Hog Hoggidy Hog was a band from Cape Town, South Africa. The band blended a mixture of punk, ska and many other influences, including traditional African music to create an original sound, sometimes referred to as Porkrock. The band was active within the South African music scene from 1995 to 2015. They toured the European circuit from 2005 until 2015. They were one of the longest standing live acts in South Africa and are often regarded as the best band that ever came out from South Africa for their intensely original music. They are credited as being the frontrunners and founders of the SA punk scene and are sometimes also referred to as the godfathers of punk in SA, regularly cited as being the first punks in SA to have mohawks and dreadlocks. They have also had a profound impact on South African alternative music influencing bands from The Rudimentals to Fokofpolisiekar.
History
Formation and early years (1995–97) The original line-up of Hog Hoggidy Hog was George Bacon on vocals, Sean Snout on Bass, Peter Porker on Drums and Amos Keeto on guitar. Bacon and Snout both played in thrash/hardcore/ska/punk band, Leviathan (which eventually set the blueprint for much of what became the Hog Hoggidy Hog sound). Keeto played in surf/thrash band, Cerebral Frenzy and Porker was the drummer for death metal band, Decimated. Bacon, Keeto and Porker all attended the same college together. Keeto and Bacon had also known each other previously from the beach in the Cape Town surf scene and they all knew each other from the relatively small Cape Town underground music scene. So when all of their respective bands broke up around the same time, they decided to form Hog Hoggidy Hog. It wasn't always an obvious choice of band members. Apparently Poker wanted to, "...start a band that sings about death and Satan" and Skeeto wasn't really a big fan of ska or punk. The band admits to thinking that nothing serious would ever come of Hog Hoggidy Hog, but they went ahead and made it official on 24 June 1995. Because they all had quite different influences, the band didn't actually decide on a genre and their intention was to borrow from any and all genres and see what came of it. After only a few months together, the band played their first show at The Purple Turtle opening up for The Springbok Nude Girls. Right up until ten minutes before they went on stage, they were still undecided on a name for the band. Bacon and Skeeto wanted to call the band The Dingleberries, whereas Snout and Porker wanted to call it Hog Hoggidy Hog. Evidently it was Snout that made the final call, Bacon and Keeto weren't happy, but as they hardly expected the band to last, they didn't think too much of it. It is unclear exactly where the name Hog Hoggidy Hog originated. The band like to make fun of this question in interviews and generally give a different answer every time it's asked.
The sound of the band in the beginning was relatively eclectic, but it was already in this early stage that the Hogs experimented with traditional African sounds such as the Cape Goema inspired song, Nkosi Concertina. The band was well received from the beginning, but didn't really think that they were going anywhere and very nearly called it a day. It was around this time that Porker had negotiated a record deal with Way Cool Records. Way Cool was an independent label started by an old punk rocker turned advertising executive, Hennie La Grange. He started the label with the sole purpose of recording the Hogs, but later went on to sign, among others, Fungy gone West, Pothole and 7th Breed. Porker, however, left the band to emigrate to England shortly before the first album could be recorded. The Hogs got in old Leviathan drummer, Robin 'Porkchop' Stehlik to take over. At this stage the band was now 3 quarters of the old Leviathan members and while still keeping to the plan of borrowing from various genres, the Hogs started going more in the direction of punk and ska. The punk scene at the time was Hog Hoggidy Hog and a group of about 4 or 5 friends, but the band started holding 'punk nights' at Arties Underground, where the scene started to grow and eventually a few more bands appeared too such as Fungy gone West and Diminished Return (The original incarnation of 3 Chord Theory).