Lyzard Kyngs to visit Bay
THE Western Cape has blown an influx of top class musicians this way over the festive season, with the Lyzard Kyngs this week’s attraction for Eastern Cape fans of rock, blues, folk, country and reggae music.
The Lyzard Kyngs are Piet Botha on guitar and vocals, Arthur Dennis on vocals and lead guitar, his brother Rudi Dennis on drums and AJ Graham on bass.
Last night the band was in Grootbrak, tonight they play at @Work sports bar in Jeffreys Bay and then tomorrow at the Music Kitchen in Port Elizabeth. On Saturday they head back west to play at River Kaya in St Francis Bay.
The four musicians have a background in two of South Africa’s most enduring rock bands, Jack Hammer and Akkedis, and often performed at the same shows in the 1990s and jammed together.
In 2010 Jack Hammer frontman Botha, sometimes dubbed the Godfather of South African rock, teamed up with Akkedis, the African-rock “lizards” from Somerset West, and The Lyzard Kyngs were born. And although Botha is based in Pretoria, it’s been a partnership that has worked.
“It was natural for us to share our talents – now we have three vocals and a four-piece band that can work any room or big stage, both electric and acoustic. It is also wonderful to share each other’s songs and collaborate,” Botha said.
Arthur Dennis and Botha are the main songwriters and although their affinity for the blues carries a lot of the material, there is also country and folk music in the mix.
The friendship stretches across continents and crystallised when the band members found themselves in London at the back end of a disorganised tour in 2002.
“Myself and Johnathan Martin had gone over thinking it would be acoustic gigs, small pubs or theatres, but then we found the venues rather bigger and we were just two,” said Botha, realising that he needed more music muscle.
“Fortunately Akkedis were there and volunteered to help us on all the gigs, and all the adventures, of course!”
From there on they played stages across South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique until about three years ago when Botha started to tour the Cape more and more, using Akkedis as a backing band.
The name Lyzyrd Kyngs is drawn from a Jim Morrison poem, The Celebration of the Lizard King, and also references Akkedis, the Afrikaans word for lizard.
They threw in the unusual spelling as a combination of ancient English and as a nod to Lynyrd Skynyrd, a band which has been a source of inspiration to them for more than 30 years.
The band toured Germany in 2013, launched their album A Few Grains of Sand, in Mozambique in 2014 and have been touring across South Africa ever since.
Whether it be a rocking festival or a lazy afternoon acoustic set, the Lyzyrd Kyngs aim to entertain no matter what as they love to play and the fans, in turn, love hearing them.
ý More information on the Music Kitchen show from (041) 364-1964.