I will omit Thursday‘s long blog entry to make this following chunkalunk of a blog entry easier to read and remember.

Friday

I got on a Metrobus, and they had this LCD screen that was supposed to play ads and music videos. Instead, it showed the Active Desktop error ala Microsoft Windows. Maybe they should invest in a DVD player instead; it’s cheaper and they don’t have to pay Bill Gates.

This party was definitely not for the aquaphobic… or chocolate-cake-on-face-phobic. Corinne, this is what you’re missing! (The crowd was mostly her ex-collegemates from IACT.)

I met Izal, bassist of One Buck Short there, where he just returned from a gig at the International College Of Music (ICOM). I hitched a ride with Corinne’s friend’s car who dropped me off at Hartamas. Thankful I am that I did not take a taxi straight back from Ikea, because I bumped into a Sunday-school-mate at Hartamas Square.

For Friday, I had:

Plan A: Check out Ben’s B***hes at ICOM.
Plan B: Instead of drunken rockers, I’d go see the CLEO Bachelor party at Zouk, where I could meet Davina and pass her a CD.
Plan C: Instead, I forsook being bachelor #51, and went for a pool party instead.

So it would be ironic then, that the not-so-pious-now-haha! friend of mine, and her hot friend, were at the CLEO bachelor thing! (Plan B) Apparently it started at midnight (instead of 9pm) and the bachelors made 2-second appearances. Even cooler, was that her friend was from IACT as well, and when I name-dropped the names of people at the party (Plan C), she knew them all well! (And was surprised to know that the person I hitched a ride on had a boyfriend.) Oh, and Izal was at aforementioned ICOM gig (Plan A) and told me that Ben and gang were asked to get off stage.

Am I eye-flutteringly complex now?

I then bumped into Zack (dude in the middle), super-mega-rock-star-guitar-player from Cosmic Funk Express! He was also super-mega-drunk. Funny indeed, Zack is part of One Buck Short when they need a second guitarist, but not this time; he was busy amassing groupies at Mont Kiara International School, where he strutted his guitar virtuoso-ness.

The last time Zack and I were here, he was struggling to finish his glass of beer (it didn’t help that strong drinkers were pressuring him). So uh, I liberated him of the alcohol.

Now, he was a strong Korean drinker. Cheers mate. You can now hold your own, and you can even do math and pour beer evenly while dancing along to Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction! Alda, have you seen him drunk?

Saturday

No, not keyboard; digital piano! Miss Kanako Kumanomido shows off Roland Digital Pianos, with voices much better-sounding than MIDI realizations. Ask me for the video! Interesting modulation effects on trumpet and backing ‘vocals’. I saw this at Pearl Point when rushing to grab a bite before the Soft Touch EP launch at Paul’s New Place.

Mr. Harooon from Rock The World fame! Well I’ll be. He’s still as clueless a commentator. Maybe he should work as a sports commentator. Oh wait, he works for AMP Radio’s Infozone. Oops.

Saerze sings Nirvana – Rape Me and Jamiroquai – Love Foolosophy. The bass was too punchy for the latter song (and maybe the other niggling factor was that it was a bit off tune…) I wonder how she got her name cards in the ASTRO office waiting lounge though.

Lied and their angry alternative rock. Angry indeed. The way rock was meant to be, anyway. Here, Adlin does the emo-chicken-pecking-at-microphone stance.

Cats In Love rocked. From classic rock to bluesy wanderings, the Malaysian Mark Knopfler wowed the crowd.

It wasn’t until they introduced the band members that I realized why the guitarist’s guitar (what, were you expecting the guitarist’s bass drum?) was so familiar. It was the Fender Telecaster that N. Rama Lohan reviewed in The Star. It was N. Rama Lohan! Turns out the bandmates are from The Star, too. No wonder they’ve got an excellent synthy-keyboard(s)-player (who also did a mouth organ bit.) And hey! Didn’t they review that SX bass too? Cheap bas…

(Edited 6th June 2014: This was Cats In Love’s first ever gig!)

This picture does not do justice to prove exactly how cute and charismatic D-Va’s lead vocalist is. (…oh yeah she also sings, plays guitar and keyboards well.) She dances and prances like it was her bathroom, except she’s got clothes on and she’s not soaking wet. Dammit.

Double-sized picture for Soft Touch, because it’s their EP’s launch event. And because Peter Hassan Brown (the old-looking dude) finally rocks out or “fools around” (in his own words) to the hard rocking riff of Listen 2 What U C. Yes he was actually headbanging to this one, and he even walked over to his guitarist and made like a guitar duel.

Jamie Woon from the UK! With his DADGAD-tuned guitar, he crooned and melted hearts. He also played with soft-loud dynamics and tapped harmonics ala acoustic guitar heroes like Az. Except that Az doesn’t sing.

Lunarin from Singapore with some pretty progressive rock. The biting bass tone of the female vocalist complimented the hard-hitting drummer. Add a guitarist, and you have Singapore’s answer to Tempered Mental, just not as diverse and tempo-manic.

A funny scene was Saiful, the first gig otai (slang for old-timer, usually commands great respect) I met, paying cover charge to Ahmad, the first gig-regular-who-wasn’t-in-a-band buddy I met. Ironically, the situation would have been reverse every other time. I hitched a ride with Saiful, and he dropped me off at KLCC, where I took a cab, and it was ironic too that I’d meet a former mat rock taxi driver. He asked what college I was, and for some instinctive reason he asked where he could do sound engineering! I told him about SAE and ICOM. He told me how he was going to be signed to a label in 1987, but his parents disapproved. Heck, if he did, he would have been famous for a good decade. “Bila XPDC baru nak belajar double-pedal, aku lama dah buat lah…” I then told him where to pick up gig-goers and meet Md. Nor Hendrix. Rock on, mat-rock taxi driver!

The past mornings have been extra bright. This shot was taken at 8 am, when it wasn’t too hot yet, but everybody in the bus stop was facing away from it.

White and silver cars literally glow.

This shot was taken at night. Screw my camera’s night mode; ISO 400 and +2 exposure values, pointed out the highway got this shot. No, my Canon Powershot A400 does not support manual shutter speeds, so it’s a wonder I got this shot.

I took a walk to Midvalley from the Bangsar PUTRA LRT station.

Looking over the highway, I saw this; do Malaysians have an equivalent of Smokey Bear? What would Sang Kancil say?

Along the same stretch I took this picture. Now that’s what I call a passionate fisherman! He’s not doing it for the fish.

The Guitar Collection opens at Midvalley, near the cinemaplex.

While waiting for Frus to join me at The Loft, Zouk for our fix of Twilight Action Girl, I went to Berjaya Times Square Hotel’s lounge on the 14th floor and saw this man tuning his guitar. Could it be…

Hendrix lives!!! I saw Md. Nor Hendrix in an issue of ROTTW which said he played in Berjaya Hotel. Sadly, he played Eric Clapton and Gary Moore’s Still Got The Blues, songs you would hear on the radio. I summoned the courage to go up to him and ask, “hey Joe, could you play some Hendrix?”

He fiddled around with his laptop (I suspect the drum machine was there or at the keyboards). Frus and I cheered as he said, “and now, for a blues number, on special request…”

“There’s a red house over yonder, that’s where my baby stays.”

He was feeling it, all much much more than when he was playing Eric Clapton’s licks or the famous, searing Gary Moore A-minor solo. Before this, he was a weathered lounge performer. Now, his face scrunched up, the same way Jimi did.

“Now if my baby don’t love me no more, I know her sister will.”

He then played Hey Joe, sadly interrupted by annoying waiter. I missed the solo and the chance to take a picture of him playing with his teeth at the end of the song! He also made like a double-locking bridge and abused his whammy bar to no end.

He came over and shook our hands. We went into guitar geek mode and he let us touch his Fender Stratocaster 1969! It was very, very different from a modern day Strat. For one, he put 5 springs in the back, and his frets were low and action looked high but it felt smooth and easy!

Heck, even the nut looked tiny. The back plate on the neck joint was V-shield-shaped instead of the regular rectangles we see. The pickups had cracks on them, but they were not changed.

The coolest thing about the neck was how thin it was. This picture does not show the scale; its super narrow neck looked like an Angus Young Gibson SG! And yet, it felt different at different points of the neck; it wasn’t flat, and it was chunky and yet felt small. No wonder Jimi loved thumbing basslines. It felt more like a C shape than a D shape to me.

Someday, I shall bring Syefri and Alda here. Sure they’re both bassists but hey Syefri has an afro (plus he’s the guy who lent me a Hendrix CD…) Yes, Md. Nor even looks like Jimi. If you can’t squint, the text says it’s every night except Monday, 8:30 pm to 12:45 am (ending at 1:45 am on Public Holidays.) No wonder he was bored. Imagine playing the same tunes day in day out! (He doesn’t play Hendrix unless requested.) I figured I did both of us a favor; for me, I could relive rock moments when I wasn’t born yet, and for him, he could go wild on the guitar!

Frus and I left for Zouk, using the monorail. While queueing up there was this group of lost ticket-buyers. The cashier was flustered, and I tried to explain that they can buy and enter on any side, and then use the bridge to cross over to the other side.

Frus and I then crossed over, thinking that was the way to Bukit Nanas monorail; alas, it was not! So we came over and told the lost ticket-buyers that we’ll be joining them on the train. They were from Bangladesh and were heading back to Corus Hotel (which was opposite Ampang Park.) They looked formal, like they were here for a business trip. They also looked very naive. Frus said one of them looked very n00bish, LOL.

We got off and I pointed leftwards in the direction of Dang Wangi PUTRA LRT, where they could take the LRT to Ampang Park. They could also take a cab rightwards to KLCC. Thank you and goodbyes were exchanged. They decided to walk. Eeep. This, at 11 pm. Of course, we were heading in the same direction, so it was awkward. On the way to Zouk, we passed a construction site, when a disturbing thought came:

What if they were here to find a desk job, only to be set up and eventually coerced into becoming construction workers?

They looked built enough for menial labor. Imagine, the evil employers could set them up to go between a hotel and a public place like Bintang Walk, knowing that on the way there would be construction sites. Imagine if they were lost, and they saw a Evil Recruiting Agent who was a fellow Bangladeshi:

Lost Bangladeshis: Hey how do we get to Hotel Corus?
Evil Recruiting Agent: Oh now it is not safe and the train will be out of service. I’m going there tomorrow, you can come in my van. In the meantime you can come chill with us and stay the night.
(Fast forward to morning…)
Evil Recruiting Agent: Hey my van is busted. Could you help me roll this trolley of bricks over there? And see that cement over there? Could you help me build this wall? I gotta send my van for repairs.
Lost Bangladeshis: Ah no problem mate, we’re strong. Besides, you let us stay the night.

I felt bad for letting them walk, instead of taking them to Corus Hotel. Their families would never hear of them again!

On the way to Zouk we saw this Chinese-indie-scene dude carrying two guitars both smashed at the neck joint! He was carrying two Strat-shape guitar bodies and two guitar necks. What the heck had just happened?

We reached Zouk to see loads of people standing outside. The Loft was very empty, strangely. Even the friends we were supposed to meet weren’t there. And so, we walked the wrong way down Jalan Sultan Ismail! Must’ve gotten the blurness from the lost Bangladeshis.

We finally met up with the friends who were stuck in Bar Savanh, Asian Heritage Row. At least I saw my dream white Mazda RX-8; same color as my Transformer Alternator, Meister. I also saw dark blue and black RX-8s. For once my attention was drawn away from the hot chicks. :O

Guess what this is.

The next day Fazri and I were in Avenue K, and we took interesting shots with our cameras, like the picture above. Here, Fazri was sitting. You’d sit too, if you were on an escalator that spanned 3 floors.