Fruits and Veggies vocalist Purity Mkhize was on stage in Durban last weekend, calling out for the “strange man who’s taken my toe ring” to return it. Bassist Loopy (Lucia Gcinga), meanwhile, was trying to keep a groove while being fed beer by an audience member.
There was much on-stage flailing of hair, crashing about and mayhem at Fruits and Veggies’ launch of Ndaa, the Afro-punk-ska outfit’s debut album. The basement dance floor at Origin nightclub in Durban was packed and by the end sweat was dripping off every surface.
Unfortunately, the most notable absentees from the launch were actual copies of the seven-track Ndaa. These had been left behind in Cape Town, where Fruits and Veggies had spent the previous week recording two new songs at the Red Bull studios.
Drunkenly chaotic
After the gig, over tequila and beer, Loopy said, giggling: “Ja, it’s typical of the band — the manager is going to kill us for forgetting the CDs.”
The five-piece Fruits and Veggies has, since their formation in 2008 and through various changes in line-up, maintained a stellar record for being drunkenly chaotic, raucous and more than a tad forgetful. With a Babyshambolic approach to life and music, it is normal for the band to have handmaidens Amnesia and Surrealism dancing along to their music and in their pillaged wake.
“We live in a world where face value is everything and because we value true worth we get off our faces as much as possible,” said Loopy, by way of explanation. Partly in jest, I think.
Comprising Mkhize, Gcinga, James Cross and Rohan Morrison on guitars, and drummer Warren Dolphin, Fruits and Veggies’s rock-‘n-roller approach to music and life is not just about pitching up late for gigs and bingeing. They are also very talented.
Songs such as The Way, the Truth and the Lies embrace the counterculture and rail against big corporations ruining ordinary lives and mainstream “grown-ups who accept what makes me wanna throw up”. Yet there is also a joyful exuberance, both on and off stage, in their seeming nihilism.
“Yes, we’re disaffected, but we’re also optimistic. At least I really hope we sound optimistic,” Mkhize said.
Anti-establishment lifestyle
Loopy professed a deep appreciation for low-life poet and novelist Charles Bukowski and, currently reading a biography of William Burroughs, said the itinerant anti-establishment lifestyle of the Beat poets has a particular appeal for her. She professed to being “homeless”, moving from couch to couch and “wearing what you find, rolling with the punches”. The bassist is undoubtedly the driving force behind the band’s boho-meets-hobo aesthetic. She slouches and struts her way through gigs, blowing bass bubbles that take in bands such as Sublime and the Clash. Lyrically, the references range from Dylan Thomas to Bukowski’s gritty feel for degeneracy.
On Without a Gwaai or a Cent, the relentless pursuit of highs in Durban while broke is encapsulated sublimely. Mkhize remembers the creative process leading to the song being born:
“We were sitting around in the dark with a few candles at a friend’s place — their parents had been away for about two weeks so the place was completely trashed by then, so all we had were candles — when this song just came about. That’s how a lot of our songs come out.”
Gob-smackingly fresh
On stage Mkhize is a ball of charisma, challenging and coaxing the audience in equal measures. The band’s guitars swerve effortlessly from New York to London and Glasgow, yet manage to remain rooted in Durban, especially when breaking out into ska-like speed-maskanda passages.
Gob-smackingly fresh, Fruits and Veggies is also the latest in a line of Durban punk bands that first emerged in the early 1980s. Journalist and co-director Deon Maas, whose film Punk in Africa traces that genealogy, as well as the emergence of the genre in countries such as Botswana and Mozambique, said the movie focused on bands with “both a political edge and something that, musically, says they are from Africa”. Fruits and Veggies definitely have both.
Fruits and Veggies perform at the Winston in Durban on July 27 with LowProfile and Sheep Down, and at Unit 11 in Durban on July 30 with Black Math and Captain Stu. The band is also scheduled to play at the Bohemian in Johannesburg on August 12 with Cortina Whiplash. Punk in Africa screens at the Durban International Film Festival on July 28 at Musgrave Centre and July 29 at the Royal Hotel