The Local Alternative '93

Somehow... Somewhere... What happened?

The Eels - Dead of Winter

"Dead Of Winter"

Standing in the dark outside the house
Breathing in the cold and sterile air
Well I was thinking how it must feel
To see that little light
And watch it as it disappears
And fades into
And fades into the night

So I know you're going pretty soon
Radiation sore throat got your tongue
Magic markers tattoo you
And show it where to aim
And strangers break their promises
You won't feel any
You won't feel any pain

And the streets are jammed with cars
Rockin' their horns
To race to the wire
Of the unfinished line

Thought that I'd forget all about the past
But it doesn't let me run too fast
And I just wanna stand outside
And know that this is right
And this is true
And I will not
Fade into
Fade into the night

Standing here in the dark

Metasonix's Scrotum Smasher TM-7

As much as the name sounds like a track off a grindcore CD, this yellow beauty is full of bunnies. Other than a feedback loop, 3 lesser known tubes, knobs and switches which climaxes to sweet swirling saw-tooth noises. My fav demo goes to the one with the drum machine.






With the amount of dreams I've been having, I'll most probably be able to build one for myself... 43 years later...

Singfest 2008 + Red Dot Museum Gig

With the absence of Womad, I’ve only been to Fort Canning for Megadeth’s gig. And it’s been donkey years since I last chill out to good music at Fort Canning with some beers. Hence Singfest was great (in all sense of the word)!

This Singfest was particularly cool mainly coz I didn’t have to pay a single cent for it. Yeah, so instead of spending cold hard cash on the tickets, we got ourselves cold hard beers instead. :) Thanks to Kenny and Sharon from CSP!


Before heading down, I was at Red Dot Museum catching Koffkoff and Vacxine’s act. Still the same old Joe with just his 6-string and vocals, just great as it is. Haven’t met him in quite a while ever since he started work, and now he’s got a girl. Wait… This is not the surprise yet. She’s a Hip Hop Dancer! This is the most unexpected fusion of yin and yang, between a folk singer and Hip Hop dancer.



Another first for me is to catch Fongster’s gig. The machine behind the trippy music, he’s my fellow gearslutz. It has never been a better sight than to see him coming out with his own stuff amidst the obstacles he’s been facing with his band. And to top it off, he’ll be building his future at NZ soon. I wish him all the best, coz he’ll be the first among my circle to break free.

As soon as the fellows’ gig at Red Dot ended, immediately I flew down to Fort Canning, hoping to catch New Found Glory’s set at 4.30pm. This is of coz not without bringing along some beers for the folks already at Fort Canning.


Upon reaching ground zero, it was just breath-taking. The stage is a typical stage with a band on it. Lighting hang is quite interesting, but it’s 5pm and the sun is still blazing, so I’ll be able to see the lighting at least 2 hours later. Crowd was ok, not too packed, just nice for everyone to chill on the grass. But check out the row of drumsets on stage!!!


Turnover is crazy man. But there were plenty of hands on deck. And the crowd didn’t mind waiting for international artistes. So I guess it’s alright. More than enough time for us to top up our beer supply and complete the cycle at the loo.



All in all managed to catch a few acts such as New Found Glory, Melee, Simple Plan, Lost Prophets and Travis. Although I don’t really listen to those bands, except for ol’ skool New Found Glory which they didn’t play… The atmosphere was pretty fun to be in. 2 Kegs of Beer, nice company and music. It was also interesting to note that Travis uses Orange amps. Plus 1 point for GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome).

The Great Finale!

E&E's article on Soundcraft's Vi4 at IGNITE! Music Festival 2008

HowlerAudio's Open Stomp

OpenStomp(TM)

I'm quite sure this has gotten the folks at Line6 a run for their money. They had a series of pedals with interchangeble modules on 1 single dock. From which you can actually save a bit on material cost.

Well...Check this out man! Just hook up the Coyote-1 to a PC via USB, and you can upload the effects you want. And the best part is, since it's open source programming, you can tweak this pedal to suit your setup, your preferred response, your playing style, your picking strength, etc, etc, etc, etc....

Now I can imagine having either Orangeamp-in-a-pedal or Moog-Fuzzgod-in-a-pedal... Damn, I can't stop dreaming...

SEARCH Live at TRCC 2008

Even after IGNITE! Music Festival 2008, I’m still rocking out at TRCC. Except that this time, I’m doing it the old skool way!


The legendary band from Malaysia, Search, is playing live, one night only, at TRCC Theatre. Can you believe that? Firstly, it’s SEARCH; the band which was rocking the region when I used to weigh lighter than a guitar. Secondly, it’s a metal concert here at Republic Polytechnic. It’s been donkey years when I last hope down to a poly to catch metal bands such as Stomping Ground and Ossuary.

AMUK

The best part of this gig is that I’m actually doing monitor engineering! Woohoo! I did made it clear from the start that I don’t mind helping out at the gig, and the gang can still run the show. But for some reasons, they rather I do monitors and I can take on the stress. Personally, I would prefer MooMoo to do it. Really! But my hands eventually landed on the monitor board. And I must say, it felt like an ice cold beer after a hockey game under the hot sun.

RAVEN

Had the honour to meet up with Yama, the FOH engineer for Search. Heard loads of good stuffs people say about him, but I didn’t have the chance to hear his work. The whole time I was just stuck backstage with the bands.

Search had 2 opening bands. One was Amuk, and the other Raven. And going with the feel of the production, I thought I had to knee and bow down to Search. Their setup consisted of 2 sets of musical instruments. The opening bands are not to touch Search’s setup at all. Fair enough coz this is Search’s gig. During setup, it was all about Search. They tuned Search’s drums properly, ensured that the amps are good and kicking. For the opening bands, nobody really care whether they sound check properly, or the equipments are at least working.


During Search’s sound check, one of their setup crew claimed that he’s the monitor engineer for Search. First thing I thought, ‘Great man! Like that I can lepak one corner!’ But I was quick to realise that I wasn’t that lucky. First reaction by Yama, the FOH engineer, was the classic ‘No….’ which I think it goes all the way into the sub-frequencies region. Hehe… Yama confirm with him again, ‘You doing monitors?’ Setup crew replied, ‘Yeah.’ Yama shot a low, ‘No….’ immediately. And this went on for 3 times.

Imagine yourself being stuck in between them with the ‘Yeahs’ and ‘Nos…’ bouncing off across courts. For one, my lepak time depends on this. Next, it was very interesting to see that Yama rather trust a stranger to do monitors for the legendary band, than the band’s setup crew themselves. Very interesting indeed.



During Search’s sound check, I showed the self-acclaimed monitor engineer what I have on the board, which is basically a Yamaha O2R. ‘Oh… This is just like M7CL huh…’ was his comment. OH MY SWEET CHOCOLATE HEAVEN! He has got no idea what he’s doing! In the end I had to do the monitors myself, with him claiming the effort. No way in hell I’m going to let that slip. So I had my fair share of fun. Since he’s the ‘monitor engineer’, I push all the EQs to him, I just push fader only. J It was always a laugh when he asked to cut 8kHz, and reached out, dug at 1kHz, at the wrong channel, simply coz I refused to be his ‘human-remote’ and just showed him where the knobs are.

After Search sound checked, the production crew all fly kite. Nobody left to coordinate the rest of the sound check. And to add toppings, one of the bass amp wasn’t to the opening band’s liking and one of the speaker cones weren’t working. They refused to go for alternatives or proceed with sound check. They stood firm and requested for a change in bass amp. And guess what, all this drama-rama happened just 15 minutes before house open. Just great.



Finally the replacement bass amp came, when house had already been opened for 45 minutes, and the gig was already late. The band finally found new drive to walk out on stage in their flippers to conduct their own sound check, right in front of a full audience! As everyone knows that Amuk will only perform with their masks on, the audience knew that the bands are not ready to start, even when it’s already over an hour past published start time.

As the clock ticked on, the organisers were nowhere to be found. When we finally found someone, who was only in charge of playing sponsors’ video, she had no clue either. And she revealed that the show emcees weren’t around either. Soon, the crowd got really rowdy from waiting.



Finally when we got to start, the stage was just roaring loudness from the very 1st minute to the last. The opening bands came and went. And I’m too lazy to continuing writing any further….

My fortress for stage monitors