I came back in 1992, maybe forever, maybe for a while, I didn't know then. I came with Melanie, a South African I met in London. On the day Mandela walked free, I left my wife, Lisa, at home and went to watch the event at Mel's place with a posse of other South African ex-pats. Mel and I went on to become lovers and partners.

When Mrs Thatcher resigned the UK premiership, my fellow workers at Orbis Publishing stood on their desks and cheered, but that didn't stop the shareholders from sending in a Thatcherite managing director to rationalize our operation. The loadsamoney culture of the 1980s had come to an end, and it was time to balance the books. I volunteered for redundancy and received a handsome payout for my 31/2 years' service, enough for a ticket to SA and (with the ever-more-favourable Pounds to Rands exchange rate) living expenses for 3 months.

As the grey and claustrophobic London months rolled into years, I tended more and more toward the latter view. The host country, which actually had been quite good to me, was spiritually dead, a place where nobody believed in anything anymore. South Africa, on the other hand, was a country of passion, a place where you could really feel things and create something meaningful. Benoni and Jo'burg was where the good life was; Benoni was a place peopled with heroic degenerates, ace musicians and dope-smoking Kings. And so it was that when Cliff introduced me to his buddy Sean Cronwright, Sean seemed to me to be the unacknowledged King of Benoni.

He certainly fitted the bill. For one thing, Sean is a direct-line descendant of Paul Kruger, former boer president of the South African Republic (a.k.a. the Transvaal). Now Oom Paul, as everyone knows, was an ultra-arch-conservative. But his great, great, great (or whatever) grandson, I observed with glee, epistomized many of the things I had celebrated in East Rand (white) youth culture: jolling, drinking to excess, smoking enormous amounts of dope and hanging out in your parents' house listening to Sonic Youth for years on end instead of getting a job. (This is, of course, my fantasy about what I wanted to Sean to represent for me at that time. There is a lot more to the man than this.) I'm not exactly advocating Sean's lifestyle as the answer to life's problems, but I envied and admired his attitude. I had just spent the past four years busting my gut to build a career in England, getting married (and separated) and struggling to pay the bills, and I'm sure not advocating that as a better way.

Cliff and I began jamming again at the earliest opportunity. We had both developed a little more musical sophistication since Roach '88. In 1990-91, I went through a heavy Miles, Mingus, Coltrane phase, and played a couple of small gigs in London with a pseudo-jazz combo consisting of Maritzburg-born Andrew Eagle on keys, an English anti-apartheid campaigner, Helen Haig, on vocals, and myself on bass. Andrew, a gifted pianist, guitarist and songwriter, was one of the first graduates of the University of Natal jazz school co-founded by Darius Brubeck (son of Dave).

No sooner had Cliff and I had a couple of jam sessions, than Cliff managed to bullshit his way into a gig for us. This was not just any gig, but an appearance at South Africa's first-ever Woodstock-type event, Rustler's Valley, a 3-day festival to be held near Fouriesburg on the Lesotho border. Now I know, loyal reader, that the intro to this page promises to reveal "How Roach got to play The Rustler's Valley Mountain Music Experience," but that was just a bit of cheap seduction to get you to read my story. Truth is, I don't know how Cliff got us the gig. So if you want to stop reading now, I'll understand.

Mel and I did a lot of travelling in SA back in '92 (Cape Town, Durban, Niew Bethesda and elsewhere), so by the time I got back to Jo'burg, Mystery Roach had about 2 weeks left to rehearse for the Valley gig. We hadn't played together as a band for 4 years and, as usual, found ourselves without a drummer. This time, it was Wayne who was in the army, but Eric Loos, drummer for Harpo Speaks, was out, so we hooked up with him again. As in '87, Meinhardt came to the rescue, this time by risking his tenancy, and marriage, to provide us with a rehearsal space in his Yeoville flat. He was often on hand to provide musical guidance and also once treated me to a crash course in lyric composition. This involved eating a lot of boerwors and drinking endless black & tans in his kitchen one night (black & tan = half milk stout/half lager). It was great and I'd love to do it again, though I can't say I learned too much about lyrics.

Meinhardt also offered coaching in nutrition, which came in handy for those late night rehearsals and interrupted eating routines. His researches showed that fish paste, marmite and peanut butter together provided all of the nutrients essential to the optimum functioning of the human body, provided that you ate this stuff with toast or bread. Shortly thereafter, what remained of his hair fell out.  

L to R: Sean, Cliff, David atop The Valley

OK, so it was all a bit last-minute, but rehearsals went well nevertheless. Perhaps you could attribute this to maturity. I would like to believe that our egos were a little bit smaller, our tempers that much more even, our self-confidence somewhat stronger than in 1987. We had a bunch of new toons, too. Along with 'Saddam Hussein', Cliff contributed: 'Yuppie Cracking', a post-80's morality tale undercut by an atmosphere of gentle menace; and 'Crushed Roach', a frantic parody of a metal anthem. For this song, Eric was actually given permission to "play like Conan the Barbarian," which is how he always wanted to play anyway. For my part, I introduced our environment-friendly Green Song, 'Save the Whales', a 12-bar blues inspired by a Cheech & Chong lyric:

The big weekend arrived and we all piled into the Roachmobile (i.e. Cliff's Mom's car) for the 5-hour journey to Fouriesburg. Cliff, me, Eric, Sean and my brother David (the Brother of the Band), plus camping gear, guitars and basses. It was Roach on tour. Finally.

The Roachmobile sailed down an Afrikan mountainscape into the Valley, and there set up camp next to to The Blue Chameleons, a bunch of amiable popsters and dope-fiends from The Rand Afrikaans University. The King of Benoni presided, and kept the zoll-a-rolling and the biers-a-flowing to soothe our nerves in preparation for Friday night.

Friday was given over mainly to new and relatively unknown bands, with Saturday reserved for established acts like The Genuines, James Philips, and Ella Mental, the latter recently returned from exile in the Republic of Ireland. I had expected Roach to be about 2nd on stage on Friday, but as the evening wore on, for some unknown reason, we moved up and up the bill. Eventually, we found ourselves placed after the rather legendary Radio Rats. One thing's for sure, Cliff must have done an incredibly good bullshit job to get us that gig.

If life is islands of ecstasy in an ocean of ennui, as someone once wrote, then playing in a band is a half-hour damage-limitation exercise under the spotlight after eternity of standing around like a tit waiting for something to happen. This kind of thing makes me nervous. As we shuffled around at the side of the stage, Roaches to the slaughter, some guy asked us for autographs. Now that had never happened before (or since, sob!). Clifford, bless his pointy little head and vast beak-like proboscis, nominated me as the signatory, but this just added to my feeling of: "Who are we to be going on after the Radio Rats? We're just a bunch of also-rans from Benoni. We're not even supposed to be here! Who am I to be signing autographs next to a big stage with flashing lights and lasers going off all over the place?"

We ascended the steps. The sound engineer, who allegedly had also worked at the real Woodstock Festival, asked us what kind of mix we wanted. What? We actually get to have a say in what we sound like? No one had ever asked us that before. "Dunno," I said. "Like a normal 3-piece, sort of like a ZZ Top kind of thing..." Christ.

And then the MC so he could introduce us: "Hey, what kind of music do you guys play?" No one had ever asked us that before, either, at least not right before we were about to go on stage.

Uncertain glances passed between Clifford and myself. There was a collective furrowing of brows and holding of chins. 1, 2, 3, 4, perhaps 5 seconds agonized by. "Uh, rock music?" I enquired, hopefully. I wish I had said Roachmuzik.

"This is Mystery Roach, they're from Benoni, they're gonna play you some great.... Rock music," announced the MC. And we were on. 'Saddam Hussein Swing' followed by 'Bokjoll', which the crowd seemed to like. 'Crushed Roach' and 'Save the Whales' went down a storm. An Afrikaans stage manager looked pissed off when we played our reasonably offensive Afrikaans song, 'Plaashond Vastrap'. Could it be true that we were no longer allowed to take the piss out of each other in the transitional South Africa?

Eric on Acid

I manifested my nervousness mainly by talking an awful lot of bullshit to the audience in-between songs. Unfortunately, Eric gave me ample opportunity for this because he managed to break his drum clutch[plate], or some such, and it took him forever to fix it. So while Eric crawled underneath his drums and Clifford just stood there, I talked bollox. Here´s a bit of banter that took place between yours truly (P) and a member of the audience (A).

P. Now we gonna play our green song, which we composed ´specially for Rustler´s Valley.

A. Hey, ou, what kind of green? What kind of green!

P. Dysentery green [plagiarised from Zappa, so no points for original wit on this occasion].

Our set dragged on a bit too long but I think we went down OK. Here's what Glynis O'Hara said about us, and others, in the Jo'burg newspaper The Star Tonight! , Friday April 24 1992.

There we was - waiting in the dust for the Blue Chameleons, the Mystery Roach, Radio Rats, The Earthlings, The Mambas and other such-like critters. The setting was right - an isolated valley surrounded by hills, a monolithic cliff face, a completely crazy hotel held together by ceramics along the walls and a lot of faith - and a gathering of truly 90's post-hippies.

The occasion was the Rustler's Mountain Music Experience, held in Rustler's Valley near Fouriesburg. And possibly the best thing about it was the amount of new talent it turned up. Three days of music, over 20 bands, 1,800 of the faithful, an utterly loony village where people body-painted, chanted, made grotesque (but good) mud-sculptures...

The Blue Chameleons turned out to be a refreshing combo balancing Brit-type rock sounds with whisky blues and a Dylanesque moment. Could be the new teen band.

Mystery Roach were from Benoni, they told us, and took one straight back to the days of decadence in that 1980 Joubert Park club called DV8. They proved to have a fine sense of humour too, announcing their Green song, which "we composed especially for Rustler's Valley" and then breaking into the hardest rock. "Save the whales!" they shouted and moaned, 600km from the sea. Nouveau environmentalism of the best kind, I'd say.

The Streaks from Cape Town introduced two saxes to the usual line-up and were really the major discovery of the weekend. Playing an eclectic mix of kwela/township/ska/rock they sometimes sounded like the once more defunct Dynamics, but with lyrics. The lead vocalist was perhaps not quite strong enough, but it hardly mattered when they were pumping out a happy, boppy sound that the crowd adored... (& etc.)

There was a fair amount of friendly rivalry between us and fellow critters The Blue Chameleons (some of whom went on to tour with Boo! in 2000 or thereabouts). The Chameleons taunted us by stomping on imaginary roaches outside their tents, while Clifford, looking for all the world like Robert de Niro in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear, plotted the multiple unspeakable fates of the first chameleon unlucky enough to cross his path.

If we were high, they were completely bombed out of their heads the whole time on a Checkers supermarket bag full of finest quality Afrikan weed. After 36 hours or so of this activity, Ampie, the trombone player, embarked upon a long and meaningful relationship with an orange. Here's how it all started, sometime after lunch:

Ampie: "Ous, check this orange xsê. This is my orange. I'm going to eat it."

4 hours later: "Hey look, there's my orange. I forgot to eat my orange. I'm just going to eat my orange now, OK?"

2 hours later, nightfall: "Oh shit, my orange, where's my orange ous? I still haven't eaten my orange (locates orange). I'm just going to eat my orange now, OK?

71/2 minutes later: Check my orange ous. I'm going to eat my orange now, OK?"

5 hours later, the Valley sleeps and all is still; a cricket's tiny song floats on the gentlest of breezes; a lone voice chimes out of the darkness: "Hey ous, you know that orange I was going to eat? ...I lost it."

My money was running out and I had to make a decision. I had done some freelance work for Learn & Teach in Johannesburg, but not enough to live on. Around the time of the last rehearsals for Rustler's Valley, I also fell out with my Dad, who threw me my out of the family home. Suddenly, South Africa didn't feel like home anymore. In the end, I went back to London: because suddenly SA didn't feel like home; because my job options seemed better in the UK; because I was interested in training as a shrink there. Excuses, excuses, I know. I have lived in London ever since.