From – Jive Talking and Eyeballing – interview with Ernesto Garcia Marques
I am always in awe of the people who tirelessly promote local music and for the most part their work goes unnoticed. We have had some really good local musicians over the years but I wonder if they would have been so successful if it were not for people like Kerry-anne Allerston promoting their gigs and interviewing the musicians, DJing their music and creating an exciting ambiance where the musicians can only excel. Doing all that takes real commitment and a real love for the music and the people involved. You can not fake this and it is not about making money, it is about pure passion and people like Kerry-anne Allerston inspire me to work harder, do more and help to create the most exciting local music scene that we possibly can. The next time you go to an event hosted by Kerry, go and say hi, support what she is doing and offer your help if she needs any. Let’s try to find out what drives this incredible woman shall we?
Wow!!! Thank you for your kindness, your generosity, your beautiful heart and for doing all you do for the artists and the industry. The world would be a much better place if it were filled with more people like you who uplift and help so selflessly.
Hi Kerry, I trust this finds you well today? So you have been in the South African music industry for 20 years which seems incredible to me as you still look so young. You obviously look after yourself but where does the drive come from? Was there a certain record or song or gig that you went to that inspired you to get involved in the local music industry? What training did you have and did you have any role models or did you just work it out as you went along?
Ha ha ha ha ha you are way too kind… I’m a vampire and I live on rock n roll, whisky and good times!!! Seriously though you are wonderful and thank you for the compliment. I do feel like the music, the passion and extreme love I have for it as well as the good vibes and good people I surround myself with keep me feeling and acting as young as I do! 
I have lived a very fortunate life where my parents supported whatever I did and I grew up in a house filled with music from a very young age. My dad is also very musical and woke me up for school by playing the guitar or the piano every morning. A pretty awesome alarm clock I’d say!
The first big concert I went to was with my dad in 1994. We went to watch The Stones which was amazing and not too long after I watched brilliant bands like Sugardrive, Boo!, Sons of Trout, Arapaho, Squeal and Amersham when I snuck into clubs and bars I wasn’t old enough to be in at the time and I fell in love. In love with the vibe, the music, the whole scene just grabbed me, sucked me in and I’m still being sucked in everyday!!!
Q. You started as a booking agent, artist manager and tour manager. Which company did you work for or were you doing this on a freelance basis? Would you care to list some of the artists you booked, managed and helped with tours and how did that come about? Did you approach your favourite bands and offer to manage them or did they approach you?
I actually fell into band management and booking by mistake as you do… I spent as much time as I possibly could at live shows and through that became friends with loads of the musos at the time. I am definitely always keen to help where I can so I’d help with merch or at the door and I guess I started booking shows that way and boom… next minute I was in there! Ha ha ha!
The first band I started booking for was a band that absolutely blew my mind and I thought they were one of the best bands I’d ever seen and I was certain they’d rock any stage anywhere in the world… they were the brilliant Plum!!! At around the same time I became friends with The Parlotones who may still have been performing as Crayon at the time. They were playing to very small audiences at The Roxy back then but I just knew they’d do big things. They started touring with The Finkelsteins, Jimmy 12 Inch, Evolver (another band I managed for a while), a little later Prime Circle and they opened for another band that I thought were phenomenal and probably the biggest band at the time Perez!!! What a band they were! They came outta nowhere and were just fantastic live but just had that whole rockstar thing going on and I loved them!!!
I traveled to wherever they were playing and more recently started working with Nic Olsen and his new band Son of Old so these relationships grew from the beginning and I put a lot of love into them from the start because I truly cared about the music, the scene and of course the artists. Chris Chameleon was probably one of my first real friends in the industry and I got to see a lot and experience a lot with him and that was in the late 90s and soon after I became friends with legends like Barney Simon, Stevie G, Melissa Conradie, Warren Gibson, Mariska Geyer, Bill Botes etc etc etc who I’m still really close to today! Each and every friendship inspired, influenced and motivated me to do more and be more so I’m so thankful to all of these incredible legends I’m lucky enough to have in my life. A band I also really miss outta Cape Town that I’d kill to watch again The Dirty Skirts… we did some serious hanging out way back! While working with Plum we did a bunch of shows with bands like Pestroy, The Narrow, 16 Stitch, Diesel Whores, Seed, Fuzigish & Wickhead (and a bunch more I’mforgetting like the lovely Melody Kayes band for example) so every now and then I’d book for some of those dudes and a million years ago I also booked the bands for The Doors Nightclub which brought me back to booking these guys too!
Q. Did you write for People Magazine and your column which included a gig guide and interviews with local and international musicians before going into promoting or during? What years was that and it would be cool if you could mention a few of your local and international interviews…..
The People Mag gig came much later and I really loved doing interviews and gig guides for them. I was stoked to have such a huge reach to get the gig guides to as their readership was massive and that was my goal and still is… getting more people to more live shows!!! I was with them for around 3 years from around 2016. I interviewed so many bands: Our Last Night, Dreamshade, The Kooks, Shadowclub, Piet Botha, Clout, Crash Test Dummies, Pedro Barbosa, Texas, Wheatus, Myles Kennedy, Stelth Ulvang, Jamie-Lee Sexton, Ashton Nyte, Mango Groove, Majozi, Shortstraw, Fokofpolisiekar, Jack Parow, Oooth, 36 Crazyfists and a ton more!
Q. Have you ever found that some musicians are really not interested in being interviewed and in such instances how do you get them to open up and share their thoughts and visions?
It always amazes me that these musicians are so dynamic on stage and yet when one speaks to them in person they are shy and reserved. Perhaps there is no image or persona to hide behind and they are almost stripped naked when they are off stage and they are not sure how to express themselves…..I definitely know what you mean!!! I have interviewed so many artists on the radio and for my magazine interviews and some are so easy to talk to and are so keen on sharing advice, a few great stories and behind the music news while others are just shy and a little more introverted offstage and some are a lot more arrogant and/or dismissive and painful to interview. I understand that performing to thousands of people on stage is sometimes easier as you say than feeling a lot more exposed in a one on one situation but it’s the name of the game of the game and the show must go on. I do also think artists have their off days though just like everybody else and they’re only human so sometimes one needs to look past that and be sensitive to the craziness that they live on a date to day basis. Some of the hardest interviews I’ve ever had to carry out were with Brad Roberts from Crash Test Dummies, Sharleen Spiteri from Texas and working with Amy Lee from Evanescence on tour was pretty tricky too! Artists that were a lot easier to chat to were and so generous with their time were Myles Kennedy, Guns n Roses, The Kooks, Boney M, Tim Booth from James and Passenger. Rodriguez was on a lay over in Amsterdam when I chatted to him but that’s a story for another day… Ha ha ha!
Q. I understand you were also an actress? Can you tell us about that? Are there any TV shows or movies we may have seen you in?
Oh my gosh!!! No comment!!! Okay I’m not telling you everything but I can tell you I was in Egoli quite a few times over the years which was super fun but I also booked the music and the talent for the show so I was part of the furniture there. It’s loads of fun working on a tv show like that with such a great team behind it!
Q. You have been a radio presenter on Mix 93.8 FM for 9 years now. How does being a radio presenter differ from being a DJ? what else do you do apart from playing music and interviewing musos? Do you read the news and weather as well LOL 
Are you still doing this and are you restricted by the quota system or are you free to play whatever you like? Is there still a quota system on South African radio and are you only allowed to play a certain amount of local music?
Ah I love being on radio!!! I love playing all my favorites and I love making someone’s day! Music is such a beautiful, powerful thing and when I play a particular song and get feedback from a listener that that song reminded them of their younger days, a lost parent or their wedding day etc then I feel like I have made a tiny impact on someone’s life at that exact time. I also love radio because it allows me to showcase incredible new music and up and coming artists that may not be heard as much on other stations or get given a chance to get the exposure they need to reach a potential audience that may really enjoy them or even get them discovered by labels and promoters so they can possibly get booked for shows etc. I also do a gig guide which informs the public as to where they can watch all our special artists perform as a lot of the time people don’t know where to find this kind of information. I play a lot of local content and I think the quota is 4 Sa songs per hour! I am lucky enough to choose my own playlists and I have bands performing for a full hour on my show once a week. Mcing and djing live shows is also so much fun! I love dancing the night away while playing my favorite tunes at events and parties! I have mc’d and dj’d gigs for Ducati, Rolling Stone Magazine, Sun International, Hard Rock Cafe, Barnyard Theatre, Emperors Palace and I am super lucky to have a resident gig with my own dj trio consisting of the amazing producer, musician and label manager Matthew Fink and the awesome human and music industry stalwart Keith Henderson. Our events are called ALTERnation and it’s pretty much a mash up of Alcatraz, Le Club, Red Room and The Doors parties from back in the day! I also run all the entertainment and have a weekly dj gig at a bar that won Best Bar of The Year in SA for 2019/2020 ‘Smoking Kills Bar’ in Melville.
Q. I love your shows on The Marshall Hangout where you have live sessions in the studio between 1400H to 1500H for over 5 years and it is bands from all genres which is just awesome. This is such a great platform for bands to show what hey can do and hopefully as a result more people will go to their gigs and buy their albums. Have you noticed an increase in crowd attendance at gigs following a live session on The Marshall Hangout?
Thank you so much!!! I appreciate that! I am so lucky to have extremely loyal rock n rollers as listeners and they definitely support the bands and the gigs I get behind on my shows! I am so thankful to have a platform to direct all the lovers of local music to the right shows and together we are trying to keep the wheels turning & the scene alive! Woohoo!
Q. SO Marshall Music sponsors your SA music show on the radio and you are also their brand ambassador. What does that entail exactly? Do you have free rein with your local music show and how do you decide which artists you are going to promote? Do you compile and research the artists yourself or do you have a team helping you? If an artist in Cape Town or Durban or PE would like to appear on you show how do they go about contacting you and what do they need to do? Must they send in a demo and a bio or how does that work?
Dayne Marshall and the team at Marshall Music are pretty much family and we have been on this awesome adventure together for over 7 years now. They back all my decisions and I am able to go wild with whoever and whatever I wanna feature. I also run live shows once a week and they sponsor some of the gear for these shows and together we sponsor some incredible artists from around the country and they sponsor new artists as well as the big guys which is very important to me to create beautiful relationships from the ground up and it’s a great motivator to back the newer, younger acts which is so important!You can check out all the awesomeness that Marshall has to offer as well as some fun workshops and my artist interviews on Facebook Marshall Music SA and marshallmusic.online
Artists can drop me a mail or a line on social media and we usually take it from there! I almost never turn an interview request down… everyone deserves a chance and a go on radio and my other platforms! I love featuring all genres and I’m always so keen on hearing from artists far and wide and I dig getting new music! kallerston@gmail.com
This is Kerry talking to the incredible Martin Schofield of Wonderboom from Nov 18, 2020…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1VAKyA-ymc with dynamic producer/musician Matthew Fink… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-o0W9nagWw and with Rob McLennan of No Friends of Harry…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Zx3vSMLbM
Q. Kerry also presents shows for Balcony TV and Discover TV which has been broadcast in over 60 cities worldwide. Wow! I was not aware of that till you mentioned it. In what other countries is the show broadcast?
Here is Kerry introducing one of this countries hottest bands; Medicine Dolls from Cape Town from 2019…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_-bjj7sHxoI was with Balcony Tv & Discovrtv for almost 7 years and what a treat that was interviewing and showcasing all our brilliant talent. It was a great international platform but sadly BalconyTV came to an end a few years ago. You can still catch some cool content and some of my interviews on the DiscovrTv platform online!
Q. You are the resident DJ at Le Club and host your own nights once a month called Alternation which features yourself, Matthew Fink & Keith Henderson. Do you have themes for these shows (like Halloween, Easter, Christmas, freedom Day) or do you just play random local music? I guess that between you and Matthew and Keith your playlists differ according to your own personal tasted but they obviously overlap sometimes. Has there ever been an occasion where you saw Matthew or Keith’s playlist and said: Hey Keith, I was going to play that or vice versa?
Oh absolutely ha ha ha 
We are all massive lovers of music and we do have the same tastes but we work so well together that we that fit in so well with each other. We really love punk, rock, alternative, indie and gothic music and we are all huge supporters and lovers of our own Sa bands so you can always expect loads of fun, loads of brilliant tunes and tons of fantastic local in our sets! Every now and then we do themes if and when the holidays roll around but most importantly we have fun and we want our audiences and fellow party animals to have as much fun as they possibly can!!!
Q. As a DJ you have played for and hosted events for various clients including Rolling Stone Magazine, Breakout Management, Tigers Milk, Hard Rock Cafe, Barnyard Theatre, Ducati, Oppikoppi Festival, Smoking Dragon Festival, Mieliepop, Misty Waters fest, Lush and many more!. How do you compile a playlist for these events? Do they tell you what type of vibe they are looking for and you find the appropriate music or how is that done?
If the event is a corporate then I do ask for some kind of brief and what kind of vibe they’re going for and then I prepare accordingly but most of the time I just read the crowd and go from there… I don’t like doing too much prep because every gig and every audience is different and you gotta go with what’s going down in the moment! I play on cd and on vinyl so I’m pretty old school so I’m always carting a million cds and vinyls around to all my gigs and so everyday armday for me coz that stuff is heavy!!! He he he! I have a few different sets in my bag of tricks: swing, oldies, alternative, heavy/hardcore, hip hop, party, 80s, 90s, strictly SA and I even do a pop one too!
Q. You sure keep yourself busy and do voice over work for clients including Ducati, BMW, Ford, Mangwanani Spas, Marshall Music and Sun International. So this is corporate advertising is it. Have you done any radio or TV adds for these companies?
These voice overs were actually all for radio campaigns and I have also worked with De Beers and Rada on fundraising and corporate initiatives & campaigns! I love voice over work too… it’s great fun!
Q. I know you are very involved with the Smoking Kills bar in Melville where you are the promotor and consultant for the venue. How many people does the venue hold and how many gigs are held a week? Have you noticed that people are going to gigs again post Covid-19 or has crowd attendance reduced?
Yea it’s a great venue no matter what you’re in to and where you come from! Everyone is welcome and it’s a space where you can enjoy smashing away on the pinball machines in the arcade room, sip on delicious award winning cocktails or enjoy dancing the night away at one of the dj or band evenings! We have blues evenings every first Sunday and jazz evenings every last Sunday of the month. These kick off at 7pm and entrance is free. The super talented Ross Harding from Black Harbour heads up the Blues evenings and performs with guests once a month and the magical Femi Koya was my guest artist at the last Jazz Loose Draw Sessions. We also do Pride Nights once a month and bands nights once a week. Some of the superstar acts we have had at the venue are the insanely good Georgetown, the absolutely fantastic Wolfgang Marrow, the hypnotising Gunshot Blue, Nic Olsen from Perez with his awesome new act Son Of Old, The amazing Black Cat Bones, the wonderful Ross Learmonth from Prime Circle, Rob McLennan from No Friends of Harry’s new band Momo, The Slashdogs, Sex Tape, a massive line up of dope Punk and metal bands and we have just sold out two nights with comedy king Schalk Bezuidenhout and these are to name but a very few!!!
Q. Being involved in local music for over 20 years do you think the standard is improving or is it pretty much the same? Are there many good venues left in Joburg or only a few? Also, do you find people of all races going to the gigs or are people still supporting their own musicians/genres? In my own experience from hosting a few gigs myself, I found it very difficult to get jazz fans to go to rock gigs and vice versa. How can we change that mindset?
I think the stigma of local music is inferior has been broken but we need to cross pollinate if we really want South African music to row. Your thoughts?I think back in the old day’s fans were super loyal and would follow their favorite bands to the ends of the earth!!! I think there were fewer bands back then and a really great circuit for bands to play so there was always somewhere to go to check out live music and you had to work so much harder to find out what was going down so the prize at the end of the mission was that you got to see your band jam live. Your band! The bands had to design their flyers and posters and then go on those hardcore poster runs and get their stuff up under the bridges and then they’d have to go and drop off flyers at all the music shops and bars etc but it was all part of the fun and then you knew where you were going on what night of the week too! Clubs like Decodance, Bella’s, The Junction, Plumb Crazy, The Jameson, The Roxy, The Radium, 206, Bassline, Hunters, The Big Easy, The Doors etc used to have different things on on different nights and that was it! And then of course you’d hit Bimbos or Fontana on the way home! And possibly a post box or Stop sign or two…(no Uber back then… oops!!!) ha ha ha! I don’t think there are nearly enough venues for bands to play now but saying that the public don’t support the bands nearly as much as they should or like they did years back!!! I am not sure why this is but it is super frustrating! I think Netflix has stolen a bit of the audience and I think people are a little less amped to drive out late at night to check out artists and then punters also have to pay for cabs, bribes whatever etc. I wanna give a huge shout out to each and every single venue owner who is out there trying to keep their doors open and live music from dying a very sad death! Promoters, agents and managers also deserve a pat on the back and a huge shout out! It’s becoming more and more tricky getting folks out and then as you mentioned in your question the pandemic is an added concern and rightly so which makes it even harder to keep these spots from closing down and again that’s one less place for bands to jam. Music lovers out there: get off your couch, get to a gig (indoor or outdoor), pay the entrance fee, don’t ask for guest list, buy merchandise if you can afford it, take turns having a designated Dan to do the driving and live your best lives. Your couches are swallowing you whole!!! Talking about cross pollinating…There are so many exciting collaborations going down at the moment and there are so many amazing shows and great genres to check out so I hope the punks get to check out the jazz and the rockers get themselves to a blues gig sometime! Moonga Kaye is working with Ross Learmonth soon and has just finished work with PHFat. Majozi has done some beautiful shows with The Parlotones and he does such beautiful, important work with organisations dealing with depression through his clothing range. Please check it out! BCUC are shaking things up all over the place and you can look forward to some interesting things coming out of The Black Cat Bones camp. WONDERboom are working on new material and celebrating their 25 year anniversary this year 2021! Jacques Moolman had just dropped his beautiful solo album The Great Valley Redemption and I think there could be a colab coming outta that space soon. Legend acts like Cindy Alter, Robin Auld, Neil Soloman and Wendy Oldfield are releasing new material, great colabs, collectors albums etc!There’s a ton of awesome stuff going down… yay yay yay!!! Go get it!
Q. I know that you were recently involved in organising a huge fundraiser event where bands could sell their merchandise and make some money for themselves. Can you tell us about that and was the event a success? Maybe there there should be other events like this in other parts of the country and I would like to volunteer if there was such an event in Cape Town…
Yes!!! It was really bothering me that artists couldn’t gig and lost most of their income during lockdown so I came up with a plan to get people to come out in a safe environment and get back into loving live music again and the artists were able to sell their merch, network with other artists, jam a few tunes and just enjoy a fun day out together. Sometimes after a bit of a trying time all you need is a big hug, a drink and some damn good music!!! I think for the first attempt it was awesome!!! We had so many brilliant artists selling their merch and I think a lot of them did quite well and then of course we had the superstar Cindy alter, the beautiful Bianca Blanc, the fantastic Naming James, the loveliest Jamie-Lee Sexton, the rocking Ross Harding, the awesome Seb Howarth, the fabulous Andre Kriel and the enchanting Dayne Rothbletz all perform at the event. Gad from Adventureman & Shortstraw popped along with his rock candy and did portraits on the day and I provided food for the guys too! All in all it was a successful, great day out! I am definitely bringing it to Cape Town and the planning has already begun so watch your inbox… it would be amazing to have you be a part of the fun Ernesto! Woohoo!!!
Q. I know that you are a huge Beatles fan and thanks to your dad who was born in Liverpool, you go over for the annual Beatles festival every year where bands from all over the world dress up as the Beatles and pay tribute. Can you please tell us about that?
Wouldn’t it be great if a South African Beatles tribute band could be a part of that?It’s an absolute trip!!! Wow!!!So you arrive in Liverpool and check into the Beatles hotel A Hard Days Night and then for a week all you do is celebrate the Fab Four and their music! I have watched The Monkees at The Cavern, attended an interview with Klaus Voormann, met Pattie Boyd and attended a few shindigs at the wonderful Pete Bests house. I really am the luckiest girl in the world! These festivals are JamPacked with like minded people who are all there for the music and the good vibes. You eat Strawberries and cream at Strawberry Fields and you can wonder down Penny Lane. I of course also love attending the footy at my beloved Anfield too! I’d love to take a band over to the next one… what a great adventure that would be!
Q. You have to tell us about staying with the original Beatles drummer Pete Best? How did that come about and what is he like? He must be in his 80’s now? I believe Ringo comes out to Cape Town quite regularly but not sure where he stays or what he does while here…You kinda just meet a bunch of proper rock n rollers while you’re out and about and some friendships just stick. Friends of mine invited me to Petes place for a small festival he has right there in his garden and that’s actually where The Beatles first played. It’s called The Casbah. I landed up napping on the couch after a few too many rums with the legendary Pete Best. He is so lovely and his family are wonderful and the mutual friends we share are just great people and we all just share our love of the music together from all around the world. Paul has popped over to a few of these festivals but Ringo doesn’t spend much time in Liverpool these day’s. I think you’d definitely have more chance seeing him in Cape Town! I think Pete will be 80 in a few months! Q. Thank you so much for doing this Kerry and I wish you all the best with all your endeavours. You inspire me and I would like to thank you so much for all you have done for South African Music over the years. Is there anything you would like to add. Future plans and what do you still hope to do with South African Music? What an absolute pleasure and thank you for being a shining light in the dark times and such an incredible supporter of all things music and art! You rock!!!I guess I’ll just keep on doing what I’m doing and hopefully together we can keep things going and we can keep on high fiving, promoting, enjoying and supporting our friends with our friends for many healthy, happy, beautiful years to come! Music & love make the world go round so let’s keep it spinning and keep on turning xxx
You can join Kerry on Mix 93.8 FM right here… http://mixfm.co.za/kerry/You can tweet her on Twitter… https://twitter.com/kallerstocontact her on Facebook… https://www.facebook.com/kerryanne.allerston
Well there you have it guys. South African Music would not be what it was if it was not for people like Kerry-anne Allerson and she should be applauded for that.Thanks guys, Ernesto Garcia Marques, 14/04/2021
