Hey hey hey!
I thought I'd introduce you to one of my band members since its Wednesday, and Wednesday night is rehearsal night baby!
Cape Town International Jazz Festival 2017
Funny(ish) story quickly. If you're thinking "Oh Rudimental, that group from the UK that did that song with John Newmann". No. That's not us. We have many things in common; we both started around the same time, we both explore integrating a live musical set up with electronic productions, and we both have the same name...well kinda. Their name doesn't have an "s" at the end.
They also have a similarly large ensemble of musicians, both being around 12 people. In fact, when they toured South Africa, on a night off they came to one of our shows. We all took photo outside afterwords and it looked like a football "post game" photo. I'm talking both teams here 😅
"Good game guys, good game"
So, for my first introduction. Drum roll please! Drrrrrrrrrrrrrr
This is Teboho "Tboz" Maidza.
Tboz hails from a small, rural part of Zimbabwe near Bulawayo. The nature of the country at that time was that higher education was free to citizens, and, was really good, so Tboz studied for, and received a degree in Chemical Engineering. During his tenure there, he supported himself by being a kick-ass foosball player (you might call it table soccer), and basically survived off of winning games for money. Still to this day nobody can touch him at foosball. Its amazing.
Zimbabweans are passionate about music, however, and it wasn't long before Tboz got involved in music and eventually joined Andy Brown's band, first as sound engineer and then as backing vocalist. In Zim, when a guy like Andy Brown goes to play a show, they will play for 6 - 8 hours at a time. They gave the people what they wanted, and the people loved them for it.
Eventually Tboz got a scholarship to do his masters at University of Cape Town and that's when I met him. We used to go play gigs and then would grab a few guitars and jam all night. People could come and go, but the music never stopped, often till after the sun came up. It didn't matter where we were. We'd start at a friend's yard, then move to a park near the theatre in the suburb by our University, or the beach, or another yard.
I smile as a I write this stuff. Its good to have memories like these.
