Wakey! Wakey!

Yesterday I posted some early 80s punk/ new wave from South Africa. If you liked that and wanted to explore further you could do a lot worse than visit Rhythm Online, an online store that specialises in South African pop and rock. In among a lot of rubbish they have a fair few gems from my youth, such as Radio Rats and Kalahari Surfers.

While browsing on there the other day I came across a band of a similar vintage that passed me by completely at the time: National Wake. They were a mixed race punk/ reggae band, which should have made them stand out in apartheid-era South Africa, but somehow I missed them. Matsuli Music did a feature on them a couple of years ago that tells you more than I can, and more coherently too. The members included Steve Moni who had been in the Safari Suits and went on to be in the Popguns, both of whom I mentioned yesterday.

Rhythm Online has available for download an album called "Prague Set" which, from what I can gather, is their original album released in 1981 with a couple of extra tracks. There is some great stuff on there. Here are a couple of examples.

"Wake Of The Nation"

"Walk In Africa"

I haven't found any clips that go with that, so here is something completely different.