Charl Blignaut
IT was probably a song like Jong Dames Dinamiek (referring to a young women’s cultural group established under National Party rule) that did it. So upset we re the censors in 1990 that they banned the album Die Saai Lewe (The Tedious L ife) by Randy Rambo en die Rough Riders – the only restriction for distributio n and possession ever slapped on an Afrikaans pop album.
Yet this week the controversial band announced that the Directorate of Publica tions has dropped its seven-year ban – though it decided to keep a no-under-18 age restriction on the album.
If you’re over 18 years old you can now finally hear the line, “Jong dames din amiek maak my siek [make me sick]”. Or the droning refrain off the album’s tit le track: “Met wie kan ek praat, ek trek my fokken draad … [There’s no one t o talk to, I pull my fuckin’ wire …]”.
Disaffected and angry with the politics of the day, Randy Rambo en die Rough R iders were sublime satirists that set out to shock. On the album in question t hey sampled speeches by PW Botha and Eugene TerreBlanche and growled and mumbl ed about subjects like “sex on the beach, prostitutes without a future, junkie s without hope, nightclubbing, suburban family murders, the reality according to You mag azine, the 1988 State of Emergency” – as front man, writer and music critic Th eunis Engelbrecht puts it.
The banning, however, removed from the record shops a valuable slice of Afrika ner resistance history and forced the group to change their name to Die Naaima sjiene and head underground. Jong Dames Dinamiek also suffered at the hands of the SABC when it was banned from airplay after being included on the seminal
Vo_lvry alternative Afrikaans compilation album. As a result of the banning, c laims Enge lbrecht, the band were all but ignored by the Afrikaans press.
In their new incarnation as Die Naaimasjiene, Randy Rambo en die Rough Riders became the only Afrikaans band to record a song about the release of Nelson Ma ndela. Their unrecorded material also featured three gay songs. Now that their original recording has been unbanned, Die Naaimasjiene have signed a deal wit
h Pretoria’s Wildebeest Records with the result that Die Saai Lewe will be re- released o n CD.
The new album will contain all the songs on the previously banned album as wel l as seven bonus tracks. Die Naaimasjiene will launch the new album on the Apr il 1 at the Kaktus op die Vlaktes Festival at the Klein Karoo Arts Festival. T he band’s controversial bellydancers and sex simulators, Die Yskasterte (The F ridge Tarts), will perform with them.