Baybeats 2005: Day Three
As always, afternoon napping foiled my best-laid plans of getting to Baybeats in time for Serenaide, and I arrived only to hear the last 30 seconds of their last song.
The bands that followed – Zhen, The Marilyns and Kate Of Kale – were pretty dull and I started to long for my couch again, so I went to the Garlic Restaurant with emptysignifier in search of a strong pick-me-up.
Fortified and reeking (how awesome is the garlic ice-cream?), we then sallied forth for Death Of Cinema, which I enjoyed lots then and enjoy even more now that I’ve discovered they describe their sound as “post-cock”. Coincidentally, the same article reveals that they share my views on song-naming wankery:
Nick: I wouldn’t say we disregard genres. Rather, we’re very sensitive to the trappings of them, so you’re right about the stereotypes. For example, with the whole down-tempo and triphop thing, there’s just this very pretentious, pseudo-intellectual and extremely dated edge to it. Just look at the cover of any Winter Chill or Hed Kandi ‘chillout’ compilation, or the cover of Groove Armada’s Vertigo. Have you seen anything more dated or stuck?
The same thing is happening to post-rock too. Like what’s with 5-word smarty pants titles as ‘de rigeur’? The reason I mention these genres is that we ourselves are into this music and we can’t escape the influence anyway, so we learn to take what we can and make fun of it, and hopefully we end up less derivative.
For what it’s worth, as someone who’s spent a lot of my music-listening life hoping to sift the derivative from the influenced-but-innovative (and blogging incoherently about it), I don’t think Death Of Cinema sound derivative. Also, I want a “Post-Cock” T-shirt.
Between 8.30-9 we had a choice between watching Electrico and Lunarin. Several hundred people chose Electrico (who seem like nice people doing what they love but I’m not into their music) so I was glad there was plenty of space for Lunarin. I quite liked what I heard, but would like to hear an electric set to get a better feel of their sound.
I’m a bit at a loss for what to write about Concave Scream, except that they just seem to have hit on how to write songs that work as songs and work for their sound as a band. To me they sound melancholic yet uplifting, reminiscent yet timeless, and always larger than the sum of their influences. (God my music writing sucks.) The best gig I saw at Baybeats 2005. I left shortly after, because Copeland were boring me, and I wanted to end the night on a high note.
Some bias since I know Victor, but I always thought Concave Scream were definitely among the best Singaporean bands. They’ve got the chops, they’ve got the tunes…
You’re right about Concave Scream — we thought they should have the arena, with the kind of stadium sound they were producing. The lead singer’s voice was incredible.
Shao and I actually caught a glimpse of you when Serenaide was playing. We yelled out your name, but I guess “Girl From Katong” was too loud. Great hair : )
Serenaide’s web site has some samples of their tracks including The Girl From Katong. It’s also got dates of their upcoming gigs. I had to leave around 7.30 pm for dinner so I missed Concave Scream although I heard bits from across the water over at One Fullerton.
yes , concave scream was really fucking good that night . respeckt !
Ha ha, what can I say…word. I didn’t even bother to stay for Copeland as leaving the Esplanade with Ride’s Decay ringing in my ears was the perfect ending to all that. “For all you old-school ones lah!”
I thought Furniture was not bad and their CD was very well-packaged…would’ve bought it just for that alone, but the guy’s voice! God! It had to be one of the wimpiest things I’ve ever heard.
Totally agree with you about Astreal; I wish they’d step on it with that new album though.
WHen I was in JC circa 1995 I was organizing a concert that included some local bands and Concave Scream actually came to audition for us.
They sat in our partially darkened band room and played, just Sean and Pann. Just came out of army somemore so they both had short hair, believe it or not. Only the two of them, at that time they were using a drum machine as backup. It was like a private performance, and they were really nice about coming in to audition even though it was obvious after the fact that they didn’t have to.
Needless to say half the crowd left after they were done with their set.
Hey Michelle,
Congrats on being called to the bar!
Just wanna find out how your test results went.
Mine was ok, thank God!
Hope you are well.
Linda
check it out while the videos are up =)