Category Archives: Music

Long Hair Can Do

And now, for something different. Albert talks about shampoo!

Ever since I dyed my hair blue, I was not to ever use regular shampoo; I was supposed to use color-lock shampoo.

And so, I bought Sunsilk’s color-lock shampoo, a red bottle of shampoo. What a sham. It wears your dye out faster than you can say ‘senile peacock‘.

It wasn’t until I was wandering around aimlessly in Jaya Jusco Kepong that I called Leech to ask what color-locking shampoo she used to keep her then wonderful purple streaks. She said Loreal. (The voice in my head said, “Because you’re worth it.“)

And so I went home, and upon opening it, I immediately smelled the difference – it was citrus-ish, and yet, strangely appetizing. I applied it to my hair. It seemed to just… absorb into my hair!

Even when washing it off, I could feel the difference. It was silky! It was smooth! It was coated… unlike the Sunsilk one, which just seemed to wash off hair oils, leaving my hair frizzy and unable to hold any position (e.g. tucked.) Plus, after washing off the Sunsilk shampoo, I could see the suds on the bathroom floor stealing my hair color. 🙁

And oh, the smell! As long as they make shampoo smell this good, I will never get to have dreadlocks. (My original plan was to dye my hair, then grow it long and make a mess out of it, getting natural dreadlocks, then going bald.)

The best thing about the shampoo, however, is its fragrance – I just came back from drenching my hair in cigarette smoke at the-now-paying Twilight Action Girl at Zouk, and it managed to get rid of the smell! I usually take two washes to stop smelling like an ashtray.

If you think I’ve gotten a newfound girly fetish with hair, well it is not the shampoo models I covet. My inspiration for my style, long and straight comes from these macho rock bands:

Left: A screen capture of Extreme – More Than Words, featuring vocalist Gary Cherone and guitarist Nuno Bettencourt in a tender ballad, an escape from their funk metal tendencies. Don’t listen to Frankie J‘s version; he made it too much of a vocal showoff, losing the tender acoustic vulnerability of the original. Plus his vocal histrionics made it sound damn gh3y.

Right: A screen capture of Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under The Bridge, featuring vocalist Anthony Kiedis in this confessional ballad about losing a guitarist to hard drugs, an escape from funk rap rock. All Saints did a good cover of it; they didn’t overdo the vocal histrionics.

Yeah, I think you can see what I’m getting at – strong features with past-shoulder-length hair. I knew my hair was long when I could tuck it under my shoulders.

Yeah yeah so Anthony didn’t dye his hair then; he left the hair-coloring to Flea, who probably never had the same hair color in consecutive music videos! But Flea is blonde, and bleaching his hair would turn it white, so he could have proper blue (like in the By The Way video.)

Slow Jams

…and now, back to regular programming.

Pictures from Slow Jams, The Actors Studio Bangsar, 27th March 2006 follow.


Warren Chan starts the set with mellow tunes and falsetto of the highest order.


Azmyl Yunor brings up the tempo with some professional busking.


Tan Sei Hon is a certain shade of green, singing about love in the key of folk.


Jasemaine Gan sings confidently in the dark and represents the Chinese acoustic scene on this side of the English acoustic scene (she and other singer songwriters beat Daniel that Malaysian Idol 2 guy anytime.) Check out her trilingual songs, yo.


Jaz reads interesting poetry again.


Wei Jenn (I’m not sure of her name) the storyteller.


Broken Scar sounds more macho and full in The Actors Studio’s excellent sound system. Go buy his album, yo.


Reza Salleh crooning with the (unseen) girls swooning.


Jeremy featuring Kevin of Qings & Kueens and Izzy Mohd, his Plush Velvet bandmate. He did a cover of John Mayer’s cover of N*SYNC – Dirty Pop, some songs with that Dave Matthews-ish vibe but with a nasal intonation much like Brian Molko of Placebo. I asked him to cover Placebo, and he said, “hey yeah! I like Placebo!


Zalila Lee featuring the censored Jerral Khor.


Nicole the ever photogenic diva of Rhapsody.


Melina of Tempered Mental is joined by Reza on guitar, and Ywenna of Rhapsody on keyboards, with backup dancers Kevin, Alda and Nicole. Memorable sight indeed! It was also then that my batteries all ran out. 🙁

Cosmic, Funky Pictures

So on April Fool’s Eve 2006, I went to Little Havana, Changkat Bukit Bintang, for LiveHouse presents Cosmic Funk Express.


I invited my friend, who brought his friend (romantically depicted here), and I played with his friend for the night. It was a Canon EOS 350D with an EF-S 17-85mm, F4-5.6 lens. Suuuhweeet. The place also had excellent hawaiian pizza with great stretchy servings of cheese.


The 17-85 zoom lens inspired me, what with the darkness, to use a slow shutter speed with flash. Guess which ones came from the 350D, and which came from my teeny Canon Powershot A520!


Then, there was also flashing, then quickly moving to expose on the rest of the frame.


I think these trippy effects are best used to define the music of Cosmic Funk Express.


Zack taps with two guitars, so I doubled him.


Exact speeds vary based on intensity of flash, but it works best when the subject is brighter than the background.


Izwin sings L.O.V.E. and some contemporary classics in the second half.


Zack plays Tiesto… on piano. He also played the Doraemon theme song.


Alda feels left out, so I give his bass green rays of envy. I reckon that there was a strong green light on him after zooming out, to create this effect.


Alex sends out drummer-tentacle hooks. The band then plays the strangely familiar, secret bonus song which they never wrote.


Whoa. Did we really just play that?


My friend suggested I look for the black and white option, and I found a way to bump up the contrast and sharpness for this. It looks like he got poked in the back.


Yes, that is a hairband on his guitar neck, not a guitar capo. (To mute open strings and ease guitar tapping.) Yes, I wear a guitar capo on my hair, not a hairband.

One more! Two more! Jimi Hendrix!

I figured, Alda deserved a vocal break, so I requested for Eric Johnson – Cliffs Of Dover, a guitar shredders’ anthem. Yup, you’d hear the main riff being ripped off in KC & Jojo – All My Life!

What did I think of the 350D pictures? I used ISO1600 all the time, with shutter speeds faster than 1/20 seconds, if I was not using the slow shutter flash effect. The F4-5.6 could be limiting, and the lens was already expensive as it was. The pictures did have noise, but NeatImage, a noise reduction software, practically wiped it out (in comparison to any digital camera, where the noise is removed but still leave behind blotches of color.)

As for how I did the zoom-slow-flash thing, you need a manual zoom lens (not the motorized one like in the Canon Powershot Pro1). Set a slow shutter speed, maybe 1/4 seconds. Press the shutter and rotate zoom ring at the same time. The faster you do it, the more distinct the two pictures.

As for how I did it with the A520… well, I moved my camera nearer or further by extending my hands to get the zoom effect. 😛

Happy Birthday… Jamasia

Jamasia had its one year old celebration on the 25th of March, 2006. I think it was a wee bit older than that, though, because I first saw Frequency Cannon there, and I’d seen Frequency Cannon as early as 2004.

And in case you’re wondering why only Jamasia gets wished happy birthday, it is because there was free flow of alcohol for 1.5 hours!


I used slow shutter with flash/night scene for these pictures; we had free flow, and Alda, playing for Cosmic Funk Express, opened the show, so he could not enjoy such generosity. But here, I sorta feed him Carlsberg.


Zack Kim deftly avoids the lights…


But ends up inebriated anyway. Somehow I feel these picture effects work best to describe the music Cosmic Funk Express plays.


Stonebay. Don’t be jealous and turn green Mr. Bassist, I finally take a picture of someone other than the singer with his eye-catching guitar and rainbow-colored beanie.


Throne Away, with One Buck Short‘s drummer. Apparently, only Rudy the drummer can sing the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious part in Midnight In Madrid.


Beat The System, playing nu-metal and some old-school. Perhaps I should’ve spun the camera upwards to make fiery streaks instead.


Natalie of Dragon Red. They did a few covers, like sneaking in a verse of Estranged – Chocolate Syrup, and Amil playing the intro riff to Deja Voodoo Spells – I Am What I Am.


Adam and his little pocketable partner in crime, Mozzie. They do A Perfect Circle – Judith well.


He also has aspirations to be the gloved one.


Slyde, for a rabid fan.


Edge Of Fire was again short of members, so their falsetto-loving vocalist played guitar too. It was a treat to see him sing Guns & Roses – Welcome To The Jungle, at a key too high that we could see his eyes popping out.


Shirtless as usual, Ainol entertains with a drum solo. Deja Voodoo Spells pulled a clever one on the crowd – Rithan started with a Hendrix-ish intro, but played Nirvana‘s Breed and Lithium (and Green Day – Basket Case) note-by-note. This might be to celebrate his nomination for best vocal performance in the AIM, perhaps?


The crowd asked for Jimi Hendrix, and he obliged with Fire. When asked for more, he brought out a guest guitarist and drummer, who ripped out Stevie Ray Vaughn‘s version of Little Wing!


Adam joins to sing Strangely. Also, Mie becomes the official bassist of the band.


Vespertine found it very tough to follow Deja Voodoo Spells. The bassist looked like he was mourning (or was he the one being mourned for, being that stiff?)

Marching On Gigs

Here come some gig pictures, from March.

17th March 2006 – Accoustica, Jamasia


Zack of Deserters started a drone to play in the background to his atmospheric music. Which really, wasn’t very acoustic.


Neither was Khai, but acoustic basses are hard to come by, especially leftie ones. Okay, so Khai can play with a right-handed bass upside down without any restringing, as seen in the picture.


Saiful shreds on acoustic. The only difference between an electric Y2K and an acoustic one is the distortion.


Estranged was the most interesting acoustic act; they jazzed up Catch You Later, After All (complete with jazzy solo) and Chocolate Syrup.


For Kembali, KC, Hanafi and Azwin Andy sung harmony. For some reason I think this picture is cute.


Stonebay was next with grunge on acoustic, the heartfelt way it was meant to be.

22nd March 2006 – Olive Room Sessions


Reza was playing, and when he was mingling in the crowd, I asked him how he made those special effects on his blog. Night mode with flash and a very jerky hand was his answer. I suppose this would have been easier in a club where it’s dark enough.


Or maybe it was meant to be a camwhore effect.


Izzy the singer-songwriter.


Reza joins Isaac Entry the reggae-tinged blues guitarist (whoever said he uses the same three chords should be shot informed because three chords is the point of blues) and his harmonica player.

Troubadours Open Doors

Here comes the last batch of Troubadours pictures – this time, from the Troubadours/Open Doors gig on the 19th of March 2006, at the Indicine, KL Performing Arts Centre.

I don’t remember much of the first short film, other than a lot of clouds.


Khai starts the musical set on an upside-down-restrung-leftie guitar, with classic singalongs from his Khaimano days, including the ever-so-relevant This Is Black Metal.


Rhapsody the jazzy duo.


The projector was interfering with the photos, yes indeed, even from the side.


Taking a picture with flash was not enough to get rid of the projected light, so I had to change to manual mode, 1/500th of a second to darken the effect of the projector.

Then came a short film. Liew Seng Tat’s Flowers was a most vivid, disturbing short film about what I reckon is an old lady reminiscing about her affair with a Japanese soldier during the Japanese occupation. Except, of course, that the flashback is in color, and the old lady doesn’t look any younger. Kudos to the director for also being the star, the Japanese soldier (just like how Khai was the star of Ciplak). Yeah, there were scenes. Like Fazri said, “My eyes! Argh my eyes!


Jerome Kugan the Morrisey-isque, amazing falsettoed singer. He sings over techno beats he programs himself!


His laptop plays his beats.


To equalize the exposure from the screen and him, I used flash at 1/80th of a second shutter speed.


He dances, feels the music, and his expressions are truly in tune with the space and time vortex conjured by his dreamy soundscapes.

Best Friends We Are

I wrote a song.

Many, many years, I tried
I got smashed up, and I cried
I’ve never met someone
Who says you don’t need that to have fun

You’ll be better than an object
You’ll be my main subject
Because you are who you are
You can ride in my car

You’re my best friend
You’re my start and my end
You call people from my phone
You set friends up so we can meet alone

You know how I feel
You’ve got such appeal
But I ain’t ever letting you
Meet a friend or two

You know, we could relate
Your earnestness I appreciate
There ain’t a kinder soul
In this big, scary world

Sensitive to my sensitivity
Positive to my negativity
With you I am truly happy
Best friends we are, you and me

I Heart Rock

For once, I sat close enough to the stage in Jamasia, Hartamas, to get nice, bright shots at minimal optical zoom, allowing for big apertures, thus better exposure. The occasion? Heart Rock, a charity gig.


Broken Scar started the set with his Emily The Strange Epiphone SG.


Zack of Cosmic Funk Express rips out three thousand notes in a spacey, mind-bending frenzy. You can see the effect on Alex, the drummer.


As for Alda who was standing on the bass drum, well, he just loves beer. His bass had to be retuned halfway, and so Zack unveiled his touch-tapped version of the Doraemon theme song!

We were also treated to Alda’s vocal debut, singing Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ version of Jimi Hendrix – Fire.

Needless to say, we’ll request for Eric Johnson – Cliffs Of Dover next time.


Stonebay‘s grungy vocalist has a pretty guitar.


Naked Breed, featuring Melina of Tempered Mental. Interestingly, Tempered Mental would feature Jack The Shredder of Naked Breed.


Guitarists might recognize this neo-classical and blues shredder from Bentley Music, filling in, in Edge Of Fire. Shaun Ng was also the first ever webdesigner for Xfresh, but that was ages ago.


Daniel of Edge Of Fire, in my opinion, is the only handsome Korean-looking Chinese guy there is.

What’s with you not-exactly-prepubescent girls and your obsession with slanty eyes and long dragged faces? I knew a girl who had good taste (in looks anyway.) Then comes Korean-looking Chinese boy and she’s nuts about him and how he’s so cute. I do not consider a guy who has such a long stoned face and doesn’t smile or even smirk when camwhoring with girlfriend… cute. Do I have to slap some expression into you? Dammit, you got yourself a hot chick, don’t look so sad okayyy.

Note that I say Korean-looking Chinese guy, not Korean guy, because Zack is da shiznit, and is the sensation on YouTube.


Anyway, back to the story. Shaun broke a string. Oh no what do we do? Fear not! The band plays an acoustic cover of Mr. Big – To Be With You.


Polar Attraction, with Jaya Satriani. Even spacier than Cosmic Funk Express.


One Buck Short ends the set. How the heck do you play after a shredder band?

In unrelated news, I got the chance to play with a Canon EOS 350D at a later gig. Yes that’s right, a digital SLR camera! My friend had a Canon 17-85mm, F4-5.6 lens on. That combination was sweet, but the lens had a prohibitive price (and anything with a bigger aperture would cost at least 4 times more), and it wasn’t that bright either, so I kept to ISO1600 at all times. Manual focus was only fun when it was bright enough, plus the viewfinder could be so much bigger. It was only much later that he revealed the Speedlite 430EX he was carrying, but I was lazy to test it out. Besides, flashing isn’t my preferred style.

This is why I would not get a digital SLR – I would not be pleased with it. I already know the limits of what I can afford!

Musician Fashion

Argh, I forgot to write this paragraph in my last blog entry:

We could make musician fashion. Guitar capos as hairclips. Imagine playing a song, then pulling a capo out of your hair for the next song! Guitar picks strung on a necklace (in lack of a better word). A 440 Hertz tuning fork as an earring. So when you hum or hear a pitch-perfect A note, the tuning fork resonates, and you’d know it’s an A. How’s that for pretending to have perfect pitch?

Third Stone From Jalan Ipoh

I live in a housing area in Segambut, near Kepong.

I use public transportation.

I am a guinea pig to the new RapidKL buses, that rolled out in North KL (Kepong, Sentul, Gombak etc.) I could say I was thrilled to be the first.

How does the new system work?

Take a bus from any one of the central stops (Maluri, Titiwangsa, KLCC, Medan Pasar (behind Central Market) or KL Sentral) to another central stop. In my case, Titiwangsa. I then hop on an intermediate shuttle bus that brings me to Metro Prima. Metro Prima is thus the bus hub for Kepong and Manjalara. From there, I take a bus to my housing area.

The buses that route the central stops are 5-10 minutes each. The intermediate shuttles come every 10-15 minutes, and the home-coming bus comes every 15-30 minutes. These are my observations, not something read from their leaflets.

On the downside, it is initially confusing, and you can’t sleep on the bus. I used to take one bus from Medan Pasar all the way to my housing area. I knew its exact times; it always left Medan Pasar at the 15th and 45th minute of every hour, except during peak times. I also knew that the last bus left at 11:15pm.

On the upside, it makes a whole lot of sense. Segmenting the bus routes will segment jams, too; a bus that used to go from A to B to C might get a jam at B. Now, jams delay only the B buses. People actually travel short distance, within a point in A to another point in A, so the jam in B doesn’t affect them. Shorter routes also let the buses be more frequent.

Oh, and the last bus is now 12:30am! Eat that, taxi drivers who charge midnight charge between 11pm and 12 midnight, instead of after midnight! (Oh, and midnight charge is 50% extra, not twice the amount on the meter, kids!)

Anyway, I got on the 2T3 bus from Titiwangsa to Batu Tiga, Jalan Ipoh, where I was waiting for the bus to my place. It was 9:55pm and I was not in any rush, and asked the conductor when the bus would leave. 10:20pm, he said. I took that chance to eat dinner at some roadside stalls nearby.


A chicken burger for RM1.80! Where else can you get that price? Decent sloppy burger.


Super old-school parking meters.

A busker stood in the mainly Chinese crowd and started playing. I went over, dropped a note and asked if he knew Bob Dylan. How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?

As I ate slowly, I saw THREE buses that were headed to my place, pass by. Not bad, not bad.


Inspired, I slung out my guitar. Notice that thing on my hair?


Yes that’s right – a guitar capo! I was shopping around for the spring-loaded one, but couldn’t find one cheap enough that I could afford to lose. Yeah, I tend to lose anything tying my hair, except plain rubberbands.


And this is for those who wonder what my sideburns look like after the 500th-day-haircut.

Anyway, if you don’t like using public transport, then go save up for your own car. Or convince your parents that you’re not traumatized by that road accident anymore. Or get a license. Or walk.

If you don’t have the money, come take the bus with me and I shall impart upon you my virtues of patience.