The Massive Music Weekend (by sg standards, anyway)

hey! my turn to finally add my 2p worth to the all-things-music blog.
if all goes well i'll be giving some updates on the UK music scene and
the weird music i listen to, on an irregular basis.

basically the weekend of 15-17 July saw Baybeats as well as the Vibes
clubfest, which included the sg leg of the Paul Gilbert concert. not
much compared to more musically-developed countries, but i'm not
complaining - it's as good a start as any.

[Paul Gilbert Concert - Spaceship One World Tour 2005]

bagged some free entry-after-2200h tix from a fren of a fren. i'm not
that much of a paul gilbert fan myself, but i've heard plenty of
(positive!) things about him, so i decided to skip out on furniture
and surreal at Baybeats and go for the Paul Gilbert one instead.

the Paul Gilbert concert was supposed to have started at 2000h, so our
2200h tix gave us effectively the last hour (!) of his performance,
plus entry to the Vibes clubfest (more on that later). the venue was a
converted exhibition hall, so nothing short of 200 people would make
the place look very empty! at best i counted about 50+ people in front
of thestage, plus maybe 20 more in the VIP areas along the back and
side walls of the hall, which wasn't surprising, considering that
2000h tix cost $80 and mostly only hardcore guitar-lovers would bear
to shell out that kind of money for a shred (or so i believe?)
concert.

a quick word about the sound system: it was literally a wall of sound.
massively powered speakers - more powerful than the ones at baybeats,
i suspect - so loud that 15m away from the speaker stacks you can
palpably FEEL the pressure waves emanating. i'm no expert when it
comes to such setups and i didn't catch the make of the speakers, but
those certainly were quality stuff. couldn't detect any artefacts,
though this may be either because the music was too damn loud, or
because PG and his band were quite stellar!

picture the layout: huge exhibition hall, wall of sound flanking a
decently-large and well-lit stage, about 50 people enthusiasts
milling around the front of the stage, video projection of some inane
Paul Gilbert - Spaceship One (USA) text on loop, tall drinks tables
with really wobbly chairs (!) running the length of the hall. a decent
mix of guitar enthusiasts (seriously, who else would attend?) from the
very obviously in NS people to the geeky polo, jeans and big backpack
types (it's a stereotype, so don't sue me!) to the
definitely-must-have-a-band type to expats.

we walk in - me, jun and his friend jinsheng - and Paul Gilbert is
engaging in a little bit of banter with the audience, asking them for
'requests'. it's cacophony out there so it's more like he just picks
whatever he wants to play! he slips his huge ear protectors on - with
that wall of sound there's no doubt his hearing must be badly damaged
- and the first thing he plays as we enter is Racer X's "Technical
Difficulties".

i'm no shred fan, but even *i* know (make that can recognise)
"Technical Difficulties".. it's that insanely fast piece with plenty
of fingerboard fretwork and sounds really complicated, yet it somehow
ties together to form a coherent number. and of course, his
performance is flawless, not that i can tell the mistakes in it,
anyway.

the night's not all about shred though; the next song he opens with a
metallica riff, then launches into Mr Big's "To Be With You"!!! now
THAT is amazing, and they actually goes quite well together. there's a
bit where he and his backup guitarist play the same notes with a
slight interval between both guitars (am i making sense here?) - a bit
of improvisation, though i personally prefer the term 'live remixing'
due to my musical preferences.

there are some classics - something something rock & roll, it's
apparently a real classic rock song, but the title escapes me right
now, a van morrison number, plus a song from his new album, complete
with audience participation!apparently the singapore one-night-only
gig was the final leg of the Spaceship One World Tour (i could've
sworn he said asian tour during the concert) 2005, so he came back for
a reallllllllllllly long encore, and the audience totally appreciated
that.

there was a decent-sized queue by the side of the stage after the
encore, but i couldn't be bothered to go take a look, so it's possible
that he signed some autographs / guitars, whatever, though i'm not
sure myself.

[Vibes Clubfest 2005]

so the Paul Gilbert concert was part of this Vibes Clubfest
thingamajig at suntec. there's not much connection between Paul
Gilbert and the much-touted Ministry of Sound DJs (mind you, only 2
residents - not the best ones, too, where's Tom Neville?!! - and 1
producer or somesuch!!!) that make up the rest of the 'festival'; my
own guess is that both events needed a wall of sound, video projection
screens and a large venue, so they decided to pool resources.

well by the time the Paul Gilbert concert ended at 2245 (? can't
remember properly already), there were very very few ppl in the
audience, and by the time we left - around 2330 - only a few people
were trickling in. granted 2300 is too early and many places have a
slow start, but somehow i just didn't get the impression that the
place would be packed, even at 0100 or 0200.

the free drink was terrible, and very obviously watered down - i've
never had a worse vodka lemonade, but that's besides the point - what
was more shocking was the fact that there were paid dancers. one whole
line of skimpily dressed decent-looking dancers, who lined up nicely
in front of the stage for publicity shots taken by the official
photographer, before going on the raised platforms (not podiums..)
running along the sides of the exhibition hall. it was awful,
especially because there were wildly gyrating and had no feel for the
music at all - kind of like okay, i'll just go through my repertoire
of cool/supposedly sexy/asset-flaunting moves and try to keep pace to
the music kinda thing.. me and my friends happened to be sitting next
to one of the platforms, and let me tell you it wasn't a pleasant
experience.

it was especially sad because there were just too few people, and
nobody even ventured on the dancefloor! generally i've learnt that if
a place has to engage paid dancers, instead of attracting enough
Beautiful People (TM) to go dance on their own accord, chances are
it's gonna suck big time.

the tech crew did a good job of reconfiguring the stage for the DJs
very quickly, and it was a standard DJ setup - 2x turntables, couldn't
get close enough to see what make, 1x mixer and 2x CDJ units on a
separate row above the turntables. what was REALLY annoying, however,
was the propensity of the dry ice smoke machines to conveniently vent
some smoke whenever the DJ was going to physically change a record!!!
i only guessed turntables because i saw the faint outline of a 12"
through the smoke. couldn't even see the DJ actually adjusting the cue
position to line up the beats, so it's possible that there were 4x CDJ
units, too.

there was a pioneer VJ unit, meaning a DVD-CDJ that's capable of doing
to video what a CDJ does to music.. a bit choppy at times and rough
around the edges, but generally a welcome addition. i really didn't
expect a VJ unit to be installed - usually people just make do with
some laptop-based solutions to loop video and whatever. (i don't club
much locally, so it's quite possible that VJ units are widespread
here.. correct me if i'm wrong.)

as with all club nights the warm-up DJ (a local one, can't remember
his name) had the unenviable task of getting the crowd into the mood,
but i wanted to go back and catch the Baybeats Diskotheque (poptart
and twlight action girl) so i left before i managed to catch any of
the MoS DJs. generally the warm-up DJ was okay, but didn't manage to
get people on the dancefloor.. could've done with some more vocal
tracks. and the MoS DJs are a mixed bunch, really. Tom Neville (who
didn't come here) is real good.. but I felt a little out of place
during another resident's hard house/a bit of hard trance set (in the
London MoS).

overall i don't think the clubfest was a success.. and as for the Paul
Gilbert concert, he looked sorta happy even though the crowd wasn't
THAT big, so i suppose everyone was happy for that concert.

[Baybeats 2005]

a quick note about baybeats, because i only went for snippets of day 2
(sat). PS han you got the days mixed up, day 1 is actually friday, day
2 is sat and day 3 is sun.

the opening acts on day 2 weren't too bad. lunarin at the chill-out
stage were quite good, and set for glory at the arena were decent
technically, but struck too many stereotypical rock moves and poses
for my liking. disco biscuits weren't too bad either, but the whole
thing was postponed because of rain - probably because the speakers
were expensive? - and i wound up missing plush, freelove and love me
butch (which han has been singing praises about ever since. and
personally, with a name like that, how can the band go wrong? i
attended a Le Tigre concert in Gothenburg and the opening act was the
very electroclash Lesbians on Ecstasy from Montreal. again, with a
name like that, how can the band go wrong? i've got a cool badge -
"nobody knows i'm a lesbian on ecstasy" - if anybody's interested to
see it).

caught bits of vertical rush - i think that's where i finally met up
with han, not easy in a very very crowded place - again they're not
bad but neither are they terribly outstanding. rushed back from the
Vibes Clubfest to catch the Baybeats Diskotheque - first time in this
festival - only to find poptart being plagued by technical problems. i
suspect they were CDJ units, couldn't really tell from outside the
bowl of seats. wasn't particularly impressed by the track selection
during the remaining 20min and left soon after.

the merchandise stalls were quite good, though, and i bagged quite a
few band t-shirts and CDs. reviews to come if i can get down to doing
them.

-YF

"demon days" - Gorillaz - album review @n0netheless :: Damon

"There's always been a hip-hop element to my trousers."
- Damon Albarn, Gorillaz

taken from : http://www.sparklesparkle.net/damon.php

back from a half-year long hiatus from writing reviews, not that you guys are dying to read the next one right? Why this album? B'cos i truly believe it is *the* best album of 2005 till now. Not A&B or X&Y. Not In Your Honor. And of course not Oasis' latest album (that sucked over my expectations by the way..). This is the album you must hear from 2005.

The quote. From Damon Albarn, if you don't know yet, the main puppeteer (doesn't sound too good right?) of the virtual band Gorillaz, is just an understatement he makes during his Blur days. Hip Hop element? I think he oozes it. In fact, Damon Albarn can actually do anything. Pop, indie, rock, Hip Hop etc.

Demon Days is Gorillaz' sophomore effort and it had gathered more-than-favourable reviews everywhere. And this time, he (damon) got DJ Danger Mouse as the producer which made the whole album sound really fresh and new. Original. Appealing.

first track intro starts with eerie strings which reached a semi-climax, then subsides for the next track "Last Living Souls". Damon sounds deliberately flat in the 1st few songs which made him sound distant, and calmly asked "Are we the last living souls". the album sounds very fatalistic but you couldn't help but feel theres still hope. Sunshine beneath the fat grey clouds. Spring after winter.

The 4th track "O Green World" is my favourite. Its outright weird. I can hear like 5 layers of different samples which sounded alien on their own, most noticibly, the guy in the background singing, which sounded irritating at first. But hang on there, it'll grow on you. The chorus where he went "O green world! Don't desert me now!" was the most desperate plea i've ever heard. Coming to the end of the sound, he was increasingly being drown out and that signed the eventual end of his voice, and the song.

Next up was Dirty Harry, another reference to CLint Eastwood. Then prepare for the first single off this album "Feel Good Inc". Most radio-friendly song you can pick out from the album with a superb MTV to go with it (didn't you see that on TV-Mobile on buses in Singapore?). Just 3 seconds into the song with Damon going 'her her', I knew IT. IT meaning i'll like this song and i'll buy this album. What a powerful IT. heh.

"Every Planet we reach is dead" sounds like a title from Blur's album "blur" ("Strange news from another star" ?). This song onwards damon's voice seems to escape from behind the mono-cassette tape and leap out to you and pull ur ears. Next up's "November has come" reminds me of "Tomorrow comes today" from their previous album with more attitude and groove. "All alone" has some reviewers[eg BBC] raving although i personally din manage to get into the wave but the female voice that comes at the end of the song is captivating.

"DARE" - collaboration with shaun ryder from Happy Mondays. One of the best most wickedly (and violently if you must say) catchy song i've ever heard. The kinda songs i guess would be a hit if released 10 years ago, 20 years ago and will be in the near future(ok i checked. Its the 2nd single. WAY TO GO!)

Good things are coming to an end. "Fire coming out of a monkey's head" is like an extended Parklife but just telling a different and darker (but simple) story. Then the angelic "Don't get lost in heaven", with Damon's charming vocals to make believe that xmas here. "Demon Days" is ok but the funny thing is, at the end when they sing something like "too much soul" or something, i just keeping hearing people complaining "TOO MUCH SAUCE". oh well. growing old eh me?

In all. Get this album. My personal choice for best album of 2005 =]

Singapore: Baybeats 2005 review!

yoyoyo wassup yo !!!!

Guess its time for Baybeats 2005 gig review ! for those of you who don't know what baybeats is, it's this annual indie music festival held in Singapore @ Esplanade. This year was a 3 day event, lasting from Friday till Sunday. I went down there on Saturday and Sunday ... so here are my thoughts n comments. Oh BTW downtown on Saturday was a flurry of action. there was baybeats, there's this Paul Gilbert (Mr Big n Racer X guitarist) concert in Suntec, as well as the NDP rehearsal. so it was really really vibrant in town. This's what a good weekend should be heh =)

Day 1
=====

Arrived at about 7.30... There were 2 main stages .. the back theatre known as the Chillout Stage, the one nearer the glutton square is called the Arena. generally, Chillout songs were more instrumental kinds ... to be frank not really my kinda music. Arena's way more rockish ! The sound system setup at Arena was way better than Chillout (which din do some Chillout bands justice at all man ....). all the bands brought along their effects and gear, lotsa Gibsons n Fenders heh. cool shit. Although I thought the yamaha (?) drum on Saturday sounded VERY weird... like a bit off. but again, im not a drummer .. so who knows ....
anyways each band played 30 mins ... alternating btwn chillout n arena ... so I was walking to n fro to catch the action

onto the bands
1st I managed to catch Love me Butch @ Arena , a hard rock band from Malaysia... omg there were really good. I've heard a lot abt them before I came, and they were really solid. tight and crowd savvy, this bunch. what can i say man. I'm in love with hard rock. Unfortunately i wasnt in the mosh pit to enjoy the crowd.... they were doing crowd surfing !! (a sure sign of a great band) until the authorities had to step in n stop it. damn sian la. i tot the crowd surfing waas harmless n really fun.... such a downer the security team. oh well. this is singapore. oh yeah, at the end of the show, there were actually fireworks !! (at first i thought they were baybeats fireworks .. haha . )( so they were NDP ones.... a boat in the bay shot up the fireworks ... very nice ! think this yrs ndp fireworks shld be a blast !

2nd band i caught Vertical Rush. Oh and I met Yifan and friends there!! it's been a while eh. (still waiting for ur PG review) .. Vertical Rush ... din really impress on me that much , mainly due to the reason that it was so crowded and I couldnt really see them performing (chillout stage v small) ... and i was catching up with Yifan as well ... yup. decent music ... but just so so only

then i went on to Arena again to catch Brand New Sunset from Thailand. I left vertical rush early so i could get a front space at the mosh pit ... yeah i was the 5th row from the front so u can imagine the music was like damnnn loud. so the organisers were playing some CD songs b4 the actual band came on stage... heh .. so it played Metallica's "Master of Puppets" and this already got the crowd started already .. al started to headbang n sing along n went a bit siao. i knew i was in for a rowdy time =) So Brand New Sunset came on to a packed mosh pit. and this is ONE HELLUVA band !!!! they played metal music ... altho i already kinda stopped listening to metal for some time ... wow ... they brought the rush back. within 20 secs of warming up their gear, the crowd was literally push n shoving each other in the pit (high already ...) some even fell n got trampled ....until the authorities came in again to deal with them (from what i remember they shoved a total of 3 times throughout the entire performance! ) Man. anyways, BNS really blew me away. I really liked one called the process of self destruction hah. the crowd was like clappin a long to their beat n headbanging. was really really cool man. I'm gonna check this band out more.

Went to Chillout for Furniture. Instrumental band .... hmmm really very different from BNS i guess .. and they werent very tight. somemore someone (cant rem who) was telling me they were one to look out for .... well. kinda disappointing . Met Hildra n Luther n Xianhua (wasted sia they missed a great show at BNS) oh well yeah then we hung out together. Then jun n ong came along as well heh so its was goin to be a fun night !

Next up was Surreal, a local band . heh i really liked the way their frontman talked and stirred up the crowd. their bassist was also some madman .... asking the crowd to say "cuckaw cuckaw" if we liked their performance ... and yeah we all did the cuckaw thingy. it was madness. Surreals very tight ..... n quite catchy as well. a cross btwn hard rock n funk ... cool shit. n my fren had to wear heels and kept sinking into the gravel . DOH haha . it was really enjoyable tho =) oh and i saw Ross n his gf as well =)

eh... i kinda gave I Am David Sparkle a miss. They shld get themselves a better band name huh

and the headliner for Saturday == Brandtson !! heh.... this is a band from Ohio, USA ... playiung what i would think a mix of styles .... a bit of funk, bit of alternative . kinda like radiohead meets red hot chili peppers meet nirvana. they had a 45 min set ... and lived up to their rep . and entertaining as well heh. The crowd din seem too receptive at times.... but diff ppl appreciate diff music la so maybe its cos of that. anyways i do think that the lightings always seem to favour the american bands (as confimed on sunday) .... the regional bands dont seem to get the kinda superstar treatment ... heh. anyways , when they played finihs it was pretty late abt 1145. then the whole crowd started to leave in droves... either they've never been to a concert or they really just wanted to catch the last train back (by tt time already miss lo) cos no one's asking for an encore .... n i was still waiting for the encore. luckily the MC came out to save the day and asked the crowd if they wanna have encore. yeah. so brandtson did 2 more songs i think ... to finish a great night on a high !

after tt me n Hil n Lut went to glutton square to have supper ... nice food as well ! just very ex ....

this year, theres a new feature Diskotheque. basically 3 grps of DJs took stage at Chillout and DJ-ed from midnight to 3am .we managed to catch Twilight Action Girl and Poptart in action ... haha. i on-ed my GAYDAR big time man. cos there was this gay DJ. never mind. anwyays they played retro stuff... not really mambo style ... but retro rock ... stuff of 10-20 yrs ago. and modern rock as well with franz ferdinand n offspring thrown in .... from, afar i heard some Interpol as well . and the crowd danced and headbanged .. really enjoyable man. never thought i would be doin tt at esplanade haha. and for free as well ! guess i really get high on hard rock eh. so since i stayed till 3am i tot i might as well hang out wif my frens till the next morning .....

PROPs on saturday : definitely Brand New Sunset ! blew me away ! and Love me Butch as well. and of cos the wonderfully crrazy crowd!
NOTs : furniture was a let down . oh well. there are good gig days and bad gig days .


Day 2
======

I reached abt 7.30 as well ... met kelvin n chermaine n got my DVDs woohoo lotsa stuff to watch (with a new TV coming in !!) tho they left shortly .... jun n ek were there as well .... heh so we hung out together for the night

caught tempered mental at arena 1st ... erm ...... i wasnt feeling it at all. tts the nicest i can put it ... heh. nice name tho. tempered mental, temperamental. the band wif a female bassist/vocalist.

anyways .... we just hung around to catch the BIGGEST band in Singapore hehe. ok la its electrico. anyways sunday's crowd was so much bigger than saturday's and they really packed the place for Electrico's performance. So it has quite a decent following in Singapore ! or is it because of Amanda Ling only. HMMM
oh i met Damon and his friends as well ... man . its been a while rite hehe. Electrico played their usual pop rock stuff... which seems to suit the crowd v much. obviously very different crowd from yesterday ... heh. today's more family oriented... no f-words on stage or whatever. BTW Surreal's frontman did MC-ing and was damn cool sia haha. well pop rock dont induce the shoving n body surfing like the day b4 ... nonetheless a very power entertaining performance .... played many of their singalongs. when I Want You came the crowd was totally into it. heh. so it's a power 98 no.1 hit. which i just knew when the frontman shamelessly introduced the song heh. nice song anyhow. to end it off, Electrico did a rendition of "we're not made in the USA" ... directed at someone who refunded her CD when she realised Electrico's a Singapore band. hurhur. suckers. anyways . its a cool song... it goes something like this "we're not made in the USA...rock n roll is what we do ...."we're the red and the white ... but without the blue .. the blue .. the blue .. " tot that was really witty. (i hope u guys get it)

so went on to Concave Scream next .. another local quartet. pretty decent but i was standing at this really bad place so i couldnt catch the sounds properly. as i said. the system at chillout stage did the bands no favour. still, concave scream did pack the crowd..... sounds quite rockish too so it wasnt too bad. but me n damon went to arena to get a good place for the headlining Copeland

and so onto the headliner. This USA band also had a 45 min set ... with driving chords and sounded like a hard rocking travis. tight ... and the frontman was entertaining as well. he tried to crack a joke abt the merlion and how he doesnt have one back home. DOH. tts y its Uniquely Singapore ma. anyhow the highlight of their performance was the vocalists solo singing n strumming alone. his voice is really nice. very smooth singing. anyways they had the stage presence of rock veterans . not too showy (like electrico's guitairist) . but still retained the rocker sei. so , thumbs up !

PROPs: Electrico bar the guitarist, Copeland
NOTs: the crowd ... was so .... off . really tot today would be better . oh well. good crowd days, bad crowd days


Overall >> really enjoyable. the best gig i've been to Singapore thus far !! next yr, im definitely going baybeats again. You shld too !


oh, if u wanna see pictures and videos taken at baybeats, here's the link!

anwyays apologies cos most of the pics are damn dark .. and of cos video is low quality cos taken on camera one. maybe i shld buy a new camera soon ba.


rock on
han