Almost coming to two weeks since this event took place on 14th January. I did not want to comment personally because the issues are very close to my heart and I was afraid that my voice would be tainted with lack of objectivity. Bearing that in mind I asked Sam to come up with this feature in order to avoid any pre-convceived bias on my part. Yes I know some of you will say that that has never stopped me before but the scene (such as it is) means too much to me to not at least give it a fighting chance…

If there’s one thing the local music scene is not short on, it’s talk. After all, for years now we’ve been circling around ourselves discussions of reform and revival and revolution, framing every promising up-and-rising band with words of messianic hype and hopes. Is this the one to make a real commercial breakthrough? Is this the one to transform our fledging music scene into a true industry?

After a few rounds of disappointment we learn cynicism, bracing ourselves psychologically for when domestic life and social demands erode away youthful idealism and another one bites the dust. What we are short on are specific, pragmatic solutions that take into account the economic and media reality of the modern music climate.  To that extent a music forum was called to session at the Arts House last Saturday on the 14th of January, with key figures from the Canadian music industry present to, on paper at least, share their experiences and dispense words of wisdom.

The chief instigator was Graham Perkins, a long-time supporter of local music, and to his credit he had gathered together a pretty impressive panel. Tick the names off:  Jasper Donat, president of Music Matters, Eric Lawrence, manager of Simple Plan, Stuart Johnson, the president of the Canadian Independent Music Association as well as Timbre co-founder and scene veteran Danny Loong and local singer-songwriter Inch Chua.

Of course, with so many big names you’d expect things to get a tad corporate, and Messrs Donat, Lawrence and Johnson took up the better half of an hour droning on about their respective organizations. (I couldn’t help but giggle when halfway through the corporatalk Danny took a subtle dig at the irony of a forum about Singaporean music talking about anything but.) Still, if I were a Canadian music executive I wouldn’t be terribly excited about having to fly halfway around the world to give a talk to a commercial dry well of a scene, so credit where credit is due.

A particular point of relevance was brought up when Stuart Johnson talked about the MAPL system in Canada, which requires Canadian radio to fulfill a certain quota for Canadian content, and there was a brief discussion about the possibility of adopting something similar for Singapore.

The success of the MAPL system speaks for itself, of course, with the mainstream success of acts like Feist, Stars, Broken Social Scene, Metric and that critically acclaimed virtuoso Justin Bieber. It should be noted though that before the introduction of the MAPL system the likes of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and The Band had already achieved mainstream success in the Sixties, so it remains to be seen how effective a similar system for the local industry would be.

Things started getting really interesting when the session was opened up to the floor, with various audience members taking to the mic to pepper the panel with questions: How do we achieve local acceptance among our own population? Is local acceptance even necessary? How do we develop content that is commercially relevant and exportable?

A few common themes started to emerge that bridged genre divides. Everyone agreed, for example, on the need for exposure even as opinions divided over a government mandated quota versus free market economics. Similarly, even though opinions might differ over the the semantics of funding a fledgling band, nobody dissented against the need for capital investment in order to achieve sustainability.

The theme that rang the loudest bell, for this writer anyway, was the issue of community integration–it was pointed out several times by both Danny and Stuart Johnson that the only way to wield social and political clout was for the music community at large to collectively come together and speak with a single voice.

Of course, that’s easier said than done–the idea of unity can be easily dismissed as a hippie ideal. Scene veterans might feel like they’ve paid their dues in personal and financial sacrifice, while I’ve heard dark mutterings on more than one occasion about nepotism,  protesting that this scene remains too cliqued up and intolerant of dissenting opinions. Then there are those who resent the advantage that Mandopop or Malay artists have over English indie musicians when it comes to media airtime.

All of this talk, in my very humble position as a lowly amateur some-time music writer, amounts to missing the point. Fighting for a bigger slice of the pie is an inefficient and myopic strategy–why not grow the pie altogether? That’s not to dismiss the legitimate concerns that some might have of course– the ability to disagree, to beg to differ is the greatest strength of a team and a community.

At the risk of sounding like an insufferable know-it-all, though, I firmly believe that our only hope for long-term sustainability and breakthrough is dialogue and communication, to seek a midpoint between idealism and cynicism that is objectively pragmatic. After all, we destroy our enemies when we make them our allies…

A forum like this one is a step in the right direction definitely, and Graham Perkins deserves to be praised just for getting a working microcosm of the community at large into the same room (though the free breakfast did wonders to help). Of course, work remains to be done both strategically and semantically. Nevertheless, dialogue can only be a good thing, especially when it occurs across genres and across scenes like it did last Saturday, and I personally look forward to seeing future sessions advancing the agenda even further.

To steal a pet phrase from a good friend of mine–still there’s more…

(Samuel Caleb Wee)

IN certain circles of the local music scene, you’ll find the term “mainstream” bandied about almost as an insult. Catalogue V will take that gladly as a compliment–this self-styled schizo-pop outfit is unabashedly hungry for commercial success and radio play.

Live, this six-man outfit consisting of Razil Razil Razil (lead singer), Matt Raham (drummer), Alfredo Lucius (guitars), Mal Mikhal (bass), Hans Ibrahim (guitars) and Rave Zulo (keyboards) are an electrifying, bottom-end moving act, combining sticky pop hooks with irresistible jackhammer funk grooves that disguise the oft-weighty lyrical themes of their songs.

Fresh off a November visit to South Korea for the Yamaha Asian Beat competition as the representative champions for the Singapore edition, we catch up with the homecoming heroes and find out what they have in common with army infantry units, Stanley Kubrick and leprechauns.

One month ago you guys were in S. Korea for the Yamaha Asia Beat. What was that like?

Mal Mikhal: It was an awesome experience. Definitely it was something different from what we have over here in Singapore. The atmosphere was quite encouraging.

Alfredo Lucius: We arrived in the middle of autumn so the weather was very cold. We were stuffing our hands in our pockets, bringing heat packs, wearing gloves…anything to keep ourselves warm.

Matt Raham: The entire experience was surreal, from the moment we boarded the plane at Changi Airport to the sound check before we played the gig. When we stepped on stage to a full house crowd…it was a really “wow” experience. The crowd numbered about 3000 to 4000, which makes it the largest audience we’ve ever played for.

Razil Razil Razil: It was a regional competition showcasing the champions from each country. We were the third band to play and we performed a song called “Mighty Night‟. Previously we had been told that Korean crowd was hard to please, but they actually stood up and danced and sang along during our performance. At the time we thought that the crowd was warming up and that they were going to do the same for the other bands, but they only did it for us.

It was quite amazing. We took a break outside of the hall and slowly the people from the audience started coming out and going, “eh Singapore!” We don’t get this kind (of recognition) in Singapore. We took a lot of pictures with both members from the audience as well as the other bands.

Did you guys play any other gigs in S. Korea?

Razil Razil Razil : Our trip was entirely sponsored by Yamaha, so we had to strictly abide to their terms and conditions. We weren’t allowed to extend our stay or play other shows.

Was winning an important thing for you guys?

Razil Razil Razil: Winning wasn’t an objective. The main objective was to leave them remembering the band from Singapore, and in that respect we’re quite satisfied. After our performance they (the other competitors) were saying they would tell their juniors back home to watch out for SIngaporean bands. That made us very proud…the main fuel for this band is not to impress, but to imprint. We want the whole experience to be imprinted in the minds of the audience.

I heard the rhythm section won quite a few awards…

Alfredo Lucius: One of the judges was a very good drummer named Akira Jimbo (from fusion-jazz band Casiopea) and when he came to Singapore to do his drum clinic a few weeks he actually mentioned our rhythm section by name. To get a comment like that from an international musician was a very big endorsement.

Razil Razil Razil: Apparently, there was somebody who was being condescending towards local music and putting down our musicians,, saying that the most Singapore could hope for was to replicate Japan’s music industry. Akira was actually pissed off, and defended Singaporean music by citing Matt as an example of local talent.

He might have a point though. Local music is not exactly financially sustainable. How are things on that front for you guys?

Razil Razil Razil: Financially it’s getting better and becoming clockwork. Before Korea we had a lot of doubts about whether we could sustain this financially as a career. After Korea I think most of the doubts have been cleared. Right now it’s a world ruled by the Internet. Online you can sell your music, talk to people, forego labels, and forego the middleman…so we’re planning to break into the digital market.

Definitely, with digitalization, you can distribute your music internationally a lot easier, but the flipside of that is that people are putting a lot less value in recorded music–they see it as something free and sharable. How do you guys make sure all those listens translate into actual money to recoup your costs?

Razil Razil Razil: It will be and it has always been very hard… it’s a matter of mental stamina. I think the only thing we only care about right now is our main focus, our passion to get the music out there. Money is always a need, yes, at the end of the day you need to put food on the table, but we take that as a secondary priority.

Matt Raham: We will probably do something different live from what we have on record and add something additional to our live experience. We can arrange something more extravagant…the challenge of trying to reinvent our songs live and add value is the proof of our musicianship.

For the benefit of our readers, take us through how the band started.

Alfredo Lucius: It basically started when I was playing an acoustic show at a company corporate show in mid ’09. I can‟t remember who the singer was, but Razil was in the audience and we met. We both wanted to start something and slowly we started sourcing for musicians. I knew Mal from NS and so I roped him in almost instantly and Razil met Matt in reservist training.

Razil Razil Razil: We were looking for a permanent keyboardist, and while Matt was sessioning for another band he met Hans. We intended him to be a keyboardist, but when I heard him playing guitar I was like…hell no, I‟m not gonna let this dude not hold the guitar. The line-up was complete when we saw Rave at the Boat Quay underpass outside Home Club, busking and playing keyboards early this year.

How long did it take for you guys to find a musical identity–what’s the creative dynamic in the band like?

Matt Raham: We basically came from different genres and…when you get different colours from different rainbows, you get a new rainbow which is unique.

Alfredo Lucius: And if you try hard enough, you might find a pot of gold…

Razil Razil Razil: And Fred would be the leprechaun.

Alfredo Lucius: Creatively, we work like an infantry section. The rhythm groove section are kinda like the SAW gunners who sit back and lay down the suppressive fire… and the vocal instruments like the guitars and the keyboards and the vocalist, we’re the soldiers doing the flanking.

Rave Zulo: For example, for “Mighty Night‟, Razil came up with the initial idea and we all tried to contribute. On my part I wanted to find the right kind of sound, the right kind of melody that would make people dance.

Razil Razil Razil: We’re all writing the song, and we don’t want to consciously set out to replicate the same sound with every song. We‟re not one of those bands that go, “Oh, we want to sound like The Strokes!” Basically our mindset is that every song is a movie.

How do you mean that?

Alfredo Lucius: Well, you can look at certain directors who‟ve directed movies of various genres, but their movies are still very distinctively them. People like Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick, they‟re all directors who touch on various different themes but still retain a distinctive identity.

I’ve noticed some pretty interesting terrain in terms of the lyrics. What are your influences?

Razil Razil Razil: As a lyrics writer I’m very influenced by narrative song writing, people like Babyface, Anthony Kiedis, and Jay Kay from Jamiraqoui. I try to be ambiguous and make it relatable. The song “Dancer‟, for example, is a sarcastic song about girls who lead guys on, but I get female dancers who come up to me and tell me they identify with the song! So my approach is to leave it open so that the listeners can find their own meaning in the song.

Alfredo Lucius: We try not to do the obvious thing. “How I Am Alive‟, for example, is a song that has a very serious message about human trafficking and sexual exploitation, so we tried to make it easy-listening so it would grab attention.

Razil Razil Razil: It’s about the psychology of the song. We didn’t want to write a slow song which would only put people into a mood for moping and complaining–we wanted to inspire people to get up and do something about it.

So what’s your definition of success?

Razil Razil Razil: Our definition of success is having our songs played on local radio. Other radio stations might be friendlier, but our goal is still to get our music on local radio even though friends might tell us not to waste our time. It‟s not a matter of wanting to prove something. We want to be mainstream; we’re not shy of being mainstream. Some people come up to us and call us sell-outs–we don’t care. We want as many ears as possible. We’re doing the digital media thing but we also want the conventional media recognition because nobody is trying to change the system.

Doesn’t it frustrate you though, going to a foreign country and getting such a warm reception from fans and musicians alike, only to come back to Singapore only to run into so many walls?

Razil Razil Razil: It does but we’re still gonna be very optimistic about it. We take it as a new challenge to make Singapore react as much as a foreign audience would. We’re not giving up on Singapore…I still believe that if you can’t succeed in your own country, what makes you think a foreign country will be any different? We want to make Singapore dance.

So any concrete plans for the future? Is a full-length album coming out?

Razil Razil Razil: We‟re working on an EP right now, and “Mighty Night‟ is going to be the first single for sure. Most likely we’re gonna focus on releasing our songs single by single and afterwards compiling them into an EP.

Alfredo Lucius: It‟s a singles market now. With Katy Perry‟s last record, ten of her songs hit the charts–every song has to be a single.

Razil Razil Razil: You need all killers, no fillers now. The way music is consumed is something that‟s not in our control anymore. You used to be able to package your music and have the audience experience it the way you want it to tell a story, but audiences are much cleverer now. They mix-and-match, and music is like a candy store to them where they cherry-pick the songs to put on their iPod.

Alfredo Lucius: We’re living in the age where everything is being customized to what we want. Everyone has the option of a playlist made for themselves.

(Samuel C Wee)

Watch the video of Catalogue V’s performance in South Korea at the Yamaha Asian Beat below.

I’m MIDWAY through my first ever Monster Cat gig, and things are not going too well.

The already incongruous sight of a rock band in full flight  on the dance floor of local superclub Zouk  is being compounded by a decidedly unwelcome screech of feedback.

The explanation is almost comically sci-fi, according to frontman Hentai Cat, 26: apparently, the electromagnetic waves from the strong neon lights on stage are creating a magnetic interference playing havoc with the electric guitars.

I am here with fellow PoP writer CJ, and there is something inexorably fascinating about watching a band struggle to fit into a system that is trying to spit them out, trying to expel the foreign bodies transplanted into its midst.

It’s the alchemy of a rock band trying to turn lead into gold, and slowly but surely the song is beginning to gel. Halfway through I turn to shout to CJ, who is standing by my side.  As we are, though standing in front of the speaker stacks, he doesn’t hear anything, and besides he is already transfixed.

I turn my attention back to the stage, where Hentai Cat is busy bellowing into the mic, his voice struggling to find its key in the midst of the metal machine music.

Midway through however, he catches my glance and lets slip a grin and a wink.

Suddenly the mood shifts; suddenly the weight lifts.  For a moment we are fearless.

A FEW weeks earlier, I am with three-fifths of the band at the Starbucks outlet at Liang Court, dancing our way through the pleasantries of an interview over cups of coffee, acoustic guitars propped against the table.

As far as first dates go, we are halfway between tentative and natural. Not too bad.

Away from the glamour of stage lights, Hentai Cat cuts a marked different figure: long, shoulder length hair dragged back into a low ponytail, a pair of black glasses softening his face, a loose, nondescript grey cotton tee hanging off his skinny frame.

He speaks slowly, he listens attentively, he sits on his hands, rocking back and forth in searching pauses before answering questions. He resembles more of a timid bohemian art teacher in desperate need of a haircut than a rock star.

We start off by talking about the Monster Cat band name and identity, which originated in the depths of Japanese folklore.

Believed to possess supernatural powers such as shapeshifting and fireball-casting,  it was the legendary bakeneko (literal translation: monster cat) which inspired the band to take on their unique moniker. This unconventional approach, however, only really ignited after Baybeats–or rather, after the band was rejected from Baybeats.

Lead guitarist Psycho Cat, 27, explains: “It was a kick in the butt because by default, we had assumed we were going there, taking the typical Singaporean band route: play at Baybeats, release an EP, release an album…”

The rejection derailed the band’s original long-term plans. Nevertheless, it proved to be the catalyst for a radical re-imagining of the band’s entire approach to the industry.

Hentai Cat says: “We were forced to find our own voice. Everything weird started from there.”

Everything weird included pseudonyms which the band would hide behind: one will find no trace of the band’s real names or faces in the digital media kit that was sent out.

It’s that age-old Oscar Wilde adage about the mask revealing the man again, then.

I put it to the band that they hide behind pseudonyms because it allows them to express themselves fully without being tied to their domestic selves.

There is a brief pause before Hentai Cat agrees and answers.

“The band didn’t really exist until we found the Monster Cat identity, which is based around the idea that in the creative process, no one’s really normal.

“It’s also partially a way for me to detach myself from the music. I was a huge fan of Ronin when Levan (Wee, then-frontman of Ronin) was with them, and when he started Astroninja I followed them too.

“I’m not directly influenced by them in terms of music, but they’ve affected the way I relate to the audience. I remember Dong (the lead guitarist of Astroninja) mentioning to me before about how the audience looks up to you.. There is a certain illusion that the musician is infallible, that he stands for certain ideals.

“What we wanted to do was allow people to hear the music without having preconceptions about who we were–in a way, it allows us to disappear behind the music, it allows the music to take centre stage.

“You become a slave to the music, to a larger story.”

Still, the quirkiness of their alter-egos almost serves as false advertising for the record proper.

While their Facebook page is peppered with cheeky and offbeat posts (a video of Jedi kittens being the latest), their debut EP, Mannequins, is instead shot through with surrealism and angst, inhabiting a Kundera-meets-Murakami world that is sketched out and coloured by layers of moody soundscapes.

Nor were the themes lightweight: drawing influence from Italian poet, painter and musician Alberto Savinio, the record’s central image is that of the mannequin, full of pain and passion despite being faceless.

Though Hentai Cat insists Mannequins falls short of being a social statement, it still serves as a powerful metaphor for modern humanity’s stuttering search for identity as we grope in the dark to find ourselves.

The EP’s gestation began in late 2009,.

“It started with a stockpile of sketched demos that I wanted to flesh out in a live context with Copy Cat, the bassist,” says Hentai Cat, who was at the time involved with another band as a guitarist.

Things took on a more serious sheen when Psycho Cat hopped on board, but it wasn’t until keyboardist and co-vocalist Black Cat joined the band midway through recording that their collaborative identity was firmly set in stone.

Originally recommended by producer Leonard Soosay to add vocal tracks to The Courier, a duet piece that burns slowly and whips up a storming frenzy,  Black Cat eventually became a full-time member of the band.

The group were now a fully-fledged band, though bonded more by common frustration than common musical influences, as Psycho Cat put it.

Hentai Cat elaborates: “To be willing and able to take music as a job in itself…the music has its own reward. That’s harder to achieve than you think.

“It was frustrating for all of us separately in our old bands because no one was really as committed. We were constantly battling with the question: “why aren’t you guys as committed as we are? Our ex-bandmates had “serious” jobs, which are fine, but you need to make a point. It was the sort of lifestyle which was all about the 9 to 5 and getting as much money as possible.

“Personally, I had to come to terms with picking this route, but I have no intention of being the stereotypical starving artist. It was J.K. Rowling who  said that poverty is romanticized by fools, but at the same time I’m quite clear on the fact that you don’t compromise your art.

“I know it does sound a bit high in the clouds and shit, but we all want to prove a point: that music could be a career choice. It doesn’t come with the same expectations, but it’s still an option.”

(As I listen to Hentai Cat speak, it suddenly strikes me that buried beneath the unassuming artist must burns not only a fierce determination, but also a keen and ruthless sense of pragmatic logic and commercial appeal that belies the bohemian appearance.)

I decide to test my hypothesis and ask the band what the dynamic in the studio is like- is it a democratic alliance of ideas, a peaceful government by referendum, a communal utopia of equal sharing?

Copy Cat snorts.

“Let me put it this way. If we are the UN, Hentai Cat is the US.”

I ARRIVE at Zouk close to an hour later than the specified timing; nonetheless, I am still a good half hour earlier than the set. (Everything at Zouk starts fashionably late, after all.)

Hentai Cat meets me inside, after I have cleared a suspicious bouncer at the entrance who seemed doubtful of my guest list status. Tonight, all decked out in his rock and roll full battle order (courtesy of Agnes B), this Hentai Cat looks quite the different animal.

The E! Entertainment breakdown, for the interested: high-cut canvas shoes, combined with dark-washed denim jeans and a forbidding black coat zipped up to his neck. Throw in the released mane of long, raven-black hair that lends a leonine air to his gaunt features, and the effect is completed under the glow of the house lights, which washes his face with a ghostly green tint.

(At this moment, Hentai Cat wouldn’t look out of place at an audition for a remake of The Crow.)

We are here at the Sport B. Plugged Asian Music Festival 2011, ostensibly to celebrate the launch of the first Agnes B – Sport B. concept store in Singapore. Monster Cat’s presence at this particular gig comes as an extension and validation of the conversation we were having earlier at Starbucks, about financial sustainability in the modern music industry and in the local scene.

Then, they had admitted to being just as lost as the next band, what with the climate changing rapidly and the game dying for the big record companies.

An optimistic air still prevailed though; after all, Singapore had never really experienced any sort of commercial boom in the forever-fledgling indie scene, and perhaps the change was really an opportunity, an opening up of vast fertile expanses across the desert, to be colonized and settled by the brave and the bold.

The discussion had fallen into a debate about what it meant to be a band when band manager Errol Tan (of KittyWu Records) pointed out that the anonymity of the Monster Cat construct allowed for greater flexibility with the band’s identity, which would allow more creative freedom for collaborations and creations- not dissimilar to Damon Albarn’s pet project, Gorillaz

Picking up on that theme, Hentai Cat  described how the band could  simultaneously be a brand, cooperating with fashion labels and the like to extend their commercial reach and reinforce the  Monster Cat identity. That philosophy partially explains the band’s presence here in Zouk–after all, in the young counter-culture of fashionable, young and gorgeous PMEBs, Monster Cat and Sport B share a common target market

(A quick aside: It’s not hard to understand the appeal of a young urban professional to a clothing label, but one has to give credit to the genius who thought to associate a marketing campaign with a rock band. After all, if marketing is about creating a seductive lifestyle narrative that a consumer wants to  be associated with, what better way than through rock and roll, that eternal medium of rebirth and reinvention? )

My conversation with Hentai Cat relaxes into a comfortable silence as we both take in the sights and sounds of the club around us, people-watching the people-watchers watching us back. It’s still too early for inebriation to depose self-consciousness; instead, we are faced with the amusing ( and existentially depressing) sight of beautiful people trying to look beautiful.

Hentai Cat excuses himself backstage shortly before Bear Culture, a local progressive rock outfit,  takes the stage. The five-piece turn out a set similar to their debut Baybeats appearance earlier this year. Nevertheless, their performance is intriguingly non-conformist to genre conventions; the set runs the gamut from ambient post-rock guitar work to heavy metal, topped off by the operatic, echoing vocals of frontwoman Thahirah Taslim.

Once the set ends, emcee for the night Rozz (a 987FM deejay by day) hops on stage to fill for time while Monster Cat sets up.

This leads to a cheeky moment of spontaneous banter. Unaware of the band’s preference for anonymity, Rozz sprung a routine namecheck upon Hentai Cat, who  responded  with his pseudonym.

“Does that mean you like hentai?”

“What’s really important, Rozz…do you like hentai?”

Cue lascivious leer, cue awkward and flustered emcee.

Once set up, the band plunges straight into their set, carrying on courageously through their sound problems, which are offset by the gorgeously improvised images being projected onto the video wall on stage by their collaborator, visual artist Jun, who follows the band’s performance from off stage, masterfully cueing, cutting and mixing the specially-filmed images in time to the song.

This is a live, hands-on performance in  a broader sense than one is accustomed to, and the effect is gorgeously haunting and organic.

Jun’s images serve to complements the songs by drawing out subtleties and casting new light. On Mannequins, the first track of both the EP and the set, faceless soldiers cross the screen, speeding vehicles blur into traffic, and I can’t help but think of the endless march of conformity, the misery of being mute and alone in a crowd. Then the song ends and I am not thinking of much at all; Black Cat is playing out a beautiful interlude, wordlessly humming along to a piano piece that is brittle, fragile, elegiac.

The lights dim and shift into green,, and on the video wall behind the stage,  a wave ripples across the screen. We are into the intro of Underwater, and Copy Cat is hammering a kettledrum on the first beat of every bar, locking in to drummer Zen Cat’s precise groove,  turning what was on record a lover’s whisper into a military march.

I spend a few moments feverishly scribbling into my notebook before giving up and surrendering to the song, which has washed over everyone else in the audience, holding them in its watery thrall. They  hang on to every word of the lyric, just as Black Cat hangs on to Hentai Cat’s every note, her harmonies a ghost floating above the corpse of his melody. She’s sighing, she’s crooning, drifting behind the beat like the dry ice drifting through the air…

Later I will go through my notebook and read words I don’t remember writing, words that seem obsessed with the invisible rather than the visible.

For example: “…a little rough around the edges, but the soul and spirit of this band is remarkable.”

And: “Hentai Cat seems a man mysterious and tortured and desperate and possessed …where does that howl come from?”

Midway through The Courier, while Hentai Cat, Black Cat and Psycho Cat are keening away at their best,  I turn around to observe the audience instead of the band, to play spy and voyeur.

In the middle of the crowd there is a girl clinging on tightly to her lover, arms wrapped around his back, head leaning into his chest but facing the stage.

Her face is expressionless, but on her cheeks and in her eyes are what look suspiciously like tears.

… to be continued.

(Samuel C Wee)

Pix of Monster Cat by eugeneongbang!jun

VULTURE WHALE Long Time Listener First Time Caller (Ol’ Elegante)

On their previous two self-titled LPs, Vulture Whale perfected their deep-fried brand of crunchy guitar pop. On the other hand, the intermissory EP Bamboo You saw frontman Wes McDonald trying out a pseudo-British accent, just in case you weren’t confused enough by their Birmingham roots (Alabama, not West Midlands).

While the quartet has held on tightly to their smirking sense of mischief, its third record Long Time Listener, First Time Caller sees them adapting their deep-fried, alt-country twang into a brand of nuanced hard rock that owes as much to their Southern backgrounds as it does to their Brit-pop explorations. Yes, the guitar work is still riffy and infectious, but this time round there’s a certain sharpened precision that’s less early Kings of Leon and more AC/DC –check opening track Devices, for instance, which sports a Angus Young riff over a groove reminiscent of Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life. Elsewhere we still hear touches of 90s lo-fi rock; Friday Night Video Fights could very well be a lost Dinosaur Jr track, and rays of Guided By Voices shine through on the twinkling, twilighting campfighting verses of VCVW.

There’s a certain formula here on this short, ten-track album that clocks in at just over half an hour. We’re talking sharp, punchy, riffs on top of tight grooves, with a strong, Rooney-ish pop discipline and a mix that highlights those bombastic guitar riffs. Still, things are kept interesting by McDonald’s trademark swagger: the anti Bon Iver, his is an attitude rare to music today outside of Steve Tyler’s lecherous leers on American Idol. It’s fresh for the scarcity.

If you’re a fan of fuzzed-out hard rock with traces of Brit-pop–highly recommended.

Official Site

(Samuel C Wee)

MONSTER CAT Mannequins (KittyWu)

The long-form explanation for MONSTER CAT’s name is a mystical affair involving Japanese folk-tales and myths, but we prefer the short-attention span answer. MONSTER CAT loves cats. Really fat ones.

Now that that’s out of the way, the vital details, then, quickly: The band members of MONSTER CAT are Hentai Cat, Psycho Cat, Black Cat, Copy Cat, Zen Cat and Paper Cat, with the band’s name always in caps (because fuck you, Google Chromebook). Having already been featured once in legendary local producer Leonard Soosay’s Snakeweed Sessions in May, the new KittyWu recruits have followed up that burst of publicity with the release of Mannequins (itself also a Soosay production).

Interestingly enough, the record proper features none of the humour hinted at by their quirky pseudonyms. Instead, Mannequins is a mellow, fragile affair, shivering with sex and soul as well as nuanced emotion. Beginning with the aptly-named opening track, Initiation, we dive head-first into a measured instrumental piece that is deliberate in its atmospheric build-up. Title track Mannequins then introduce us to the EP’s central theme; under a bed of stark, urgent folk-rock instrumentation, the band launches into a lyric inspired by Italian writer Alberto Savinio that is frightening in its desperation.

The rest of this short EP takes its cue from the first two tracks: having opted for fragile, articulated melodies over instant pop hooks, the band spends the rest of its time building up and refining the ambient atmospheres, laying claim to the texture and drama of influences like Fever Ray and Smashing Pumpkins.  Underwater is a particular masterpiece of arrangement and production. At once both intimate and claustrophobic, the track shimmers with a kind of midnight blue reminiscent of Miles Davis. In its spiritual eroticism Mannequins presents us a refreshingly intimate and private perspective not often heard from local shores; The Courier, for example, is a love supreme unto itself, a moment stolen from the bed of two lovers soulful and hot.

By the time the EP closes on the quiet and intense number, These Hands, you ought to have realised that this is one of the best warning shots ever fired by a local band. One would do well to keep an eye on the strange and brilliant animal that is MONSTER CAT.

(Samuel C Wee)

Official Site

DAMION SUOMI AND THE MINOR PROPHETS Go and Sell All of Your Things (Hopeless)

There are few things that excite me quite as much as when cliches collide to produce something gorgeously original. Imagine my cynicism when I first found out that Damion Suomi’s latest effort would draw from both folk-rock/bluegrass music as well as the Bible–both sources that have been bled dry in recent years. Yet the end product produced by Suomi (pronounced like a legal show cliche) and his aptly-named band, The Minor Prophets, is one of the best records I’ve heard this year!

Certainly it’s one that rises head and shoulders above the competition in the wasted badlands of boring folk-rock. On his latest effort, Go, And Sell All Your Things, Damion Suomi dips his pen into the rich well of poetry and history that is the Bible. It comes out dripping with stark, startlingly mystic imagery; most impressively, Suomi avoids falling into moralistic preaching. Instead the record takes the form of a pseudo-concept album of drinking songs, vaguely tracing the Hero’s Journey as laid out by Joseph Campbell.

It starts off with The Call: in a voice that sounds suspiciously like REM’s Michael Stipe, Suomi dramatically intones a call to destiny, all the while warning the hero of temptation in threes and hunger pains. We proceed to a track that ponders the dilemna of God and wealth as a rich man strikes a bargain with God to get the camel through the eye: : “I’ll cut you ten percent/Soon I’ll be heaven sent”. (Kong Hee, Joseph Prince, are you listening?)

The rest of the journey plays like an epic, time-travelling trip on which familiar names occasionally cameo: King Solomon, he of wise mind and foolish heart, pops up on The Teacher to offer some sagely advice to our hero (which of course reminds this avid U2 fan of Johnny Cash’s appearance on The Wanderer, off the 1993 album Zooropa). Elsewhere cowards, murderers and horny rockstar kings make their appearances as we say hi to Jonah, Moses and David.

Despite the parables and philosophizing on tracks like Mustard Seed (single-worthy catchy!) and Pearls (Before The Swine), Suomi grounds the record in humour and humanity. By setting his lyrics in drinking songs against a bed of rustic mandolins and accordions, Suomi manages to make even blasphemy against the Spirit of God indelibly catchy. Just try getting the stirring refrain of “There is no Holy Ghost/there is no Holy Ghost inside of me” out of your mind!

It’s a windswept desert landscape that The Minor Prophets create here with their rambunctious mix of Americana and Celtic instrumentation, one so evocative it might leave you thirsting for a drink of water…or beer. The Dylan comparisons will be inevitable, but do Suomi a service and take this record on its own gorgeous merits without once thinking of Fleet Foxes or Mumford and Sons. An intoxicating blend of spirits both alcoholic and divine, you’ll find yourself singing along to these drinking songs of ascent.

(Samuel C Wee)

Official Site

SEBADOH Bakesale reissue (Domino)

Fans of American 90s lo-fi rock outfit, Sebadoh, will recognise their 1994 album Bakesale as the point when the band put on some commercial make-up in a brief come-hither attempt to seduce the mainstream. Released in the wake of founding member Eric Gaffney’s departure, this more commercialist effort is nonetheless often overlooked in favour of more successful efforts in the same year (viz. Guided By Voices’ Bee Thousand and Weezer’s debut effort). 

Still, Bakesale marks an important turning point in the discography of Sebadoh, which is why this year has seen its reissue, complete with a bumper second disc of bonus tracks. 17 years after its first release, the record still holds up magnificently—Gaffney’s resignation from the band had led to bassist Jason Lowenstein stepping up as co-songwriter alongside Lou Barlow. The result was a gorgeous collection of 15 songs that was slightly polished up in terms of production as compared to past records like III and Weed Forestin’, but still rough and raw enough for the new electic guitars to come through with urgent punk energy. 

Opening on the oddly named License To Confuse, we’re quickly introduced to Lowenstein and Barlow’s first collaboration on Careful, a tight, clenched fist of a song. The album’s first highlight comes on Not Too Amused, a gorgeously melodic, quietly distorted tune that builds up into a maelstrom of spite. Similarly, Skull treads its way through a tight, controlled ebb and flow dynamic, while first single Rebound is a punkish, energetic slab of power pop. 

On top of the 15 tracks from the original album, the reissue also comes with a bumper disc of 25 unreleased songs, demos and acoustic versions of album tracks, which brings the total track count to 40(!) –-surely a value for money deal if there ever was one. Most of the unreleased material here is wildly different from the album proper–pyschedelia noise rock and reflective sonic experiments (Check out MOR Backlash and 40203). The demos here and acoustic versions are also interesting for the die-hard Sebadoh addict, if only to see how the songs evolved and changed into the final versions on the record.

Official Site

(Samuel C Wee)

THE HEAD AND THE HEART S/t (Sub Pop)

I really hate to be one of those cynical reviewers who accuse a band of bandwagon-jumping, but let’s face it: there’s no way Seattle-based outfit The Head And The Heart can avoid the Fleet Foxes comparisons. What do you expect when you ply your trade in rootsy, old-time Americana?

I suppose you could get away with arguing that there’s no crime in taking cues from the likes of The Band and Avett Brothers… but I’m still inclined to be skeptical, especially when the CSNY-reminiscent vocal harmonies here on their debut self-titled record seems calculated to target the folk-meets-gospel-barbershop blend that their Sub Pop labelmates have made a name with.

Defenders of the sextet might well point out that 10,000 fans can’t be wrong: before being signed to Sub Pop, the band had pushed their self-recorded album to impressive sales figures as well as a management deal with Death Cab For Cutie manager Jordan Kurland. Undoubtedly, it IS a well-produced, musically competent and well-marketed record, swirling with scene-watcher savvy. On top of violin touches and piano licks you’ll find tight vocal harmonies from co-vocalists Josiah Johnson and Jonathan Russell, both of whom seem to be competing to see who can sound more like Ryan Adams.

But that musical vocabulary is never put to interesting use–the opening two-track medley of Cats And Dogs into Coueur D’Alene starts you off with a slow jam to orientate you with the different instruments, and from then on it’s all yawnfully predictable, even through the album’s best moments on Down In The Valley, a number that yearns cloyingly for nostalgia.

I really wanted badly to like this record, especially when the band themselves try so earnestly hard, wearing their desire for approval as blatantly as any other emotion on the album. But in the over-saturated indie folk-pop market, you’re gonna need considerably more than the run-of-the-mill to make a dent, and unfortunately that’s exactly what The Head And The Heart is.

It’s not confidential that they’ve got potential–but if they want to have a real shot at producing great music and escaping the Fleet Foxes comparisons, they’re going to need a major injection of cojones and imagination.

(Samuel C Wee)

TOWARDS the end of Switchfoot’s first show in three years in Singapore, frontman Jon Foreman goes conspicuously missing from the stage.

Shock, the horror, the horror, gasp and awe: where has the absentee rocker gone? It’s so…un-Christian to go AWOL, really. There’s the mic stand where he left it, there’s the leather jacket and red flannel shirt he shed, there’s the guitar he threw off a few songs ago, but nope, no sign of the lead singer…

Oh, there he is, recklessly plunging into the crowd, diving into the sea of humanity, climbing on top of the seats and hi-fiving the audience, inciting the sort of fervour that borders on religious ecstasy.

“This is a song about movement!”

Cue the familiar burst of light that is the intro to Dare You To Move, cue mass crowd hysteria.

YOU’LL never guess it from the fanatically dedicated fanbase they’ve gathered for themselves here, but this April 28^th gig is only the second ever Switchfoot show in Singapore, with the first being at the Expo MAX Pavilion in 2008.

Quite a lot has changed for the San Diego quintet since then. 2009 saw Switchfoot releasing Hello Hurricane, their first album under the self-founded indie record label Lowercase People Records.

Although it was received well by both critics and fans alike, Hello Hurricane marked a departure from the radio-friendly sheen of their previous three major label records.

Says long-time Switchfoot fan Hannah Zhang: “It’s not an easily digestible album because compared to their earlier efforts, Hello Hurricane is more melancholic and contemplative—it’s not the sort of thing you can put on everyday.

“Still, there are certain songs which relate beautifully when you’re in a certain state of mind –when you find it hard to go on and want someone to commiserate with you.”

Despite the shift away from the commercial mainstream, the record was still successful enough to gain validation from the music industry: In February this year, Hello Hurricane picked up the Grammy award for Best Rock Gospel Album, a ringing endorsement from the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) scene.

Says Jon Foreman of the recognition: “It was an honour, but at the same time it was strange because nothing much has changed for us. We’re still hoping to make the best music we can. Anything else is beside the point.”

Nevertheless, the stakes have definitely been raised, not for the first time in their career. When their major-label debut The Beautiful Letdown went double platinum in 2003, selling over 2.6 million copies, the then-quartet followed up their commercial success by adding a new member in the form of guitarist Drew Shirley and delivering what was their densest, darkest record to date in 2005’s Nothing Is Sound.

Even though there will be no changes to the personnel this time, the band promises an evolution of their sound on the next record, Vice Verses.

Explains Jon: “We’ve all grown up over the years with every record we make…the music is bound to follow your life. Vice Verses is going to be a record about the polarity of life, about death, birth, and the in between. So it’s going to be both darker and brighter at the same time.”

CHIEF among Switchfoot’s appeal to their fanbase is the sort of spiritual optimism that permeates their material.

Earlier, before the doors open, I speak to a few of the fans who have gathered. Timothy Ooi, a 23-year-old marketing executive, tells me: “Maybe it’s because they’re all Christians in the band, but I feel like their songs have the joy and positivity that other bands lack… A Switchfoot concert makes me uplifted, like I’ve just attended church.”

That’s not to say that Switchfoot don’t have their secular admirers; student and long-time Switchfoot fan Adrian Poh, for example, says:  “The Christian part of their music doesn’t bother me, but it doesn’t appeal to me either because I’m not religiously inclined.”

Be that as it may, it’s still hard to miss the significance of the band playing at the venue they do tonight. We are here on a weeknight, but on the weekends, the Rock Auditorium is home to New Creation Church, one of the local megachurches popular with the contemporary Christian youth subculture.

The opening acts tell their own story too: local indie rock outfit The Great Spy Experiment is here to represent the local scene, with a plethora of songs culled from their debut album and their upcoming sophomore effort, tentatively scheduled for June. First on the bill, though, is Australian alt-rock act The Calling of Levi, with a biblically inspired name and CCM-friendly material.

One has to feel sorry for them: having traveled all the way from Perth, Western Australia to present their music in an energetic display of kinetic frenzy, they are nonetheless met with that bane of all Singaporean rock shows: the sitting audience.

A stern security presence is suppressing the enthusiasm of those who had rushed forward to the front of the stage, forcing those in the aisles to either sit down or kneel.

Later on into the show, I will bump into fellow Power of Pop writer Melissa Ng when I manage to squeeze to the front of the stage, where the rest of the media are. She will tell me I need to mention the draconian measures being taken by the security staff in my review, about how they are killing the gig for the opening bands, about how in some ways things are just as bad for the music scene as they were in the 70s. I will tell her I’ll think about it.

At this point, though, I merely smile wryly to myself: ah, the irony of involuntarily kneeling in church.

SWITCHFOOT takes the stage a good half hour after The Great Spy Experiment finishes their set.

Prior to this I have been anxiously wondering if the band can put on a set as good as they did in 2008; after all, their schedule has been nothing short of exhausting over the past few days. At the press conference they had done their best to put on friendly smiles, but nevertheless they were all noticeably fatigued.

The moment they launch into their opening number, however, I think to rebuke myself: oh, ye of little faith.

The set opens with the double-entendre-named The Sound, evoking images of both sonic fury and the divine washing of grace like a river. The primal, riff-driven number serves to set the mood for the first few songs; Jon Foreman in particular is a man possessed tonight; by a ghost holy or otherwise.

“We are the voice of breaking down,” he wails, before evoking the spirit of civil rights activist John M Perkins as he snarls a riddle about love and the final fight.

Switchfoot are on fire, with a tight, technical set honed by endless shows and non-stop touring. Theirs is an easy, joyous confidence tonight, and I can feel the familiar magic start to weave its charm. What surprises me, however, is the vigour with which Jon attacks the distance between performer and audience.

He surrenders himself to the crowd, he asks for the same back, he holds high his mic stand like Moses lifting the serpent…on Stars he turns existentialism into a punk rock Socratic riddle, declaring the divine answer as he stands upon his monitor speakers.

Now Jon is shredding his voice to pieces on the sound and fury of Oh! Gravity, now he’s invading the audience in the chorus of This Is Your Life.

Only Hope, a track off their sophomore album New Way To Be Human, slows the show down to a heartbeat’s pace, acoustic guitar softly underlining a prayer that sounds like a lover’s whisper.

I’m reminded of what guitarist Drew Shirley had remarked to me earlier, about the increased importance of live playing in the age of the Internet.

Then, he had said: “What has happened now, as a result of downloading, is that I can hand you a 40GB hard drive with 4000 songs on it and it would cost you nothing…that’s how little recorded music is worth financially nowadays. Albums are a means to promote gigs now, which is where the real communication takes place…yes, it’s lost its monetary value, but it’s gained greater emotional value as a result.”

It takes me quite a few songs to recognize how right he is.

Midway into the E Street anthemic throttle of Awakening, I realize what is happening: a theatre-full of 1, 400 people is jumping in unison, arms around shoulders, every stranger a brother compelled by the same beat.

Perhaps this is what Jon is intending when he plucks out the sign calling for We Are One Tonight, only to segue into the Job-haunted blues of The Shadow Proves The Sunshine halfway through.

One, but not the same, we get to carry each other through both the mournful laments and the joyous psalms.

The gospel and the blues, the light and the dark, the positive and the negative terminals, the polarities of life…

The crucial electricity of rock and roll.

After the show I find myself in the company of Chen Jia Ping and LiAnne Ong, both 19-year-old students.

Jia Ping is disappointed. In her hands is an envelope of photos she took of Jon the last time Switchfoot played in Singapore. She had been hoping to pass it to the band personally after the show, but no such luck.

The destiny of her envelope now depends on whether Jon decides to meet the fans for an acoustic aftershow.

LiAnne says: “It was an awesome show tonight, even though they didn’t play some of the songs I wanted them to play from Hello Hurricane like Yet.  I made a heart and Jon pointed at it, which was pretty awesome.

“It’ll be even more awesome if they decide to do an aftershow though.”

I hate to break it to them as they check Twitter anxiously for a sign from the band, but an early flight tomorrow to Jakarta means that the band will spend less than 48 hours in Singapore. Rest is essential.

Jia Ping settles for the next best thing: catching sight of the guitarist from The Calling of Levi, she rushes over to the expectant musician.

I watch him break into an awkward grin. Yes, he will pass the envelope to Jon.

Yes, he will say hi for her.

You’re very welcome, miss. God bless you.

(Samuel C Wee)

Pix courtesy of Aloysius Lim/Warner Music. More at Photo Pit Access.

THE BRIGHT WHITE Until Then

It takes a certain amount of cojones to claim for yourself instantly recognizable acts like The Beatles and Oasis as your influences. After all, the number of bands out there who fall over themselves trying to mimick their idols and end up making bland, generic MOR rock are aplenty (exactly the case with Oasis and the Beatles, actually).

Before I get lost in snobbish music critic sulking, though, let’s turn our attention to The Bright White, a brave Chicago quartet who trade in muscular, passionate power pop-rock.

Yes, they wear their influences on their sleeves: All through their debut EP Until Then you can hear the larger-than-life, singalong melodies and ringing guitars; tracks like We Are More Than Animals and She Never Forgets Me reveals a pop discipline that owes as much to Big Star and The Replacements as much as it does to The Beatles. It’s nothing you haven’t heard before and despite the band’s eagerness to compare itself to Revolver-era Beatles, Until Then does little to explore the sonic territory that John, Paul, George and Ringo did on Revolver.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to dislike an effort as earnestly soulful as this one; lead vocalist Matthew Kayser spent time in Nashville before settling down in the Windy City, and his raw, impassioned drawl is bound to draw comparisons to the Southern yelp of Caleb Followill from the Kings of Leon. If nothing else, Until Then showcases the possibilities of a band playing in a room together with nothing more than the three primary colours of rock, and that’s more than you can say for most of radio today.  Likable, melodic and endearingly sincere, one suspects they’d be quite the primal force live, and on that instinct I recommend this record.

(Samuel C Wee)

Official Site

JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN The Deep Field (PIAS)

The new Joan As Police Woman record is indulgent, disgustingly ambitious, pointedly avant-garde, overly ornate, overwrought, over packed and over long. It’s also damn good.

The Deep Field marks album no. 3 for Joan As Police Woman (real name Joan Wasser), and it’s a slow-burning, stubborn affair. In its textured sonics, the former protégé and lover of one Jeff Buckley (everybody here wants her, you see) aims to recapture the spirit and ethos of classic soul. It’s a marked departure from her previous records in terms of both production values as well as lyrical content.  Avid fans will notice the denser sound straight from opening number Nervous, which aims for a fractured, uneasy soundscape by way of a thick Rhodes offensive. Similarly, sassy first single Magic, a seductive funk-jazz affair, is easily the most radio-friendly song on the record, though the eclectic synthesizer touches still put it far out of top 40 territory.

Nevertheless, although Wasser proudly declares The Deep Field to be her most “joyous” record, the description still belies a certain defiant lack of immediacy that characterizes the album. Long on mood and texture and short on melodic hooks, The Deep Field is an exhausting, challenging love affair—the sort that stretches you to your limits and tests your patience, only to reel you back in with the kiss on your shoulder Jeff Buckley so longed for, the sort of midnight eroticism like that which burns on tracks like Action Man and Run For Love. 

There are no radio hits here; where a pop piano hook might belong on an Adele record exists instead slinky, rhythmically sophisticated grooves that draw you in like fine perfume. Likewise, where her contemporaries like Adele would belt a dramatic heart wrenching chorus, Wasser opts for a sultry, delicately phrased and controlled whisper that somehow manages to pack an even more emotional punch. Listen, for example, to the way Wasser paints a devastating, magnetic delivery on the canvas of Flash, an epic eight minute soundscape that wouldn’t be out of place on Kid A….”Oh my lover let me tell you now, all the things that I feel/I already cried a river so deep/Now I’m ready to heal/Now I’m ready to kneel. ”

Other tracks shine upon repeated listens: Kiss The Specifics is a lovely, Cat Power-ish crack of daylight in a subterranean ceiling. Run For Love sees Wasser escaping into rapture and surrender ala Mary Margaret O’ Hara on Help Me Lift You Up. Album closer I Was Everyone ends with an energetic gospel jam in church.

The Deep Field, then, is not an album for the casual or lazy listener—like a temperamental lover, the record demands your attention and focus, unfiltered and undiluted, requiring worship without any false idols before the goddess. As it builds out of silence and darkness into epiphany and light, however, it does eventually reward you with what the press release promises: joy.

So ignore, if you will, the long list of adjectives in the opening paragraph of this review. Just know that it’s damn good. Damn good indeed.

(Samuel C Wee)

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Let’s get this out of the way—quite possibly the worst decision made at this year’s Timbre Rock and Roots was the issuing of free lawn chairs to everyone in the VIP area. I mean—what on earth were they thinking? I can understand the concern that audience members might get tired after a few hours of non-stop music—but that’s why God made grass. All that those fancy lawn chairs accomplished was to ensure a snoozefestin’ atmosphere for the greater part of Day 1…though it all still ended in a blast! But we’ll get back to that later.

Sad to say, I arrived too late to catch Raw Earth’s opening performance at the beginning of the evening. Nevertheless, we managed to squeeze into a good location near the sound booth in time for Toots & The Maytals’ performance. Being the consummate professionals they were, Toots Hibbert and gang pulled out a set full of reggae standards and did their best to cajole the audience. Sad to say, the audience members were pretty much unresponsive, with only the odd white tourist attempting to get the groove on by dancing. To the few Singaporeans who attempted to get in the mood by getting’ rhythm: I salute your fine attempts to defy your programming, fellow countrymen and women!

The main draw of the night was, of course, Bob Dylan’s set. I have no doubt that majority of the tourists that night turned up because of Mr Zimmerman—nevertheless, for a crowd of Dylan fans, they seemed to be mighty surprised by the trademarks of a Dylan performance! I’m referring, of course, to his by-now legendary rearrangements of his own songs as well as his voice, or lack there of: Dylan barked, rapped, growled and generally did everything but sing his way through re-imagined renditions of Change My Way Of Thinking, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, Tangled Up In Blue and Ballad of A Thin Man, among others.

Throughout his whole set Dylan switched between keyboards and electric guitar (“Judas!”) and kept stage banter to a minimum—in fact, the only time he addressed the audience was during his introduction of the band. Quite possibly the most embarrassing moment of the night came after Dylan had left the stage after the end of his first set—the snoozing audience pretty much let the man leave the stage without asking for an encore! Dylan eventually took to the stage uninvited by the audience for an encore set without being asked—a most unacceptable way to treat a living legend, if you ask me. At least the audience managed to revive themselves in time for a gutsy version of Like A Rolling Stone. (“Play it fucking loud!”)

Here’s the curveball: for me, the major surprise of the night was Michael Franti and Spearhead, who took on a sedated Singaporean audience and basically electrocuted them into joyous dancing! I must admit I came to the festival without any expectations about him at all, having heard very little of his music, but after his epic two hour long set, I am now a firm believer. Throughout his performance Franti pulled out all the stops and basically put on a masterclass in showmanship, dancing with the audience, cajoling them to jump, pulling audience members on stage and making his way through the crowd to play on a makeshift B-stage at the far end of the venue.

Musically, Spearhead were in fine form, switching effortlessly from club-influenced dance beats to deep-pocket reggae grooves to get the snoring audience awake and jiving, with the occasional screaming guitar solo to keep the rock quotient up. Lyrically, too, Franti switched from odes to dance and rhythm to socio-political musings on religion and war: a combination that went down surprisingly well! Danny Loong, co-owner of Timbre, even took to the stage at one point to trade guitar solos with Franti himself. Fingers crossed we’ll be seeing more Singaporeans on that stage next year…

It all ended somewhere close to 2AM, where the sudden fade of adrenaline left Kevin and me with very sore feet from the hours of standing and dancing. Thanks to Kevin and of course Timbre for the epic night out!

(Samuel C Wee)

Pix by Patrick Chng. See more here.

MARISSA LEVY 63 Songs About Joe

I have a confession to make before I begin:  I’ve always had a weakness for spunky, cute indie female vocalists, so I try to overcompensate by being extra harsh on the material on display. Make of the following review what you will, then, because they certainly don’t come spunkier or cutesier than New Yorker Marissa Levy.  “I am coy, I am subtle, I’m cute and I’m trouble,” she proudly declares on her new EP 63 Songs About Joe (it’s actually only five songs long, calm down). Thankfully the record is palatable, or the blatant indie ingenue poseuring might have been rather rich.

As it stands, though, 63 Songs About Joe is an acceptably melodic pop-rock affair, slickly produced by Mike Viola of Candy Butchers fame. Levy claims to draw influence from The Beatles and The Beach Boys; fair enough, tracks like A Love Song and Heartbreak Liar will float their airy ways into your ears pleasantly. There are enough hooks here anchoring Levy’s breezy vocal performance to make this short EP an enjoyable experience, though, if I were to nitpick, not a particularly ingeniuous or gutsy one —the material never seems to vary from the slick sunshine pop, and the production is squeaky clean in the vein of indie-pop darlings Two Door Cinema Club. Oh, but don’t bother with cynical music critic me, pfft. She’s cute after all.

(Samuel C Wee)

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THE KRINKLES Dusty Ribbons (Self-released)

The story of the The Krinkles, four-man Chicago powerpop act, is one of those classic “What-might-have-been” tales. 

What if, for example, they hadn’t disbanded in an acrimonious shouting match on stage at the start of last decade?  What if their third album, 3 – The Mordorloff Collection, had ridden the momentum of their sophomore effort, Revenge of The Krinkles, instead of taking nine years to drop? Would their blazing brand of loud power pop music have taken them to the top then?

 It’s always hard to know for sure when you’re reminiscing. In the spirit of looking back at the past though, the band themselves have cleaned out their archives and come up with Dusty Ribbons, a 19-track collection of acoustic versions, demos and unreleased songs, as well as the odd piece of live on-stage banter. 

It’s a hodgepodge motley crue of raw mixes and unpolished recordings. Nevertheless, on tracks like the unreleased opener Still In Love (strongly reminiscent of The Who), the record manages to showcase the visceral power of a rock and roll band in full flight. You’ll also hear shades of Cheap Trick (their spiritual and geographical fathers) when they let rip into one of those big, joyful choruses stuffed full of tight harmonies on the demo tracks of So Many Girls and Dirty Girl, and if you have the patience to sit through the rawness of their rehearsal tapes, you’ll find yourself admiring the tightness of their playing. 

Of course, there are the odd misses here and there, but if you’re a fan of melodic, ballsy guitar-driven powerpop by way of The Cars and Weezer, you’ll find quite enough good material here to keep you entertained.

THE ORION EXPERIENCE NYC Girl EP (Self-released)

If there’s ever been a band better suited to this website’s moniker than NYC indie outfit The Orion Experience, I’ve yet to hear them—after all, this is a band that demonstrates beyond doubt the sheer boogie-grooving, feet-tapping, mighty-morphin’ POWER OF POP!

Their upcoming EP, NYC Girl (which is set for an April 19 release) is a good example of what I mean. It’s a short five-track affair on which the quintet demonstrates both a penchant for sticky hooks as well as a comprehensive understanding of how to go about arranging a sophisticated modern pop song that still acknowledges the past. 

You’ll hear shades of both timeless Sixties powerpop bands and classic disco grooves here viz a viz The Kinks and Bee Gees on opening track, NYC Girl. Other offerings include the yum-yum bubblegum pop of Vampire and Rollercoaster, songs so infectiously catchy and dancable, it’s hard not to hear shades of both Hall and Oates and Fountains of Wayne.

The Orion Experience counts among its fans celebrities like Perez Hilton and Lady Gaga, and it’s not hard to see why. Having released both a full length record as well as another EP prior to this one, they’ve certainly honed the tasteful hooky arrangements and air-tight production to perfection. Underneath it all though is an enthusiasm so infectious in its unbridled joy, it makes a puppy look like Morissey, and a huge part of that comes from the adorable vocal chemistry between lead vocalists Orion Simprini and Linda Horwatt. (Think Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan on Prozac).

All in all, a must-have for all lovers of good melodic pop!

(Samuel C Wee)

Official Site

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VARIOUS ARTISTS Postrockology (Deep Elm)

In the gospel according to Deep Elm Records, you have the corporate sell-out pseudo indie labels who work hand in hand with major record companies for distribution and publicity, and then you have the keepers of the true faith, as exemplified by Deep Elm Records themselves: untainted by commercial interests, true indie labels undyingly devoted to the music with a singular passion.

It must be a demanding spirituality that consumes the good people over at Deep Elm—how indie are you, really? How fucking indie?

Thoughts on the indie versus mainstream debate aside, one thing Deep Elm Records have been known for over the years has been the quality of the music released. Starting with their first release in 1997’s The Emo Diaries (a compilation series that has gone on to clock 11 volumes now, with a 12th coming up), Deep Elm Records have made a name for themselves as champions of the independent artist.

Though the label might have made their reputation on emo, for years now Deep Elm Records have been quietly gathering for themselves an arsenal of fine post-rock acts. Postrockology, a 12-track compilation available for free download on their website, is the first salvo in Deep Elm’s attempt to stake a claim to the post-rock scene.

In true Deep Elm fashion, of course, the music here is both obscure and achingly brilliant; the likes of Dorena and The Appleseed Cast all contribute to a compilation swimming in ambient, shoegazy goodness. Like the name would suggest, Postrockology is post-rock by the book. This is no brazen attempt to redefine the postrock landscape; the spacious, moody textures here are exactly what you would expect. There goes the quiet expansive synths, there goes the cooing e-bow guitars—Postrockology represents a certain shoegazer post-rock ideal and it doesn’t depart far from that formula.

It’s alright. On tracks like Why Aren’t I Home? (Athletics) and Steps and Numbers (The Appleseed Cast), the post-rock formula is played up to achingly beautiful emotional effect: sweeping, naturalistic atmospheres, meditative quiet passages that burst into aggressive slabs of riff attack, melodic guitar lines that are beautifully fragile. From time to time the record even tiptoes past the shoegazer cliches; I Am Sonic Rain contributes the fearlessly dark piece Fog Is Drowning Us, which serves as a refreshing shot of cojones. Elsewhere, Moving Mountains switches off the power plug and brings out the acoustic guitars for the delightfully folky Sol Solis. 

All in all, Postrockology is exactly what you’d expect from it, but that’s not such a bad thing, not when said expectations must be sky-high on the back of Deep Elm Records’ name for quality. Take a listen, make the download: It’s the indie thing to do.

(Samuel C Wee)

Official Site

RUN WITH THE WANTED Self-titled (Panic)

At first glance, the self-titled album released by Phoenix hardcore quintet Run With The Wanted (yes, Bukowski reference there) seems like your run-of-the-mill genre record.

Dig a little deeper than the cursory listen, though, and there is much to credit the band with on this debut full length album.

Having drawn comparisons to bands like early 90s metalcore outfit Turmoil, Run With The Wanted have here perfected the art of serving up slabs of propulsive frenetic guitar riffs that underline shredded, screaming vocals shot through with desperation. Rhythmically, Run With The Wanted blend together the complex signatures of mathcore bands like Carthasis and Converge with the breakneck fury of metalcore on tracks like Double Zero, while elsewhere they explore chunky, spacious breakdowns like on Synthesia. The result is a thirty-three minute long album that packs a punch beyond its length.

Surprisingly, the band also exhibits a studio discipline on the record that goes beyond mere tightness; honed, perhaps, from the two EPs they had already released before this. Opening track Introspective reveals an attention to soundscape and atmospherics that too many hardcore bands ignore, and the tasteful mixing allow the more melodic guitar lines to piece through the noise. Run With The Wanted might not be starting a revolution, but nonetheless they carry on the hardcore punk torch with admirable proficiency. Recommended for all lovers of hardcore.

(Samuel C Wee)

How much you’d enjoy the new Chinese remake of the 2000 Mel Gibson film, What Women Want, largely depends on how much you’d enjoy seeing a topless Andy Lau prance around in drag. 

Does the idea of that turn you off? Then this glossy romantic comedy starring Andy Lau and Gong Li would probably fall short of your expectations. If you’re looking for a passable date movie, however, this low-calorie fluff flick has just enough humour and sex appeal to fill an hour and a half or so.

Andy Lau here takes on Mel Gibson’s original role of a a seductive, womanizing ad executive (renamed Sun Zigang for this adaptation). Through a series of convoluted events, Sun gains the ability to hear women’s thoughts, and uses them to both seduce women as well as steal ideas from his new female boss Li Yilong (Gong Li). Complications ensue when Sun and Li end up falling for each other. 

In more capable hands, perhaps, What Women Want might have risen above its cliched romcom premise to be a more interesting study of gender differences as well as the changing role of women in modern-day China. As it stands, the film plays out like a gorgeously shot tourism ad for the People’s Republic. The original setting of Chicago inhabited by Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt is here replaced by uptown Beijing, and director Chen Daming kills two birds with one stone, raking in the product placement cash by lavishing loving attention on the sleek, modern buildings and sophisticated shopping districts of the city.

Andy Lau and Gong Li, too, are decked out in the finest urbanite chic, but the combined eye-candy of Gong Li’s cleavage and Andy Lau’s toned abs isn’t enough to distract from the paper-thin characters. Stuck in a caricature of the uptown ladies’ man, Lau never manages to rise above his one-dimensional chauvinism, though he makes the most out of his scenes as a smooth operator. Gong Li, on the other hand, does her best to flesh out a painfully underwritten role, but only succeeds at fleshing out her low-cut dresses. 

Nevertheless, the two veteran thespians bring with them years of experience at injecting simple scenes with sizzling subtext, and the movie only really works when they share a room together. From the early flirtatious exchanges to the emotional subtleties of the quieter scenes, the two share a chemistry that lifts the film out of its painfully underwritten state.

 Still, the bright spots are rare in a script that is as patchy as it is unimaginative, and it’s a damned shame to think of what these two talents could have done with actual writing.

(Samuel C Wee)

By now, it should come as no surprise that Adrian is full of surprises.

A conversation with this man is much like talking to a river. Like a mind-reader, Adrian is prone to answer the question on your tongue before you ask it, but through the course of his reply he is wont to change course several times until together, the two of you are cutting a path through new, uncharted wilderness, far away from your original destination.

So it is that a simple question I ask about the emotional honesty of his songs leads into a deep discussion of spirituality and transcendence—hardly your typical rock and roll topics.

“Transcendence is about sitting with your own mind, seeing the shit that goes on,” explains Adrian.

“And then you have to pick up the weapon of wisdom, which is truth. There is little point in not being open as a songwriter, or as a human being. Honesty leads to love and respect.”

These are words that could be rolling off the tongues of the next Zen master in town, but Adrian’s positivtalk seems at odds with the songs he’s trying to explain. How does honesty, love and respect reconcile with the dark, introspective moods of songs like Into the Hands of a Madman? 

Adrian replies by turning to country music for a reference, emphatically punctuating his words with a forceful finger in between them.

“You have to admit you’re ugly before you can beautiful. Look at Johnny Cash. That was a man who went through real shit, looking at his own negativity. You have to look at your own negativity as an artist, as a songwriter or as a poet.”

Sufficiently warmed up now, Adrian launches into an attack proper: “A lot of bands, they don’t even know why they’re in a band—they don’t know the purpose of their existence. They want adulation, they want respect, but they don’t say anything about themselves or push any boundaries. But obedience has never drawn me to a record. That’s why I wrote the lyrics as poems first—to air out what was inside. The songs make sense of my own life—that’s how I can go about connecting to people. Know your mind, and you know everyone’s mind. ”

Here Adrian stops for a moment, taking a drag on his cigarette while cocking his head to the side, as if to assess whether I’m still following his train of thought. Finally, he goes back to my original question.

“All of my songs are autobiographical. If you’re writing a song and it’s not autobiographical, fuck off. Go paint a fence or something.”

Honesty, love and respect—or fuck off and paint a fence.

IN more ways than one, Basement In My Loft is a contradiction.

On their debut record, See The Rhyme In The Dirt And Grime, the songs run the gamut, shifting from the markedly introspective moods of Truths Beckoning You to the spiritually tortured snarl of Basement.

The album in itself is an impressive 12-track, genre-defying collection, the singular vision of Adrian, who wrote, arranged and produced the songs.

Nevertheless, live, Basement in My Loft is a very different animal, and not just in the ways you might expect a live performance to differ from a studio recording.

For sure, at the official launch of their album on Halloween Eve, live at the Prince of Wales Backpacker Pub to celebrate, the songs translate themselves into heavier, more energetic and up-tempo creatures—a transformation due in large part to current drummer Dzaf Dzefro, who replaced La Malet in April this year.

Tunes which were lost in mid-tempo limbo on the record come into their finished own in front of an audience. Mission, for instance, is always a standout crowd-rouser with its haunted blues call-and-response chorus between Zhongren and Adrian.

But live, Basement In My Loft also morph into a more elusive, evocative shape that can be both terrifying and exciting at the same time.

Songs like the stream-of-consciousness rant of Rut Shaped Room are bled into confrontational slam poetry recitals.  The deep-pocket groove of Truths Beckoning You waits first on a haunting, bleak soundscape, upon which literature is whispered and wailed across dissonant horizons to ships, floats, metal ghosts.

Adrian himself doesn’t survive the step onto the stage. Early on in his set he dons a masquerade mask, and ah, it is as Oscar Wilde says: the mask reveals the man.

Behind the mic, Adrian plays at not so much the pub-friendly drinking pal of his off-stage self, but instead a sort of incendiary, confrontational poet-punk, wearing his bleeding heart on his sleeve as reckless dare, looking around the room for eyes to meet his own, watching his audience as they do him—hello, Kevin, Patrick, Az, is this rock and roll enough yet?

Like our earlier conversation though, a counterpoint to the machismo and aggression inevitably occurs.

Beneath the noise, below the din of Adrian pushing his guitar as far out as it can go, a moment floats in as the pub falls silent and the veil seems to fall away from gravity.

Transcendence, away from the rain, the taste of pain…towards a certain sort of truth.

Elevation–at least until the drums kick back in and the earth shakes again for the running pilgrim, always seeking, never found.

Herein is the crucial contradiction at the heart of Basement In My Loft: the sensitive soul versus the humongous balls of Adrian Jones.

STRANGELY enough, Basement In My Loft’s 2010 seems to have resonated most with the musicians from the early 90s explosion in the local scene.

The faces present at the album launch on the 30th of October, for instance, told their own story. Ben Harrison of Etc, Patrick Chng of Typewriter and The Oddfellows, Kevin Mathews of Watchmen and Popland…it’s a clique Adrian is only just starting to get comfortable with. 

One suspects he is far more at home with members of what he calls the “anti-scene”: bands like shoegaze outfit Stellarium, whose lead singer, Az, watched their set intently with an inscrutable expression

In more ways than one, though, Basement In My Loft is contradiction. Despite the warmth he has experienced, there are still moments where Adrian is painfully aware of his place as a stranger in a strange land.

Ask him for his opinion on the local music scene, for example, and he displays uncharacteristic reticence.

“Singapore is a small scene,” he says, after a pause, with the air of a rebel not used to choosing his words carefully.

In his eyes you can see him mentally rewinding through the year he’s had.

“You have to be careful with what you do and say in this country, and I’m not used to being careful. I don’t believe in hurting people…but I do believe in shaking things up.”

One wonders what exactly Adrian is alluding to—that incident at BIML’s Baybeats performance, perhaps?

Halfway through their Baybeats set, a bizzare incident had occurred where the security guards inexplicaby forbid the band’s manager from filming their performance, never mind that all around her were hundreds of handphone cameras readying themselves for Youtube.

This was followed by what Chris Toh from TODAY oddly described as a “merry little chase” around the Waterfront, to the bemusement of the audience.

At the time, Adrian had reacted with a incredulous protest from the stage.Before one has the chance to ask him to elaborate more on the topic, however, he’s off on a more politically correct line of talk.

“Singapore is a very conducive place for creativity,” he offers.

“You have a good choice of rehearsal places, a tight-knit clique of musicians, and it’s relatively easy to get a band started once you have the songs.”

This will explain why, for the time being at least, Adrian’s plans are still rooted here.

Despite it being less than a year since the release of the first one, work has already begun on a collection of songs which will ultimately become BIML’s sophomore record.

Already, the new record is shaping up to be a higher-octane affair. Earlier on I had asked Adrian about the disparity between their introspective record and their high-energy live performances.

At the time, Adrian had cited the apathetic responses of Singaporean live audiences as a reason—as if to say, “Up yours, all you sedated bank customers; we’re gonna rock the fuck out.”

This time around, however, Adrian promises to carry that live energy into the studio and the new songs, some of which will be debuted at their first gig of the next year at Prince of Wales Backpacker Pub along Dunlop Street, on the 8th of January.

Amongst the new tunes is a raucous, intense Everyman anthem titled Capital A Frame, of which Adrian offers me an acapella first listen.

I lean in closely, expecting the intricate poetry of Basement or Madman. Instead, Adrian launches into a primal, minimalist rage-driven three-word lyric,  repeating itself like a haiku being hammered into a brain: “Fuck fuck fuck fuck don’t wanna wanna wanna fuck fuck fuck fuck…”

Saint and heretic, poet and punk. In more ways than one, then, Adrian Jones of Basement In My Loft is a contradiction.

(Samuel C Wee)

See the Rhyme in the Dirt and Grime is available at all good music stores and online at getupmerch.

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THE LONELY FOREST E.P. (Trans)

When the first song on an EP is titled Turn Off This Song And Go Outside, it’s hard to resist the temptation to call the band’s bluff: “Alright, you bunch of wankers, I have better things to do with my time to listen to your ironic hipster bullshit anyway!”

But that would be an awful pity if you did. Not only is the first track on The Lonely Forest’s self-titled EP earnestly devoid of irony, it’s also gorgeously melodic and catchy, with a chorus hook that ensures you’ll never be able to turn off the song in your head.

The Anacortes, Washington four-man outfit have put together a fine array of songs here, never mind that there are only about three proper songs in this five-track EP: one is shorter than a minute and the other an acoustic version of Turn Off This Song.

In the grand tradition of indie emo bands like Death Cab For Cutie, the songs are crafted around plaintive vocals and fragile melodies. (NB. The band is signed to Chris Walla’s label and Walla is producing the band’s debut album, Arrows – KM)

Simple, effective arrangements are the order of the day: check out the slow-marching Live There, with its extended, hypnotic outro, or the radio-friendly, anthemic Let It Go. If you’re looking for ear candy with just about enough indie cred to prevent a toothache, The Lonely Forest is worth a listen.

(Samuel C Wee)

NIGHTS out with Adrian Jones, the always-colourful frontman of power trio Basement In My Loft, are invariably bound to turn surreal.

Here I am, the Singaporean army boy slash music writer, seated at an Irish pub along East Coast Park with a Welsh skinhead and his respiratory disease specialist girlfriend.

A minor furor has conspired to occur here tonight; a favourite vegetarian burger has gone AWOL from the menu. Foul play is suspected.

Said Welsh skinhead is currently engaged in a half-serious heated discussion with the manager, who faces the daunting task of trying to account to the punk rocker the mysterious disappearance of the veggie burger.

Not an easy task. This is, after all, the same man who roars against guitars, bass and drums until the earth shakes. Nevertheless, Mr. Manager remains unmoved, prompting the hungry Welshman to try a different tack: cajoling, charming, guilt-tripping.

“You can’t take the veggie burger off the menu,” Adrian protests, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a decent vegetarian meal around here?”

The manager stands firm; the vegetarian burger might have been a personal favourite but it was never a big-seller and so the poor thing had to be put down, God rest its soul. Would Mr. Jones prefer to have another set meal instead?

No, no, nothing less than the veggie burger would do, please, please please.

This manner of thrust and parry goes on for a prolonged period before Adrian gives in and settles for a less-favoured set meal (even punk rockers must eat). As a parting shot, however, he addresses the manager with a solemn straight face.

“Listen,” says Adrian mournfully. “I’ll have you know that my heart is broken into a thousand little pieces.”

A COUPLE of hours prior, we are watching the sky burn orange-blue from Marine Parade, a short distance away from Adrian’s home.

We’re on either side of a small round table, untouched lattes set before us, having earlier found each other in the crowded sea of bodies at Parkway Parade before proceeding here for our interview.

Here is a small café set across the mall; Adrian likes the coffee and ambience here, and having settled himself down comfortably with a hot drink and a fag, proceeds to plunge in deep into conversation.

We start off at the most obvious place. It has been an eventful year for Basement In My Loft. Less than 12 months ago, the band was a little-known power trio, catching only the ears of attentive listeners through the walls of Backbeats Studio where they were recording their debut record.

Fast forward a couple of months, though, and the band have risen to the position of current scene it-boys, following an exhausting blitzkrieg attack on the city’s live music venues that culminated in an explosive Baybeats performance.

Even by the standards of the small scene here in Singapore, where everybody is a friend and fan of everybody’s band, that is a remarkable time-frame–not least when you realize that the band was formed quite literally just over a year ago.

The seeds for the first edition of Basement In My Loft were first sown at a series of encounters at acoustic open mikes with fellow musicians Zhongren Koh, 19 and Guillaume La Malet, 30.

Adrian had first met La Malet in August, where the Frenchman was taken in by the strength of the material Adrian had written, despite the rawness of the performance.

With neither party being the sort of people to do things by halves (Adrian describes La Malet as a “typically intense French character”), an alliance was quickly formed to work together.

“We were still kicking things around at that point of time,” says Adrian. “The idea of the album hadn’t even come up yet—it wasn’t until I met Zhongren that things started getting serious.”

A month later, Zhongren filled in the position of bassist. Despite a working knowledge of the guitar and classical training in the cello, however, Zhongren had never owned a bass guitar before joining the band.

“The first time we played together, things sounded horrible. I had to take Zhongren aside to explain to him how to play with the drums. I told him: ‘Everytime you hear a hi-hat or snare, that’s your cue to come in.’

Adrian pauses, like a proud father savouring his son’s accomplishments.

“By the next rehearsal he had nailed every bassline to perfection. Ah, that boy, he’s a fucking genius.”

WITH the line-up now complete, an idea emerged in November that year to record an album with all of the songs Adrian had been writing.

Although the band was still in its infancy stages, the songs had already been a few years in the making—the culmination of two years of emotional turmoil, spiritual journeying and general life experiences.

“These songs are kind of descriptive of a time in life where the shit hits the fan, and you have to surrender and think,” explains Adrian.

The catalyst for the songs took place aboard a flight back to Singapore from his home city of Cardiff, where for the first time in years, Adrian had stood up in public to perform a few songs at a pub, to uproarious applause.

“The songs that I had been kicking around up till then went down really well, and people came up and congratulated me after that show. For the first time in a long time, I felt empowered by trust.”

It was well-needed validation for Adrian at the time, coming as it did on the back of two tumultuous years for him that Adrian declined to reveal more about on record.

More importantly, though, the song in question, Bad Times, changed his perspective fundamentally on his circumstances.

Written in the afterglow of that life-affirming gig, the song also catalysed a train of thought and songwriting that would ultimately lead to what Adrian describes as a “concept album”.

“Bad Times is basically a song about laughing at struggles, as well as about understanding that your thoughts shape your world.

“There is a storytelling aspect of the record, which comes from the singer-songwriter influence—you can hear Sir Neil (Young) in there—and also from me being autobiographical with my own life.

“The music tells its own story—originally, Bad Times was intended as an album-closer, and the thunder that you hear on Rut Shaped Room was meant to run into Bad Times.”

Instead, it was decided that the song’s uplifting mood would work better earlier on in the record, and the tune with its themes of change of perspective and empowerment became the opening salvo instead.

“The way you think affects the way you relate to people, which changes the way that they relate to you. It’s a vicious cycle and you have to break out of it. Bad Times is the essence of that thought.”

To be continued…

(Samuel C Wee)

HALFWAY through the set at The Fire Fight’s farewell concert, So Long For Now, frontman Joshua Tan decides to shake things up a little. “This is an unrehearsed song,” he tells the audience, acoustic guitar in hand, before starting on a quiet, emotional version of Sonnet.

Earlier on in the show, a couple of technical glitches had made for rough riding through the first couple of songs.  At this particular moment, though, no one is thinking about technicalities. The sparse accompaniment of the band seems to scrub the air clean of the jitters that had come before, and Joshua has his eyes tightly shut as he sings about matters close to his own heart. He’s holding on tightly to the song, and the lyrics–“Into the fire, into your grace/into your love, You know I’m here/to love you”– seem to drift out of somewhere deep within.

At this point, Joshua turns away from the microphone to choke back a cry, tears streaming down his face.

Later, Joshua will tell me he was moved by the memories of the original revelation behind the song. Right now though, watching from the audience, one almost gets the feeling that God has just walked through the room.

TWO days ago, we are at Backbeats Studio, a jamming studio wedged in between the heartland and the city at Farrer Park.

The Fire Fight have been practicing intensely here for their all-important final gig together as a band before they go on an indefinite hiatus. It will be a Sunday matinee at the newly-launched SCAPE Warehouse; this is the band’s way of saying farewell.

Right now, we are trying to nail down the precise reason The Fire Fight are taking a break. Joshua starts off first, choosing his words carefully.

“We’ve come to the point where we realize we can’t really make a career out of music, and we need to make decisions about what we’re going to do with our lives.”

Drummer Iain Tham goes on to elaborate: “This is a critical point for us personally. We’re at the crossroads of our lives, and we have essentially two choices. One is to do music all the way, and the other is to focus on our personal careers and studies.  At the end of the day, the most important thing for us is to make sure we can support ourselves and our families.”

The realization that he did not have a career stable enough to settle down, says Joshua, who is a media producer by day, sparked his decision to further his education in Australia. At the same time, the rest of the members in the band were reaching milestones in their lives as well.

Bassist Jbarks, for one, had decided to further his education as well, while guitarist Jonathan Leong will be graduating from the University of Buffalo in December this year.

With drummer Iain Tham also opting to pursue a career in piloting, it all came to a head in a McDonald’s outlet at West Coast, where the band agreed unanimously to take an indefinite break.

Was this the original plan, I ask, to reach a certain milestone as a band and then split up to focus on your personal lives? There is silence for a moment from the band before Joshua answers. “We didn’t really think so much when we started out,” he says.

“We wanted to take the music places and give our best efforts. Where we are right now, which is a certain level of recognition, is really the result of a blessing of events.

“People have been very gracious to us since we started; they’ve taken us in, believed in us, and responded to the sound. This farewell gig is our way of giving something back to the listeners, a way of giving them both closure as well as something to remember.”

The Fire Fight have a special relationship with their listeners, that much is clear. I ask them about the impact they think their hiatus will have on the scene, and their answer is unanimous: the scene is fickle, and it won’t miss us.

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. The Fire Fight are not the only band to be departing the spotlight this year, though. Earlier on in February this year, Astroninja had similarly said farewell when their always-colourful frontman Levan Wee departed for Melbourne, while Allura will be thanking their fans for all the fish in July.

I ask the band their opinion about this trend, betraying my youth in the process. Esmond Wee (the band manager) points out things were even worse ten years ago, when bands would just fade away into oblivion without any sort of closure. On his part, Joshua treats my observation with a matter-of-fact sort of pragmatism, shrugging as he tells me, “This is the life-span of a Singaporean band.”

THE Fire Fight are quick to acknowledge that even within the scene itself, there are people who bear animosity towards the band.

Esmond, who watches over the interview proceedings with the watchful wariness of an older brother, tells me about how somebody on Facebook had slammed the band, describing them as “cocky, pubescent teens …more interested in swagger than musicianship”. To which Joshua had reacted with bemusement; the band, after all, are firmly in their mid-twenties.

The band laugh such negativity off. After all, Joshua says, there is something inherently funny about people who dislike The Fire Fight expending so much energy ranting about The Fire Fight.

The Fire Fight have made plenty of friends in their time, though, that much is clear. The guest performers at the gig are familiar faces. Esmond, who had earlier recounted the “cocky, pubescent teens” anecdote to the audience before the gig, joins the band to take vocals on a couple of songs.

Amanda Ling (she of ex-Electrico fame and schoolboy fantasy) also takes the stage at certain times to fill in the keyboard parts that were played by former Fire Fighter Chris Ong on Henri, their debut album released last year.

Other faces can also be recognized here and there: Angel Lee, who contributed backing vocals to the record, long-time supporter and close friend Kevin Mathews, Saiful Idris from Great Spy Experiment as well as Matthew Lim, Joshua’s bandmate from A Vacant Affair.

Matthew’s duet with Joshua at the gig proves to be one of the emotional watermarks of the event. Watching them together on stage, they make for an odd couple; Joshua in his Ben Sherman checkered chic best, Matthew in his cap and tee worn under an unbuttoned shirt.

Nevertheless, there is a bond between the two that is palpable; a friendship that one senses has weathered both laughter and tears. Together the two of them sing Hours.

The song is of particular significance to Matthew, who had been in attendance at one of the early gigs played by the Fire Fight (at a place that Joshua describes as “a dodgy club around the Duxton Hills area”).

At the time, Matthew’s late mother had been battling late-stage cancer. In light of his close friend’s personal situation, Joshua’s performance of the song took on a powerful emotional charge as he sang about mortality and eternity, about love and life and death.

“The song is basically about knowing how much time you have left with someone, and treasuring it,” says Joshua. “At that point in time, it was exactly what Matthew was going through. I took one look at Matthew while I was singing the song, and I started bawling my eyes out.”

PART of the magic of The Fire Fight is the way that their songs can morph and change to adapt to different situations for the listener, without losing anything in the process.

Portrait Lover is one example. Iain, who worked together with Joshua on the lyrics, tells me about how the song had resonated with a friend of his who had recently gone through a bad break-up.

Yet the essence of the song, according to Joshua, is less romantic than it is spiritual. Joshua explains it as being about intimacy, about loving somebody past their flaws.

This kind of love, the ancient Greeks describe as agape, namely, the divine, unconditional love of God. That is indeed the significance of the song for Joshua personally, though he is quick to stress that the song could also be about the love of a father or a lover.

“The same song can take on different shapes for different listeners,” says Joshua. “But I don’t ever feel like I need to water down God in my songs. For me, the songs are an honest, personal expression of myself. I don’t try to hide God.”

Joshua’s faith is a major contributing factor to not just the music of the Fire Fight, but also their mission.

Earlier on, I had asked the band if they were satisfied with their achievements.  Joshua had responded with an admonishment, reminding me that the purpose of the band was not a certain level of success or recognition, but a mission of positivity and change, of bringing people together through music.

That mission itself is well-documented through various interviews and articles. What is less publicised is the manner in which Joshua was inspired to his vision. At the age of 12, Joshua had been going through personal emotional turmoil when he sat down in his bedroom with his sister’s acoustic guitar.

At that point, Joshua received what he calls a “revelation from God”: that his music could and would be able to change the world around him. It was a life-changing moment for the then-teenager.

Joshua tells me, “The reason I write music is to reach people where they need to be reached. I have no chance at all in this lifetime of ever being able to attend to anyone’s needs, but with music, I can help people without being physically present.”

Coming out of anyone else’s mouth, those same words would either have sounded insufferably saintly or symptomatic of a messianic complex.

Coming out of Josh, however, they sound just about right; something to do, perhaps, with the quiet conviction with which he speaks them, a certain vulnerability and humility that marks him more as a pilgrim than it does a preacher.

Not that Joshua is anything less than the consummate frontman. . As a performer, Joshua inhabits a certain charisma that makes it near impossible to take your eyes off him.

It’s a quality that defies analysis. One can try to examine his stage moves, his singing technique, sure. At a certain point, though, you lose track of yourself and focus instead on the song and Joshua.

To a certain extent, the song is Joshua. Whether he’s whipping around the stage during Train Song, his hair stuck to his face in the most unglamorous fashion or singing with his eyes tightly squeezed shut during an acoustic version of Fires at Night, Joshua Tan loses himself in the music.

The fundamental appeal of The Fire Fight, then, is their rapture; the essence of The Fire Fight experience is surrender, and no one personifies this more than Joshua himself.

OF course, The Fire Fight is so much more than just Joshua Tan.

It is fascinating to watch them live, if only to see the little details that colour their personalities, and subsequently, the way those personalities contribute to the overall spirit of The Fire Fight.

Live, you get to see how Iain is the one who takes a macro view of it all, perched from his drummer’s throne as he lays down a solid groove to hold the band together in time. Live, you get to see how Jonathan is the catalyst who ignites the cocktail, something that is most obvious when his guitar goes out because of a technical fault and the energy drops noticeably.

Live, too, you see how Jbarks is both Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr rolled into one, how his unassuming attitude leads him to be the one who plays with his back to the audience most of the time, and how disappointed this makes the schoolgirls, who are deprived of his movie-star good looks.

More than any other local band, The Fire Fight is a product of not just instruments but personalities. The spirit of the band comes from the interaction of these four characters together. You see this clearly when they strip away the noticeable elements of their songs to make them even more intimate and confessional than they already are, when they change the rhythms of their songs, the melodies, the guitar sounds, everything, in fact, that make the songs recognizable to the audience.

Yet despite it all the captive audience still sits enraptured in their plastic chairs, watching the band with something approaching wonder. Then you realize, ah. The spirit of this band withstands obvious guitar sounds, exceeds signature rhythms.

I ask the band what will happen to that obvious brotherhood when they go their separate ways, what happens to the relationships they share?

They break out into easy camaraderie like they did so many times before, like when they teased Jon about the size of his balls or Jbarks about his starring role in Boo Junfeng’s feature film, Sandcastle.

They gleefully list down the various ways they can keep in touch: e-mail, Facebook, Skype lor, TTYL lor…

Joshua is the only one not contributing to this. There is an ambiguous expression his face that straddles humour and sadness.

“The truth is,” he says quietly, “I don’t know. Relationships will drift apart inevitably. I hope we can keep in touch.”

AT some point during our interview at the small but brightly lit room at Backbeats Studio, I am asked what my favourite Fire Fight song is, and I answer Covenant.

It is an odd reply, not least because the song in question is rarely played live.  In fact, clocking in at just over 8 minutes, it is nobody’s idea of a radio single.

Despite its unwieldy length, though, there is a certain captivating quality to the song, especially during the last minute or so, when the band takes off and slams into a joyful refrain that combines the jet engine from U2’s Beautiful Day with lyrics from King David.

Joshua tells me that the intent of the outro was to recreate a feeling of eternity, specifically, eternal praise.

(It is a testimony to the band that sticking on an eternal refrain to an 8-minute long song hardly makes it feel lengthy at all.)

Later on, at the gig, the band plays Covenant as their closing number. The inclusion of the song is a surprise, not least because it comes after their usual closer, Train Song.

Kevin Mathews had joined the band for that one, singing a mournful, haunted acoustic version of the verse as an intro before the band launched into the song proper.

As usual, the rendition is rousing, the hook at the end anthemic, and the audience sings along passionately until the finish. It feels like the end of the event, but nobody’s getting ready to leave just yet.

Joshua takes to the mic again after Kevin leaves, announcing the final number. “We’ve come to the last song,” he announces.

Then silence for a beat, as he realizes the significance of what he’s just said. The audience does too, and responds with some noise.

Then Joshua invites the guest musicians up, including Angel on backup vocals and Kelvin on trumpet, and they are off, launching into passion and emotion, taking us to church.

And the chorus is worshipful and the verses are earnest, but the band have one final trick up their sleeve as they blast into the stratosphere for the refrain, trumpets blaring, guitars riffing, Springsteen-esque vocalizations soaring, and the audience members leap out of their seats to jump up and sing a new song.

Joshua is right. It does feel like eternity.

THE most special thing about a Fire Fight gig doesn’t come during the gig itself.

Joshua calls my cellphone later that night; I had earlier texted him my congratulations and best wishes, having failed to catch him after the show. In response he sheepishly asks me who I am, he has lost my number. Pai seh lah.

We chat for a while and I offer my congratulations on the amazing show. Joshua’s voice is cracked and tired from the show, and he is obviously weary, but he makes the effort to engage on conversation (only breaking away for a while when his rabbit bites his finger).

At some point I tell Joshua something I have observed about his songwriting.

“Your songs,” I say. “They have no Them.”

He pauses for a while, trying to make sense of what I’ve said.

“Sorry?”

“It’s like this,” I explain, not quite knowing where I’m going as well. “In rock and roll—punk rock in particular—there’s always a mentality of us versus them.  Versus the establishment, versus the government, versus The Man. Even in Christian music, you’ll find that mentality. The church against the world.

“But your songs have no Them, there’s only an Us. There’s only We. We are the problem—“sad sad so we are together, woah”—but We can also be the solution. That’s the thing I really admire about your songs.”

It’s a haphazard rambling, but Joshua thanks me for my opinion anyway. We talk for a while more before he excuses himself to rest.

That’s where their power comes from, I think to myself after Joshua hangs up. At the end of the day, it’s so much stronger to unite for something, rather than against someone.

The special thing about a Fire Fight gig doesn’t come during the gig itself.

It comes afterwards, when you leave the venue and realize that on a fundamental level, you don’t just feel like you’ve been uplifted.

You feel like somewhere within you, you can reach out and lift someone else up too.

(Samuel C Wee)

Pix by Thomas Tan.

THE HARVEY GIRLS The Prisoners of Candy Island (Circle Into Square)

Someone help me out here: If a band says, “Oh, we play bubblegum pop,” are you going to be expecting sprawling, eclectic jungles of drum loops, vocal samples and synthesized swirls? Yet in the weird and wonderful alternate universe that The Harvey Girls inhabit, that’s exactly what they mean. It’s not like someone was trying to be ironic either: the songs on this five-track EP entitled The Prisoners of Candy Island are entirely irony free.

Instead, in their own kooky, adorable way, Hiram Lucke and his wife Melissa Rodenbeek have successfully married the melodic, cheerful sunshine of pop acts like the Beach Boys and the Shangri-Las with the freeform eclecticism of Captain Beefheart. Top that off with bold experimental production that takes a leaf from the book of hip-hop crew De La Soul, and you have yourself a smashing formula.

Don’t just take my word for it: Check out second track Tickle, and try not to fall madly into the love-pit that the hooky piano riffs and synthesizer touches dig. Or the delicious bleep-bloop jangle of Song XLIII (My Roman numerals aren’t all that great, so I won’t bother messing around with trying to figure the numbers.) This is bubblegum pop, all right, but with the gum firmly stretched out and blown to its limits, until everything explodes in a burst of juicy flavour. Tasty.

(Samuel C Wee)

Download The Prisoners of Candy Island for free at the Official Site below.

Official Site | Myspace

PONTIAK Living (Thrill Jockey)

One of the things I have a particular fondness for are well-crafted albums meant to be heard in sequence, especially in the age of the MP3. That would explain why my interest  piqued when I received the press release for Living, the fifth record in two years by Virginia-based Pontiak, which promised “a record meant to be heard in sequence in its entirety”.

Of course, fancifully written press releases are one thing; well-written songs are another, and in that regard the three brothers Carney of Pontiak hold up rather well. At first listen the music befits the Southern origins of the record, and is consistent with their previous releases: bass-heavy, fuzzed-out psychedelia that is as Jesus and Mary Chain as it is Hawkwind.

On closer inspection, though, Living packs a heavier and noticeably more textural punch than Pontiak’s previous record, Maker—the result, perhaps, of a longer recording period. While previously the band favoured a one-take recording approach at the home studio they built at their farmhouse (bonus indie points there), they opted instead to spend four months fine-tuning the record, as well as inviting Isaiah Mitchell, guitarist for San Diego band Earthless, to drop in and contribute a few guitar licks.

The result is a cohesive album that fits the marijuana-fueled hypnotism of stoner rock into well-composed songs with a real pop discipline and still leaves space for relentless bouts of neckache-inducing headbangable jamming. You can hear it straight away in the opening track, Young, which lays down a sticky groove of chunky bass and chugging guitars. Vocals on this record are sparsely distributed—harmonies and melodies meant only to complement the playing. Even more conventional songs, like third track Algiers By Day, focus more sonic exploration than lyrical content.

No matter, because the most captivating moments on the record come when the band showcase their spacier side and push the sonic boundaries of their studio and instruments, such as the three-track sequence of Second Sun-Beach-Lemon Lady. At the heart of this record is the tension between pop-structured, dusty chugging riffs and spacier, dreamy exploration, a tension that makes it captivating. This is a record that allows for space to breathe, and what it breathes is fire.

(Samuel C Wee)

Myspace

Before I proceed further let me put my hands up and say that as a latecomer and early-leaver to the gig, my account is neither the most complete nor accurate one. Nevertheless, my time at the gig was an explosive encounter. I arrived at the underground gig at Blackhole 212, tucked away in a small venue at Syed Alwi Road around half-past 7, and was promptly greeted by the punk-hardcore sounds of Vermillion. Despite their best efforts, they failed to rouse the thin crowd beyond a few stray moshers. I won’t pretend to be an expert enough on hardcore music to pass comment on their performance, but it’s probably fair to say that it was always going to be an uphill battle for Vermillion to win over an audience who had turned up for the manic pop-punk stylings of Astroninja.

The rock and roll commenced proper when Thambi K Seaow took to the stage. This being an underground gig, warts and all, there was no hiding away from the audience while the band set up, a scenario which frontman Shyam Raj exploited to the fullest extent, alternately teasing and cajoling the crowd by leading them in chants against a certain local Indian comedian as well as offering $5 to the craziest person in the crowd. (I could have sworn I overheard two girls discussing whether they should take off their bras, but I can’t be too sure.) The relaxed camaraderie and banter continued well into the performance proper, with Shyam and bassist Rory keeping spirits high by shooting off their mouths every other minute with vulgarities in at least three different national languages. Racial integration at its finest—well done TKS!

Musically the four-piece got the crowd roaring with their blend of melodic southern rock and ethnic flavours; I’m sure I wasn’t the only Hokkien Chinese in the crowd who had a hoot singing along to their Hokkien lyrics. Shyam Raj was in fine form as well, proving why he is one of the local scene’s finest vocalists with his impassioned belting. The energy level dropped a bit towards the end as both Shyam and the crowd tired, but nonetheless it was still a brilliant set from TKS.

(Coincidentally enough, the gig also marked Shyam’s last underground performance before leaving for Florida for his studies, a fact that perhaps accounted for the madcap energy. No idea how that related to Shyam’s decision to strip down to his underwear though.)

The loudest cheers of the night, though, were reserved for Astroninja, whose popularity overseas accounted for some of the foreign fans in the audience, including some who came from countries as far away as Canada and Poland. If you’ll indulge me for a moment, this writer met the cutest girl ever in the audience who claimed to be from Malaysia, but unfortunately was foolish enough to get neither name nor number. Ah well. If said girl is reading this please leave a comment! (This close to Valentine’s day as well – Kevin)

More than a few hoots were had when a few band members turned up eclectically dressed: Stand-in bassist Visa of Armchair Critic fame showed off his recent gymwork in a pair of tight, hot pink hot pants (and nothing else) while Levan donned his usual Jeff Hardy get-up, though with the added twist of Japanese face-paint and a schoolgirl skirt. (Levan, being Levan, couldn’t resist flashing the crowd his underwear on at least one occasion.) After a couple of initial technical problems with the microphone which were solved with the help of a selfless, compassionate and rather dashing crowd member (alright, it was this writer again), the band ripped into the set, opening with a version of National Day song We Are Singapore which led into a cover of My Chemical Romance’s I’m Not Okay. Things got a tad cheeky during The Bukkake Udon Song when the band took the name literally and squirted a suspiciously white, creamy liquid into the audience. (I was told it was Japanese mayonnaise, but one can never be too sure.)

The rest of the set was similarly high-energy, fist-pumping stuff, with Astroninja standards like Anthem For The Ordinary and Holly Jean mixed with more unexpected choices like a cover of Lady Gaga’s Pokerface. Despite the occasion, sentimentality was in short supply; a speech from Levan thanking his friends in a rare tender moment was cut short by the singer himself, who jokingly referred to it as “faggot talk”. Nonetheless, nostalgia was in the air: in between numbers Levan reminisced about his time in the local scene as well as how far he had come since his secondary school days as a self-confessed loser and a geek. The biggest nostalgic piece was saved for last, when the band ended with a roaring version of the Ronin radio hit Black Maria which shook the place to its foundations.

So there was it then: 8 years of hit-making, controversy-stirring and punk-rocking ended with an explosive, unforgettable encounter at Blackhole 212. The albino frontman has been called many things over the years but boring has never been among the adjectives used to describe him, and boring was certainly in none of the audience member’s vocabulary after the gig. Here’s wishing him all the best for the next 6 years of his life. Now, excuse me while I go back to kicking myself for not having gotten that cute girl’s name or number.