Finally got to see his red Solo Bomb pedal in action!
He was also selling his solo album, Bunnies At The Carnival, which sounds just like its title. Awesome instrumental stuff with some songs where he sings as well. The disc even includes some backing tracks for guitarists to shred along to! Needless to say, I got myself a copy.
Another returning band: Car Crash Hearts!
Completely new lineup…
…besides Collin the frontman.
Ryan the everywhere stickman.
Darren Teh, organizer, emcee, and guitarist! This is the handsome, handsome Dean Z Straight-Six. Neckthrough body and the handsomest shape ever. The Dean Dave Mustaine Zero series also uses this shape, with the same headstock.
A surprise guest vocalist! Eve Oh, who I’d not seen in ages!
Collin sings along.
She’s all biker chick now.
She used to be in An Honest Mistake with Darren, playing guitar and singing.
Diandra Arjunaidi!
Cool sax.
Cool shades.
Cool eyes.
Cool guitar, on Infiltrate.
I remember this band, when it was called Infiltrated, from the days at Paul’s Place. They bring me back to the days of the sounds of Deftones.
He remembers me too!
Sara G, on guest screams.
Natalie on bass.
I like how metally menacing he looks.
The crew.
Beautiful Schecter Diamond Series Hellraiser guitar.
I’m not sure, but I think this was Jonathan How & Friends.
Pisco Bar’s lighting necessitates the Sony Alpha 7S and Mitakon/ZhongYi Speedmaster 50mm F0.95 Dark Knight Pro Edition to be employed to freeze motion.
Hilarious emcee.
First featured act, Talitha Tan!
This would be the first time I’d see her in this format, just her on guitar and John on cajon.
Just the two of them.
Talitongue!
Group shot.
Second featured act of the night, Crinkle Cut! Loved their Daft Punk – Something About Us cover.
Ashley/Ashleg…
…who has a unique style of cajon playing.
Grace the cutest sepet keyboardist.
Frances the spacey vocalist.
Melissa Sasa. Not sure if I missed out a sa or two.
Gregory, getting into their acoustic funk jazz groove!
He joins to drop a freestyle rap. He’s superb at this!
Triblues, awesome instrumental rock!
Gregory Ramanado taught the bassist his version of Oasis – Wonderwall, who then really got into the groove.
Tan Jei Shian, a mean acoustic fingerstyle player.
I woke up late and missed the I Want To Touch A Dog event on the 19th of October 2014 at Central Park, Bandar Utama. However, seeing all their pictures and testimonies inspired me, a non-Muslim, to touch a dog!
I grew up at my grandparents’ house, where my aunt had a dog. She, the dog, was always chained to the fence, and would always bark at me. While I wasn’t exactly afraid of her, I wasn’t in the habit of touching her – she was always in that “dog zone” and was not allowed to go indoors to the “human zone”. At most that would just mean that I would not walk a straight path to enter the house as I avoided her while she barked at me as if I was an unfriendly stranger (which I won’t deny, because I was an unfriendly stranger to her.)
The second dog my aunt had, had a case of ticks, so I was much more avoiding of her. We’d spot ticks on the porch, alert my mom, who would scoop it up in a used envelope and burn it.
Whenever I went to my friends’ houses, they would usually sense I wasn’t friendly with dogs, so they’d lock them up first.
However, after seeing all these posts, I had a change of heart. I took the oppurtunity to test this when I went to a house and was greeted by a dog who leapt onto me, who was super curious as to who this new human with a new smell was. It was as if I was a crumbly, messy cookie eater. I tried to tell her that I didn’t have any drugs on me. I was even hesistant to take off my socks in case she would eat them (so I tucked my socks deep in my shoes…)
I should not have had to worry about her eating my socks, because she proceeded to continue trying to glomp me as I went in. She was a very licky dog and while I’d pet her, I also tried to keep her from licking my face. That was something that was beyond my comfort zone at that time. She didn’t, and I didn’t have to tell her off.
After quite a while I took out my camera and she suddenly became very afraid of me. She cowered in fear of this shiny glass eye. So this picture is not any indication how happy she was to touch a human!
I think Melinya took this picture. Ashwin, drumming for…
…the high-octane blues rock of The Maha Jeffrey Band!
Hameer Zawawi, emcee.
Middle Sons.
The Meow Meows.
With Crystal, the smug artist!
First time seeing her sing since bumping into her at gigs.
First time seeing Rames at a gig. First time I’d shoot something like this with the Sony Alpha 7S and Mitakon/ZhongYi Speedmaster 50mm F0.95 Dark Knight Pro Edition.
Reza Salleh, organizer, to introduce the next band…
First featured act, Black Lightbulb!
They play instrumental progressive rock…
…but this time they featured Hameer Zawawi.
Shreddicus.
Sid Murshid.
Second featured act, Cassandra Mary!
Leanna Red Panda, who was joined by Riyal.
Amoura.
Catchy red bass!
Mikhail.
Nazrin, who covered Bo Amir Iqram – Lagu!
Girish. Melinya took this picture…
…as well as this picture of Gabriel Lynch…
…and this, too. Amazing how he sounds produced even when playing live, with what seemed to be a very well-controlled volume fader.
Tammy Jayne, who is all about that bass.
Joshua, shot by Melinya.
Also featuring Riyal! I could get used to this, having other people take pictures.
Joshua is from Son Of A Policeman (not Queen as some may mistake him to be.) By this time I’d already trusted that she’d cover the shots.
Jenn is from So I’m Jenn, and Kiss Kill Mary. Picture is from myself. I think the difference in style is quite apparent!
This time, she was in her alter-ego, in pink, and not red.
16th September 2014: Moonshine Ninth Anniversary Malaysia Day Special, at Laundry Bar, The Curve! Here’s the persistent, consistent gig organizer, Reza Salleh, who has been doing this for 9 years now, from its humble beginnings as an acoustic show at No Black Tie, to many electric years in Laundry Bar (including an open mic session after, in the early iterations), and a short stint at The Bee, Publika, and returning to Laundry Bar.
Just for listmania, here are the first 10 Moonshine gigs ever:
The first leg of this Malaysia Day Special was outdoors, and Hameer Zawawi was on. Everyone was to do covers of Malaysian bands. Quite surprised he didn’t do Tempered Mental – Automata, in fact!
Zalila Lee on djembe.
Cassandra Mary, one of the grungier!
Saturday Afternoon.
Seriously digging Melissa’s tattoo!
They also did a cover of Estranged – Itu Kamu, as well as Disagree – Crumbs, cutting into Malaysian Artistes For Unity – Here In My Home.
I brought the Sony 16mm F2.8 E-mount pancake lens, modified for full-frame, for my Sony Alpha 7S, resulting in this funky image.
Next up: The acoustic goodness of Crinkle Cut.
Such heartbreaker eyes!
Ashley interestingly sports a cajon that is different than the run-of-the-mill standard-issue one. Ask her about it!
If you haven’t noticed, there’s a color theme going on…
Malaysia Day, and they were dressed in colors of the Malayan (and then) Malaysian flag!
This may be a breathing exercise. Probably helps with singing.
The second leg of the show was indoors, back in the usual stage…
…with the multi-part harmony of The Vochale Project!
I then bumped into Land Slyde of Poetic Ammo, who had with him, Dave Childs, who was their lead guitarist!
The other Poetic Ammo member I bump into all the time, C. Loco, was also there!
Amir Jahari.
Kyoto Protocol!
They did a cover of Butterfingers – The Chemistry (Between Us) and admitted to just reusing their Malaysian covers from Versus, a battle-of-the-bands contest. Still, solid stuff!
Frenchman singing in Malay.
Elizabeth Tan!
Her trusty guitarist John.
She’d been doing Malaysian covers for quite some time – so it was a natural fit for the theme for this Moonshine.
Here, she covered Darren Ashley – On My Toes! I was floored to hear anybody cover Darren Ashley’s older stuff, before he became the electronica cat he is today. She also did Estrella – Stay.
Meanwhile, outside… note the photobomber in the middle.
Jin Hackman!
This rap genius is at work!
His rockin’ band.
A Kevin Theng I didn’t recognize at first, looking a bit Keanu Reeves-ish here.
The decks.
He brought on Nadhira…
…as well as C. Loco…
To bring so many Malaysian hip hop classics!
They burst out Poetic Ammo – Who Be The Playa and Poetic Ammo – Everything Changes. This was in fact, my first time seeing a Poetic Ammo song getting covered, and my first time seeing a Poetic Ammo member performing a Poetic Ammo song.
There was also Too Phat, Teh Tarik Crew and Urban XChange! Almost forgot about Urban XChange.
I don’t wander much into the local hip-hop scene, sadly.
The ethereal Ali Aiman. He covered Najwa…
…who performed right after. Probably the only cover of another artiste also playing the same evening.
Najwa did a cover of Mia Palencia – Sayang…
…who Fook also plays for.
So there’s guitar, bass, and keyboard. I don’t think I’ve seen him play drums.
That’s what the amazing John Ashley Thomas is for.
Nish. Wait, more keyboards? Yeah, Najwa is going darker (and she plays awesome solo piano and sings herself!)
So this place reopened, for whatever strange reason, with a renovation that I don’t understand.
First up: Narmi!
First emcee: Zher Peen of Fly FM.
Next up: Talitha Tan.
Her regular suspects.
Long time no see Prema Yin!
Accompanied by this speed painter.
The Prema I’m used to seeing with no guitar.
Another long-time-ago face.
Random stage games!
Next emcee: Hafiz of Fly FM.
Christian Palencia!
Yes, like he stepped out of a steamer.
More stage games!
Farouque blackmail material.
Ross Stephenson on stage with a comedy skit. One of these two people is actually funny on stage.
Ross teaches Talitha how to boogie!
Magic.
Stand-up comedy was the plan. Anton Gillich in the middle, Kavin Jay on the right, and amnesia for me on the left.
Can’t remember what he said…
Ray Cheong knocks on wood.
Travel musical history with Fazz!
The Minolta 70-210mm F4.0 on the full-frame modified LA-EA1 for the Sony Alpha 7S can be real handy.
Polka-dotted keyboardist…
…is all the rockstar.
Kevin, singing in the rain.
I always enjoy later evening stage lighting.
Boom! Here’s the full-frame modded Sony 16mm F2.8 pancake for some wide goodness.
Emcee Ivan of Fly FM.
The fantastic Rozz.
Her crew.
The lights went full on.
Then, fireworks!
The bean bags in front made for good viewing.
She did a Rihanna medley…
…as well as a Whitney Houston/Aretha Franklin one.
The crowd dances!
What a delightful sip I had from this!
The before-after-party.
At least one of them is a hilarious YouTube star.
Since they weren’t all on stage anymore I could use the Mitakon/Speedmaster 50mm F0.95 Dark Knight Pro lens.
Narmi and Ahtilat, right to left.
Only when processing did I discover that the infrared-modded Sony Alpha NEX-5 wouldn’t focus well with mixed lighting.
More misfocus.
Chrispy and me.
Wai Leong cuts in from the right.
Dance again!
That picture of Talitha behind and above her, is probably the biggest I’ve ever had printed out.
It’s so big, I can’t even get perspective to make them match!
The original, unpublished version, from 27th May 2014. Always interesting to see how people process black-and-white differently – the stripes are visible here.
