About Durban Rock City:
Two Rock Dynasties (Burn & The Winston Pub) that provided platforms for Durban's alternative voices for decades have joined forces to bring you Durban Rock City. They are continuing the bloodline, strictly keeping to their Alternative roots to keep rock alive, with a new story for today's generation. Dissidents, heretics, iconoclasts, rogues, renegades, mavericks, lone wol
ves, misfits. They swim, across time, against tides of authoritarian tradition and oppressive dogma. People who led and participated in counterculture movements played a role in changing how dominant cultures evolve over time, using art, particularly music. Alternative music, metal, punk rock, and grunge wove itself into Durban culture decades ago, entrenching itself in historic venues, its streets, and its people. It is the birthplace of many successful bands and musicians, and plays a prominent role in the history of local music. It cultivated a spirit of rock that lives on today. Two families were instrumental in shaping Durban’s alternative culture: the Baney and Dewitt clans. Two generations of these families have always felt a powerful call in their blood – and they’re carrying on the legacy of their parents, who are passing them the torch. Their time is now. We didn’t realize our childhoods were also apprenticeships preparing us to keep alternative culture alive and deliver the message a new generation. We are passionate about showcasing original alternative artists (punk, grunge, metal). There are so many talented bands out there not being showcased properly. Our parents provided a platform for them in back in the day, and many of those bands have gone on to play on international stages. Seether, then known as Saron Gas played their first Durban show at the Winston pub. Roth was 13 (late nineties) at the time, their performance had a lasting impact on the young Baney. What alternative music makes us feel is a sense of awe. There is a reason for this. We feel awe because we are so grounded by our limitations as human beings. The alt community (being the stubborn counterculture they are) refuse to accept those limitations. They have the audacity to defy them and reach towards the sacred and profane. People will keep being drawn to this defiance, this boldness, because we are all a walking bundle of dysfunction, unfulfilled dreams, and human limitation. As Nick Cave once said in a letter to a fan about Kurt Cobain: “A young man who had the temerity to howl his particular pain into a microphone and in doing so, by way of the heavens, reach into the hearts of a generation.”
We are Durban Rock City."
