Throwing the apple

I admit that i do take music way too seriously, in fact i take most things too seriously until i really screw things up. I also take not liking music too seriously, and not liking this and that all to a certain unhealthy degree. 

Honestly, i really don’t like the idea of playing opening band for the MSP show tomorrow really, i just have this thing about meeting star bands and all. Its this convergence of that bedroom idea of the band and the live in person stink that urks me. I mean honestly, here in Singapore, who has actually gone to a kiss concert especially their reunion tour. Ok i’m really raising the bar here for that fantasy-reality band thing. 

Ok, i could be feeling all jaded and shit about having at least the chance to meet MSP personally and thanking them all the time where their songs brought me through a bad time and all, but its happened before. The posies came to Singapore a few years ago for Baybeats, a local “alternative” music festival and i was totally floored. Ken Stringfellow played a solo acoustic set before the actual posies set the next day, i was there. It was amazing that he played all his solo songs with so much conviction and charisma that it did’nt make any difference that he was playing in hot, humid Singapore, furthermore a totally unreceptive audience. It was as good as he was playing in his hometown. When the posies played, who could’ve expected that their rykodisc signing did’nt make them less aged power pop darlings but full blown arena rock gods! Jon Auer breaking their strings, Ken stringfellow spitting and sweating out on his silverjet gretsch with their beautiful harmonies. I was totally excited, thinking that this is my only chance to see a group of people in person, who are directly related to Big Star. I kinda chickened out at the signing only to have my friend who was their artist liason sign my pass before they got on the plane home. 

I personally have never been lucky with meet-the-band sessions, mostly because i always get way too nervous and my mind just goes blank. Even if its a band i really dont care, i just seem to switch to Us and them mode. Well, we’ll see just how it goes tomorrow, honestly chances are, we’re not even going to see the band that we’ve come to love and adore, but the men who are just here for business. 

tralala then

Meeting your heroes. (or how i enjoyed rocking out when i can)

WOW. I cant believe it. The band im in, Vertical Rush, is going to open for the Manic Street Preachers. Totally unreal, really the feeling, yes i know its “4 REAL” and no im not going up to any of them and ask “where’s richey”.

Honestly i feel quite contended already to watch Mercury Rev live at the Esplanade during Baybeats last year. It was fucking beautiful, and i honestly felt that i never needed to see another band live anymore. Looking at the youtube videos of the Mercury Rev Migration Tour, the Singapore show was totally different with all the wierd and wonderful visuals. It was truly amazing. Somehow, really it was more than a show for me, it was a true modern rock experience. The best part is that i didnt have to stand up and sweat and scream to make the band rock harder, they just rocked out and out psyched any psyched out sounds in your heart and head.

So we have manics. MANICS. The album that obviously formed the road map to something deeper than punk rock. The Holy bible. The album with the mystical philosophies. I heard holy bible after everything must go, and its amazing how both albums stand in their own right as pillars of arena rock after the who and all those dinosaur brit marshall wielding bands. People always talk about radiohead’s stylistic transition from post grunge/U2 darlings to post modern futurist intellectuals, but MSP’s growth between those two albums are just as important. From post punk to the phil spector/ ronnettes grandeur of A design for life. Like how they were all caged up in holy bible with all the anger with the world and suddenly the liberation of the soul.

About manics now, i actually found know your enemy a great album. With Lifeblood it was amazing, riding on the great open liberated feeling of everything must go and this is my truth. Then there was send away the tigers. I admit i havent really fully digested the album yet, but the guitars are loud, big, arena-ish. Im really hoping that they play some old rockers at this show. I just find that the later albums miss out that great james dean bradfield guitar. I mean he’s a really great guitarist honestly, i’d pick him over many the guitar heroes now on the cover of Guitarworld. You know what, fuck Q magazine’s version of britrock, the smiths? Manics is distinctive heartfelt rock and roll.

My blood is so boiling now. Im totally listening to REvol im actually fantasizing Screaming REvol with the band playing in front of me. ARGGGHhh

Anyway. I picked this up a few days ago and have spend MANY HOURS doing some wild OSCILLATOR MIND MELTING SQUEAALLLLLSSSS ACIDDDDDDDD ARGGHH!#@!

 

Yes this is the YAMAHA AN200. I got it off a forum second hand. dudes this is a great sound module really. Read the reviews. i was watching out for this and its brother/sister module the DX200 on ebay. It was all worth it. The sounds of this is just as fucking phat and wild as the Roland JP8000, totally dark and analogue. Plus it has the great button ever in the world that i wish my guitar had. Just one fucking button to rule them all.

Yes. This is a great button. It will be button that i will always press and press. Its the dedicated distortion button. It causes wild overtones, a great volume increase ( a sign of great analog-ness) , and will make sounds that will make you shit in your pants. I hope to use this live. 

This is a picture of the OSC section. Look at the different waves. Yesssssssshhhh. Look at the Knobs…. YEssssssshh…. (MLT Saw sounds a Yamaha version of the Roland JP super-saw but alot filthier, not that good for trance string sounding patches really). 

 

Oh ya, it is a great buy really. Honestly i now understand why there are so little of these floating around the market. It sold for 449 pounds or 921SGD when it first came out!! The fact that the An200 sounds this great is why no one’s letting these babies go really. Seriously screw your BOSS made in japan pedals sell all of them and get one of these! 

Now im really aching for a DX200. Even though i have a YS200 which is built on the same FM synthesis engine, and enuff patches to make me go mad (mostly from Tx81z patch sites), from the looks of the AN200 its sure to be something worth experiencing!!#@!#

Wellness Analysis

I’m sweating like a pig. Like the many times during NS, or at some coffee shop drinking, or at some gig. Very uncomfortable, but yet reassuring. The many times where i moved my arms around the past hour, i could feel the cloth of my yellow giordano shirt ooze with sweat. Quite reassuring that something is getting squeezed out of my system. 

Is it possible to disconnect totally from yourselves? From fanatical born christians, teenagers with nothing to do, retrenchment from a once secure job to pay off kidney dialysis, a nagging academic paper that needs to be handed up tomorrow: Disconnection from someone else inside you. Peter Lorre played many roles, but none could shake away that face while he was confessing to murdering and molesting children, in Fritz Lang’s M. 

The sweat, the discomfort could very well make me another person. I used to pick on my nose and my ear, building up from clearing whatever dirt to causing a sore, and then a cut which bleeds profusely. Whatever that person is, i think that you might be that person. 

Peter Lorre’s trial under the abandoned factory, which doubles up as court and headquarters for criminals in berlin was a memorable one. Laying himself out in an underground cellar, in front of criminals (both in real-life and reel-life, Fritz Lang hired actual criminals for that scene.) as ready as the foreskin of his being exposed, he was on his side sweating in black and white. It could be the same arabesque pose of Marilyn Monroe while someone is undressing her in his/her mind; It could be Jesus Christ lying against a stone in the garden of Gethsamane, hands in prayer and eyes to the clouds above.; It could be the latest local heartland hottie or another gay poster boy who wants the gates of his anus massaged. 

Just awhile ago, i was walking to the nearest 711, along Thomson Road, drama was at hand. Teenager decked in ace clothing was quarreling who to send the drunk one home. The taxi driver, had a son, fought with his wife and fended off chinese prostitutes (not to mention 4-D and TOTO money) only to reason in present tense with teenagers. After the cab left, the girl in the group was circled by the rest of the guys, she shone so brightly as she held handphone in one hand, the other hand swinging involuntarily in the air telling the rest something that i cant make out. It could easily be a scene that’s been played all over Singapore now. I felt an itching to take a photo with my camera phone and send it to STOMP, but then its not really newsworthy.

This eternal circle. I could very well spent that minute watching everything that was happening, living all of them, boy, girl and taxi driver. Expending my imagination, the same way one does stargazing and watching the newest Osim commercial on television. Mystical and wonderful the same way Harry potter indirectly makes every trendy person look like Prof Tommy Koh more, than Woody Allen. If Brabara Streisand had a dick, it would be big. Why? look at her nose. That’s what everybody is into now. 

The sweat could very much be a pool of water or a pool of blood, where diviners drink and tell you what people can’t tell. Where you can imagine yourself getting chased by newspaper headlines, the newest bands in the world and that work colleague’s girlfriend. It doesn’t run, it just stays there waiting for you to swallow between rhyming advertising copy and honest confessions (you’re so going to tell Sarah what happened to Andy.). 

 

here’s a picture of my sweat.This is the first time ive posted a picture of my room and what i treasure. 

see my sweat saves. Remember Paul Muad’dib and sweat. didnt wank i’d guess.

Music things #5485974

OK i think its quite ok to declare what are my favourite albums this year. Its not too early and i dont think its too late. ok im not going to write much at all. but .. ya just check it out.

Atlas Sounds- Let the blind lead those who can see but cannot feel (kranky/4AD)

Deerhunter- Microcaste/ Wierd Era cont. (kranky/4AD)

Notable Classic listens this year! aka Great Old Albums that i only got to listening this year.

Revolver’s cold water flat.

Adorable’s Fake.

Albums i found at cash converters. and am damn happy i found these!

Kula Shaker’s Pigs, Peasants and Astronauts

PM dawn’s Jesus wept

Peter Murphy’s Holy Smoke

Future Sound Of London’s Dead Cities

Bone Thugs and Harmony E 1999 eternal

Urge Overkill’s Saturation

Sugar’s Copper Blue

honestly im totally aware that these are all albums from the 90’s or something. Also, that its quite loser of me to listen to old shit and up to date. I mean new bands like Fleet foxes and ting tings and i dont know a whole bunch of new indie bands and all. Come on, even the indie “old guard” who have been coming to Singapore still falls under that New music thing. The reason why i like these 90’s albums is that they’re cheaper, like u can find them second hand, and the best part is that nobody really listens to them. Its hard to find any intensive coverage on the bands and albums online, look at Oasis’ new album, its every fucking where online, u dont even have to meet the band to smell them. 

 

I admit there’s a fair amount of charm, like reading commando and dan dare at second hand book stores at bras brasah, to this. I don’t think its nostalgia really, its really something fresh, and that’s quite challenging for me to hear coming from a rock world where its all about the newest coolest with bland sexual appeal and hip friends. Fresh.