Amanda Righetti

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Oh My God...


Amy Winehouse producer Mark Ronson released his own solo album Version which is essentially an album of covers earlier this year. He got Lily Allen (have I mentioned how much I love her?) to sing on his version of Kaiser Chiefs' 'Oh My God'.

Sujin passed me his extra copy of Kaiser Chiefs' Employment about 2 years ago but their breakthrough single 'Everyday I Love You Less And Less' was irritating the shit outta me (and him as well). 'Oh My God' is really pretty good with the whole big guitars and chorus going on, sounding really rockin'. But I prefer Mark Ronson and Lily Allen's version more. Heh.

Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God



Mark Ronson - Oh My God (featuring Lily Allen)



The Kaiser Chiefs guys are in the video too.

Entroducing... Amon Tobin


This is one of my all-time favourite albums Entroducing by DJ Shadow. The choices of samples he used for this album is electrifying eclectic. Check the list out.

DJ Shadow - Midnight In A Perfect World



Apparently, it utilizes a sample of Tears For Fears's 'Sowing The Seeds Of Love'. Can't seem to spot it though. Love the video. It sports the same aesthetics as the song: cut-and-sampled.

Recently, I've been going through my Amon Tobin mp3 collection. Great stuff. I think Jason Ong aka J-O passed me his copy of Supermodified a few years back. Love it man. Great shit.

Amon Tobin - 4 Ton Mantis



I love this tune and how it switches rail mid-way and how "dark" it is.

Heima


Got this from Linda. Apparently, Sigur Ros has shot a short film. Iceland looks beautiful. Really beautiful.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Band for sale...


Got this off Linda's blog. Sounds familiar to me. Heh.

Backside itchy...


Just gotten the new M83 album Digital Shades [Vol. 1] on Monday. Thought I would not have like it so much but it's really pretty good. The trademark cheesy keyboards and the synth swells without any electronic beats and vocodered vocals. There are only 2 outta 10 tracks with vocals at all. It kinda reminded me of my friends from Aspidistra Fly but synth based.

I felt really inspired and thought that I'd love to do something like this. So I called up Weiyuan up and mentioned in recording some material like that. Hopefully, we get even one bloody tune done before the interest level dries up...

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Blaqk Audio - Stiff Kittens




A side-project by the front-guys of American commercial pop-punk group AFI. Heard it in HMV on Monday with absolutely no referral. I thought it sounded very Nine Inch Nails with an ambient touch. The keyboards veer dangerously away from the entire New Wave thing to almost Beng techno at times. The whole pop-punk vocal stylings is not my thing but singer Davey Havok does his best impersonation of Dave Gahan.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Green is a slimming colour...


Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Roy started a Brigade Reconnaissance Company (my National Service vocation) Facebook group and posted this photo. Fuck, this was like almost 10 years ago! Gawd, we are OLD! It's great I still hang out with some of these bastards, drinking most of the time. I love these fuckers!

Nice... part 1


When I was taking the bus to work today, I saw a mother reading a children's fairytale book to her little girl at the bus-stop. I thought that was the sweetest thing I've seen for a long while.

I think it's pretty essential that a child reads. I think it could be different these days with some much distraction from the media: Cartoon Network (which is not evil), XBox-es, Playstations, etc. But it's a very different thing to sit down and read a book.

Hey, I'm sure it has shaped the moral values of our generation pretty much. I mean, we all learnt that the planet-invading-and-pop-star-loving Zentraedi are not necessarily evil by nature. How ghost-writing Singapore ghost stories with extremely bad grammar can be actually quite scary. And ghost-writing stories about 3 kids (or I believe, the demographic is now known as tweens) - a fat, brainy one, a dumb jock and a nerdy librarian who meddles and solves crimes can be extremely inspiring.

I love reading. Especially, on the bowl.

U2 - New Year's Day (live)




Was watching the concert DVD which Robin lent me: U2 Zoo TV Live in Sydney. Fucken amazing show which Bono went over the top as usual. But it was great. And they played 'New Year's Day', a very old song indeed from the War album. It's even older than some of you guys out there. *pinches Pamela's cheeks*

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Tokyo Jihen - Osca




Joe sent me the link to the latest Tokyo Jihen video to me. Thanks!

Friday, September 21, 2007

Malaysia boleh!


Check out Noel's blog for the pictures of the women up north. They look so fine that you can go down south with any of them.

In any case, I've mentioned to Adlin when I was up in KL in March that I've noticed (most) Malaysian girls walk with a bounce in their asses. I rikes... A lot.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Leia's metal bikini


From Natalie. Check this out!

Daughtry


Meeting Adlin (who is in town for work) tonight at Dragonfly, St. James Powerstation to catch a special showcase by ex-American Idol contestant, Chris Daughtry.

If you know us both well enough, his insipid form of moozak is not exactly our kinda music. However, it's very strangely alluring in the sense that everything seems to follow a standard formula. Most American modern rock totes this line very well. Just look at Hoobastank, Creed, Nickelback (they are Canadian but it's the same. And the only worse thing than them is probably Celine Dion but I'm not going there.).

The 2 of us were listening to Daughtry's debut album in Adlin's car when I was up in KL in March. And we unlock the secret to American modern rock. Take down notes if you require.

1) The opening track MUST be a rocker. Preferably, hovering around 110 - 120 BPM.

2) Track 2 MUST be a rocker too.

3) Track 3 can be a rocker but if not, by track 4, the album MUST slow down to the obligatory rock ballad. If the song is piano-driven, then you will find the singer or the drummer banging the ivories. Holy mother of Christ! This is, indeed, a talented band! Usually, this will be the 2nd single to be released. And normally, this will perform better in the Asian markets and radios. Cuz as you know, we are suckas for ballads.

4) From this point onwards, the rest of the album can be fillers. However, if the band decides to be more experimental by adding strings and electronic beats (i.e. the label has given them more money), you can probably find the band waxing lyrical about how they want to push the envelope and develop themselves as artists on VH-1.

5) Lyrics have got to do with the universal theme of love so that for the music video you can a) hire a hot model as a foil to the lead singer lounging around all angsty or b) hire a hot model to pace aimlessly around in the background while the band performs the song in a warehouse/ a basement/ a rooftop (delete where appropriate).

Daughtry... I can't wait! We have much to learn from you...

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Asian Electronica


Some of my friends were featured on this blog Asia Electronica. Quite good to find out that there are some pretty interesting stuff out there as well. Enjoy.

Common (featuring Lily Allen) - Driving Me Wild




Got it off my boy Billy. Lily Allen rocks my bollocks.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Kermit the Frog - Hurt




Sent by Daniel Electrico. Hilarious...

Friday, September 14, 2007

Excited...


I was telling Weiyuan the speed we are recording nowadays is fucken fast, compared to what we used to do. One week (or technically 3 nights), we are almost done with one song. It's pretty ironic that we are putting down the tracks so fast for a defunct band. We are going to finish up the bulk of the song on Sunday and starting work on a new one which Agilan has just completed drums for. Only if we had worked this fast when we were a functioning band.

We are left with recording drums for one last tune and embellishing most of the songs. And of course, Alvin hasn't come in to track most of his parts as he's probably been busy drinking with Agilan and George underneath the void deck/ drinking with his church mates/ drinking with some of his 'hos (delete where appropriate).

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Hmm... part 9




"LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!"

Apparently, he's not faking the tears or the emotion... Seriously... I guess Americans emote and express themselves better when there's a camera stuck on their face. It's even better when you have make-up and great lighting to boot.

Gary Jules - Mad World




Gary Jules cover of the Tears For Fears's classic. Great video but I'm not exactly bowled over by his rendition which is just a scaled down piano version of the hit. How original...

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

I Am Iron Man...


Fuck, yeah!!! Check this out!!! I can't wait!!!

Monday, September 10, 2007

Control




Apparently, the movie's been out for quite a while. This is for those who haven't heard about the movie or know what it's based upon.

In other news, the band formerly known as The Love Experiment resumed recording. It feels good to start again... And recording went pretty smoothly this time round. Hopefully, we'll be done by the end of the year.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Pet Shop Boys - I'm With Stupid




Featuring Matt Lucas and David Williams from Little Britain.

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Bilingualism


I was talking to Adelina over MSN just now.


Willy is only human, not Cylon... says:
Why are u on channel 8?

I'll be on channel 8 tonight 930pm program (last segment) says:
commenting on Eldershield and Medishield

Willy is only human, not Cylon... says:
fwah...

Willy is only human, not Cylon... says:
are u like the foremost expert?

I'll be on channel 8 tonight 930pm program (last segment) says:
no but i'm one of the rare young bilingual advisers around

Willy is only human, not Cylon... says:
god bless River Valley! hahaha

I'll be on channel 8 tonight 930pm program (last segment) says:
haha bilingualism very impt now. i may be entering HK n China mkt in one or two yrs time thru the company so better practise my cantonese now too

Willy is only human, not Cylon... says:
ho yeh ar

Willy is only human, not Cylon... says:
i can't believe within a span of 10 years we've become from uncool chinese-speaking ching-chongs to ppl with actual real skill sets which triumph over the covent/ ang mo-pai school graduates.

I'll be on channel 8 tonight 930pm program (last segment) says:
isn't it fabulous? hehehe

Willy is only human, not Cylon... says:
i thk it's damn interesting

Willy is only human, not Cylon... says:
i've friends who tell... "eh you MUST capitalize on the fact tt you are biliginual while i wish i could; i'm only monolingual..."


Most of my friends, I'll say up to 70%, can never hold a decent conversation in Mandarin. And we were mocked these very same people 10 years ago for going to Chinese schools, speaking Mandarin. Some have a very good command of English while some are truly monolingual, speaking only Singlish.

Eh, I used to know FOUR (count 'em, bitches) Tang Dynasty poems! The rest of the hard disk space was used to store the entire Marvel and DC Universe history and facts.

In any case, those people who used to tease us are mainly from English schools calling us "ching-chong", etc. In a certain way, they could be right. Some of my secondary school mates were so meek that they dared not protest about anything. If you are thinking about using your linguistic ability to carve a niche in an overseas market like China, just remember you are facing a nation of 1.4 billion very success-hungry people. And that's a real bitch...

Thursday, September 06, 2007

2 new songs


I've added 2 new songs from 2 of my favourite Singapore acts Stoned Revivals and Force Vomit on the right.

Force Vomit's 'Sadawaden' is an instrumental piece, a throw-back to their rambunctious surf-punk days complete with guitar feedback and all.

Since I'm such a huge fan of Stoned Revivals, I usually love anything frontman Esam Salleh throws out. 'Hair Farm' is a slab of retro-cool complete with Hammond organs and Rhodes. Nice. I don't understand Malay at all but knowing him, he's probably singing about sex anyway...

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Ko tai


Or what is normally known in local terms: getai.

From Wikipedia:

A Getai (literally song stage) (Pinyin of Simplified Chinese: 歌台), is a usually boisterous life stage performance held during the Ghost Festival commonly held in Singapore, in contrast to the generally solemn mood of the festival. The stage setup is usually composed of temporary structures and situated in the suburbs of the city in any empty field or even in carparking spaces.

The event is usually meant to be performed to the spirits and also the people alike during the seventh month. The backdrop of the stage is usually made of cardboard and clothes painted in bright colours. Also, spotlights, usually consisting of brighter colours, like, red, blue, pink and yellow. The performers would normally don loud and glittery clothing, and the compère would spout crude jokes all in the name of fun.

The younger folks in Singapore would normally relate to a Getai as kitsch, as the performers would sing and talk in Hokkien, which is a dialect they label as crude and passe. The older people would normally enjoy watching a Getai, dance and sing along to the staple songs.


This Friday, I'm going down to catch one myself. This one is pretty good. The performing talents are pretty top-notch, I must say. And I'm a HUGE fan of this veteran band, Stoned Revivals. I heard there are many other great acts like The Great Spy Experiment and my boy DJ KoFlow is going to do a collaboration with Wicked Aura Batucada. Nice.

The getai takes place this coming Friday at the National Museum at 730pm. Ai ho wa ki mai?