Sweet moerkoffie

If you go to Pondoland you are more than likely to see a Xhosa farmer in a leather cowboy hat with country and western blaring from his Mahindra bolero.
I don’t like country. No, still don’t get turned on by Johnny Cash.
But last night Luna Paige and her band (Schalk Joubert on bass, Kevin Gibson drums, and Henry Steel guitars) messed with my hat.
It was her voice and mien. She’s a bit of a sweet Afrikaner meisie with a large chunk of eff-you attitude thrown in.
They seem to come from those hills on the far north-eastern edge of Cape Town. A farm, she said.
At first, I thought ah hell, more one-dimensional Afrikaner koeksuster sing-a-longs with son brilletjies for all those hearts broken after the braai.
So wrong.

Yes, she is very Afrikaans and that’s why I got more and more into it.
She has this voice. It’s super-big and super-polished and seemingly indestructable. And it definitely has the twang.
What is she doing? She has the country standard sound nailed, but there’s something else …
With Guy Buttery (whom I saw next), you look hard for melody or chorus. With Luna Paige you have that affirming (for those who want it) repetition, but coming through from the margin is a hint of a jazz or blues, or a riff that goes to the dirty-rotten core of rock n roll.
Just a hint, a whiff, a moment. Sneakin’ around  but definitely there. And that is where I found Luna Paige and friends.
I thought, jiss, I could be driving on the vlaktes towards Hofmeyr with that billboard blaring only 65km to go Wimpy, and I would gladly flip the band’s Borders & Beyond CD into the deck. It would do it for me.
I reckon that Pondoland farmer would feel the same.