a series of realization. lol

There we went. To the festival. there were so many things that happened before this one, and I should say that by far this was an enjoyable experience. Another roller-coaster ride although it wasn't as "thrilling" as that last one. On the night where I posted the last blog entry, in the end we decided that we'd bail this one. Simply because we weren't ready and our drummer were being so dissociative from the sleepiness. To be honest, I was glad because I didn't want to play and I don't feel confident enough to play in this competition.

I might have told you before that anything with the word "Sinode" in it, means huge. Lotsa exposure. Thousands of judging eyes. Words of mouth. Like, massive. But then I don't know why I just want this to be over. I was giving up. I did what I could, and didn't give a shit on what's gonna happen. But one thing leads to another and we ended up joining the competition even though our arrangement was done only hours before the competition. We were the first in line to perform. Seems like it was meant to be because whenever the situation becomes impossible, it changed in the last minute. So I was like whatever, let's just get this over with.

I thought our arrangement was pretty OK even though it's not that tidy or complicated. I stole OOR's The Beginning guitar style for the front part lol.

I have a whole lot of things that I discovered during that day, since it was the first time for me to enter a band competition in that caliber.

We were the first band to perform so we set up an easy standard for everyone lol. There were a number of common genre that emerged. RocknRoll, pop, jazz, metal.

One thing pissed me off the most.

(almost)EVERYONE WAS TRYING SO HARD TO BE CASIOPEA. Maybe most of them don't even know who Casiopea is, but they SURELY sounded like them. The typical Jazz Funk Pop kinda thing with lots of syncopes, off beats, slapping, complicated instrumentals and the like. Their skills astounded me but after a while, I wanted to puke. The reason why they did that was understandable. They played that way so that they'll get marks for the level of difficulty. Some of them managed to nail it, and some of them didn't.

But one band  me the most. They looked like they will be performing in a metal concert and they had that look on their faces, and their vocalist looked so girly but yet intimidating. They went up on stage and started their sound check. Oh boy was it loud. The distortion was really heavy and loud my ears were pierced. When they started playing... Oh man. I'm having goosebumps remembering them play. They sang a hymn called "Dalam Dunia Penuh Kerusuhan" (In This Riot-Filled World) composed by H. A. Pandopo in 1980. They started off hauntingly smooth. It was pretty horrifying but beautiful at the same time. After the first few lines at the verse, and then they started the grand intro. Oh God. They sounded like Nightwish!! It was crazy. Everybody were stunned and I myself couldn't help but stare. It was grand, and haunting, and beautiful. The vocalist could reach the notes smoothly. I saw the judges were stunned as well. But in the end, they didn't make it into the top 3. They managed to get into the top 10 anyway. I guess that was understandable, because when I heard their performance that I recorded on my phone, they took too long, and there was a problem in terms of sound balance. The guitars were too overpowering, and they played waaaay beyond the alloted time, that's why their marks were reduced. The band who became the champion was pretty good, though. Their guitarist stepped up their game. The band revolved on the guitarist. He played mightily tidy and his skills were no joke. The band complimented him nicely although the vocalist was just standard. Their song arrangement for the required song were also really good.

Honestly I thought that the winner will be one of those Casiopea wannabes but then I was wrong. It kinda motivated me to keep on doing and loving the current genre that I like and polishing the way I play regardless of what genre.

Winning a competition is one thing. And I don't really care about winning. But then after this competition, though I still don't care if we're gonna win or not, but I really want us to sound more presentable and can be up to par with other bands and certainly I don't want to be the worst. LOL. We were one of the lowest quality performer and I realized that we were nothing compared to the others. The others put more time and effort (obviously) for this while we did shit and try to get everything together at the last minute. Now I know our standard compared to the rest. And I know the standard for this competition. I've never watched this competition before even though it's being held annually for a pretty long time already. I know what to expect. This was totally different than BolehLand's standard. I could say that our standard is way higher than them. I've joined a number of BolehLand's battle of the bands, and only a handful will be able to come close to our top 10 performers. For real. Even though our standard here is waaaaay lower than Java.

 
This competition really made my motivation bigger and I realized that I can't just be in this position. I need to move forward. Get back on track. Even though I was playing keyboard, I wanted to improve my bass playing instead. Hahaha. Hopefully I can attend a course anytime soon.

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 ;) 

Involved my ass.

Guess what, we JOINED the competition. yes. Crazy? yes. I was the only one thinking that way. Oh maybe some of you too, readers?

Four days worth of practice we went. That gut feeling that normally came before a gig striked back right at the first step inside the venue. I was never more intimidated than this. Never more inconfident than this. Btw, this was the first time for our rhythm guitarist to ever join a competition.

The lions performed the day before us. Therefore, i felt a little better.

Long story short, we played badly. I stuttered during the first song so I missed one line of the chorus, and then I mentioned "check-in" instead of "check-sound" during the song introduction *although i corrected myself afterwards LOL, the syncopes didn't work out aaand the sound went nuts at the second song that one of the judge was covering his left ear. I'd say, the situation went 70% ok. I wasn't quite sorry for it because there were several bands who did worse--higher level of embarassment.

GOD how I thank You that You made it happened so that the big guns played the day before or else I'll be too discouraged to go on stage. There was 1 band who played SUPERBLY but they were on stage waaay after we played so I didn't really care :D

Oh! Also, out of the 60-ish contestants, we're in the top 20 so that didn't really discouraged me. I was even surprised.

I am fully aware that my band SUCK and this competition added more punctuation mark to our level of suckiness. Good. So that my bandmates can finally wake up!! As for myself, I would say that this competition motivated me. I am more pumped up to polish my scales, fingering, and groove among other things. I REALLY do hope that my bandmates would be as motivated as I am after all this.. For lessons during the gig, gee. Nothing significant, really. I went on stage the way I did before. Same drill. I guess I just need to choose the right words to say during band intros. Well. If I ever have the chance to do that again haha.

Now here's another thing. There is ANOTHER competition next month. I would say that this is waaay bigger than this one we just did. It's for our denomination only, but you see, this is THE most.. er.. prestigious band competition for young adults across the region. The pressure is waayy bigger and the competitors are waaayy more than before. This competition is like a pass-fail subject. When you fail, see you next semester (if you still have the balls). But if one wins this, hmph. You'll get EXPOSURE. Sweet deal. Seriously.

Let me break this down for ya. If one wins, one will be invited to most of the gigs this denomination holds, invited to play at churches/seminars/concerts across the province, and not to mention the 100% likelihood to be the OPENING ACT for any famous Christian performers when they come to perform in our province (the organizers are familiar with the word 'AUDITION' just like they are familiar with Hieroglyphics).

You might think: "Hey. Aren't you guys supposed to play for the glory of God and not to yourselves? Aren't you fellas supposed to use your talent for Him and don't care about what comes after if you win/lose?"

You see, it's a private matter between a believer and God, and people glorify God in different ways. Only God can judge, you can shut up.

Where I live now, people WANT to SHOW FACE all the time. Being asian, we don't want to LOSE FACE not even one damn time. But unlike most asians, people here don't grasp the very basic idea of WORKING HARD. The INVOLVEMENT is emphasized greatly while the process is neglected. Hence the shitty outcome. Even when it turns out bad, people will say "what matters is that you were involved."--quantity over quality. Sometimes they add "gotta do better next time" but that never really happen.

Anyway, another issue. I know how to play keyboard. In fact, I started off with that when I was a kid. That was practically the first official instrument I could play. But you see, my soulmate is the BASS!!! I feel like I can really express myself through it, and I feel that satisfaction everytime I play. Y'know, that feeling when you're pacing along with the drummer.. In short, I prefer Bass over Keyboard.

But then, I am the only keyboardist available (cuz the rest are aunties and one is out town), and my bandmates wants me to play Keyboard. Sigh. Gotta take one for the team.

We had a practice last night--a rather uninspiring one, acoustically cuz drummer couldn't make it. We had another friend to sing and based on the outcome last night, gee. I'd say: NEXT!

Sigh. It has never been THIS hard.

Stressful weeks ahead..

God, please strengthen me.

kept for long enough

I feel bad.

You see, there will be another competition coming up at the end of this month. I didn't tell you before, but i ditched the previous one last month.

Hard to admit, but I'm gonna say this anyway.

I don't believe in my band members.

I have no confidence to go on stage with them.

For a church thing, well fine. But for a competition, heck no. Zero confidence.

We are FAR from the 'ok' category. On the scale of 1 being the worst (play entirely off key, the like) and 10 being awesome, I would give ourself a 3. Yes that's how bad I think we are.

In dog-eating place, when a CHURCH is holding a "RELIGIOUS BAND FESTIVAL" *that's how they call it btw* inviting bands from churches from all around the province, especially when the word "INTER-DENOMINATION" is stated on the event ad, THEY MEAN NO SHIT. YOU BETTER BE GOOD.

Maybe you'll think that church fellas are just some goodiegoodie hymn-singing kids with absurd amount of hairgel who don't know awesome music, let alone play them. Or maybe you think that they play like Hillsong or Planetshakers at best.

Nope. I would say that the bands that join this, are WAY BETTER than Hillsong or Planetshakers.

Granted they are NOT Dream Theatre calibre, but they are still AWESOME! Even though the kind of music that they play are mostly not my cup of tea, but in terms of dynamics, balance and arrangements, they are really good. Each of the members know damn well what they are doing.

So this is what scares me. If we join this competition, we are kittens walking straight into lions' cage. It's not like they are violent. No. Most of them are really humble. But the thing is, if dive into that pool unprepared, we're just gonna bring embarrassment to ourselves.

Last time with GE and Rubberfellas, I am always confident wherever we go. Whether it is to a competition or just normal gig. Why? Because I know that we were prepared. We don't possess the skill of the Used or at least MCR. But then I am confident when I play with them because I know what we've done to get there. I was proud to play our originals. I know we worked our ass off to at least make it sound decent. Everybody was doing their homework. Even though I still have that butterflies and negative thoughts before going on stage, the peeps were there to support me *by being nervous in unison xD.

**sidenote: FYI, Oxy and Joney always looked as cool as cucumber before we go on stage, while JLT always have that "we're gonna knock your socks off" vibe*

With my band now.... *sigh*...

I can't keep a straight face whenever we practice. Normally I'd play 4-ish chords and then I'll go

At the end of the day, I went home unsatisfied and discouraged. I had to practice that 'inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale' thing throughout the practice session because of the sound we made. I felt bad that I can do nothing about that, and I felt bad that I tell them what to do too many times. Sometimes I just let them play the way they want, and halfway through I felt like I need to see a therapist or maybe stand at the edge of a cliff and scream my gut out.

I'm not a pro myself. But at least, I TRIED to polish the way I play. I TRIED to listen to what others are playing so I could come in at the right time without overpowering anyone.I made mistakes MANY TIMES and I would be happy if somebody else point it out so that I could improve!!

Dear bandmates, how long would it take for you to realize that we suck and that we need to work hard?!