THE PLANETS - THIRTEEN

Maybe I should state upfront – I was part of this band for 8 years, so more than merely having the inside scoop on the inner treasures and turmoil’s of Thirteen© I also have a strong affection and bias for them as well. This was a band who should’ve conquered the world in the broadest sense except that we just didn’t know which world that was. Our view was that the one we wanted to overcome was a place of musical possibility, both energetic and innocent, and if this was strictly the case then we did conquer. We were the kings of creative speciality and fuck off decent songs. And we weren’t shy either. We dedicated ourselves to new material, stocking up on an arsenal of good tunes. And maybe that was part of the problem – we never gave our fans a chance to learn or enjoy our output, for no sooner did people settle on our grace then we’d be churning out new songs for them to come to terms with. We had so many songs that we even battled to come to terms with them. If nothing else we were prolific. Except that we were something else – we were a whole lotta fun, and in that fun we managed to convince ourselves, for a very long time, that we had already made it as a musical force and the privileges that other successful bands were afforded only eluded us because, well, that was merely the swing of an unfortunate or unforgiving universe. It must be said Thirteen© was the most unfortunate band in the world, at least we thought we were. I suppose it comes from branding yourself an unlucky number, we sort of doomed ourselves. Some elevators don’t even have a 13th floor for fear of the negative connotation, although that being said the 13th Floor Elevators did achieve some success. But I’m being unfair because we did succeed just not in the expected way. For if your measure of a successful band is chart triumph, extensive touring to large crowds, and enough royalties to drive a Bentley off a Cape Town pier then Thirteen© lucked out. Real bad. If, however, your measure of success is to live your life’s purpose without compromise, boredom, or regret, then Thirteen© was the greatest band you were ever likely to experience. We dreamed big, we laughed hard, we wrote some truly epic songs, and we have a canoe of stories most bands would pay a small fortune to paddle. In fact, if someone asked me which form of success I personally would rather have I think it would be a tough call. Thirteen©, in my eyes, achieved far more than our non-existent musical presence suggests. This band refused to conform to anything the South African music scene had to offer, to our detriment of course. Instead we created our own world and then invited people in. The problem, however, with creating your own world is that if no-one else gets it then no-one else buys in. And if no-one else buys in then no-one is listening, and if no-one is listening then did we even exist (ah, that old chestnut).
We recorded our first album under a haze of a rather dubious local flora element infused with dreams of Beatles-esque studio camaraderie, Beach Boys-esque songsmith wonder, and dreams of creating something to rival The La’s, The Small Faces, The Yardbirds, and the House of Love all in one. The songs were good enough but our panoramic vision of delivering the greatest album ever known to mankind from a tiny D.I.Y budget studio was simply too expansive. Think Beethoven trying to record his 9th symphony on a 4 track (and if you don’t know what that is then think trying to whistle all the parts of the 9th symphony all at once). Basically we just set our expectations far too high. We tried to throw everything at the album – clever harmonies, intelligent swells of guitar, quirky sound effects – when what we should have been doing was keeping it simple. But we were too excited at being in a studio, so fearful of losing even the most remote of guitar notes that we just kept on filling up the songs. And boy did we fill them up. And up. And up. A lost drum roll here, a big swimming pool splash there, a wall of acoustic guitars meant to recreate the fullness of The Byrds ‘Eight Miles High’ but really only creating a lovely, big messy noise - certainly lovely, but certainly messy.
But there were delightful little moments as well, like the Spanish sounding classical guitar bits in ‘New Day Rising’ (the second of which we subsequently butchered with the noise of a B-52 Bomber flying overhead because we thought it sounded great), the slide guitar in ‘The Planets’ that leads into the chorus, and the B-side of the same single ‘Way Too Late’ (otherwise referred to as Wayne’s Toupee by our somewhat estranged and erstwhile engineer and producer), a swashbuckling sixties infused pop number and crowd favourite as well as our only radio hit. It was also to be my proudest Thirteen© moment as driving back from work one afternoon I heard it on the drive time show on one of the most popular stations right after the five o’ clock news. At first I thought it was the tape player, thinking it had maybe clicked on by itself but soon the reality sank in and I was frantically phoning anyone I could to let them know. I even remember the presenter’s name, one Tony Blewitt, someone who endeared me to him from that moment on regardless of what he did.
The Thirteen© album never did see the light of day. It barely made it out after dark. The song ‘Way Too Late’, which was on the album, actually made it to radio on the back of ‘The Planets’ single, the *cover for which you see at the beginning of the chapter. We were proud of the single. The album, on the other hand, got filed under depressing, falling way short of our anticipated monolithic all-conquering endeavour. Unfortunately all the enthusiasm we had during the recording process simply petered out when we got the album home, away from the studio sheen, and realised how disjointed it sounded. In truth, it was at that moment we also realised how disjointed the actual recording process had been. When recording the 3 songs on ‘The Planets’ single the experience had been exciting, motivating, blissful even. This time round things felt stressful and taxing, a real battle. Such was the draining effect it had on us Thirteen© wouldn’t record again for the next four years. There was just too much emotion running through us and not enough clarity and direction. Our vision was too big for our collective boots. This is why I chose to put ‘The Planets’ on this compilation rather than any of our later more succinct and better produced stuff because it was from the time we felt happiest with what we were doing as a unit. From that album onwards into later recordings we were all hearing something different, all at odds with one another around vocals, guitar sounds, lyrics, and vibe. In fact, our last recording session, for a song called ‘M.O.R.E’ heralded the death knoll for the band, the final nail in the coffin of differences so to speak. Tipped to be our Magnus Opus it became our Magnus Anus, the albatross that brought us down.

In the interim we continued to play live, doing our best to convert audiences to our way of thinking which was difficult as most of the time we didn’t know what that was. We played a diabolical corporate function amongst hay bales and such was the messiness of the performance the company refused to pay us even though the idiots signed our contract. Undeterred we sued them and so found ourselves embroiled in a law suit which we consequently won nine years later when it didn’t matter.
On a somewhat scattered road trip more about friendship than playing music we happened upon the end of a rainbow in a derelict and deserted fishing village, cue Chinese lanterns flapping in the wind, and found R1-00, South African. Symbolic perhaps except that the heavens opened at that precise moment, the camera broke, and we were left soaked and puzzled by the whole experience. This was an unlucky band. We’ve been kicked off stage, had the power pulled at some vampire ridden bat cave, played some monstrous events to no crowds, and got into fights with those that did not share our sentiments. In trying to write some wholesome pop tunes we seemed to antagonize a lot as well. Unfortunately we didn’t fit the formula – too alternative for commercial but too commercial for alternative. We slipped between the musical cracks and instead of appealing to a wider audience, which was our intention, we simply diluted our niche until most people didn’t know what the hell we were doing which, once again, was perfect as we didn’t know either.
But I’ve painted a somewhat negative image for what Thirteen© was about because we also created a lot of magic. Even though many people misunderstood our presence it still didn’t stop them from gravitating towards us, trying to find the switch that moved us (probably to try and turn us off, ha ha). One of our early excursions took us to the sleepy hills of the Rustlers Valley festival. We packed enough of everything we thought we might need, particularly things that would distort our realities. But such was the excitement of our first gigging festival by the time we reached our destination we had all but finished our stock. So we bought more (as you do). One of my only memories of the actual gig itself was motoring up in a psychedelic haze between crowds of people with our backstage car packed to the roof with guitars and amps, windows down, and for some obscure reason the Guyato monks blaring from the speakers, us laughing hysterically. As for the gig, a complete hedonistic shambles – at one point while ripping through the baseline for ‘Lovecats’ I took cognisance of the moment and realised the singer was singing ‘Rebel Rebel’. The crowd loved us, I think. Regardless, when we returned to the scene of the crime some four hours later they were still calling our name. Thirteen© became a household name except that no-one knew it was us. Many people knew who we were they just couldn’t remember why. We did things differently, crazily, and for the most part had fun doing it. If fact if money and success didn’t matter we might still be a band, living on the fumes of making music together. Except that money does matter (to some). And success, and we missed out on both. So we crumbled into indifference and disregard and eventually simply lost reason to be a band.
In a parallel time Thirteen© could have been bigger than, well, bigger than they actually became. Of course, most failed bands think that. Most failed bands also think the world wasn’t ready for them or their brand of music. We thought the same. We believed we were writing songs beyond the usual scope of mass consciousness and maybe we were, but not in a financially beneficial way. Yes, it may sound really impressive being beyond mass consciousness but actually it’s a self-defeating mechanism because then you simply end up alone, head up your own ass probably. And that’s how it felt in the end – that we were all alone on our quest with no definable destination in mind. The last year in our scrapbook could well have consisted of pictures of nothing – no adrenalin, no gigs, just relentless rehearsals, many songs, more beer, and zero enthusiasm. We were stuck in the doldrums, wind down, sails flat with only our memories to console us. And while it’s true that good memories can keep the relationship moving for a certain period even when the tank is empty they can only do it for so long. After that you need to find some gas for the machine and our machine found none. It’s fair to say we imploded, meekly, and if I have to be really harsh about it, not too many noticed.

But it’s not all bad. From the embers of a former fire bloom the sparks of something new, new bands, new songs, and a chance at mounting a new charge. Thirteen© is all but forgotten, a footnote that was hardly even written. But in its day, for the members and their closest at any rate, it represented a celebration of what it means to give your dreams a chance to exist, to breathe as you would have see them breathe without the tinkering of the fingers of those that manipulate dreams for their own benefit, and no truer account of being alive and plugged into this mad, pulsating universe can there ever be. For a very brief comet flash of brazen brilliance Thirteen© were unstoppable. Witness here ‘The Planets’, a testament to all those songs from all those bands that died long before they even had a chance to live.

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*The cover pic of ‘The Planets’ single was pulled from an encyclopaedia. We found it at someone’s house and were flicking through haphazardly when we came across it. It wasn’t a particularly inspired moment, one of us just said, ‘hey, look at this guy, he looks stoned,’ which for a spaceman is pretty cool as though he were taking space to a new dimension, and that kind of settled it. The single was about planets, music we thought we were taking to a new dimension, and this picture grabbed us at the time of recording. I’ve got to say I still get a kick from it. It’s the font I find deplorable. Case closed.