NATIONAL WAKE-ST (80s South African punk) CD

The scene for developing free-thinking rock music in South Africa was a struggle against social and political barriers unlike any place else in the world at that time, except perhaps for the Eastern Block countries then under the thumb of USSR era communism.

This is a story of struggle, the sum total of which reaches far beyond the music:  National Wake, the band Ian Kadey led in the late 70s and early 80s, were South Africa's first, and indeed only, multiracial punk band. And yet Kadey had kept this unique story to himself, partly because he thought no one was interested (National Wake split in 1982 just after putting out their solitary release, an album of which only 500 copies were pressed), but also, Kadey says, because "it was too painful for me, so I just buried it". The band's two black members, brothers Gary and Punka Khoza had subsequently died:  the former had struggled with mental illness and killed himself; the latter died from an Aids-related illness. " Kadey formed National Wake in the aftermath of the Soweto uprising of 1976 – "one of the conditions of living in a repressive state like that is that it just seems impossible to do anything about it, there's a kind of paralysis, but that was a real 'get up, stand up' moment:  look at these kids, it's time to take up the fight" – their sound influenced by British and American punk and Bob Marley. If the South African authorities had somehow managed to overlook Bob Marley, they didn't miss National Wake, whose songs didn't exactly cloak their political message in layers of impenetrable metaphor. In three minutes, the band's signature tune 'International News' manages to decry state censorship, the war in Angola and what guitarist Steve Moni calls "the ostrich life of suburban South Africa, just spending your time deliberately trying not to notice things". They seem to have been viewed with a certain awe even by rival punk bands: "They had an aura, like wanted men," says Michael Flek, frontman of South Africa's first punk band Wild Youth. "When they showed up it was like the revolutionaries had arrived"

Tracklist
1     Wake Of The Nation     5:52
2     Dreams In My Head     3:07
3     International News     3:22
4     Bolina     6:04
5     Kalabash     5:46
6     Supaman     5:13
7     Time And Place     3:31
8     Student Life     4:05
9     Xighangu Xamina     3:27
10     Stratocaster     4:39
11     Mercenaries     4:05
12     Black Punk Rockers     3:20
13     Walk In Africa