furniture part deux or the triumph of the artist
furniture... furniture... was in town over the whole weekend. They did two acoustic sets at Prince of wales and one main show at the guiness theatre. the host kept referring the the occasion as the Furniture headling tour show... which is wierd.. kinda. anyways
i went down alone and was amazed at the huge crowd really. Lots of sharp dressed street ups and hair flops were filling the entrance already. There were some delays cause Life without dreams was having some problems with their soundcheck set ups.
the first set was this david sylvian/ Craig armstrong / bill frisell-ish piece by Life with out dreams. Complete with smoky watercoloresque washes of color as visuals behind the band. The set was one whole piece. It was introduced as 2am music, one of the members added if anyone sleeps during it, they'll take it as a compilment. I guesss some of the audience did really sleep. amazingly, the music had distinctive elements that were obiviously meant to put people to sleep.. or rather relax lah. Like the low subharmoninc drone that osciallates in pitches are meant to sedate listeners. Vocals were moving in and out, about simply.. a life without dreams.. quite a sleepy life really. i think must go Zoukout i...
next was subway stars, a newish band that ive never seen before. Im pretty biased to the band because the lead singer/ guitarist used to jam at the wakemeup shop while i was working there, and he kinda pissed me off.. and i cant remeber why. Anyway, they're a mixture of coldplay (the keyboards and the hopeful skylarking arrangements) and the descending melodic weight of muse. Oh yea the vocals were pretty alright i have to admit, complete with matt belamy-isms. Unfortunately, they seem to be stuck the dynamic range of their influences. Its difficult to know when something starts or stops. The part which frustrated me.. (i like the vocals really.. i mean i TRY to sing like that as well ahhahah), was how the vocals seemed to take too long a pause, causing this whole chiong hei instrumental passage that could have vocals. anyway pomising band.
next was instru-art stalwarts KLPHQ, with yet another bassist. This is the best sound ive heard from them,with all the drones, feedback and frequency mutilation skipping off the walls of the theatre with violent beauty. Quiet? no man this time its all blades and see sawing. I especially loved Irman's shirt, it had on the front honor necessity and on the back it said the league of crafty guitarist. DAMMMNNIITTTTITIT that's friggin cool shirt. anyway.. it was great. it was great that they spoke more their music as performance art powerful powerful music. what would kevin shields do? he would do what klphq did.
then furniture was next. while they were setting up, there was a back cloth draped infront of them. it was nice really. When they started the cloth was dropped, there u have it: Furniture is the cosiest (not sleepy) band in the Asia (or i have seen live). Complete with tea lights, strewn across the floor and on amps, the whole guiness theatre was tranformed into a really cosy house on a prarie hill which would make Michael Landon smile in heaven. i was abit scared because the sound was pretty sucky but it got better as they played.
Ronny was wearing a fricking power baseball tee. that said.. "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" shit maann oldddd skooollll rememeber that STUPId cooll video and shit wah laaannnn...its amamzing.. i wanted to take photo with him cause of that shirt man.,.. anyway is it me.. of do malaysian bands just have cool shirts. dammnn....
it was great as well to see Kacy playing too playing material that i was .. ahaah familiar with.. after seeeing them play without him. it was great really. When they hit Postcards i was like dammnniiittt... everything sounded perfect. cept for some ghostly mysterious low freq hum. i have to admit that i was so smitten by everything man... the brian wilson innocence of the lyrics.. the soaring guitar lines.. and the thump thump deft of really great bass lines.. along with totally.. totally.. swwweeeeetttt drums.
DAMn furniture just plays music that TASTY in a metaphysical realm! YUMMMMYY!!! some how in between the guitar notes.. i totally forgot about all the posty rocky indie unknown stuggle nonsense. i must admit that i am becoming more or less a Furniture head if this keeps up.
anyway.. it was great really.. had a great night. it was amazing how great bands like furniture can fill up a stage with so much sonic and visual ambience that's as cosy as reading famous five get their case solved, under a table lamp in the night before mum tells me to stop reading and go to sleep.
Its not difficult to see as well where their coming from, and where they're going to.
Monday, November 28, 2005 06:36 p.m.
black albums
there's this growing feeling of hatred, distrust, hatred, dissatisfaction, oppressive hold on me.
seriously. if u dont care. dont.
sounds like a joke the way i put it.
its a zoo really: Hippocrites, cockadiles, idiotphants, f**klys, Shitnakes, bitchfoons, lieons, tigurls, pigs, analdillos, slutshakers, orang-cheebyes, pretend-monkeys, socialticks, fire-fuck-ants and more.
i getting so warmed up worse then a jacked up spanish fly intoxicated 15 year old shemale who lies that she/he is a 17 year old. great for some toasted wicked witch of the beast tear apart narnia thru my looking bum literary decanter of bullshit.
and then there was dick lee's lifestory... where he sounds uncannily like paul mccartney.
amazing ways to put out a fire. and what a woody word GONE is.
Sunday, November 20, 2005 04:14 a.m.
playing the angel in different ways
yesterday, i went for jam prac at pennisular, at this place right across from fluxus, and i got myself wolf eyes' burned mind. I also happened to meet him in person at last. I have spent countless times looking at the pictures of this jimi hendrix look alike stuck on the glass windows of the shop at dan's enterprises (or something). with all that lip pouting guitar slinging, frocks and all. It so happens that yesterday i met Riki Hendrix!
he was there in person. It would seem useless to ponder over the possible connection i could have with jimi hendrix in his grave, thru his "cousin" or something Riki hendrix. Really. I mean really, how often is it that u get to be in the same psychic space as someone who is connected to jimi hendrix himself? Ok im not really now as totally ga ga over jimi like i was in the past, but its interesting to know enough what the hell would Riki hendrix be doing at pennisular? and would sift past our Singapore Indie/Rock Cognoscenti?
Anyway interestingly, this friday ETC would be playing at Prince of wales, and im seriously comtemplating going down. Sad to say i'd be alone. I saw the email, and i made the decision immediately to go down, then again.. the name ETC and me going down to a gig meant that i would be alone. which sucks really. hahah. oh well, its all back to square one really. I took out the big o singles club disc and played ETC's adolescence you (i think i misnamed it. i suck at accuracy) and wow. i was transported to then man. secondary school. and i wish i made more friends then.
the other day i told my friend at seven eleven something interesting. Im a 24 year old boy and a 16 year old girl. What a thing to say.
so for those who want to heckle me u got one of the other to say.
anyway. whatever happened to bonsaigurl, the kawaii speak tag board visitor?
ok.. this was a total spur of the moment kill time entry.
Thursday, November 17, 2005 05:33 p.m.
totally total wholesome
so here am i rising out of my super slacker lifestyle to write an entry on more on my slacker lifestyle that people may or may not envy. im speaking way too highly of myself. im aware.. seriously.
the past few days have been ok, my ears are really tired as usual as sky in euphoria's making this new song happen, and its interesting how its going. there will not be any more gigs for us the rest of the year. The strange bit is that im contended with this floating state that the music is at, it just gives us more time to enjoy floating and floating...
i just happened to pick up an excellent album, that i once read on some Q magazine interview with the pretty thing's fave albums a long time ago, The united states of america, which is obivioulsy Broadcast's greatest point of reference for their quirky 60's organ pop lounge music.
speaking of cds and blah blah, i have realised after packing my room, that i have the worst collection of cds. It is too stupid to have spiritualized and back to mine:Everything but the girl stacked up against fuck me.. im dead and phillip glass and kronos quartet's dracula. Im really beginning to feel the waning irrelevance of my collection to others really, its not like im savouring my individuality or what... but.. im just wish that i was a switchfoot/timo maas/kruder and dorfmeister/slick rick or even hayley westerna kind of person.
the other day we had a psuedo photo shoot with the band... yea.. and oh boy do i really look. a few weeks back, i had a jam with another project band, and the members spoke the truth man... i really look so unfashionably shitty. Oh well, this is what happens when u base how u look like on 1996 issue of guitar school (remember the magazine?) of a Stephen malkmaus picture. True indie roots or pretentious nostalgia wanker. I think both really.but im more of a wanker really.
oh yea. i went to zouk. yes i did. HAAHAHhahaha. jump here and there.
as of the next few weeks ahead. ive got papers to finish. REservist. yes i have to go back to the army. REservist.darn. sec comd. again.... time to bluff leader.
Oh yea. More on guitar gear acquisitions. I happen to find a Denelectro French toast at D'music at Parklane, so if you're looking for any nice mini danelectro pedals be sure to go there. The Dano French toast, is based on the Foxx tone machine which has been reissued as well. it Rocks better than a big muff in my opinion, espcially for 80 bucks, it also has a cute little switch so that it becomes a Hendrixy (ok not quite but quite there) octave fuzz. rocks big time.. first sound i got when i started fiddling with it, was the weezer blue album sound. Well, im the kind of fuzz dick head who thinks that the best fuzz sounds are on Smashing pumpkin's siamese dream, Weezer's blue album and yo la tengo's painful. For the price of 80 is sure arse rocks.. go and check a french toast out.
is it me.. or are they even more guitar players out there in singapore now??
oh yea.. i apologise about the previous entries. it happens when i start reading books really. i tend to.. be afflicted with this poetic junk talk vomit speak every now and then.
ok. i have nothing else to say unless someone says something.
seriously. i have nothing to look forward to man.
except rumors that Guns and Roses' chinese democracy will be out early next year. time to see the ronin cock rock faction split over their glam cock rock gods..... and to really smother out Velvet revolver and the sad demise of scott weiland as a vocalist.
oh yea.. added piece of useless information. Brad mehldau played piano on some of the tracks Scott weiland's solo album 12 bar blues. i love that album. but not velvet revolver. im sorry.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 04:37 p.m.
let me indulge in boredom
the youth in my head. It draws itself over a gazillion milliseconds of echoes in my skull. It sends these pulses apart, so far apart damnnit.
i imagine Suzy wong, chinese paintings and floral baskets woven in winnie the pooh fractals after fractals, cascading into some Roy Lichenstein wrinkle in a hand. Feminine hands.
i could go deeper and take these images out on the pavements under a bridge, some dirty old bridge that i has a railway track that i dont remember a train going by in my life, but it is a railway track. Soldiers serving national service have died there, this i remember vaguely, i read in some newspaper.
a few steps more and we reach a carousel for our taste buds. I walk in with some comfort, expending some self control, suddenly my mental eyelids close halfway, running the outlines of the carousel into a tight monet.
lines after lines i draw, comfort draws, i cross reference, navigate to differentiate, add to shed, more or less to some memory embalmed with some 12 bar blues shuffle.
After the lines. comes the eyes. Inbetween the eyes, that's where the eyes are in between the eyes. That's what i see when i communicate. In between the eyes, is not the bridge of some nose. in between the eyes is the window to the soul. The eyes are there just like how the lines in our infrastructure send waters to our taps. invisible but never struggling to be seen. They are seen.
Rising up to the surface like little electrons heating up computer screens, they harden themselves. Never floating, because they're way too still and constant, like the lines crossing themselves in between the eyes, intersecting, is the window to a soul.
scientists have found that some samples taken from the inside of your cheek can detect lung cancer at an early stage.
today. i noticed a immense disability in holding back my pee in my bladder. Its quite scary to think that my growing incontinence is a sign of whatever cancer cells spreading in my lower body.
other than that.
i have reason to believe that i am quite a very very boring person and that i am seriously more or less an alien. Furthermore, i have not recovered from teenage angst. so much so that it has crept into other areas in my social life. Its not depressing or blah blah... EMO.. or anything its just, baffling really, well baffling and facsinating when if me and u are planning on helping this problem. Of course one good christian or somewhat could tell me the merits of christian living that i could try out. Of course to take from john lennon's "how?", "how can i go forward when i dont know which way im facing", and later on in the song "how can i have feelings when i dont know its a feeling". Our dear working class hero, embellishes these "how"s with strings and drums that fade go in out.
what a night really what a night. other than talk about nauseating prescence and petual clark's downtown. i really find it funny how stupid i get when im meeting someone to go out.
firstly, i spilled water on my pants and i was horrified. i went to dry it with a blow dryer and nearly fell asleep with it in my hands.
next, i put shokubutsu on my head instead of shampoo, when i was taking a shower.
next. i accidently send my ziggy stardust album flying to the floor, this, breaking the jewel case.
well there are more things and more. but by then i was out i was totally exhausted. oh well.
sometimes i really wonder really. sometimes in your life, u come meet this person who totally messes you up big time. In this whole entire wide spectrum, that u will never understand. More or less, u will feel totally disconnected from everything u know, once more, whatever u say is totally meaningingless and doesnt have the same effect normally. Kinda like getting scolded by ur secondary teacher during literature class after answering a question she picks u out to do about romeo and juliet.
oh well. its just another day i guess.. sigh...
Saturday, November 5, 2005 12:03 a.m.
pervert/expert/pervert/invert/expert
wow long time since ive updated. I'm writing an entry now cause, im packing my room, major overhaul, and ive moved all my usual entertainment distractions out of reach in the meantime. its pretty fun really digging thru old stuff and finding the wierdest things, even inspiring some wierd situations.
a few days ago, while reading "do androids dream of electric sheep", i got an sms midway during Deckard's VK test with racheal, that my old platoon Sgt passed away. I felt the blood in my face just turn cold, and i couldnt believe what i was reading.
It took standing face to face with the picture of him, just at the foot of his coffin to make me believe that this was happening, i couldnt help but shiver invlountarily, looking at the photo. I meant my old camp mates, and we started talking about what we were doing, it seemed obvious, in fact a little too much, that the topic of him was like an itch in the back of our minds.
im pretty affected by his passing away, especially by the circumstances that led to such. furthermore, the experience of knowing him as a truly remarkable person. He's the kind of guy that, i spent alot of time wondering how he was, and what an amazing person he was. I must admit that i respect him way too much to bump into him, on the streets or anything, despite being younger than me.
all in all.
all i have to say is to all motorcycle riders out there, please be careful. just be careful.
apart from this wake. I went to a school reunion the day before the wake, at the old campus at toh tuck. The whole experience was as sublime as i had imagined it to be. old friends and... man.. i realised something. ALOT OF PEOPLE HATE ME.really...it was so obivious. that people really hated me in school. i mean. haiya.
