A documentary about the rise and fall of South African band Cassette will open at The
Bioscope independent cinema in November. LINDA LOUBSER spoke to director JOHN
BARKER about the film.
“When I first interviewed the lead singer of Cassette, Jon Savage, he said they were
either going to become the greatest band in the world, or crash and burn in a ball of
flames,’ says John Barker (31 Million Reasons, Bunny Chow), director of documentary
Cassette: Who Do You Trust?
“That’s quite a statement. In reality they were really just a little rock band in
Johannesburg, but they had those kinds of aspirations and that’s really why I started
piecing together the documentary. I thought, either way, it’s going to be a story I
could follow,’ explains Barker.
He started making the documentary almost by chance. “I was working at Terraplane
as a commercials director in 2007 when Jon Savage joined the company. Cassette had
just released their first album, and everyone was talking about it.
“Terraplane used to shoot on a lot of 16mm and 35mm film, so they had fridges full of
16mm off-cuts and a really beautiful Bolex camera that was just gathering dust, so I
went to the first Cassette rehearsal after their debut album. It was really just
supposed to be about shooting a whole lot of stuff on 16mm, but I guess it just kept
rolling from there.’
They never really set out to find funding for the project, and Barker notes that most
of the funds came from his own pocket. “The process was: I’d shoot a commercial
with a director of photography (DOP) and ask if they were interested in doing a
Cassette interview the next day. We’d shoot on any kind of camera we had hired for
another job, including Canon 5Ds, 7Ds and Handycams. I even shot some footage on
my phone.’
According to Barker a number of high profile DOPs worked on the project over the
years, including Tom Marais, Nic Hofmeyr, Willie Nel and Greg Heimann.
Downfall
He continues: “When we started it was all good vibes. Everything was exciting and
the interviews were very positive. Cassette got tours to Tokyo and Europe and opened
for international acts, including Pink. They also won some awards and did a big
collaboration with Vusi Mahlasela.
“Then, over a period of 18 months Jon (Savage) started firing people in the band and
that was the start of their downfall. At one point our tagline was going to be: “Four
drummers, three bassists, two lead guitars, three managers and four record labels’,
because that’s what they went through.’
However, Cassette kept going for a number of years and released a second, less
successful album. “So many times during the process I just wanted to give up and not
finish it, but I kept waiting for some kind of resolution. Eventually it played itself out
and forced us to have an unhappy, downbeat ending. Jon announced in an interview
on 5FM that he was calling it quits with Cassette, without having told the remaining
band members – they heard it on the radio.
“The drummer, Andrew Wessels, went on to direct feature film Blitz Patrollie, Jon got
a gig working at 5FM and Paul Nathan, the bassist, now manages a branch of Steers.
They refused to do a last gig together, and at the end they were hardly speaking to
each other,’ says Barker.
Among the interviewees for the documentary were Kahn Morbee from The Parlotones,
Alan Shenton from Zebra and Giraffe, drummer and music producer Michael Canfield
and Mpumi Mcata from the BLK JKS.
“Most people weren’t too positive about Cassette, they weren’t a very popular band,
so I had to eventually get in one or two people who were really close to them to
balance the documentary out, like Catherine Grenfell from 5FM – she’s a big fan of
theirs. We crafted a lot of the story, even towards the end, to show more empathy
towards Jon. There are lots of ways to portray them, but I tried to stay as truthful as
possible,’ explains Barker.
Post-production
The documentary was edited by Melissa Parry, who Barker notes worked on the
project for more than a month without getting paid a cent.
“It’s been an amazing labour of love of five years and many, many people who haven’t
been paid. I think it’s an amazing statement on how people are prepared to work on
something they feel strongly about. Louis Enslin at Produce Sound also worked many
days on it,’ he says.
The challenge was exacerbated by the different cameras and formats used over the
years. “They spent eight or nine days at Left Post-Production trying to match
everything,’ says Barker.
“Much of the footage was very gritty and dirty, so we had to decide – do we try and
save all this stuff and make it high quality and amazing, or do make it all gritty and
dirty. We decided to go with the latter, and we did the same with the sound.’
The documentary premiered at the Durban International Film Festival in July. “It was
fantastic to be selected, as it makes it much easier to take the documentary around
to broadcasters because now they’ve got a point of reference,’ concludes Barker.
By Linda Loubser
Screen Africa magazine – November / December 2012
