The Malaysian Insider

OCT 31 — I think we’re about two or three weeks away from the release of my band’s new album, titled “Pop Tak Masuk Radio”. After spending much of Ramadan this year working hard rehearsing and recording the album, we’re edging closer and closer to the final mixes of the album’s songs, and as excitement builds up I also find myself thinking more and more about the business part of music. And you know what, I already feel kind of rebellious; I want to come out with at least one new album every year, looking at the state of things are now.

OCT 17 — It’s simply amazing observing the things that people are willing to do to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack. We don’t even have to look too far. Just take music for example. Rock ‘n roll somehow got fractured into hard rock, folk rock, garage rock, heavy metal, punk rock, hardcore, right down to all the post-this and neo-that subgenres that keep popping out nowadays. And for what?

My opinion is that deep down we humans are all supremely insecure beings and are forever in need of some form of validation or recognition that we’re somewhat more special than the others, no matter how insignificant that “special” is.

OCT 3 — After one month of fasting and trying our darn best at being holy, things are finally getting back to normal for most Malaysians. One month of most people suddenly behaving all holier than thou on us, going to the mosque on a nightly basis for Tarawih prayers (shame on us if we miss them, they tell us, even if it’s only “sunat” and not “wajib”), trying to finish all 30 “juzuks” (chapters) of the Quran in just one month and the list goes on; we will be back to our normal routines, probably not even completing the compulsory five-times daily prayers, let alone going to the mosque to pray every night, and we’ll probably be lucky to even pick up the Quran at least once a week.

SEPT 19 — For artists in Malaysia, the arrival of Ramadan also means the arrival of an opportunity to spend more time being creative in the recording studio. Ramadan means there are fewer or practically no gigs at all to play for a month, freeing up time to go and record that new album or song or whatever it is that you’ve been itching to do in the recording studio that you never seem to have enough time to do during the other months because of your show schedules.

Like probably a lot of other bands, we also took this opportunity to record a new album this month (just like we did last year during Ramadan as well), and thankfully we finished the recording process last Monday.

SEPT 5 — The most overused word in the whole of rock n roll is “originality”. The pursuit of it, regardless of whether you think it is achievable or not, is more or less the guiding force behind almost all “serious” rock bands. How we define originality probably differs from one country to another.

Countries like the US and the UK, with their own rich history in the Book of Rock will surely look for something different than what we Malaysians look for when it comes to the word original.