0900:
Woke up. Surprisingly, no butterflies felt in my stomach at all. Only excitement and anticipation in playing in one of the largest and most well publicized DIY gigs in Kuching. Dyerbreed's pics and profile were found in a number of newspapers (Sin Chew, International Times, See Hwa and Borneo Post) and I've had a number of friends texting me, telling me that they saw my band in the papers. So the heat was on as the event would be filmed and sold in VCD/DVD format.
Also, we were told that the largest circulating Chinese newspaper, Sin Chew, would be sending four reports for the event. Reporters from a number of other dailies were going to cover the event on location as well. We also did pre-gig press interviews with Sin Chew, International Times, Eastern Times, Borneo Post, See Hwa and Kuching lifestyle website thelife.com.my.
0916-1138:
Spoke to rhythm guitarist Jerry on the phone. Told him I needed a ride from him. He picked me up and we went to pick vocalist Caleb and bassist Ah Boon up. Jacky (drummer) met us at Lepo Music Studio at Jalan Keretapi so that we could tune our instruments. I ended up being the only one getting my instruments tuned while Jerry tested out the new Digitech Scott Ian Anthrax signature model effect pedal. We then headed off to Ah How's studio.
1207-1637:
Got to Ah How's studio and we got to work immediately. Our band was in charged of carrying equipment (amps, drummers, etc) to the venue. This is kinda like a DIY gig as the cost of employing people to carry the equipment to the stage would be heavy. DIY's cool. Builds band spirit. With some help from another band playing on the night, Visualies, all equipment were safely transferred.
Set up took a while but it was finally done and we did a sound check. Not good. I didn't have any effect pedals and depended solely on borrowed pedals from Ah How. I wasn't allowed to adjust the setting of the the pedals as Ah How himself would be playing on the night and wouldn't have time to fine tune the settings on stage. West Malaysian (from Alor Setar, Kedah) band Uglymen arrived. They did their sound check after us and an excited chill ran down my spine. They were technically fantastic, incredibly tight for a three piece band. Break for lunch.
When we came back, a couple of other bands did their sound check. Spent the afternoon watching them before leaving for home to shower.
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Back to the venue. Went on stage for sound check and Jerry came up with the solution of replace the Scott Ian effect pedal with a Digitech Metal Zone pedal, which screams like a bitch. Problem solved with effect pedal and my guitar sounds bitching. Off to a quick dinner. Came back to the venue past 8pm and the show had already started. It was so loud that we could hear the band playing quite clearly at OSK Securities, lol! Ade was there already, as well as Louis, his fren M, Lissa and my brother Owen. Greeted Ade with a kiss and a hug.
Lissa
Me and my baby Ade
Baby, M, Lou, Caleb (in the background), me and my brother OwenThe first band was Channel 1, an old school indie rock band. Loved their music. Pretty cool and reminds me of the better days in high school, which believe me, is an achievement, considering I never enjoyed high school (at least not as much as my alcohol and sex-perimenting college and uni days, LOL!! Not drugs though. Never experimented with drugs cos its against my principle. Yes, believe it or not, I do have certain principles that I abide by.
Next up was Spiderweb, a band of guys who were in their 50s, but still rocking. They sing in Chinese, Hokkien and Hakka. The band was tight, its rhythm section consistent and lead guitarist displaying his years of experience and putting in some of the best licks I've ever seen.
They were followed by Zhao, a band fronted by Ah How himself, who has almost a decade of experience under his belt, with bass virtuoso Russ, who can pick up and set down pretty much any bass line, Jye, an incredibly technical guitar player and completed by Slap durmmer Leslie. The name Zhao is a singular Chinese word that carried the meaning "loud, noisier-than-usual, noises". All their song names are also singular Chinese characters: "Suai" "Nan" "Bing" etc. They were amazing, playing heavy grunge influenced songs. In the words of Owen: "Ah How's vocals were amazing. He makes insanely high-pitch screams and wails, pushing his vocals close to its breaking point, but yet manages to hold back just a fraction before it breaks." I remember thinking to myself how hard it would be to follow them as our band was next.
2145-2308
We finally take the stage. I flip open Ah How's pedal box only to find that the Metal Zone is gone. Someone has replaced it with the Scott Ian signature pedal again. Shit. My guitar sound was going to suffer (and it proved to be true when I reviewed the videos of the gig). I set up quickly with the help of one of the tech guys there while the MCs introduced the band members one-by-one. I waved feebly at the crowd when the MCs got to me. We then started to play.
We kicked off with a simple tune to warm up our fingers. It was basically just part of a full instrumental which I wrote last year when I did a gig at Tribes with my former, nameless, band. Then Caleb came on stage and we got into our first song, a Chinese song written for the occasion called "Fang Qi" (meaning Give Up or Surrender in English).
This was followed by another Chinese song designed to grab the attention of the crowd and elicit a crowd response, called "Wo Ai Yao Gun" (I Love Rock n' Roll). It succeeded in getting a response, and the crowd joined in during a short sing-along section/interlude. It was catchy and a number of friends told me later that this was their favorite song during our set that night. The drummer Jacky himself said this was his favorite to play as it was catchy and upbeat. Even those people who did not like the song, the catchy sing-along parts of the song got stuck in their heads and their find themselves humming to it subconsciously, hahaha!! W e set out to write a catchy song and I feel we succeeded in doing so.
After the song, Jerry decided that it would be a good idea to flash his tits at the audience and he took of his shirt, much to the delight of the audience. Caleb took his off as well, followed by Boon as our set became a rock-set cum Chippendale's male strip show. Under immense pressure from the audience, my top came off. The only guy who did not succumb to the pressure was drummer Jacky, whose reward was that the newspapers on Monday morning did not carry pictures of his nipples in the press reports of the gig.
The next song was "Portrait of a Broken Glass". Originally known as "Portrait", the song has been was written by Jessie's Antidote, which was the instrumental band made up of Jerry, Boon and Jacky before me and Caleb came aboard and we became Dyerbreed. When the song ended, Jerry started playing the opening riffs to the Ronnie James Dio song "Holy Diver", and we all followed suit, turning it into a bit of a free jam session, before cutting it out and moving into the last song in our set for the night, "Reverse the Curse", a heavy thrash harmonics-influenced metal instrumental. The last instrumental was reasonably well received, especially by musicians in the crowd. It became a favorite of a certain bass player of a certain band which played at the same gig (who shall remain nameless, you know who you are. LOL!).
After us, the band Visualies took the stage. I like the name Visualies. Very catchy and meaningful. Visualies frontman Andy gave a mesmerizing performance, while the rest of the band was tight. After Visualies, the band Uglymen came on and they were amazing, combining rock with humor with their comic dances and incredible tightness musically. Their songs were catchy and they improvised their way out of problem with the bassist's cordless unit. They played songs from different genres and the guitarist was one that plays music that heavily influenced myself as well: Classic / Hard Rock. In terms of musical technique, they were my favorite band on the night.
Unfortunately, I missed Slap's performance as I had to send a couple of friends home first.
Slap
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Dream Machine wrote and played songs that REALLY got the crowd going, with double-meaning wordplay their key roots when it come to lyrics writing. Songs like "Sui Lan Jiao" can easily be understood as "sleeping lazily" in Mandarin is interpreted as "a beautiful penis" in hokkien, LOL!! Other songs like "LPPL" (which stands for Lan Par Par Lan" @ testicles), and "Khua Tiok Gui" (seeing ghosts) were also staples in their gigs over the years. They also played a couple of new songs, including one that sampled the Buddhist Namoamitahba chant (I shit you not). Really cool.
After the whole gig ended, I bought an Uglymen t-shirt (going at RM25 a piece) and the band's guitarist, Michael, gave me one of their posters. I got the whole band to sign it. When things started to die down, a few of us went back to the stage and started dismantling it, carrying home amplifiers, effect pedals, etc. Jacky helped bring an amp home as Ah how (who was the chief organizer of the event) needed all the help that he could get since there weren't enough cars to carry all the equipment back to the studio. Ticket for the gig went at RM10 a piece, but really it was to cover equipment and venue rental costs.
Jerry, who had a flight back to Spore at 5am the next day, went home early. the rest of the band and Owen went to Siang Siang at 3rd mile (the only place that we could think of that was still open at that our) for a late drink and discuss the performance and analyze areas that we could improve on as a band. Got home around 2.38 am. Went to bed exhausted.
AFTERMATH:
There were no reports on the gig on Sunday, but on Monday, we found our pictures and reports of the gig in Sin Chew and International Times. The overall review of the gig was positive and our band was mentioned in a good way. We had two pics in Sin Chew (one topless and one fully clothed) and one in International Times (topless). Sin Chew also included a picture my baby Ade, Caleb's (lead singer) girl Amber, and Lissa over the caption: "While rock bands tore up the stage with they heavy rock, hot girls tore up the camera films off stage." Hahaha!!
Sin Chew (10th Dec 2007) 
Picture of the crowd moshing during our set (Sin Chew, 10th Dec 2007) 
(L-R) Lissa, Ber (Caleb's girl), and my baby Ade (Sin Chew 10th Dec 2007)
Reporting on Dyerbreed, International Times (and I quote, translated from Chinese to English) said in their 10th Dec 2007 review of the gig: "Getting into the mood, four out of the band's five members took their shirts off, bringing an already heated up crowd to its boiling point." Not a bad review for a band that has only jammed together as a full band five times. This was because Jerry is based in Singapore and we've been communicating online, exchanging music pieces and ideas, and practicing separately. Jerry only got back to Kuching on the 1st of Dec, one week before the gig.
Reviews from friends were mixed, though mostly positive and we'll take note of everyone of them and work harder to improve on our act in future gigs (should they still allow us to take the stage, hahaha!!)
A Special Thanks:
Thanks, Ah How!I think I speak for all of us in Dyerbreed when I say that would like to say thank you to Ah How from Dream Machine / Zhao / Hip Hop and Rock Studios. He was the chief organizer of the gig. His constant encouragement and his allowing us to jam at his studio for a minimum rate really helped us develop as a band. He also allowed us to jammed at his place after studio hours and must have lost more than RM1,000 in potential revenues by reserving his recording studio Room 3 for our exclusive use. I would also like to thank him for lending me his guitar effect pedals, letting me stomp on them even though the pedals must have cost at least RM4,000 ++. Thanks How!! We'll never forget you. (in a heterosexual manner, obviously, lol.)
I would like to say thanks to my baby Ade, who was very supportive of me and took a lot of crap from me when I was stressed out over band related shit. Sorry baby. I love you. Also, many thanks to Louis, Ah Gin, Ah Siang, Amber and Lissa, for bothering to show up and lend much needed support to us. Special thanks to my mom too, who constantly discouraged me and nagged at me whenever I go out jamming, hahahahaa!!!
She only said two things about the gig, which she more or less only found out when she read the newspapers on Monday. The first thing was that I was an embarrassment to her because my picture turned up in the papers half-naked. The second thing is to nag at me for doing stupid band stuff when I should focus more on my part-time financial planning studies. She even put newspaper copies which have reviews of our band in to my house's recycle bin, even after I told her I want to keep them. Sigh...... But I still love her any way. Pop was a bit more quiet, but I can tell he was ok with everything, save for the appearing-in-the-newspapers-half-naked incident.
If there's anyone I've left out, my sincere apologies.
Norman (Dyerbreed)
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4 comments:
Wow a full coverage of the full event. u guys did great. I hope to see more coming from you guys. Next time we will have the technology of wireless guitar to amp connection like Uglymen did. Linking Jerry ryhthmic mix from Singapore to Ah How Jamming House. Haha.
Haha!! Thanks a lot Siang! Thanks for your support on the night. Tk care and we'll c u around! :-)
wow... great post... just get to know here from uglymen.net ...
happy to know this page.. and i ready add here as my subcribe...
see u look great in ur band .. hope can be play in "longjourney" :) jiayou...
Thanks, Rambo!
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