Many festivals are still in their infancy and one such event is the Endless Daze festival, now only in its second year, which will be taking place at Silwerstroom Resort on the West Coast just 45 minutes from Cape Town.
Presented by Psych Night, a collective that hosts regular events celebrating psychedelia in Cape Town, Endless Daze can be described as a “boutique music and arts festival” with live bands, DJs, visuals, exhibitions, light shows and more.
One of the organisers, Mark Reitz, says: “It’s a festival for music lovers in a beautiful setting on the West Coast.
"Our stage will have some of the best bands in the country and also three international bands: Oh Sees and Moon Duo from the US and The Sunflowers from Portugal. Our line-up is quite diverse and we like to push the boundaries a little so it’s sometimes more experimental.
“We also like to give up-and-coming acts the same production and platform as the internationals. It’s our ethos to support the younger bands and we’ve been building this up to something pretty special.”
One of the local acts in the line-up is festival favourite, Mr Cat & The Jackal, who are described as dark and strange cabaret rock (they even play a saw).
Frontman Gertjie Besselsen explains: “I’m a musician, writer (and a welder). We’ve taken a very chill year as far as tours and festivals are concerned, but we are busy writing new material and readying ourselves for 2018 when we’ll be dropping our fourth album and doing major gigs and tours.
“We’ve come a long way as we’ve been playing for more than 10 years now,” he points out.
Besselsen adds: “We started out very experimental and we’ve kept a lot of the sound and vibe we like, although our music is still progressing and now has a more ‘rock’ feel. But we are still Mr Cat & The Jackal, with our crazy theatrics.
Mr Cat & the Jackal, a power-set act, and Runaway Nuns (below) are part of the entertainment line-up. Pictures: Ice Carstens Publicity
“We are excited to be back at Endless Daze as we love the location and they are catering for local ‘psych’ acts that you don’t usually get on the bigger festivals.”
Mr Cat & The Jackal will be performing on the main stage next Friday at 6.55pm and promise a power-set, with some new numbers.
“And we will be bringing out a new surprise instrument.” The message to fans is: “We are looking forward to impressing you again.”
Other bands you can expect to see include: The Valley, which draws their influences from rhythm and blues to ominous desert rock; Cape Town-based psychedelic surf-rock band Retro Dizzy; Medicine Boy, which is a dream noise pair from Cape Town comprising Lucy Kruger and André Leo; Skeleton Coast, which is a Garage/Surf Rock outfit from Nelson Mandela Bay; The Tazers, a psychedelic rock band from Johannesburg; Two Stroke and many more.
Mpumelelo Mcata, guitarist from Johannesburg-based band BLK JKS, says: “We’re an African post-rock band. When we started we had no intention of making our style of music.
"We were unhappy with the music that we were seeing around, so we just wanted to play instruments. We decided to learn and just progressed into it.
“We were listening to lots of genres such as Echo & The Bunnymen, rock etc. Audience response had a big influence in what our music has become, which is like a King Crimson prog-rock psychedelic kind of thing. To some extent, the people we played for kind of helped us write the music and it became our culture.”
Mcata goes on to say: “I love what the festival is doing. This type of music in this day and age needs a champion, as electronic music has taken over and the last time rock music fought back was during Kurt Cobain’s heyday.
"We’re happy that people are ready for a psychedelic rock ‘n roll vibe.”
BLK JKS’s message to their fans is: “Rock on and be African and don’t forget where you are in terms of the global conversation.” BLK JKS will be playing main stage at 11pm next Saturday.
Cape Town-based band Runaway Nuns (performing next Saturday at 4.40pm) is a must see and describe themselves as “Garage Punk with psychedelic undertones”.
Lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Sean Baron says: “I grew up on the classic rock ’* ’ roll like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.
“Runaway Nuns is very much a band that’s about energy and attitude every time we play. Our sound employs what we call ‘gang vocals’ with a lot of harmonies.”
Baron explains: “Our music has inklings of raw music that has been developing since the punk-era and even before that like in the 1960s. Our biggest influence is US band The Black Lips and also a past Cape Town band, Future Primatives.
“For Endless Daze we are going to take it far more towards the psychedelic side of our sound and most of our set is going to be new.”
Baron adds: “The band is excited to be playing at Endless Daze. It’s going to be a great festival and we’re going to take the energy as high as we can and play all our best material.
“We really appreciate people who like to watch live music and we enjoy playing” After performing at the Endless Daze festival, Runaway Nuns is going into studio to start work on their first full-length album.
There will be no live entertainment next Sunday and the bars will be closed, but food and merchandise vendors will be open. The festival closes at midnight.
Tickets are R600 online and R750 at the gate (includes Camping).
Visit www.endlessdazefest.com