6th November 2014: Moonshine: Upcoming ft Rashdan Harith Band, Jumero, Nastia & Ardiv Jauhari / November 2014 Edition at Laundry Bar, The Curve. Here’s emcee and organizer Reza Salleh!

First act of the night…

Nastia!

A bunch of familiar faces.

They brought a big crowd!

Liyana Fizi!

She was called up to sing a song.

Keyboardist.

This guy was alternating between many different instruments, including the accordion.

The charismatic vocalist!

Yes, that is a microphone stand blurred out in front.

Then came Jumero.

Referred to as those boys who dress for the beach in slippers and play barefoot. I’ve heard this from a few strangers before!

Yet another Ryan on drums.

Just a random shot outside.

Rashdan Harith Band!

Sessioning for them, Simmy.

Ash with dashing hair.

Zaim which… is difficult to rhyme with.

Man this dude can shred!

Ardiv Jauhari.

That is a dope cap and a dope-looking bass.

Drummers. Ah, the main reason to bring a telephoto lens!

This, too, with a telephoto, from the side.

You can tell, though, by how the background subjects are nearly the same size as the foreground subjects, that the picture was taken from far away, and a telephoto was used to get a tight composition. It is the distance that gives that compressed perspective.

For nearer subjects, a 50mm on full-frame gives a perspective quite like this.

Zaim and his band members from Tilu, who I had not seen in a while!

29th October 2014: JAMFEST 2014 FINALE – A TRIBUTE TO QUEEN, at Backyard Pub, Sri Hartamas.

Rock N Rolla was the band playing all the tributes!

I arrived somewhere in the middle of the first set.

Like a proper tribute should, all songs were Queen covers. Rafique Rashid would’ve been pleased!

Oh and Halloween was two days away!

All shots by the Sony Alpha 7S and Mitakon/ZhongYi Speedmaster 50mm F0.95 Dark Knight Pro edition.

Hot solos!

Then came the charismatic vocalist…

Vijay David!

He was leaping and pouncing all over the stage!

Definitely embodying Freddie Mercury.

Here is a cover with an awesome guitar solo intro, of Another One Bites The Dust.

28th October 2014: Feedback Open Mic ft Nakedbreed & Rashdan Harith Band @ The Bee Publika / October 2014 Edition. Here’s Samantha!

Fadli.

Annatasha.

Ajantaro Dan Ahli Silap Mata (with Hameer!)

Ukulele-slappin’ Az Samad.

He brings a totally different sound to it than you normally hear.

Musicians.

Emcee Hameer Zawawi!

Defusion.

Awesome sludge/groove metal!

First featured act, Rashdan Harith Band!

A to the Z.

Simmy has a very directed glare.

Second featured act, Naked Breed.

Let’s go back 2 centuries in music! (Well, I tire of saying 90s music.)

Once in a while, I enjoy a switchup like this, where the watermark is colored and the picture is not.

The Filters & Mazrul.

Ammal & Ahmol. The ukulele bass sounded very much like an actual bass. I suddenly want one, given that the one thing that puts me off a bass is the scale length!

The Message.

The Filters. Yeah, this is a setup shot, but I find it cute.

Wai Leong & Friends, bringing the jazz.

The Boohoorah.

A Virtuous Cycle.

23rd October 2014: Laundry X AHM Records X Vans: #ProjectOffTheWall FINALE at Laundry Bar, The Curve. Here’s a sign that Halloween is near!

Thanks to Darren of An Honest Mistake Records, emcee and organizer, who hooked me up with a little job – to shoot the finale of this series, in exchange for some Vans swag. I had come full circl triangle, looking the part of the hipster.

First act of the night: Daiyan Trisha!

Every act was a full band setup.

Gotta love them quilted maple top guitars.

I love how the Mitakon/ZhongYi Speedmaster 50mm F0.95 Dark Knight Pro Edition renders gigs, with a slightly soft vignetting.

Second act was the transformed Talitha Tan!

She now had a bassist!

She was all-out rocking instead of acoustic rocking!

She must’ve told Raja Farouque to unleash the shredder within, and he did.

Collin, guest emcee.

Two uh, random girls in the audience were asked to sing. They blew the audience away!

Random dude asked to do a metal pig squeal.

Talitha and the very limited first edition of her first single, Sigh. I have one such copy, before it received a proper CD label and was properly burnt as an audio CD.

Here’s how you know you have the first edition – it is mistakenly burnt as a data CD.

In other news, her second song is named Okay. I propose the third to be Whatever. So Sigh, Okay, Whatever.

Flare on the 50mm!

The very yeng Michael Leaner.

The Marquee!

7-string 90’s rock goodness.

More flare.

Cool Vans T-shirt.

Last band of the night…

Misgive.

Real punk rock. Not pop-punk. Has some pretty good rhythm variation within songs, too, so you’re not feeling punk lethargy.

That there are Transformers factions within is super cool.

Oh and before I forget, all the drummers! In sequence from left to right, then top to bottom.

Talitha’s first ever full band.

Farouque and Misgive.

More pictures are here!

13th September 2014: LOT 36: Dotters’ Division, at The Bee, Lot 36, Publika.

Dotters D featuring Sachie Amira! Yes that’s a picture I took!

From here, of course.

So here’s Rebecca on drums!

Joey on bass! (Yes, that’s her expression when you call her Joey.)

Linet the keyboardist and band leader.

Melissa the guitarist and singer. My friend asked if she was Indian, because the stage lights were strongly colored most of the time and he couldn’t tell. I had to show him this picture to convince him otherwise.

Jie Er. Okay lah.

The bashful crowd.

Guest vocalist Sachie Amira!

Their repertoire switched up a bit, adding Meghan Trainor – All About That Bass and Jessie J – Bang Bang. They’re having a lot of fun with this song!

This would be the first time I’d bring the Sony Alpha 7s to see them. Linet took this picture of Tiah, albeit misfocused due to the difficulty of manual focusing the Mitakon/ZhongYi Speedmaster 50mm F0.95 for those not familiar.

Linet’s ready for the future…

…while others are forced into slavery.

I think Adrienne took this picture with my infrared Sony Alpha NEX-5. So pretty!

The week after, 20th September 2014.

Denim theme time!

Linet, wardrobe coordinator.

Evelyn Feroza, guest vocalist.

27th September 2014: Ashley Choong(as) on congas.

The other end of the stage was the stickwoman.

Amused Cheras gangster.

“I tell you ah…”

Yeah, I like slinging my guitars up high too.

I didn’t notice at first, but I didn’t really get any shots of Ashley from the front, other than this one.

It was also David Teoh’s birthday, with drinks to wipe your memory! Minum semua bersih!

Later, at the mamak.

I think it’s obvious who the credit for this picture goes to.

11th October 2014.

Halloween’s the theme, and it feels like my home… except my home is dusty like this all year.

Damn, I’d not seen Rebecca this way before.

…or Melissa, either. *hides*

Member of Parliament for Segambut, Lim Lip Eng, spotted! The Bee, Publika, is in the Segambut constituency.

DJ Khye, guest musician for the night.

I find overexposure one of the few tactics to handle difficult stage lighting.

Bleeps and bloops in front, and a Korg at the back.

I also just bought a 64 GB 95MB/s read, 90MB/s write SanDisk Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-I SD card, allowing me to finally shoot a 120 frames per second 1080p video (albeit in APS-C crop mode, on the A7S.) So here’s a video of them starting Daft Punk – Get Lucky, shifted down to 24 frames per second, with the audio moved 2 octaves up (meaning the sound is slowed down 5 times then sped up 4 times.)

After-show group picture.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it…

27th September 2014: Essence of Music, at Page 2, Publika.

Page 2 is a quiet little bar above Plan B.

First up: Ethaya, a deejay who used to run the seminal Cloth & Clef in Changkat Bukit Bintang.

Next up: The funkalicious Gregory Ramanado.

He’s got soul and stage presence, no matter the crowd.

Funky beats.

Obligatory camwhore shot.

26th September 2014: Crinkle Cut at The Bee, Publika! This is the Frances.

Smiley Grace.

Concentrated Ashley. More human mass in a smaller area for high density, explaining the force of her hands.

Melissa’s voice is so powerful she stands far from the microphone.

25th September 2014: Laundry X AHM Records X Vans: #ProjectOffTheWall (September Edition) at Laundry Bar, The Curve.

Here’s returning rock band Relent!

Love their classic 90s anthemic rock sound!

Then came shredder Kelvyn Yeang!

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.

Sepet Vernz and her funky hair.

24th September 2014: Pisco Live Mic 2.30 with Talitha Tan & Crinkle Cut, at Pisco Bar, Jalan Mesui. But first, an open mic session!

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.

Glass slide goodness!

Greg and I do our customary camwhore pose.

Another group shot, with all featured artistes!