Awareness

I wrote a short article entitled 'Awareness' for a friend's open-topic-zine collaboration. It has contributors from Australia, Finland, India, Indonesia, Japan, India, Malaysia, Norway, Singapore and United States. Awesomeness.

Download the full zine here!

                      AWARENESS

One can easily argue that the concept of inequality in life has already started when one was born into this world. Some people were born into families that have everything, and while others arguably would have to struggle a lot more during their quests to financial stabilities. Certainly, no one wish to be born into a poor/financially struggling family and it’s not like we have a say in it before coming into this world. However, we do have the power to choose how we will live our lives with what we have been given. 

 

I was born and raised in Jakarta and have spent most of my life here. It’s no secret that Jakarta has a big issue over social and economic inequality among its residents. Over the years, I’ve had friends from Australia, Phillipines, Singapore and other various countries coming over for holiday and most of the time I had to explain to them why some people could afford to buy the latest BMW cars and others were picking up scraps and pieces of garbage off the street for living.

My realization of this social/economic gap has started as early as I could remember. My parents used to take me and my sister to orphanages when we were kids to show that there’s a whole different world out there filled with less fortunate people. Of course I had to learn the lesson the hard way as well : growing up, there were times when I had been mugged and asked for money by these ‘less fortunate’ kids on the streets. Since then, I had been really conscious when it came to social/economic gap among people and brought this experiences and knowledge with me as I turned older and became an adult.

At present, I’m a 26 year-old guy working as an English teacher for an enrichment learning centre. Eighty percent students that I teach go to International schools where the facilites are vastly better and could cost about ten times as expensive as state-owned schools. Having been teaching for almost two years now, at one point I realised that most of these kids have never been on Jakarta’s public transportations nor have they experienced the crowded, sweaty, traditional markets that my Mom would take me to every Sunday when I was a kid. I was puzzled. 

One of the things that has to be done in order to stop these massive disparities is to have the ‘more fortunate’ people share their wealth/knowledge/love/time with the lesser ones, especially with the way our systems right now only benefit certain classes of people. It’s simple and yet its the most effective way. And for this to work, awareness among people and kids from young age is crucial. Kids need to know what really happens out there, on the other side of their parents’ car window. 

Without ignoring my main responsibility of teaching my students English grammar and how to write a well-structured essay, a big part of mastering a language is about communicating ideas. Ideas are formed from knowledge, experience and the world around us. I tried to transfer some of these to my students in class everytime I had a chance. Hopefully they take something from these processes, no matter how small it is.

At the end of the day, it is about holding on to that hope that something will change in the future and make sure that we are doing something, anything that will propel the current’s state of things towards that change, no matter how small it might be. Seeing how bleak things are and the fact that our government turns into a bigger joke every day, I feel like the social/economic gap among Jakarta’s residents is sadly our problem to solve.

-Yudhistira-

Vague

We're lacking presence on the internet at the moment. This is as existential as we get : Vague's last fm page

The idea of promoting your own band always seem weird to me. Is it? or Is it not? But since no one knows who Vague is, nor do people read this blog, I find it perfectly justifiable to do a little write-up about Vague, the band I'm in.

Vague started sometime in August 2010, when Adit who is also the bass player for Obsesif Kompulsif (and tons of hardcore bands in the past) joined us. Before that, It was just I and Jan, who also sing for the hardcore band Raincoat, jamming around by ourselves and having fun. When Adit joined us, i started to write songs. I only had been playing guitar properly for about 6 months by then, and i had never written a song in my life. I found the process of songwriting to be challenging and somewhat frustrating. It would take me hours to write a simple riff. Don't even get me started on writing lyrics, which i found to be equally hard.

Combination of my inability to write songs quickly, our limited skill at music instrument (none of us are proper musicians, except maybe Adit) and a lot of other things caused the band to go at a really slow pace. We had our first gig in February 2011 when i was organizing Bekasi show for punk outfits Circuits (Melbourne) and Daighila (Kuala Lumpur). The show went well, but our performance was a mess. My guitar was way too quiet, lyrics were forgotten, my left leg was shaking uncontrollably, and i somehow managed to pull out the cord while playing not once, but three times. It was really bad.

Fast forward a few months, Vague has just put out our demo. It's far from perfect, and there are lot of things that i wish i knew back when we were recording, but what done is done. I'm sure the next recording will be a lot better. We've been a band for about a year now, but we've only played three shows. We're definitely lacking in this department and i hope that will change soon.

Vague started because of our mutual love for music, especially for bands within the punk/rock umbrella. We love Revolution Summer bands, 80's hardcore punk, as well as more traditional rock bands such as Dinosaur Jr. Those are our main influences although we never limit ourselves to certain styles.

I'm happy that the feelings i had when I started writing for Vague is still there. And i hope they will stay for a long time.

Vague Demo :
1. 23
2. The Road
3. Endless Summer

Download Here

Jirapah

Jirapah myspace
Jirapah facebook
Jirapah website/blog

Lack of inspiration can be quite a problem for an artist, including musicians. Inspiration often comes in the most subtle way and sometimes they come from the most unexpected places or sources. But most of the times a hint of it is enough to push an artist to craft their art. Good musicians always look for new inspirations and conversely letting themselves to be influenced by people, things and places around them. I believe that musicians (or any artist for that matter) are products of their environments. It's fascinating how sometimes we can have a better understanding of a piece of art by understanding the kind of environment the artist was/is in.

Jirapah (a play on Indonesian word "Jerapah" which translates to giraffe) is a musical project started by Ken Jenie, an Indonesian who grew up and spend most of his life in Brooklyn, New York. Ken started playing guitar in his high school days and he had been in various bands before he started Jirapah. I know nothing of these previous projects except that a few of them were hardcore punk bands.

Jirapah didn't come about until Ken was 27 when he started recording his own songs. Jirapah is essentially a one man band with all songs, instruments and vocals written and performed by Ken himself on records. During live performances, Ken would be accompanied by Mar Galo on bass, drum and occasionally another guitar. There are quite a few videos of Jirapah playing as a three piece in New York on youtube.

Unfortunately, visa problems forced Ken to leave The States and come back to Jakarta, roughly three years after Jirapah started. Things didn't stop there however as Ken would start performing Jirapah songs by himself. Jirapah also continued on putting out digital releases and landed a single on Yogjakarta's excellent and diverse label, Yes No Wave.

I saw Jirapah for the first time at Whiteboard Journal's event, Cliff Notes at Potatohead. It was just Ken, his guitar and a bunch of pedals. It was a rather intimate set (about as intimate as it gets at a place like Potatohead anyway) and it certainly won me over. I've been a fan ever since.

I would describe Jirapah's music in a nutshell as "bedroom ambient pop music". It's obvious that there are a lot of different influences involved in Jirapah's music, although the pop songwriting is always there. Thank You, Max EP has a post-punk vibe to it at times, especially on song like "Telephone" with its moody and darker feel. Jirapah also shows its more adventurous side sonically with "First Wave", a six minute ambient piece. Ken would later incorporate these ambient passages into songs like "27". Jirapah's later releases sees the band moving into a few different directions. "Clouds" is a moody bluesy track, "Foxes" has a very Velvet Underground-esque fuzzy guitar solos and "Saturdays" is about as dream pop as Jirapah ever gotten. The core elements of Jirapah's music are still there, however : the lo-fi minimalist approach, the heavy usage of reverb, and the multi-layered guitars.

So what's news with Jirapah in 2011? I'm guessing more digital releases and shows. Jirapah just recently got picked by Nylon magazine as one of the "top 10 most promising local acts", giving them an opportunity to share a big stage with Hurts, a synth-pop band from the UK. Honestly, i couldn't care less about some lifestyle fashion magazine's opinions on music, but it's nice that Jirapah is getting more recognition and exposure. They've earned it. Expect bigger things from Jirapah.

Here are all Jirapah releases. Click to download. Knock yourself out.

Thank You, Max Ep (December 2009)
Digital 7" Vol.01 (April 2010)
Digital 7" Vol.02 (May 2010)
Single on Tsefula/Tsefuelha Records / Yes No Wave (October 2010)
Digital 7" Vol.03 (February 2011)
Digital 7" Vol.04 (April 2011)

Jimmy Eat World @ Balai Kartini, Jakarta (03/04/2011)

My first introduction to Jimmy Eat World was that massive top-40 hit, "The Middle" which apparently reached #5 on the Billboard Top 100 at some point. The video of the song was being played at least 5 times a day on MTV when i was 15-16 that it's hard to miss it. It's the one where people having pool party in their underwear, just in case your memory failed you.

Looking back at it, It's funny to think that Jimmy Eat World who wrote countless numbers of singles, have won awards from the music industry and have toured with every single "big" rock act out there (Foo Fighters, Green Day, etc etc, you get the picture) is the same band who put out splits with Christie Front Drive, Jejune and Mineral and probably did countless basement shows back in the day.

Jimmy Eat World started by putting out a slew of demos and EPs dated back to 1993 and 1994. Their sound is still very much straight forward punk-rock at this point, albeit leaning towards more the melodic side of the spectrum. The production is rough and the music isn't anywhere as interesting as their later stuff, but the catchiness and the melodies are there. Soon after, they got picked up by Capitol Records where they put out their first major label offering Static Prevails in 1996.

Static Prevails is considered to be the start of good things for Jimmy Eat World. Along with all advantages that comes with being on major label, the band's songwriting has improved ten folds at this point. The band's style of mid tempo punk-rock with huge anthemic choruses and soft-loud dynamics is starting to take shape here. The album also exposes the band's ability to write softer, poppier songs such as "Claire" and "Caveman" which undoubtfuly influenced by bands like Mineral, Sunny Day Real Estate, etc.

Their follow up album, Clarity is what i would consider to be Jimmy Eat World's magnum opus, the "holy grail" of their discography. The band went for a "cleaner" route on this album, resulting in a more polished alternative-rock sound with hooks bigger than the entire state of Texas. Clarity also marks the start of Jim Adkins as the band's main singer with Tom providing backing vocals instead of the other way around like it had been previous to the album. And to be honest, Jim does have stronger vocals than Tom's. Jim's voice has more range and therefore works better with the direction the band has taken, musically.

Lyrically, Clarity is also worth mentioning. The simplicity and yet brutally-honest look on (presumably) male adolescence problems without being too angsty or whiny is their main recipe, and oh they used it so well. It's hard not to revisit those adolescence struggles and feelings that Clarity manage to evoke intensely every time it's on . It's almost as if every feeling is distorted and being put into words, turning Clarity into an emotional roller coaster ride for those who like to hold on to their youth memories.

Clarity also sees the band usage of various instruments to compliment their song arrangements, such as synths, drum machines, violins, cellos and a few others. The last track on the album "Goodbye Sky Harbor" clocks at 16 minutes and sees them on their more adventurous side. The song twist and turns itself into a repetitive drum machined, guitars and vocals layered passages and it's certainly quite a treat to see them play this song live (see videos below).

Next up, is what i believe their most selling album up-to-date, titled Bleed American in which sees them signed with Dreamworks. The singles from this album such as "The Middle", "A Praise Chorus" and "Sweetness" enjoyed a quite significant amount of airplay on MTV and radio stations. These songs are among fans' favorite due their sing-along-able qualities. Although they are good songs, i feel like the lyrics on Bleed American for the most part aren't up to par with their previous efforts. The album is also somewhat overproduced and the singles were definitely overplayed. It's a step on the wrong direction for me, personally.

Thankfully, Futures released in 2004, revitalized my faith in the band. It's somewhat a combination of Clarity songwriting and Bleed American style of heavier songs and production. The music and lyrics are also more mature and "darker" which i find to be really endearing. As far as their more commercial output goes, Futures is better than Bleed American as an album. It has more variety, it's less cheesy and the lyrics are definitely a huge step up in quality. "Kill" and "23" are some of the best songs they've written.

It pains me to say, however that Futures is actually the last Jimmy Eat World record worth listening to, in my opinion. I gave Chase This Light and Invented a fair chance, but they just didn't do it for me. You can tell it's still the same band, but the songs are just dull and sounds uninspired. At this point, they're just another top 40 pop-rock band to me.

Following up a highly successful sold out Clarity tour, in which the band play Clarity in its entirety, they finally decided to hit up Indonesia as part of their SEA conquest. Well, i went and i can definitely say it was worth spending money just for witnessing "Goodbye Sky Harbour" alone. It was one of the best shows i've been to (and i've been to tons of shows). The performance was flawless, the sound was crystal clear, everything was on point. The only complaint i have would be the number of new songs they played and that there weren't enough Clarity material and not a single song off of Static Prevails. Oh well. They did, however play almost every single of their more popular songs and it was great night overall.

Yup, i took videos.

Asobi Seksu live @ Smesco Center, Jakarta (26-11-2010)

Yes I realise this post is about two months late, making it the worst piece of "journalism" ever. I don't care.

I remember hearing Asobi Seksu for the first time back in 2007 or 2008. I was instantly hooked by their pop sensibilities. I still think of them as a pop band. They have shoegaze/dream pop qualities in their music for sure, but instead of trying to replicate the early 90's British sounds like so many newer shoegaze bands do, they simply put those elements to compliment their music perfectly. It's hard not to be reminded of Kevin Shields' guitar work by songs like Sooner or Pink Cloud Tracing Paper. At the same time, i find it hard to compare their sound as a whole to other band(s). They definitely have their own thing going on.

One of Asobi's unique qualities is the singer Yuki's high-pitched vocals, mixed with tons of reverb to give them that lush effect. Some of their lyrics are written in English and some in Japanese. The English songs are sung with a hint of Japanese accent, giving them a certain charm on its own. Guitarist James Hanna also steps up to vocal duties on a few songs, and he does them fairly well. Ultimately, it's Yuki's vocals that makes Asobi Seksu stand out.

The show was held on Friday night, so i rushed straight from the office after work to the venue in fear of getting caught by the deadly Friday traffic. It turns out i got there way too early, like by a few hours. The door should've been opened by 8 o'clock, but the show didn't start until like 9.30. Bollocks.

The show was held in Smesco Centre, a massive convention hall with an equally massive stage up front. The entire floor was covered in carpet and the ceiling was at least 20-30 feet up high. It's certainly more than an adequate venue for a music show. Unfortunately, this is also why the show "fails" that night. The venue was simply way too big for a middle-sized band like Asobi Seksu. They were less than 300 people in the room. It wasn't even one-quarter filled. If only the promoter would've been more careful in choosing a more proper venue (read : smaller), they they could've cut down the overpriced ticket, which i'm sure would've lead to more people coming out.

Sajama Cut was the only local opening band that night. I used to listen to them a few years ago so i'm somewhat familiar with their music. I think they are better-suited to smaller gigs with more intimate crowd. It seemed that they've re-arranged their old songs to give it a more arena-rock feel in order to make them work in bigger stage. I personally don't think it works, and their performance leaves a lot to be desired. Sajama Cut shouldn't have been the opening band for the show.

After much anticipation, Asobi Seksu finally hit the stage and opened their set with Strawberries. I have to say they sounded way noisier and fuller than they are on records, which is always a good thing. The vocals were on point, and all the instruments cut through the mix quite nicely. They seemed to have done their homework for this tour by filling most of their set with songs off of "Citrus", arguably their best album to date and not coincidentally, fans favorite. They also played a few songs off of their self-titled, their latest offering "Hush" and even two new songs which will be on their new album, out in 2011. Their cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain Never Understand was the final icing on the cake, putting their performance that night as one of my favorites of 2010.

Of course i have videos

The Raveonettes live @ New Majestic, Bandung (12-11-2010)

Pictures were taken by Michael Killian. All credit goes to him.

The Raveonettes myspace
The Raveonettes website

I'll be totally honest here. I hadn't heard a single Raveonettes song until like two months ago. I had heard their names being thrown around on the internet a couple of times, i just never bothered to check them out. Then i heard they were coming over to Indonesia. The ticket was like 15 AUD which is about as good of a deal as you can get over here. So i headed over to their myspace and listened to a few songs on there. My first impression was "well they sounded like if Jesus and Mary Chain and The Velvets had a baby". Despite liking those bands, i wasn't really impressed at first.

I decided to give them a fair shot and downloaded a few albums. I can tell you that they changed their sound with each album, although you can probably still tell it's the same band. They definitely nail The Jesus And Mary Chain guitar tone down to a T when they wanted to. Check out their first release, Whip It On for example of this (more Psychodandy than Darklands). It's also their most straight forward, noisy, rocking album. The difference between them and JAMC is that if JAMC seem to be leaning toward the simplicity of what would later become post-punk, The Raveonettes seem to be influenced more by 50's/60's garage pop/rock. Strangely enough, they sounded way more modern and "today" compared to JAMC due to their uses of synths.

Their releases post-Whip It On see them improving on songwriting department and putting the "noisy" parts more strategically. The songs are more varied and less one dimensional. They also seemed to be getting poppier and more accessible with each album (not a bad thing in my book). Their last output, In And Out Of Control even sounds like a lost Blondie album at times. One thing that doesn't change within the equation of their music is the juxtaposition of the male/female pop style of harmonized vocals and the "dark" nature of the lyrical content being sung. Much like The Velvet Underground, much of their lyrics seem to revolve around relationships gone sour, lust, rape, violence, and everything in between.

Let's get back to the show review. After driving down for about 2 hours, me and friends got to the venue. We missed one of the opening bands, Denial. I've seem them before and they definitely got the JAMC thing too, making them a definite good pick for the show. I don't know how to describe Cuts, the second opening band of that night. They were simply awful. Two female singers and the rest of the band dressed as if they were going for A Clockwork Orange audition. None of them seemed to be older than twenty. And they play some kind of boring modern rock-dance hybrid or whatever it was.

Finally it was The Raveonettes time to hit the stage. To put it simply, they killed it. The guitar tone was amazing, especially Sune's. The surfy clean tone is to die for. I never wanted a Jazzmaster more than that night. The crowd vibe was really good too. There were plenty of singalong sessions and the band seemed to really enjoy themselves that night. I think they were a bit overwhelmed by crowd reaction given it was their first time in Indonesia.

The Raveonettes also mix it up a bit on stage that night. A few songs started with Sune and Sharin and their guitars with the rest of the band joining in. Sharin and the drummer also swap duties on second guitar and drums for a bit. Their setlist was pretty good that night, it was a good mix of old and newer songs. It was one of the funnest shows i've been too this year and i definitely like them more after that night.

Here's a couple of videos i took off of their set that night. Enjoy!

Ghaust

Ghaust myspace
Ghaust facebook
Ghaust blogspot

Starting out as a hardcore punk band with metallic influences or as some people like to call “crossover”, Neurosis slowly but surely ditched their initial style for a more experiment sound. Taking cues from bands that doesn’t fit into the standard of “metal” such as Godflesh and Swans, their later sound is heavy, repetitive and yet sparse. There is more focus on the atmosphere being created. Synths, tribal drumming, chants, acoustic guitar passages were all being utilized to achieve a big, thunderous, epic sonic assault.

A band called Isis similarly followed their steps a few years later. Guitarist/songwriter Aaron Turner is also the founder of Hydra Head Records which has produced countless of new generation of bands playing their own twists of extreme music rooted in hardcore punk and metal.

It was only a matter of time before the world took notice. Thanks to the presence of the internet, bands started popping out from different parts of the world. The term “post-metal” and “post-rock” was on people’s lips on internet messageboards and music forums. And before you know it, bands like Russian Circles, Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky got invited to play music festivals all around the world.

I saw Ghaust for the first time in December 2008 and to be honest, it didn’t make much of an impression on me (the fact that their songs are longer than 5 minutes didn’t really help, I have an attention span of a 10-year old). However, with subsequent listens I became more and more absorbed by the music. One day it just clicked with me and I said to myself “this is good!”.

It would be easy to dismiss Ghaust as simply trying to ride the “post-metal” wave since there are only a very few bands playing this sort of music in Indonesia. But if you listen to their music closely, then you’d find that they actually put their own spin and ideas and it’s actually pretty damn excellent.

Consisted of only a guitar and a drum, Ghaust choose to keep things straight-forward, riffs to riffs, one section to another. They don’t rely on huge built-up, subtle chord progressions like Isis did. What makes their music interesting is the fact that they can go from a melodic mid-tempo section, to a fast hardcore-punk inspired bit, to a quiet ambient/post-rock passage in a blink of an eye. The closest I can compare them to would probably be Pelican's early stuff. They share similar guitar tone, although Pelican's is more bass-y and Ghaust’s has more clarity and crisp. They both have that doom but melodic riffs thing going for them. Neither of them have vocals, either.

For a relatively new band (starting in mid 2005, I believe), Ghaust have made a name for themselves. They’ve released a self-titled cd and few splits with Pazahora from Singapore and Aseethe from USA, and Black Waves from Germany. They’ve also just returned from what I heard, a relatively successful Malaysian and Singapore tour along with another local, Kelelawar Malam.

I believe that Ghaust has a potential to improve themselves with each release. Looking at their level of productivity and ambition, a tour to a western country doesn’t seem that far out of reach if they can manage not to break up too soon.

Here are a couple videos from their set at Tribute to Joneh show at Rossi a few weeks ago. It’s a shame that their set was so short. I will say that it’s not the best Ghaust performance I’ve seen. The drummer looks a bit tired and unenthusiastic although the latter is probably just how he looks :D

Enjoy the videos, fellas.

Ghaust - Return Fire



Ghaust - Sleep And Release