No Black Tie Music Countdown 2008, 29th December 2008.

With Reza Salleh the soulful…

Paolo Delfino Gomez the humorous…

+1 entertainment points to you dude for telling stories between songs!

And Rendra Zawawi the theatrical, featuring a trimmed down lineup consisting only of his brother.

Being a singer-songwriter’s round, the stage was set for all three of them, taking turns to sing songs in a round-robin fashion.

Next trio – Shanon Shah, singing songs from the soundtrack of Karaoke!

Well I’d be happy with the Bananarama song or that geeky engineer song but what the heck. 😀

Az Samad the amazing wood-knocking fingerstyle guitarist!

And, of course, this excellent, excellent, excellent Jerome Kugan.

A benefit of being in a singer-songwriter’s round is that your round mates often chip in with guitar solos and vocal harmonies. Such moments are magical.

Christmas season was not over. Baubles!

Next up – Peter Hassan Brown! He is often the angsty, opinionated folk singer. Some may not find his stuff with his band Soft Touch addictive, but when he sings one of his new songs with a load of gust and opinion, everybody sits up and takes notice. Who else could sing “because singer-songwriters are playing for free” and get away with it?

Only one of the respected otai (old-timers) in the scene.

It’s a real pity though, when I hear such biting lyrics, I never get to hear the same song again. I still remember when he sang a random freestyle rap with guitar. He was fired up! That performance stuck in my head.

Markiza, his wife, took a back seat as she was sick.

Then came Zalila Lee, hitting it up with some funk-blues mix. Rare it is to see her without her hat (which makes it a lot easier to photograph her eyes!)

Sharidir and Nizam P playing the blues like we were in a real juke joint and not the classy No Black Tie. I had been looking forward to seeing him since hearing his tune, Sighyoung, from the Voices From Next Door album. Of course, he went by the name Sherry back then.

Zalila, as always, pulled out a shaker out of nowhere to accompany.

When else can you sit on your instrument?

Zalila called Az up again for more accompaniment. Note his awesome Soloette (which almost looks like Az is playing it upside-down, seeing where the headstock is, but I bet Az could play a guitar any way he wanted to anyway.)

Ohai Cindy! Shot at 135mm F1.8 1/2s ISO3200 – good job standing still for half a second!

So what’s with the increase in image dimensions? It’s my New Year’s Resolution!

I wanted to celebrate the first gig I’d post with the Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA. I sat at a table near the base of the staircase. That’s how far I was from the stage! I like the new perspective and angle it gives as opposed to using my Minolta 50mm F1.4 and cramping my knees crouched in front of the stage while getting shots from their chin.

Oh, and of course, I cannot get any more excited about how crazy sharp this lens is. Peter Hassan Brown never looked so grand! Add to the fact that the increased distance increases depth of field and I get more depth of field on the subject. It’s contrasty wide open (I can’t say the same about the 50mm F1.4.)

Meanwhile, the 50mm F1.4 captures crowd ambience well. The lower contrast and small diminutive size makes it a great crowd-grabber.