Meet EARTH.

Last nite I went jamming and then visited another studio afterwards. Pretty far, and as most studios in this historical city, they're usually located on the 2nd floor. Including this one.

There was a notice on the wall outside saying in Malay "don't smoke on the stairs" so I was quite positive I won't smell anything. But then when my friend open the door...

GAH.

Cigarette smoke in an air-conditioned room!! Dude. Nothing I hate more than the smell of cigarette smoke in an air-conditioned room!!!!!!!!! So I was so congested and feel like dying. Makes me wonder the smell of a poisonous gas. I bet it smells nicer.

So we started talking with the owner. Earth. Wicked name right? hehe. Well we didn't ask of his real name and we found out about his name when we saw his EP. The dude is one of the local metal band as a drummer (he's friggin good, fyi), pretty involved in the local music scenes including the underground one, and he has a family already. Shared a lot of stuff with us including a couple of personal ones. Well, after talking about some jamming and recording prices then we got into serious stuff. The fella was really into Sting. He let us listen to one of Sting's stuff and told us that he is one heck of a songwriter. Also he was talking about a band that came to his studio for recording, the vocal was terribly off and he said to the fella "dude, do u know that your notes are off?" then the fella said "yeah. It was intended to be like that. That's how I'd like it to be." then when he listened to the song again, he said that the song was actually deep and the composer has good "Illusion" he said. He called those kind of song as "Asymmetrical". I nearly burst :P In maths, sure. But in music? "Asymmetrical"?? hahah. Earth dude used lots of interesting vocabularies last night.

Then he started talking about song writing. He said that songwriters are like architect. It's about how you build a song. He said that the off-key fella just now is one wicked architect because he build one strange building--an asymmetrical building that looks mad cool just like the elephant tower he saw during his trip to Bangkok. Songwriters will need some kind of good illusion. And the best part is, he lit a cigarette and then continue talking. I couldn't concentrate anymore..

And then he took us to the recording/jamming room. pretty standard, didn't touch or try out stuff because he sat down and then continue talking. This time it gets really personal and as the time goes by I gained some knowledge about being a struggling musician. He mentioned that he has day job (like most of the musicians in this country :P), he worked as a chef while maintaining his studio couple of years ago, and even sold some snacks so that he may continue his passion in music. He was quite inspiring to me.

Towards the end he showed us some of his 'antique' collections and then we head out.

Hellllllloooo fresh air!

Look Ma, another wedding gig!!!! :D

hey fellas!

I got a gig last saturday. Yeah it's a pretty late update but better late than never rite?

It was a wedding gig at a restaurant. The couple is from my church so they asked me and fellow rubbers to play.

The songs are totally cheesy but hey, that was a wicked experience!

Never in my entire life I ever imagine that I'd play Westlife's or Michael Learns to Rock's songs! hehhehe. During practice some of our friends came to watch. When our vocalist started singing "From my youngest years....." their expression was like

Hah! That was fun :D

We played 3 songs during the morning ceremony, and 14 songs for the wedding dinner. I got a really important lesson.

BUY A CLIP ON LAMP!

It looks like this..

So, you gotta clip on that thing to the music stand where your chords are.

"Why the lamp?" you might ask.

The MC asked us to play a song as a wedding march, and when the parents came in followed by the couple, we started playing. At the first line of the song, they turned off the lights!!! We didn't remember the chords and lyrics cuz we just learned the song the day before!

Panic attacked. Thank God I remember a couple of lines of the verse and it wasn't pitch black after all so we could see a little bit. Also during the first verse it was only guitar who was supposed to be playing.

2nd, it would be great if you have a car. We're all transportless. The couple provided a van and a driver and we thought that we're gonna sit on the van with the instruments. Ah. Foolish. How could we all fit in there?! =.= That was when we wanna go to the restaurant for setting up. We called for car rent but none was available. Our friends were all engaged as well >.< Thank God the uncle was really nice to us that he called someone to pick us up.

So before the real thing we rented a car. That car was supposed to pick us up about 5.30 but then the owner was stuck somewhere in town that he couldn't make it on time. We were running really late. And then finally another friend picked us up and we squeezed in his car hihi. That happened also after the wedding but then once again one of our friend is willing to send us back. Jehovah Jireh!

But seriously. Buy a car if you can.

Image credits to:

http://cliponlamps.com/1-3736561-headboard+lamp-sr-1-Lamp_headboard_lamp.html

http://www.infendo.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/oh_no.jpg

Look Ma, a wedding gig!! :D

Long time no blog!!! >.<
Been extremely busy these days, and I started interning at a company..
I was gigless..
Until last night!!!!! hehehe
Last night was my first wedding gig :) It was a wedding of my bandmate's friend..
It was held in a hotel and we played about 12+ songs. The couple rented my bandmate's gears and as usual, before the gig we teamed up and loaded stuff into the car.

There were 2 of those, a portable drumset, and 1 real fat bass amp. And our gears..

 Bittersweet life of struggling and unfamous musicians LOL!

There was quite a lot of people, mostly uncle and aunties.. One cool thing tho, the wedding march was Yellow by Coldplay! Pretty dope and unconventional. Well at least for me, And so the gig started. A little bit pissed because the MC didn't give us any notice that the newlywed will enter the hall so when the MC went up the stage and announce, we were all sitting down, so we got up the stage STAT and then straight away play.

My sound system went crazy. The sound was soooooo frickin punchy. The eq setting on my bass and the amp were totally the same as when we checked sound! But then it went FUGLY. I just bear with it for a couple of song, and then lastly I suspected the battery. But then I was also quite unsure because normally if the bass' battery is running out, the sound will turn low. Well, in my case it did but i didn't expect the FUGLY sound!! It was all punchy and buzzy and crap >.<

So after the first few songs ended, we stopped to allow the couple to do some stuff on stage. Then I went off stage then change the frickin battery. When I checked it again, it worked just fine and sounded just nice! Fiuhhhh...

So it was the battery.

This is my first time dealing with battery issue >.< aaakkh! Should've change to new one beforehand..

Moving on, our guitarist's string broke. So it kinda messed up his solos =.=" But fortunately it was towards the end of the gig. So those songs in which he has an intro already been played.

Oh! did I mention anything about the crowd?

Oh my goodness. Dead as zombies. They just ate and ate and sometimes turn their heads to see us and then that's it. Erm, when we played Can't Take My Eyes Of You, some aunties and uncles were singing along silently and move a little bit. We're being ignored badly hahah. I think asian wedding is really different with those western ones. Y'know with the dancefloor, people get drunk, dancing and stuff. So far, this is the first wedding with a band that I've ever been to. That being said, here's 1st lesson for the night: On a wedding event, you gotta be ready when the crowd is unresponsive. Don't loose your cool, you may try harder by interacting with them or maybe just clap your hands during up beat songs to try persuading them to clap along with you. But then if they're still unresponsive, just play good music and enjoy yourselves~!

Oh! One more, we didn't even get a table. Not even seats! Well, at first. After a while, somebody ask them for chairs and they gave it to us and so we sat in a circle, extremely hungry. Most of us didn't go for dinner because after the checksound, we only had about 1 hour to change clothes and stuff. 

 No food for us, but hey at least there was free beer..Yaaaaaamm seng!

But then after the event, we packed all our stuffs including the amps drums and everything, unload it to the studio, and eat like nobody's business. Btw, this is lesson no.2: Y'all better bring some snacks to the gig place. Like bread, muffins, chewing gum, or whatever just in case you get hungry during the event. I won't prefer to eat heavily before a gig because I don't like to be constipated when I play heheheh. Also, after eating oily food, voice tends to crack and you're might not sound as nice. You can eat after the gig which is more fun because that's the time when you tell those funny things that happened during that gig. After a good laugh and with your stomach filled, it's time to get home and hit the bed. One of the best feelings ever.

Anyway, Maximum the Hormone's new single is out!!!!!!!!!
Well actually this is kinda outdated because it came out last month but then too bad I didn't have time to post my thoughts on it. Maybe tomorrow :P
For a moment I thought that they have changed, but thank God they haven't!! I'll explain why in another post. Pretty hard to blog now because I'm at the office and there's too many people passing by.. Haizzz. where are cubicles when you need one?!?!

ketchup

This past few weeks I've been listening to stuff, and this time I didn't really listen to a band religiously like what I did with Incubus, Chiodos, Bull Zeichen88 etc, but because I have no time thanks to effwhypee (read:FYP--Final Year Project) and I can't really concentrate if I listen to music while I'm working on it, especially if it's something new. I listen to some easy listening songs on my playlist instead. 

I started off with RHCP, but I got bored after about 20 songs more or less. Fixed genre. Can't really survive that because they lack of surprises. Well, the basslines are still awesome as always, but after about 6 songs I feel like I need a break and then I continue some other time =.=" But then, I figured that during their live concerts, Flea played different than the original basslines. He added stuff here and there makes them more enjoyable. I think it will be super worth it to attend their live concerts! Also, I don't like the sound of his bass live. I like the one in the studio recording. But oh well, it's a matter of preference. The one is studio albums sounded warmer than the one live which had more tone. I decided just to put a couple of their hits on my playlist.

On my bed, B.B. King will be on the play. I found that I like slow blues much more than the fast ones. The slow ones are soooooo relaxing! Even though the chords are not minor or sounded sad, but the lyrics are freaking emo. B.B. King's stuff are far more heart piercing than those emo songs nowadays I think. He used simple words and not at all poetic. More like ghetto talk sometimes, but then somehow I can capture the sadness. And sometimes, it felt like Lucille (King's guitar) is crying along. No kidding. This kind of quality music is rare nowadays. He  a story for each song :) How Blue Can You Get  has the most epic lyrics so far, I think. Funny and painful at the same time :P I haven't finished listening to all of his stuff because he has a mountain of songs. Seriously a lot. I have those from the 70s until 2008.  Will continue listening :)

When I'm rushing to the uni for submissions, classes, or waiting for a friend, I tuned in to Dream Theatre. 

There are 108 tracks on my playlist. 7 studio albums, and 3 live ones. Haven't finished listening either, because their songs are long, but full of surprises! I like it! I have 2 favorites so far: Take away my pain - sounded real sad but awesome, and Honor Thy Father - epic solos and arrangement!! I was actually poisoned by a friend in 2006. He likes Mike Portnoy a lot! He introduced me to Panic Attack, Dance of Eternity, Through Her Eyes, and Hell's Kitchen, but didn't really bother to listen to the whole discography :P Listening is on progress :)

Oh yah! Btw, I've finally finished learning Cupid's Dead - Extreme!! So happy :D I learned from HERE Never thought I could play that one :P I've studied the whole lines and riffs, but I still need to work on my speed and fingering because sometimes I still can't catch up with the original speed =.="

Well, I guess that's enough for now :D


Image credits to: Blogtactic

...

I serve God as a musician even before I entered uni. Before the service, I usually pray along with the team, set things right with God, and also tell Him that this is not about us but about Him, and pray that we will be able to give our best to Him. 

Guess what!? I failed. I went to practices just to end up feeling all miserable. My mood went on a tour off a cliff, and I just wanna scream. I judged others. I was like "oh man, why did he/she play that?!" and then I realize that I myself was just simply playing as well. I could see an ant went jogging at their face but I didn't see the elephant in front of me. I practiced during practice time, and that's it. Never really bother to practice at home, or maybe think about the arrangements of the song, or maybe try to brush up some parts that didn't sound nice. I could have done that, but I didn't. I thought that as long as I am in the same page with the others, play the same chord, I'm doing ok.  EEEEKKK!! Wrong! Now it bothers me, darn it.. I realized that this is the kind of stuff I've been giving to God for all these years. Trash. This is not about playing bad chords or not playing skilfully enough, or maybe playing the exact copy of the song, or even play better than the original version. It's not about that. This is much more than that! I didn't give my all. I didn't give Him the best of me. I didn't give Him what He deserves. I took it as a duty rather than an act of worship or because HE deserves it. And sometimes I even judge others that they're not giving their best. Gosh. This is mad awful. I feel terrible. @#$%^#@%&*

But hey, I'm not dead yet. I'm still breathing, I still have fingers to play, a brain to think about arrangements and sequences, a pair of ears to listen, and a Sovereign yet Forgiving God to worship.

I'm starting over.


p.s: special thanks to Holy Spirit, for pointing it out and pulling me back :)

*smile from ear to ear* :)

Things that I've never even thought of is what You've prepared for me.

KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry.

I'm just still too excited.

I just came back from another LEGENDARY gig :) Guess what?! It was in Tropifrickincana City Mall! Yessss. Finally we reached that place, and this time we brought maps. The journey was pretty scary remembering how we got lost last year because this time, there's no 2nd slot for the next morning. The next slot will be next week, and there's no guarantee that we could play because the line up was fixed. 

The gig was in a bar, Artista Bar to be exact, and this event is called M.A.N.G.G.A which stands for Music & Art Nurturing Gigs Goes Anal.

The event was awesome, and somehow we got to play last. Thanks to this, I've finally taste the feeling of playing last :P It was pretty scary because you gotta see others perform before you and somehow it pressurized me >.< All the performers have different genre and characteristics. From metal to pop. Pretty fun, and this is actually a really good platform for unknown bands to promote themselves. Too bad, this is the 2nd last M.A.N.G.G.A session. After the last session next week, it's over.

Btw, why I called this LEGENDARY? Ok. Actually at first it was just like normal gig where we just play and have fun. But then this time, it was different. Well, at least for me :P 

Before we play, the MC (who's actually kind of a celebrity here in Malaysia, the so called "Malaysian John Mayer") said that there will be jamming session after our performance, but I didn't really pay attention or give a dang because I was too nervous for our performance. When we played, everything goes well, and I actually felt that it was pretty good, because we played original songs in which all of them were from different genres. It kinda gave more suspense to the audience (who are mostly music lovers) about the characteristics and genre of our band. After we played, I thought it was over. So I just carry my bass and the tangled jack back to my seat, and before I even put my down my bass, the MC called "Christy, Christy, would you like to play, Christy?" In my heart I was like "Oh HECK YEAH i have no frickin idea what is this but let's do this". So I went up the stage with my bass and tangled jack, plugged it in and I was good to go. The vocalist was somebody that I don't know, as well as the drummer. The vocalist told us the chords *thank God it loops for the whole song*, a groovy stuff that I have never heard of. It goes like E C A D. The vocalist signaled us when to be silent and when to build up. :D Major fun. I just swayed and danced to the beat and not gave a damn whether what I played is right or not. Heck with it :P

And then, after that song ended, our band's vocalist shouted "Can't take my eyes off you!! Can't take my eyes off you!!" and then the singing guy decided to go with it, and here comes the MC joining us with his guitar as well :) Man. That was my first time playing with a well-known musician :D So the drummer started the beat and it was FRICKIN DIFFERENT!! Far from the original, but also far from all kinds of covers I've ever heard!! It was the groovy version! Almost like reggae!! It was EARGASMIC! Multiple serious eargasm while I played. goodness. We jammed that song quite long, and the fun part is, we all swayed and did some little jigs :P I hope somebody took a picture of us playing >.< Looked like we all enjoyed it to the max. Another major moment in my giggin' life :D

At first I was quite discouraged because all the bands that went before us were good, and according to my friend, musicians hang out at that bar so I was so nervous for I'm a total noob. 

Thank GOD that all went well, as well as the jamming session :) I had a super AH-MAY-ZING time. Truly, things that I've never even thought of is what You've prepared for me. :) Thank You Jesus~

Another awesome part was on the way back home. We were kinda lost, but our 2 friends that tagged along to watch the gig had friends in that area, so they helped us find our way back home. Even though we were quite lost, we shared stories behind the original songs that we played. Those were composed by the vocalist, and the bassist (the original member btw). Those stories were awesome, and I didn't know that the first song that we played was actually about the experiences when called for National Service :P The others was about a girl, friendship disputes, and life falling apart.

Well, I've got some lessons too :P and this time, it's more for the drummers (these came from our drummer), singing, and song writing (from the vocalist of course).

For drummers out there:

1. Comfort is everything. When the drum chair is shaky, It's distracting and 

    kinda make you lost a bit of confidence. It's better to bring your own chair I 

    guess.

2. Have a stick holder near your drum set. It will come in handy when your 

    stick fell off your hands (our drummer's stick flew away. Luckily it was 

    successfully saved because it was slow song). If you don't have that thing, 

    just put the spare sticks within your reach.

3. When the drum set is lousy, just bear with it. You have no other choice. 

    Just chill, and do your thing. Don't lose your passion and energy.

4. When the drum set is moving around because of no carpet or something 
    to prevent it from moving around, you gotta be clever. You may find some 

    breaks or a hole in your song where you can fix it back to its place.

Regarding singing and song writing:

1. For those who wants to nail screaming, then you gotta practice. At first it's 

    gonna hurt and you may not be able to sing for a while because of sore

    throat. But, after the time goes by, the more you practice, you'll get used to

    it until you can even sing again even after lots of screaming.

2. *I got this indirectly* Be imaginative and aware of your surrounding. 
     What you feel about something/someone or maybe when something major 

     happened to you, put those in words. Think about aesthetics, rhyme and 
     all later.

3. On some occasion, you may tell the story behind your song. Somehow 

    people dig that. Especially those emotional ones :P

I'm so friggin tired, my hair smells like cigarettes and I'm hungry but too tired to cook ~.~ Just ate 3 donuts on our way to the bar cuz we didn't manage to have a dinner before we depart.

Alrite then peeps, good night :)

11-1-11 gig

Hey fellas :)

I just had another gig this afternoon, we played acoustic style. This is actually an event called "3 days around the world," so basically people build booths representing their own country, decorate it, and show it off. We played a number of patriotic songs in front of our booth, which was fun, aaaand not to mention the free food!  :P

Well this is one of those moments in which I think that Indonesian national/patriotic songs are not bad after all. No. They're not just 'not bad', they're awesome! They are mostly short, but the chord progression is epic and unusual. You won't find any Em-C-G-D -andrepeat'tilltheend- * I can't believe people actually buy those kind of songs and think that those are fantastic. More like craptastic to me*. Too bad the Indonesian mainstream songs are 'cheap' these days. Like seriously 'cheap'. ugh. 

Not only the patriotic songs, but the traditional songs are awesome as well! Especially when played in different kind of arrangement. I realized also that even though Indonesia is small, we have LOTS of traditional musical instruments. There were 2 kinds in our booth. 

Gamelan

Angklung

last time there was 1 Indonesian band called Garasi, they blend one of their song with Gamelan. It's mind blowing. Watch it here.

After our performance, another friends of mine performed, and they sang some old school Indonesian songs. It was neat and very soothing. And then people started to get bored, and they played some DANGDUT songs. OH MY GOSH. I don't really fancy dangdut, but when they played them, everybody got 'high' and started to dance. That was really fun. This event really makes me realize that Indonesia is not lame no matter how corrupted it is. I'm proud to be Indonesian. The music and cultures are epic *yet idk why some Indonesians are anti Indonesia and all there's to it*. Well, except for some of the mainstream music that's growing like mushrooms these days. They don't suck. They're just cheap. No taste. Lame lyrics. The mainstream music back then were waaaaaaaayyyyy better.

Btw, I didn't know that those plate of steel in Gamelan are actually very heavy, curved, and they have different thickness, and the notes are different than the ordinary C D E F G A B.. Instead, it was A C D E G A C.

Lessons from this gig:

For musicians out there, it is important to know many kinds of music to broaden your horizon. One of them is your country's traditional/national/patriotic music. It's even better if you know how to play the traditional instruments. Whether you like it or not, I believe that it's a part of yourself as musician. It's  the music from where you come from, for goodness sake. When you hear it, you say 'it's frickin lame', 'not cool,' or  you may think 'wtf?!'. *I'm frickin ticked off when there's people around me who thinks so*. If you don't even know how to appreciate the kind music from where you come from, you still call yourself a musicaholic/musicfreak/musiclover/musician? Gimmeabreak. When you're still thinking like so, clearly you can't see the big picture. You're gonna stuck with the mainstream and go with their flow no matter how suck it gets. 

Have you ever even think about what you can do with those traditional stuff?