Everybody In The Club Get RNDM

The Attic at Mox is a thoroughly endearing venue, but I can’t come up with any trendy designspeaky reasons as to why. In fact, I have a feeling that what endears the place to me is its almost meticulous lack of trendy design. There are random lights from Mox, random rows of airplane seats along a wall, random stage at one end, random DJ booth on the other, bar with random selection of alcoholic beverages, and lots of randomly dressed indie types. In other words, it was the perfect place for RNDM.

Astreal’s set was marred by problems with their amps, which meant that some songs were played with only two out of three guitars. I still enjoyed it, but it meant less crashing guitar noise, which is never a good thing.

I had been looking forward to finally seeing the much-hyped Tiramisu, but ended up a little disappointed. Apart from the undeniable showmanship of their frontman, there was little I found distinctive or interesting about their songs. Sort of a mix between Built To Spill and Hefner, but without any of what I like about either band. I’d still watch them again, though. Rizman Putra’s eyeballs fascinate me.

After Tiramisu I suggested we take a break for dinner, whereupon Ida suggested we eat the surprise birthday cake she had brought me. :)

I didn’t manage to see many of the later bands on the schedule, for the unusual reason (unusual for me, anyway) that I got caught up socializing. Downstairs in Mox with my childhood fags, upstairs in the attic telling Tessa how much I miss the life she’s living now, here a random, there a random, everywhere a random.

We’d originally intended to leave at midnight for Grandmaster Flash at Zouk, but then Poptart started spinning and there was no way I was going to leave while Sonic Youth’s 100% was playing. As one song led to another, I decided that there was no point leaving somewhere where I was having such a great time for somewhere which almost inevitably enrages me.

Indie club nights aren’t any cooler than 80s nights; they’re all about jumping around haphazardly to songs which were staples of your youth, and screaming “I AM THE RESURRECTION AND I AM THE LIFE!” along with everyone else. Actual dancing is an afterthought, and actual good dancing is virtually impossible. Not that any of this is really relevant while you’re going apeshit to Idioteque. I had a blast.

Tortoise (17 March, Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore)

I’m not even a Tortoise fan, but the gig was pretty damn awesome.

I’d gone in with some trepidation – I bought Millions Now Living Will Never Die some years back, didn’t like it and returned it, later bought TNT too, didn’t like it and returned it. I found the albums overly clinical and very unengaging. Every time I put an album on, hoping that better familiarity with the music would help me “get it”, it faded into the background for me within minutes. So I had plenty of doubts about how well that sound would fare in the Esplanade’s huge concert hall but decided to go anyway, based on the band’s immense stature in indiedom and the added appeal of the Observatory as opening band.

Right decision. The sound was full-bodied and assertive in a way it never sounded to me on record, and with the Esplanade’s amazing sound system, detail was never lost even at the music’s most cacophonous moments. I was incredibly impressed by their individual flair as musicians, as well as their tightness as a band, as was everyone else. Standing ovations and screaming brought them back for two substantial encores, and prompted a “Singapore is CRAYYYYZEE!” from one of them.

By the end of the gig I found myself filled with happiness at the sight of other audience members, clearly huge Tortoise fans, over the moon with how great it had been. Watching them I remembered myself at 16, standing in the World Trade Centre Harbour Pavilion delirious with joy that Sonic Youth had come to Singapore and I was there to see it. To this day I can hardly believe that even happened. Similarly, I would never have expected such a difficult-listening, left-of-centre band as Tortoise to be brought to Singapore to begin with; the fact is that the Esplanade not only brought them in but had the balls to put them in the country’s biggest, most state-of-the-art musical venue. It’s the stuff of dreams, and a real testament to the sort of artistic vision that drives the Esplanade. I should never have doubted them for a second.

Insert Cryptic Verbiage Here

This new ILM idea – Here, a thread featuring translations of song titles from their commonly known designation and into ACADEMESE, and then involving guess-work as to the original nomenclature in order to make a competition from this endeavor! – is really quite challenging! Here are some of my favourites. The first three are classic oldies, the fourth and fifth are recent pop hits, and the next three should be familiar to any (indie) music geek worth their salt.

  1. Let r1 be defined as the quantification of an undefined locus’ tendency to exist at a great distance from the Earth’s center. Let r2 be defined as a similar quantification of a layer of refractive aberrations in the Earth’s atmosphere, such that r1 > r2.

  2. It is hereby demanded that you will be romantically exclusive with me and assume an infantile moniker.

  3. Immense objects, in which every part is equally distant from one point within, in the state of a rapid, self-sustaining exothermic oxidation process.

  4. I liken the entire material and physical manifestation of your organism to a fictional world inside another fiction, a meta-world as it were; in particular, one put forth by the amateur pornophotographer and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in the title of his most celebrated children’s tome.

  5. The question of investiture is moot.

  6. The central figure of Western religious culture under unique ownership designated to an individual.

  7. Urgently, such that the unstated presupposed occurence will actualize in mere seconds, minutes, hours, or similar temporal measurements which seem fractional (or perhaps even irrelevant) in comparison to normal tests of human patience. [I think this one is impossible unless you know that the artist is “My Sentimental Greeting Thoroughly Mauled”].

  8. Darkly colored iron-based alloy in the moderate time segment of great generalized disorder.

My rather average attempts. I wasn’t so good at academese, so for the second one I tried legalese. The first is a classic covered by everybody, the second is one of the cheesiest songs ever.

  1. At each and every point existing on the continuous surface of a man-made multi-level structure designed for outdoor surveillance, the name of which has also been adopted by a periodical first published in or around 1879 by a religious group or sect characterized, among other things, by its rejection of all Christian doctrine not believed to have originated in the Bible.

  2. I hereby assert my entitlement to copyright and all related authorial rights, including (but not limited to) moral rights insofar as these are recognized by any and all applicable legal regimes, with regard to lyrical and musical arrangements composed by me which induce vocal utterances perceived to be melodic by those emitting them, such vocalizations being emitted by all matter existing on the planet Earth.

(Answers can be found behind the link to continue reading, but it’s more fun if you give it at least a bit of a try before peeking!)
Read More “Insert Cryptic Verbiage Here”

And You Will Know Us By Our Nametags

Some of my favourite responses so far from the ILM thread Make A Band Name More Reasonable:

  • Slayer (But Only When Negotiation Has Ceased To Be A Tenable Option)
  • Aboveaveragedeth
  • !!
  • Death Cab For Anyone Who Needs A Ride
  • Strained Relationships Scene
  • A The
  • Carter The Hesitant Kissing Gadget
  • Jane’s Character Flaw
  • Optionalic
  • LCD Couple Of Guys With Some Music Equipment
  • …And You Will Know Us By Our Nametags
  • Warm Warm Warmth
  • The Current Sound Of Basingstoke
  • Groove Flotilla
  • Queensbundestag
  • The New Eroticists

My contributions to the thread:

  • Soundmanslaughterer
  • Meanwhile Back In A Russia That, In Marxist Political Theory, Would Be More Accurately Described As Socialist
  • DJ Penumbra

Ugliest T-Shirt In The Free World

Shao’s comment to the last chicken pox post amused me because of the T-shirt I’m wearing at the moment in yet another attempt at chicken-related humour. I’ve tried to find a picture on the Web but it’s so hideous that I guess no one sells it any more. Therefore, for posterity’s sake I suddenly feel the need to capture its fugliness here.

Ugly tee front
Front fug
Ugly tee back
Back fug

No, I don’t know what I was thinking either. It was one of my first dates with Alec, so I pretty much started our romantic life by horrifying him with my sense of style. All I can say in my defence is that we’d shared a bottle of wine for dinner and had had to drink it fairly quickly because the gig was starting soon. So, in a rush and high on the heady mix of alcohol and crush hormones, I made my biggest (I’ve made other mistakes, but at least they didn’t involve paying £15 for a butt-ugly T-shirt) fashion faux pas ever.

I challenge any of you to beat that.

‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Galangal

I couldn’t believe my ears. Someone I couldn’t see in a room nearby had just broken out into what sounded like a line from one of my most-played songs of last year. In almost exactly the same way I’d gabbled the line in countless mad solitary post-midnight subwoofing dances in my room, she was saying “Galang galang galang”, and even managing a fairly good approximation of MIA’s singsong.

My first excited thought was that there might actually be someone in the office who listened to non-mainstream music. Although over the years I’ve grown used to having almost no friends who listen to the same sort of music I do, it’s still really nice to meet someone who does. My second excited thought was that with my now-pathetic grasp of current music affairs, maybe I was just unaware that by now Galang is mainstream music and it’s a hit! Either possibility would be cool.

And then the next line of the conversation burst both my hopeful little bubbles. She walked out of the room, followed by her friend, who was insisting “No lah, the best tau huay is at Selegie Road!” And what, then, did my ostensible fellow MIA-lover say? She repeated what she’d said before, same rhythm, same singsong – “Geylang geylang geylang!”

I’m crushed, but I might as well get something out of this disappointment – if you have a view on where the best tau huay is, please share.

[Note: This post is better understood if you are a) a music geek or b) familiar with places in Singapore, and best understood if you’re both.]

Say My Name, Say My Name

This column breezily explores the inverse relationship between the quality of a band’s name and their ultimate success, a phenomenon which has always amused me. And of course, I’ve whiled away many a dull moment by wondering what I’d name my band, though I usually take it for granted that we’d be destined for failure and therefore feel free to be a bit loopy.

  • The Meaningless Plurals: No prizes for guessing which sorts of bands we’ll be satirizing. But we’ll also play the occasional Motown cover, with great tenderness.
  • The Google Sex Perverts: Not originally my idea. Jonathan, who was once the only South African reader of this site and is now possibly one of many South African non-readers of this site (because I haven’t heard from him for a while) came up with it in a hilarious comment thread on the previous incarnation of this site, and I’ve never forgotten it.
  • I Am Spartacus: Yes, our songs will all only have 3 words and be very repetitive. How’d you guess?
  • Boutros-Boutros Kweli: We will be the ultimate “positive hip-hop” supergroup. Common will beg to work with us and we’ll say “Phooey, you’re boring!” We’ll let Hi-Tek produce us, but he’ll have to change his name.
  • Frau Farbischener: An all-girl Franz Ferdinand tribute band.

What would you name your band?

Art Of The Mix

On Alec’s previous visits here, failing to take him to a performance at the Esplanade was my most glaring omission out of many, but I finally remedied that on Friday. The SSO was doing Beethoven’s 6th, Schubert’s 2nd, and Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave from The Hebrides, and for the princely sum of $21.75 (that’s total, not each), we enjoyed sound so divine from the third circle that even a sub-par SSO sounded great.

[I don’t mean the SSO is generally a sub-par orchestra, I just mean they weren’t really on fire on Friday. There were little timing hiccups here and there; perhaps they didn’t gel with the guest conductor as well as they normally do with Lan Shui. Some harshness in the violins, and I think there was one clarinet screwup. Also the Allegro ma non troppo which starts the Beethoven felt a little too non troppo for my liking, but perhaps I was just too impatient to get to the rollicking third movement.]

My Esplanade bliss is nothing new, but being able to share the place that makes me happiest in Singapore with the person who makes me happiest in Singapore was rather lovely.

* * *

Chinese New Year reunion dinner on Sunday at Chef Kang’s Canton Wok confirmed the fact that not only my mother but my entire extended family seems determined to make my boyfriend fat by forcing multiple servings of everything on him.

I’m not convinced that Canton Wok is “the best cze char in Singapore” as the newspaper articles claim, because I don’t think I saw it at its best on Sunday night. I didn’t have a problem with the ambience – eating on a cramped walkway in the depths of a Hougang HDB estate (a public housing estate) is fine by me – but the service was pretty poor. We waited for more than half an hour to be seated despite having made a reservation far in advance. When the first dish arrived we had plates but no chopsticks or spoons to eat with, cue exaggerated pawing motions at red wine chicken until the staff got the hint. Neither moist towelettes nor lemon water accompanied the crab, so anyone who wanted the rest of their meal to be non-sticky had to venture inside in search of a rather grotty basin.

Food-wise, some dishes were great (red wine chicken, crab with glutinous rice, coffee pork ribs, abalone and spinach), and others were pleasant but forgettable (steamed motherfucking big cod, those brown noodles which I think are called yu fu noodles). I’d like to go back there again to try dishes which were featured in the food reviews and looked really interesting, but weren’t on the festive set menu. But anyway, Alec wasn’t complaining. His mouth was too full.

* * *

And now Saturday. Toxic Jungle Saturday.

The party started off quite normal. True, the birthday boy had chosen to interpret the theme (The Beast Within) by wearing a snake in his crotch, but apart from that everything was fairly civilized.

Jacob and his snake
Jacob’s trouser snake

I hadn’t bothered to tell people other than East-dwellers about the party, but was pleasantly surprised when Kelly and Patrick decided it sounded like an interesting change from Zouk and came along. Karen, who I’d never met, turned up too, en route to Thumper with Ken. Then Ida and David. Then Mayee and Shao and Hwee Yee and Evan.

Since I’ve never been much of a “Circulate, darling!” type, this would have been more than enough people to keep me happily and drunkenly and uneventfully chatting the night away. But Jacob had other plans. Soon after twelve he unveiled karaoke hour, as well as the girls he’d hired to be back-up dancers for the karaokers.

I think the plan had been for karaokers to stand on the small stage in the middle of the bar while singing their songs, and for the girls to then do their thang around the singer. Unfortunately, a problem soon emerged – people were singing soppy ballads instead of songs conducive to girls shaking boo-tay in knee-high stiletto boots. I was equally complicit in this bloody waste, having put my name down earlier for Nothing Compares To You. The girls managed some lesbian slow-dance action to this, but it still wasn’t playing to their real strengths, and I felt guilty.

So when Jacob came round again saying they needed more songs to finish up the karaoke hour, I decided to revisit Toxic. I had expected to sing the song comfortably from my seat, while watching the girls shake boo-tay on stage. But the girls had other plans, and I didn’t feel like forcefully resisting two girls wearing little more than knee-high stiletto boots and little strips of cloth covering their naughty bits. Who knows what may have given way in the course of a struggle.


Forgive me, Britney, for I have sinned

I certainly don’t think of myself as an exhibitionist (at least insofar as anyone who keeps a blog can be said to not be an exhibitionist), but I like to be a good sport. Frankly I’d do it again. The girls were great.

The party went on for a couple of hours more after that. I had fun comparing childhood objects of lust with Mayee and Shao. Got beaten at pool by Alec, fuck! Continued on to Jacob’s place after the bar closed for a prata and champagne supper. Then finally staggered home.

I like weekends.

My First Meme

I’ve taken a while to grasp Mayee’s baton, but never let it be said that I would turn down a rod when extended.

1. What’s the total size of music files on your computer?
11.75 GB. I try to keep things under control through a tedious and unbelievably anal routine of tagging, compiling, burning, tracklist printing, and finally cramming (into grievously overcrowded CD shelves). Please don’t ask me for the number of songs, the files are already kept in three different places on the hard drive and I had to do some mental arithmetic just to get that first figure.

2. What is the last cd you bought?
Minesweeper Suite (DJ /Rupture), but it hasn’t arrived in the mail yet.

3. What is the last song you listened to before you read this post?
Whaddit I Done (Animal Collective), which ended conveniently in time for Alec to get to sleep. I don’t think it’s very easy to sleep to Animal Collective, unless of course you’re one of the people I saw them with in April 2004 (they were opening for Múm), who whispered “This is awful!” within the first five minutes of their set and promptly fell asleep. His loss.

4. Name four songs that you listen to a lot or that mean a lot to you.
I only get four? You might as well ask Mozart to pick four notes, the Pope to pick four Amens, and Bai Ling to pick four fucks. This is oppressive. But here’s a list, if you insist. (I write my own rhymes, yo.) It’ll probably be completely different if you ask me tomorrow, except for the first song.

  • ‘Cross The Breeze (Sonic Youth): Daydream Nation, and this song in particular, rewired my fourteen-year-old brain. I never listened to music the same way again.
  • Twice The First Time (Saul Williams): I was eighteen or thereabouts. Music downloading was just beginning to take off, but obscure stuff was still hard to find (online, let alone in Singapore). Out of almost everything I was looking for, this was the only song I actually managed to find and download, and for a while it was one of a very few mp3s on my computer. I listened to it obsessively, freaked out when I lost it in a hard disk crash, and was eventually joyfully reunited with it when Jeremy gave me Xen Cuts. (A recentish post where I show it some love.)
  • Complicated (Ben Gibbard’s cover): Because it’s hilarious.
  • Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Daft Punk): Because it’s perfect.

5. Which three people are you passing the baton on to and why?

  • Benny: Because it’ll force him to update his frickin’ blog.
  • Don: Because he’s just started a blog, and I’d like you all to go read it. And because he not only makes music but is brave enough to play it to a bitch snob like me.
  • Laces: Because his answers would probably involve music I’m clueless about. Hurray!

You Know I Got Soul

Mid-week clubbing bad for body. But good for soul.

DJ Krush exactly as expected. Successful evocation of nostalgia for first year uni bedroom. Unsuccessful motivation of ass. Spent most of time drinking alcohol I didn’t pay for. Felt like member of rap star’s entourage. Ghetto!

Original plan to leave at 2. But then Laces turns up. Transfer to Phuture. Phuture motivates ass. Take side trip to Zouk to get space and laugh at Mambo kids. Mambo kids disappointingly uncoordinated. Return to Phuture. End up leaving at 3 am.

At work now. Exhausted, but thank God not hungover. Still intent on lindy-hopping tonight.

And Alec arrives tomorrow! Rock!