At church on a satnite. Like a good kid. lol

Heyhey! I just realized that my last post was on the 4th of July and that day I changed the whole blog layout to this red & blue themed layout! It assure you, it was unintentional lol. I just happen to like how it looks.

Actually I planned to write a review but then I had a gig last Saturday!! Once again, it's a church thingy but the event was held at the other church. We got our old guitarist back, and he was behaving better that day and this was his first gig with us this year after what happened last time (=.=)..

Well normally if we play on this kind of gig, we'll have practice probably the day before, and then a couple of hours before the event itself. Most of the songs were common, so we didn't really need extensive practice. But this time it was different. We had a couple of practice before the event and even the songs were fixed way before the event. This was because we didn't know the WL (Worship Leader) and most of the singers are newbies so they were still unsure when to come in etc etc. 

The Worship Leader was interesting. Sometimes he went overboard. It's pretty difficult to explain here. You see, he dragged the song for too long. And that wasn't because he was singing the song over and over again. On certain occasion where there is room for "improvisation", he went for it and then lingered. PLUS sometimes he went off key. Thank goodness he didn't do it as much during the event. We the musicians tried to tone down the music so that He'll eventually get the signal and then end his adlibs. But then most of the time he kept going on and on. Nobody was able to tell him off because this is kind of a sensitive issue but then everybody noticed it and was pretty much against it. The guys hated him lol. So the only way to sorta tell him off is by reducing the music. The lesson I've learned is that Worship Leaders should have self control as well. Even though the music and the atmosphere was 'high', you gotta know when to stop. You don't want people to be staring at you as if this is a show right? During practice, that happened a lot. 

Second, Worship Leaders gotta be clear about the chronological order of events. If you can't remember, then write it down and carry it with you! This fella was pretty clueless, and he skipped a song, and a solo. Well maybe because he was nervous.

Third, please WLs. Don't preach too much. There will be a sermon afterward so you don't really need to. 

From the musicians' side, I kinda followed what we practiced back then in SBC. In SBC we have song sheets with chords in it and the sequence of the song. I printed the same thing and boy did it come in handy :) I do think that it is a must for church musicians to have song sheets with 'em chords and sequences in it. We played neatly, and the basslines managed to be blended in nicely. It sounded more balanced :D

I was so stupid that I didn't do this since back then. If I did, then I wouldn't be as frustrated because everybody was playing their own thing and although the chord was right, it didn't blend in nicely. Not anymore B)

From the sound corner, we have difficulties at first because initially we were planning to use only amps until this guy came with the full PA. BUT his system is  normally used for keyboard style playing not for bands. But then the uncle was pretty nice and the sound went pretty good. A huge plus is that I can hear myself AND the band (most important thing for me). Also, unlike during certain occasion, this time I was able to control the volume by myself. Now I know why. When the sound man told me to put it to the max, I did what he said and then I ended up unable to adjust accordingly. All I can go was go quiet. I can't go louder because I was maxed out!! This time, I adjust my volume to 12 o'clock, and then we all played the loudest song so that the sound man will adjust my volume accordingly. For other songs, I will still have the freedom to go quiet or louder. I do think that this can be applied to any instrument. 

I noticed that at dog eating place, most of the rented sound system during the event are normally used for keyboard style music. So if they are faced with a band, normally the keyboard will go through the PA, and then the rest will be using amps. I prefer everybody to go through the PA though. I think it'll sound better that way.

Alright I think that's that.Have a nice afternoon! ;)

play ketchup

Heylou wazzup blogosphere! Omg I almost forgot that I actually have a blog!! :P

Seriously I am pretty much let down by the whole situation that has been going on for almost 2 years now.. I am STILL don't like the environment I am at, and  I am THIS close to losing my identity (as a musician) although the  passion never goes away, it never burned  out.

Ok. Sorry. I didn't mean to rant, actually, but I figured I gotta give some explanation to y'all out there.

You know, I lost ALL my music. About 10,000 songs  on my external hard drive, GONE. But then I have been recollecting  'em mp3s, and now I kinda go a little random. Listening to bands with weird names that I have never seen on TV, but also some known bands. So I borrowed my friend's hdd and I copied stuff. Weird stuff. But then I found  a couple of gems! And then I remember this blog hahaha. I haven't been reviewing bands for a long time!! This was actually the initial purpose of this blog kekeke.

So as I said, there are a number of bands I have been listening to and I LOVE THEM. Seriously awesome arrangement and a couple of pieces blew my mind :D

BUT I won't be writing about 'em now because office hour is coming to an end and since I am using their internet connection, I might as well just write 'em tomorrow HAHAH I have nothing better to do at le office :p

Ta-tah for now ;)

shades, fedora, and mayhem.

So. There is this annual Youth Easter celebration parade from the entire protestant churches in our province. Huge. Thousands of youth from across the province gathered in one place to worship and then march from point A to B. Me and a friend from my church -Rio- was elected as commitee member for our region, and we were appointed to be in charge of the attractions during the parade. We were supposed to setup a 'moving' stage that consist of acoustic musicians and singers. And then after that, the dancers.

This was pretty much like the -legendary gig- where all things went from bad to worse except this one went a little differently. So lemme walk you through it.

We were told by other commitee members that the mini truck we'll be using for that day (the plan was to use a loading container at first.)will be borrowed from one of the youth. Fine. So Mini Truck: Check.

And then we need to find an electricity generator around 2000 watts to accomodate all the gears and amps. One of the commitee members has one at his house. Fine. So Generator: Check.

Generators are unstable. They need a stabilizer with the same amount of watts. And the one from the other comittee members doesn't have one. So we borrowed from another friend who has a generatior with built-in stabilizer. So Generator + Stabilizer: Check.

The tambourine & banners dancers from our church agreed to perform on that day. Fine. So Dancers: Check.

We were prepared. What could possibly go wrong right?.

Right.

The day before the parade, the commitee chairperson for our region wanted to hold a prayer session. We were told to meet at 9pm. Okay. So me, Rio and 2 other friends (they tag along to pick up the mini truck and generator)arrived there at 9.15pm and as expected--the chairperson isn't even there yet. There were only us and 3 other commitee members. Fine. So we waited. 10 minutes later we got a call from the head of the commitee. The prayer thing was cancelled and we were supposed to settle things that weren't done yet and the chairperson with her prayer partner will pray for us. Fine. But then things went downhill from here and I started to cuss inside..

So now we went to the head of commitee's house. We were about to get the mini truck. We call the owner, she said that the car was lent to her father's friend, and we gotta pick it up from a place 30 minutes drive from our place. Fine. But then she said again that she's feelin uneasy to go and pick  up the car because it was already late. Yeah right. It's only 10pm. And if you ask me I'll gladly bang the door because I really frickin have to! It's for tomorrow for goodness' sake! Grrrr. Long story short, we were asked to find another mini truck. Son of a.. Nevermind.

So we decided to split up and look for mini truck for rent. At 10.30pm. Right. We went to look for it anyway, and while I made the calls, Rio and the others went to pick up the generator. I made lots of calls, and some of my friends helped out to call their friends asking for it, and even looked for it through the newspaper ads but even until 1.30am we couldn't find one. We are so screwed.

So the generator finally arrived. We checked on it, tried to turn it on, we couldn't. The starter switch doesn't work, the rope trigger is gone, and even though we used some plastic rope to trigger it, it wouldn't work. So we are so frickin screwed. First the truck, now the generator. Great. The last option we have is to rent a Microlet (our public transportation) with full sound system in it so the dancers may dance to the music comin from it.

I went home unsettled. The parade  tomorrow will be ruined. No... So I prayed so hard before bed. I cussed in my mind a lot by now -and i feel guilty- but now the Lord is my only hope. So I decided to leave it to The One with bigger hands.

So. 7.30am I went out looking for Rio and tried to figure things out. Then somehow one of our neighbor heard about our situation and offer their generator for us to use. According to them, it has stabilizer inside. Although the starter switch is broken, we can still use the rope trigger for it to work. With a little gasoline, we tried it, and it worked! YESSSHHHH! Mini truck left. It's already past 8am. We were supposed to gather with other youths from the region at 9am.

One of our other neighbor has a mini truck for rent and he heard about our situation as well. So he went to pick it up and gave it to us!! 

So the guys loaded all the amps, gears and generator, and then we tried to turn the stuff on, and it worked!! YESSSHHHHH!! But It's already past 9am and it started to rain. So we turned off the generator and everything. Then other commitee members started calling me because everyone is ready to go except our youth.

Still we need to find a tent to save all the gears and one of the neighbor offered us their tent. So yet again, we were saved. 2 of the commitee members were in the gathering venue and they noticed that it started to rain so they came to bring us tent. And told us that everyone was leaving without us except the commitee. The commitee member had a little conflict with the region's chairperson because the commitee didn't want to leave us. Aww.

We parked the car somewhere with shades, and then most of the youth were getting into the car ready to go. We agreed to startup the generator now, and set the sound on our way to the venue. Fine. Then one of my friend pulled the rope trigger. He pulled and pulled and the rope snapped.

Okay. I don't even know how to feel. It's now almost 10am.

The owner of the mini truck - our neighbor,  offered his generator for us. It's the whole package. 3500 watts with minimum noise, and built in stabilizer. 

Everything were supplied by our neighbors. 

OH THANK GOD!!!!!!!!
*reminded me about the Samaritans back then in BolehLand..

So off we went.

The setup there were pretty easy, we just need to deal with feedbacks and echoes from the mic and guitars. So we repositioned ourselves and et voila!

Guess what. We played for more than 4 hours, and to sip some water was our only time out. My hands were sore. I can't wave my right hand, and my left hand's fingers hurt when I type. Longest gig ever. Under the sun. My fedora was my only shade. I am tanned now. 

This one was very refreshing and somehow I felt pretty cool. I have never played on a moving stage before. Not even in BolehLand. Our audience was people on the roadside. I didn't know how many kilometres we went through in slo-mo, but it was damn far. 3 of the youths passed out along the way.

One thing that I've learned: Surrender.
Surrender doesn't mean NOT to do a thing and wait for a miracle to happen. But instead, keep trying, ask God for help and leave the outcome to Him. Even if things doesn't work out, then fine. It is still God's will. He has better plans and whether you like it or not, He holds the ultimate control over everything. We still gotta do our part and we let Him do His. You see, the help from our neighbor came unexpectedly and all the stuff worked out at the very last minute. We have no control over it. We need no sorcery to get things done, but things will eventually come into place if we surrender.

*I'll post the technical lessons I've got on another post, kay?

roller coaster ride~

*ohmygosh i found this post on my draft list and realized that I haven't even posted it yet after SO LONG!! It's been MORE THAN A YEAR @#$%^&*(*^%$#$%^&*
Lots of stuff happened and we pretty much ended up going separate ways since October  2011 - the graduation. Now me, Oxy and Jlt are rockin behind-the-desk life, and Tmg is rockin the hospital wards though sometimes Tmg and Jlt still rockin 'em stages with the Junkies.*

This was road to the epic Relay For Life Melaka gig - a cancer-awareness relay that was held in various states throughout BolehLand. Lots of cancer survivors were there. 
 

Thursday, June 3rd.

8pm            Worship practice

10.30pm     Jamming for Sat's Gig!!

                    *we stayed up till 5am+ trying to figure out how to use separate tracks for 

                   the gig. Apparently, we couldn't.*

tick tock tock tock

K.O

Friday, June 4th

6am               Hit the bed

9am               Mission training

                     *I was half dead during the process and it went on till almost sunset @.@*

7pm               Sound check

                     *when we arrived, the crew weren't done setting up and we were told to 

                      come back a couple hours later*

8pm               Saturday service practice

                      *Oxy and Tmg tagged along and waited quite a while for me to finish. Poor 

                      them.. Jlt texted Tmg that they still weren't done setting up -.- Tmg 
                    was pissed Oxy said.*

10pm+            Head home

                      *wanted to watch movie actually, but the info about the sound check came 
                      late and the ticket counter was already closed at that time. No choice.*


Saturday June 5th

1.40pm            GIG DAY!! Sound Check.

2pm                 *Tmg went back to change clothes.*

3pm                 *While waiting, we camwhored and Jlt bought us Kuihs.*

                            

4pm                 *Played at a huge balloon spiderman thingy. I knee-d my camera, 
                        broken beyond repair*

                    

see?

                        

5pm                 *Still haven't played yet. Fyi, our slot was supposed to be at ...... Tmg 

                        came back WITH THE SAME CLOTHES HE WAS WEARING. #$%^&* we 
                        told him to go back and change for real.. So he went back with Oxy.*

6pm                 *Still not our turn yet but the crew said that we would be up verrryyy 

                        sooon. Tmg and Oxy weren't back yet. I was having a panic attack and  

                        Jlt got reeeeaallly cranky.*

 

6.30pm+         *Tmg and Oxy stucked in a bad bad traffic jam in front of the stadium. Me 

                        and PMS-ing Jlt had no choice but to setup for them on stage.*

7pm                  *I was supposed to be in church already for Saturday service. I felt like 

                        crying cuz this was the first time for me to miss worship session when i 

                        was actually on duty!!! At this rate, I might miss the whole service T.T... 
                        Look! Oxy and Tmg finally arrived!!! :D*

7pm+                It's time to rock!! 

                             

                          *Messed up lots of chords and timing -.- but we finished it anyway then 

                        Tmg and Oxy rushed me to church. I had to change in the backseat! We 

                        were stuck in a traffic jam again, and we took the wrong flyover. 

                        I've never been to this church before. But after a couple of  

                        calls we found it. My 2 friends waited for me outside the church and 

                        they said that I've missed the free worship session, but the main 

                        worship is actually after the sermon!! Thank God! But then.. 

                        Oxy might lost her phone. So I left my bag in the car for her to search 

                        just in case it was there. Jlt lost his supercool chromatic tuner*

9pm+                 *During the sermon, I got a text. Oxy lost her phone :(  it was time for 

                         me to play. I didn't go for sound check earlier so i made some noise at 

                         1st x( I couldn't even concentrate in  worship. My heart was pounding 

                         like crazy and never slowed down even after more than  an hour..

                         It was like I just came down from a really sick roller coaster.*

10pm+               *Went to eat.. Didn't really have the appetite.. Then we made 

                         appointment with Momo to watch movie.. So we end the day with...*

                               


Sunday, June 6th
past midnight    *We were informed that we've got another slot in the morning! YAY!!*

7am+                  *Jlt texted me saying that the crew started the set up late so the whole 

                          slot will be delayed. It's gonna clash with Sunday service for sure. 

                          So, morning gig = NAY. Go back 2 sleep*

9.40am+             Sunday Service!!

                             *me, Josh and Oxy were on duty. So Josh picked me up. I was half 

                            awake when we arrived  at church and I was setting up with Josh 'till 

                            the worship leader asked us "where is Oxy" and I thought she was 

                            probably on her way here so I called her. 

                                   Me: "Oi, lu dmana?" [hey where are you?]

                           Oxy: "......Oh man. Gw telat bangun" [Oh man, I woke up late]

                           Without further ado Josh and I rushed to her house and picked her 

                           up. The worship leader was already explaining to the congregation 
                           of the reason why we were late when we arrived -.-*

12.40pm+            Prayer!!

                              *Me and Josh gotta rush to another church for this and somehow we 
                            made it in time even though our service time was different than 
                             theirs.*

2pm+                    * Finally can have loooonggg sleep*

8pm                     Rock Bar!! 

                                *Oxy, me and Momo went there. But when we got there, it has 

                               turned into a reggae bar -.- so we went to a bistro and then hit a 

                               hotel lounge with super slippery floor afterwards till 6am.*

*DAMN I MISS COLLEGE DAYS :( *

The craziest weekend of my life so far ended that Sunday. A thanksgiving Sunday for me. I thanked God that He lead us through this alive *and without ended up disbanded*. We lost stuff on that weekend. But for me, it was like a trade. That chromatic tuner, handphone, petrols, and camera were traded for precious memories and stronger friendship.

p.s. I miss you fellas so badly T.T

Passport to Fame - by Oxy

WAZZUP Y'ALLS! 

Damn I miss blogging. 

Couple of days ago I asked Oxy to do a guest post for this blog since I have nothin 'musical' enough to write about and she agreed! Oh by the way, Oxy was in the same band with me back in college *WE'RE NOT THAT OLD, OKAY!?* as you may have read in most of my posts, she's LEGIT.

She told me about this competition she went to so here it goes~

p.s: stuff in green r my jabbers.

Hello everyone!

It's my first time being someone's blog's guest writer! Yoohoo..

I am Lina *her real name* , I had not enjoyed live band performance for so long, until 14 March 2013, when suddenly my long lost friends aka Banana Junkies *TMG and JLT belong to this band too~* brought me to see a battle of the bands gig.

Little that I know about this gig, but PassportToFame is basically a battle of the bands where participants are required to travel to a few cities to perform and show their talents.

It is in Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johor for the first, second and third auditions respectively. The gig that I attended was in Penang.

My long lost friends performed earlier (when I was occupied with work) so I didn’t see them rocking the stage. But I’m sure they were. Well, at least I saw the videos.

That night, I watched 3 bands and that’s enough to make my day. I was stunned, especially with the second band. They are ‘Epy&Ardiv’ , 7-piece band, consisting of sax, trumpet, drum, keyboard, guitar, bass and vocal. They played 3 songs, each with groovy reggae genre. The first song was ‘fly me to the moon’ and it was fiuhhh. I’ve listened to a few versions of the song and I could tell ya that they really really did a great job with their arrangement. The second song was an Indonesian song titled ‘BidadariManisku’. I think I never listened to this song before (or maybe I listened but I forgot) but they again really made music out of it. The last song was their original song titled ‘Teman’, with groovy beats. It was worth watching!

Overall, you can feel the oomph drum beats and bass lines, wonderful melodies from the trumpet, sax and keyboard, great guitar strumming and also good vocal. It was all the combination of skills, groove and showmanship. I was entertained!

It’s time for the judges to say some words. “You’re my favourite drummer”, one said. “The original song full mark, music full mark, performance full mark, congratz you guys have set the standard. It’s time for you guys to establish your identity. Checkered pattern shirts, probably with the hats”. Another judge said “The vocal needs some improvement”.

Yeah there is always a room for improvement. From my side, the keyboardist, sax and trumpet need to show more showmanship. It is also good to practice endurance especially for the vocalist, sax and trumpet as their volume was a bit softer during the third song. Lastly, I can’t hear what the guitarist said, during the introduction and also between the songs…so I believe he needs to work on that.

That’s all. Ciao!

Thanks for the guest post, Oxy!! 

Well, we may not be as -to be taken with LOTS OF SALT- "cool" as we were back in college, but some things remain the same. We still have the ears to tell if one is a quality music or not. 

Have a good day ;)