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(a speech delivered to people somewhere near Grahamstown, 'The Year in Review' meeting, Nov 1999)

Well allright. The year before the year zero, and you want me to talk about a soundtrack. This is my annual tequila day, and you want me to talk about a soundtrack. Jesus Christ, are you incredibly wrong. This is obviously the story of my own soundtrack, so sorry, no addendum B with quoted lyrics from Britney Spears or Just Jinger.

My soundtracks of the year were governed by roadtrips, cashflow problems and a fair measure of meddling with things I apparently don't quite get, like love and depression. Roadtrips, let's start there.

On the 1st of January, while most people were recovering from hangovers, I got into my Beetle (Bloureier) and drove down towards Cape Town. My cartape, which didn't quite work because my speaker was too small to carry the tapedeck, was called "Cradock to Calitzdorp to Cape Town - and other tunes for the road" and featured a range of live stuff from Sugardrive to David Kramer, Kristin Hersh and Battery 9 - who sings the theme song of my car - "Bloureier". It might be seen as ironic that the first song on my first cartape of the year was called "I started a joke" by Faith No More.

January was spent working in Cape Town to the sounds of the last albums of REM and PJ Harvey, while I also bought a brilliant compilation from 4AD which set the tone for nights spent alone in a kiff flat just off Kloof Street. Calitzdorp, by the way, on New Years Day, is not a place to be. I was the only person in the Hotel. The receptionist was also the barlady and cleaned my room the next day.

Back in Grahamstown, we all re-discovered the bliss of RMR, cd's that skip and DJs who say "fuck, cunt and bejesused" live on air. Fetish hit town somewhere along the line and we all (*edited bit*).

Possibly the year's most constant soundtrack was Bran van 3000. And it definitely became our anthem on one of the year's finest roadtrips, down to Oudtshoorn with Sam, Krisanne, Hockman, Becky etc. While posing as professional journalists and falling between complete drunken stupor to lsitening to Koos Kombuis telling English people to fuck off home to drinking free wine at parties we weren't invited to, the battle cry was always "our breaths are bad but our beers are stout, we've got nothing to complain about"

From there we lurched on to Cape Town, where we slithered into town to the tune of Dire Straits' "Heavy Fuel". In fucking deed. This little scuffle saw me mugged on the N2 somewhere near Gugulethu and Bonteheuwel. The fuckers demanded and got my old tapedeck radio on the back seat. I had the presence of mind to take out my Cake tape of "Fashion Nugget" - another album which costantly brings back memories of Cape Town and especially Kommetjie. My official car tape at the time, called "That other car tape - this could actually smudge" featured current shit like Mercury Rev, Sugar Ray, Kula Shaker, Stereophonics, Blur, John Lennon and Everlast, whose song "what it's like" must rank as one of the finest hits of the year. It also helped to inspire the hit which nobody plays from that other band The Buckfever Underground called "Die Volk is in die kak".

Term 2 fell into disarray when Karma came to town, that other band, the Buckfever Underground protested her presence by staying at home and watching Rescue 911. For more detailed rantings on Karma, ask Gil.

It was also around this time that Eminem's stupid hit about whiteboy crap became a worlwide hit, including around these parts. There's something very surreal about living on a farm near Cradock, going out to kill dassies and then sitting in front of your MTV with Eminem rapping on about the troubles of being white and American trash.

Around election time, I made a car tape called "Election Songs - and other ways to lie" which featured back-catalogue stuff from The Doors ("Adolf Hitler is alive, I slept with her last night"), Placebo, Day One, Sparklehorse and the other find of the year, albeit late, The Beta Band. Now there's Scotsmen who know their way around pointlessness: "spooky little lizard go where did you run to, only asked your name, never meant to hurt you". Summary of my life really. Get their collection called "The Three EPs" if you can. You'll think about popular music in a new way afterwards.

Festival time's the fun time when the soundtrack comes to you and you don't need to look much further than the BluesRock festival and the 206 live DJs who accompanied the show. Ask Graeme about attempting to pick up girls boogying to Fatboy Slim.

Graeme: So, Toast, how about me taking Helene and you taking Kate?
Toast: I don't know hey.
Graeme: I know man.

Best tunes of the fest came from rappers Firing Squad, vd Want and Letcher (because they bought me beers), Fetish and Sugardrive: "and the message is this: don't panic" on the massive chorus of "Disco Lazarus" from their "when I died I was elvis", the finest rock album of the year. Finest, because the SNG album is fairly average, yet features the great line: "the day goes by with the love of brothers".

Term 3. Oh boy. After seducing a girl with Radio 2000 in the front seats of my Beetle, the soundtracks spun, in quick succession, to travelling to Cape Town to see Garbage and Placebo live to missioning up to the most amazing Oppikoppi ever. Kissing your girl to your favourite tune of the moment being belted out live on stage must rank right up there. It was Sugardrive, riding the fucking liqour on "35mm" when Paul E Flynn sings "because it's good". Man, it was fucking good.

The rest of that festival was punctuated by the regular heroes, this time adding Nine, Paul Riekert, Koos, Not My Dog and especially BVK and POC to the mix - "I've got so much feelings for my brasse".

Other radiotune of the moment was "Scar Tissue", from what must be the finest proper rock album in ages. You don't have to be American to get it - "how long must I slide and turn the other side, I don't believe it's bad".

At this very loveclouded stage of the fight I made a four-sided car tape, especially for the Oppikoppi trip called "Some well spent days in Aug 99". It featured RHCP, Portishead live, the Beastie Boys, Sugardrive, Moby, 1000 Clowns, Chemical Brothers and Tom Waits, who must've delivered the line of the year when he sang "you don't meet nice girls in coffee shops". There's also a Beautiful South song called "Liar's Bar" where they sing "rum by the cauldron*, whiskey by the jar". That other band The Buckfever Underground was also honoured enough to have RHCP played through their stage monitors while subjecting the crowd to their kind of shit. Bob Dylan was also there, he just laughed and drank one Savanna after the other.

I have this distinctive memory of going to sleep to the tune of Daft Punk past Bloemfontein and waking up to the Chemical Brothers' "music:response" past Kroonstad thinking it's still the same song.

Term 4 saw that other band The Buckfever Underground brush with corporate shit as they launched their career on sattelite TV with a bizarre appearance in front of Pretoria's bonehead illuminati - check it out on Mnet's KykNet on the 22nd of November for real laughs. After an album launch in Betrams Street, they missioned to Potchefstroom, where they were called atheists, booed, not paid, yet ultimately, won hands down. They drank, they saw little, they took the land. Tunes were BVK and very definitely Loudon Wainwright III, who sang "it's a pretty good day so far" as we missioned back into town.

While October was a fuck up of break-ups and workstress and a mess caused by too much cider about 8 days ago, the year was saved with the release of the new Fetish album, on my ears as I type this. Album of the year. Except for that other band.

(*some would say it's 'kettle drum', but I like 'cauldron' better)