Monday, September 1, 2008

T. Musicman is doing it again!

The Anita Baker concert was a disaster and the promoter, a Mr Tladi, is trying to wiggle out of it by blaming her. Unfortunately, he was not addressing the issue why there were much more tickets sold than seats available and how he could claim the event was at a state-of-the-art venue when it was only in a dull Nasrec hangar, with atrocious accoustics. In all, a rather unconvincing apology. And the promoter is laughing all the way to the bank!

At this weekend's Joy of Jazz festival, T.Musicman was at it again! Unbelievable, that they provided the sound for the entire festival. What is going on here? They must have some good friends in high places. Or is there no competition when it comes to staging art events?

On friday, at the Dinaledi stage, the first show had the usual sound problems. When I say usual, I mean for T. Musicman, not for jazz concerts! When the Original All Stars of Jazz Fusion came on stage, to ensure proper sound was a constant problem - the artists' had to signal all the time and the technicians were spinning around the stage non-stop.

On saturday, at the Bassline, the quiet sounds of Thord Gustafson were overshadowed by a blaring sound system.

Unfortunately, we will not have seen and heard the last of T.Musicman. Given the contracts they had cornered, they seem to have too good connections to be booted out.

In South Africa, what matters first is your connections, delivery and accountability feature much later. While this story was concerned with frivolous entertainment for the well-heeled, this is a recurrent aspect of our society, what a pity!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Thomas,This tendecy is rearing its ugly head in number of fields. For example the lack- lustre performance of the South African olympic team of which I lay the blame on the likes of Bhutana Khompela and the like; The continuous mediocre performance of the national soccer team whith incompetent administrators hanging on to their jobs no matter what, which is equivalent to Mswati's antics in Swazind.

In fact we are a national that is corrupt aned incompetent to the core. Right now we need to come with a "political solution" to individuals who are strongly suspected of corruption and extortion just because the mob is "willing to kill" for him. Yes, racial qoutas, 'deployment of cadres',Floor crossing, are some the political jargon we have to live with as we witness primitive accumulation and class formation rearing its ugly head in the "shining star of Africa".