whee~

I’m tired. Pretty fucking tired. Getting two hours of sleep and being up since 2am (it’s 9pm) now does that to you, I guess. Caught the Manure vs. Arse game, and then, since I had an exam at 9, I (along with the three other buggers I was with, all of whom were sitting for the same exam) somewhat decided to, y’know, not sleep. Or, at least, not much. Yeah. The only way I’ve managed to survive until now is being around friends, making shitloads of noise (TALKTALKTALKTALK) and lots and lots of gaming. Spent three hours at one of the cybercafes here in Kelana Jaya after the exam, most of which were spent playing CoD4, as is the norm these days, although not without a few diversions here and there.

I was just about ready to pass out while watching some episodes of Top Gear just now.

For some odd reason I’ve started gaming much, much more recently. Maybe it was that fateful spur-of-the-moment decision to play some CoD4 with a handful of my friends after our exam on Monday. Maybe, maybe. I was never much of a hardcore FPS guy, much preferring solitary pursuits such as RPGs, but man, I don’t know, I really like CoD4. I’ve started playing Left 4 Dead, too. Which is also great, and, y’know, might just become my next obsession. Shitloads of zombies! Weapons! Blood! Guts! Ace replayability! What more could you want?

One more exam on Sunday and I’m done for this semester. Can’t wait. Will be pretty occupied between now and then, though. I’m playing at a jam session here in KJ tomorrow evening, and then I’ll be hitting the Gudang Noisy stage with xLumbrahx on Saturday. I’ll probably be playing two sets tomorrow, too; one with a (most probably) one-off band playing Misfits, Ramones and Weezer covers and one with xLumbrahx, as a sort of warmup for the aforementioned Saturday gig. At least, that’s the plan. I’m looking forward to my first somewhat-public performance behind the drumkit, too, and have been trying to get more people to attend. Let’s just hope I don’t fuck things up too much. Might want to lay off the slightly overambitious double pedal bits. Yeah, yeah. That might be better.

Oh, and no surprises for guessing what I’m going to be doing after that last paper. Dude who used to have long hair and who likes to use the word “dude,” you better bring it!

(Why lie, I actually suck at CoD4, it’s just that my friends suck more.)

trying to be nice

Fuck yes.

Enjoyed myself immensely. Jumped about, headbanged, screamed my heart out and made a couple of new friends. All in all, a good day.

drone

Goh Lee Kwang’s performance earlier tonight was awesome. Really, really enjoyed it. I also enjoyed hanging out with the Findars guys afterwards and engaging in a bit of acoustic guitar-and-percussion jamming, although I really need to work on my free jam skills. I started out wanting to do a bit of the whole raga thing, but with acoustic guitar or maybe a bit of the whole free improv thing but I soon realised that I’m total crap at that shit and thus decided to rein things in and focus on laying down grooves with occasional flavourings of lame attempts at dissonance and jazz stuff. Or something like that.

love reactor

I was at that Torch Song Massacre event at CM Annexe last night. ‘Twas well worth the RM20 I paid to enter. I had a bloody good time, the performances were great—and, more often than not, really bloody funny—and the whole experience was probably one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had in recent times. Fuck you, The Panda Head Curry?. Fuck you guys. <3333. AKU TAK MAU SUNAT!

I wish I could’ve stayed until the end, but, well, I am bound by the rules of public transportation so yeah.

Bought Amir Muhammad’s Malaysian Politicians Say the Darnest Things, Volume 2 as well. Much love. And the chocolate fountain was brill. Who ever expected carrots and chocolate to taste so delightful?

And now, totally unrelated photos.

bits and pieces

As if there wasn’t reason enough to love the Ricecooker shop already, over the past two weeks I bought a couple of pretty damn impressive—and pretty damn noisy—CDs in the Al-Thawra / Winters in Osaka collaboration CD and Bastard Noise’s Descent to Mimas. Yeah, motherfuckers. Bastard-fucking-Noise. I admit that I’m not totally sold on the merits of the Bastard Noise machine, but that CD I bought is pretty fucking killer, I have to say. Worth the cash. And, unless someone beats me to it—highly unlikely, but you never know—I’m going to be getting Guilty Connector’s Cosmic Trigger / 2 A.M. Visit CD next. If this was the me of ’08 I’d be all over the Prurient CD they have (Shipwrecker’s Diary… yeah, it’s all Ground Fault stuff) but I’m thinking I’d rather spend my cash on other stuff first.

I also attended both of Goh Lee Kwang’s recent concerts at the Findars Space at the Annexe, yesterday and the previous Tuesday. Enjoyable experiences both, although two very different experiences. Last Tuesday’s performance was acoustic, while yesterday’s performance was pretty much pure laptop-based noise. I have to say that I preferred last night’s performance over his previous one, but it’s all good.

(Last week’s concert.)

I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 1 like a motherfucker recently. Great, great game. I just wish that the characters, y’know, walked faster. Or that you could, y’know, have them run. BG1 seems a bit old-fashioned and unrefined compared to later Infinity Engine games, but I guess that’s to be expected. It is, after all, the first IE game. I would’ve used BGTuTu or whatever so that I could play BG1 with the Baldur’s Gate 2 engine, but I seem to have lost my BG2 CDs and, well, the Internet’s being hugely sucky so I can’t download it.

And, if I may make a complete detour: this whole Perak business and the sudden emergence of boatloads of idiots who thump their chests and shout “Daulat Tuanku!!!” makes me sick. Utterly, utterly sick. What the fuck, people? No, seriously. I’m hardly a supporter of Nizar or whoever, but fuck you guys man, I want nothing to do with idiots that deify their—very nearly pointless, to these eyes—sultans and rajas and etc. It just makes me sick. And pisses me off. Some people are just so… stupid it beggars belief. I just don’t see the logic behind it at all. Not one bit. Respecting your leaders is all well and good, but this shit, this belief that they’re above everything and that they’re somehow special and that anyone speaking out against them deserves to be stoned to death and et cetera et cetera is just plain fucked. 21st century my ass.

Mari menderhaka, folks!

grart for abs

Every time I go to Art for Grabs I seem to always end up spending money. Oddly enough, no books or movies this time! Can’t go without buying some music, though.

Anti-clockwise, from the left, are: a nice notebook I bought because of the lovely photo on the front, The F.R.U.’s self titled release, The Haters’ Audiothecary 9, the SMG / Verge on Reason split, a roll of Kodak BW400CN (pricey, but I do want to try it out, so yeah) and, the largest item, a t-shirt bearing a message that I wholeheartedly agree with.

I’ve bought too many t-shirts. Time to stop buying ’em.

I had a good time at Art for Grabs today. Had some fascinating conversations, hung out with some nice people, took a fair few photos (some of which I feel quite good about) and, well, just soaked up that CM Annexe atmosphere I love so much. I would go there again tomorrow, but there’s a gig I think I’m probably going to, so yeah. Will have to give it a miss.

I also recieved some confidence-inspiring praise about my writing from a couple of people I know today, which really felt quite good.

year end sauna party 2008!

Just spreading the news. I’ll most probably be there, so do say “hi!” if you spot me or something. If you want. Or just punch me, that might work too. Will have to punch you back, though.

—

The Scuds – 77′ punk (Singapore)

Depress – crustcore (Johore)

Relationsheep – anarcho punk

Toxictoy – punk rawk

The Garrison – reggae

Thrash Ohoi – thrashcore

Sophie Sweet Fukk – stoner rock

+ + documentary screening

Saturday, 27th December 2008 / 3pm, Noisy Studio(2nd floor), Ampang / RM7 entrance

A benefit for DIY Femme Fest & Ricecooker Shop

http://www.myspace.com/klfemmefest

a report

The gig went well enough, I suppose. Managed to get nail a good tone that didn’t get lost in the mix and pretty much rocked out throughout our seven-song set. I doubt I’ve played with that much drive and intensity in a while. I certainly haven’t sweated as much as I did today in a long time, though! My arms were covered by a layer of sweat by the middle of the first song, and by the end of our set I was pretty much dripping with sweat.

I screamed my head off (occasionally), managed to pull off some of those seemingly-required-in-hardcore jumps/hops and enjoyed playing and being on stage. It was a slight bummer that there were so few people in the audience during our set (we played second) but, well, better than performing to an empty hall or something of the sort.

I wasn’t really nervous either, except when we launched into our first song and the moments where I somewhat lost my timing amidst the racket we were cooking up. Thankfully I managed to re-orientate myself without having to stop or anything like that. Once I got into the groove (which didn’t take long, really) I think I played (and, most importantly, performed) well enough.

Come to think of it, I wasn’t half as nervous as you’d expect, seeing as it was my first time playing a gig and all. Perhaps the fact that today wasn’t my first time on stage helped, maybe, but up until today I had never been up on stage to do anything remotely similar to a gig.

It was, however, slightly odd to be on the stage and looking out into the faces of the crowd, rather than the other way around. But even that feeling quickly subsided.

I’m waiting for photos. Sadly the bloke who was doing most of the photographing said he didn’t manage to catch me jumping since he accidentally had his camera on “auto” mode . . . but he showed me some decent enough photos of me and the band, so I guess it’s all good. Once I get those then maybe time for a photo post. Haha.

I have to say, I could learn to like this, the “whole performing on stage” bit. I already really like the “playing music in a band” bit and I have a feeling that, in time, I’ll end up really liking the former bit as well. I’m eagerly awaiting our next gig, actually. I hope that we’ll be playing to more people though, next time. Whenever that is.

There’s really not much in life that compares to the thrill of being on stage, at least from my experience. Be it playing a gig or acting in a play, it’s all good. I’m not sure how to describe the feeling, but I certainly enjoyed doing “my thing” on stage and being the focus of many a pair of eyes. I don’t think I’d enjoy, say, being part of an orchestra or anything, at least not as much as being an actor in a small cast or a guitarist in a five-piece band.

Taking up guitar, I have to say, has probably been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

inching closer and closer

Come one, come all! I’m playing on the 10th with xLumbrahx. Yeah, you read right. Me. On stage. Sharing the stage with Daighila. Holy fuck.

It’s going to be, like, my first gig. Ever. Haha. Thankfully it’s not the first time I’ll be performing on stage, but it’s not like I’m a seasoned hand at performing either.

I am quite excited. And nervous. And it’s only Sunday! God knows how I’ll feel come, say, Friday or Saturday.

Two more practice sessions then it’ll be time to rock and roll, oh yeah.

In unrelated news, I’ve got a couple of new stories in the works, which I’ll definitely be posting once I’m satisfied with them (well, at least to a reasonable extent . . . I don’t think I’ll ever really be satisfied when it comes to my own work).

i am the witness to the wreckoning of your empire

I was at Ampang again on Saturday for another gig. Again, I didn’t stay till the end due to having a long way to travel, but the bands I did see were definitely worth the money. Of course, if it’d started an hour or so earlier then I probably could’ve stayed until the end, but well. What to do. Missed Halal/Hadhari, Akta Angkasa and one more band whose name escapes me.

Yeah, lotsa black and white. Didn’t manage to get any decent shots of Epilogue (I think), though.

Daighila were incredible (and, I have to say, my best photos probably were taken during their set), as were Teenage Glory for the Wasted (haha, haai Zack~). Good stuff. Got Daighila’s new Miscellaneous CDr as well. Greatness.