Here’s to August 2005. Yeah. Tales with pictures. Obscene amounts of them.

4th August 2005

I headed to Hartamas Square for the first ever We Are One gig, held every Thursday. The grand openers were Soft Touch, who wasn’t soft or acoustic enough for what was presumed to be an acoustic set.

This picture was taken moments before all electricity in Hartamas Square was gone.

Soft Touch, I realized, was the missing half of a fully produced rock band – they were the falsetto, the organ, the light rhythm guitar in the background. Take three raw rockers to collaborate, and you have a full-sounding album.

An hour later, power was restored, and Broken Scar played his last gig before going on a month-long hiatus.

Flatline had some interesting effects added to their melodic rock mix – the guitar synth (far left) was one of them.

Quizzicals, an up and coming vocal harmony band, sounded good. They had good originals and very good stage presence, but for some reason, I lost a bit of respect when they decided to cover their mentor’s song to the dot (V.E. – Pop Ye Ye).

6th August 2005

I headed to UiTM to be a guest judge at the “At 19 Records & Xfresh presents Battle It Out“. I even wrote a review with my rants on emo bands. But hey, check out the 27 fret Samick electric guitar I was drooling over at Do Re Mi Music. Sure, you can’t really have any precision up there, and there’s only space for two pickups, but there’s a coil tap switch so you have more options.

I wandered around town aimlessly after that, landing in KLCC Convention Centre for the PIKOM PC Fair 2005. I bumped into Loco, who was emceeing at the Samsung booth.

“The Samsung booth? Damn, that’s the one with the most chicks!”
“Eh yeah! When I came in the morning, I was thinking they were like normal only, but I walked around, and thus concluded that yes, my Samsung booth had the most chicks.”

We then went to Avenue K (next to KLCC), and checked out the haze. He sat down outside Avenue K and lit a cigarette when a security guard came up to him. “No sitting here.” Uh, right… we were outside his turf, yo.

7th August 2005

Everybody recognizes and blogs about Friendster Cafe. What about the Zouk reflexology center nearby?

I went for the Spirit Of Independence gig. (Alright, you’ve seen enough pictures of these bands plus there will be nicer shots later in this entry.) Anyway, who played?

Y2K, Tempered Mental, Dragon Red, Az Samad (in Paul’s New Place for the very first time!), Cosmic Funk Express…

Okay so my excuse is that I forgot to bring extra extra batteries. My extras were already flat!

So anyway, there was Jasemaine Gan, Nao (the Chinese version of seminal rojak-core band LYME. DAMN CHUN!) Then came Soft Touch, Furniture and X-cited Screamers.

So yes, I did take some pictures; Nao is in top-left; X-cited Screamers top-right, and Soft Touch with a kickass bassist with ALL the energy and the lower rock vocals (the raw half I was talking about!), with Jack of 360DHR on guitar!

12th August 2005

See? I told you that there would be good pictures. Zack rips out a classical piece.

Alda elbows his bass.

That night at the Sunrise Mont Kiara Jazz Fest, it was Cosmic Funk Express and an outrageous(ly) bad Outrageous (better pub bands should be playing!)

18th August 2005

I went to the Lost Generation Space for the Not That Balai art exhibition.

Creepy indeed was the refurbished house atop Robson Heights, near Seputeh.

Creepy indeed was the art, too. Yes the computer on the right actually works.

From left, Photoshopped badly: Wolf of Spungy Funggy, Lissa, James of Fallen Leaves, and Izuan Shah of Auburn.

From left to right, top to bottom:

• Toilet signs
• Escape into the woods
• I was about to wash my hands with black toothbrushes
• An experiment in staring, a screening that got the audience riled
• The slope actually has tire stoppers!
• Not only were the inclines crazy, the turns were sharp and narrow

And to think, I was merely there to share the joy of the premiere of the Fallen Leaves – Drown With Me video that had Joy in it.

23rd August 2005

My siblings half-adopted my cousin’s birthday presents – two hamsters; one of which produced a chip out of thin air her stomach.

IMG_3780.JPG – hamster spits out thing and chews it. Also only still picture of it

Happy times. It was very hard to get a picture of them standing (without using camera flash)! Those were the good days before these females starting trying to kill each other. Apparently a male and female hamster will get along, and two males will get along too. Male (hamsters) for peace!

25th August 2005

I headed to the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) in Jalan Ipoh to catch Romi And Joolee Dan Lain-lain, a hilarious Malaysianized take on Shakespeare.

Sentul East – HOME.

I took a scenic 15-minute walk. A bush maze! Have you seen that in Malaysia?

A tractor that looks like something out of Smallville! Have you seen that in Malaysia?

A rusting old factory in the middle of nowhere! Have you seen that in Malaysia?

THE KLPac. It looks like a factory from a European country. Have you seen that in Malaysia?

A lake and some poles without flags on them! Have you seen that in Malaysia?

Okay this is just cool. I bet you’ve seen it before.

The lobby was easily four storeys tall!

Outside, I waited for the show to start.

How much is that doggy in the window?

I was disappointed when a source revealed that Malaysia didn’t actually have such a budget to build a magnificent building out of thin air. It was a recycled showhouse. Still, it was very cool architecture.

Oh right. What about the play? Gavin Yap played many roles excellently; the guys did an excellent rendition of The Beatles – Yesterday (with Rashid Salleh’s solo lines sung in a hilarious Malay voice.) I didn’t have to care about knowing Shakespeare references to laugh at their jokes; a very good thing indeed.

26th August 2005

A day of misfortune, indeed.

I met up Davina, to head to Hartamas, where a minor guilt drama ensued when her friend offered to pick us up from KL Sentral, but his vehicle broke down just as he left Hartamas!

We took a cab to Hartamas JamAsia for the Fretboard Menace gig, supposed to be featuring Deja Voodoo, Az Samad and Cosmic Funk Express. However, Deja Voodoo pulled out and was replaced by Alcentric, a metal band (left in picture). Elliot of Cosmic Funk Express couldn’t make it either and was replaced by Stephanie, an equally energetic and cute drummer. Manshaan of Dragon Red and Izwin also guest-starred-rocked with them.

The promised highlight was the G3-style guitar trio show. They improvised on Miles Davis – So What, and upon calls for encore, wowed the crowd with blues in the key of G.

I then wandered around, bumping into Iris with the saddest expression ever. She had just lost her 3G-capable Nokia 6680 phone!

30th August 2005

After meeting a friend I ended up in Hartamas Square for the Merdeka Eve celebration, with Frequency Cannon, Vespertine, some rappers, Dragon Red, Edge Of Fire, Estranged (with the vocalist on guitar) and then some, but the smell of spraycans was getting to my head and so I left.

2nd September 2005

Guess where these rapids are.

Malaysia’s longest Lego millipede at Ikano.

It had a tail that extended outside. Technically, since there was no record before this, anyone could have made a 10-meter long Lego millipede and called the Malaysian Book Of Records. So that’s the trick!

A tired Lego builder looks upon a long roti tisu.

We left it at this. You’d need maybe 4 hungry people (and lots of drinks) to finish this condensed-milk-laden treat. I stopped because my kidneys started hurting. Serious!

Maybe I should call the Malaysian Book Of Records, to be the first to declare that my site will take over 1MB to download, from all these pictures. Yeah.