THE 1980s often pass off as the good old days, when rural beer spots teemed with imbibers across age, prancing about, gyrating and carousing until cockcrow.
BY TAPIWA ZIVIRA
Sungura boy bands — The Four Brothers, the Bundu Boys and Khiama Boys — ruled the roost, providing the entertainment and despite their old equipment and funny outfits, they still delivered and ensured the crowd was kept agog right through the night.
At that time, HIV and Aids were still a myth to many. People could afford to be reckless without worrying about the obvious consequences.
The condom was still something one could not produce anywhere without drawing scowls.
Many prided themselves for being “real” by having unprotected sex and this could have been the period when the phrase, “Sweet iri mubepa hainake (A wrapped sweet is not sweet)” was coined.
But, of course, paid-for-sex was somewhat of a conquest for many at that time, and it was common to have friends brag to each other about how many sex workers they could hire in a night.
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It was all easy. After successful negotiations with a sex worker, the couple would retreat to where it all happened — the flat-roofed “boys’ kayas” that nightclub owners strategically built in the backyard of their joints.
There was no need for the hassle of looking for rubber.
For the band members — after ending the show just before dawn — sex until sunrise was just a bonus.
Despite the platinum album sales they achieved, a large number of these bands often showed up in cheap, poorly tailored stage outfits.
The entire band and its equipment came stuffed in branded ramshackle vehicles like the iconic Datsun 1500-620 and Peugeot 404s.
Of course, they were known for not being friends with the shower. Despite this shabbiness, they were a hit with women who idolised them and sought a few moments of fame in their presence.
During their performances, the concentration of band members was on the instruments, microphone and, of course, the girls in the audience.
Girls too, with their perfectly revealing outfits, had their eyes on the stage.
For the uninitiated, this looked like chemistry; like it was two like-minded people, one on the stage, and the other in audience, connecting together inside for a perfectly romantic fairy-tale kind of end.
The faster the guitars played and the more the drums rolled on the stage, the more the girls’ dance moves became seductive.
But despite the hard dancing, the girls were, in their hearts, as calm and patient as a lion does when waylaying potential prey.
The “chemistry” grew with each song and each chant and as the night wore off, the loins of the men on stage lost patience and gained testosterone.
So, after packing away instruments, the band members, each with their girl, staggered to the backrooms, whispering artificial “lovey-dovies” to each and the night was wrapped up with the hard-working loins of the boys enjoying the fruits of fame.
It, of course, came at a cost, as these girls were clever enough not to demand an outright payment.
Instead, they played as mistresses and used seduction tactics that would make Delilah green with envy.
In the end, they got more money for hairdos, groceries, clothes, rent and other things.
Because the band members were so nomadic and could spend months touring the rural outskirts and farmlands, they ended up having mistresses everywhere.
While the band was elsewhere, the mistresses — obviously not the monogamous type — did not wait. They either took on members of other bands, or other “ordinary” men.
Remember, this was the time when the condom was seen as nothing, but an unnecessary piece of rubber that “real men of the day” shied away from!
Life was good, unfettered sex was nectar-sweet. The beer was somewhat dry, somewhat bitter, never sweet, and that is what made it enjoyable.
The music was deep, yet its same melodies lit up and melted hearts and jolted men and women to dance.
It was, perhaps, because everything was, or at least seemed easy and too good that this lifestyle, and the masters of the golden age of sungura, all died, one way or the other.
