Personal Musical Highlights of 2013

These are some of the musical things that happened this year and ones i will remember for years to come. Please note that i hardly ever follow/listen to new albums. I'm a very slow listener. Keeping up with new music with the internet around is just impossible.  I'm old, deal with it. 

1. My Bloody Valentine gig in Melbourne (Feb 2013)  

MBV is one of my favorite bands of all time, so seeing them live earlier this year easily made it the best thing that happened this year. It was one of those live performances that had so much expectation on it and yet delivered and not disappoint. They were probably the loudest band i've ever experienced, along with Dinosaur Jr back in Brisbane a few years ago. The show sold out and I had to spend quite a fair amount of money just to be there in attendance. I still keep the cheap, useless earplugs given right before the show started.

2. White Walls

Finding out about these guys was a gift. White Walls play this guitar-tone obsessed indie rock with doom metal leaning. It's like a bunch of metalheads playing Dinosaur Jr songs. One drummer, two guitars, no bass, lots of fuzz and open chords. Their songwriting and musical chops are astounding and they will only get bigger for sure. They are easily one of my favorite current bands now. I was lucky enough to see them in Melbourne when catching MBV and bought their record at Poison City. 

3. Vague (Shows and Recording)

Vague has played more shows this year more than ever. Some of them were the coolest shows i've ever played at. 

• Playing with screamo outfit Sjanse (SG), Terapiurine, Ssslothhh Spiritualized Mammals and their naked singer in Safe House bistro Bandung. 
• Sharing the stage with Barefood twice, one at the last POP UP! at Demajors old location (with Individual Distortion as well :D) and the other one at the legendary Superbad at Jaya Pub. 
• Playing at At America with Marche La Void. No one saw it coming, not even us haha. It was a strange but awesome experience.
• Participating in the very 1st Thursday Noise at Borneo Beerhouse with Mellon Yellow, Skandal (Jogja) and Morfem. 
• And of course playing at Waiting Room reunion at Rolling Stone Cafe. Even though the show was a flop (sandwiched between RRRecfest and Joyland), watching Waiting Room playing Fugazi's songs was pretty cool. 

Vague is also recording at the moment for a full-album and 7", coming out next year. If you had told me four years ago that the shitty punk band Jan and I started would even make it this far, I would've called you a liar. But things are going well for us at the moment and I am very very proud of Jan, Gary and myself. Shout out also to our old bassist, Adit.

4. Discovering Amazing Local Talents

Indonesia has always had amazing local talents for sure, but due to the lack of infrastructure, a lot of bands/artists stay obscure and often undeservedly so. Thanks to the internet and social media, words get around very fast these days. Here are some bands/artists that I wanted to highlight this year (they might not release anything in 2013) : 

• The Kuda is still underrated it's not even funny. I found out about them when randomly browsing YesNoWave catalogue (can't remember if it was in 2012 or 2013). These Bogor quartet plays early (late 70's) midwest style of American hardcore punk and they do it right. They were also featured on Rocket Rain soundtrack compilation this year. 
• Cotswold from Surabaya, also happen to be our label mate on Tseulfa/Tsefula recordsreleased their EP earlier this year. It showcases their ability to mix post punk with melodic delayed guitar lines. These guys are still very young (early 20's) and already on the path of something good. 
• Woodcabin, also our label mate on T/T record is consisted of Prabu of Saturday Night Karaoke and the drummer of Cotswold as well. They've demonstrated their unique, raw, no distortion approach on twinkly midwest emo. 
• WeThePeople from Bandung caught my eye when Vague played with them at Safe House Bistro, Bandung. While their old EP still leaned towards more straight-forward hardcore punk, their newer material has post-hardcore leaning while still retaining the intensity of hardcore. Don't sleep on them! Their full-length is coming out soon through Grimloc Records!  

Worthy mentions : Spiritualized Mammals (Bandung), Sex Sux (Bogor), Moiss (Semarang), Negative Lovers (Jakarta), Cathuspatha (Bandung), Vallendusk (Jakarta), Somnyfera (Bandung), Rabu (Jogjakarta)

5. Independent Record Labels

The record labels that i will mention mostly have been around longer than a year, but they have put out releases this year that are worth mentioning. 

• Anoa Records has probably been the most talked about record label this year. Their first release was Barefood's Sullen EP who did really well, sales-wise that it got them to Rolling Stone's top 10 list. Their second release, Seaside's Undone came out just a while ago and it will probably be a top seller as well. 
• Sonic Funeral Records is a Jogjakarta-based label (even though the owner works in Jakarta now) and has been responsible for these releases : Wicked Suffer 7", Asangata tapes, Avhath 7", and Southern Beach Terror LP that just came out. Komunal 12", Rabu tapes and Vague's first full length will be out next year!
• Elevation Records put out Semak Belukar 7" which has gotten rave reviews; Aurette and The Polska Seeking Carnival (Jogja) in 12" and tapes format; Roman Catholic Skulls; the legendary Sajama Cut's Osaka Journal re-issue in 12" format.

Others worth mentioning : Bronze Medal Records for Marcel Thee's solo album debut, Sigmun's single and Roman Catholic Skulls. Orange Cliff Records (Bandung) for Sigmun's lathe cut series, and upcoming Jirapah 7" and Polka Wars 7". Grimloc Records (Bandung) is the label that responsible for Homicide's Godzkilla Necronometry Reissue 12" that basically sold out 300 copies in a few hours. It was unheard of for a local release. They also put out the phenomenon (sorry :p) Ssslothhh's first album. 

6. Cafe Mondo (Kemang, Jakarta)

A three-floor cafe partly owned by Shun, a Japanese who's quite fluent in Indonesian and happens to love music. Cafe Mondo utilizes the top floor as a record store called High Fidelity. The vibe there is warmer and more friendly compared to say Monka Magic (I still go there); in my opinion a record store should be ran this way.

The basement area was often used for noise/vinyl release party/DJ gig and i always had a blast there due to its home-like environment. It's basically like hanging out with your buddies at a friend's basement.

 It wasn't until a few weeks ago that the space started to be utilized for full-band music gigs. The last two weeks of December proved to be busy for Cafe Mondo as bands blasted loud music downstairs and music lovers going up and down the stairs, alternating between watching the bands and hanging out outside by the parking lot. 

Cafe Mondo is an amazing place for music and hopefully it will be around for years to come.

7. Clatter 

Clatter is a side project that I started with a bunch of friends back in 2012. Poetra was no longer active with his solo project, Aksi dan Reaksi. Sarin has been inactive and Dilla wasn't doing anything musically. Arka was only playing occasionally for his band Arcasenal (now DRNKS) so I thought why not get everyone together and just play music.

Clatter played two shows in 2012 and that was it. Practices were far and far in-between due to lack of shows, musical goals and personal commitments. It was a miracle when Studiorama contacted us and asked us to play on the first day of RRRecfest, curated by them. We didn't (and still don't) have any recordings whatsoever nor internet presence. I will be forever grateful to Studiorama gang for this gig. It turned out to be one of the best gigs we've played so far. 

It will take a lot of hard work and commitment to really keep this project up and running but things are looking bright. We might finally record something in 2014. Wait for it!

8. Jirapah 

Like Vague, Jirapah also has played a lot of shows this year. I wish i could remember them all to pick out favorites. There were also other cool things happened for us this year. The ones on the top of my head :

• Keuken food festival in Bandung. It was out first venture playing outside of Jakarta. Bandung was a bit cold (weather and crowd-wise) but the experience of playing in a unused train station hall was something else. 
• Opening for Ruins Alone at Rossi Musik. It was our loudest/noisiest set yet. 
• RRRecfest #3. Between the rain, technical hiccups and amazing line-up, we managed to have fun. 
• Studiorama! The video for Sol is probably one of my favorite things Jirapah did this year. The actual showcase of the show was amazing also as we got to share the stage with the unbelievable Space System and Kracoon. Massive thanks and love for the hard-working and talented crews of Studiorama. 
• The song Crowns got featured in Rocket Rain soundtrack. The music video, done by the movie director, Anggun Priambodo himself shows bits and parts of a traditional Sundanese wedding and it's just beautiful to watch. 
• Being featured on Malaysian based website, The Wknd among with other great Indonesian bands such as White Shoes and The Couples Company, Sigmun, Morfem, etc. Jirapah played 3 songs : Summer, Foxes and Apes. The audio is just amazing and crisp. Everything sounded good.  Big props to The Wknd crew! 

I could on and on about music but i think i should stop here. 2013 has been an amazing year and i feel truly blessed. 

Sad Songs Make Me Smile

I have just recently found this out : songs that stick in my head are the ones that are usually sad or melancholy in nature, but at the same time, in a bizarre fashion have the power to make me smile. I have yet to pinpoint the exact reason why I would be smiling as I listen to these songs, but maybe it's the combination of being excited that a song would be able to articulate your feelings better than any words could and knowing that there are other souls out there who feel your pain.

Maybe it's the lyrics
or the melodies
or the atmosphere 
Who knows? I wish I could explain why these songs are that amazing to me.

These songs are what get me through these last few months' nights. Sad songs are celebration of life.

1. Deerhunter - Helicopter



2. Dinosaur Jr. - Get Me


3. Built To Spill - Else 
 

Idealism And Adulthood

Youth represents a lot of things to different people. One's definition of youth may also varies. For some people, youth ends the minute they graduated from university. For some people, youth ends when they start putting on their formal shoes and blazers every morning, slaving away from nine to five. I was (am) somewhat a bit of 'late bloomer' and didn't really come into my own until my early 20's. I feel like this occurrence has extended my youth period and I didn't really consider myself as an adult until I was twenty-five. 

My college and post-college years was crucial to me as it was the time where I was molding myself into a person i would like to become. I started writing my own blog, started going regularly to music shows, started exploring different ideas and asking questions to everything.  My idealisms were soaring high during this period, and I felt like I was strong enough to take on the world and its corruptness and hypocrisies. 

THE question is whether it is possible to actually sustain this idealism all the way through adulthood with its growing demands of responsibility and the unavoidable pressure of 'making something for oneself'. The answer is yes and no. While some people would conveniently point out that we let go of our idealisms and conform to what is deemed acceptable in society as we grow up, I feel like it is more of a matter of picking your battles and re-evaluate your priorities in life.

As we face obstacles and hurdles that life throw at us, our brains are constantly sorting out these things, weighing out the benefits of these idealisms and trying to decide whether they are worth holding onto. The ideas you feel strongly about will prevail and strengthen your beliefs on them. Others might have to take a back seat and go through a bit of compromising.

I believe this is a natural, necessary process and thus we shouldn't be afraid of changes. It is hard sometimes to let go some of our beliefs because of what they represent -moments in our lives when we were young and invincible- .But life is a learning process that never ends, and we have to keep rolling with the punches as they come. Besides, how would you know the depth of your beliefs if they have never been tested?

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-

The Art of Being Alone

The word anti-social gets a lot of bad reputation because of its strong association with the assumption of one's lack of effort to socialize with others. While there are many different definitions of this word on the internet, the somewhat negative stigma attached to it is pretty hard to shake off regardless of your chosen definition.

Even with such negative impression the word gives, I find it hard to deny the fact that this word may accurately describes a big part of my life. Having problems in being social isn't something that i'm ashamed of. My parents were not exactly 'people person' either when I was growing up, so it was hardly a surprise that my teen phase was socially depressing. Unfortunately this attribute continued to cover a large chunk of my early-adulthood social life as well.

While many different forms of anti-social behaviour have been deemed undesirable, very little attention has been given on the reason(s) why one might engage in such behavior. Often having too much free time in my hands, I constantly replayed my acts of such behavior in my head and most of the time I couldn't figure out why i had done such things. 

One of them that I can still remember clearly is this one : I was asking for my friend/neighbour who lived literally just across the street for me. Her mom answered the door and told me he was away. I knew she was lying. I don't know why she was. I didn't take that very well. So like what any normal kid would do in such situation, I decided to sit right in front of my house gate watching my friend's house, where I could basically see if anyone come or leave. I think I was sitting there for hours. I don't know why I did it. I think I was trying to make a point that I wasn't stupid enough to be lied to. I was a weird kid.
 

Here's another one : My friends were trying to get me out of the house to play soccer with them, but I was not in the mood. So they started shaking and banging my house gate. I got pissed. One of them tried to open the gate, so I forcefully closed the lever, accidentally hurting his hand. He was bleeding. I was stunned. I just stood there looking at his bleeding hand. I didn't say sorry. I didn't say anything. I thought it was his fault that he got himself hurt in the first place. He was screaming, calling me an asshole and eventually left with the others. I went back inside. 

Looking back now, there were so many factors that contributed to my anti-social behavior. Insecurity was definitely a big part of it. I wanted to be accepted but I didn't know how so I got frustrated. And I had no friends to vent to so everything was just sort of accumulating inside. My parents were too busy being parents and incapable of lending me their ears. I was too insecure about my insecurities.

Even though life got better eventually for me, the same feeling of alienation and inability or lack of drive to socialize with people never really went away. Every now and then I had the urge to go out and meet new people or talk to old friends, but I was always more comfortable sitting on my bed playing guitar, or reading a book. It's not really about not being with other people, but it's about being with yourself.

I'm 26 years old and I don't know if this was something I should be worried about. I am simply venting, and not really trying to make any point. Being alone is not that bad.

My Bloody Valentine

My recent solo trip to Melbourne has given me plenty of things to write about, and rightfully so. It was the first time I went back to Australia since the end of my Brisbane stay back in 2009. But let's save that for another time. The main reason I went there and spent stupid amount of money that was going to fund my dream amp - Twin Reverb - was to see one of my favorite bands of all time : My fucking Bloody Valentine.

Not in order : 

1. Fugazi

2. Dinosaur. Jr

3. Sonic Youth

4. My Bloody Valentine

5. Unwound

This is a list of "Bands I Need to See Before I Die" that I mentally made back around 2007. Back then, the list seemed pretty impossible. I did get to see Dinosaur Jr in 2008/2009 and Joe Lally solo show (probably the closest thing I'll get to Fugazi, somehow missed The Evens a few years ago argh!). My chance of seeing Unwound has always been less than zero percent. Now that Sonic Youth is taking a hiatus, I doubt that i'll get to see them as well.

It is worth noting that back then My Bloody Valentine was still 'inactive', so when I heard about their tour to Australia, i pretty much lost it. I was originally going to see them at All Tomorrow Party, but that thing sold out in like five hours. Hope was not all lost because they did announce their side shows a few weeks later.

I had browsed through the internet to see their setlist for ATP and Japan tour, and the Melbourne show was pretty much the same with different song order. It's a good mix of Isn't Anything (would've been more awesome if they had played Sueisfine though), Loveless, and songs of their EPs. They played one track of the new record, New You. I actually expected them to play more since I am quite fond of the new album. 

Earplugs were handed out at the door and that was enough to make me all giggly inside when entering the venue. I was there pretty early in hope of getting some merch or records. I can't tell you how disappointed I was over the fact that they didn't have any records with them. Total bummer. I'd love to get a copy of 'm b v'.

My Bloody Valentine was glorious. Kevin Shield's guitar, as you would expect was about twice as louder as the other instruments. Even the frantic drumming was no match for it. I saw a double stack of Marshalls and a few Fender combos behind Mr. Shields, perhaps some Vox too, I'm not too sure. Although it was weird hearing all the pre-recorded synth lines, Kevin Shield's guitar tone was pretty magical to my ears. The big, processed swirling guitar was there, banging at my ear drums and it was lovely.

The vocals were really low in the mix, causing them to be a bit inaudible. I don't know if this was intentional or not. Belinda pretty much stayed on her spot the entire night and didn't say much bar a few words through her microphone. She looked amazing as always. By midway through MBV's set, it was pretty much impossible to move around because well, every inch of floor was filled with people. 

There was no encore and MBV closed their set with 'Your Made Me Realise', complete with the extended 10-minute noise part. I have to admit that it got pretty fucking loud at some points where I kinda had to cover my ears with my hands. At no point throughout the show did I put on the earplugs. Fuck earplugs. It's pretty amazing how my ears were not ringing after the show. Maybe it was not loud enough heh.

In conclusion, the show was definitely worth the trip. It was a sonic experience, quite like no others. It would've been nice if they had changed up the setlist a bit and surprised us (Sometimes, maybe?) but I guess it's hard when you're playing a dozen shows on tour. They were probably the second loudest band i've seen, just slightly behind Dinosaur Jr. 

Thanks to Andrew, Lee, Steph, Madrim and Bianca for making the trip possible.

A few videos that I took myself : 

Broken

To call it loneliness would imply that one needs a company
To call it solitude would imply that its purely a choice
To call it misanthrophy would overstate the anger
To call it asociality would understate the torture

For the feeling it's hard to describe
But a hole in my heart, crumbling
Shaking and trembling

At times it makes me reach out 
To see how many smiles it can fill
Other times I would just shut down
Because I knew none of them are real

It's a gap so huge that I simply stopped asking
And i have stopped trying
The years passed by, they tell me the unspoken
No matter what I do, i'm simply broken