Zoe Ngombane
In February of 2010 while some were preparing for the Soccer World Cup, Boekenhout was cooking up something a little more indigenous to Tuks. Boekenhout was putting together an album, Waglys. Its residents submitted entries of original music, in any language. Out of the 26 music entries, 15 were selected by an external board of adjudicators made up of local professional musicians. An album was then put together. A fair upgrade from the earlier years of Boekenhout CDs that consisted mostly of one musician singing to the tune of a guitar.
“[There were] months of back and forth between us and the recording studio, mixing and mastering the tracks,” said Marno Kirstein, who is at the forefront of the Boekenhout CD project. “We even made a few extra trips to Nelspruit, where the actual recording studio is situated, to re-record some of the vocals and instrumentation,” he added.
The album is titled Waglys, refering to the fact that the waiting list is an unfortunate reality in the life of a Tuks residence student.
The launch of their 15 track album saw Boekenhout light up with music to a cheering crowd. There were many vastly different genres on the CD: from a bit of jazz to attempted ballads. The launch gave the audience a taste of what is on the album. They performed an indie track “Life” and a fun, if not politically incorrect title “Siamese Twins”. The Boekenhout song “Nog `n Dagie” was a sure favourite. Some interesting ones included “Chocolate Milk Cookies”, a song supposedly about everyday disasters of the modern-day student, but also a song which you hope wasn’t a serious attempt at quality. “Chocolate Milk” is a track that will have you in stitches, either because of the ridiculously humorous lyrics or because of its total lack of quality. The drum and guitars of “Sunny With a Chance of Pain” help make this track a sing-along, although the lyrics are painfully corny and uninspired. The song “Kiekies” by Henk Otto won the prize for the song most eligible for a music video and the video was shown at the launch. All in all, the album is of a good production standard. There are some really good songs and some I- -can’t-believe-that-made-it-onto-the-album songs.
The album sells for R150 in a CD/DVD package and it is just the beginning for Waglys. Boekenhout is planning on sending their music video to MK once they’ve aired the footage of the album launch. The final leg of the project is to finish a short documentary on the CD project. “[It has taken] about twenty months so far. We’re not professionals. We are students, we stuff around,” said Kirstein. “We have to count on people working for peanuts, on Echo Studio, on doing the live recording, all on a shoe-string budget,” added Kirstein during his speech at the album launch. They made it this far with a full recorded album, that’s got to be something to be proud of.
