One To eVoid

Way back when I started this blog I thought about doing a series of posts featuring the music of my celebrity acquaintances. I got as far as the lead singer of Gnidrolog and then stopped. Three years later we pick the theme up again with Erik Windrich, singer and songwriter with 1980s South African new wave popsters, eVoid.

Erik and I went to school together at the Christian Brothers College in Boksburg, where men were men and so, we strongly suspected, was Mrs Wiese the geography teacher. Where we marched in military uniform through the streets of Boksburg every St. Patrick's Day. And where Father Francis would invite the more attractive boys to join him in the sauna to discuss matters of religious importance.

We also performed together in the school production of HMS Pinafore. Admittedly he took the lead role of Ralph Rackstraw while I was a mere sister or cousin or aunt - being a few years younger and my voice having not yet broken - but I'm counting it. It was about the same time he first performed original material, a series of songs telling the story of the prodigal son.

He then disappeared off the scene, not unlike the prodigal son, only to reappear in the early 1980s fronting eVoid and wearing all sorts of make-up of which the Christian Brothers would not have approved. They had a massive hit with 'Taximan' and their self-titled debut album. Partly to avoid conscription they then relocated to London, as I myself had done a few years before. Their second album, 'Here Comes The Rot' sadly proved all too prophetic and they petered out not long afterwards.   

Listening to them nearly thirty years on, a lot of their songs sound dated and sometimes a bit derivative - you can hear traces of Men Without Hats on the first track below and The Beat on the second. But at the time they really were an invigorating force in South African music, not least for being one of the few white bands that showed any awareness they were from Africa. As you can hear on the excellent 'Civil Servant'.

"Inda-Inda-Indaba" - eVoid

"Kwela Walk" - eVoid

"Civil Servant" - eVoid

It is good to see Erik is still going strong, or at least he was a couple of years back.


   
And here they are back in their prime.



Look out for another exciting instalment in this series in 2015.