This Is KNN

My Civil Procedure paper was wild. Two fiendishly long questions and 40 short questions in 3 hours, each one of which involved frenetic flipping and re-flipping through voluminous notes and statutes, with an exhausted mind that had gone completely blank. I don’t know why anyone even bothers with extreme sports when they could be getting their adrenaline rushes from doing death-defying examinations in Civil Procedure.

So anyway, after an indulgent dinner at Michelangelo (Me: This panna cotta is so wonderful, it’s solid cream! Everyone else: Michelle, that just sounds really gross), I was reading IS on the bus home and found finally, finally, a DJ at Zouk who I’d bother leaving the house for! Meat Katie! He was there last Saturday. Kan ni na.¹

I have to echo Laces’ plea for Zouk to bring in some interesting DJs and stop being so goddamn pedestrian. I want Diplo and Michael Mayer too. Also DJ/Rupture. Also Akufen. Amon Tobin. The Scratch Perverts. And world peace.

As I do every now and then, I was surfing around to find out how London is, and found out that DJ/Rupture was at 93 Feet East with Supersoul on Sunday, Ty is at Cargo tomorrow, and Eclectic Method are doing weekly video mashups at Herbal.

Again I am reminded of my grim theory that if the amount I saw and did over four years in London is anything to go by, the amount I’ll have missed this past year and over the next six is just…depressing. Then why, you shriek in aggravation, do you keep CHECKING UP ON WHAT YOU’RE MISSING, MASOCHIST? The answer is: because one of my biggest fears is ignorance. I would rather know what’s going on where things actually happen, even as it makes me chafe at my limited options here, than escape back to London years from now and be completely out of touch with everything that used to excite me so much.

In the meantime, I’m sitting at my computer listening to Amon’s Solid Steel Presents and shouting KAN NI NA to a funky beat.

¹ Definition here

Fantastic Damage

So I’m broke, exhausted, and have exams in less than twenty days which I haven’t started studying for yet, but at least I had a good weekend. Reasons why:

  • Resfest (more detailed review intended in future post), and the pleasing coincidence of attending it with the only two people I know in the world (Benny on Saturday, Jeremy on Sunday) who I can uninhibitedly discuss music with. (James, from what Alec’s been telling me, by the next time we meet I hope you’ll be the third!)

  • Showing Benny bits of Singapore I actually like. We had dinner at Satay Club under the flyover, and later walked all the way along the river from the Asian Civilizations Museum to Cocco Latte. Cocco Latte didn’t disappoint either, from the surprisingly good mashups (from all my Internet searching it’s rare enough that I even hear one mashup I rate highly, but they played quite a number) on the ground floor to the great mix of hip-hop upstairs. Benny had already been saying “Have I mentioned I really love this place?” at regular ten-minute intervals downstairs, but once we went upstairs and the DJ was playing stuff Benny didn’t know I think that sealed matters as far as respect was concerned. (Random fear, though: the place is getting more and more popular, which makes me worry that it will eventually fall prey to my two pet peeves about Phuture – the ridiculous overcrowding, and too many gropers.)

  • Feeling virtuous for making it to 11.15 AM mass, despite only having three and a half hours of sleep (and even less than that the night before). Of course, I also felt as if I was about to keel over and die, but that suited today’s theme of making painful sacrifices for one’s faith remarkably well.

  • Coming back from mass bleary-eyed, and finding a beautiful bouquet of flowers waiting. Today marks three years with Alec.

flyover by night
The view from the Satay Club at dusk.

Herbal Viagra For The Clubber’s Soul

If you haven’t heard of Pojmasta yet, bow down and worship anyway, because he’s in my DJ pantheon and this is my blog. Not content with rocking my subwoofer with his mixes of Toxic (glitchtastic!) and Milkshake (disco!) and Lucky Star (as uncategorizable as the original!), his recent 30 minute Scummer Mix is masterful and creative and groovy as fuck.

AND HE’S PLAYING AT HERBAL ON 8 OCTOBER.

Meanwhile, over here Zouk is on some sort of “Most Boring Fabric DJs Ever” trip with James Lavelle and Lee Burridge, the Heineken Green Room Sessions are continuing straight and unerringly down the middle of the road with Thievery Corporation, and from what I’ve heard so far the big hip-hop DJ at Zouk Out this year is Jazzy Jeff, who is good but I’ve already seen him twice.

No one can deny that a decent stream of big-name DJs come to Singapore, and if time and money permit I’m perfectly happy to go see them. It’s just that I feel that where the sort of clubbing music that fascinates me is concerned, London is charging ahead and I’m stuck here doggedly trying to get enthused about the famous but bland, imagining Russ doing his “bored dance”. (Props to Andrew Chow though. Phuture is my little oasis of joy when he spins.)

So, has this been yet another rant about missing London? Mostly, but not totally. There are a few things that help me cope with not being in London, and one of them will soon be here. Normally I’d be gnashing my teeth about not being able to see Pojmasta at Herbal on 8 October, but given that I will be lying on Sibu beach with Alec on that day, I wouldn’t be anywhere else for the world.

Two Firsts And An Umpteenth

On Wednesday, going to Zouk with Esther and Jeremy:

One, the first song I have ever heard about albinism – Forest Whitaker by Brother Ali, courtesy of Jeremy’s car stereo. Fantastic, but since my normal album sources Django’s and Amazon UK seem unaware of his existence, it looks like I’ll have to go to inconvenient lengths to procure the album.

Two, the first time I’ve seen James Lavelle do a decent(ish) DJ set, since in London he was usually only ever a relaxing but dull break from the mad bonecrushing DnB room in Fabric. This must however be qualified by the fact that I’m a lot more starved for good clubbing over here than I was in London, and the fact that after two jugs of cocktails (Esther, bringing the drinks: “Like my jugs?” Well I thought it was funny) two more were ordered without realizing it was one-for-one hour, cue arrival of four jugs to make a total of six.

My absence at my 9 am lecture the next day, due to popping into Phuture on the way out of the club “just to see what was going on”, realizing there amid mashups of Hey Ya with dancehall that I should just have abandoned James Lavelle hours before, and dancing happily there till half three, was somewhat less of a first though.

Whoo! Whoo! It’s The Sound Of Da…Disappointment

An open letter to DJ Jazzy Jeff:

This is the second time you’ve done this to me. For the second time, I’ve gone to see you DJ at Zouk and you’ve taunted me cruelly with only the opening of KRS-One’s Sound Of Da Police but none of the verses.

The first time, I tried to tell myself it was the cool way to do DJ sets – drop some obviously famous beats so that the crowd will go wild with recognition, but then switch to something else more obscure fairly fast so you don’t look like you’re just playing a The Best Hip-Hop Album In The World, Evah! compilation. And to a certain extent, this often works for me quite well. I no longer feel the need to “Jump around! Jump around! Jump up jump up and get down! Jump! Jump! Jump! etc.” but I’m still happy enough to dance to the first verse.

The problem, and of course this is totally subjective, is that what applies to Jump Around doesn’t apply to Sound Of Da Police, okay? Hearing the intro is simply not enough. I demand KRS-One’s righteous bellow of “STAND CLEAR! Don man a-talk, you can’t stand where I stand you can’t walk where I walk. WATCH OUT! We run New York, police man come we bust him out of the park!”, I long to be in a club full of people gabbling that meld from “oberseer” to “officer” in the second verse, and as he ends the third verse with “My grandfather had to deal with the cops, my great-grandfather dealt with the cops, and then my great great great great…” hell yeah I want to join in and complete the line by yelling “WHEN IT’S GONNA STOP??!”

[The fact that I am an affluent yellow girl whose only real encounter with the police ever was making a report when I lost my wallet as a teenager, and that they were really rather nice at the time, should not negate my right to profess undying love for this song. Or even to shout along in simulated rage.]

So please, Jazzy. If I ever see you play again, give us the whole song. You already played your part in inflicting Will Smith on the world, thereby depriving mainstream radio for years of any hip-hop worth listening to. Are you willing to shoulder the blame for this further cruelty?

Last night a DJ saved my life

It’s a rare DJ that can transform an exhausted, ridiculously sleep-deprived Michelle in an overcrowded club full of Singaporeans into, well, a happy Michelle, so I guess DJ Jazzy Jeff (yes, Will’s friend in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air who kept going over to the house, annoying Mr Banks and getting physically thrown out) must be one of those DJs.

Before he came on, I was ready to kill. I was annoyed at overdressed people, yet annoyed at myself at the same time for giving in and dressing fractionally better than I would have for a London club (where you could walk in wearing a clown suit and the most anyone would say is “Love the baggy trousers, mate”). I was annoyed at the stupid level of crowding in Phuture, and at incredibly rude people who pushed past others way too violently, or literally just leaned on the people behind them to force them to give way. (Big Bald White Guy, this means you. You’re an asshole, and I just wish I’d elbowed you in your spine a lot harder than I did.)

In the crush of the crowds, I remembered how Russ always managed to protect me, dance behind me without ever hitting me, and look good dancing, all at the same time, and I remembered how far away Russ is now. I remembered Nick and Vish gangsta’ing it up on the empty dancefloor of a Glasgow student union bar, not caring how ridiculous they looked. I remembered trudging painfully up the Ramsay Hall stairs with Gareth in daylight, vowing futilely never to club again and knowing this scenario would repeat itself in the near and irresponsible future.

I felt constrained by the atmosphere of the club, very much a place where people go with people, and don’t tend to strike up random conversations with strangers, and again felt annoyed with myself at the same time for letting them affect me. Coincidentally, the only stranger who struck up a conversation with me the whole night was from England. Go figure. To be fair to the club, and my fellow Singaporeans, I was probably mostly just pissed off because it wasn’t London.

Then Jazzy Jeff came on, and all my acrimony melted away into happy flailing and perspiration. Great selection of material ranging from the obligatory to the obscure, pretty damn inspired treatment of well-known samples and recent hip-pop either through mixing or scratching, some moments of total weirdness like when he played Smells Like Teen Spirit, and always on the right side of the fine line between turntable mastery and turntable wankery. I must admit that his decision to tempt us with the intro of Sound Of Da Police but never actually give us the track frustrated me dreadfully, but maybe everyone else except me is tired of it.

I snapped back into perspective. I was with great company, friends no less dear to me than the ones I’ve left behind. I was witnessing one of the best live mix sets I’ve ever seen. I had a wonderful boyfriend to talk to on the phone when I got back later that night. In England I gained everything and lost nothing. I mustn’t forget to keep focusing on what I gained. I mustn’t forget that I have lost none of that just by having to be somewhere else for a few years.

Xen Halloween

As second-last-ever Xen nights go, last night was rather anticlimactic, but I suppose there are worse ways to spend Halloween than watching Hexstatic mix Tubular Bells with drum’n’bass with accompanying visuals from The Exorcist, all perfectly synced with Linda Blair’s convulsions and bile-spewing.

Coming in costume garnered prizes – the incongruity of Alec getting rewarded for his pipe, Burberry tie, Derek Rose dressing gown and Brylcreamed hair with a DJ Vadim sampler amuses me still. (I am so stealing that sampler.) Despite my bias I must admit that he didn’t have the best costume there: Spinal Tap guy complete with big wig, luxuriant facial hair, tattoo of horned beast on chest, red lycra pants and huge sock shoved in crotch, I salute you.

Live For The Weekends

It often occurs to me that if we subjected animals to the claustrophobia, cigarette/weed fumes and extreme noise that is a drum’n’bass club night, the RSPCA would be kicking our asses for cruelty quicker than a dreadhead can say booyakasha. Fabric epitomized most of this abuse, bless it. We emerged aching, exhausted, and probably with long-term hearing damage, and Gareth and me exchanged our regular (and regularly broken) “I’m never going clubbing again” vows the next day at three in the afternoon having just managed to get out of bed, and until now sitting cross-legged is an exercise in pain, but hey, that’s all part of being young and reckless innit?

The rest of the weekend was spent with Alec, newly returned (and unsurprisingly wrecked) from his week in Ireland. Crappy Tesco’s dinner. People-watching Cafe 1001 breakfast. Trawls through Rokit and The Laden Showroom. Strong temptation to buy a “Single Robot Looking For Love” T-shirt/panty set, but eventual resistance because it wasn’t worth £18. Excursion to Argos for bookcase, much love for poor Alec who had to carry it back to my flat. Mass. Pig-out at KFC. Omid Djalili: Behind Enemy Lines at the Bloomsbury Theatre. Sounds like a lot, but didn’t feel like enough, on saying good night.

Spread Eagle Surprise

Friday was meant to be practical day. It was meant to involve writing heartfelt treatises about why a Masters in Law, and particularly subjects like International And Comparative Commercial Arbitration, would give me mojo. Instead I found myself staring up at the Cutty Sark and chasing an elusive meridian line across Greenwich Park with Luke. As you do.

Later, with a dead phone battery, I was in Shoreditch trying to find a public phone to call Russ about meeting up in Herbal. Walking down the street, a pub door opened and a man came out. Right, I thought, pubs are good for public phones, and so I strode in. In hindsight the fact that all the windows were frosted should perhaps have warned me that The Spread Eagle was a pub where the line between public and private was somewhat blurred. Specifically, the line between women’s privates and the male public. Hindsight is always 20/20, so they say, and here I did indeed sight several ‘hinds’ with disturbing and unlooked-for clarity before beating a hasty retreat to a pub where everyone was fully clothed.

Herbal was enjoyable enough, except that the diversity of the music in the Ninja Tune room meant that we didn’t always feel like dancing to what was being played. Also, getting a split lip from an accidental hit on the dancefloor (miscellaneous wanker dancing way too vigorously for reggae) wasn’t too much fun. While spitting a lot of blood into the sink, I remembered primary school health education tests where you had to memorize the functions of the different teeth. Mrs Ang was right about incisors, although at the time I think the point she was trying to make was that it was naughty to bite people.

Seeking Xen Calm

You know you’ve reached a low point in stress management when you wish it was time to start studying for the exams just so you could start eking out that simple existence of 2 am nights and 8 am mornings, and deeply boring but satisfyingly routine and sedentary days.

I refer to “low point” because I hate that existence, but it’s a hell of a lot better than this week’s frenetic staggering between exponentially increasing numbers of To Do List items – write research project (yo, if anyone’s an expert on the public international law aspects of Internet regulation, please talk to me), decipher Jeremy Bentham for jurisprudence dissertation, magically produce completely organized intervarsity debating tournament (this Friday and Saturday) out of arse…

But enough whinging. After writing a similar diatribe last Thursday I then allowed Russ to persuade me that I really needed to be at Cargo that night for our monthlyish Xen worship session, and although I then managed to miss 3 hours of lectures the next day and generally descend into self-hatred, it was well worth it just for the half hour of mind-boggling virtuosity that was Killa Kela’s mouth. There was also the unique cultural experience of being in a room full of white Brits who seemed to know every word of Roots Manuva’s Witness and joined in especially enthusiastically for the “cheese on toast” line, the sweat-soaked live exuberance of New Flesh (new album Understanding, currently stickered all over London), and DJ Vadim, endearingly Russian and generally loved by all.

Other causes for joy: long overdue ejection of dishwater-dull Darius from Pop Idol, which I, er, accidentally stumbled upon on a lazy Saturday evening in late December and have been, er, accidentally watching ever since. Grin. Go on then, pour forth your ridicule. I’M NOT ASHAMED! VOTE FOR WILL!

But moving on swiftly… :)

More glimmerings in the gloom include recent arrivals from Django (Sparklehorse: It’s A Wonderful Life, Marine Research: Sounds From The Gulf Stream, Sonic Youth: Goodbye 20th Century, stuff by Pavement, 20 Minute Loop and Silver Jews also on the way), a rather lovely boyfriend carrying pancake batter in a plastic jug on the tube in order to come over and cook me dinner, and actually understanding the maths in Cryptonomicon, which reassures me that two and a half years of law hasn’t cottonwooled my brain yet. Yet.