The first time I got stoned I’m talking about
seriously stoned not the first time I smoked
marijuana
Was the night of the first “free and fair”
general elections
as if all of this had been up until now a friendly affair
between two groups of people who saw eye to eye
on most things
and were only now extending an olive branch like a
baton not running aside one another
arms pumping
like the action of guns.
That night which was a public holiday we
met at Horison View Shopping Centre
but ended up at the tunnels
mike and warren chris ryan and I
there were five of us, but warren couldn’t
stay he still stayed way out west near randfontein
And later on after we started clubbing together
ryan would have to drive warren all the way
out past krugersdorp along ontdekkers to drop
him off and I would come with as I was
always the last one to get dropped off either
that or I would walk home from 904
Late at night. There was never anyone around.
But on the night of the first free and fair
general elections
after the tunnels as we drove out to le club
in ryan’s opel kadett
after playing windjammers
which was when I realised I was really stoned
for the first time in my life
mike turned around, from where he sat in the front
passenger seat and looked at us and said
And Then There Were Four
and that is how it was and that is how it stayed
when mike said something it generally stayed said.
But I want to tell you about Roodepoort Refridgeration
and how it felt to get really seriously stoned for the first
time and what it meant to be around friends who were
brothers and who shared everything like drugs but not
women women were a problem especially for me.
and I wanted to get the feeling absolutely right and not
just recall I want to be there I want to go back to when
I was nineteen, and everything was new and fresh and
clean, even the drugs that we did and the communion
mike rolled the slow boat in the front seat of the kadett
while we sat in the back watching him roll
and listening to him talk about the things he would talk
about.
I couldn’t roll joints yet
I would have to roll the rizla around a bic pen and then
seal it and remove the bic
and then scoop the dope
up into the little white tube, that I had made, by myself
And one evening back at 904 nicole was there and the
guys were fucking around in other parts of the flat, and
I had to roll a joint like that
in front of nicole and she was sweet about it
but I felt completely useless really
And later that night at the scarlet arms
we were all sitting around a table stoned and drinking draught
And nicole was sitting next to me she reached across and put
Her Hand on My Leg
and I left it there like that, and I didn’t respond and she got up
and left with gwen I didn’t know she was going home
I thought she was coming back and I was really excited about
her coming back, to sit down next to me again
and this time I would turn to her and smile and
When she didn’t I said to mike much later nicole reached over
and put her hand on my leg and Mike laughed
and said nicole will break you. But she never did.
We listed to NME Singles of the Year 1993 while mike rolled
and spoke about new wave new wave and how far behind
the american scene actually was how the british ruled the
airwaves
This is the tracklist of that album that from that night on was
in ryan’s kadett everytime we went to le club:
1 Arrested Development– Tennessee (4:09)
2 Belly– Gepetto (Remix) (3:27)
3 Senser– The Key (Radio Edit) (3:31)
4 Madder Rose– Madder Rose (2:51)
5 One Dove– White Love (Radio Mix) (4:40)
6 Tindersticks– Marbles (4:37)
7 Credit To The Nation– Call It What You Want (3:57)
8 Utah Saints– Believe In Me (3:41)
9 Swervedriver– Duel (4:40)
10 Bjork– Venus As A Boy (Edit) (4:05)
11 Elastica– Stutter (2:23)
12 Spiritualized– Good Times (4:08)
13 Smashing Pumpkins– Cherub Rock (4:59)
14 Apache Indian– Movin’ On Special (3:59)
15 PJ Harvey– 50ft Queenie (2:24)
16 Sugar– Tilted (3:54)
17 Grant Lee Buffalo– America Snoring (3:40)
18 Leftfield / Lydon– Open Up (Vocal Edit) (3:50)
My favourite track on this disc quickly became America Snoring which is where I think I remember what mike was saying about the american and british scenes of course if you listen to this track which I still do you will see it really isn’t about divergent scenes after all and while I don’t think mike was deliberately obfuscating no matter that he was a gifted storyteller and I hung on his words often and quite literally he had the persona and the magnetism to pull these kinds of things off and we were all basically young and full of shit anyway.
It was such a hit with me that chris and nicki who became chris’s girl after the accident on my kawasaki kb250 in 97 where chris broke his leg and chris wasn’t wearing a helmet we were lucky always lucky and nicki became his wife bought me the Grant Lee Buffalo album Fuzzy that has this track on it and while I didn’t fully appreciate that at the time I still have this album and I listen to it often although mostly these days on spotify.
After mike had finished rolling the joint we climbed out of the kadett
and walked all the way down past where chris lived on sonop street
past ryan mother’s flat also on sonop that ryan had just moved out
of into 904
And down the grass embankment and towards the tunnels
which are basically these man-height open stormdrains
where you can walk in and all the way up them warren said
this is something we should do so we were doing it.
And after the first bend with ourselves only very slightly stooped
and in almost absolute darkness except for the lighter
we lit that spliff and warren started up the doop-doop
song after we started dragging on it and passing it around
And we were whooping and bopping to this song that held every
thing inside the way you held your breath for as long as you
could after taking a drag and we were coughing and laughing
and singing as we made it out the tunnels all over ourselves
in the sheer delight of all we were doing all that we were the
boys we still were the men we would one day become but not
right now and we were running as if we were free truly always
and forever free and fair unto each other and everyone and the
whole world was with us and we were with and of the world and
we clambered up the embankment at the edge of sonop street
and then someone saw it and one of us shouted out the words
painted on the side of the building across the street the words
roodepoort refridgeration spelled as wrong as they were it still
made sense everything made sense to our young beautiful selves
trapped in the light escaped in the night and lungful after lungful
expunged in that glorious warcry that placed us where we were
because we belonged where we found ourselves which was in
roodepoort roodepoort roodepoort re—fridge—ahh-rayyyshunn!
We walked back up sonop and we were breathless and alive for
the very first time in our lives and we said goodbye to warren
although we saw him again and so often after that
and then the four of us piled into ryan’s kadett and we made
Our way to le club with NME’s Singles of the Year 1993 blaring
out of the kadet’s old crappy speakers in 12 watts of distortion
Like a warcry that we now owned.
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