Bubblegum Club

Tag: 80’s

  • Mike Leather’s vintage biker’s boutique: A homage to Joburg’s vibrant 80s punk past

    One of my favorite hidden gems in Joburg just so happens to also be a “tribute to South Africa’s punk and alternative scene” past!  On Jan smuts, opposite the Goodman gallery lies an entrance surrounded by a leather garments display, and if you’re lucky you will see a black and chrome bike with dangling tassels outside the entrance. A “punk rock” machine on two wheels signals that the owner and founder of the store Add-Vintage, Mike Leather, is currently on site.

    Born and raised in Joburg, Mike would become involved in leather works by honing his craft at Joburg’s Market Theatre, making his own clothes. “Back then I Started making styles for myself. Me and my Bro were punk’s back then.

    “I used to have a Mohawk and arm bands with the studs.” He had (and from just looking at his amazing array of jackets in the store has kept) a grand collection of 80’s leather punk jackets. He knew the styles and made sure to keep up to date with the underground trends,

    “It was the 80’s. Anything I had in those days that was different you could not buy. You had to make your own style”. Punk’s like Mike and his brother, Quiet, would frequent Yeoville and Hillbrow at that time. Their friends would hang around their crib to start the evening’s festivities and then they would make their way to the main jol. “We partied in ‘Subway’ downtown and at ‘Doors’ which was based in Carlton Centre. Everybody was there as there were few places within the scene you could go.  People from overseas would come to South Africa to hang around Newtown. That was the place to hang around to find that style of people. The jols, the homies all stayed downtown”.

    These were the places where their friends were every Saturday and Saturday. It was here that you would find the movement. The Joburg Punk movement was downtown near the market theatre. “That’s why when one said they wanted to ‘hang out’ you would find your homies, the parties, the clothes; everything you needed was there”.

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    I was blessed to have Mike give me a historical account of his own style.  Where he came from it was all about creating things, your own style and from there he begun making his own leather shoes and clothes. Eventually I’m wearing the gear and people were like they want it! So I would make for myself and then people started ordering from me and that’s where it started.

    He explains what the trends in the 80’s were like to me:  “So many things are happening today. Back then, those days in the 80’s you didn’t see somebody different. Back then a black punk with white boys playing rock, jamming to punk music, it was something very different for people out there. People saying things like ‘they are drug addicts’. They didn’t know what to think about us. Also it wasn’t easy because being different at a time that was mostly formal.” His style was too spaced out for the crowd, a mainstream crowd deep within the cultural yolk of apartheid.

    “Now my style and that of my bro was more English punk. We’d hang out in subways. This was something double different to see at the time.  As both black men who were also enjoying the music with white people. It wasn’t easy to be different back then and also hang around with the white boys. It was very tough. The way people look at you and think of you. They thought punks are Satanists. There would be this thing where being dressed up in black would get goths and punks put together, stereotyped as being the same and being called ‘Satanist’.  Those that were different were put into the same stereotype regardless of their race.

    Mike explains how today it’s much easier to be “different”. For him the different styles can be seen on TV and you can easily get them at the stores. “Back then there was no TV. If you did your style you did it by yourself. The underground movement styles changed due to introduction of TV”. The cheapening of the devices created a new advent of access to the various styles within popular culture. But with TV also meant an increase in access to cheaper garments that reflected this popular style.

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    “My clientele understand me. Back then with punks and gothics you knew exactly how to move with the trends or your style. Punk was doc martin, studs, leather jackets. Those are the things you did. Now it’s not as distinct. TV dictates the styles. Today I have a variety of people coming into my store. When I young with bro we used to have a shop in Hillbrow called ‘Kingdom Leather’ that was front opposite the New Metro. I used to ride when I was young. I was a Punk, a rider, the same movement that I came from. These were the clientele that we served”.  These are the clientele that he continues to serve today.

    When one enters his ADD-vintage store on Jan Smuts you are entering a period in South Africa that’s not really talked about. “Not much has been different in my store from back then. I knew exactly who my clientele was, the punks, the rockers, the riders. You don’t see punks, goths like you did back then”.

    He explains how today you find people who don’t know themselves and their style. I would even add that we are over exposed to mainstream trends. “Mostly, today you get stuff anywhere and so much of the style depends on the person. You can get the stuff Chinese made but not with quality”. For Mike it’s the quality that defines his brand and I would even say ‘the style’.

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    He describes how the people he sees nowadays are those with a very strong sense of style, the new punks, those who dress differently. “When they come into my store they say ‘WOW, I haven’t seen a shop like this for many years’, you know what I mean? This reminds them of stores like those found in London Camden market. The punks and stuff are still happening now but not like here”. Mike’s store presents the style as it was done back then. He explains how some people still want something specially made. “They want to go somewhere you know the stuff is quality. This is where the difference comes with my shop”.

    “Others are afraid of the shop. They don’t know about the jackets, about the movement.  So this is what is happening.” Today his clientele is not so well defined and so all sorts may enter his store. His store is a representation of a time of defiance. Those who know their punk, rock and style history will know of the importance of such to those who would wear their defiance!  It’s overwhelming to enter this store as it also speaks to a very specific time in style history. If you look carefully you can even observe some leather bondage gear (of highest quality of course), a skull helmet and plenty of metal stud jewelry.

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    This style is experienced sensually within the store!  One is greeted with the all-consuming scent of leather. Make no mistake this store is all about the leather, bottom to top, and its shelves brimming with fine leather vintage and biking goods.  One wall houses a beautiful collection of white cow boy leather boots that would make any Dolly Parton fan flush with excitement. His store is one of quality, long lasting wear that will not only test the strength of time but test the wearer’s grit in being able to keep the movement alive!

    The shop can be found on 144th street on Jan Smuts Avenue
    in Johannesburg (opposite the Goodman gallery).  Operating hours are from 9am to 5 on weekdays.  You can also contact Mike directly on
    0837282274 and he will gladly assist you with your queries.

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  • DJ Okapi and Afrosynth Records; Recovering the origins of electronic music in South Africa

    DJ Okapi’s Afrosynth Records, possibly the only record store in the country specialising in South African and African music, recently opened up in Jeppestown and is challenging the cultural imperialism and that sets us swaying to American or British trends before acknowledging the innovative vitality of music from the continent. The store, like the Afrosynth blog that it emerged from, is about increasing accessibility to South African songs and albums that were produced during one of the industry’s most prolific times during the 80s and early 90s, but it’s also about sonically subverting some of the divide-and-conquer logic that still emanates from that time by tracing musical connections between electronic sounds here and in other African countries. The store is a veritable treasure-trove for both collectors and explorers, resurrecting hard-to-come-by ‘dead stock’ so that music primarily from South Africa but also from Zambia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Cameroon, and other African countries, is available in sealed, mint-condition quality.

    While electronic genres like Gqom, and artists like Black Coffee are exploding both locally and internationally, other artists who enjoy wide international success, such as Nozinja (pioneer of Shangaan Electro) are hardly even heard of here. DJ Okapi has been researching and archiving South African Bubblegum music for over a decade and understanding some of the appreciations and contestations, visibilities and invisibilities surrounding the genre may shed light, not only on the rich legacy of commercial and electronic music within this country, but also on why and how some of this dissonance was created and perpetuated. While vinyl has, in recent years, exploded as a kind of manufactured aesthetic of cool, Afrosynth taps into it simply for the reason that most Bubblegum music as well as the early Kwaito stuff that evolved from it, is only accessible in this format; the records stacked around the Afrosynth store speak to a passion for the music and artists of the time, which, even after years of conducting research and interviews, DJ Okapi still only feels he is scratching the surface of.

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    During his early DJ-ing days, Okapi used some of the money he had made to pick up a few South African records from the 80s; including Heatwave by Harari and Touch Somebody by Brenda & The Big Dudes. Like the slipjoint knife of his namesake the music stuck inside him and he started to question why there was such a vacuum of information surrounding it. Bubblegum, a dominant trend in South African pop music and a defining sound of the 80s, succeeded more traditional styles like Isicathamiya, Marabi, Kwela and Mbaqanga, and utilised then new technology like drum machines and synthesisers. Initially heavily influenced by black American Pop music, many of the musicians used English as their language of choice but this was often combined with one or more vernacular languages, and as the style evolved, local influences came increasingly into the mix. The start of Bubblegum is generally linked to the 1983 hit song Weekend Special by Brenda & The Big Dudes and while most of us know these songs, as well as those by Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse, Sello ‘Chicco’ Twala and Yvonne Chaka Chaka, relatively few of us seem to know that literally tens of thousands of incredible albums and artists were also being produced during the time. This perhaps speaks to the possibility that those who have held the power to archive and disseminate information show a certain disregard for that which they consider to not be ‘South African enough’ and so, despite the sugary label, Bubblegum can actually be said to have muddied such imposed definitions of ‘authenticity’.

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    While some contest the term Bubblegum (preferring to use labels like Township Pop, Disco or Afro-Pop) as derogatory or as implying a kind of superficiality or disposability, DJ Okapi feels that this doesn’t really do justice to this experimental musical production. There’s a kind of sweet subversion that pulls through the genre and perhaps complicates one-dimensional understandings of what resistance actually looks like; something like the façade of non-political ‘frivolity’ that was sometimes used to disguise serious political strategising at the time. The apartheid regime obsessively imposed definitions and segregations in order to strip the majority of their power and so, viewed within this context, the stylistic and linguistic cross-overs of Bubblegum refused these oppressive methods of the white-supremacist order. Through a multilingual approach, Bubblegum was also able to transcend the SABC’s policy of segregated radio stations for different language groups, thus reaching a much wider audience than previously possible. In many ways, Bubblegum manipulated the system against itself and would often escape the State’s censoring gaze by veiling political messages in seemingly innocuous lyrics. Perhaps it’s these strangely subtle insurgencies that reflect the most political tactics, or perhaps those are to be found in the joyful melodies themselves; claiming the right to moments of happiness and humanity in defiance of apartheid’s massively violent attempts at dehumanisation. Whatever the case may be, Afrosynth refuses to accept the misplaced hierarchical designations that disregard this immensely prolific creative legacy.

    If you’re interested in discovering more of this rich musical history, head over to the blog where you can check out videos, rare anecdotes of the artists, the album art and fashion, or download mixes and other previously inaccessible, digitised gems. Vinyls can also be purchased on Afrosynth’s Discogs page or you can check out this video, where Afrosynth was the focus for the first ever Boiler Room Collections in South Africa. From this week, DJ Okapi will be spinning these sounds during his UK tour, details of which can be found on his Facebook page. The sonic library of the store will be briefly closed during the UK tour but if you’re in South Africa, pop in again from the 1 December, where you can also scoop the newly released LP Boogie Breakdown: South African Synth-Disco 1980-1984, which DJ Okapi was involved in collaboratively compiling, and where you can perhaps even score some valuable reissues in the future. If that’s not enough, tune into the Soundcloud for some instant gratification. Heita-da!