Nine Inch Nails

Echoplex



Taken by Pitchfork TV at their rehearsals for their upcoming tour. Pretty cool. There're loads of analogue synths and that fucken cool drum machine at the start.

Letting You



I like how they ended the song. I've lost my interest in Nine Inch Nails over the years but they are still an amazing live band.

Yeti - Don't Go Back To The One You Love

Quite a psychedelic video. Apparently, it's The Libertines' ex-bassist's new band.

Sexy Beijing: Bling Bling

My boy Kinho sent me this link. He said, "Beijing hiphop chicks are hot."

I'm sold. Word up!

"I'm fucking Seth Rogen"

Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks star in Kevin Smith's 'Zack And Miri Make A Porno'. I'm not much of a Kevin Smith fan but I like his 2 stars in the movie. They take time out to shoot a little promo spoofing Sarah Silverman's skit 'I'm Fucking Matt Damon'. Funny stuff. More about the movie here.

Interestingly, the above promo is shot by a director who has overstayed his welcome. A certain dude known as M. Night Shyamalan.

If the word of the day is 'legs', spread the word...

Yearbook

Have fun with this.

Sample crediting FAIL!!!

This was the drum sample which I used for the tune 'Democracy' we did with Max.

BEHIND THE WALL OF SLEEP
By: Black Sabbath File Format: ACM Compressed WAV - good
Uploaded: 10/1/1999
Submitted By: Jammy

Original Album: Black Sabbath

Submitted by Jammy, so YOU KNOW IT ROCKS! Several people think it's called "N.I.B.", but it's actually "Behind the Wall of Sleep", so now you can rest easy. I've heard this one before on an awesome mixtape a Sureel friend made for me, and now you can hear it, too. This is obviously a rock-band break, with lots of reverb, a nice snare that stands out, and a kinda thin bass drum that sounds awesome amid the unobtrusive rumble and reverb. Very cool, just like all Jammy's loops. Updated 10/1/99.

Yeah, I thought it was 'NIB' and it's stated in the album liner notes. Ah well.

Chainsaw Maid

Big Nat sent me this. The brutal clay stop-motion animation I've seen. Hilarious!!!

Whaddaya know? They used composer of the 'Twin Peaks' theme song, Angelo Badalamenti's music for the soundtrack!

Love, Your Son trailer

Little Nat shot a short film 'Love, Your Son'. The trailer is above. Here's the official site.

Bill Hicks

Tool sampled this skit in 'Third Eye' from Ænima. Read more about the man here.

Wish You'll Never Leave Time...

These 3 fat fuckers will be performing with the following skinny bastards.



Xarin aka Garuda and



Ko Flow. He's releasing his debut EP at the Nike Run on Sunday 31 August 2008. Garuda and MC Vandal will be spitting some rhymes for him while Joanna Dong (I think she's an ex-Singapore Idol finalist) is singing on a tune. I've worked with her a few times... well, indirectly lah. It's amazing how she can emulate a trumpet with her voice.

In any case, Ko Flow was nice enough to invite us to play with him and we are doing the final tune though he's the first act up at 5pm. The race starts at 430pm. So by the time, we are on stage, all the hot and sweaty girls with their faces flushed pink (Nice!) will be running to the finish line. I've always wanted to make girls hot and sweaty with my music. This is as close as it gets.

So we were down at e-TracX on Saturday jamming and rehearsing. After we were done, Ko Flow let us try out scratching the turntables. Here you go.



Weiyuan hits the decks.



Ian starts to barge in.



Ian hogging things as usual. The beeping sound is not intentional. I think it's the sample on the vinyl...



The real deal takes over.



A simple run, showing why he won the DMC Championships a few years back.

Guudmen

So Chingz took some time off from her housework and recorded a tune with bad spelling 'Guudmen'. Here's a short clip of it.

Thank you!

Forest Action Team has gotten about 300 downloads over the past week since last Saturday. Of course, the incessant spamming over MSN and the social community websites helped tonnes.

The album probably worked as an experiment for us to see how much the Internet can really push the album download, especially for us who don't really play any shows or aggressive promote ourselves. Honestly, it was free. That's why you guys have downloaded it. Free stuff. Singaporeans love that shit!

And it still stokes me to see that most people can't tell the difference between a remix and a cover. So we have some nice peeps who are putting links on their blogs to the website to download the album of "remixes". But the only remixes we have done so far are Lunarin's 'Ariel' and Camra's 'White Heart Lane'. I couldn't finish highrise's 'Rain' before my previous laptop crashed. Fuck.

Next round: We will see how much the traditional media can help in increasing the number of downloads. Hopefully, there will be some reviews coming out within the next week or so in the papers. And there's that interview we did with FHM. Hurhurhur.

Once again, The Lard Brothers thank you for allowing us to take up 92MB of your hard disk space/ Zen/ iPod (delete where appropriate). Hope you like it... and I'd like to thank Jessica Gomes for appearing in so many photoshoots wearing almost nothing as well. Hot damn!!!

Reviews

Forest Action Team is a very diverse dance album mixed with some cheese (contrary to what the lard brothers claim is lots of love, the assholes), but at the same time preserving the indie-ness of this work of art. I liked particularly Democracy, PoniesSoothPeople and Scream because of the fantastic choice of heavy strong crispy beats (yo ah yo sio di o). It's a good introduction to a history of local music that many of us are perhaps I dare say sentimental towards. Not to mention that the peppering of influences like Trip-hop (Sneaker Pimps), j-hip-hop (think M-Flo) and even Experimental (like Bjork) make this a commendable effort.

Ian's friend Royston wrote this on Ian's Facebook Note here. I thought the cheesy bit was quite spot-on. Hahaha.

Breakbeat Theory

Biddy has joined Kinho and Boey's merry band of noisemakers, Breakbeat Theory. They've posted a new track 'In A Corner' here.

MC Vandal

An Canadian emcee, based in Kuala Lumpur, MC Vandal. I like his style. Pretty good. Hopefully, he'd be interested to collaborate on a track for the next Lard Brothers album. Check out his album (also free for download) here. He's prone to rip into Malay in his tracks.

I love the tribute to Singapore 'Lion City'. Great track!

My name is Brett Lewis Anderson...

Thursday, April 17, 2008

A message from Brett
Category: Music

"Well, you might be interested to know that I have pretty much finished writing the album and am scheduled to set foot in the studio in early may.

The record will be approached and recorded unlike any I have ever made before and will hopefully sound completely different too. There will be just two musicians: myself on piano and guitar and Amy Langley ..o and the songs will be recorded as complete live takes with no click tracks and just a minimum number of over-dubs (backing vocals and cello harmonies). This is not vanity, but an attempt to capture the natural dynamic of the music, for it to ebb and flow to it's own pulse, not that of a band enslaved by BPM. I want the warmth and feel that can only come from musicians recorded playing together, the spill and bleed between mics, the hiss and mistakes that form that secret magic. Most of the songs I have written by myself but there will be a couple of surprises.

The experience of performing the recent set of acoustic dates has given me the confidence to attempt this. When I listen to the recordings of Union Chapel and Queen Elizabeth Hall I can't help thinking that most of the songs sound better with this minimal arrangement, that it somehow unlocks their beauty and soul.

Anyone hoping for another 'Animal Nitrate' or 'Beautiful Ones' is going to be as disappointed as I would be if I had written one . I am less and less interested in making pop music as the years go by and have virtually no interest in playing that whole sorry game. Don't get me wrong, I'm still massively proud of my past but it's just not what I want to be doing right now.

Mmm... ok, well that's it, so look out for stuff coming your way very soon.take care and love your life.".

Then another message from the MySpace blog:

Friday, June 20, 2008

New album ’Wilderness’ release date
Category: Music

The new studio album Wilderness from Brett Anderson will be released on Monday July 21st 2008.

To hear the album before the full release date click here for tickets to The Mermaid Theatre on Monday 7th July where Brett Anderson will be premiering his new studio album. Included in the ticket price is a copy of the new album, which will be sent out on USB stick with each ticket.

Brett will also perform songs from his existing repertoire accompanied by Amy Langley. A special guest will also be announced in the next couple of weeks through Brett's website.

For further information please visit www.brettanderson.co.uk.

The whole USB thing is pretty cool. It was a consideration for us at Aging Youth but the USB stick might cause even more than a physical CD. But more importantly, you can check out some teasers on his MySpace page here before deciding if you wanna get the physical album which is cool because the album will be available in indie record stores almost a full month before the major stores. Check out the list here. Or you can download the album from this blog.

I heard some of the tracks. Like the man said, it's quite a mellow affair. I guess if you dug tracks off Suede's Dog Man Star like 'Still Life' (even that is too boisterous compared to some of the tunes here) and 'Black & Blue', you'd love the songs here. Well, it sounds better than his solo debut album, fo' sure.

The Queen Is Dead

A documentary The Smiths' classic album The Queen Is Dead here.

Secret Machines - Sad And Lonely (live)

I've always loved their big drum sound.

The Slack Album

What Danger Mouse did 5 years ago still haunts us these days. This is pretty good though. A mash-up of Jay-Z's classic Black album and Pavement's Slanted And Enchanted.

Jay-Z & Kanye West - Jockin' Jay-Z (live)

Jay-Z goes back to Kanye West for some beats. They did this during Kanye West's Madison Square Garden show.

"That bloke from Oasis says I can't play guitar/ Someone should have told him I'm a fuckin' rock star"

IF

If (I kill myself) you like your rock'n'roll Brit-based, check out the new live tunes which Nigel and Fuzz have placed on their MySpace page. Their band, IF still wields and wears the 90's Brit-rock influences on their sleeves.

RIP mah nizzles...

Comedian Bernie Mac passed away on Saturday 9 August. He was pretty funny in most of his shows... That information is probably more depressing than seeing the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremonies kicking your country's National Day Parade's ass.

One of the most sampled musicians ever and, overall, soul brother Issac Hayes left us on Sunday 10 August as well. Portishead sampled him. He was Chef in South Park. He wrote the theme song to 'Shaft' and tonnes of amazing music, riding the blaxploitation wave in the 70's.

Issac Hayes - Shaft (live)

Kanye West - Stronger (live)

I hope he brings his strings and horns section to the Singapore show on Friday 19 September. He will be performing at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. I can't wait!!!

Alan Moore: A hypocrite...

Davin Faraci who writes for my favourite site CHUD has written a scathing article about critically acclaimed comic book writer Alan Moore' public disdain for all adaptations of his works.

Rightfully so, he makes some pretty good points. Read it here.

Majulah Singapura!

The Lard Brothers are a hip-hop-based side project made up of Bob Seng and Bob Tan. Amidst recording an album for their defunct main band, The Love Experiment, they decided to embark on a Mark Ronson-esque project by revamping and recording popular and their favourite Singaporean indie tunes.

Joined recently by another overweight comrade, Bob Tang, they invited their friends to guest on the album, lending their vocal talents and instrumental prowess. Each cover is a re-imagination of the original tune, embarking on a vastly different path from its original.

Pioneering Singapore rock act The Padres’ rebel anthem ‘Radio Station’ is turned into a Nick Cave-esque funeral dirge sung by folk troubadour Koff Koff. marchtwelve’s Dewi-marie Vincoy lends her pipes and You And Whose Army?’s Adam Shah provides his prodigious drumming talent on a ska-reggae rendition of Serenaide’s indie-pop classic ‘The Boy From Katong’. Toys In The Attic’s Joanne Sandhu turns up on a funk-soul version of TypeWriter’s ‘Enemy’. Ex-frontwoman of indie rockers Super Illegals, Biddy Low scats and croons her way through a lounge version of Plainsunset’s self-titled punk-rock classic.

Fellow labelmates B-Quartet’s Bani Haykal and Allura’s Inch Chua help out on 2 songs. Haykal sings on a R’n’B-meets-trip hop rendition of folk-rock legends Humpback Oak’s classic ‘Circling Square’ while Inch belts out on B-Quartet’s ‘Shoebox’, re-tooled as a loving tribute to Icelandic songbird, Björk. Phorous’ indie electronica-tinged ‘Shadowgraphs’ is done as a campfire sing-a-long tune, led by The Love Experiment’s Tan Yeeyong with the rest of the guest performers providing backing vocals.

DMC champion DJ Ko Flow shows off his formidable turntablist skill on the soul-inflicted ‘Wish You'll Never Leave’ while critically acclaimed MC Garuda spits some introspective rhymes over the proceedings. The hip-hop track samples local alt-rock band marchtwelve’s ‘Dear You’.

Forest Action Team features ‘Democracy’, an original work thinly veiled as a non-political statement and ‘PoniesSoothePeople’, a Sony PlayStation Portable tribute track with their regular collaborator, Maximillian Ho.

The album is released online via the Aging Youth Records site and can be downloaded for free from National Day, Saturday 9 August 2008 onwards. Forest Action Team is produced and recorded at the Love Studios by The Lard Brothers.


Track listing:

1. Previously…
2. Enemy (featuring Joanne Sandhu)
3. Circling Square (featuring Bani Haykal)
4. The Boy From Katong (featuring Dewi-marie Vincoy, Adam Shah and Bryan Goh)
5. Democracy (featuring Roger Maximillian Christian Ho)
6. Shoebox (featuring Inch Chua)
7. Being Phat Isn’t A Krime
8. PoniesSoothePeople
9. Radio Station (featuring Koff Koff)
10. Plainsunset (featuring Biddy Low)
11. Scream
12. Wish You’ll Never Leave Time (featuring MC Garuda and DJ Ko Flow)
13. Shadowgraphs (featuring Tan Yeeyong)

The Lard Brothers are Bob Seng, Bob Tan and Bob Tang.

Weiyuan is uploading the page tonight. However, if you can't wait, the direct link to download the album is on the right column.

We spent around close to 10 months putting this together. Finally, it's done!!! FINALLY!!! Enjoy...

Fwah...

So efficient! The power of da Internet!

We are featured here less than 2 hours of me sending in the press release. Nice.

The Lard Brothers part 33

This is the final update. Everything is done.

Artwork - 80%. The designer Cherie fractured her arm so Yeeyong will help us to arrange the cover a bit. We should be uploading this either tomorrow or Friday the latest to get ready for National Day.

And that, you can count on me, Singapore!

Yeeyong also did lead vocals on our cover of Phorous' 'Shadowgraphs' which was the first song we did for the project. Subsequently, he helped out a bit on keyboards for 'Circling Square' and 'Plainsunset'.

Obviously, he thinks that posing with his dog also can get him chicks... but everybody loves Joey. Check out his left ear! Hahaha...

The cutest thing I've seen today...

Sidney, Roxanne's daughter and Linda's flower girl at her wedding.

My kinda humour...

Got it off Benita.

Your result for The 3 Variable Funny Test...

the Wit

(57% dark, 38% spontaneous, 26% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat.

I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer.

Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

You probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm
talking about, check it out here.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais






The 3-Variable Funny Test!

Speech

Read this off Grace's blog. Really good. Here's a snipplet. It's from a convocation speech to the class of '08 (NTU) by Adrian Tan who wrote The Teenage Textbook in the 80's.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.

I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

I am once again at a crossroads...

It's The Lard Brothers, ya'll!!!

Garuda came over last night (Thursday) and spat some rhymes over the last tune we are doing for Forest Action Team. Never spoke to him before but he's a really nice guy. Not as boisterous as what most people would think rappers are.

'Wish You'll Never Leave Time' features a vocal sample off marchtwelve's 'Dear You'. Joseph was brave enough to ask us if we'd remix them. Hopefully, sampling them in a rap tune is cool with 'em. Gotta clear that with them... and get Ko Flow (who scratched on the track) to take a photo like the one above...

Edit:



Ko Flow