keep watch for the mines

Dashboard Confessional
The Shade of Poison Trees


Standout tracks:

6. The Shade of Poison Trees (if you're expecting a soul-baring song from the album)
7. Rush (it sounds like the relief of finally letting out a difficult secret)
8. Little bombs (sounds like "screaming infidelities" part 2)



New confessions for your dashboard, Chris Carrabba returns with "The Shade of Poison Trees", out in stores Oct 2nd.

It's kind of a "surprise attack" by Carrabba and gang, there weren't any news of any new album coming out until last month. It was written in just 10 days and recorded in 3 weeks with producer Don Gilmore, the same guy behind "dusk and summer". (So he's saying he wants to go back to being indie by being sneaky)...love it.

While the album cover looks like a dedication to snow white, it sounds like an acoustic mary poppins soundtrack - a little too cheery for the emo man/band. But the lyrics still remain true to its roots...I suppose.

I'll keep your secrets 'til the grave has swallowed me / And I will never tell a tortured soul there burning by my side / That I am a sinner / I am a savior / I am a lie

And suckers for acoustics, good news, the band's back to their old acoustic ways here. Yeeeehawww. Back to the whiney ways that we loved.

Get a sneak preview of the entire album here.

Read about why Carrabba kept this album secret here.

FFAF gets 4 out 5 wiggling toes!

photo by iskandar

I wasn't there for the gig but I've got a first-hand account of the chaos that went down at the Far East Square Pavillion on September 8th, thanks to Mr Fauzi, a huge Funeral For A Friend fan. It was madness and goosebumps he said......

Funeral For A Friend
Live in Singapore
Glass Pavilion – Far East Square
8:00PM, 8th September 2007

by Fauzi

I’d been looking forward to this gig ever since it was first made known on the band’s MySpace account 3-4 mths ago, but I almost didn’t. $$$$. Lack of funds.

But I did go eventually. And even if my wallet was $75 lighter, it was worth it.

Arrived at the Glass Pavilion at around 8pm. Missed out on the opening bands Caracal, A Vacant Affair and Astro Ninja. Heard they started performing since 5pm. Ah well, there’s always next time to watch those bands.

Daniel Ong and some other dude warmed things up with a contest,” Air Guitar Competition”, I think. 2 dudes were competing against each other, ripping it up on stage when the music played and doing their best “rocking with an air guitar” impersonations. In the end, the crowd pleaser won, by actually throwing himself into the crowd and bodysurfing for a while.

The crowd was getting impatient and chants of “Funeral, Funeral” were heard. FFAF probably heard the chants and came out on stage within minutes. FFAF were finally in Singapore!

They started off with Into Oblivion, their hit from the new album. The crowd went crazy and started moshing. They immediately went into All The Rage, from Hours, following that. It was rad and most in the crowd sang along. The whole set was a mix of the old and the new; however, the old songs got the fans singing along and moshing. If I remember correctly, they only played about 4-5 songs from Tales Don’t Tell Themselves and the rest were from their previous albums, which was a good thing in my opinion.

The crowd was lapping it up. I was singing along to all the songs I knew off Hours and Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation. Darran (vocalist) and Gareth (bassist) were orchestrating the crowd. Whatever they asked the crowd to do, the crowd followed like puppets. Midway through their set, they declared that the singing crowd was the loudest they’ve heard in all their gigs. I kinda doubt that statement as most bands would say that in all their gigs. But well, I give them the benefit of the doubt. The band as a whole were tight, their only booboo came during the intro of Bullet Theory, in which Ryan (drummer) came into the song too early in the intro. Darran and Gareth looked back at Ryan, looking puzzled, but they continued on, professionally. In fact, I don’t think many people noticed the booboo.

They were all over the stage, going from one end to the other. FFAF were playing all their well known hits among fans, for eg: History, Roses For The Dead, She Drove Me To Daytime Television. FFAF walked off the stage after playing The Sweetest Wave, another song off their new album. Of course, the crowd hadn’t got enough of them and kept on chanting ‘Funeral, Funeral’. And soon enough, the band went back onstage for an encore. They played Streetcar to rapturous applause and singing. I had the goosebumps the moment they started the song. They finally closed everything fittingly with one of their best-loved songs, Escape Artists Never Die. The crowd went nuts and you could feel their energy around you. Darran threw himself into the crowd towards the end of the song, which was great to see. That was it, one and a half hours of great music and showmanship. It was surreal. I still couldn’t believe I had just watched FFAF. I hadn’t expected them to come down to Singapore ever.

Towards the end of their set, Darran declared that they would definitely be coming back to Singapore; he promised. I’m definitely there when they come down again.

You have to be there too.

Rating:
4 / 5 wiggling toes

flowers for the show's riot

The Great Spy Experiment
Flower Show Riots


Standout tracks:

3. Late Night Request (a very hot slow-burner)
4. Class A love affair (a long-time favourite with fans alike)


The much anticipated debut album from the local rock outfit, The Great Spy Experiment is finally here.

Personally for me, the songs sing themselves like sepia-toned photographs that give me the warm and fuzzies of a familiar yet out of this world kind of nostalgia. Can't seem to put a finger to it, except I enjoyed this in its entirety while driving from one end of singapore to the other as the usual steaming summer scenery danced me a diorama, reassuring me that singapore is not that bad a place la.

Now most GSE fans have already gotten their sneak preview from the band's live gigs, from times before talk of an album even came about. So finally having the band packed into a well-produced digital donut to bring home and play at command, could only bring out alot of three cheers.

And much kudos too for the well-produced album, savvy sleeve design, catchy hooks, melodic riffs and all the recipe needed for a suave debut.

Sure the band's got its fair share of detractors, in this ever-expanding critical world of musical categorization, some complain they're just another radio-friendly rockstars.

But I guess it beats being lost in the definitions of math rock, twee pop, slowcore, space rock and whatnots (the band simply consider themselves powerpop/indie/rock)

In a world where people, plants and animals truly appreciate music as it is, I'd dare say The Great Spy Experiment is one damn fine band, who play tight live sets. On top of representing the country in the SXSW festival, and bringing music borne from this little red dot to music appreciators a thousand miles from here, here's hoping they'll take the local music scene one standing-broad-jump-step further.

Electrico put local music on the radio, can Great Spy bring it to...Ohio?

And to quote dave tan of electrico, "hopefully in future, the public won't think that local musicians are just some uneducated bums hitting the drums.."

Music Plague catches up with the spies as we talk about the subliminals behind their songs, siti, world domination and...hmmm...marriage?



MP interviews The Great Spy Experiment



MP: What's the story behind the phrase "The Flower Show Riots"?

Saiful: "Flower Show Riots" is the title of one of the songs on the album. Set in the brilliant horticultural spectacle that is the Chelsea Flower Show, where the rich and the poor share the same time and space and yet remain distinctly separate in every way, the song speaks the universal language of a widening social and income divide. It's just one of the many social issues that I feel strongly about.


MP: Which track in the album is the most special to you guys?

Saiful: For me, it's a toss-up between "Late Night Request" and "A Kind of Love" simply because they're based on very personal experiences.
Fandy: Late Night Request. Cos I hardly get to play the bossa beat.And I just love to play that beat. So Late Night Request for me. Don't you think the bossa beat and rhythm is just sexy???!?!
Magdelene: 'The Great Decay'. It was one of our producers, the late Wayne 'Thunder' Seah's favourite song. I can still remember vividly him saying that he had the song stuck in his head for days and that he was constantly playing that song when we were in the recording studio with him. Another reason is that Khai created a music video with photos and video footage of our SXSW experience with this song.Whenever I listen to 'The Great Decay', I think of our US road trips and Wayne 'Thunder'.


MP: What or who was the inspiration behind the song "Siti in the City" and who's "Miss Kensington"?

Saiful: "Siti in the City" paints the portrait of the stereotypical Malay teenage mother, totally unprepared for the responsibilities of adulthood, let alone, raising a child. It's something that is painfully prevalent in our society at the moment and it's something that, again, I happen to feel strongly about. "Miss Kensington" talks about the typical male love-lust confusion, and how some guys would say just about anything to get in a girl's knickers.


MP: What would you say to detractors who say that GSE is merely a singaporean imitation of "The Killers" or "Franz Ferdinand"?

Saiful: I think if they listened to the album as a whole, they'd realise that these bands are just a couple of our many varied influences. Funnily enough, when we went to the States, no one mentioned those bands and were comparing us instead to a whole bunch of other bands, some we've never even heard of. The fact is every band sounds like some other band. But we're no tribute band, that's for sure.
Fandy: I dunno what I'd say. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion I guess. Maybe I'll say thanks, dance and walk off.


MP: You guys have played gigs before the album dropped and already whetted the appetites of fans looking forward to your album, how important was doing gigs for the sake of the coming album's success?

Saiful: Reording an album takes a lot of time, effort and money."Flower Show Riots" took all of ten months and close to $50,000 to make. Gigs allowed us to reach out to people, to let them know what we're about even before they could buy our records. In 2006 alone, we played almost 50 gigs. No one would have heard of us if we hadn't played all those gigs.
Fandy: It's extremely important. Why? I'll tell you why. Because you need to create a presence for yourselves. You need to reach out to anew audience every once in a while, make friends with new people and create a buzz.


MP: How well do you think "The Flower Show Riots" will be received here among the general public?

Fandy: I can't answer that but I will tell you this. We've put a lot into the album. Really a lot. In fact, it was our all. So, to the public, I say this, the album is the result of years of hard work,blood, sweat and tears. I hope you can hear that in our music and appreciate it as much as we appreciate your views, criticisms, support and love.
Magdelene: I agree. And all that, I believe, is evident in each of the 11 tracks on the album.


MP: Any intentions to widen the exposure of the band beyond these shores, seeing as you've already performed in the US for the SXSW Festival?

Saiful: Most definitely. We're looking at overseas distribution and perhaps doing some tours abroad.
Fandy: Uh huh. Agreed. We've got world-domination plans in our gig bags.


MP: If you could collaborate with any artiste, who would it be? and why?

Saiful: Jimmy Ye! Hahaha.. Local musicians. Or Timbaland.
Fandy: JT. I wanna rap.


MP: What's next for GSE?

Saiful: The same old - gigs, gigs and more gigs.
Fandy: Marriage plus more gigs.


http://myspace.com/thegreatspyexperiment

friendly funeral

I heard it was a riot at the Far East Square Pavilion when Funeral For A Friend rocked the stage.

Frontman, Matt was actually unwell when I had the chance to meet the band the day before the gig. Nice, articulate chaps, FFAF - an interviewer's dream. Matt and Gareth are not related but I'm sure you'd know that already.

Some peek-tures of the gig if you missed it. (not that this will completely replace the experience of being there itself...but here at Music Plague, your wish is our dish.)

I heard the crowd didn't really warm up to songs from their latest album....but were singing along to the rest of the set. It's either you can't please everyone or you can't have everything that will please. Let's yam seng to these nice emo (or however they want to be categorized) rockers...

• Photo Credit: Thanks to Iskandar
  

off the wall / fly on the wall

The 2007 Video Music Awards was hyped to be Britney's Comeback....it tanked into a "Britney, go home". Kanye as usual has to up the antics of not winning by being noisy over not having rights over the main stage, Justin Timberlake (my boy!) dominates (duh), MJ lives on, Tommy Lee and Kidrock fight. over a pair of silicones? and that irritating Rihanna song has brainwashed you over.

Supposedly, this was the best performance of the night... in a world where musical performance quality has evolutionized into mainly dancing theatrics.....

Getting props from Justin Timberlake himself, who claimed watching Chris Brown hippety-hopping on the stage made him feel old. He gets props from me for all that dancing but I will always have a problem with artistes who lip syncs. Milli Vanilli was not cool. C'mon man, if 'N Sync could do it, why can't you?!

And then the weight of heavy expectations was trampling heavy on what looked like a half-hearted "looking lost on stage" performance by Britney (yes we think we know her so well, we're always on a first-name basis with the singer).....Let's just accept the fact that her glory days are over, let's leave the poor girl alone for a long sabbatical, god knows she needs it - 'specially after THIS performance.

Poor thing.

Check out 50 Cent's "wtf?" reaction at 2:56. HAHA. Says it all.

But of course, Britney's biggest mistake of leaving behind Justin, current IT boy will probably hurt more than her performance that night. Kanye, can you beat this?

Although one thing, it's cool if you're in the audience and you get to go "YEAH" but when you're watching at home, it's just "shut up already."

.....And....is rock n' roll dead?

what they've done

The sugar in "sweet sorrow" is when they come back again after parting from here.

Linkin Park, who rocked The Padang when they brought their rock-godliness 3 years ago (whoa, felt like yesterday) will be amping up The Indoor Stadium on November 13th.

Woopee! Mike must lurrrrrve Singapore. It's his 3rd time here.

Tix available from tomorrow at Sistic.