Downing Street E-Petitions: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to replace the national anthem with ‘Gold’ by Spandau Ballet… ‘What we specifically want to see, is that the National Anthem be changed in favour of “Gold” by Spandau Ballet. Further, we would like our National Olympic Committee to decree that Tony Hadley is the only person permitted to handle medal ceremonies where the National Anthem is played. We don’t mind what he wears when he does this, but preference is given towards a a gold colured suit.’
A sample from their upcoming 3rd album A Far Cry From Here. I love you, Leslie, Dharma, Vivian, Victor, Evan and the new kid on the block, Ray "I can breakdance like a mofo" Aziz!
I have a green thumb...
Malaysian act Ferns just released their debut album On Botany under Isman's Fruit Records. This is like his and Eliza's 5th release. Fuck, Morrissey's right: "We hate it when our friends become successful." Nick from Wallwork Records has informed me that he has roped in some new acts under their umbrella.
Fuck, we at Aging Youth Records better start cleaning up our act.
Linda Joelle Ong, if you are reading this, let us buy you a beer and we'd help you slut the sophomore album under our dodgy lil' label! Put the 2 boys in bikinis and we'd have a hit album in our hands, I promise!
In any case if you are a fan of B-Quartet, you'd be psyched to know that the numerically-fluctating music act is going to start recording their first full-length very soon. Well, at least, once Leonard and Snakeweed Acoustic Labs are free. Which means we'd need to start booking it soon. The new songs are sounding very impressive indeed!
Anyway, not to digress any further. Here's Ferns' MySpace page. The band sitting on its arse or otherwise known as The Love Experiment played along them in Kuala Lumpur last April. Nice.
And interestingly, there's a fan blog "Warren, Please Finish The Album" dedicated to the countdown of the album release, albeit some of the blog members are the band members themselves. One of the funniest entries was this. The blog is so twee that it hurts. Ouch. Sorry, Warren.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Pez Lenchantin
What a cutie. Oh from Futon kinda reminds me of her.
Here she is playing in A Perfect Circle. Anyone who can tie up their hair in a 4-bar break rocks. But editing helps too.
And here in the short-lived Zwan. This video is strangely weird. And cheesy. Shows Billy Corgan smiling waaaaayyy too much.
All these rock videos I've been watching the whole day is inspiring me to form a band to play heavy rock music. But what I don't get is that why all these hard/ heavy rockers tend to lean back so much when they are playing their instruments? Hmm...
YouTube music videos haven
Brian found this site which consolidates most of the music videos out there on YouTube. I found a few of my favourite acts.
Air - Alone In Kyoto
I wasn't much a fan of these 2 Frenchmen till 'Talkie Walkie'. This song is probably my favourite Air tune.
The Carpenters - Rainy Days And Mondays/ Superstar
The drawing of a heart on a condensed window is damn cheesy but hey, it was the 70's!
Cake - Friend Is A Four-Letter Word
It is, indeed.
David Bowie - I'm Afraid Of Americans
Who isn't? Bowie rocks. I was glad 80% of The Love Experiment caught him live on his Reality tour. The video stars Trent Reznor.
Björk - Pagan Poetry (live at Live8)
Björk rocks, barring the occasional dodgy fashion sense.
Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds (live)
The only song which I can remember from With Teeth. Sounds like Black Sabbath covering a disco song. I think Aaron North from The Icarus Line is on guitar duties here.
Opeth - In My Time Of Need
I'm not like the biggest fan death metal fan on the block but I got 2 or 3 albums lying somewhere in my room. Opeth rocks where the mellow parts of their songs meld into utter metal mayhem complete with guttural vocals. Brewtal...
Smashing Pumpkins - Ava Adore (live)
I read that Billy Corgan wanted to reform the Pumpkins more than a year ago. It's posted on their website that they are recording a new album. When I mention 'they', it's just ol' Billy boy and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain. It's okay anyway. They recorded the breakout album Siamese Dream on their own without James Iha and D'Arcy. The reformed duo will be headlining some music festivals in Germany. I guess Coachella wasn't interested eh. Well, when your band appears to have unfinished biz-ness ala Rage Against The Machine, I guess the demand is there, unlike a desperate career revival move. That said, the band's MySpace page has one of my all-time favourite Pumpkins tunes, 'Drown' from the 'Singles' OST. God, it's been a decade since I've heard the song!!!
Orbital - The Box
God, it's been a decade since I've heard this song too! One of my first few introductions to electronic music. Fuck you, Dr. Albarn and Ace Of Base don't count! The tune still sounds great after these years.
Pearl Jam - Rearviewmirror (live at Pinkpop 2000)
There are bands I'm not that all keen about. Pearl Jam's one of them. Granted I caught them live in '95. But there are certain songs which these bands I'm not too crazy about have written are amazing. 'Rearviewmirror' is one of such songs.
Pet Shop Boys - Minimal
Welcome back, Mr. Tennant and Mr. Lowe. I absolutely love this song off their latest album Fundamental. Gotta love the New Order-like outro. The dancing in the video rocks too.
Super Furry Animals - Demons
I <3 them... Edwin, I know you are reading this. I wanna a fuzz pedal that sounds like this.
Tears For Fears - Head Over Heel
Cheese galore.
The Postal Service - Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)
The only act which can make a fucken Phil Collins song sound good.
Super Furry Animals - Lazer Beam
One of my favourite bands. I love the video.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
The Good, The Bad And The Queen
See 4 rock stars trying to do an Anthony Bourdainhere for the video for the 2nd single 'Kingdom Of Doom' which sounds like The Clash's 'London Calling'. Hmm... Well, after all, Paul Simonon played in the band.
But I like the self-titled track. This is a recent live performance.
Friday, January 26, 2007
"Transform my ass and roll out..."
I like Josh Duhamel in 'Las Vegas'. I don't like the robot designs but I like cleavages.
Click here to see more set pictures from the Michael "Blow 'em all up" Bay's live-action take on one of my favourite 80's cartoons, Transformers. Hey, I almost cried when Optimus Prime died in the original cartoon movie...
Porridge steamboat
Recently, I've started on a steamboat craze.
After Roy started on the whole thing about steamboat, we tried the one at West Coast Community Centre. It's around $15+++ per head. It's not fantastic.
Undeterred, Robin and I had it for supper last Saturday at Bukit Timah. The supper rate for steamboat is $13+++.
Bumped into Jassica and Keith at the Jens Lekman gig on Wednesday. We've decided to try out this porridge steamboat joint which I saw at Joo Chiat.
What's porridge steamboat? Will there be pictures of the massarce? What? Is this a food blog?
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The Lovecraft
Weiyuan hates any other acts which has a similiar band name to ours: The Love Experiment. He's weird like that.
But I think he might get behind this Malaysian act I've just heard: The Lovecraft. Pretty good stuff. Check them out here.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
"I don't speak Cantonese..."
Me neither. Here's a clip of Adlin being the toastmaster for his friend's wedding. Can anyone translate the words for me?
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Rock Central Plaza - Sexyback (live)
Canadian folk-rock act Rock Central Plaza giving Adlin and the Lied boys (and girl) a run for their money.
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (live)
I thought this live version was excellent and the backing band includes Christian Fennesz, Steve Jansen and others. Much better than the vocals-based version of the tune - 'Forbidden Colours' with David Sylvian. It's not that Sylvian's vocals suck but it's the UNKLE syndrome.
'Unreal' was absolutely slaughtered by Ian Brown as it was transformed to 'Be There'. Bad (Brown is not a singer. He's just a fashion icon and was in the right band at the right time.) and unneccesary vocals were just horrendous...
Jojo Mayer & Nerve - Far (live)
I hate these fuckers. I really do... I should try to direct The Lard Brothers concept to go this way.
KJ Sawka - Axis (live)
This guy's FUCKEN over-the-top!!!
Monday, January 22, 2007
Fuck You! I Won't Do What You Tell Me!!!
Apparently, not so... This is always what the fans wanted over the years.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The reactable: basic demo #1
The reactable is a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical objects on a luminous table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.
This instrument is being developed by a team of digital luthiers (Sergi Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger and Marcos Alonso), at the Music Technology Group within the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.
I want this for my birthday present in November. Thanks in advance, guys!
OMGWTFBBQ moment
I've gotten a call at the office this afternoon.
Lady: (with a British accent) Can you speak English?
Me: I'm speaking English right now.
Lady: Thank you very much (hangs up the phone)
What the fuck was that all about?
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Muse - Knights Of Cydonia
Got it off Billy (There! I linked you!!! *shakes fist at monitor*).
Ichi ichi...
Was out with Weiyuan and Bryan on Saturday having dinner. Suddenly, the topic of Sally Yoshino popped up. Can't remember why though... We all had no idea what happened to her so we decided to call up the maestro of such stuff also known as He Who Cannot Be Named. He was sharing with us that she apparently made a come(hehheh...)back last year but he had not seen the flick yet.
In the event, you have no idea who Sally Yoshino is. Here's her official site.
From Wikipedia:
Sally Yoshino (吉野サリー) (born November 28, 1978) is a Japanese model and adult film actress. Her filmography includes 'Fuck Me!', 'Indecent Beast City', 'Dripping Wet Life With Passion' and 'Sally Will Help You Masturbate'.
You gotta love those titles!
In any case, George, Sujin, Melvin, Alvin and I used to have a death-country (death metal-meets-country: Think of it as the bastard child of Slayer and Dolly Parton) band Spooning With Satan. The blog is here. Our slated debut single was supposed to be 'Ballad Of Sally Yoshino'. However, we broke up as we were too avant-garde for our time... until we found out that Pantera's ex-guitarist Dimebag Darrell (God rest his metal soul...) started one already in the 90's called Rebel Meets Rebel. It sucks... but since it's Dimebag, it's all cool.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
the embryo @ Audioreload Red Bean Sessions
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
It's always great to see Randolf play guitar. Wish I could play like him. Haven't had the opportunity to hang out with Wendy and Mervyn very much these days. The embryo is performing this Sunday 20 January at the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre. Their set is at 2045hr. It should be good! The song they played in part 2 'Shadows' has a strangely familiar riff. Hehheh, I wondered if Randolf nicked it off Phorous' 'Shadowgraphs'...
Nigel looks like he's going to a kopitiam to have some beer...
Check out this year’s line-up for Mosaic! Insane! I just got word that The Album Leaf is playing on Thursday 15 March!!! Woo hoo!!! And the number of cute chicks performing this year... Nice. I like.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Charlotte Hatherley - Behave
I wonder whatever happened to Ash. Hmm...
Intense: elated and pissed...
Was on leave for the longest time. Now I feel like a slack piece of shit...
Both Robin and Bryan popped over my place to record parts for The Lard Brothers. Robin's session for 'Disco' was an all nighter on Friday which ended at 5am. I haven't added in my parts yet and will still need to get Weiyuan to blow some sax over it. I mean, what self-respecting George Michael tribute song doesn't have horns on it? Ian should be coming by this week to record his bass parts. However, I'm forseeing this will still take some time to figure which parts to keep and chop and how to arrange the tune again.
Thankfully, Bryan recorded his parts for 'Cry' on Sunday afternoon and it was relatively quick. His parts are more subtle and atmospheric in nature. We are almost done with the recording of the song built around Max's demo. Hopefully, we can get to record his royal ass soon as Weiyuan's raring to do the final mixdown soon.
And after a great weekend of recording and catching friends performing at Stasis 9, I have my first voluntary IPT session today. Which is fine with me. However, I realised that I've to go to Bedok Camp instead of Khatib Camp. This fucken sucks!!! I don't even fucken go Simpang Bedok for supper... Bedok Camp?
Friday, January 05, 2007
Tony vs. Paul
Got this from Billy. Nice stuff.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Pink Floyd - Echoes part 1 (live in Pompeii)
Every time I watch this clip, I still stand on the verge of getting an orgasm... This is probably one of my 2 all-time favourite Pink Floyd tunes, alongside 'Time' (off Dark Side Of The Moon). Guitarist Dave "When Willy grows up, he'd wanna be" Gilmour and drummer Nick "I'm a Village People reject" Mason absolutely rocked in this live rendition! I cannot even begin to describe the magic Pink Floyd had created in this tune. Yes, I'm a groupie...
Cry your Disco out...
Here I am at Max's place, working on The Lard Brothers' George Michael tribute song 'Disco'. And we've started trying out a new one 'Cry'. Let's hope we can finish both tunes fast enough...
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