Monthly Archives: December 2012

Four Moonshines In 2011

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Here’s a combo breaker: The last 4 Moonshine gigs I shot in 2011, at Laundry Bar, The Curve! This is Reza the organizer.


Starting off the 11th August 2011 Moonshine was Az Samad, fingerstyle guitar maestro.


Gabba Gabba in the band lounge area.


Then it was their turn!


A keytar, or at least held as one.


They did some funky disco…


…and some rock and roll.


Pedalboard, whoa!


Pump your fists and dance to the music.


Then came the groovy Bassment Syndicate.


Keyboards, not of the neck-slung variety.


These guys did a bit of Edgar Winter Group – Frankenstein!


Then it was the cheery, happy Bihzhu!


What key is happy in, again?


Major!


The band. Interestingly, the band I first knew Nicole Foo Bih Zhu for, Rhapsody, was just her and Ywenna on keyboards. Her band here has a lot of instruments but no keyboards!


Oh, and her harmonica!


She’s got one heck of a voice and a lot of emotion.


29th September 2011 was when the sound engineer decided to bathe everybody in one color at a time. Here’s Reza getting a healthy dose of gamma radiation.


Dzamira Dzafri has this power hippie girl voice.


I know this is unrelated, but her expression in this picture reminds me of Dave Mustaine a bit.


Melina watches on in the crowd.


Liyana Fizi!


She gets a rare bit of color thanks to the transition between lights.


If not for shooting in RAW and changing the white balance later, I’d have to do a fair bit of white balance setting on the job.


A cast remains mostly because that’s as far as I can pull it.


Zalila Lee and her band!


Melina with an electric double bass.


Rashdan Harith!


Kevin on drums.


Julian on bass.


20th October 2011, with Amir Jahari!


This young fella writes some very catchy and memorable songs. He was also in Akademi Fantasia season 9.


Supporters/promoters for the next band…


Post-rock band Silent Scenery!


This was a time when Kit was still in town…


…to bring the full wave of sonic mayhem.


Ivan and his Jazzmaster.


The crowd.


Then after the post-rock was post-punk…


…no, wait, new wave.


Enterprise!


Dancy electronic-tinged music.


Long time no see Ham, but this time he was playing for…


…OJ Law.


His songs remind me of many things – Stopgap, for example, is a Weezer-like classic.


There are also electronic bleeps (I bought his albums online at his site. Gotta dig the digital-only extra content!)


Then there is the irresistable Blur-esque pop anthem, Fantastic Adventure, that he did with Liyana Fizi (seen in the audience here!)


He then pimped a limited cassette tape edition of his album, Yesterday Is A Distant Dream. Any Chinese-looking guy with a British accent and thick glasses will remind me of Kai of DigitalRev TV.


Brisk sales!


Unfortunately, I had to miss November’s Moonshine because I had a dermatological emergency. So this is from the 15th of December 2011.


This is Aiqa Halim.


Supported by Aron Teo.


Here’s Adeline…


…and Joachim…


…and a surprise guest for electronic beats.


This would be the new Halfway Kings, one with an ever changing format, but always sticking to Adeline and Joachim at the least. By ever-changing, it could be an electric or acoustic guitar, Adeline or Joachim could be handling the delay/loop pedal, and there may be a drummer, or not.


I would call it angry poetic music.


Insert Japanese ten-ten joke here.


Clara and Narmi from the VIP area. Well I call it the VIP area.


Mia Palencia! She brings much needed Christmas festivity.


Zalila is looking cool, as always.


Kevin Theseira on bass.


Mia and Reza do their classic duet.


Ferns.


They play indie pop.


Often, when I focus on the instrument, the musician’s head is in the same plane of focus, but this is one such case where it wasn’t so. Nevertheless as long as either the face, instrument or whatever cool shirt they’re wearing is in focus, I figure it’s alright.


The night ended with jiwang king Narmi.


As always, supported by Remy J. on guitar. They both have the same Godin guitar!


Moe Joe on all sorts of percussion. In fact, he’s sitting on one such percussion instrument!


The soundman seemed to be missing, but he was really controlling the levels with an iPad app. Wicked!


I didn’t know it, but this would be the last Moonshine at Laundry for a while.

Quick And Textual

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I’ve been super busy, but here’s a quick textual update on my good self:

I got myself the Sony Alpha 99 on the 23rd of October 2012, and I’ve been enjoying it. It’s just as the specifications are, as expected, not really exceeding expectations, but the dynamic range and ISO performance exceed the previous champion of high ISO amongst the Alphas, the Sony Alpha 900 (at least, according to DxO Labs, and I agree with their ratings.) I haven’t gotten around to doing a side-by-side comparison in terms of ISO and dynamic range, though. I’d be comfortable shooting at ISO6400, for sure.

I helped organize a photo exhibition on the 17th of November 2012 for the Rakan KL Day. Rakan KL is a people’s movement for the heritage preservation of Kuala Lumpur. I also exhibited photos, but pictures of that will come later – I did say this was a textual blog post, didn’t I?

I dropped by a pharmacist for my usual dose of topical steroid cream and she suggested that what I had was in fact topical steroid withdrawal, and tried to sell me some non-steroid alternative. I was skeptical and bought nothing from her, but I went home and looked it up – so perhaps I was having that, instead of classic atopic dermatitis! I had eczema during my childhood, which explains why I am fair and don’t play sports – I could not go out in the sun much or I’d sweat, scratch, and bleed. This went away thankfully at the age of 12, only to reappear after a prescription of insecticide lotion (for bed bugs) that triggered eczema again. I had thus been a regular to the Dermatology Department of the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital, where I’d pay RM5 per visit, and the ever-changing, rotating dermatologist would prescribe steroids. Hydrocortisone for the face, and something stronger for the rest. These would run out, and I’d have clear skin within 4 days, but after 2 weeks, the flares would come back, and I’d go visit the pharmacist. I found cheaper Malaysian variations of bethamethasone-17-valerate, but at some point some pharmacist gave me Dermovate, which was the “Superhigh Potency I” clobetasol, but I did not know it then. Needless to say my body got lazy to make its own cortisol/steroids to fight inflammation, so it became dependent on steroids.

I got a bit of ‘roid rage upon calculating that I’d been on steroids for 15 months and the hospital didn’t bother that I’d been on it so long, so I quit steroids cold turkey one 10th of November 2012 ago. The flare is there, and it’s taking its own sweet time, but I do find that getting a lot of sleep, like 12 hours, really helps reduce the inflammation. The problem then is the itching and scratching and scarring that comes with it, with the risk of infection. Some days my skin flakes like crazy, which is a good sign, as it means the skin is healing. The flare will clear eventually, and I’ll have a period of clear skin before the next flare, and this flaring is expected to continue from 10-30% of the time I was on steroids, which means I should bear with it for 5 months. Doable, I guess. Also, each subsequent flare gets weaker and shorter, but the first one’s not over yet.

I’ve been a pescetarian for 14 days, from 20th November 2012 onwards. This means I’m a half-assed vegetarian who eats fish. This was done in hopes of getting the first flare out of the way, reducing all possible histamine intake. Those 14 days did not include today, where I broke it to subside a case of gastritis and all fish options nearby would take too long. Geez I thought I was supposed to be immortal with such a diet!