First thing that I’d like to state is that, this post is not so much of a hate speech compared to the Steve Aoki review that I wrote about a year ago. No, this is more about the coming of my acceptance of Jakarta.

And a review of November 21st 2009 Matt Tong DJ Set in Barcode, Jakarta.

On that night, we went out to check out Matt Tong DJ set at Kemang, actually, I was looking for a decent electro set in town. As some of you might not aware, electro is one of the marginalized genre in Jakarta. When you go clubbing in Jakarta, expect something like house or trance (assuming you’re not going on RnB night). I might be biased when talking about electro music, yes, it has been my preferred genre of dance music for the past of couple of years. Some people might not care about the music that they play in clubs, as long as they can get drunk, get laid, get high, and whatnots. Thing is, I do care. I care about the music, the crowd, and the DJs.

Arrived at the venue, Barcode, at about 930ish PM. DJ Riri was playing back then, pumping out barrages of house music, some are meh, some are okay. But anyway, wasn’t there for house music, so we waited and sucking cigs and had some beers. At about 1030ish, groups of people were circling the front part of the dance floor, turns out that Matt Tong himself appeared out of nowhere and people are asking for autographs. At 1100ish, Matt Tong took over the deck.

One thing about event organizers in Jakarta, is they really really love to put spaces and barricades between the deck and the crowds. In events that are not rave party, it is unnecessary to put barricades like that, why do you want to separate the DJ from the crowds? I believe that most people in Jakarta, especially the event organizers (?) often view the performing DJ as god. They are to be protected, to be put in front on a high stage. The way DJ performs should be in a cool-guy-autistic-like way, it should be just him and the deck.  I don’t know what’s been happening before I started going out, but man, that kind of perspective feels very wrong for me. By putting barricades like they’ve just instantly killed the interactivity that might happen between the DJ and the crowd. But to be fair, the crowds themselves should behave if the are to remove those spaces and barricades. No touching and shits. Touching the DJ won’t give you extra ten years of your life. Or make you smarter. Or enlarge your penis by 10 centimeters.

So yeah, Matt Tong took the deck. He started pumping out electro tracks. Awesome ones, ranging from classic like MSTRKRFT’s Bounce to newer one like Miike Snow’s Animal (don’t know whose remix, my bad). It was all good and I thought I’ve found what I’ve been looking for in Jakarta. A decent electro party, at last!

But there were something very wrong, and it felt like ticking bomb that is about to blast. Only a few people danced. My mind was suddenly transferred back to last year’s Steve Aoki. I don’t blame the crowds, but it was crystal clear that most of the crowds there didn’t get the music. And yes, you can see desperation in Matt Tong’s face. After about 45 minutes after he took the deck, the dream started to go downhill. Out of the sudden, he started playing house music, he played R Kelly’s Ignition, played some original band tracks, the mixes started to go all over the place. But whatever right? The crowd was all crazy when he stopped playing electro. This lasted for about 30 mins.

And then he started going into electro again, the crowds looked pretty warmed up, at least some more people were dancing to the music. When everything started to look (and sound) good again, the crowd started to die down. And his mixes went all over the place again. It wasn’t totally bad though, it’s just that his mixes didn’t have any flow, he was like trying to experiment what kind of music would move the crowd. He did play some of Bloc Party’s song, Banquet and Weird Science remix’ of Helicopter.

We went back home when he played Helicopter, I assume nothing interesting will happen in next few hours (tell me if something did happen back then), so we decided to call it a day.

Well, I admit this is not so much of a review, did a read proof just now, and I’ve read a concert review that is way better than this. But like I said before, this is something more like an acceptance, of me, to how people come and go clubbing here. Well, yes, nothing can be done I guess, and we’ll be missing out a lot of good electro artists coming. Well, wait, Soulwax is actually coming down to Jakarta on January 20th. Good luck with that, I feel like that it’s gonna be Steve Aoki disaster part 2.

All in all, I love the awesome In Case God Fails band members .

[via IGN]

Yes yes, he’ll be coming to Kuala Lumpur on February 28th, together with Masatoshi Uemura, together they are known as an act called Off The Rocker. Joining them are the lovely boys of LAPSAP. And new semester starts on March 2nd, what a great way to start a new one.

[junkonline]

Hey peeps, it’s been a while since my last entry, this blogging stuff been really an on and off thingie for me. But uh, right now I’m feeling like writing a post to this beloved blog.

Yesterday, a friend told me about the upcoming Sunburst Fest headliners, and guess who will they be? According to Sunburst official page, N.E.R.D is confirmed to be performing there, however, I haven’t see any Sunburst on their myspace page. Rumors are also saying that Coldplay, Lupe Fiasco, and Prodigy *might* be performing as well. Well, again referring to each’s myspace pages, there are no Sunbursts mentioned in their tour dates. But again, I might be coming to the fest to see N.E.R.D alone, even though it might feel a bit hefty on my wallet. The ticket itself will cost you RM 208 for pre-sale and RM 258 for door sale. Most probably I’ll be going there anyway.

Speaking of which, I’ve just got my hands on Prodigy’s latest album, Invaders Must Die. Haven’t listened to all of the tracks yet, but so far it is quite to my liking, in my opinion it is better than their last album, Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. It looks like to keep up with the main trend, they’ve added some electro taste in it, nevertheless, it’s not a bad thing, I kinda like this newly mixed DnB electro tracks. You should try to listen to tracks like Omen or Invaders Must Die, tell me whether you like it or not.

Hello there, it’s been a while since my last post and I’ve been missing too many things that are so good to be blogged. Procrastination reigned over everything.

Happy new year! Happy birthday mom and friends!

Last weekend my friends and I went to Haris’ birthday bash at Urban Lounge. It was an awesome night, Haris’ managed to open a couple of bottles for us to get drunk with. There were Ncek, Jidat, Angie, Iib, Haris himself, Kakek, Bram, Kemi, Zaki, Laren, Arif, and couple of Haris’ friends which I couldn’t really get their names when we introduced ourselves inside the club. Saying your names in a club is  pointless, you shake hand, my name is something that you couldn’t really hear, in turn you pretend to listen to his/her name, you nod, you smile, and then you go ask your friend what was that guy’s/girl’s name again. Or you can ask names after the party had ended. Or if you’re still too drunk to remember shit, there is always the day after.

The plan was, we will drink moderately, no one would get drunk, and will go home at maximum one o’ clock. Moderate drinking wasn’t printed on a bottle of free Chivas, neither on a free Absolut Vodka. The continuous ritual of rushing alcohol into your mouth went with bangs of electro house and dances past one o’ clock.

I liked the venue. It was my first time being there. It wasn’t so much of a big club, it  resembles much more like a bar or a lounge with a dancefloor. Reminds me of Zouk’s Loft when it was still around, if you ask me. The DJ is alright I guess. I remembered he played Cut Copy’s Hearts on Fire, Soulwax’s NY Excuse, and other electro stuffs. The crowd was awesome either, in the middle of drunken-ness I accidentally dropped my phone and someone picked it up and return it to me. Unfortunately, my head wasn’t really working the way its supposed to be, so he gave it to my bro. Not bad man, not bad.

And then Haris puked. Kakek puked with his hand trying to cover his mouth and put back all the puke to his mouth. I ran to the toilet and puked. I came back to sit on the sofa and puked again. Angie went to toilet and puked. Somewhere in between, I guess Haris puked again. I puked. Then, someone were massaging the back of my neck, gave me a bucket to puke on, somebody gave me a slice of lime for me to eat, water to drink, and then I puked again. Someone tried to start a civilized conversation with me, are you alright man? Do you still wanna puke? Do you wanna go to the toilet? We should do this again back in KL man, for sure. The only reply that I made was, of course, puking. It was all puke puke puke all over the place. Talking about hittin’ the jackpot and brotherly love.

But me loved that night very much, thank you Haris. Thanks for all the drinks and fun get together time we’ve had there. Do it again sometime soon.

Songs of the day:

Friendly Fire – Paris

Van She – Changes (G.L.O.V.E.S remix)

The Black Ghosts – Repetition Kills You (RAC remix)

Ever wondered where are all the new generation rockstars have gone? Along with their hippies, drugs, hardcore crowds, and what-nots? They’ve become DJ’s. Yes, that is what A Cross The Universe tries to tell you. A Cross The Universe is a documentary about Justice’s tour along Canada and US, which gives us a closer look of the boys. Like any other good band documentary, A Cross The Universe shows us what happened inbetween their US and Canada shows. However, what strikes me the most is that the movie is full of rockstar attitudes. Well, to be honest, I’ve never seen a DJ tour documentary before, so I didn’t know what does all the cool DJs do after after-party. So what did the Justice’s boys do afterwards? Well for starter, Xavier sang ‘Under The Bridge’ with a wrecked English next to Anthony Kiedis, feed an aspirin to a squirell(?), Gaspard got married to a random girl and later she’s gone the next day, and etc2 (read: party party girls girls). The movie itself is rather hilarious, even though it moves gradually into a darker mood in the later part of the movie.

Yes, us, who were born in late 80′s didn’t get a lot of share of those rockstar news, like our older brothers or uncles, where all is music, sex, and drugs. And throwing TVs through hotel’s windows.  But we do get a hold of these new generation DJs, like Justice, who really knew how to tour like a rockstar. Shame on you bands who often aired on MTV. Shame on you. 

Anyway, I’ve stumbled into this awesome song by Uma Floresta called Almost Everything, for those who dig into shoegaze i recommend this song which could be downloaded for free here. Also, below are two awesome songs that are sampled by Justice in their documentary, and yes, for you guys who are into electronic shits should listen to these killer tracks.

Soulwax – NY Excuse

Scenario Rock – Skitzo Dancer (Justice Remix)

Okay, maybe it wasn’t the greatest show that has aired on TV, but it was my favorite show on TV apart other than Sesame Street when I was 4 or 5 years old. Even after 15+ years, I could still rhyme its intro song. Classic.

For more great stuffs from the past, visit onceuponawin blog, brought to you by the same guys who made lolcats.

I’ll keep it short for those who doesn’t want to read the rest of this post:

Steve Aoki last night performance was downright shitty.

Last night was a weird experience for me. It was something that I’ve been waiting for weeks, I was looking forward to check out Mr. Aoki’s spin. A lot of people that I know of were saying that Aoki threw some the best parties around. He went to visit KL around last year to spin on Zouk, too bad I didn’t get to come that time, but a lot of people said it was really awesome. And it was; if you managed to check some videos on that on Youtube. On the other hand, I was really being skeptical for weeks, about whether the crowd in Jakarta could really connect to his music or not. And, with all due respect, my worst prediction came to a realization last night.

Last night line-ups was quite a number. However, I felt that it was lacking the interconnectedness between two types of performers. The first two-thirds of the line-ups consists of alternative bands, with three local acts and Germany’s The Whitest Boy Alive as the main headline. The last third of the lineups are Jakarta’s local DJ acts like DJ Dipha and DJ Hogi, and lastly, Steve Aoki himself. Here, the event organizers were creating crowd segments that are not really complementing each other very well. The Whitest Boy Alive and the other alternative bands are something that people from all ages (under eighteen, mind you) can enjoy and had access to, while DJ acts like Steve Aoki are something that can be enjoyed by someone who are legally adult (above eighteen or tweens that snuck inside) and have passion for dance music (new rave-ish or modern electro, if you prefer). So there you go, there are people who are waiting for The Whitest Boy Alive but doesn’t really care (know) much about Steve Aoki and vice versa.

By having that condition at hand, the show went on. After an amazing performance by The Whitest Boy Alive, our own local DJs came to stage. I didn’t get to watch their show entirely though, because I’ve got to grab some drinks first in my car. But I did catch some of their tracks. They were playing some songs that are a year or two years old like Justice’s We Are Your Friends, Soulwax’s remix of Gravity’s Rainbow, and Wonderland Avenue’s White Horse (yes, THAT White Horse, the one that has been released for a couple of years from now). It was alright though, I didn’t want to complain about their tracklists, but it gave me a generalized (yes kids, try to avoid using generalization too often) view of the current trend of dance music (that are kinda new-raveish or modern electro-ish) in Jakarta. I might be wrong, though. Maybe they didn’t play their most sophisticated list last night. Maybe, because for some whatever reasons they are forced to play those songs. Maybe.

And then finally Steve Aoki came onto stage. After a rather dramatic entry (firecrackers!), he started to spins with mixes that sounds awfully familiar to me, something that (cough) reminds me of his Radio-1 mix. But that doesn’t mean that it was bad, but I was looking for something new from him. Weelll to be fair, he did play some tracks that aren’t in his Radio-1 mix or his Pillowcase album, but it was like only half or one-third of his mix. I know that he was playing those tracks because he was expecting that the crowd had listened to those stuffs before, ergo, get them jumping around. That didn’t really happen at all.

So what went wrong?

Let’s talk about the venue. The venue was made with a concert-like event in mind, they had a huge stage upfront, with huge steel barricades separating it with the audiences. Steve Aoki, like Pete Tong said, never took his eyes out from the crowd; he was the kind of a DJ who would run around, interacts with his crowd, do crazy shits with them, give the crowd something to drink, etc. The steel barricades just totally kill it. He did run around, being energetic on stage and all, being fun, and thats about it, he was the performer and we were just merely the audiences watching a concert. There weren’t any sense of unity between him and the crowd. He didn’t jump into the crowd and danced with us, it wasn’t possible for him to do so, it’ll take time to get down to the crowd and run back up to the stage. The way the venue was put just didn’t accommodate Steve Aoki style’s of performing. I’d prefer a whole lot smaller venue if I had to put Steve Aoki to perform in Jakarta, as the modern electro kind of crowds is just still a fragment among the whole clubbers community in Jakarta (again, I’m generalizing here). Yesterday venue was simply too big for us and him.

Like I’ve mentioned before, the crowds are divided into two different sides, those who came for Steve Aoki , and the others, for The Whitest Boy Alive. And I believe that TWBA crowds came in a greater proportion last night. On the first one-third of his spins, while he played a lot of familiar tracks, he faithfully stuck to the modern electro, which me likey and something that I was expecting out of Steve Aoki. As the show went on, less and less people were dancing and jumping. Then things started to get shitty. He began to experiment with his mixes. He played Rage Against The Machine, Nirvana, and guess what? The crowd liked it. He went back to the usual modern electro, and the crowd response? They didn’t really get it.

The tipping point of all shittiness of last night was when he played Soulwax’s remix of MGMT’s Kids. No one knew the song at all! While outside Indonesia this awesome track gets a really high airtime among clubs everywhere, it’s just not the way it is in Jakarta I guess. As I’ve mentioned above as well, the modern-electro trend lagged one or two years behind internationally. Too bad, MGMT wasn’t out in 2006, it might’ve just worked for Aoki.

And then, disasters ensued. I kinda sensed some kind of desperation in him to get the crowd moving. So yeah, he started to play tracks that had been proven works. He started to play rock songs, mixing them poorly in-between tracks (at least do some mashups won’t you Aoki?). A supposed to be rave party became into something like a listening party for rock music, without any DJ at all (hey, if its just changing tracks my mom can do it as well). As if things couldn’t get any worse, he played some tracks that incurred my wtf-ness in my head; he played YMCA and ABBA’s Dancing Queen, back to back, without any mashups or whatever. I felt like I was in some kind of reunion party that my parents will surely enjoy.” But who cares,” thought Mr. Aoki. “The crowd was jumping and all and were enjoying themselves out, I’m just gonna play more of these shits,” he concluded. And by that I concluded that was it for tonight, when he said that he was playing the last two songs me and my friends walked out of the venue and went home. A friend of mine said he played Bohemian Rhapsody afterward.

Now let’s play the blame game. Steve Aoki is without any doubt is one of the best DJ around, has been covered by a lot of media, had played on Pete Tong’s Radio-1, had his own record and clothing label, etc. But why was last night’s? One might say that it was the crowd who didn’t get Steve Aoki’s music. Some other might blame the EO’s for getting such weird combination of lineups. Maybe Steve Aoki is overly-hyped and didn’t really live up the expectations. Or maybe none of the above, maybe it’s just me being cranky, tired, and somewhat pissed because I had to pay to experience one of the worst party of 2008 that I’ve ever been to. However, I’m still looking forward to catch him again sometimes in the future, maybe when he stops by Malaysia or Singapore or Jakarta, in the right context that is. Alright as a closure and reward for you dear readers who had the perseverance to read up to this point, I present you:

MGMT – Kids (Soulwax Nite Remix)

Kid Cudi – Day n’ Nite (Crookers Remix)

Late Of The Pier – Heartbeat (Hot Chip Remix)

As for upcoming events:

Mystery Jets (UK) DJ Sets on Zouk KL

Bang Gang 12 Inches presents Gloves [DJ Set] SE Asian Tour 2008 On Kuala Lumpur

Erol Alkan is going to perform in Jakarta, be sure to check his MySpace page. Steve Aoki are still going to spins in Indonesia in several cities, check out his MySpace page. Hopefully he’ll fare better than last night’s.

Well hello there.

Summer break has just started and there are already lots of noises saying that they don’t have anything particular to do. Which in short has made them bored. Bit sad isn’t it? For myself, I’ve kept myself occupied with stuffs to do, like reading books, for example. I’m also doing some reading on trading and Java programming. And often I just sit in front of my laptop, scouring the web for anything interesting for me to read/know/learn. And, I’m planning to get into some kind an internship in a local IT company, might start working next week.

For those who already felt that their summer break might get boring, I recommend you to grab some books to read. And yes, this long break is a really good start for you who don’t like to read, to learn to love reading. Yesterday, I bought Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, yes the book may have already been out for several years now, a friend told me that its a must read. So I bought it and so far it is quite interesting. I also borrowed a fiction, Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, from Ncek.

And have any of you ever heard of Late of the Pier? These UK chaps are awesome, check out their songs. Kinda sounds like The Klaxons, but with some depth.

Late of the Pier – Heartbeat

Late of the Pier – The Bears Are Coming