Matthew Field grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. Before he was given a guitar at seven years old, his favourite instruments were the harmonica, the globular horn, and the colander. After being given the guitar, his favourite instrument was the piano. His early school career was spent drawing pictures of birds, making sure his shirt was tucked in, collecting Pokémon cards, and feeling embarrassed. His late school career was spent writing songs, making sure his shirt was not tucked in, and feeling embarrassed. After washing his hands of high school, he was sucked into the University of Cape Town, where he studied first jazz music, and, after becoming disillusioned with the syllabus, classical music, which caused him to become disillusioned with himself. In his time at the University people thought he was weird because he always tucked his shirt in. In his first year, Matthew started a band called Beatenberg with his two excellent friends. After two years at the University, he received a generous scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where he is currently enrolled. His time in Boston is spent walking, writing, and buying groceries. Beatenberg recorded an album of Matthew’s songs last year called “Farm Photos” (2009) which is soon to be released on a South African label. In late 2009 Beatenberg also played many shows in Cape Town, generating enthusiastic positive feedback and interest in the industry. Because the band is currently scattered across many miles, Matthew has temporarily taken the name Beatenberg on himself as a creative identity, as he makes music in the USA. However, Matthew and his bandmates constantly correspond, and they are excited about the future. Beatenberg is planning to regroup for a South African tour early next year, and will be available for international touring thereafter. Beatenberg is serious about art and nature, and wants to reach people. Matthew Field wrote this biography, and he is very embarrassed about it.
hair gel
When I was in primary school, many of the boys used to put gel in their hair. The most popular style was to lick the fringe up, like a big wave. The gel was usually the kind that hardens the hair and makes it look darker, and sometimes a little bit shiny, or wet. In my school, people used to call this hairstyle a “kyfie”. I am not sure what the meaning of this word is and I am not even sure about the spelling (that’s why it’s in quotation marks and not italic), but I assume its root in is in the Afrikaans language. I don’t know of any other word for this hairstyle, so although I am sure there are other words, this is the word I will use. I also used to make my hair into a “kyfie” sporadically between the ages of about 10 to 14, and I remember how slimy that gel was, and how it would make my hair very stiff and flaky, but if I played sport or something during break time, how it would run in very small slimy streams down my forehead and temples.
Anyway, some boys were more diligent about their hairstyles than others, and there were those whose “kyfies” were so consistent that, unless you really considered them, they stopped being noticed as hairstyles and became just another feature, like freckles. Their faces seemed completely natural and right with their “kyfies”.
Very rarely, one of these boys arrived at school, (perhaps having been very late in waking up and rushed by his parents, or subject to some other substantial hindrance) without his customary hairstyle. His hair would be flat and light, covering some of his forehead, and I always thought “Wow! He looks so much better without his kyfie!”.
I don’t know if this is true, but from my perspective the absence of the hairstyle made people look much friendlier. More vulnerable, more open, more human. I don’t know if it’s a symbolic thing or just an aesthetic thing.
I was reminded of this the other day when I saw a friend on the street without his “kyfie”. He looked sweet.
generosity
Some people are talented givers.
Generosity flows from some people like other things flow from people with other talents. It comes from them without ceremony and inducts others into their world where instinct is temporarily forgotten. This generosity comes like words or music, and it is reacted to as natural, and it does not provoke the uncomfortableness of being “in debt”.
Some people are learned givers.
They give, but with an awareness of consequence, and with excessive vehemence. They feel the pain of loss, and they feel the pride of overcoming this feeling of loss, and they exult maniacally in the joy of giving. They compensate for their unnaturalness with stoicism. When they give, they are like deceitful children, and their inner workings can never be completely concealed. Their giving is stiff and awkward, and it is received in the same fashion.
With a learned giver, the recipient is always aware of the fact that he is receiving.
He feels the debt which he is brought into by the act of giving. He is not able to forget this, as he is able to with the talented giver.
But it is generosity nonetheless.
The learned giver is not a bad person, he is just not blessed with the natural talent of generosity. He has done all he can, and he is to be treated with respect, pity and generosity.
about jazz music and trying hard
I much prefer jazz music to jazz. I prefer it as an idea, and I prefer to talk about it, too. It feels better when it comes out of your mouth. And it’s more of a true thing.
When I am in a small and well-known club, and they are playing music in the grubbiness, and I have one beer (sitting down), and the rhythm alone commands my attention and my affection for two hours, I say to myself: “I love jazz music“, and it feels like a homecoming.
I do not mention jazz by itself.
The word jazz is for magazines, for people with silly hats, for television and for aspiring people. Jazz is something played on a jazz guitar. Jazz music is something played during the war, or in the jungle.
Jazz is something for amateurs to love and for classical musicians to hate. Jazz music can avoid that nastiness. In a way, the phrase jazz music sounds even more tired than the word jazz, and so it collapses in on itself. Through that movement it shakes itself free of connotation, and builds up an energy.
I think that what I experience when I say jazz music, and what I feel when I hear music and think of it as jazz music, is a private joy.
If I was a brilliant musician I would be playing jazz music right now, and not splitting hairs. I would play, and I would probably call it jazz, but it would be jazz music.
rich in africa
A continent is an enormous thing and every continent contains an enormous amount of great things and terrible things. Africa is rich in rhythm and in colour.
Rhythm is a great thing. Colour is a great thing.
Poverty is a terrible thing.
Beatenberg hope that while they may be lucky enough to be rich and in Africa, they still manage to also be rich in Africa.
hardy, lots of sun, little water
In Afrikaans, the word veld describes the African grassland terrain which is flat and open. More loosely, but sometimes more importantly, “the veld” means the wild, the country, not someone’s garden. You will notice the similarity (and the difference) between this word and the English “field”.
The seeds of many of the plants which comprise fynbos need the stimulation from a veldfire in order to germinate. The plants have many ways to protect themselves from the destructive power of the fire. However, a veldfire at the wrong time, or too many veldfires can be devastating to the fynbos.
Near my uncle’s house there is the cold ocean, and also hills and big open areas of fynbos, and around the beginning of 2008 there was a veldfire and when I came to visit my uncle I saw the charred landscape. It had been raining on the burnt plants. On that overcast day the black and the grey were beautiful together.
In Cape Town, it rains in winter and not much in summer.
There is a kind of suede shoe called a veldskoen which was used by farmers in South Africa and which is now popular among certain kinds of people.
Two out of the three members of Beatenberg own veldskoens.
life is rich, beats is rich; life is life, rich in flowers
The indigenous vegetation in the Western Cape of South Africa is called fynbos.
This is an Afrikaans word which translates into English as “fine bush”. It is true that many fynbos plants have thin leaves, and a “fine” texture, but (and this also goes for the Afrikaans word “fyn”) one could describe a wine as being “fine”, too.
Probably the first thing to say about how fynbos looks is that it does not grow very high. But, often, fynbos grows on top of mountains, so in a sense it grows very high actually.
After looking at fynbos, you will first and foremost remember a brownish green colour, an intricacy, and another, warmer, kind of brown colour. You will also remember the dryness, and the white rocks that seem to always be around somewhere, with something orange growing on them.
You may also remember the way the sky looked against the fynbos.
After looking at fynbos you might also start to remember some purple colours. You may remember how some pink and red and purple colours contrasted the different kinds of dull green colours. This is because there are many beautiful flowers in the fynbos, and the fynbos regions of South Africa form one of the world’s six floristic kingdoms.