Posts:
17.05.08 : 
[video]

National Wake - International News

Following the 1976 Soweto uprising, in which students protesting apartheid were murdered by state police, Ivan Kadey and brothers Gary and Punka Khoza did what countless others have done when feeling helpless and frustrated, in need of a voice: they started a punk band. They mixed Stooges-esque garage, the repurposed disco structures and acerbic political analysis of bands like the Pop Group and Gang of Four, two-tone ska, reggae, and African polyrhythms into one heady setlist. But more on the rowdy and raw hard-rock end of things, “International News” took aim at the role of the international media in perpetuating both apartheid and the atrocities of the Angolan War of Independence with sensationalistic reporting. Unsurprisingly, National Wake found themselves the subject of state police surveillance and censorship, making it difficult to secure spaces to play. The pressure eventually split the band apart, but they hadn’t been forgotten; preserved through tape trading and Kadey’s own record-keeping, their recorded material is now available in its original, uncensored condition thanks to Light in the Attic. (pitchfork)

(Source: youtube.com)