MUSIC: Another South African talent I think you will enjoy - Robin Auld

Hi everybody on HIVE and especially the Music Community! I am writing to you from Cape Town, South Africa!

One of my main hobbies is song-writing in a variety of styles and emotions, and these days I usually perform my songs with acoustic guitar, vocals, harmonica and (more recently) stomp-box with my old school friend and fellow HIVEAN @Clairemobey.

I am taking a three-pronged approach to writing about MUSIC on HIVE:

1. My own song-writing and performances with Claire. You can read about our most recent performance together here: https://ecency.com/hive-193816/@jasperdick/music-live-video-a-new

2. I also love to make interesting sounds by playing more obscure instruments that people might not expect. My first post on that subject was posted only very recently here but people seem to be enjoying it so far: https://ecency.com/hive-193816/@jasperdick/music-live-video-wacky-instruments

3. My third interest is to try and expose everybody on HIVE to other South African musicians that I think are very talented and deserve to be listened to around the world. Some of them have at least made some reputation for themselves in the music scene here in South Africa, while others are almost completely unknown. Please see here for my first post on the topic: https://ecency.com/hive-193816/@jasperdick/music-another-south-african-talent

It's this third topic I would like to come back to in this post and talk about a musician I had the privilege to watch and learn from just over a month ago: ROBIN AULD

It is very strange that I had never watched Robin Auld play before. I used to help organise little local gigs while serving on the Barleycorn Music Club Committee, where I got to see many of Robin Auld’s peers and I did hear a lot about him.

Because of this, about a month ago… at the last minute I decided to go back to the Cottage Club, where Claire and I had had our first successful paid gig together a few weeks previously, and watch Robin Auld do his thing.

Over 35 years after his radio hits – Robin Auld is still out there entertaining his old fans and making new ones (like me!)

Now why do I find Robin Auld so interesting?

1. He was releasing radio hits in South Africa in the mid-80s more or less at the time of my birth! He is actually about 62 now, but still performs with so much energy and professionalism!
2. He’s a surfer too (the main other hobby I write about on HIVE actually) … in fact, he was a competitive surfer in his youth, which is more than I can ever say about myself! One of his songs is about sitting in the ocean surfing, and thinking about if a shark does eat him, he hopes it swallows him whole!
3. His main instruments are guitar, vocals and harmonica – just like me, only with way more years of practice!
4. He often performs in a duo with another SA music star of the 80s and 90s who never gave up, Wendy Oldfield – and I therefore use their duo performances to inspire myself and my friend @clairemobey.
5. Many things that he did that night I got to watch him about a month ago, have also inspired me:

• By my very next gig I was playing on a stomp-box by the same local maker, there’s a picture of it down below.
• He used a loop pedal on many of his songs – this is a device that allows you to record and play-back a few bars of music in a loop that you can then add layers to and jam over. I own a loop pedal – I normally use it to make full length demo recordings of myself and Claire – but his gig, and another by Lukin Joshua, have inspired me to try to do at least one live loop pedal performance by our next gig.
• Acoustic guitar distortion – when Robin had recorded a loop and wanted to play lead guitar over it – he would often use a pedal to make his acoustic guitar sound a bit more like an electric guitar. This is definitely something that I want to research. Sometimes, he would actually swap out guitars and grab a real electric guitar if he was going to do a long enough solo!
• Another thing that blew my mind was how quickly he whipped a slide out of his pocket and used this in his solos… in standard tuning! I think I have only ever tried to play slide in open tunings! The theory of playing slide guitar seems obvious, but the execution takes practice! Haha!

Thanks to Robin Auld’s music, and his super friendly advice when we chatted after the gig, I am now the proud owner of a stomp-box which is sounding great when the bass is turned up nice and high! I have actually sold a digital stomp pedal (which I hated) in favor of a well-designed block of wood with a mic inside! It sounds much better, the volume changes with the intensity of stomping, and it just feels more honest!

Here is one of Robin’s more upbeat songs in his duo with Wendy Oldfield (they call themselves Auldfield!) at the Barleycorn about 10 years ago. I should have been a youngster on the committee at the time, so I’m sorry I missed this performance in person!

More recently, here’s Wendy Oldfield playing one of her songs with Robin Auld backing her up on resonator guitar. What a voice she has – my dad often talks about his days watching live music when he was much younger and these are the kinds of people they would watch. It’s so nice they’re still playing – and I hope I can say the same when I’m in my 60s!

Well, I hope you enjoy Robin Auld's music, and how it is inspiring me to push my/our performance to try and sound as full as I/we can!

THE END