Whoa-Mad-ness

I partied on the first day of this year's WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) at the greens of Fort Canning that has lately been hosting a nice slew of music acts - the park has been 'bursting with fruit flavor' you could say... We fleeted from Iran to South Africa to Brazil to Scotland to Niger and finally the UK. Too bad festival highlight Sheila Chandra from India couldn't make it at the last minute due to "some problems with her throat", but the show had to go on...and on and on it did...

Here're the acts that we caught:

• Ensemble Shanbehzadeh (Iran)
  
  

This father-son team was a crowd pleaser. They kicked off the party and worked up the growing crowd soon enough. With the father on the pipes and the son on the percussions, they exuded the kind of intimate chemistry of traditional music borne out of freestyling in the comforts of their own house. Thankfully for WOMAD, people in Singapore got a taste of Iranian family "jamming" - quite magical.

• Mahotella Queens (South Africa)

These ladies set the energy and decibels for the evening on the main stage. They were such a delight to watch! Imagine your grandmother in traditional garb singing her lungs out to some traditional African jazz/gospel/rhythm & blues and showing off some synchronized energetic dance moves to boot. These ladies have been around since the 60s and their comfort zone is the stage as they flirted with the band members and the audience. Their performance inspired all the old folks chilling on their mats in the grass to get up and shake their young-at-heart booties. Delightfully leaves a smile on your face.

• Shooglenifty (Scotland)

Watching them required a flat dry land where you could do the Irish-style riverdance tap moves - some good ol' banjo and violins to perk up your night. Some echoes of gruff drunken Scottish-accented merry men line-dancing in their kilts would've immediately transported you to a music festival right in the heart of Edinburgh.

• Clube de Balanco (Brazil)

Next up we immersed in the sounds of Rio! Their infectious blend of swing and samba rock got the best of us as we can't help but swayed to it singapore style, one could even be jolted into doing a capoeira while almost smelling some Cuscuz branco in the air. Até a vista Clube de Balanco!

• Etran Finatawa (Niger)

With traditional African nomadic instruments marrying the electric guitar, they brought the desert blues into a modern tropical city park. I wished there was sand underneath us instead of damp grass, and I wish there was lush persian carpet laying out some hookahs and mint tea - it would've completed the Etran Finatawa experience.

• Asian Dub Foundation (UK)

The highlight of the evening, or the entire WOMAD, some might say, they didn't disappoint. The sita-tabla ragga-jungle madness closed the night getting everyone in a frenzy of musical ecstacy. They dropped some new materials too from a recent "best of" compilation that had some new bonus tracks. Some music that changed the world to cap off a night of music from all over the world...

It was a blast, although my only complaint was there was so much to see and do and so little time! Besides the 4 or 5 different stages that had performances simultaneously going on, there were also dance, guitar, drumming workshops in between, plus some international cuisine to sample...tooo much! Which just means...I've gotta continue completing the experience next year. See yall then!

For more WOMAD highlights, check out womadsingapore.com

• Picture credits: Thanks to narny's camera!

tomorrow is our permanent address

B-quartet put up one of this year's Baybeats highlights early this month and there's more where that came from. Coming up with a new album in November called "tomorrow is our permanent address", they've released some sample tracks to whet our appetites. I invite you drool on...

B-Quartet - Stupid Luxury

B-Quartet - Personal Space

whoscoming to dot sg

Hola! The foreign invasion never stops, gear yourself up for September, whether you want some Welsh post-hardcore rock or American radio-friendly rock...get (your savings) ready for Funeral For A Friend and Daughtry.

Funeral For a Friend live @ the Glass Pavilion, Far East Square
8th September 2007
Ticket details here.

Daughtry Showcase on 20th September, details to be announced....

And for the folk rockers, you wouldn't believe who's coming to town early next year! Suzanne Vega yall! Yes! *punch fist in the air* Delightful indeed, my music calendar is finally becoming more colourful, there's definitely something to look forward to next year even though I haven't even bought the calendar to mark a cross to it yet but I like the fact that I can't even keep up with this. More!

Suzanne Vega live @ the Esplanade Concert Hall

19th January 2008

Tickets will be available from 3rd September

don't stop 'til you get enough

Spend the night with electronic music with this 14-hour non-stop event at Home Club this Saturday. Indulge and educate yourself with a feast of music showcases and sessions for audience.

Click here for more details..

minnie got riperton-ed

Minnie! look what they did your song!

Actually it's kinda catchy...

And behold the return of Mya. She's back but with not much bang, her album drops in September. We'll see then.

Sing me a festival!

I was in the thick of the 2-day music festival last week on our national day and boy did I have the time of my life...My only gripe is that I wish it would've had a better name than Singfest (someone thought I'd gone down to a sing-along singapore songs festival).

I'll just list down the top 5 acts over the 2 days that are worth mentioning in order of merit (according to me anyway)

1. Sugar Ray

Ok this comes abit from a biased point of view. I've been a Mark Mcgrath fan since Secondary School and have been amazed at how amazingly he has aged - like wine.

As he belted out songs that bring back so much nostalgia, singing along to them brought me back to my secondary school days, memorizing lines from "Every morning" to "Someday" and the inevitable "Fly". Plus the fact that Mark didn't look like he aged one bit made it all the more nostalgic as if I'd went back in time to ten years ago. Felt like time stopped when he stood right about 2 metres in front of me in all his tatoo-ed sweaty glory. *groupie giggles*

On top of belting out our favourite Sugar Ray stuffs, Mark was going crazzzzzyy that night and the audience lapped it all up. His lame and goofy dancing, his cheesy lip sync-ing to Guns n Roses and many other Mark Mcgrath antics that make the girls scream louder and the guys go "hell yeahh!", and he kept making sure we knew how much fun he was having...So did we Mark, so did we...

2. Cyndi Lauper

I could almost put Cyndi and Sugar Ray tied at the number 1 place but like I said Sugar Ray is a personally biased favourite of mine. Plus she kinda disappointed me by not singing "Time after Time" and disappointed Ted (a huge Cyndi fan) abit by not singing "Money Changes Everything".

However, she more than made up for it, she was in a league of her own. Making a grand entrance with a black long wig and a huge dame of a hat that would put Rihanna's Umbrella song to shame. And the energy kicked in from the first milisecond the music started and soon enough, she ripped off the hat and the wig, much to the crowd's delight. Then the party started.
Now I didn't grow up with Cyndi's songs but I do know some of her signature tunes, "True Colors" was echo-ed along with the audience, "I drove all night" was delivered with such panache, you could actually entertain the thought she was singing just for you.

At one time, Cyndi left the stage, went to the barricades and jumped up and down like a pre-pubescent teen with a lucky fan and then she walked to the middle of the field before making her way back to stage. As Teddy said, "Cyndi does what she wants, when she wants!" And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, she kicked it up a notch when Shaggy joined her onstage to accompany her on two songs, "Girls just wanna have fun" being one of them. Shaggy went crazy with her wig and hat and everyone on stage and off it, had fun...

She was an entertainer in between songs too. Asking the soundman to turn up her guitar 3-4 db, straight up, then cheekily asked "how much does it cost?" with her adorable (for lack of a better word) tweety bird voice. She even managed to crack a joke about her hair asking the audience "Do you know what color my hair is?" ...."It's called 'absence'" as she pointed to her short cropped blonde locks. LOL.

What can I say, for someone who made the anthem "Girls just wanna have fun" popular, she lived up to her own lyrics. Damn!

3) The Noisettes

I haven't been exposed to The Noisettes before but hell, they f*cking rocked the stage!

I love performers who go ape shit crazy on stage, uninhibited and exhibitionists, they are after all being paid to entertain to some critical and watchful eyes..

Lead singer of The Noisettes, Shingai Shoniwa put up a no holds barred performance. Another thing about watching an uninhibited perfomer is that their ease of making the stage comfortably and fully theirs, makes them so easy on the eyes.

Shingai pranced, hid behind the DJ console, climbed up the side railings, climbed up the drums and jumped off it, jumped down to the audience at the end of their set, did some farewell cartwheels, flirted with the audience ("can you stop looking so gorgeous for just 5 minutes?!) on top of rockin out some awesome rock and roll. The kind of raw rock and roll you don't know how to categorize except that it's definitely under "Awesome Shit".

4) Mxpx

I've never been a huge fan of punkrock music but now I see the appeal. Punkrock is best served Live. The kids went crazy, the crowd surfing was rampant, the moshing went full steam (but not as raucous as when Avenged Sevenfold took the stage, during which the metal group was asked by security to stop in the middle of their first song to tell the audience to move back since front row kids were being squashed and the barricade broke and all. hoho)

Highlights include "Responsibility" and the cover of The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I go".

Narny and I worked up a sweat doing the punkrock thing that you do when you watch a punkrock band live. And guess what, Narny spotted a yellow Mxpx pick on the ground which fell after ..Mike and Tom were exchanging guitars in mid air. If there's one band that knows how to do punkrock, it's Mxpx, they've been around for yearsss and their set was nothing less than...Awesome!!!

5) The Stranglers

Oldies but goodies, they rocked song after song after song non-stop, no bullshit bantering, just letting the music speak for themselves. R-e-s-p-e-c-t.

Other honorable mentions:

The Pet Shop Boys

Definitely the most colorful (and gay-est) of all. Back-up singers and dancers donned colourful costume after costume ranging from tight gold cowboy outfits, rainbow-coloured jerseys, torso-baring army uniforms and other quirky outfits with neon-lighted backdrop that also beamed some random videos on a big screen

I don't know if it's because it's electronic music or Neil Tennant but he seemed very distant and impersonal in his delivery, straight posture and penguin suits and hat, his eyes read "don't touch me love, I just got these dry-cleaned" - friendly but unapproachable.

But when they closed with "Go West", it's all goooood.

Singfest 2007

Day 1 line-up

Sasha Bach Band
Shaggy
The Stranglers
Cyndi Lauper
Sugar Ray
The Pet Shop Boys


Day 2 line-up

One Buck Short
The Great Spy Experiment
Crowned King
Cobra Starship
The Academy Is...
Gym Class Heroes
Avenged Sevenfold
Mxpx
Hinder

If you're a true blue music fan, I'm sure you had a hella lotta fun at Singfest too. Here's hoping for more to come next year. Hopefully they've got bigger or more niche names that're willing to stop by Singapore on their way to the Summer Sonic Fest in Japan.

More rock concerts please!

Photo Credits:

• Day 1 acts photographed by Narny (except for Pet Shop Boys and The Stranglers by Azira).


• Day 2 acts photographed by Fauzi.

To-go list

The calendar is meant for crosses to be made on important days....

sample first, buy later.

The Eisley album's out but if you wanna make sure it's really worth buying, listen to the entire album online first on their myspace website.

I am not fully awake to determine how good it is yet.

And yes...pics and words on the inaugural Singfest soon. Stay tuned.

soundtrack of an alternative singapore

And so the nation turns 42, and Marina Bay lighted up as bright as its projected future...

And I'm sure you've been hearing this year's theme song alot, its lyrics urging you to go see the world, but come back and bring back all those secrets you've learnt from overseas for the good of this blossoming small-in-size-but-big-in-ambition country...Will you?

But what if we left the songwriting of the National Day song to some other local musicians, instead of the usual Dick Lee, Jimmy Ye or Iskandar Ismail.....what if we got....The Pinholes instead, waxing lyrical for a song that would express what some of us really feel?

Hmmmmm........well I asked around some of these musicians, asked if they had the chance of writing a National Day song, what would it be like? And here're their answers...no holds barred!


The Pinholes
myspace.com/pinholes

Q1) If you/the band were given the opportunity to write a national day song, it would be called…
"Why London, why not Singapore?"

Q2) The song would sound like…
Just pop music I would say. Not Kit Chan/Dick Lee pop, thats total rich pop. It should be a cool pop song. Think of najip ali/the quests pop kind of song.

Q3) A line or two of the chorus would be…
"Here we are standing still on our own feet
and now that you know it wasn't that hard to open the door sooooooo
why london, why not singapore? "


Joe Ng
localbarkid.com

Q1) If you/the band were given the opportunity to write a national day song, it would be called…..
I take it that “the opportunity” referred to in your question means “government sanctioned/commissioned”. I’d be compelled to write if I feel inspired to of my own free will, and not do so because the government tells me to churn out “patriotism”, which will definitely be tailored to become campaign tunes. As a writer/artist, the compulsion, the urge, the need to express must come from within. Only then will the effort be sincere.

Q2) The song would sound like…
I have no idea. Probably Einsturzende Neubaten-Suicide-Napalm Death style.

Q3) A line or two of the chorus would be…
I’ve no idea but whatever it is, radio won’t play it.


Tiramisu
myspace.com/tiramisuism

Q1) If you/the band were given the opportunity to write a national day song, it would be called…
"Aren't we all Pretending to be Harmonious?"

Q2) The song would sound like…
Trash Metal with ethnic ambience and a slight ragga over dub.

Q3) A line or two of the chorus would be…
"Raise your flags and pretend to smile...
You think we live in peace, we are pissed and we need to wee wee badly...if we can wee wee...We are WE!!!"


Imran Ajmain
imranajmain.com

Q1) If you/the band were given the opportunity to write a national day song, it would be called…
"Don't Cry Out Loud" - a cover of Melissa Manchester's song.

Q2) The song would sound like…
Big ballad, strings and all.

Q3) A line or two of the chorus would be…
"Don't cry out loud
Just keep it inside, learn how to hide your feelings
Fly high and proud
And if you should fall, remember you almost had it all"

Eisley, nicely.

The beautiful team of brothers and sisters (and a cousin) of Eisley is back. The new album "Combinations" drops August 14th. If the music video is any indication of things to come....looks like it's gonna be darker and a little bit boring. Even the band themselves are singing "...something's not right..."

But let's not judge an album from the first single's music video...the way you don't judge a book by its cover, the way you don't judge music by the CD's album sleeve, etc etc..

It's gonna be a change for sure...and a change is always grrrreat.

the black boy in white skin

For someone who looks up to Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake is totally taking on his idol's most famous characteristic - being a black man in a white man's skin.

This is the new collabo between Justin, 50 Cent and Timbaland called "Ayo Technology (She wants it)". Typical Hip Hop music video fare, girls and more girls with skin and less clothes. Call the video racy, sexy, sleazy or even..porn-y, but the team-up's quite hot - Justin is the inseparable protege to Timbaland, both riding on each other's coattails for as long as they can keep luring in other big names that'll make their names bigger - Madonna next.

This girl goes to Ipanema...

I don't know what triggered my mood for some brazillian music. Maybe it was after hearing Bebel Gilberto croon "life could be so nice.." as I entered the mall full of colourful people who all look so contented, they could rightfully fit the mood for the music video of the song if I were to magically make a video camera appear in my hands and record their lingering smiles and potentially permanent perkiness...it seemed like the sparse crowd was floating in slow motion at half-speed.

So I impulsively indulged in some bossa nova...like ice cream, it felt so good. It's thursday night, the moon is full, the breeze is cool and for a few minutes I exhale in contentment and walk through the mall again in my mind...those smiles, so infectious...the feel-good calm, so delicious.

And listening to all this brazillian music is making me lust to travel to brazil one day...dance to some samba in Rio, one day..one day..

It's just a phase...I'm sure pretty soon I'll be craving for some electronica hip hop when I step into the sushi shop tomorrow or something...But bossa nova will definitely be something I will turn back to when I get old and realize my weary bones cannot do popping and locking anymore, I will be grooving dawdling the two-steps with my arthritic limbs and my aged husband (if he's not in a wheelchair already) will dance with me. (He'll just have to cheer by the sidelines if he's in a wheelchair)

Here are some tracks I've dipped myself into like strawberry into chocolate fondue...Irresistable. Enjoy...

Am I the only one who thinks that Lisa Hannigan should marry Damien Rice and make a choir full of their babies?

And did you know that Bossa Nova means New Wave in Portuguese? And Nouvelle Vague - that's New Wave in French. Ha! We learn new things (and songs) everyday...

Bossa Nova all started in Brazil in the late 50s. I'm not an expert at the genre so that's as far as a history I will give you about Brazilian music.

But if you wanna learn more about it...listen to this podcast: Gilles Peterson in Brasil: Bossa Nova.

And of course the roots of the Bossa Nova comes from the Samba and if you're curious about Samba, here's another insightful podcast. You know what they say,

"Those who don't know how to make samba, make food, those who don't know how to make food, play football."