Following statements on Wednesday by PetroSA, the state oil and gas company, that it will "have nothing to do" with Imvume Management in future and that Imvume has been ordered to pay back monies owed to it, the Democratic Alliance said in a statement that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) must now investigate Imvume.
<b>CD OF THE WEEK:</b> News that Oasis were releasing a new album this year had to make one wonder whether it would just be a lukewarm attempt to recapture days of glory past, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
The <i>Mail & Guardian Online</i> is South Africa’s biggest standalone online newspaper, according to internet readership figures for June, released by the Online Publishers Association and ratings company Nielsen//Netratings this week. In June this year, the <i>M&G Online</i> attracted a record 298 819 unique users.
Moby’s new album <i>Hotel</i> is a many-roomed building with a range of guests from the quiet-as-a-mouse businessman to the raucous newly weds in the honeymoon suite, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
<b>CD OF THE WEEK:</b> Emile Minnie’s second album offers songwriting that manages to be contemplative without falling into the rut of rather pretentious songs about life and love that so many "serious" Afrikaans singers seem to prefer, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
"In an internationally condemned move, an enraged King Mswati III of Swaziland has decided to close his country’s borders with South Africa, starting on Friday." Sounds unbelievable? It is! Read the <i>Mail & Guardian Online</i>’s April Fool’s Day story that had its readers wondering about the Swazi monarch’s shock announcement.
It’s time for the yearly Oppikoppi Easter music blast, this time quaintly titled the Dust on My Meerkat festival. The line-up includes a host of excellent local acts, as well as guest Canadian singer Tal Bachman, who spoke to Riaan Wolmarans.
While it’s not a new idea to get pop stars to do Cole Porter’s songs for this movie, <i>De-Lovely</i> has managed to keep the approach traditional, without trying to spruce up Porter’s work for the MTV generation, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
Cape Town band Flat Stanley are on the road to fame and show no signs of stopping soon. Vocalist Andrew Mac spoke to Riaan Wolmarans.
No image available
/ 27 January 2005
Music channel MTV’s first pan-African music channel, the long-anticipated MTV base, launches on February 22, it was announced on Thursday. MTV base will start broadcasting with a specially recorded message from African-American rap artist Xzibit. His words of welcome will be echoed by international and African artists as well as African music fans.
No image available
/ 11 January 2005
Dolly Mokgatle, the CEO of Spoornet, has resigned, parent Transnet said on Tuesday. Transnet has accepted her resignation with immediate effect. No reasons were given for Mokgatle’s resignation. Tami Didiza, head of Transnet group communications, declined to comment further, saying only that Mokgatle will be "pursuing other interests".
No image available
/ 14 December 2004
One person out of every eight on Earth is now connected to the internet, and this phenomenal growth has occurred in less than 10 years. By 2010, this internet usage growth could narrow to one in five people. This is according to the latest statistics released this week by <i>ResearchWorldwide.com</i>.
No image available
/ 19 November 2004
Punk-rock Green Day has identified the need to evolve to stay on top. On <i>American Idiot</i>, they combine a solid helping of social conscience with a range of rock sounds and tempo changes, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
No image available
/ 5 November 2004
Double CD <i>The Winds of Change (African Cream)</i> coincides with our celebration of 10 years of democracy. The result is an aural tribute to our history, particularly the dark apartheid years, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
No image available
/ 22 October 2004
Hot on the heels of <i>Cape Town 2am</i> is Ready Rolled’s newest compilition — <i>Cafe Melville: Afrikan Time</i>. Richer-sounding and more rewarding than the glut of slapped-together "chill" albums available these days, Riaan Wolmarans gives it a thumbs-up.
No image available
/ 24 September 2004
If you can withstand the odd roaming pack of boisterous teens, the annual Woodstock festival in Gauteng is worth a look-in. With a superb line-up of local music and some adrenalin-charged activities, fans will be thoroughly entertained, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
No image available
/ 15 September 2004
The gay community is up in arms after police announced that drag queens will not be allowed to participate in this year’s Gay and Lesbian Pride parade. Furthermore, several businesspeople claim they are still owed money from last year’s Pride, and a top advertising agency dropped this year’s Pride publicity campaign due to non-payment.
No image available
/ 7 September 2004
Cape Town and Nelspruit do not have much in common, one would think, but internet junkies can rest assured that both cities offer them excellent means to access the net. Nelspruit’s Alpha Internet Café and Cape Town’s Café Erte have been shortlisted among the world’s best places to surf the internet.
No image available
/ 6 September 2004
South Africa’s online publishing industry is attracting millions of highly educated, high-earning users, mostly from Johannesburg and under 34 years old, the Online Publishers’ Association announced on Monday. More than 3,5-million users supported the industry in August, clocking up 106-million page impressions.
While no milestone album, Cowboy Junkies’ <i>One Soul Now</i> is damn nice. There are plenty sad bluesy guitar chords to be savoured on their 10th album. Riaan Wolmarans lends an ear.
Saturday August 28 has been declared Software Freedom Day and the Go Open Source campaign and Linux user groups are hosting "install-fests" across South Africa. Members of the public will be able to take their computers to one of these national install-fests to have open-source software installed.
Telkom on Monday confirmed that it has been requested to postpone planned retrenchments until it has concluded consultation talks with labour unions on the rationale to reduce staff numbers — but added that it will be able to start such retrenchments on September 14.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=120444">Unions draw battle lines with Telkom</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=120408">Telkom backtracks on retrenchments </a>
The <i>Sunday Times</i> newspaper on Monday reacted to claims by Peter Snyman, the late Brenda Fassie’s manager, that the paper had inaccurately reported his statements about Fassie in a story titled "Brenda Fassie poison probe". Snyman has now denied saying Fassie had taken drugs the night before she was taken to hospital, or that the drugs had been tampered with.
Record label USM just keeps ’em coming to please South Africa’s dance aficionados, and several recent USM releases do not disappoint. Riaan Wolmarans lends a willing ear to the sounds of the Deeper Sound of Craig de Sousa and others.
The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> has again trodden on trademark toes, not even a month after becoming embroiled in an ongoing battle over the use of "for dummies" in one of its sport headlines, with Wileys Publishing in the United States claiming the phrase as a registered trademark for its series of self-help books.
When you’ve got smoulderingly hot looks, a sexy singing voice and a heap of chart-topping pop hits with infections Latino rhythms, there is not much that can go wrong when you perform live, even if you wear a funny tea cosy on your head, writes Riaan Wolmarans of Enrique Iglesias’s performance on Sunday.
Embark on a motorcycle race through "Hellbrow". Test your memory after smoking a spliff. Talk to a Jo’burg glue kid wearing a lurid purple outfit. Make your own music in a Rasta’s studio. Battle enemy helicopters over Johannesburg. These are just some of the fun things to do on local outfit Binary Dredd’s new album, <i>Underground</i>, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
In the sleeve notes of <i>Patience</i>, George Michael says his colleagues know the meaning of patience, as the album took five years to make. He also thanks his fans for waiting patiently. But if one is going to make people wait this long for something, their patience had better be rewarded, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
‘I am not a one-trick pony," Nelly Furtado sings on <i>One-Trick Pony</i>, the opening track of <i>Folklore</i> (Universal), the follow-up to her hit debut album Whoa Nelly!. And one has to agree wholeheartedly, writes Riaan Wolmarans.
South African radio presenter Gareth Cliff has been suspended for two days by national music station 5fm as a result of an "interview" he conducted with "Jesus" on his show on Tuesday afternoon, which elicited numerous complaints from listeners. Cliff on Wednesday apologised to his listeners.
No image available
/ 6 February 2004
Acclaimed rock supergroup Limp Bizkit, famous for their heady mix of hip-hop and metal, on Tuesday announced the postponement of their South African tour, which had been due to start in Cape Town on April 2. Riaan Wolmarans reports.