The first time i ever saw a credit card being used for an alternative purpose other than paying for Woollies veggies was one late Tuesday eve while sucking hard on a Black Label brown-bottled beer. I was settled in the more relaxed room where sat a pool table and billows of smoke bubbled around bobbing heads. The background beats being spun by the disc jockey were sweet, slow and seamless. I scoured the room to find a seat, pulled the stool, sat down and let the bar lean on me. With my hands clutching the ale, I watched all that played out before me. There, sat a bit away, was a long-haired kid. With his chequered Vans, ripped Diesel jeans and parachute material track top, he fit right in like cream stains at a strip joint. As a mad scientist, he meticulously, cut up a heavy heap of powdery blow into short sharp lines readying it to be sniffed deep into his cerebellum.
206 was a bar club perched on the snaking Louis Botha avenue in Johannesburg in the mid to late 90’s. Louis Botha was no desirous place to hang out yet it harboured this contrarian locale far away from the polished hoods of BMW’s, ice cold Absolute and 3 tiered collars.
206 spawned a counter culture giving air and space to alternative sounds, hipster attire and a left-of-centre crowd seeking paths, thoughts and substances less beaten.
Garth, his handle bar ‘stouche bent just right for ding dong donuts on a two stroke, his plaid shirts fitted right for lumber jacking in south Dakota and his gravelly voice suited to scaring the bejesus out of under-age drinkers, sat bouncer, opened the front door to usher me in. I waded through the densely packed bar clustered in tables and chairs set haphazard like lily pads in Paris. A band plays, and her howling sends me scuttling through the rabbits warren of rooms and themes eventually spitting me out into the open air courtyard where a sweet scent lingered like a zeppelin in the air as the corduroy-clad crew puffed the magic dragon. Set in the corner, a haphazard hole in the wall, sat the bar. And there at the bar sat Dave Matthews.
In ‘95 or so, my older brother introduced me to music. From that year, I’d spend hours listening to cd’s he’d suggested, hours working tables in an Italian restaurant to buy cd’s he’d suggested, and hours scouring CD Warehouse for new cd’s he would suggest and then one fine day he came to my room spinning a cd on his index finger like Michael Jordan would a leathery basket ball. Leaning on the door post, he said, ‘Listen to this, boet.’ It was his copy of the Dave Matthews Band’s debut album, ‘Under the Table and Dreaming’.
I went over to the pc, double clicked on Solitaire, de-pressed the eject button, dropped the disc on the opened tray, pushed gently to close the tray like a tech beast would, and then hit play on Microsoft’s media player. As I flipped the first card, a 3 of spades, popped the black ear buds into my ear, I became inebriated.
The following Tuesday, I threw on my newly acquired surplus army pants and a general’s jacket, grooved my hair to the side, grabbed the well worn Under the Table and Dreaming album, a fat koki pen and revved that Mazda hard till I arrived at 206. This, all in the hope that i’d bump Dave.
Greeting Garth, he rubber stamped me and I bee-lined it for the outside courtyard.
Ploughing through the dense sticky smoke like Indiana, slashing my hands, pushing aside the detritus, there was a clearing, and there in the clearing sat Dave. I stood still.
Naive as Tusser’s cheese, I approached him, I greeted him.
Bumbling, he was liquidated but I didn’t care. ‘Please, Dave, sign my album’.
Clutching at my cd cover, he grabbed hold of the fat tip and scrawled, ‘Dan’. Then he drew a peace symbol, and continued with ‘Dave Matthews’.
As a fat kid licking an ice cream sundae with a dipped flake I reclaimed the album, tucked it deep into my jacket pocket and haven’t let it out of my sight since.
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