:: A Malaysian on Music, Gigs, Concerts. ::

Who is Inch Chua? She is a Singaporean musician that has taken the solo path out from her altrock outfit Allura. She has release two EPs; an xmas EP and another one just released in 2009 called the Bedroom EP. There is something pretty distinctive about her vocals and the various interesting instruments that she plays. She is clearly trying to set a genre for herself within this EP, it’s acoustic, it’s electronica, it’s lo-fi, it’s a lot of things. On first impression, her vocals seem to be a cross-blend of Stacey Kent and Bjork. Yep, it’s pretty unique.

Her influences are clear; Fiona Apple, Roisin Murphy (Moloko fame), Aphex Twin (very evident in her electronic beats), Bjork and others. Her work still needs some refining but her blend of the genres make it a pretty good listen. Her vocals are strong across the harder stuff she needs to get through in Allura, but she can sound equally jazzy and dreamy in her Christmas EP. She’s something special, trust me on this. I hope she gets enough eyeballs and ears on her music and doesn’t get stuck with the indie minority syndrome.

Actually I never did mention why she created such a space on my music radar. Somewhere at the end of 2009, there was a pretty simple but brilliant TVC put out by DiGi to advertise their Internet services. What really caught my attention about the TVC was mostly the song in the background. It was REALLY GOOD, especially the vocals. So for the next few months, no one was revealing who it was but the vocals sounded semi familiar. Eventually gave up and nearly 7 months later, I get a message from the Inch herself on Youtube promoting her self made video. My day has turned brighter

Check out the videos:

Original TVC: Click Me
Inch’s Video: Click Me
Inch’s FB: Click Me
Inch’s band Allura: Click Me
Inch’s Official Site: Click Me

Stereophonics were in town on the 28th of April and boy was I excited. Again, it was a gig that was put together cause the welsh rockers were to play Singapore during the weekend and hell, why not get them to come here. Aside from the sporadic rumours that they were not showing up due to monetary issues, thank the lucky stars, the promoters came through.

I’ve watched them years ago back in 2001 or so, after they released Mr Writer. Visibly more mature in their looks, but Kelly Jones is still that same mumbling welshman that I watched years ago. I’m not the biggest fan of their latest album, but it is still growing on me.

The crowd was visibly lesser than Placebo who played there a month plus ago, but the crowd was older (surprisingly) and definitely bigger music lovers, instead of the newer generation of wannabes (yeah, I’m an elitist). AND, there was booze available.

Stereophonics rocked their way through a variety of songs from their many studio albums. Superman, Pick A Part That’s New, Mr Writer (my alltime fav song from Stereophonics), Maybe Tomorrow, a new track from their latest album, Innocent, Have A Nice Day, Traffic, Just Looking (my 2nd fav song from Stereophonics, at this point I was just hypnotised), Bartender and The Thief, Dakota (which got the crowd going loudest) and A Thousand Trees. I only listed out 13 songs that I really like and to be honest songs that I recognise easily without any effort. They played 24 songs in total

Overall, the gig was awesome but I suppose I expected more engagement with the crowd from the band, but Kelly being Kelly, he mumbles with his welsh accent. Hang on, most welsh peeps do that all the time, and they’re not really mumbling as we have problems understanding them.

Key moments of the gig, when Stereophonics played Just Moving.

For the longest time I have been raving on and on about Zee Avi @ Kokokaina. She finally had her homecoming gig in Malaysia since getting signed. About time!

50 minute set. Short but sweet. Well she doesn’t have that many songs. Zee started the night off with Poppy. Good way to get the crowd going. And it was a pretty decent crowd. About 3 thousand people made the night merry. Zee continued with Slow Hands, The Childhood. She followed that up with Honey Bee, Bitter Heart, You and Me and finally Kantoi! Her final song (yeah that was fast), The First Of The Gang, which incidentally was not written by her came up the block pretty fast.

Then came some dramatics. She thanked the crowd the organisers, brought her dad up there, Gold certification was awarded (probably Malaysia or Taiwan certification). Then it was done. The crowd (some of them) started leaving but I knew there was no way I was leaving till I heard my favourite, Monte. After some feeble attempts to calm the demanding crowd down, Adam the MC saved his head when Zee stepped out and performed, wait for it….Monte

That just wrapped up the night for me. Check out some pictures that the organiser Red Tix shared with me.

Some old Zee Avi postings of mine

http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=254
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=241
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=215
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=211
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=199
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=181
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=57

Sorry folks, this is a bit outdated :).

I’ve never been a fan of KL Live because it was never meant to be a gig arena. First, it’s where Warp used to be. Secondly, it was where Ruums was and I’ve attended Akon there before. But, since it’s probably the only other intimate arena that KL has, let’s not be too demanding yeah?

I got there pretty early. Around 7pm for some dinner and drinks and was greeted by a tremendously LONG line. So, no way I was going to wait in line, I’ll just wait till later. The crowd was generally youngish and all look all prepped for some RAWKING.

When I decided to stroll into the arena, managed to cut a very long queue thanks to some mates of mine in the organising team. Parked myself upstairs but before long I went downstairs. It’s absolutely not conducive to be upstairs as it’s a stand concert and everyone’s at the same level.

As the band came out and Brian Molko started belting away Placebo tunes, it was evident that this was going to be a good night. However, they played most of their newer stuff. Not the end of the world but the crowd lapped it up anyway. Placebo started the night off with clearly the best song of their new album, Battle For The Sun.

The night progressed on and a couple of cult classics, Special K and Every You Every Me came on but that was it. No Pure Morning, no Nancy Boy, c’mon! When the crowd cheered louder for Bright Lights instead of their classics, it was pretty clear - Placebo were formed in 1994, perhaps some of this crowd weren’t even into music in Placebo’s early days.

Overall a good night but no alcoholic beverages.

Since Paramore were not coming to Malaysia, I had to watch them in Singapore. Another day, another roadtrip. Not too long ago, I was on the Florence & The Machine + The Xx roadtrip, so it has become a natural thing to do.

As I got to the stadium, what a crowd. A very young crowd who I predict are Twilight fans as well. Paramore’s debut and sophomore album catered more for the young ones. Brand New Eyes is a bit more matured in sound.

The night festivities kicked off at about 8pm, with an opening band, which I didn’t catch their name. They were pretty awful, the sound setup was poor and the lead vocalist can’t rawk out.

When Paramore came on, the lights went off - the crowd went MENTAL. They kicked the night off with Ignorance, then slayed Crushcrushcrush. What a way to start their gig. To tone the night down a little bit if it’s possible, Paramore queued up That’s What You Get and Looking Up. Careful and Let the Flames Begin before the infamous “This song is about Love, gone terribly wrong” line was screamed out by Hayley and everyone knew Never Let This Go was next.

Paramore then went back to a couple of songs from their first album, which were Pressure and For A Pessimist….

Then, all of a sudden, Decode came on and it was good night. But we all knew there was an encore. There always is and they hadn’t played the song that got them on the radar.

Hayley and her boys returned to belt out Misery Business and end the night for real this time with Brick By Boring Brick. Throughout the night Hayley engaged the crowd and everyone lapped it all up. It was an image of wholesome bringing the house down with some serious rock tunes. They partied like a rockstar. It was undeniably one of best gigs I have been too throughout my gigging life. I haven’t been to THAT many concerts, but I think I’m in the region of just under 100. So it was that good.

On another note, I have other reviews to post, mainly Florence & The Machine but I have not felt inspired of late to do anything about it. Tough.

The Killers got cancelled, which was a disappointment. So a bunch of us drowned our sorrows in The Killers in spirit and went for a roadtrip anyway. Turns out they’re still playing Australia. So, I wonder what the problem is. Hiatus? Breakup? Just play the damn Asian tour.

Next up, Florence and The Machine, plus The xx on February 7th. I’m looking forward to watching these two buzz bands. If you haven’t heard of either of them, Florence and The Machine are similar to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The xx are the new age nugazers. Yep new aged shoegazer bands.

Next up, March 7 - PARAMORE live in Singapore. I’ve been waiting for their Asian gigs for a couple of years now. So they are finally coming. I can’t wait to hear Hayley belt out my favs: Decode, My Heart, Ignorance, Hallelujah, etc.

In March as well, we’ve got Placebo (who I will miss the singapore gig for the Malaysian one) and Kings of Convenience. It is definitely a good start to the year of 2010.

Yep, his album is finally coming out. 23rd November. I didn’t think much of his debut single, For Your Entertainment. Kinda Mika like but it was interesting. Grows on you? I’m more interested in Time For Miracles, which will be on the OST of 2012. John Cusack doing epic film. Time For Miracles somehow reminds me of latter Stephen Tyler. At first, I drew comparison with Freddie Mercury, but I think Adam Lambert could become an alltime great if he really gets out there and not just be one for the mainstream public. Hang on, he’s gay. Okay, it’s definitely working already :). Enough hearsay - check him out on youtube. I can’t wait to hear his debut album..

Time For Miracles

Pixie Lott. Yum. This blonde bombshell who has a fantastic contralto voice and superb looks to match her voice is a recording label’s wet dream. Sings and looks good. Her legs, her boobs, …okay, sorry I can go on and on. I missed the chance to see her live early in her career during the MTV World Stage gig in Sunway Lagoon, Malaysia. Yep, I was late.

Anyhoo, when I heard her acoustic renditions of Mama Do and the remake of Use Somebody (from Kings of Leon), I fell in love. The voice. Wow. So, in a sense I had high hopes for her debut album, Turn It Up. However, when I got my hands on the album, I was a tad bit disappointed. LA Reid made her into pop culture mould. The album was filled with mostly mainstream music. Bah. All is not lost though, the album grows on ya and her latest single, Cry Me Out is fast becoming a repeat on my playlist. There are still elements of soul within her debut effort, but I wished it could have been more. In some way, I’m reminded of what happened to Joss Stone whose first album was a motown tribute of covers and her original track debut album became pop culture rubbish.

So, I look forward to Pixie’s gigs, not necessarily her albums.

Cry Me Out
Fall in love with Pixie now!

Sorry for the MIAness :).

I’ve been listening to a fair bit of Renee Olstead. For those of you that didn’t know, she’s the ginger haired daughter in that sitcom Still Standing. Whaddya know, she can sing and has pretty good vocal pipes. She’s only 20 but has had 5 studio recorded albums. Damn. Impressive. Best part is, she’s only at the start of her musical passage. She’s a bit of a cutie as well.

Check her out:

Renee Olstead and David Foster - Skylark

I’ve been waiting for Windows 7 for a pretty long time. Let’s just say I skipped the Vista generation and was previously on Windows XP since 2003. But that time is long gone. I’ve made the jump to Windows 7. I have installed the RC, then the RTM and have not looked back since. There is a community in Malaysia, which seems to be pretty active driving people on the cool stuff on Windows 7. Check out the Windows 7 Malaysia site, which is showcasing lots of content and also CONTESTS! Yep, you can win stuff at their Windows 7 Malaysia Contests page. Go go go.

Oh yeah, you could also check out their Facebook page and their @win7malaysia Twitter