I’ve been to gigs; small and intimate, loud and heady and some other combinations in between. I look for a person when I watch someone on stage, not some drudge going through the motions. I look for how much they care about what they’re doing and the type of energy (and there are all sorts) they project to draw a crowd’s attention. Some have such tangible marketability you almost worry that they will take off without having to earn their performing chops the proper way.

Gaining recognition from the grassroots up has mostly been the way things have worked. We have seen success stories like Hujan and Yuna making it big in the mainstream. When they hit the jackpot, we feel good about it because they earned their stripes “the right way” – start small, build fanbase, sharpen craft and finally receive due glory.

That is exactly why Norhasmidar Ahmad sticks out from the local scene like a very odd thumb. Known simply as Asmidar to her listeners, this girl is going at it in the exact opposite direction. Although those who pay close attention to the singer-songwriter circuit might have caught her performances before, she has clocked but a handful of gigs so far. Her exposure to the public has ironically started fairly big at the top instead – through TV3’s reality singing competition ala The Voice called Vokal Bukan Sekadar Rupa (VBSR).

Asmidar @Vokal Bukan Sekadar Rupa

Asmidar is no typical bedroom singer-songwriter peddling heartbreak songs at No Black Tie (although she has performed there a few times). She is very much, like her musical journey, the complete reverse. Having had no exposure to pop music til she turned 18, Asmidar was raised on keroncong asli (traditional Malay songs) and had the full support of her parents who clearly wanted her to be a well-known mainstream singer. In fact, it was her mom that nagged her into joining VBSR and her aunt who accompanied her to auditions. Singing was not an indie interview answer catchphrase; it was not what she “stumbled upon’ or “a hobby” or “an escape”. It was going to be her career; something that she pursued with a diploma in Music at UiTM (Universiti Teknologi MARA) and right after, a furthered degree at ASWARA (Akademi Seni Budaya Dan Warisan Kebangsaan).

While most indie folks dream and wait for the day when they are backed by a full blown orchestra, Asmidar has already done that, and has done it with the type of ease only years of training can allow.

Mengapa Dirindu @ Konsert Irama Lagu Melayu Asli Orkestra Simfoni Kebangsaan

She is a professional. What indie singers aspire to, she has checked off her list. Those ticks are now being funnelled into smaller, intimate gigs that she has just begun to discover. It’s sort of like a reverse osmosis happening right before our eyes. “The indie scene is new to me,” she emphasises. When asked what she wants her music career to be like she cites the sound conceived through her newfound indie leanings as a basis for what will be her calling card. “I believe my songs can crossover to mainstream, I want to go international. I nak pergi, I rasa I akan pergi”.

She speaks of making people feel the weight of her songs, to feel the hugeness of it. True to that, Asmidar produces tunes (with her long-time collaborator Izaad Amir) that fuse the grandeur of old time jazz with wonderfully skewed Bjork-inspired storytelling. They don’t scream Siti Nurhaliza at all. In fact, they don’t really scream anything on the radio right now or on Pitchfork, for that matter. And that is what’s truly exciting.

Biri-biri Hitam @ No Black Tie

After Asmidar’s stint with VBSR (the competition is still ongoing at interview time), no one knows what exactly will happen. But it will be an interesting growth to chart as she ploughs through things in her own unconventional manner. I throw a last question at her about looks and the amount of attention it gets compared to talent and she converts her answer mid-sentence into a strand from a Bunkface song – “diskriminasi menjatuhkan aku”. Although she’s referring to mainstream discrimination, indie sometimes has its own set of unspoken rules too (which will require a whole other article to explain). If she ever backstrokes her way into the arms of indie again, hopes are that her return will be welcomed with an unaffected embrace.

By Adeline Chua

There’s nothing more slapstick than a mainstream media’s half-witted demonizing of a music genre with the usual associations of free-sex, serious drug abuse, suicidal and self-destructive tendencies. What makes the idiotic comedy worse is the fact that the boogeyman this time is a genre that isn’t even rebellious to begin with.

Emo. That blatantly obvious abbreviation of an adjective for a genre. That radio-friendly, MTV endorsed, Channel [V] cultivated realm of the first-world youth’s interpretation of “emotional problems”, of coarse-made-smooth hooky guitar lines, verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus screaming vocals and endless, repetitious, dribbling lyrics of love and loss and every menial thing that purport to represent the psyche of this millennium’s youth.

A genre whose only “crime”, if it is even possible to associate that word, is shallow self-indulgence of the basest interpretations of the human psyche, (in other words, “whining”) actually held in such insidious regard as to become the prime cultural factor that destroys our youth.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds to me like a serious total non-existence of imagination.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Emo, despite my criticisms of its musical and “philosophical” nature, do have great bands and musicians in its vein that are worthy of mention. Local giant Love Me Butch for one is not just a sight and experience to behold, but also one to continuously push the envelope of Malaysian music in terms of cultural attitude and spirit.

It is also true that any form of music can be interpreted as a response, reaction or representation of current everyday conditions or an escape from them, and therefore, carries the power to influence.

Yet, Emo, a genre that is created from the commercial vats of corporate labels do not exist to subvert or rebel. Instead, like any watered-down, made-for-the-market music, it is made to relate purely on the surface and be consumed by a specific target market, in this case, the early consumerist adolescent.

Personal, indifferent and largely ignorant of deeper insights or contemplations, it is a million light years away from being capable to associate with the liberating chaos of punk, the dark echoes of goth, or even the outlandishness of rock kapak.

How can anyone suggest that My Chemical Romance is a revolution or a deep plunge to the dark side? Slitting wrists and licking blood to the lines of “And though you’re dead and gone, believe me your memory will carry on”? Are you serious? A line that is so painfully cliché, it’s used in almost all languages to describe any death of any person? Plus, to begin with, it’s apparently about the death of Gerard Way’s father. How could a song that celebrates the memory of a father be the anthem of suicide and depression is completely beyond me.

Rituals? My Chemical Romance played both Singapore and KL, where are the reports of crazy ritualistic stabbings between gig-goers? Where are the blood stained floors and blood-covered pictures? And how on earth did they even get past Malaysian immigration to play here if that is indeed true?

To even suggest that Emo is capable of invoking suicidal depression is a mockery to the state of depression itself. For living in the state of capitalism and decades-old consumerism with self-proclaimed benign “moral guardians” in our culture and media is depression enough.

Do we not have divorces since before divorce was legal? Do we not have troubled youths since time-memorial? Do we not have “career-driven” parents who ignore the emotional needs of their children and pile on heaps of materialism to pacify them? Are we not living in a society that promotes financial success as the only success beyond anything else?

Yet, instead of devaluing the obsession with capitalism, we encourage more of it, and then when kids relate to even the manufactured interpretations of today’s “youth emotions”, as sanctioned by corporate labels, we describe them with the usual imagined “negative” behaviors.

That, to me, is the real hypocrisy at work here. A society of elders and self-proclaimed “guardians” that do not seek to understand nor respect the youth by communicating, researching or experiencing the culture itself, but publish blatantly ignorant, single dimensioned perceptions concocted from insubstantial fears that has been drummed up since the 70s.

On the one hand, the mainstream media seeks to “promote a healthy youth culture” through staunch conservatism. On the other, the very same media plays unnecessarily self-indulgent products of entertainment to appease the so-called “youth psychology” on its airwaves.

Need I state the examples of superficial tele-dramas, reality shows and half-baked coverage of musical acts and gigs? Need I lament the cringing repertoires of mindless, meaningless songs of unrequited love and lame pickup lines? Raps about wooing tons of chicks and wearing bling-bling? Shouts and screams about boy-girl issues?

Yet here we hide behind our fake moral veils and accuse “foreign” music for “poisoning our youths”, washing our hands clean of the emotional and cultural injustices we pile on our young by passing the buck to shelved-products of entertainment we leave them to and summoning the decades-old imaginary demons of sex and suicide.

How convenient.

By Phang

Although we might pride ourselves in having better taste in music (c’mon now, let’s be frank), it’s always interesting to step over and have a look at what’s tickling the mainstream crowd’s fancy. Indie, after all, gains its meaning from the context of what’s commercial.

Radio has always been the yardstick of what’s popular. Chalked with voter-centric charts and call-in song requests, it’s a good place to start. Or is it still? Nielsen (formerly AC Nielsen) would have you know that the alleged dead horse that is radio is in fact charting an ascent on the growth scale. Listeners (as of May 2011 [http://my.nielsen.com/site/20110519.shtml]) are clocking in an average 2 hours and 41 minutes more compared to last year’s statistics [http://my.nielsen.com/site/20100929.shtml].

English stations were particularly triumphant with a record total of 2.47 million listeners in the Peninsular itself – their highest ever in the last decade. With such an encouraging outcome for English radio, we tune-in to see whether the same can be said for their charts. Reigning station hitz.fm is subjected to the prod of the health inspection stick.

Case Study: hitz.fm Malaysian English Top 10. Due to space constraints, we’ll only be looking at the Top 5.

1. Defiance – Tres Empre:

Purveying their brand of charged and succinct post-hardcore, Tres Empre are at the top with a wailing, melodious assault. Check every year back into the decade and you’re bound to find a band that sounds like this. They never go out of fashion. Catered specifically to energised youths that fist pump at concerts, Tres Empre’s music fits like a glove over their personal fable [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_fable] complex. Affirming that yes, young as you are, your joy/misery/confusion is the single most unique thing that no one will ever be able to understand.

2. Takeover – Mizz Nina ft. Florida:

Mizz Nina, crown jewel of dance-worthy songs does it again at the charts. This time, things smells a little sunnier with a “5 6 7 8” thrown in for good measure but essentially, it’s still a track about tearing up the club with a big international name in tow (Flo Rida, this time round). If you’re experiencing déjà vu while reading this, wait til you hear the song itself. And once again, everyone will express surprise that a Malaysian artist can sound so un-Malaysian. Sometimes you really don’t know how to react to the putting down of the entire industry in praise of a single act.

3. Livin’ Rock & Roll –The Azenders:

Stadium-geared drums and chant-y chorus; The Azenders have a huge online following and it’s no surprise why. Their music conjures up images of greasy hair, Converse shoes, nightscapes, cigarettes – aspirations of the average teen. The devotion of one angsty teen is worth 30 jaded hipsters, mind you. They are the ones that vote, buy and feel music with the intensity that any musicians will be grateful to be worthy of.

4. Another Lie – Rollin’ Sixers:

If anything, their inclusion in the Top 5 says a lot about the diversity of taste of hitz.fm listeners. This blues-tinged rocker of a track is a crossover star. If you’re a blues fan, you’d be left wanting a little more bite and growl but the moderate delivery seems to be the bridging factor here. It’s heartening to see that there’s still room in the Top 5 for a genre often plagued with the dreaded label – retro.

5. Dance With You – Liang:

The most baffling inclusion yet, however, is R&B singer Liang with his track Dance With You. Although undertaking the brave move of having auto-tuned vocal harmonies make up the foundation of the song’s structure, it collapses under its own blatant eagerness to please as a dancefloor filler.

Face value evaluation can sometimes stump anyone that aims to critique a hit in terms of song construction. When Katy Perry first came out, critics went at her throat for her brash approach in content, form and production but she has since (as of August 2011) tied with Michael Jackson for the most #1 hits from a single album. True evaluation comes from turning our attention towards the force of demand instead, not the supplier.

All Top 5-ers are songs you either groove or mosh to; music that moves you physically. There is nary a sign of introspective contemplation or drippy Romanticism in sight. The sound of the MET 10 chart neither pauses nor sighs but shoots forth with the alarming triviality of an idealised high-flying life. From the forthright declarations of “we’re livin’ rock and roll” by The Azenders to the sleaze synth bravado of Liang to the glorified self-hurt of Rollin’ Sixers’ “say what I want you to say/if you don’t mean it/it’s ok”, it’s clear that the youth have spoken: only high spirits beyond this line. Whether it’s a telling reflection of times or mere escapism of it, these songs are a lot more than just tabulated votes. They are the people behind them. For this week at least, anyway.

By Adeline Chua

As the bands grow and get along well, its second nature to enjoy the good times. But rarely are we prepared for the bad times. Have you ever given thought about what will happen should things fall apart one day? In these difficult situations, there must be something to fall back on. And this is where the band agreement comes in.

Simply put, the band agreement is a legal document that can be considered as a contract to all parties involved. Let’s look at some of the important things that can be covered in the agreement:

• Decision-making – is it by majority vote? Or consensus? This is vital in ensuring that decisions regarding the band are respected by band members. After all, it is they who signed the agreement.
• Songwriting credits – Who gets the credits for song composition, lyrics… are they going to be split equally or is there a main songwriter that gets the credits?
• Profits distribution – How you split the profits from sale of your music whether its ringtones ,cds or merchandise
• Termination or dissolution – What happens to the band when someone quits or the band decides to call it a day? Most importantly, how do you kick out a band member?
• Other related stuff – for instance, who keeps the band name, does your shared musical equipment get split equally or anyone can take anything they like? etc

There are many more issues, but this can be the starting point for the band agreement. Many sample agreements are available on the internet for you to refer.

Now, should you do it? There are many cases of bands going on well without any formal contracts between themselves. That’s fine. You can do that. If you trust your band mates like how you would a family member, it does sound offensive to even suggest this.

But there is only one situation where the band agreement is absolutely essential – when you start making money off the band. It’s a well-known fact that money is often the cause of disputes and breakups. Clearly written band agreements can avoid this fate for you.  The most critical aspect of the band agreement is that it should clearly spell out who gets what and how much.

The agreement can come later at a stage when the band has some solid material and shows. It’s too premature to sign an agreement when you don’t even  have two finished songs or played your first gig.

Granted it sounds so business-like, agreements. But it’s not bad or evil, just necessary. If you really do reach a certain level of success, you’re going to have to address this anyway.  Maybe consider this as an essential foundation. It helps you grow and make a living (hopefully!) out of what you and others create. So don’t see it as something that will divide, rather use it as a tool to unite your band.

By Amir Shazlan

I was hanging out at HMV last weekend, and boy was I tempted to get my hands on Fleet Foxes’ Helplessness Blues record. However, I was most fascinated by the store’s extensive headphone section. I started going through all the different brands that were available at the store, ranging from JVC and Skullcandy to Marshall’s, Nixon, and Shure, while trying out some headphones in the process.

Sure, the seemingly overpriced albeit stylish-looking Beats by Dr. Dre Pro or Studio headphones (the price of a pair of those cans equate a few VIP tickets for that Bananarama, The Human League, and Brandi Carlisle Retrolicious gig at Fort Canning) are a popular choice for the non-financially challenged, but headphones that cost more than my iPod Touch, the machine that actually plays all the music in the first place? Now I’ve seen everything.

Stratospheric prices aside, you would naturally want the best possible sounding headphones within your budget to rock out with Azmyl Yunor, Yuna, Lykke Li, Two Door Cinema Club or whoever is tickling your musical fancy at that point in time. But in a saturated headphone market with countless alternatives, how do you choose?

Before we start on our quest, I’ll start with my current predicament. When my pair of Sennheiser earphones started emitting static rather uncomfortably, I stumbled upon an American brand called Meelectronics. The company specialises in budget earphones, and for a little under RM100 including shipping, I managed to procure a pair with decent if weak noise isolating capabilities and a mic with music playback controls to boot. A year of countless and utterly unbearable plane, train, and bus rides later, I decided, for the sake of not having to instead shell out on legal bills when I inadvertently punch someone who barks at his or her mobile phone, to splash my first ever paycheck on a good pair of noise isolating headphones.

Following visits to various Apple Store variants (they all somehow look the same don’t they, Epicentres and the like), I was most impressed by the Klipsch S4i earphones. After being utterly disappointed a pair of extravagantly expensive Souls by Ludacris headphones I tried, I wasn’t expecting anything earth-shattering from something that cost three quarters cheaper. I was mistaken, and my socks were for all intents and purposes knocked off completely. Remarkably, the Klipsch S4i sounded mind-blowingly good, with the added bonus of my being unable to hear aunties a few feet away fawning over the iPad.  Arina Ephipania’s sweet vocals on Mocca’s ode to everlasting love “The Best Thing” never sounded this rich and crisp on my current buds, and I may as well have been back in the 70’s dancing gleefully to live swing music.

In the sub-RM300 category, the Klispchs are pretty hard to beat though I’d still like to try out some other options, such as those highly-rated budget Ultimate Ears and Etymotic buds. Truth be told, I would have preferred full-fledged headphones (granted, the Koss PortaPro was an interesting and affordable proposition), but with sound leaking an unfortunate feature of most budget headphones and portability an issue, I may have to reset my priorities.

Ultimately, I’m just another tone-deaf consumer overwhelmed with the different products in a marketplace boasting the likes of Lady Gaga, Seal, and Justin Bieber as brand ambassadors. I am no audiophile, but I simply adore my music, and I’ll be damned if I can’t enjoy my music in absolute silence.

Fellow music lovers/Wknd-ers, what’s your poison, pray tell?

By Wong Boon Ken

Baybeats, surely one of the region’s top festivals when it comes to showcasing regional talents, is back this year, but with a little bit of a difference – no more international/non-Asian bands in the line-up. But, if you think that’s going to make the festival less interesting, think again for we honestly think that this one has got some pretty interesting bands lined up for your aural (and visual) pleasure this weekend. Happening at the Esplanade in Singapore from Friday 19th August till Sunday 21st August 2011, here are some of the non-Singaporean and non-Malaysian acts we’re most excited about:

Moscow Olympics

One of the very few South East Asian bands to actually get some international seal of approval, this bunch of jangle pop and shoegaze heads from the Philippines set the blogosphere alight a few years back with their release Cut The World and their 7″ single for Still. They have even got themselves on Rough Trade’s Indiepop 09 compilation. Now that’s what we call impressive.

Turbo Goth

Being a guy, one can’t help but marvel at how gorgeous the singer for this duo from the Philippines is. But that’s not the only reason we’re mentioning them here because if the music doesn’t cut it, we still won’t be too excited to see them. Luckily their brand of indiepop influenced electronica is very easy on the ears and combine that with the aforementioned pretty lady, consider us sold.

Bangkutaman

Named after the song Di Bangku Taman by Indonesian indie pop legends Pure Saturday, it’s obvious where this band’s love lies in terms of their preferred musical genre. But in Indonesia’s endless sea of indie pop and twee bands, Bangkutaman has truly got the songwriting chops to rise above most of them, as you can simply hear in their lovely and poetic song Ode Buat Kota above.

Hollywood Nobody

Another Indonesian indie pop band to get your interest going, but with more of a bossa nova slant to their sound, this bunch should go down well with fans of Mocca and bands of that ilk. Come to think of it, this year’s edition of Baybeats looks to be quite indie pop friendly, and not as emo-centric as it has been for the past few years, which is something that the Singaporean crowd usually go for, and which makes this year’s edition seem particularly quite fresh, doesn’t it?

Buddhistson

Talking about emo, where would Baybeats be without some highlights from the genre, right? This year sees the return of one of the bands that played in one of the earlier Baybeats (we think), Buddhistson from Japan. They’ve already toured Malaysia and Singapore a few years back, so we’re pretty sure that a lot of kids are going to be excited to see them live again.

Noughts And Exes

One of Hong Kong’s most buzzed about independent bands, Nought And Exes’ brand of folk pop is quite simply a breath of fresh air, and with all that unusual (at least in rock bands) instruments like the glockenspiel, melodica and even a typewriter used in their songs, it should be interesting to see how they’re going to pull it all off live.

Pet Conspiracy

Also slated to play in Kuala Lumpur on 21st August, this much talked about electro act from Beijing has got some pretty impressive credentials, including MTV Band Of The Month in 2009 and Best Electro Band in China in 2010 and a 2009 European tour and appearances on Arte TV and the BBC to name a few. Should make for an interesting viewing if you ask us.

By Aidil Rusli

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It began in the dark. Static on the wall. Film scratches like random coursing electrons, the weaving guitar lines urging them on while rumbles of drum thunder rolled across the columns. Then, a hint of colour, a column lit, and the surging melodies start to rise.

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“It was the first time Deepset played side by side in a line,” Asshad explained, “it was challenging ‘cause we also had to sync with the visuals.”

“There’s actually a lot of things going on,” Peja continued, “what you see is just us and the visuals, but there’re actually more than 8 people working on stage (including visual controllers and on-stage sound crew) and everything had to be coordinated and synchronized.”

We were chilling at the counter entrance to Suffolk House in Penang, where history was made just under an hour ago. It was the DA+C festival, a unique showcase of some of the best local visual, digital and cultural arts has to offer and Malaysia’s first ever visual-mapping experience, featuring the scene’s more exquisite, experimental and intelligently playful musicians: Flica, Deepset and Rainf.

“We worked with the Kontak group for the visuals and they had the freedom to interpret the music,” said Asshad.

The festival paired up digital artists with musicians, experimenting with the space and architecture of Suffolk House to tell of their collaborative stories.

But to call it a mere showcase would be insulting. DA+C went beyond the gallery/gig format of mere features: exploring the distance and relation between the historical and the current; the culture from which our identities are born and the well from which we would all inevitably draw upon.

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A little closer into our memories we dwelled, pieces of our post-colonial pop culture, foreign yet strangely, aptly familiar, like old TV re-runs. Layered sound-scapes merged seamlessly, trailing with emotions, urging us to feel again. Columns splashed with solid hues, spreading in a diagonal line, and, without moving, we walked the coloured trails together.

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Fresh from yet another awe-inspiring performance, the Deepset quartet wore mixed expressions between fatigue, confidence and satisfaction. An air of easy camaraderie only 9 years of shared musical experience could muster, hung between them.

Lufti sat relaxed and contemplative as our conversation crossed between the music, the performance and the band.

“We’ve come to the stage where we’re very comfortable about playing and experimenting the music together,” he said, “We know what we want and we’re more focused about (making) the music as a band.”

“Playing instrumental lets us express and understand ourselves better,”Asshad explained, “the channeling of expressions comes more naturally and easier.”

The band started in 2002 and, after discovering that Lufti’s vocals were infinitely more emotive in guitar-rifts and melodies, began their instrumental journey in 2004. Since then, the band has explored, experimented and matured progressively through the sometimes harrowing waters of the Malaysian indie scene, emerging stronger, tighter and ever more expressive. The musical bond not only brought them closer as a band, but expanded Deepset’s horizons and potentials.

“I think we’ve developed a distinctive signature Deepset kind of sound and music,”said Lufti.

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Thoughts and emotions blended as the journey takes us deeper into the realm of our colours, solid but fragile at the same time. The sonic-scape, unrelenting, majestic, at times sorrowful, bracing depression with a grim courage, then glowing once again, the hint of desperate hope, the echoes of defiance to an indifferent world. Then transforming, the lower walls flooded with solid blue, a bird glides, glides into the storm and the harrowing sea beyond.

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“Howl is an essay about the fallacies of post-modernism,” Lufti talked about the voice sample building amongst the cool guitar-rifts in the currently untitled new track, the one that delved into the mind and gradually builds up with a soaring melodious thunder-scape, evoking the most intense emotions. “It’s about stuff you see in our daily routines, the things we talk and think about. The things we feel and experience every day.”

The epic sonic masterpiece is a reflection of the post-modern cultural condition we inhabit, where anything can mean everything and everything can mean nothing at the same time. A rendition of collected personal experiences, an expressive, emotive reaction born of intellectual dissatisfaction and a determined cry for the mind’s true freedom and the heart’s true voices.

“It’s really all about the emotions,” Lufti mused and the rest nodded in agreement.

“Sometimes, it’s actually a very depressing song, but we have people telling us that they feel it’s happy instead,” Asshad tells me, friendly humour in his eyes, “but actually it doesn’t matter, as long as you can feel something for yourself.”

“The biggest compliment is to have someone come up to us and say that they felt it here.” He concluded, hand patting his heart.

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Instead of replacing history, acknowledges and builds upon it. Rising, rising up to express the tenacity of spirit and intellect, structuring and re-structuring, narrating both the personal and the collective. Connecting past influences to expand the horizons of our minds. A journey, not walked nor merely seen but felt, experienced and made free.

As history is being told, history is being made. Time melds into one as sounds, melodies, rhythms and emotions, always emotions, come together, falling, sinking, reminiscing and ultimately rising again.

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It was indeed a performance of pure, relentless beautiful emotions from Deepset. An honest, powerful expression of howling guitars, epic roaring rhythms and weaving layers of melodious wizardry, telling their stories as the colourful visual journey takes us beyond our minds’ confines and challenges us to truly face ourselves and the pounding of our hearts.

A worthy follow-up from the mind-blowing feature at The Actors Studio, Lot 10 just two months ago that serves only to reinforce the band as one of the most under-rated instrumental powerhouse in the scene.

And as Lufti and Asshad so eloquently describe it, it’s not the fame they’re after, it’s all about the emotions.

A rush to the deep, a rise to the light.

This is Deepset.

By Phang

[DA+C Festival 2011] Part 3: Kontak! x Deepset from Bannai Roo on Vimeo.

9^th of July got people talking. Not only the literati, philosophers, newsmakers, and journalists but the common man wiling office hours away on Facebook and the everyday woman tweeting on her phone while stuck in the deadlock of a rush-hour traffic jam. We all had a say. We all took our sides. We all watched, formed thoughts and opined. And maybe for once the politically apathetic decided it was time to care.

Musically speaking, if there were a time for a folk revival, it would be now. America in the 1960’s writhed through a period of political dissent and gave birth to iconic figures like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez – singer-songwriters that wore their political leanings on their sleeves with unadorned narrative songs about oppressive governments, oppressed people and oppressing social issues.

This brand of activist folk music was played at rallies, coffee houses and the college circuit. It meant something more than just entertainment to the people that listened to it. Fast forward 50 years and we are confronted with the question of whether the folk genre would be of relevance anymore today. Here. In the pulsing capital of KL where radios blast heavily synthesized pop all the way from Korea to Gagaland. Would someone armed with a guitar and harmonica with 4 chords and nasal vocals attract the youth of today?

No doubt, there are stalwarts that have been slugging it out faithfully at this particular brand of music like Azmyl Yunor. And who could forget the verbose voice of Pete Teo that burst on to the scene back in 2003? But if we were to be perfectly honest with our mile-a-minute minds, we would struggle to recount how much of our attention was really captured by these traditional type folk artists? When was the last time you attended a socially-conscious singer-songwriter gig and felt that you could make a change in some little part of your life?

So perhaps it is time for local music-lovers and makers to think of ‘folk’ music in a different manner; steering our vision away from style of delivery and towards content. Feminist intents need not spew forth exclusively from the likes of Ani DiFranco and working class heroes need not be guitar touting troubadours that sing understated melodies. Songs that aim to change or challenge the masses in current times should be able to access that mass in the first place. And the mass has no time for musings and rants that do not entertain in the first place.

I’ve stood amongst large crowds of people watching the following acts play numerous times and felt something in me stir; acknowledging the truth in their lyrics and wanting to make a personal change in that political/social/moral situation and none of them fit the Dylan mould in the slightest in terms of look or sound.

When bands like Kyoto Protocol wind tight rhythms around phrases that provocatively jab at young adults who “suckle on breast til you’re 18/ go to university and get your degree/ exit a product of the big machine”, we sit up and listen because it hits a raw nerve. When frontman Fuad Alhabshi maniacally screeches “are you this tame all the time” on the mockingly titled but incredulously catchy ode to the trappings of modernity “Pussycat”, you feel like you owe it to him to be ballsy and stop blindly following that pied piper of a leader. It grabs our attention, it holds it and it replays itself long after the ring in our ears from blasting speakers dies out.

Shinji Moriwaki aka Figure of Speech would probably never call himself a folk artist but you know that he wishes to do what American folk artists back in the 60’s desired to do and that is to stir up winds of changes amongst the youth. Taking the rhyming flow of poetry and clocking it to the strong fisted rhythms of rap, he ploughs through religion, the war on Iraq and media manipulation in a single piece lasting no longer than 2 minutes – “God as a Weapon”. Completely engaging and most importantly, packs a punch within the attention span of a post-MTV generation.

That’s the future of socially-conscious songwriting. There’s no shame in it. It’s called moving with the times; using different means to get to the same end. A tough message to swallow has to be paired with infectious hooks, rockstar provocation, precise nail-on-the-head lyrics and lots of conviction. Therein is born modern folk for modern folk.

By Adeline Chua

Okay so now you’ve decided to be in a band. You’ve rounded up some mutual friends and now just finished your first jamming session. Have you wondered how are you going to last together in the band? There are a lot of factors involved, but at this starting point there is one thing you should really look out for – chemistry.

What is this elusive chemistry? The best I can describe about it is that you guys click together as a band musically. You know what is the next note the guitarist will play, you know what the drummer’s next beat in the chorus is going to be like…and you react to it. The music flows instinctively. Everyone’s happy playing music, everyone is grooving to it. Sounds easy right?

Which brings me to my next point: it might sound easy but to solidly build chemistry you need more than jam time. You need some ‘bro time’. No really, I’m not joking. Being in a band is like a marriage indeed, except that it’s a polygamous one. There’s a lot of give and take and you will encounter some serious relationship issues. You’re going to go through good times and some rough periods.  You have to work and understand what makes your bandmates tick. Know their preferences and attitudes inside out. That takes a lot of effort and time to do, which is why I use marriage as a metaphor.

It is important that you do this so that you can discover who you want to be with throughout this crazy journey. Given a choice between a musical genius and an average friendly joe, you are better off with the latter anytime. You can build the musical chemistry with the average joe, but you sure are going to be angry and mad all the time with a stuck-up guy. And that’s not healthy for you and for the band.

How do you do ‘bro time’? Spending time together outside the studio is the easiest way to build that rapport. Just hanging out talking music, checking out shows as a band, maybe even play futsal. Basically you should try doing things that are non-musical in nature. I once had the experience of trying to piece together a band, but we never got far because our interaction was just during the jamming sessions. Once out, all of us never made the effort to hang out and get to know each other well. Needless to say we never went beyond our first gig.

What happens if you feel there’s no chemistry when playing music together? There’s only two ways about it – slug it out or just quit. It takes time to build one. It is very rare to find that chemistry at first jam, so you need to spend some time to work on this aspect. If it’s gone on too long though, don’t be afraid to quit the band. Better to spend time on other worthy pursuits than flogging a dead horse.

That’s all for now. For the next one, I hope to be able to shed some light about band agreements and why you should be doing one if your music is getting some decent amount of money. Cheers!

By Amir Shazlan

(Amir Shazlan is in the midst of writing more inspired instructionals. The nitty-gritty things that no one ever told you about, mistakes made and problems encountered, good things that we all should emulate ..all this from an insider’s view.)

On the 16th of May, we went down to catch The Drums play a gig in Singapore, and got the chance to speak to their soft spoken guitarist Jacob Graham about life on tour, doing their bit in aid of Japan, their anticipated new record and how they deal with the pressure that comes with the territory.

The Wknd: This is your first time in this part of the world, how do you feel about that.

Jacob Graham: It’s really exciting, I’m kind off sad that we’re not here longer. We had been to Japan a couple of times, and that was really exciting for us. I think this is our favorite part of the world to tour coz its interesting for us.

TW: How so.

JG: Just being here, the architecture, the food, it’s all so interesting. Last night I looked out of my hotel room window and all of a sudden there’s some sort of light show going on. There was lasers and fire. That’s amazing, coz it’s in the middle of the city.

TW: As far as your performances go outside of the US, how has it been treating The Drums? Especially far off from where you come from.

JG: Traditionally it’s been pretty good in these areas. I don’t know why, it’s hard to say why a certain type of music resonates in a certain area. But we’re glad it does, I don’t know how the fans here specifically are, but this area has always been cool for us.

TW: You know any music from the South East Asia.

JG: I don’t know really, what countries would be considered South East Asia.

[Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Phillipines]
JG: I don’t know really. There were a couple of indie bands from Indonesia that I was listening to a couple of years ago, but i forget their names.. they must be hard to pronounce or something.

TW: How has the Australian tour turned out for you.

JG: It was really good. It’s funny because at this point we’ve pretty much been on tour for about 3 years, pretty solid and it’s interesting because we’re kind of getting to the point where a lot of the original excitement about travelling the world is kind of gone and you kind of settle in to this idea that this is my life and this is how it goes. But at the same time, I think maybe it’s the season or something, the weathers been so nice this whole trip that it seems really pleasant. The last really long stretch we did was November – December in Europe, it was so cold, we didn’t see the sun for weeks at a time. It can be really depressing when you’re really cut off from all your friends. This has actually been really nice for us so far.

TW: Any good bands that you got to check out in Australia.

JG: Let me think.. [pauses] There was one band that was on tour with us there, we were doing festivals and between that we were doing shows at small clubs and there was this band that went with us at all of those smaller shows called Tiger Choir. Pretty cool, I think they’re about to put out a record with this label from Australia called Pop Frenzy, which is, in my opinion, the coolest label in Australia. We did our first e.p. with them. They have such an amazing array of acts, an assortment. They’ll have the most random things like a great Swedish band like Acid house kings and then like an amazing, obscure American bands like Danielson Famile, its pretty amazing. I feel like that’s the only label that gets access to those bands, because everywhere else in the world, they’re kinda with their own kind on their own little label but in Australia they just grab all the best things.

TW: For you yourself, what tunes have you been repeating on this tour.

JG: On this tour, actually I feel like it’s been really hard for me because I feel like I’m desperately looking for something new to listen to. You know when you get to that point where you feel like you found your favourite kind of music and you just spend a few years completely exhausting it and you can barely even listen to it anymore. It’s been kind of that, and I’m kinda looking for things now. You don’t really know what to do so you kind of go back to what you’ve been listening to years and years and years ago, so I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff that i was listening to growing up, like all the pioneers of Electronic music like Wendy Carlos, Tomita and Jean Michel Jarre, stuff like that. I think maybe because a lot of that stuff are more orchestral, on this tour, it got me listening to more orchestral music like soundtracks by John Williams. I’m obviously kind of obsessed with pop music, but I feel like you can find elements of pop music in other kinds of music and when you incorporate them back into pop music it kinda makes it all more well rounded. John williams especially, I’m pretty obsessed with the soundtrack he did for ET, i think some of the melodies in there are so moving, it’s pretty mind blowing when you listen to it.

TW: What do you do on your day off while on tour.

JG: Usually we just like to do nothing, just walk around by yourself, listen to your Ipod, take it all in. The last day off I had was in Perth, and found this park that had hiking trails through it, I just spent all day walking through nature. That’s kind off a rare treat when you’re on tour. Checking out little shops and things.

TW: Do you guys do any songwriting while on tour.

JG: Occasionally, we do that when we get hit with something that we wanna get down. But for the most part we like to just be home when we’re doing that, which works out okay coz we love songwriting so much that when we’re home it doesn’t really feel like work to do that. We write and record songs at the same time when we’re home.

TW: Brooklyn seems to be a place where a lot of bands are based in, apart from yourselves, (Yeasayer, MGMT, Dirty Projectors etc etc), what’s good about Brooklyn for a band like The Drums.

JG: Well we’ve actually all moved to Manhattan in the past few months. I think the main thing that attracts bands to Brooklyn, or how it did in the past, was that it was just cheaper to live there.

TW: I’ve always thought that that part of town is kind of expensive..

JG: That’s the thing, it’s starting to get that way! That’s why we’ve all moved to Manhattan actually, I think the apartment that I live in Manhattan now is cheaper than the place where I was in Brooklyn. Brooklyn’s starting to become really trendy, it was because it was a safe and cheap area where you live. It still is in certain parts, it was all in Williamsburg and now Williamsburg’s becoming really hip so it’s becoming more pricey and its kind of moving up.
But i think its just the idea that you can live so close to the biggest city in the world but maybe not be in the middle of it all, not in the heat of it.

TW: We read your tweet before coming on this Australian tour, you said you guys have wrapped up the new record. What can we expect from this next one?

JG: It’s hard to say when you’re so inside of something, when we went into it we sort of had the idea of.. experimenting probably isn’t the right word, but maybe playing with sounds a little more. I think on our first record, we had a set of sounds and it almost blankets the whole record. For this record, we wanted to fine tune sounds, a little bit more broader palate to work with. I think we did do that but when you really boil it down, its still just this simple short pop songs, how different can that really be? To me its different enough to keep it exciting for our fans but not so different that people will feel alienated from it.

TW: We also heard your latest single, The New World!

JG: It’s a song that John and I recorded together with the e.p. a long time ago, it was actually the only song that we cut from the first album, and it’s actually one of my favorite songs. Kind of sad to cut from the album but it just didn’t quite fit, it felt too epic and too grand to just throw in with all those other songs. So we just had it in a box, and then everything happened in Japan, and we have been to Japan a few times, we have friends there, we just felt so bad. We’d really do something to help, so we released that song and all the proceeds go to the Red Cross for Japan. When we decided that we should do something, we thought should we record a new song? And then we thought of that and we thought that actually works perfect for this situation. Maybe not perfect but that spirit of holding on and making it through something. It just felt like it all happened for a reason.

TW: Is there any pressure to deliver or to outdo your first record now?

JG: [laughs] People ask us that a lot. I think when we made our first record it was really before we had any intention at all, so when we made it we were just trying to make a record that really pleased ourselves and something that we’d be really proud of even if no one had ever heard it. So for that album we didn’t have any pressure and then we got all this attention just before that album came out. We didn’t touch the album, we didn’t change it because everyone was paying attention to it, we kept it just as it was and released it. But when we went to make the second record, we kinda had the same mentality. Just because people are paying attention to us, we weren’t gonna bend or … and you get a lot of advice from people (labels, important people) but this record we just recorded the same way we recorded the first one, in our kitchen and with a little cheap microphone. Maybe because this time we did know that everyone would hear this record which we didn’t know when we made the first record, that we wanted to be more of ourselves and please ourselves even more in a way. Anything that maybe we were lazy about on the first record, it was more to prove something to ourselves than anyone else I think. We just wanted to be consistent and do something, we’re not interested in reinventing ourselves really.

TW: So when can we expect the next record then?

JG: I can’t say for sure, there are scientists that decide those things. But we hope this year sometime, probably early fall, but we’re releasing a single in the summer or something.

Have a listen to their new single, Money below

The Drums – Money by WorkItMedia