The Simpsons by Zack Kim
This is exactly the kind of stuff that makes me wish I played the harmonica instead.
Zack Kim is way beyond crazy.
Tempered Mental album launch
We’ll be heading down to Laundry tonite to watch our favourite local band launch their spankin’ new “A View From Here” album. Heard some of the tracks when we were recording at Greg’s awhile back and they sound awesome. I’m definitely getting a copy. And you should as well!
Fete de la Musique
We also played at this year’s Fete on June 17th. The event was held at two locations, Bangsar and Alliance Francaise, Jalan Semarak. Our slot was at Alliance Francaise, in the afternoon. The event at Alliance Francaise was divided into 4 stages scattered all over the place, so that people can walk around and check out an eclectic selection of music, both French & Malaysian. We managed to catch up with a couple of guys who have performed with us previously - Flow (a reggae-funk band who played a gig at Little Havana yesterday, but we had to skip it unfortunately), Y2K, Peter Brown, Azmyl and Sei Hon. Nothing much to report about coz it all happened in a daze and there were no photographs to show.
Oh yeah, except for a notice to one of the groups that played in the afternoon. They played indoors and had a didgeridoo and a whole bunch of percussions. I thought that band was awesome but could not catch the whole show coz they played the same time we did. We really would like to know who they are.
We also managed to get some positive comments from Rex, a radio DJ from XFresh FM, who happened to be at our set. Oh yeah, Bala mentioned the other day that Rollercoaster’s now playing on XFresh FM. 
WPFD & Troubaganger’s - The Aftermath
This was a day when for some reason, everybody in the band were not in the best of shape. Sore throat, bad case of the flu, lack of sleep and stuff. I don’t know about the rest but I was popping Panadols like freakin’ M&Ms the whole day. Anyway, we managed to soldier on and put up decent performances in the afternoon & at night.
The World Press Freedom Day gig in the afternoon went pretty well. We were kinda worried about not getting a crowd, due to the fact that we were opening the day’s gig and were scheduled to start at 12 pm. But I have to say the crowd was actually bigger than we had expected. So I guess we started the gig on the right footing. Gig organizer, Hasbee did a great job in roping bands that played an eclectic set of tunes. Managed to stay on to watch Flow, with their reggae-like, funky as hell music. Makes you wish you were chilling on the beaches of Redang/Perhentian! Broken Scar was up next. Bought his CD a couple of weeks ago, and I must say he sounds just as good singing live. Played a great set which sent the crowd roaring when he played the intro to “Eye of the Tiger” Hahaha……rawk kapak rules!! Hasbee’s got a write up on the event here. (will post the link for day 2 once its up) Anyway, we’d like to extend a very special thanks to Hasbee and Sonia who organized the show and got us on board.
Headed back around 2 pm to catch some snoozes and gather our energy up for the La Bodega gig. The show which co-incided with Troubadours & Doppelgangers birthday celebration was a total blast. The whole place was packed to the brim and the crowd was extremely supportive towards all the acts of the night. There were a couple of open mic poetry recitals as well as performance from Malokai Gruv (Azwan’s band), before we took to stage. Played a short set - Same Way, Out of Body, Lazy Sunday, which I think went well with the crowd. Big shout out to Jasmine who organized & mc-ed the event. Happy Birthday Troubagangers!!
15 hours, 6 beers, 4 Panadols, 2 shows and 1 beef noodles later, I crashed into bed (again, bad idea to say “we”) thinking, damn….I could just keep on doing this! Pictures to be available soon.
Malay Mail interviews Butterfingers’ front-man
As a closure to the “Below the Radar” column in the Malay Mail, journalist Adly Syairi Ramli saw it fitting to interview a major icon in the Malaysian modern rock scene, Emmett from Butterfingers. Read about the interview here. The band has been lauded by many as well as dissed by certain others but one cannot dispute the influence or impact this band has made, being the first “underground” band to sign for a major label, along with numerous other firsts. And if there’s one person able to give insights from both sides of the fence, it’s Emmett who’s made that transition.
One interesting point he made was how a lot of bands misconstrue the “underground” concept. “The underground scene for example is riding a high horse of rules and codes of ethics governing what they wear, what is cool, who is cool, what is real, what is fake.“ What some of them lack is the understanding that underground is just a phase that bands go through before moving on to mainstream. It is not a destination or a permanent state of being and bands that think otherwise are just creating excuses to stay within their comfort zone.
Nevertheless, I’m beginning to see a lotta bands that are kinda breaking the mold and looking at the big picture of things (one of them being Superbar lah….hehehe). We’d definitely welcome thoughts and shout-outs from bands that feel the same way i do, or not.
Quiksilver Revelation Tour 2006 at Sunway Lagoon
Last Saturday, we (Bala, Dinesh and me) decided to check out the event; which featured a lotta skate and surf action and a pretty good line up of Malaysian bands, courtesy of Quiksilver apparel and Maxis-Hotlink. I gotta say that the main band act for the day was kinda shocking. You only hafta look at the total lineup to realise how out of place the main act was….Pop Shuvit, Lied, Seven Collar T Shirt, Love Me Butch etc and ……..Click Five!!! I think you get the picture.
Anyway, we got there in time to check out Pop Shuvit open the evening set. And since there’ll probably be a lotta people raving about Pop Shuvit, which gave an excellent show that got the crowd all riled up, I’ll just leave it at that. Instead, our attention was more focused on the band that played right after - Lied.
Now this is a band that is starting to make waves (pun intended) within the scene, with an excellent line up; Adlin (played in tons of bands previously), Sen Kiat (Superbar), Matthew (Insulyna), Adam (Dragon Red) and Ajuon (ex-Superbar). And on Saturday, they belted tunes reminiscent of A Perfect Circle (Adlin kinda sounds like Maynard James Keenan, come to think of it!) to a responsive crowd who were pretty enthusiastic when they started throwing out copies of their CD. Or is it just a Malaysian thing to get excited about freebies? Well, they’d better pop the CD into their CD players and give it a listen.
Supporting the local indie scene
Came across an interesting posting on the Malaysian independent music scene here. It talks about how the often-used slogan “support your local music scene” may actually be detrimental to the scene in the long run. I believe it’s a timely rallying call for bands here to focus efforts things that matter (music that doesn’t suck, technique, professionalism, market savviness etc) rather than continuously lamenting about Mawi and American Idol hogging all the limelight and the listeners’ dollars
Nitrus at Dataran Merdeka
Related to my earlier post on our gig at Dataran Merdeka…
Here’s Nitrus playing their set. I think these guys have really good songs, and I heard that their lead vocalist, Zul quit after they made their album. Man that is tragic… used to play with Zul in a band, and that guy can really sing. I was there with Justin (MusicCanteen) and Suren and I was impressed by their sound and stage presence.
Also, they got the better pictures Look at this one below… too bad we were playing in daylight?
Lied
Just wanted to post something here about a band that’s starting to make waves. For those of you who have watched 8TV’s Homegrown last week, the band’s called Lied and their sound is reminiscent to that of Tool and A Perfect Circle, with some influences from the spacey sounds of Depeche Mode (at least that’s what I think lah!)
Anyway, you may ask, why is this so important? Well, that’s because the band comprises of none other that Superbar’s very own rhythm guitarist, Sen Kiat & drummer, Ajuon! Besides Homegrown, they recently performed an acoustic set on Xfresh.fm and most recently there’s a write up on them in The Star.
A sign of better things to come for Superbar as well? Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Btw, the Starbucks Music Series, in which we’re playing in starts next week. Be there by the bus loads!!
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About
Superbar is a pop rock/power pop band based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Fronted by sometime singer-songwriter Chak with lead guitarist Bala, eclectic rockers Superbar came together in 2004. Read More >> -
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