Saturday, April 30, 2011

mus(e)ic

"There are some dreams God's put into you that will come to pass at the right time; and if it's not happening, maybe there are some things in your life that need to be sifted out and changed, or maybe there are some things on the other end that are not ready yet...don't let time talk you out of your dream."

Nick Nilson, 17 Apr 2011, Lakewood Nightlife

there was something about his sermon today that made me inclined to believe the above quote for the personal dream of mine, the only one that's lasted through the years. just thought i'd include it here as a personal reminder to fight for that dream until it comes to pass. 

i've been listening to belle and sebastian's the boy with the arab strap album a lot this month, thanks to an online referal to a summer wasting recently (which is a really good track). its twee-ness and simple melodies seem to be conducive for working long and stressful hours -- unlike when i first tried listening to them the minute 500 days of summer name-dropped this album: i found it too light for liking and the only thing i could remember was an amusing comment someone made on youtube of one of the band members (and i paraphrase, 'cos i can't recall the exact words): "imagine when someone says, "you're in a band?" and you say "yeah", and so "what instrument do you play?" and you say, "i'm just the guy that claps his hands in the background." 

anyway it seems to be mellowing me out because it was not long after that i was able to tolerate stuff from the drums, whom i heard of because they recently performed here. the first time i heard some of their singles, i thought they were rubbish because of the lazy way they sang and the basic chords they were using. but reading the reviews gave me a sense of why people think they're something (other than the fact that they're based in a coveted location) -- their simple lyrics are supposed to represent an escapist statement on enjoying life's simple pleasures, sans vices and adulthood struggles. 

hurts' music was easier to warm up to, though. it sounds, in the words of my colleague, "like something i've heard before in the 80s". they were another band that hit sg's shores this month and went on local airplay (although i didn't think much of lonely sunday when i heard it on the cab's radio while cabbing back to jb one weekday after work, 'cos i thought the delicate vocals didn't fit with the pompous march of the synths). i decided to grooveshark their other songs and found jewels like wonderful life. that turned out to be the only 'clean' mtv of their making though, to my horror. the duo seem to have some fetish for bdsm because mild elements of them have appeared in all their other music videos...i think they actually ruin the music. 

another cool thing has happened this month: the approval of my first credit card! although i had intended to use it for other purposes which didn't quick work out in the end, one thing i've commonly been using my friends' credit cards for (the opportunities of which have been rare) has been to rent out cars, so that's the one thing i did this month one spontaneous day. my parents had just driven me back from a short errands-related trip to kl and they were going down really hard on me (blaming me for how slow the trip was going because i had to wait an hour to queue up for my kfc lunch and had to answer nature's call for forty minutes as a result of feeling unwell), which was really pissing me off 'cos it's not i purposely slowed them down nor knew i'd take up so much time, so within minutes after getting back, i decided to call my usual car rental company to see if they had anything to rent (they did) and headed down to town to pick up my car and restart the road trip the right way. 

the available car was a purple proton persona (just love the alliteration here) and i had fun testing it out through a traffic jam on one of the main long roads here (i know, weird notion of enjoyment). later that night, i drove my brother and i to see justin bieber's never say never in 3D and, despite him rolling his eyes before he first walked in (i was just a-okay with it but not expecting much, having found michael jackson's this is it utterly boring), we both found it to be not bad for an artiste-documentary-cum-movie. (and yes, he pointed out that bieber's favourite colour happened to be the same colour as the car i drove. hah.) 

i found the movie inspiring, probably 'cos it resonated with me personally (despite the movie obviously being biased towards him, the way fahrenheit 911 is biased against george 'dubbya' bush). it definitely caused me to deliberately seek out my world 2.0 at work, the tunes of which i found to be encouraging instead of sickening (the first time i heard of him was through a sixteen-year-old i knew who had a massive crush on him -- i tried listening to him on my world back then at the hmv public-listening booths, but couldn't sit through to the end of any of that album's songs). even baby, baby, baby is listenable 'cos it's somewhat amusing to hear someone young enough to be called a baby attempting to woo ladies by calling them what he should be called (not in a bad way) =p 

anyway the next day i was able to take the car out for a thought-provoking spin to a mall on the fringe of malacca, hop in for a short bubble tea drink, hop out and drive back in time to return the car before dinner. my mom thought i was crazy for spending fifteen minutes stopping at a place that takes two to three hours to arrive, but whatever, man. the afters' i wish we all could win and i were one, and we were driving and singing in sync to a common cause: fulfillment in life. 

another music-related event that should have been cool was switchfoot's appearance at my friend's church hall (it wasn't during service though, so i had to pay for it) in sg. i was there with the same friend (he didn't come this time round) three years ago when switchfoot first sang in sg and was hoping their second time here would be much better (the last time wasn't their fault -- it was just next-to-nothing promotion from the organisers via 30-second mcdonald's-situated tv advertisements and underutilisation of stage speakers that led to a nearly empty auditorium that resulted in cheap ticketholders like my friend and i being allowed to beef up the thin crowd at the mosh pit). 

the plus points were that it was in a smaller venue, thereby contributing to a full house (of 2500 people) and the good sound system (thanks to the megachurch's stellar amplifiers), but this meant that mid-late ticketholders like me couldn't get as good seats and whatever i filmed had bobbing heads and lit-up boxes of peoples' camera phone screens in the way). the other bummer was that we didn't get our money's worth, considering the short length of time the band actually played (forty five measly minutes with NO ENCORE), due to opening acts taking up some of their time and perhaps pressure from the building (that the church hall was in) to end things early so they could lock down the premises. 

there were no autograph-signing sessions, unlike at the band's last appearance (i was unable to get a signature because my friend and his friends wanted to leave early so i tried to quickly pass a note to jon foreman but ended up being roughly shoved away by this beefy, typical asshole of a security guard even though i tried to explain) but i did manage to snap a picture of the singer of calling of levi (one of the two opening acts), whose haircut i found rather cute and intend to style my hair after =p