfect, except for it's one shortcoming: it's not a member of the comfort stay hotel group (comfort stay is your best bet when you travel in south africa and you want to be sure it's going to be great). at last week's skouspel i 'lost' my wallet. had to cancel credit cards, re-apply for a driver's licence and fret a bit. all, ultimately, in vain, since i got it all back this week. the wallet was in my wardrobe, safely locked away in the casino safe. i'm trying to be a bit zen about it. the highlight of my week was when i had to go get my driver's license sorted. now, red tape and government institutions in south africa are an absolute nightmare. one rarely comes off without significant trauma from a visit to these institutions. on monday i parked my car at 13:00 outside the randburg licensing department. i had four photo's taken, filled in a form to declare the loss of the old license, filled in another form to apply for a new license, went for an eye test, had three separate sets of fingerprints taken, applied for a temporary license, got the official document and paid for it all. i stepped back into my car at 13:20, having had time to trace my steps back and thank every person along the way for their professional conduct and diligence. i was almost in tears and that was also the most patriotic i felt this year. i'm still voting for the opposition in the name of healthy democracy though. and finally, watching cnn business news is a pretty depressing thing to do these days. i was struck by the very accurate remark of a reporter on an insert this evening. she said: easy money, too much credit over the last 15 years has created a sense of wealth that is merely a mirage. and now the moment of truth is here.]]> lost and found http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:40:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=36 so there it is. made available. out of my hands now. i'm not a parent and doubt i'll ever be one, but i imagine there's something about releasing a body of work that smacks of parenting. you bear this creation, not without some degree of discomfort/pain, then you raise (record) it to the best of your ability and finally, let it out into the world on it's own. having recorded the album, i experienced a bit of a confidence crisis in it. some of the feedback i got from trusted colleagues and friends seemed to suggest that i completely missed the point and that i had succeeded in making an album that wouldn't succeed. it's hard to come back from such feedback. that is why the project laid dormant for more than six months after it's completion. then i gave it a listen again. and i liked it. i liked it a lot and decided that i was going to ignore anyone who told me it was poor. there are more tracks on the album than the industry standard, but i decided to put all of it out (usually you just pick the best of the project for the album and mothball the rest). i did however decide not to wage my bets on the industry channels (some of the negative feedback came straight out of the record industry) and to make it available online and at gigs. that's why my manager suggested i name the album 'made available'. i liked the sound of it and together with the bashful expression on the cover it all made sense to me as a reflection of the album and how i feel about it. so there you go. i hope this album brings you joy, hope and excitement. i am very keen to receive your feedback, both good and bad. and if not anything else, may you get from it the balls to do stuff some smartypants tell you not to do, simply because you believe in yourself. ]]> so there it is: made available http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:15:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=35 and so i went into the studio with theo to start work on the new record. we worked two songs and i tried to get him into a few more, but he wasn't really keen. it was as if we felt this lack of energy in the work, as if nothing, not the songs, not the words, not our work on them, could get us going. of course the song gets the blame when this happens, i mean, if it doesn't get you going it doesn't get you going. so we called it quits after three days and decided that i need to go back to the drawing board. now, more than a week later, i'm wondering if this was actually the problem. you see, a day or two after the botched studio sessions, theo and i both came down with a mighty influenza. the shiver and shake when in fact your temperature is pushing forty, wake up completely soaked with sweat, neither the strength to eat nor get dressed, ache from the skin to the bone oh lord take me quicker than this please type of influenza. strange thing is, i only established yesterday that this was how theo spent his week too - we hadn't spoken at all since. i hadn't spoken to anyone. the five gigs in a row in the cape, bloemfontein and johannesburg this past week was murder. for the middle three i dragged myself off to bed immediately from the stage, completely unable to face anyone afterwards. and then, last night, the cherry on the top: a rock band gig in johannesburg with laryngitis so bad i barked like a seal from the first song to the last. that is just about every singer's worst nightmare. i couldn't believe how supportive the crowd were last night. there i was, improvising third, fifth or octave alternatives down from the high energy moments of their favourite songs and they're going: 'yeah! more!' i am forever lost to that side of the stage where one views things from the perspective of an appreciative fan of music, as opposed to a self critical performer. i mean, can't they hear how awful it is! anyway, from the stage i asked the crowd to put their names down on a list at the door so i can send them each a free copy of my new album, 'made available', when it comes hot off the press some time next week. they deserve it, for being there and for being twice as good at not making me feel half as bad as i did. i really met with the sympathetic side of my fan base this week. i think sometimes we performers forget that not every person out there in the crowd is a harsh critic huffing and puffing at your every mistake. some people out there really love their artists. maybe that's what that biblical reference means: judge not, lest you be judged yourselves. in judging others you set up a standard for self judgment, which makes you your harshest critic and it's a real bastard if you have to live with him. that is quite an ordeal.]]> rock off laryngitis http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=34 yeah, a good old sunday and i'm spending most of it in transit. first from port elizabeth to johannesburg and now i'm still here, waiting on the plane to take me to cape town. i'm going to cape town to work in the studio with my pal and trusted ally, theo crous, to commence recording on the new album. we've decided to approach this album differently. instead of doing it as we did in on all our previous projects, ie. going into the studio and bashing out an album in two weeks on the fly, we're going to take time with this next one, shaping the sound of the album, playing around a bit until we strike upon an approach that seems new, refreshing and which excites us both. this is the way the big guns in the states and europe do it, but, alas, a strategy not permissible in an industry the size of south africa. but yeah, some things are worth more than money. yesterday i did two gigs, one in the morning in jhb, then a second in port elizabeth. i'm glad my body has no union, otherwise there'd be some strikes. i'm meant to have my off week now, but it's going to the studio... can't always have it my way. ]]> my pal and trusted ally http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:05:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=33 cliches have a tacky reputation, but to be a cliche requires something really exceptional. it means that the statement in question needs to be correct so many times that it earns that dubious honour of becoming a cliche. thus, our ability to become blase to the point of labeling as cliches those grand, irrefutable truths is as much an indication of our astonishing adaptability as humans as it is an indication that we can afford a little concern over our penchant for numbness to great things. to have people stand in queues after a gig, just to shake your hand or tell you you're pretty awesome in their esteem, is truly special - something to be extremely grateful for and impressed by. yet, if it happens night after night after night... does the novelty wear off? actually, not quite, i testify. instead, something a little more dangerous comes into play. one becomes addicted. every compliment sends a shot of endorphins through your system and you get a buzz from it. after a while you get used to it and a little later you need it. it's all good to talk about how hectic the job is and how nice retirement will be one day. but methinks there will be a horrible cold turkey for dinner on the other side of retirement. ]]> cold turkey? no thanks http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:35:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=32 i've just come in from the barnyard gig in cresta. that was a pretty good day at the office. full on a monday night and the crowd were up for it in a way that suggested i might have got the day wrong and that it was in fact saturday. a few people are going to have some rude headaches tomorrow. tomorrow is another day off after which it gets cruel. when i look ahead on the schedule for the next two months i ask myself how on earth i'm going to pull it off. the answer is simple: like i did it last time. but to be honest, the easy going schedule this last week made me like my job a little more. you just give more when you're rested, and the audience feel it. it's just so hard to refuse a gig. for fifteen years i really battled. as a member of a rock or punk band it was tough. money was too tight to mention, we used to pray that someone, anyone, would come to the gig. long drives for small gigs and then sleeping on couches or on carpets. many a night was spent with someone probably more representative of a compromise than a manifestation of personal taste. as trinculo says in shakespeare's 'the tempest': 'there is no other shelter hereabout; misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.' these days it's changed. gigs are now offered rather than sought and attendances aren't sold out as a matter of exception. how can i refuse that? steve hofmeyr once told me:' i have come from poverty, i will do whatever it takes to avoid going back to it.' i kind of understand his sentiment. yet, in the words of matthew 16:26: 'for what profits it a man if he gains the world but loses his life?' mmm... quite an indictment of the good old calvinistic propensity for labour that. i mean, if work is good but too much constitutes selling the soul... and i, for one, am in the fortunate position that i can more or less determine how much and how often i work. it must be tough to have a 9-5 job and not really have a choice. i think i'm rambling. the bottom line is i had a ball tonight and i wish it can always be this much fun and i believe i can determine that to some extent by virtue of my blessed situation. tonight i fell in love with my job again. i wish the same for you.]]> i'm in love http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=31 got back from the farm yesterday evening and i am not a happy camper. i guess this constitutes some sort of a sign of a lack of gratitude for my career. i mean, i have a great career, things are going well, i'm on top of my game, why shouldn't i want to go back to that? my good friend dave gave me some fine insight on the phone last night. i phoned him, he's pretty good at cheering me up on most gloomy days. i told him that i'm kinda bummed about going back to reality. he turned it around completely though. he said: 'chris, the life out there on the farm, in nature, is reality. you're bummed about going back to the shenanigans and false existence of city life. that isn't reality. that is the illusionary existence.' it felt right, the way he put it. spent today writing my columns for the south african newspapers i write for and catching up on the e-mails that inundate my inbox. i also followed some of the olympics on tv. my favourite of the day was the italian, maria valentina, winning her third consecutive gold medal in fencing. that's what i like most about the olympics, all these weird sports come out of the woodwork: fencing, clay pigeon shooting, synchronised diving etc. the things that people do to combat idleness... ]]> back to reality? http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:05:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=30 i'm sitting (finally) on my ranch again. in the meantime audio and visuals have been installed and there are crayfish mating on tv and i'm typing a blog. mmm... formerly i would've been sitting and thinking, or reading a 1949 dutch encyclopedia or doing something other than delivering my senses unto technology. again, that little word: balance. my birthday, last monday, was terrific. best of all were the letters, e-mails, sms's, letter and calls. for most of the day i was at work in the studio and i couldn't take most calls. i guess it's just one of those things of being a leo. we enjoy attention. the past two months were some of the most work hectic in a long time. it didn't really help that i committed my previous off week to rehearsals for the driekuns show - which made it all a bit tougher. amongst the friends and familiy who will come this week, this is set to be not the quietest week, or the week in which i get much composing done. but it will be a relaxing week of commitment to the virtues of friendship, family, reading encyclopedias, having braais, long walks en playing boardgames. i have here cranium, scrabble, trivial persuit and backgammon. the last time is was here i wrote a couple of songs. in the meantime i recorded one of them with anneke visagie. it's an anthemic duet and since she had asked me to write something for her al bum, i thought this one was the right track. anneke is the woman who did the arrangements for my klassieke chameleon dvd. she also played piano and did backing vocals on the dvd. she truly has a beautiful voice. i hope the album works out well for her, i believe the song will. it's been a while since i've been so excited about a track. i also booked a studio for a week in september. i don't know what i'm going to do yet - afrikaans, english, maybe... but theo and it (theo is the producer of all my solo albums so far) have decided to allow ourselves some time with this next one. we're simply going to play around for a week. it's a luxury i haven't allowed myself yet, but now i've decided to take the chance. i'm very much looking forward to it. i suspect it will change my sound for the next album. it's also a little dangerous. often bands go into preproduction for a new album when there is a lot of time and it seems like a good time to change stuff. often the outcome of such ventures is an overproduced, full and lifeless recording. i intend to contradict the norm with this one. anyway... it's high in the mountains here, the water and air are clean and i need to think less of work. tomorrow some friends are coming and then we're going to play a bit. ]]> mountain fresh http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:40:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=29 i'm typing this in a plane from johannesburg to cape town. this has been a hard month so far with many gigs in many places, a lot of traveling an not much rest n between. in one week's time i'll be taking time off to go and park off on my farm. i love my job, but right now i can hardly wait. played raw rocks this past weekend. the truth is i don't really know what to make of it. the event is called raw rocks, but it definitely is not raw and rocks only occasionally. if i am asked to play again next year, i will need to weigh my moral objections to the desecration of the name of rock against my belief that i can perhaps make a difference. the event is organised by a radio station which may, due to the restrictions of their license, not play afrikaans music on their frequency. however, a large percentage of their listeners are afrikaans, and as such they have chosen this event to put up a predominantly afrikaans rock concert in an effort to get some service done for their afrikaans listeners. whilst these are praiseworthy ideals, there are a few things that go wrong in the execution thereof. firstly, the prevalence of backtrack driven musical acts on the night, obviously disqualifies the event from its claim to be a rock show. furthermore, i noticed the backstage area had more non musicians in it than musicians, which may still be acceptable as the event admittedly has a strong public relations motive to it, but what i do find somewhat incomprehensible is that the majority of those present don't know the musicians on the bill and by the way they hang out with themselves and their behaviour towards the musicians reveal no inclination to get acquainted with the musicians. from a musician's perspective this creates a poor impression, and the feeling that we are exploited for commercial gain, rather than loved for our work. maybe this doesn't matter much to some musicians, but to most of the musicians i spoke to and the license i get to make sweeping general comments from my 20 years of duty in the name of rock, i put it to you that it matters to most musicians. i realise that this kind of talk is not necessarily good for business, but that is where i draw the line in my work. my soul still means more to me than my occupation. it has to feel good and even when it doesn't, it has to be good. ]]> not raw and rocks only occasionally http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:35:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=28 i never quite realised how the driekuns show at the volksblad art festival affected me until it was over. i was really quite concerned about that show. concerned about it being the first time since boo ampie and i got together, concerned that it had sold out two one thousand seater shows in one night before it was even finalised, concerned about the time i had to prepare for it. well, i'm sleeping a whole lot better now. it went really well. the first show was tough, we were a bit tense, over concentrated. the second show was a total blast. we were much more relaxed and had good fun, addressing the audience casually and letting them in on our personal conversations on stage. ampie even cracked a few witty remarks. i strutted my stuff, slammed the bass guitar and displayed an altogether less reverence than at the previous year's festival, when i debuted klassieke chameleon. most of these guys had never seen me like this. the vibe with the band was great and ampie has told me that he was both amazed and inspired by this new game (it's different from boo days), which means a great deal to me, for i wanted something good and personal to come from this. it's done a great deal for healing some of those old boo-wounds. boo-wounds... sounds pretty winey doesn't it! and as if my body said yeah, the cup has passed, i got sick the day after the volksblad festival. my body told me it's a 'flu. you know, aching limbs and irritable skin and stuff, which was bad timing because the next day i was back in jhb for a gig and the day after in upington and the day after in pretoria. but then i started drinking echinacea and pure soluble vit c and laid in bed all day on sunday and now my body seems to think it's just a cold. today was meant to be an off day, but i spent 4 hours in an attorney's boardroom plotting out the details of a shareholder's agreement for a software company i'm investing in. mmm... risky, i hear my devil's advocates say. thank goodness it isn't the late nineties with dotcom bubbles bursting all over the show. tomorrow i'm off to limpopo again. before i became a musician i thought it would be nice to play for my earnings. someone lied to me somewhere 'cos its darn hard work. (photo courtesy of Leanne Stander/DIE BURGER) ]]> boo, the flu, ampie, me and vitamin c! http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:05:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=27 i'm pretty excited tonight. tomorrow i leave for bloemfontein (the name of this city, directly translated, is flower fountain - cute eh?) for the volksblad festival. i have come into the habit of launching my show for the festival circuit of the coming year at volksblad. last year it was the klassieke chameleon show. this year it's driekuns and if the rehearsals are anything to go buy, it's going to be absolutely marvellous! for this show i've decided to whip out my bass guitar again. i've forgotten what fun it is to wield that old four string axe. what used to frustrate me most about it in the boo days was that it bound me to a more or less stationary position at the microphone. but now i've got a headset microphone, so i'm free to roam the stage and strut a bit. joining me for this show is ampie omo (ex - boo) doing those things that ampie does, jonathan crossley on guitar and leon egcroinard on percussion. of course the most interesting aspect of this show, from a personal point of view, is playing with ampie again. yeah... i've known him for 20 years this year, which means i have spent more time in my life knowing ampie than not knowing him. i can ramble on about the details of this long, complex relationship, but my niece is watching some horror flick at a ridiculous volume as i'm typing this. she asked to stay over tonight. i find this a preposterous notion, but that's because i travel a lot and would gladly spend a night, any night, at my own home if possible. i guess when you're still at school and living with your parents the idea of a sleepover at your musician uncle is something out of the ordinary. but i'm going to sleep now. i took my prius in for it's 90 000 km service this morning. that's 90 000 km in a year and a half, of which i spent half a year abroad. i do around 7500km per month in that car. they offer a service to take you back home, but i felt like walking the 10km back home from killarney. which means that the combination of waking up before 7, walking 10km and the day's work makes me... zzzz ]]> strapping my bass back around my waist http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=26 the flight back from europe was dreadful. something went wrong with one of the engines and our departure was delayed by 3 hours. not 3 hours in an airport, 3 hours in a plane on the runway. when we got to o.r. tambo airport in jhb they had sent the baggage to the wrong terminal and that took another hour to sort out. got to bed at three... from there i had a day to recover and then we drove 400km to nelspruit for the innibos festival. now that was fun. nelspruit is in the lowveld, a warm, subtropical region in the north east of the country where avocados, oranges, tea and bananas grow so abundantly that you can walk through the forest and pick them as you would in paradise. the festival went very well for us and it was n true pleasure to do the klassieke chameleon show again. the highlight for me was the last part of 'genade van die liefde' (mercy of love) on the second day, when the spirits in the air conspired to bless myself and the whole band with a touch of magic that made me wish the song could go on forever. we were all a bit gobsmacked after the song and made no professional secret of our amazement in the presence of the eavesdropping audience. moments such as those make music more than a mathematical arrangement of frequencies. then music becomes the language of god with a vocabulary only the heart understands, to which only the soul responds. from nelspruit it was 400km to johannesburg and then 300km to my farm to do a television insert on our doings there. in partnership with my friend of 30 years, i am developing a piece of land in verkykerskop for sustainable living. the shoot went well, and as is typical for television, we filmed for one and a half days for a five minute insert. now i'm back in johannesburg rehearsing the 'driekuns' show for the volksblad festival. i must confess, the show has been bugging me the last few weeks, but after last night's rehearsal i have finally seen the light! ]]> blinded by the light http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:45:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=25 ah, blast. the dutch football team fell out of the european championship. it breaks my heart to see them this way. orange fever was at an all time high these last few weeks and the child like optimism of this normally very sober nation was a joy to behold. what makes it worse is that the russians didn't win as much as did the dutch lose. that's life i guess. sometimes you have an off day. it's just a real bummer when you hit an off day when that day happens to be very important. well, if anyone is interested in getting that winning feeling more often, i can recommend becoming a fan of springbok rugby. i'm typing this, sitting in the car en route to the last day's work here in holland before i head back home. two gigs today and i feel like a wet st bernard slept on my head last night. i think i'm gonna wash that dog right outta my head with a double espresso. it was a good tour. i did quite a few smaller gigs, but those are important too. and then there were gigs like yesterday, for the radio, where you know you're playing for a couple of hundred thousand people. i did the song with leoni jansen and we're really happy with how it came out. in the end it became the original afrikaans version of 'ja gese'. she sings it in afrikaans with me and she sounds like a black woman when she sings it. it's pretty special and they did a great job of rearranging it. ]]> hup hup! http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:35:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=24 after the mundial festival in tilburg, netherlands, i drove 800km to a remote rural spot in france to get as close as i think i'll ever get to being a father: to become a godfather. it was a charming ceremony in a beautiful setting. my god child is a german boy and his family, very southern, very german, all came to france for the christening. my german speaking got some good exercise and my stomach saw more food in two days than it had at any point in the last couple of years. i had just got used to the tranquility of rural france when it was time to head back to rotterdam. i am preparing for a collaboration with leonie jansen, a dutch singer who has done a lot of world music projects lately. of course we'll only know, once we're in the studio, if it's going to work or not. but the intention is there and we're thinking of 'here comes the night' or an english translation of 'ja gese' or, perhaps, something else. the dutchies won the football again last night and i had n kind of 'if you can't beat 'em join 'em attitude' which i mildly regret this morning, since it involved copious amounts of belgian beer. ah, what the heck, you only live once in this lifetime! ]]> i am the godfather http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=23 namibia was beautiful. what am i saying... namibia is beautiful. if you haven't been, you certainly have to go. it has 2 people per square kilometer and it is a living example of the diversity of deserts. people tend to think of deserts a dry, hot, boring hellholes. namibia will disprove any such misgivings. it has a great variety of deserts, each with its own magical allure. unfortunately i didn't get to experience more of that other than what can be achieved by quickly driving through it. i flew out on friday morning, landed in windhoek, got the rental car, checked into the guesthouse, went to a radio station, did an interview, went to another radio station, did another interview, drove to the venue, did a sound check, ate, warmed up, performed, met and greeted and hit the sack (alone, not with a fan!). woke up the next morning and drove 400km to walvis baai, sound check etc. the next morning i had to drive the 400km back to windhoek to catch the plane back home. landed sunday night, flew out to europe on monday night, landed tuesday, drove to antwerpen and did the gig. back to rotterdam... the bottom line is, one doesn't get to see much of where one travels when the scheduling demands such focus. fortunately i've been to namibia on quite a few holidays before and it becomes like an old friend - you pick up where you last left off and do catching up. tonight's gig i antwerpen was pretty cool. i was tired as hell, but the venue and the crowd inspired me to dig as deep as i needed to. afterwards i had a good chat with hans, who is organising the october november theatre tour in the netherlands. what a character. he had three ladies with him, all colleagues. and when you see them it's easy to think that they are cast for their looks, and to make him look good. then you start talking to them and you discover that they're pretty switched on. kinda like my own ladies. i think hans and i are going to do some good business together. unless i put my foot in it a little too often as i did tonight... i was ranting about how sport is all about real men and real women and honour and honesty and sportsmanship and how i can't understand that soccer doesn't seem to display any of those values, what with all the cheating, lying for fouls and crying like babies about a kick on the shin that may or may not have occurred, yet enjoys huge support. after my little rant hans stood up and said he is a huge soccer fan and he doesn't appreciate my stance. i turned into a sheep for a second and then foxed out by saying i'm glad the tour is already booked, that we've now established i needn't suck up to him and that i'll go with him to a soccer game if he comes to a rugby game with me. ]]> namibia and beyond http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:50:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=22 the ten days on the ranch were magical to say the least. i think i'm a natural hermit. i sat in the middle of nowhere (now + here!), saw no one, heard no one and never felt lonely once. my diet was super basic: oats in the morning, fruit and biltong (dried raw red meat) in the afternoon and microwave vegetables in the evening. i spent the days reading a dutch encyclopedia from 1949, walking miles across the rugged mountains, thanking my creator for my blessings and, of course, making music. i wrote three english songs and one afrikaans song. these are the ones that are complete, there are quite a bunch of half worked items in there as well. anneke visagie, who does keys and backing vocals on my klassieke chameleon dvd, is currently recording her solo album. she asked me if i would make an appearance on her album. well, the one night i wrote this afrikaans song, a duet, and i got so excited that i walked with my headlamp in the night off the farm to where i could get reception and called her to tell her that 'it happened!'. gave her the song today and she was thrilled, so there are two of us who like it so far... tomorrow morning i need to be at o.r. tambo airport at 6:45, to fly to namibia where i'll perform tomorrow evening and the day after. then it's back to jhb, pack the next bag and off to europe on monday. ]]> inspiration http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 28 May 2008 09:25:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=21 i am sitting on my ranch, typing this. tomorrow i'll drive out to where there is reception and mail it. i've come here for ten days to get away (this blog entry is the only exception to this resolve, as i haven't written in a while and my manager made me promise and a broken promise is not like a broken glass on the floor the morning after a party which you step on the next morning on the way to the bathroom, but it hurts and it is dangerous. today i spent only about an hour with my guitar, and then i went for a long walk. i'm still tired after nearly two months without time off, so i'm soaking up the air and the tranquility and just basically recharging before i get going on some music. last week was especially hectic. there was that show i did in durban... i was meant to do two shows, but the venue showed me such an offensive lack of respect and such a lack of love for music and the art of live performance, that i had to cancel the second show. that was a difficult decision, as i was going to let a few fans down, but in the end i decided there would be time to make it up to them, but no time beyond that instance to stand up for my principles. it was the second time in my solo career i canceled a gig, the first having been when i got laryngitis last year at the roxy in mellville. i would like to express my sincerest apology to the fans who didn't receive the communiqué about the cancelation in time. i hope to make it up to you guys some time. then there was the xenophobic violence that shook the country. for those abroad who don't really know what's going on, here's how it works. the violence occurred mainly in the informal settlements around some of the main cities. these settlements house the poorest of the poor. people live in shacks and often don't have access to water and electricity. the middle and upper class of the country, (which constitutes a bigger percentage of the whites, but which biggest percentage are blacks by sheer numbers in a country of 45 million of which whites are a fraction) had very little exposure to the action, because it was in areas they hardly ever see. they only felt the difference in the increase of foreigners (all of them black) that went to police stations all over the cities for safety. my gardener, who is a fantastic man, hard working, honest and full of incentive, is a malawian. he now has no place to go because he cannot afford a home outside the informal settlements (he only works for me one day a week). he may have to return to malawi and he'll have to find a way to provide for his family. these south africans who perpetrated the violence are not xenophobic. they are frustrated. they are frustrated with a government who, after almost 15 years of freedom and democracy, have succeeded only in filling their own pockets. service delivery is appalling and corruption rife. our education system is a (probably misspelt) joke but we have billions of rands for weapons technology our army has neither the know how nor the discipline to operate.africa has proven it's penchant for bad governance and i am sad and ashamed to say our government have failed to contradict the tendency. this wave of xenophobia reminds me of the german xenophobia aimed at the jews after the world depression in the late 1930's. there was no reason to hate the jews, but the nation had to vent their anger and were guided by a strong, cynical leader to aim this anger at the jews. suddenly the jews became the symbol of a nation's hate for it's circumstances. i call upon all south africans to please vote in the next election. and do not vote for those who have failed us for 15 years. vote for a strong opposition which can hold this government accountable for it's failures. at the moment, the government has too large a majority (they have inherited this support from the struggle years) to be held accountable. this can change if we, the public, exercise our democratic right.]]> politics from the ranch http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 16 May 2008 22:35:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=20 i'm sitting on my farm (i believe the better english word would be 'ranch', since i don't farm anything here. it's always difficult explaining this to especially my european fans, who don't really understand the luxury of vast tracts of land in no particular use at all. well, not entirely no use, there is game here. maybe then i should say game farm, but still, i don't farm here, i come here to get away) writing this. although it is 2000m above sea level and gets well below -10 degrees celsius in mid winter, today is a lovely autumn day. sunny and welcoming. but i have to leave in an hour. i just stopped over here en route to durban, where i'll be playing tonight. then it's down the wild coast, all along the east of the country to cape town. some people do that drive for a holiday, yet i want to stay put on my ranch in the mountains. i guess i'm spoilt. well, i do feel very lucky, most of all of the time. have i said it before? may is murder. this has been a heavy month of travel and performance. i'm going to love my off week when it comes. this past week brought something new and certainly different to business as usual. on thursday night i performed for a television show called 'my storie' (of course, 'my story'), a show more or less based on the vh1 'storytellers' series, where bands perform their songs and tell the stories behind those songs. it was a very pleasant thing to do. the production design was terrific and everything looked and felt good. and i had a little surprise up my sleeve too. toward the end i brought my ex colleague from boo, ampie omo on stage and we did three songs together. it was the first time since dec 2004 that we played together. it worked like a charm and two things that i took from it were these: firstly, we really sound great with a really decent band backing us, and secondly, having opened up a whole new fan base as a solo artist, most of these new fans are a whole lot more open to me in my boo capacity than they were way back. this leads me to think that i should perhaps allow myself to boo a bit now. perhaps i should draw ampie nearer and get another musician or two and do the boo. ]]> do the boo! http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 12 May 2008 12:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=18 i went to the movies alone last night. went to see u2 3d. wow. pretty incredible. i can hardly imagine that actually being at the show could be any better. you have a ringside seat, you see the guys up close. you fly over the heads of the audiences to take a good look at the edge's fingering on the fret board. this movie now ranks in my top ten cinematographic experiences ever, right up there with lord of the rings and bambi. had the weirdest gig at back to basics on saturday. i felt like i wasn't in my own skin. maybe it had something to do with the fire in the kitchen... man! you should've seen the smoke. we were all inhaling copious amounts of burnt burger oil. maybe that's why we were so... different. speaking of which. a fan mailed me some stuff on the death of albert hoffman last week. hoffman died in april. for those of you unacquainted, he was the inventor of lsd, the drug also known as acid. it's also the most potent drug on earth, according to the guiness book of records. it's that drug that makes you hallucinate, the drug that had all those sixties kids tripping out of their skulls and break through to the other side and get a new world view etc etc. mind you, it did the same to the kids of the seventies (dunno about the eighties) but certainly also the nineties. the interesting thing about these drugs, acid, dope, ecstasy, coke, meth, heroin etc. is that they are commonplace in the music industry. i have encountered all of these drugs more times than i care to remember in my two decades in showbiz. the interesting thing is that you have all of these straight cats, accountants, doctors, cashiers, bakers, bankers, teachers and preachers, that listen to pop and rock music - stuff like the beach boys, the doors, the rolling stones, whitney houston, robbie williams, elvis, eminem - hey, just about everyone who's had a number one hit, and sure as hell, you'll find drugs in there somewhere. all these guys have their drugs, or had them. so many of the world's greatest songs were written under the influence of some sort of substance. i know a lot of people don't like hearing this, but what you like or don't like doesn't change the facts, so deal with it. my point is this: drugs are used, in the music industry, as some sort of creative steroid. a chemical way to get so far out of it that you come up with something so totally new and whacko that it grabs the attention of almost all people from almost everywhere. but unlike in sport, where people are tested for steroids, showbiz goes unchecked. ]]> the truth about number ones http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 05 May 2008 12:50:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=17 whoa, what a week. this past week i played in belgium, bloemfontein, verkykerskop, drakenberg boys choir and thabazimbi. that's one thing about music, if you like to travel, that's the business for you. i bought my prius a year and five months ago and it's odometer is already at 83 000 km. if you consider that i fly a lot and rent cars often, it should give you the idea that i travel a great deal. i do actually like it. there is a gypsy streak in the family and we all like to take to the road. it was a good week gig wise. the attendances were great and i got the idea that i played for a lot of new people. after the gig in thabazimbi (it's the zulu name for mountian of iron, and yes, they mine iron ore there) we went to sun city to check out the sama awards after party. the drive from thabazimbi took an hour and a half (we stopped along the way to help some folks who had a flat tyre and no spanner or jack). there was an incredible amount of drunk drivers on the roads which made me wonder if maybe the north-west province is the drunk driving champion of s.a. once we got to sun city we sat outside the gate for two hours in the traffic que.it wasn't too bad though. there was a great vibe and people (gotta love africa!) were getting out of their cars and starting the party on the pavement as the que slowly progressed. it kinda made me realise that i don't intergrate enough - those days i feel like a tourist in my own country. for the samas i was nominated in three categories and didn't win one award. of course it doesn't feel great, but it's not quite that bad either. it's great to be nominated and a fine acknowledgment from the industry. ]]> gypsy streak http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:10:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=16 spring does interesting things to people. i wonder how far we need to go along the path of advancement/evolution before we shake off the influence spring has on us, if ever. the primitive instinct that spring is the time to fornicate and generate offspring is rather visible, even in a highly advanced society such as that of the dutch. i see it in people's eyes. they're doing the randy look again, being more attentive, less afraid to stare. it's pretty trippy. tell you what, much is pretty trippy for me in the netherlands at the moment. for one, i come from a very long summer in africa, they are heading out of a very long winter. with true african optimism i dress in clothes more considerate of the advancing european summer. they are dressed in the mistrust of the departure of winter. although europeans are much better suited to physically deal with a bit of cold, dressed in a mere t-shirt, i am leading the way out here at the moment, simply because of psychology. and of course i haven't frozen my butt of once this week, and they have been a trifle too hot under their layers at times. then, there's another thing: when you come into a new country, even though you may look like they do, you always draw attention. trust me, i've done this countless times in the last decade - entered a new country - and each time i've noticed there is this recognition amongst the indigenous population of something different about me. this recognition wears down after a couple of days. it makes me think that there's a lot about smell, colour and that wonderful german word 'ausstrahlung' (closest english translation: emission, direct translation: outshining) that humans take in and respond to unwittingly. have you, for example, noticed how, when you are in a relationship, especially when you're still in love, there are so many people flirting with you? as if they can smell that you're spoken for and therefore must be worth being spoken for which in turn makes them want you. or, conversely, if you've just fallen out of a relationship, no one is interested, as if you reek of rejection... ]]> short sleeves http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:25:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=15 at the check in desk i was told that all the aisle and window seats were taken and that i'd have to sit in the middle of the row. i was really bummed. it's a long flight and i get up to drink water quite a lot (too often have i come to the other side and find i can't sing for two days because my throat has dried out too much during the flight) and after about the fourth time people tend to give you the hairy eyeball. but a pleasant surprise awaited me when i finally got on board. my seat, although in the middle, was right at the plane exit, so i had miles of legroom, i could get up whenever i liked without causing a disturbance and for some reason my seat could go further back than any other seat on the plane. yeah baby! i sat next to an american to my right (unusually, for americans, he wasn't a very pleasant man) and a british lady to my left who slept every inch of the way. none of them were talkative, which is how i like it on a 10 000km night flight. when i got to amsterdam i was the first off the plane (thanks to the door seat!) and i felt awkward being the first at the passport control. i love the dutch. the love starts at the border... always has. my dear friends gijs and salemien were there to pick me u and we drove back to rotterdam. after a cup or three of coffee we took the bicycles (how very dutch) and cycled to kralingen (a lovely park) and then further into a suburb on a beautiful canal which, i decided, if i ever need to live in the netherlands, this will be exactly where i'd like to live. absolutely idillic. i don't remember much of the journey home, as we indulged fully the lovely selection of beers on offer this close to that greatest of all beer brewing nations, the belgians. got home, ate, bathed and slept like a rock. spent yesterday sampling the herbs of holland and composing dutch poetry. i had a few very fine moments and i think i could easily compose a whole album of dutch poetry. yesterday, whilst walking across the erasmus bridge, i was struck, yet again, by the great works of man. how fine his achievements are, how grand his designs. and then the breeze pushed me in the back and i looked out at the sun setting in the direction of the mighty sea to the west and 36 hours after i landed, i had my first pang of homesickness for that land where the greatness of god is always so present... ]]> blessed exit row http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:35:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=14 last night, in lichtenburg (the dutch for city of lights) i dedicated a show to someone for the first time in my career. i dedicated it to my step dad, lukas, who passed away 2 years ago. and then i met (re-met) a girl who was with me in primary school, in the agricultural boarding school i attended. her father was the head of the hostel (afrikaans word: koshuisvader - hostel father), and he passed away a couple of weeks ago. it was good to chat with her, we both remember a lot from those days. drove the 250km home and had an unrestful sleep. woke up early (9 is early for a musician) and started watching the rugby. there are 4 s.a. teams playing today. the lions lost, the sharks lost (first of the season) and the bulls are winning against expectations. don't know how much more i can watch of this. i have to start packing. tonight i fly to europe. and in ten days i come back. it takes less time for me to fly to europe than it does driving to cape town from my home in johannesburg. ]]> city of lights http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:20:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=13 after last week's traveling one would think i'd be glad to be home, and that i'd be drinking in every moment of my homecoming. well, yes and no. i came home after the last, grueling stretch from springbok to johannesburg. in klerksdorp we quickly stopped at christo, the professor with whom i did the first few interviews regarding the documentary in the cape. in the meantime he had gone back home. i was impressed to hear that that he had managed to stop the bus (here we're talking about a bus of some big corporation which takes passengers on a fixed route from aghulas to messina) in wolmeransstad, at the butchery. apparently this little butchery in wolmeransstad is the finest purveyor of biltong (dried raw meat, a south african speciality) on earth. if his story about the bus' willingness to stop impressed me, the biltong brought me to n respectful silence. heavens. it was indeed immaculate biltong. but wait, i digress.when we finally got home, just before midnight i embraced my bed with resignation and sunk away into a deep sleep. the next morning (saturday) i was up early again to watch the lions lose horribly to the crusaders. i must say that i do not like the new rules that are now being experimentally applied in the super 14 tournament. it makes the game too fast and reeks all too much of australian football now. in any event, i don't like a game of rugby where there is no longer room for the short fat guy. this has always been one of the most appealing features of rugby to me - the way in which it's always been a game where every physical type, as long as the man has a big heart, can play a role in the game. but yeah, back to the reason why i didn't stay at home on saturday. from there i went to my ranch in the freestate. it was, after two years of building, the first time that i could overnight there. and what a heavenly experience that was. i couldn't believe how beautiful the place was. and while i walked in it i asked myself time and time again: what have i done to be so fortunate. how can it be that i am on the receiving side of so many blessings? and then it hit me: usually only something bigger than you can take something away from you, otherwise you wouldn't allow it would you? why then, are we sometimes so reluctant to see that we can be given things by something greater than ourselves. the more you have, the more you have to be humble for. ]]> home and away http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:00:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=12 i've been driving around south africa for the last few days, filming a documentary. i've seen most of the places (i've traveled this country flat for fee and fun for years now). yet, somehow it's different this time round. the difference is that i now speak to people, that i'm on a mission to get behind the truth of some issues. the documentary is about afrikaans. mmm... a boring topic, i hear some of you say. but of course it's not only about what you do, but also about how you do it. i believe you can do just about anything if you do it right and people will like it. my colleagues happen to be old guys, aging cowboys that have accumulated virtually every award for for documentaries this country has to give. we drive around and talk a whole lot. we talk abut history, geography, religion and politics. unfortunately nothing about sport, because neither of my esteemed colleagues have any interest in sports. but i'm learning a helluva lot. it's just a fact: if you've lived a lot, you have a lot to tell and these guys weren't born yesterday. tonight i'll sleep at home again after three weeks on the road. i think i'm going to be glad to smell my own kitchen again, the embrace of my own 500 thread density egyptian cotton sheets, my own, heavenly garden and the weather of johannesburg which is perfect even when it's bad. next week i start gigging hard again and after that i'm off to europe for a while againa rolling stone gathers no moss. ]]> wisdom of cowboys http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=11 i've been spending the last few days making a documentary on afrikaans speakers. it's an exciting project which, in the course of the next year will take me all over the country, meeting with a lot of different people. i have acted a lot before, but i've never done a documentary, which is of course a very different ball game. my two esteemed colleagues, the cameraman and the director are old guns that seem more like hardened war correspondents than documentary makers. maybe there's not much of a difference. this year i decided to take one week per month off. the idea is to spend this time on my music. i've found that i don't get enough time to develop my music, creatively, that is. so far so good. until now. this is meant to be my off week, but instead it's gone to the documentary. well... so i may not be making more music this year but hey! i'll have a great documentary to add to my resume. resume? what good is a resume to an artist? and if i have to type this cumbersome word, documentary, once more, my finger is going to spazz out. documentary... ouch! ]]> documentary http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:05:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=10 every once in a while, you meet someone that strikes a cord in you that is hidden so well that you've forgotten that it exists. today this hidden cord somewhere between my heart, groin, and mind was struck gently yet so accurately that it might as well have been hit with a ten pound gong hammer. some publication asked me to do an interview with a famous south african. i presented them with the unlikely choice of one of afrikaans' finest living poets, petra muller. well into her 70s, she bubbles with an energy, interest, and sensuality that screams: sweet 16! our two hour conversation was a fraction of what i needed to tap into her brilliant mind. isn't it amazing how that great interrupter of good conversation, that vibe annihilator, that perfidious purveyor of the pooped party, good old father time and his unwelcome cousin, uncle deadline, can bring to an end some of the finest conversations we are granted in our brief lives? well, i guess it's not that bad. next time i come to the cape, i'm going to invite her for coffee and muse tolstoy, james joyce, and andre p. brink over a hot cappuccino somewhere in this beautiful city that is cape town, south africa. ]]> the interview http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:40:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=9 the end of my run at the kknk happened for me in the form of a rock concert on saturday night. i still have the headache and my neck will probability be stiff until next weekend from the headbanging. it was, as far as i'm concerned, the best rock experience i have ever had as chris chameleon. the band rocked out and i felt on top of my game.this year's kknk was a good one for me. but i have noticed that attendance at the festival is way down. it no doubt has much to do with the economic difficulty the country is experiencing at present. but i'm sure there are other factors at work as well. so, how about a little criticism: due to the economically difficult times, artists - those who have succeeded in building a strong and visible brand - will tend to go to festivals with cheaper productions. artists like sussie, dowwe dolla, chris chameleon and frank opperman have sell out shows and draw literally thousands of people during the festival period. these artists therefore earn well during this time, but it's a very essential income considering the hard times that await them during the rest of the year. that's all pretty good, but i predict that in the future there will be a stronger tendency to bring low budget productions to the stage. my klassieke chameleon show fortunately sold out (i think that on the last two days there was a seat or two available here and there). i say fortunately, not only for the sake of my ego (an empty hall hurts both the ego and the heart), but also because the production cost 15 000 rand per day. i sell out venues on my own, sitting on a chair and doing my thing, regardless of the size of the production. but there is this side of me that won't do things only for the money, the side that wants to add production value to the festival. i can present this production far more lucratively in johannesburg, since the audience live there in their millions, and always just around the corner. my orchestra can drive to the show and back home which would save a fortune in transport and accommodation expenses. i think there should be some incentive built into the kknk financial formula to stimulate and support productions with huge overheads. with the current system there is no link between what you put in and what you get out. it would be in the interests of the festival that cheap shows aren't brought there since, as i mentioned last week, there are a great many people who get exposure to theatre arts only at these festivals. if the kknk fails to consider these logistical implications, they run the risk of attracting more one man productions to the festivals in the future and an unwillingness from producers to offer production value in economically uncertain times. i am immensely blessed in my career and make enough dough for myself and my employees. but some aren't that fortunate and they may be brilliant artists. ultimately, the viewing public may be denied access to very stimulating art due to the festival organisation's failure to come up with a fair solution to the input versus output issue. nevertheless, if i could turn back time i would still take this production to the festival. the eyes of those i met after the shows gave me all the reason i'll ever need. ]]> hangover http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:40:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=8 five days of kknk behind me and still i'm not tired of it. festivals are as close to pleasureland as one can possibly get. it's only smiling faces all around and the feeling that nothing really matters. and it's just art art art (and much of what portends to thus but which is naught but utter trash). these festivals are a good thing. there are people who wouldn't see a single play in a year, but because they're at an arts festival they will, in the name of convention, actually see a play or two. last night i attended a charity dinner. guests payd a hefty fee for a seat at a seven course meal at a table with a star. guess what? apparently i am a star. the guests were very pleasant and the food immaculate. the only problem is that they prescribed a specific wine for each course and by the end of the evening i had drunk seven glasses and i am someone who makes a fool of himself by the third glass. consequently, this morning's performance challenged my presence of mind to the extreme. especially in the light of the fact that of the cycling appointment ferdinand rabie, the big brother winner and i had for a health magazine this morning. nevertheless, it went well and the hall rose as one man in that final ovation. sometimes i feel unworthy. sometimes it feels to me as if the audience is better than the artist. i am pleased that i brought this production to the festival. it is a very expensive production and in spite of the sold out shows the loot i'll be taking home will be substantially smaller than in other years. but it gives me such joy to bring, to both the festival organisation and the festival goers, such a decadent little pleasure. right now i am lying in the bed and breakfast watching kill bill vol 2 and contemplating what a lucky guy i am. ]]> pleasureland http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=7 yesterday's gig was a nightmare. halfway through the set my voice started doing this really weird thing. it just stopped doing what i wanted to do. it was quite horrifying. my life is pretty much based on me being able to rely on my voice. i battled through the set and the audience were amazing, kinda like they wanted me to be ok. as it turned out i got a standing ovation from the whole hall. it was pretty overwhelming. that is humanity at its finest - when people want someone to be ok purely for the sake of being ok. there's a great zulu word for that: ubuntu. my mac gives me dotted red line under this word when i type it out. that is a shame. it should be a universal word. like ok. ok? but tonight was different. tonight i told my voice: do four octaves and on your way up twirl around and dance into the hearts of virgins and old women and while you're at it bring me a tear from a big boer's eye. and it did. i am so cocky now i can get a hen to lay an egg just by looking at her. how superficial is that? it must be very dangerous - to let so much of what you are depend on a thing as fallible as a voice. ]]> the frog in my throat http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:40:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=6 drove to the kknk yesterday. it's an arts festival and was initially called kkk - 'klein karoo kunstefees' - for a while until the organisers realised their mistake. on my way out of graaff reinet i witnessed a peculiar scene as i was waiting for noelle, my manager, to come out of the pharmacy in front of which i was double parked. and old man, walking with a walking frame, called a stranger ahead of him, even older than he, to come help him with his slipper. his slipper had come off the back of his foot. he couldn't bend to fix it himself, and so he called the other, older man. but he didn't ask the other man, he ordered him to do it. nevertheless, the older man nodded and i watched him do it with a humility and a tenderness that moved me. what he got for his trouble was a mumbled 'thanx'. the older man and his friend carried on walking. a friend of mine says one should never interfere with people's karma, but i was dissatisfied, kinda unfulfilled. i shifted the car into gear and caught up with the old man. when i called him over he was, again, humble as pie, as if waiting for me to order him to do something for me too. i felt a little stupid. and then i told him that i had seen what he had done. i told him that he made my day, that his kindness really moved me. and then i asked him if i would offend him if i gave him something from my heart. he eyed me a bit suspiciously. i said that whatever is in my wallet, gets there through the labours of my heart, for such is the privilege, the nature of my occupation. he knew what i meant and i loved the look in his eyes. when i counted it out, i wondered why it felt so good to rid myself of my hearts earnings. anyway. i started out writing this and it felt ok. but now i'm worrying that it may seem a bit self serving. nah, to hell with that. i think you guys should know, because it was your money first. ]]> it happend in graaff reinet http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:50:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=5 well, just started on the blog and i'm already behind. thank goodness a blog is not a child, or the welfare would be knocking at my door. or would they? i don't know. i don't know what it takes to get the welfare on your case these days. this is africa. is there a welfare? i'm lying on a bed in graaff reinet (sounds a bit like a lyric doen't it?!). came from johannesburg today and i'm off to oudshoorn for my run on the kknk tomorrow. graaff reinet is one of the most beautiful towns in south africa. the architecture is utterly pleasant. but better still is the valley of desolation, about 15 km outside the town. it's awesome! remember that nike advertisement where the super athlete runs like hell and then jumps off a cliff and onto this huge natural rock pillar? that was filmed here. i had an interview with a magazine in london today. it was very refreshing. the guy asked all these new questions. i don't know, it's hard to explain. but when you get asked the same questions in so many interviews, you begin to bore yourself. and how are you supposed to keep people interested if you feel bored yourself? ]]> In transit... http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:30:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=4 everyone does it. the fireman, the actor, ladies of the night, pizza guys, even the president and steve hofmeyr. no, i don't mean sex. i mean blogging. i'm not too clued on what blogging is, (my manager reckons i should have one) but i figure it's something like an open diary, some comment on my daily life. i'm going to give it a bash. today is easter as last night's chocolate hangover suggests. two talents i don't possess are fine art and sleeping. last night i excelled in my incompetence regarding the latter. got to bed at one, woke at six. i tried to go back to sleep but by half past it was clearly in vain. so i got up, made tea and sat down with my guitar. mmm.. not exactly and inspired session, but few are. that's why musicians only make an album per year. my favourite domestic team, the cheetahs, are playing the brumbies today and even if they win, the super 14 is pretty much over for them, but i hope they kick some ass anyway, just for laughs. i popped in at a video filming session yesterday, what is meant to be a video for one of the songs of my forthcoming english album - i was mortified. i have never seen such utter crap. it was worse than those dreadful videos we made in boo! of course i can't let this one out, but whoah... what a waste of money. do i let it get to me or do i simply let it be... ]]> Oh ... the Blog? http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:20:00 +0100 http://www.chrischameleon.com/blog/index.php?id=3 the tour i just finished in europe was by far my best ever since i started touring europe more than 10 years ago. the agreement i signed with excelsior records is probably the single biggest reason for this. the support slot with spinvis was a great opportunity to get me exposed to a large and new audience. if you were there, you'd know that it totally worked out! the reception was great and the cd's flew off the shelves. i also noticed the impact the spinvis slot had o my own solo gigs, which were generally better attended than in the past. this is the kind of situation most musicians dream of, there's hardly a better way to get yourself established than through such a great support opportunity and i feel particularly blessed. the guys from spinvis were very supportive and i was pretty bummed when it was all over. but then again, it is't all over, because this tour was the best reason i could want to go back. looks like i'll spend about half my time in europe in the next few years. as for south africa, it's my home. i feel a connection there that binds me in the heart and the soul and the flesh. the rains have been kind this year and my garden is showing its appreciation and i'm loving being back! i sat in the garden next to the pool this morning and it occurred to me, again, that i am the luckiest guy i know. thanks to all of you for letting me live my dream! love, chris ]]> Europe, O Europe!