The Organic Urban Experience

Any book is worth ten-million movies and four days

Here're recordings from our performance at the D'J-Party last sunday!

Click Here

Three days of sweat and blood.


Literally...


But we, Oriental Couch and Now Playing, enjoyed ourselves.
Undoubtedly, this is the best period of our musical lives thus far.

---

From years of observing and being in the local japanese-music scene, I've seen it growing musically,
then falling by reckless words, hands, voices and instruments of immature wannabes.
This was when a GOOD part of respectable musicians naturally became appalled and disassociated themselves with the scene.


However, kudos to the fellow martyrs of this generation, the five members of Now Playing and Oriental Couch and especially to two dudes named Koyuki and Jun: these special people have persevered through the worst of it all by struggling against adversities: mainly rejection, pessimism, financial difficulties and hoards of petty kids. I do disagree with some of their styles to mould the scene, but undeniably:

All efforts are paying off.

The Japanese scene's making a come back. The taste and quality of the music and musicians have drastically grown from rotten to impressive.
By some unidentifiable forces just within the short half of a year, new and really young bands have deservingly replaced old and stagnant bands.

This tide of change will bring tasteful and good music to glorify the crumbling scene.

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Just from the Singapore Street Fest alone, i've witnessed two young bands worthy of my admiration - Hidama and Livevil. These cats truly have in their own aspect, the taste, quality and showmanship to push the frontier with us.


Hidama
This charismatic group's greatest strength lies in its aim. I'm unsure if they had the intention to or not, but they've picked the right songs and pulled it off seamlessly. Credit to them being two weeks old, the five musicians performed three songs spanning across Alternative, House and Power Metal the way the songs should be listened to. Preppiness, groove and aggressiveness were aptly injected to bring out the feel of the songs. This, is what most bands are unable to achieve as they falter at their technical incompetence.

Livevil
These guys are natural show-men. They rock musically and visually. These guys each raised the bar of musicianship in the J-rock community. Where most bands strain their vocals, hammer on drums and chase notes on the fretboard, these guys do it well entertaining the audience with an added Oomph in their sound. Extra credit goes to them also for writing non-cheesy cheena songs. (yes i'm biased against mandarin music, it's all that monotonicity and unoriginality's what shifted my attention to Japanese musicians) Listening to Jing Bao Yue Tuan closing the festival conveniently elevated the credit I awarded Livevil.


And there are musicians out there in bands like Gethsemane, Slap Shock and Red Wasabi who, I believe after a little bit of buffering and polishing, will have the potential to achieve what those two bands did. Oh ya, I'll like to mentioned I enjoyed the way Slap Shock engaged the audience: though mainly friends in the audience, but they'd do the same pretty darn job to a new bunch of audience as well.

The scene needs bands with passion, patience, perseverence, self-motivation and creativity to break into the local, then international music world. There simply is no excuse for shitty music and entertainment.

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Nonetheless, lots and lots of stuff that I listened, experience and saw these few days makes me the happy man that I am now.


Of course, my darling's the sole reason why I'm a happy man in the first place. : )

Now Playing at the Esplanade Powerhouse

Friday, 1st June
2 sets of 45 minutes
8.45-9.30pm
10-10.45pm

It'll be awesome I swear. We've got lots of funk, jazz, alt-rock and groooooove goin on then.

You gotta be there.

It's been great to know the band's kicked into full gear for the gig in June. We've invited Serene the cellist, Jeremy the saxaphonist, Cedric on male vocals + rap and Miss Unknown yet as our violinist.

The sounds gonna be so full and awesome! I CAN'T WAIT for everyone to come together!

On the other hand, I do miss my bunbun much. It's been aeons since i last met her - and it was just a brief encounter to collect Weiner - my iPod, from her.

I do feel guilty neglecting her. Am gonna make up for it real soon.

Just half-a-day after I uploaded new pics all round (in my flickr & lomohome), a little fuzzy, furry mail popped in my inbox:


*****************************************

Dear lomographic master of the MiniMovie,

*****************************************

We are honored to break the news: your minimovie has been selected for display in the "Award-winning movies" section of our Oktokino.

]Click the pic[

*****************************************

Awesome!


Edit: I love LiveJournal! I was composing this entry when my browser crashed - and was saved the blood-curdling horror of recomposing this post. +1 to LJ!

Life's been so damn awesome of late.

Every day's spent living on the edge of good and bad - and both.

And for the record, I've got three gigs coming up within the next two months:

Oriental Couch on March 19th - Jcode #003
Now Playing on June 1st - In-Junction (Singapore Arts Festival)
Both OC and NP on June 2nd and 3rd - Singapore Street Festival




1) The Suburban Vibes
2) The Suburban Movies

Now Playing has been invited to play at the Esplanade again - at the Waterfront!

This time, the band will be playing for In-Junction, a segment of the Singapore Arts Festival. This opportunity is HUGE as we just wrapped up our performance in Mosaic. It's gonna be really awesome this time round - and unique as well. Do mark my words as March 1st approaches.




It's gonna be really crazy on my part as I'll need to plan and co-ordinate heeaaaaappps of stuff for every detail this time round. I'm definitely gonna be kept on my toes but I'll make every ounce of effort count!

Stay tuned for more details!

Thank gawd my splitting headache's gone.




All's left is the giddiness from that stuck ear of mine. I hope it goes soon.

-pukes-

-> My OktoMovies! <-

Those in the link above is what i'm most proud of squeezed from my Oktomat so far.

Here's to more pictures of sinful-8-lens-ed-goodness
(all photos remain unedited except resizing):

Satisfy Me

Today's been a craaaaaaazy day.

"urgh."

That small little ache at my lower back when i woke up to the rousing noise of the maid doing the laundry. All the sleeping on the sofa these days definately felt much more comfortable than on the floor - only for those wee minutes I lie down till the world shuts off.


The slits of my eyes opened and I woke to the familiar scramble of deciphering the device in front of me.

'A-quarter-to-eight' I thought to myself.


Today's the earliest i've woken up in the past two months. I'd probably spared five minutes of the morning indulged in the usual semi-consciousness reflection of the dreams I had a few short seconds ago.

I've been having few nightmares of late.


Next thing that happened, I grabbed my oktomat, strapped on my Timbys and set out for work.


Lots and lots of stuff happened at work which leaves much to be desired, well.

I'm actually writing this at work. That's how I get to live my life these days - from work.

---

I believe simplicity has a greater effect than complexity; the latter just makes it better.

Teh Aw3someness:


The Impossible Quiz


Woot!

Hola Minna-san

This blog is officially unveiled!

This will be the where you hear with your eyes and you see with your ears. So lo and behold, in this opening post - i present to you eight deleted scenes from Sesame Street!



Well, was taken from my trusty Oktomat actually. :P
Heaps more to come in due time!

Welcome to the Aural experience where you listen through your eyes.