The Charity Kid

From the frontman of grunge to the frontline of relief work, former mouth-harp toting vocalist Tazo Tukka has undergone a radical metamorphosis. But why? Frank Xerox hoofed it to Rwanda to find out

Spot Tazo Tukka at a distance and just maybe you wouldn't look twice. This could be any goat from any city, rolling across the veldt on a 1957 BSA bike, throttling back, raising dust, enjoying the wind in his beard.

But appearances can be deceptive. Underrneath the tousled, shaggy exterior is a caprine crusader, chilled enough to sport a leather waistcoat in the heat of the Kalahari without wilting. Behind the rounded shades is a quadruped who's walked a hard road, which has taken him from the alleys around the rough city farm in East Lothian, through the dressing-room corridors of major European rock venues and, now, along the grimy AIDS-spattered backstreets of Nairobi.

It's been three years since I last met the harmonica-wielding former front-goat from CapriKorn. That was backstage at the Aberdeen University gig, just before their big break, when they were merely one of the biggest underground grunge bands north of the Forth. Back then, Tazo talked about bourbon brands and Larry Adler and the jungle thud of a bass drum soundcheck resonated through the thin plaster. Now I'm hearing drums again - but this time it's the real thing.

I'm sitting in the window of a bar close to Kigali's busy crafts market, and an African percussion stall across the street is audibly advertising its wares. I have a thirty-minute slot booked while Tazo is in the neighbourhood and we're due to meet at eleven sharp.

Tazo seems to enjoy being undercover - when we last talked, CapriKorn had been turning down potential deals for months, building up a cult following, shrewdly choosing their moment before signing a platinum disk deal on the Whatever? label. There's a similarity today. He's rumoured - just rumoured - to be a key worker for Cowforce, an organisation given to helping AIDS orphans, impoverished families, and children left behind by genocide. Yet Cowforce stays strangely out of the spotlight, shunning publicity, keeping mum about their work. This, it seems, is a goat who keeps his secrets well.

The suppressed roar of a powerful, highly-tuned engine tears apart the tattoo from the drum stall. Tazo's hallmark - the almost legendary vintage BSA Bantam - is weaving through the traffic, and these days it's clearly packing a good deal more cubic centimetres than its appearance lets on. Another secret... I watch as it navigates a sea of bicycles, tourists, fruit vendors, then cruises in and drops anchor beside a serried rank of motorcycle taxis, younger, but poorer, cousins. The rider detaches himself and zig-zags like his machine towards me, homing in on a waitress on the way. It seems strange hear a mango juice being ordered in fluent Rwandan, with a heavy Lothian lilt. Never mind the fact that it's being ordered by a goat.

Tazo parks at my table and smiles. 'Are they lookin' after ye? I only just made it. Was over the border this morning in Arusha.'

Tanzania? This morning? By my reckoning that's 500 miles in two hours, and most of the roads would make rush hour at the Dartford Crossing a cinch. Nevertheless I smile politely at the joke, and as the mango juice arrives we exchange pleasantries and I throw in a few shared memories for good measure. He's relaxed, and dressed simply, with regulation battered leather waistcoat and thick bug-like sunglasses, leftover hallmarks of a late, great career. But the Stephen Webster jewellery is long gone, and a single garnet ear stud is the only item that hints at less ascetic days. This is an oddly mellowed goat. And then there's the charity thing - has he taken a vow of poverty or anything like?

‘Not at all... it's just that being oot here in all o'this really sobers you up. The problem with loadsa success is that you almost always completely lose touch wi' the real world. All the more so if you come from where we all came from, like some run-down semi-farm, miles from the country, all pee an' straw an being fed everyone's leftover tatties and stuff. You're desperate tae put it behind forever, y'see.'

But doesn't he miss the record company paycheck? 'Disnae bother me. I don't consider maself skint - just the reverse, actually. I'm privileged - after all, I've made the choice tae live simply, tae go wi'out' - he gestures around - 'most of them roond here will never ha'e that choice.' Was there nothing positive about his experience at City Farm then?

‘Aye, there was! Too right there was. Loads. I can handle it rough now. An it taught me a thing oor two for the band. F'r'instance I learned tae play to an audience there - tae handle a crowd - I mean, them schoolkids from Stirlin' come up an' it's like, 'look miss, is that a real live goat?' They've nivver seen one close up so they're none the wiser if you break into a bit o' air guitar or give 'em a quick moonwalk, they think it's a perfectly natural thing tae do.'



Two summers after fame came their way, CapriKorn were gigging around Africa's southern tip, filming a documentary and recording their live album, TropiK of CapriKorn. 'We were doing hotels, resorts, poolside signings, crazy weird things for the photographers and director. Not tae mention the parties and usual excesses. Bunch of lads on their own, away from home, record company footing the bills - I'm not particularly proud of it all... I just followed the herd.'

Driving through cities like Durban he first came face to face with African poverty. 'I thought we slummed it at City Farm' he reflects, 'but I'd seen nothin'. We had pretty cosy sheds and were mucked out daily. In Durban, three hundred thousand people there have tae crap in fields because they have no proper privvies. Not goats, mun - humans. I could'na believe my eyes - or my nose. Between shows I found masel' spending more and more time wi' the ordinary people.'

So much time that he gave up eating, sleeping and even rehearsing to talk to families who were struggling. And not just talk, but trying to organise practical help, at one point even commandeering the tour catering contractors to prepare food parcels for streetkids. He emptied his pockets, and the band's travelling wardrobe. By the final dates he found himself a goat posessed - 'I was like St Francis on speed. Like, it's the last day of the sale folks... everythin' must go... I felt like I was jettisoning my old life, makin' a clean break. But I also felt that something was going tae change, like I was goin' intae a new phase, but I couldnae see what.' After cash came excess music gear, vehicles, designer jewellery, time and energy. 'I even gave away oor drummer's leather thong set' he recollects. A pause. 'Actually, that was the only thing anyone ever gave back.' At the end of the tour he was possessionless. Everything did go - everything that is, apart from the glasses.

Prescription shades. Another secret is out.

‘OK, I confess' - a twist of a smile - 'tae tell the truth, wi'out these shades I'm like a mole. I canna see squat. It's the shape of my pupils - it's a goat thing.'

Tazo Tukka certainly couldn't see what was coming next. A curious quirk of fate left him stumbling, quite literally, out of the dressing room and into his current career with Cowforce.

‘We finished the tour by filming a beach gig in Mombassa for a video - did the whole thing live, sweated through about six encores, and it was the wee hours before the audience let us off stage... well, sweat's dripping off me, an' my glasses are sliding everywhere - having a big nose guarantees you nothing. So I'm stumbling out to the van to get anither pair, and by sheer coincidence Gold's in town, at that very hotel, an' - would you believe it - she's parked her truck - like right next to oors? And it all looks the same tae me. So I get in, can't find my stuff, but there's all this smart kit in there, little flashy lights, so I guess it must be the TV people. I sit down at the desk, but my eyes are drooping - so I think ok, I'll get ten minutes of kip to recharge. Power-napping.

‘Anyway, I go out like a light and wake up at ten the next morning - an' I'm three hundred miles down the coast. No-one noticed me - driver just closed the doors and checked out. I'm thinking, Power nap? More like a kidnap. Aye, an' I'm the kid...'

Gold. Another name I've heard whispered. Rarely seen in public, she's rumoured to be the anchor cow for the organisation who took an instant shine to her first recruit. Tazo soon agreed to sign up for intensive training. He's been part of the Cowforce family ever since.

‘Not that I had much choice in the matter' he laughs 'she's not someone ye can easily say 'no' to. But I figured fate had brought us together anyway. She told me about this charity operation she was putting together, which had all sorts of high-level backers. Said would I like to get on board, that I had the right sort o' profile oor somethin'.

And he did. It seems time to mention that my internet trawl for Cowforce has led nowhere, and, like most, I'm none the wiser about what they do. For the first time, Tazo's words sound more carefully selected - cagey, even.

‘Well... we're kind of... a big family, an' we help oot big families. We... tend tae work on the quiet, findin' oot where the problems are, seeing what's needed. Help the stragglers in the herd. Bairns wi' no parents, orphans, y'know. Plus, we can get into places that it would be hard for... regular workers tae get. People will'na ask so many questions of a goat for some reason.'

Tazo is closing down, but I decide to push my luck and prise anyway. What sort of families?

‘Well, we're on the lookout for very specific people. I canna really say any more. You should visit one of oor projects, talk to the them.'
I say that I'd like that. Where would I find one?

‘All over, mun. Nine different countries now.'

So there must be a lot of you? ‘Och, no, I wouldn'a say that. We just move fast, that's all.'

Time, too, is moving fast. Tazo holds a hoof to his ear and I notice for the first time a faint crackle - or maybe a voice - that seems to come from the garnet stud. He sinks the last of the mango juice and stands - a goat on a mission. Time's up anyway. I make a move to pay the bill, but Tazo's glance at the the waitress seems to settle it. 'Dinna fash yersel' ' he grins 'they'll get it. I'm known aboot here.'

We walk to the BSA Bantam which starts independently as Tazo puts his hand in his pocket. An answer seems unlikely, but I venture the question anyway. Where's he headed?

‘Maseru. Seein' some orphans after lunch.'

My eyebrows climb incredulously up my forehead. Maseru in Lesotho, I point out, is almost 2000 miles that way.

‘Be there in an hour.'

A roar, a wave, and the bike disappears down the main drag. The dust clears and the drum-seller beats relentlessly on.

Our meeting leaves me with pocket-recorder full of answers. But somehow I feel I have fewer than when I arrived. The waitress comes out and hands me a small package. 'He left this for you' she says.

I open the maroon-coloured paper. It's a CapriKorn CD, signed by the band. I already have it and I know the tracks, but right now one strikes me as being particularly appropriate. It's a cover of U2's 'I still haven't found what I'm looking for'.

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