The music industry has quite a huge amount of discouragements and embarrassments, I’ve listed just a few of mine

 

1-FIRST AUDITION – 1988, as Sarungano Chanters(my first band), we went for our first audition at Gramma Records, we were all very nervous, that was our first time in a studio, first time to play electric guitars, as the first song started the bass player started playing in his own key different from everybody, the engineer just switched all of us off and said “thank you for coming”, we remained seated and he repeated a bit more harshly “I said thank you for coming, you may go “, we knew we had failed, we left the studio.

 

 

2-SECOND AUDITION – 1988 –We went for another audition as Sarungano Chanters, the engineer played us what we had played, he came and stood in front of us, he looked up as if he was looking at something far off and said, vapfanha (young men)you are still very very far from knowing music”, and went on for the next 5minutes shouting at us individually for the way we had performed badly, then rudely told us to leave the studio. We did about 8more auditions and failed, till some band members got discouraged and quit the band, we disbanded in 1989 .what made it worse was that we would go on foot most of the auditions, from Kuwadzana, Mufakose, and Dzivarasekwa to Southerton, then foot back home since we had no support from home, and the producers who conducted the auditions were extremely rude, and wouldn’t tolerate any simple mistake. That was the only studio around so if you didn’t pass any recording, so many musicians quit music because of those auditions.

 

 

3-JAM SESSION – 1988 –Since we were told at the studio that we needed to get used to electric guitars since we used acoustic guitars for practice, we decided to approach big bands and play for free during their break times, we approached another big artist who had a gig in our area, he was polite and referred us to someone at the gate, who took us backstage to the band who were having lunch, he told the band that we had told him that we were the B.BAND and we also wanted our share of the food, and he left, the band shouted at us till we explained ourselves (I was the spokesman), we were so embarrassed, then they let us play, a few people applauded to encourage us, but a certain seasoned bass player by the name of Clayton, came and told us we had played ”madhodhi”, I was so hurt, I went home straight away.

 

 

 4-WET NAP AFTER GIG – 1991 – as Chikokoko Band, after a gig in Dzivarasekwa, we footed after midnight in the rain to Kuwadzana, we decided to sleep at the bass player‘s house me and two other guys, unfortunately, we found out that there was no place to sleep since they had visitors, so we had to spend the night seated on a couch, with very wet clothes on, and it was a really long cold night.

 

 

5-BRAWL AFTER THE GIG SAT 14 DECEMBER- 1991 -as CHIKOKOKO BAND, we organized a show at a Dzivarasekwa night club, our promoter was the same promoter that promoted another established band, so he informed us minutes before the gig that we were going to share the gig with this other band though they were not advertised, after a small argument we agreed, after the gig, the other band said they have to take more money since they were much known than us, we argued that it was our show and that they were not even advertised, a brawl erupted, we were outnumbered and chased away, I ended up running into a barbed wire and got scratched, I still have the scars, we took the matter to the police, the police decided that from the $2 500 profit that was made that day, we should be given a mere $ 100 only, so we shared $20 each.

 

 

 6-STRANDED AT ALASKA MINE – 1992 -As a session musician, I joined a new group named Yaozi for a tour of CHINHOYI AND ALASKA MINES The promoter abandoned us without leaving us money for food, accommodation, or transport back home, we begged a stranger to give us a place to sleep, then the following day begged a football team traveling to Harare for transport, they agreed but made fun of us all the way to Harare “the musicians are smelling, they haven’t taken a bath“, they shouted, and we had to smile and keep our mouths shut.

 

 

 7-STARVING BAND – 1990 as Chax Brothers, we moved base to Norton, a small town close to Harare, I was the band leader, but the elders that were put in charge of the band advised Mr. Chauruka, the sponsor, to stop sponsoring our food, saying the money has to come from the gigs, we did a number of gigs in Norton, surrounding mines and farms and small towns, and all the gigs were flops since we didn’t have any recorded music, so we ended up without food, eating fried maize (maputi) for breakfast, lunch and supper, me and a friend of mine, Stewart Kufa, decided to return home to Harare, that’s how I quit the band and returned home malnourished and discouraged