Venue/Gig Review : FX Music

One of the biggest problems with independent music scene in Jakarta is the lack of venues. It’s even more problematic for hardcore/punk scene who doesn’t attract as many show-goers as say, the metal scene due its low-profile, DIY nature. Delight in Kemang was one of very few venues where hardcore shows consistently being held on. I personally think it was just an alright venue, but it’s better than having no shows at all. Unfortunately the owner decided not to extend their contract and thus, since mid-year of 2010 Delight is gone.

The last few punk/hardcore shows I’ve been to had been held at FX Music studio. FX Music is a hip music store who sells music instruments, band merch, as well as providing studios for practice or recording purposes. They also have a bar with a small stage directly across from it for bands to play. It gives them a really café-esque vibe. To make it even more bizarre, FX Music is located in FX Senayan, a mall in one of Jakarta’s busiest central-business-district area.

Despite all the unpunk qualities FX Music possess (hahaha), the reality is that they provide a really nice, well-equipped studio that’s big enough for a hardcore/punk show at a very reasonable rate. I too, would rather go to a warehouse show that smells like piss and beer with no lights on, but hey, at this point we’ll take what we can get! Plus, the venue is very accessible from every part of Jakarta (easy public transportation access, etc) which is a huge plus.

I went to the show with the intention of capturing live action of the bands, one song per band. However, I did miss Sense Of Pride set due to hanging outside the studio for a bit. I also didn’t get any recording of Moz Is The Reason, Degenerate and Hellowar despite staying throughout their sets. I was keen on getting some Hellowar footage, but they decided to play in the dark instead. No bueno.

I’m not doing a review of band-to-band performance. I’ll let the videos speak for themselves. I've also put myspace links for every band on the bill just in case you’re interested enough to check them out. I will mention that most of the bands playing are in the hardcore variety with the exception of Grave Dancers (thrash/crossover), Hellowar (metal/crust), Ninja Hattori (power violence/fast shit) and Moz Is The Reason (guess what they play :p). Grave Dancers got the best reception that night, and their set was the most fun.

Overall, the show went really well!

Clicky :

Final Attack myspace
Braveheart myspace
Grave Dancers myspace
Hellowar myspace
Raincoat myspace
Still Resist myspace
Sense Of Pride myspace
Moz Is The Reason myspace

I couldn't find myspace for Degenerate and Ninja Hatori. Maybe they don't have one?

On to the videos :

Final Attack


Grave Dancers


Ninja Hatori


Still Resist


Raincoat


Braveheart


Enjoy!

Don't You Know, That We Love Reunion Shows?

or do we? Reunion shows are definitely a hit or miss for me. It doesn't matter whether it's an artist/band decided to play only a few shows, do a few tours here and there, or even permanently get back together and write new music. The phenomenon of reunion shows is definitely an interesting one. Most bands that have done reunions in the past attracted bigger size of crowd compared to when they were still around.

There are so many great bands that have done reunion shows in the past few years alone. Bands that I didn’t think I’d get a chance to see. I’ll be the first to admit that a little part of me died every time I heard some bands I like doing reunion shows. Why? two reasons. First, because unfortunately as a south east asianer I will just have to settle for youtube videos instead of experiencing the real thing.

The second reason is that in my opinion most reunions suck. Sure, there are always exceptions. But most of the time it’s just a bunch of old dudes and gals trying to relive their “glory days” or make a quick bucks. I believe that most good bands (yes I realize how subjective this is) that have come out in the past were products of their environment. Their music, their messages, and their attitudes are reaction to what was happening at the time and therefore making them most relevant to those time periods. I mean, didn’t you feel awkward for the Sex Pistols when they decided to show up on tv in 2008? or when a straight edge band sing about things they don't mean anymore? Come the fuck on.

Let’s get to the very few cases where I think reunions are justifiable. On top off my head , the showcase of Burning Fight, a book dedicated to 90’s hardcore scene is one of them. It’s only fitting that bands who were involved in the 90's scene such as Unbroken, Undertow, Swing Kids, and many more made appearances at those shows. Those shows were a huge success from what i've heard.

Now, i've been to a few reunion shows myself. so i'm not just talking out of my ass. The problem i have with those shows is that they didn’t really leave an impression on me. I went to those shows expecting to see something great, but I really didn’t get anything out of them (The Saints, Jesus and The Mary Chain, don’t even get me started on Flipper). However, i feel the need to exclude Dinosaur Jr from this category. Dinosaur Jr kicked so much ass when I saw them. It was one of the loudest shows I’ve ever been to. It's almost as if they never broke up in the first place

All jealousy and suspicions aside, there are a few reunion shows from the last few years that I wouldn’t mind seeing. Rorschach, From Ashes Rise, Sunny Day Real Estate, Amebix, The Get Up Kids, etc etc. Did you hear about those Cap’n’Jazz shows? Insanity!!!

Youth Korps

Youth Korps were a blazingly fast 80’s hardcore punk outfit from Conneticut. This ep was recorded in 1982 but wasn't officially released on vinyl until 1991.

Their delivery is pretty monotone and straight forward, much in the veins of S.O.A. They also do the start-stop start-stop riffing thing (this was before Siege did it!) that later would be used by a lot of power violence bands. Most of their songs clock under a minute, except for last song, a four minute track that eerily sounds like it was taken straight from Black Flag’s ‘Damaged’.

This ep is fantastic, and definitely one of many many hidden gems that the 80's has produced. Fans of Koro,S.O.A, Negative Approach and Deep Wound should be into this.

Enjoy!

Youth Korps - '82 7" EP

Descendents - All (1987)

Descendents official site

Descendents myspace

I managed to get a copy of I Don’t Want To Gwo Up a few years ago. After a few listens, I was disappointed. I thought it didn’t have the pop brilliance that Milo Goes To College does. NeedIess to say, I refused to listen to Descendents post-Milo Goes To College material thinking they would suck.

Right before I left Australia for good, my buddy Rob gave me a copy of Descendents All which I didn’t listen to until about 2 weeks ago. And let’s just say I will be the first one to admit that Descendents made at least two good albums in the 80’s, All being one of them.

The first noticeable difference between All and their previous releases is the obvious hard rock/early metal influence. Songs like “Schizophrenia” and “Uranus” even shows a leaning towards prog-rock with its atypical song structure, tricky rhythms, and impressive musical chops. Fear not, elements of good ol’ Descendents still present on this album. With songs like “Clean Sheets” and “ALL-o-gistics”, you know these guys haven’t lost their sense of humor. “Coolidge” and “Pep Talk” in my opinion ranks up there among their best and is about as catchy as any songs off Milo Goes To College.

All shows a musical adventure of the band and experimentation to some degree. Some would even say it was a rather natural progression of the band, having a new guitarist and bassist on the board. Well whatever it was, I personally think it was a successful one. If you thought that pop-punk and hard rock/metal don’t mix, listen to this.

Fun fact : this was Descendents last album with Milo before he left to study biochemistry.

Botch

Botch myspace

Hardcore got really weird in the 90’s. A lot of bands shamelessly incorporate more and more metal sound in their music. I’m not talking about thrash/crossover bands like DRI or Corrosion Of Conformity, but bands that do the whole drop-tuned chugging riffs thing. A few bands definitely pulled off this style well and even managed to make interesting music, but for the most part I think this style was played out and boring. Looking back at it, so many bands sounded like a nu-metal band.

Botch was part of the 90’s scene, for the most part. They spent their lifespan as a band mostly during the 90’s before calling it quits in 2002. We Are The Romans was the band last full-length and probably their most accomplished work (although I love Anthology of Dead End Ep as well).

Botch plays a unique brand of metallic hardcore, focusing a lot on rhythms and dynamics. Although every single member of the band was definitely talented, it’d be hard not to notice guitarist Dave Knudson and his riffs first. Dave plays a lot of off-kilter pull-off hammer-on start-stop riffs with unusual time signature not unlike their contemporary, The Dillinger Escape Plan. If DEP’s riffs are brutal and chaotic, then Botch’s are groovy and tasteful. Botch sound was relatively new at the time. They’re not afraid to mix up their song structures or to write an 8+ minutes song. To me, they bridged the 90’s hardcore sound and the early 00’s era when metallic hardcore blew up.

Obviously this band is not for everyone. Some people might find that Botch music strays away too much from what hardcore usually perceived as. But then again, by this notion about 70% of the 90’s bands did too.

Slug Guts – Down On The Meat LP

Slug Guts myspace

Hailing from Brisbane, Slug Guts have managed to achieve a relatively considerable success considering the time they’ve been around as a band. In just less than a year, they have managed to play with Flipper, Grey Daturas, Lightning Bolt and got onto the Flip Out festival in Sydney and Melbourne, playing alongside bands like Deaf Wish, Eddy Current Supression Ring, etc. They also joined Melbourne-based label Stained Circles whom they released this LP on.

Before I get to their music, I just want to touch on a few other things. People who have seen/know Slug Guts are probably aware that they have a “look”. Now, I don’t know why they dress like that. Maybe they’re trying to create an image of some sort. Or maybe they just like dressing like that. Who cares, really? If their music doesn’t suck then that’s all that matters (it doesn’t).

Slug Guts play swampy, clunky Australian post-punk with bluesy guitar lines. The drum and the bass are the main drive of the rhythm section with the two guitars swirling around, turning and twisting the songs in and out. Singer James sounds like a toad being choked to death while forced to sing. The vocals are definitely an acquired taste. It’s somewhat a similar delivery to another australian band, Bird Blobs.

The production of the record is clear enough, although it’s a bit thin and emtpy. It lacks the punch and power that usually comes through their live performance. Or maybe it’s intended to sound that way. I don’t know. Apparently the recording was done in 8 hours or something like that.

Slug Guts live @ Flip Out Festival, The Corner Hotel (2009-09-05) (credit goes to Fan Made Recordings)

Who is To Blame?

Pisschrist myspace

This entry was inspired by Pisschrist show in Jakarta on the 3rd. It's technically not in Jakarta, since myself and a bunch of friends end up driving for about an hour away from the city to the venue. The venue itself was a huge open grass field with a stage setup in the middle. It looks like something you'd see in a music festival like big day out or something, only shittier (it's a punk show after all!). And instead of being surrounded by underage chicks, it was a sea of crusties and punks in black shirts, tight pants and mohawks.

There were about 15 bands on the bill, including Pisschrist and a power-pop/indie band from German called Blockshot who couldn't be more out of place that night. I'll get to that later. By the time we got there, we had already missed the first 5 bands or so. But we stayed through the rest of the bands. I'm not knocking on the local scene or anything, but about almost every single local band that night played some sort of variation of d-beat or crust. A little diversity would've been good. Anyway, Pisschrist took the stage and absolutely killed it that night. Yeap, the singer was running around the stage and jumping like a maniac. The intensity was never lost. It was a great performance. For those who aren't familiar, Pisschrist is a punk/hardcore band from Melbourne, Australia who play d-beat. Think of Discharge meets Totalitar or something.

Now, onto the main point of this entry. This is nothing but a mere observation of mine and not intended to be interpreted as something else. There were hundreds of punks at the Pisschrist show, and a lot of them were kids. I'm talking about 15-16 year old kids sporting mohawks in exploited shirts with tattoos and piercings. They looked about the same as any punks you'd see in other parts of the world. Now, i used to go to quite a few punk shows when i was living in Brisbane, and most of the people that i met in the scene were some of the nicest, most open-minded people i know. I also have met a few like-minded people here in Jakarta and that is one of the reasons why i came to love punk music. I like Discharge. I like Fugazi.

Blockshot was the last band to take the stage, and unfortunately didn't get even half the reaction that Pisschrist had gotten. They are a power-pop/indie band sort of like Sleater Kinney with a bit of synth-pop goin on . And obviously they weren't 'punk' enough for the crowd. They were constantly being made fun of ever since they stepped their feet on the stage and people were being really disrespectful. I was really upset over this, and it kinda ruined the night for me. But i wasn't in a position where i could do anything about it, hence why this blog was created. Why were people being disrespectful? i have no idea and i don't feel like analyzing it. Obviously, people are different. Maybe different cultures, social and economic situations, and gazillion other factors comes into play here. Who knows. All i know is i hate closed-minded fucks, regardless of their races or nationalities. I don't discriminate.

All in all, it was quite an experience. Massive thanks to Jan for letting us riding his car and Ipul for the amazing picture above. Last but not least, Bagoes and Al for the company.

Here's some goodies :

Pisschrist - Distort Melbourne Demo (2004)