As posted on Fed Hi. A shot at bedroom recording. Basically halfway through the track; which was as far as I got at the point of recording anyway. More to come! Together with the band. From the dim-lighted space... of the BBB studio.
Thought I'd share with you my 10-year old sister's perspective on the concept of a complete food chain. Or at least one that's logical whenever she's mad at me.  The scruffy caricature in the middle -- sandwiched by the uncomplimentary figures -- is anyone's guess.
Quite perhaps, my friends' wish has been fulfilled. I finally had to wear a face mask. Though for health reasons as opposed to complying with their constant derogatory naggings for me to do so to alleviate their eyesore, I reckon it would still do the imbeciles just fine. I was Hanoi bound and the company was generous enough to provide me with a top-of-the-line 3M face mask as a preemptive measure in traveling amidst the H1N1 flu outbreak. "Sweet!" I initially thought to myself. My childhood dream of dressing up as Shredder, the mysterious enemy of the Ninja Turtles, had come true. For none of my previous attempts back then ever succeeded without my babysitter chasing me around the house. Let's just say my lack of resources to an actual face mask forced me to rummage through her closet and improvise on her garment to make one of my own; occasionally causing lack of support on her part, I have to admit.  Vietnamese sunrise. Circa 5am. Sigh.My hour-long stint at the departure gate got me engrossed in observing a heated discussion between four Vietnamese ladies in their 50s at the nearby seats. Tourists they were, I would imagine judging from their uniformed caps with charming little flags jotting out of them. What got me initially intrigued to their debate was simply nothing more than the sheer magnitude of the volume at which they were conversing. In essence, I could've put myself at risk of minor hearing damage had I placed myself any closer to them. As I stepped onto the grounds of Noi Bai Airport, though, many more resemblances of the commotion between the Vietnamese ladies took place. From the baggage claim area, to the immigrations and customs clearance, to the arrival hall, taxi stand, and right into the lobby of the hotel, people were quarreling everywhere. What's the deal with all these conflicts? Why was everyone unhappy with things? Has it got something to do with the political climate? Or was there a natural disaster making its way to the land? What the hell is everyone aggressively talking about? These were some of the many questions I had lingering in my head as I scrutinized the way the locals communicate.  "Kris won?! Argh! I tabled $400 on Adam Lambert damnit!"Moments after I stepped into our office in Hanoi, I noticed the same thing. Three of my newly acquainted Vietnamese colleagues were in the middle of a squabble; outdoing each other's voice by the second. I couldn't take it anymore. There has got to be a justification for all these cacophonies. Swiftly, I stepped into the middle of their dispute and demanded an explanation; to their bemusement... before their burst into laughter. Apparently, they were just figuring out what to eat for lunch. And as it is over there, the way they talk to each other may seem belligerent to foreigners, usually in the manner of a WWE wrestler before a ferocious grapple. Though in actuality, all they could be doing was just throwing out a 'knock knock' joke. As a matter of fact, the language in itself is wordy by nature. For example, "I say, quit staring at my crotch, kind sir!" translates to "Tôi nói, bỏ thuốc lá staring tại tôi crotch, loại sir!" in Vietnamese. Well, bad example. But you get the idea. It is still, quite enchanting.  "So why did the chicken crossed the road again?"In his book, 'A Cook's Tour', Anthony Bourdain recalled his experience with the Vietnamese traffic and penned down the following, "There isn't a single second when we're not paralyzed with fear, bracing for impact, or at least certain that if we were to speak, or distract him (the driver) for even a split second, it would surely cause our instantaneous deaths."Not too long after journeying into the heart of the city, I suppose Bourdain was rather accurate in describing it as near-suicide, or so to speak. Traffic lights were just as relevant as deodorants to bus conductors while cars, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians roam the street with equal rights. As much as a bike can be seen cruising through the walkways, a man can be seen clairvoyantly making his way along the circumference of a roundabout, together with the other vehicles. And there was never a pause in the flow of traffic. From dusk 'til dawn, the roads were packed. Not to mention the amount of honking they resort to in their day to day driving. Upon a clarification from our driver, I soon learned that honking is just a mere way of saying "excuse me" or rather crudely, "make way" to other road users. So by translation, people over there excuse themselves on average 384,493 times per day. I'm going to get the driver one of those 'Honk if you're horny!" bumper stickers someday. Just for the fun of it, you know.  No you do not wanna mess with her.My first morning in Vietnam was spent gorging upon a bowl of phở (pronounced 'fur'), one of the nation's most prominent dish. It's basically rice noodle soup with thinly sliced beef served with basil, sprout, peppers and lime, paired with condiments ranging from their infamous fish sauce to salted garlic. Usually served during breakfast, lunch and dinner, phở represents the very essence of Vietnamese cooking; basic, no frills and unpretentious. The straightforward preparation of their food limits the gap between nature and a dish. Very minimal 'manufacturing' is involved. And that very fact was evident enough, at least to me judging from the scarcity of factory produced food in their consumer goods market. In sum, I guess the philosophy goes: if you want noodle in broth, skip the chemical laden pre-packed ramen in boiled water and get yourself sorted with some rice noodle in soup proper. If you run out of beef, maybe thrust a spear right into one of those wandering around out there in the lawn. My only qualm with their food however, was the lack in taste. As much as you can mix and match with the number of condiments that they have, there was still this barrier that seems to be blocking my way into journeying the tantalizing euphoria of tastes that I've encountered with food from other parts of the region. A far cry, in other words, from the blend of spices that we grow up consuming in Malaysia. Alas, perhaps that is the very reason behind the negligible amount of obesity cases in their country.  Breakfast of champions... Vietnamese style!I didn't get to do much sightseeing during the trip; as always the case with business trips. From the hours I spent in the car looking around whilst holding on to my seat in fear of again, 'instantaneous death', colonial French architecture was present in their buildings; both retail and residential. Tall 3 to 4 storey buildings stand attached to each other heralding signs from none I could decipher anything.  Ain't no curb too high. Ain't no divider low.The view from my hotel room wasn't too bad either. Overlooking the lake belonging to the Hanoi Zoo, the different parts of the city weren't too obvious from up above. The government buildings aside, everything looked rather similar. Being an administrative city, in contrast to the more vibrant Ho Chi Minh down south, Hanoi is more laidback and modest, possibly, escaping the modernization of commercialism that its sister city is going through. You get a lot of adorable sights down the streets though. Kids jumping around encircling old ladies carrying baskets of fruits on their shoulders walking back and forth families sitting down over a cup of Vietnamese coffee with their dog licking itself nearby, is a regular sight. I manage to jaunt into a record store and spent quite some time there talking to the shop owner. In his 60s and not letting a second go without puffing a smoke, he walked me through the range of collections in his possession. From the pricey audiophile record of Chopin to a 60 cent pirated copy of the Black Eyed Peas' latest album in a photocopied album cover, he had it all. And he knew them all as well. He brought out all the John Coltrane, Ray Charles, Diana Krall and John Scofield records I asked for and duly played them out. I did mange to leave him in a bewildered heap when I asked for a Ramlah Ram CD nevertheless; though he did ran through his store just in case there was one somewhere in there. Bless the man.  Now where has that Grease soundtrack gone...Hanoi isn't really a place to shop though. Maybe the plethora of shopping that I've encountered people doing in Bangkok, Singapore and our own Kuala Lumpur could easily dwarf the opportunities for retail therapy here. Then again, do bear in mind that I am a member of the male gender hence my judgment on shopping is just as good as Ozzy Osbourne's take on the global economic crisis. For my female counterparts deemed the 48 hours they had for shopping still inadequate. We did drop by at the night market at the Old Quarter. Not surprisingly, exceptional bargaining skill is required in order to shop here. Nevertheless, the language barrier was still a constraint, as demonstrated by the following dialogue, which I had with one of the sellers there. Me: Okay, these three... how much?Again, bless the man.  "Dlink this! Make you stlong! Make good love!"I left for the airport on a sunny Saturday afternoon, going through yet another duel with death along their divider-less road, enduring perhaps my last few dozens honks before we reach there. Trying really hard to sum up the trip, looking at the paddy fields out the window, I barely managed to construct the right words together. There's this uncertainty about the country and I just felt that there are more to uncover. Being there on an official visit bars you, somewhat, from exploring its subtleties. I do believe that behind the loud conversations that locals have on the streets, there are a million stories to tell. I guess a trip to Ho Chi Minh would allow me to uncover those stories. As corny as it may sound, I should've dropped by one of the museums to at least discover the place a little deeper; in the interest of time. The locals told me that you'll be able to get a more extensive introduction to the country via Ho Chi Minh; which is possibly a valid pointer. I could perhaps echo the same notion. At the end of the day, should you plan to go there, the decision is all, up to me! I mean, you.  Hanging well, Hanoi.
As posted on Fed Hi. Songwriting, as I'm starting to realize, constitutes a plethora of different approaches; just as it is with women. I'd previously been quite a firm believer in either one or the other when it comes to composing. You could begin with the words, and then the melody, progression and riffs that match the lyrics... or the other way around. Analogously, you could either come close to a girl at the bus stop and engage in a conversation similar to the following... "Excuse me, do you know what time it is?" "930am." "So you from around here?" ...OR, alternatively, if she's not wearing a watch... "Excuse me, do you know what time it is?" "No." "Well, it's time for you and me… to have a drink baby!" So you see, writing a song is in a way similar to talking to a girl. Every approach, resulting in a different result, which is nothing new really; as you could possibly deduce from the conversations above. But as I said, my two-way, ‘either-or' understanding of the process is a thing of the past. For I have, in recent times, discovered a few other aspects that influence the characteristics of a song. Things that go beyond sitting down and trying to come up with lyrics and melodies. In other words, the way the environment and condition that you're in, during the course of the song's formation, affect its mood. The constraint of time, for example, creates an urgency for the documentation of a song. More than ever as melodies could come when they're least expected. This, breeding a fear of memory loss. Legend has it that Gregg Allman wrote the jam band masterpiece Whipping Post using burned matches, on an ironing board because he couldn't find a pen in the middle of the night. "It came so fast. I didn't even have a chance to get the paper out. That's the way the good songs come... they just hit you like a ton of bricks." The excitement upon the unearthing of a melody plays a role as well. Everytime a new tune strike me, I get the same anxiety rush I got during my first encounter with Jessica Rabbit; as an 8-year old boy. Still do, these days. Under the same influence the other day, the urge to get some words into this new song we wrote crept into me. Not knowing the actual direction or story of the song, however, I simply penned down words that seemed to befit the notes; with none of the sentences making actual sense... Through the rivers I try to make it rightSee what I mean? A few days later, I tried to revisit the song and get the words sorted out. To rewrite it, if you will, and give some sort of a meaning to the whole song. No matter how hard I tried, though, no amount of newer, more sensible lines sounded better than the existing ones; leaving me no other option but to just stick to them. So the lesson I learned from this exercise lies behind the correlation that the nonsensical lines have with the melodies; as opposed to the logical ones. In other words, the chemistry between the words and the notes in which they are sung in, is more important than the construction of the sentences itself. Such is the beauty of the art of songwriting... logic is only as significant as the points on Whose Line Is it Anyway. A certain Mr. John Lennon may agree. Goo goo g'joob… Addendum: I got this super neat Sony Ericsson K770i a day before our session last weekend and being the giddy little girl that I am whenever I get a new gadget, I couldn't stop playing around with it and managed to capture the following bit along with a few other tracks we were trying to cut. It's in .amr format which is mainly for speech, which is expected of a phone sound recorder anyway. Hence the quality is no Dolby Stereo yet for those unexpected moments of enlightenment, I should at least be able to hum into the phone and get some melodies recorded. Here's two minutes of a yet to be named song recorded through it. The 3.2MP camera ain't too shabby either. At RM500 a pop, you can't go wrong with this bad boy. 
As posted on Fed Hi. A little more than a year ago, when I first started jamming with the guys, we didn't really have a name until we landed our first gig. I would give different answers everytime people ask me about the name of the band. Ranging from "me, Ikram, Imran and Naim" to "my senior from college and a few guys from PNB" to "some friends of mine" to simply, "a bunch of guys". Going up on stage for first time however, we couldn't really go with the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young approach. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, we are Imran, Naim, Ikram & Asrif and we're gonna kick things off with Hoochie Coochie Momma Bring Me Back Ma Booty Lovin'." You know... words tend to get drowned when they're muttered through the microphone. Hence opening the night as such could possibly confuse the audience and lead them into believing that the name of the band is instead, Hoochie Coochie Momma Bring Me Back Ma Booty Lovin'; which is not that bad of a name if you ask me. So as much as we hated it, we just had to go through the painfully tedious process of deciding on a name for the band. Most bands would agree with that but well, it could go either way. I doubt bands like Free, Mountain and The Doors spent that much time figuring out their names. Jethro Tull, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Gov't Mule, on the other hand. Sitting over a few drinks, still giddy after learning that our first ever gig was just around the corner, we brainstormed for a name, least expecting that to get four guys to fully agree on a name (such as Swashbuckling Privates, which was my favorite), would be as taxing as making Ozzy Osbourne sober. We wanted the name to be concise enough that you could pronounce it in one breath, yet substantial enough that it portrays the characteristics of the band. Something that -- as we would later realize -- can only be achieved through the band's music above anything else. Would Led Zeppelin have garnered as much interest as they did if the band had played Central European Polka instead of Rock & Roll? After a few (thousand) deliberations, we settled for The Big Pink, an homage to The Band's debut album, Music from Big Pink. Big Pink, being the name of the pink house in which the band rehearsed and recorded the album. I shall not repeat the words 'Big Pink' anymore in this paragraph. But I kinda like it so here goes: Big Pink. It's been a year now since we decided on the name. And the journey has been a lovely one indeed. Yet, through the months, we were occasionally displeased by certain discoveries pertaining to the name. There's a Peruvian Pink Floyd tribute band that goes by the name Big Pink. And over in the UK, an Electronica-ish band calls themselves The Big Pink. And bigger, they are becoming indeed with their major record label albums and official music videos. It's only a matter of time before they pave their way into the local radio airwaves and clubs. Not wanting to gather a massive crowd from the Dance scene only for them to find out that instead of two white guys on turntables, they're getting four Malay guys in bad clothing, we felt the need to change the name of our band. The Big Pink is now... Fed Hi. You know what it means. Some of you go through it everyday.
As posted on Fed Hi. I've been doing a fair amount of songwriting recently; after deliberately abandoning it for a while now. You know... it's one of those things you'd voluntarily neglect upon realizing that you don't have the knack for it. Something I should seriously start consider doing about -- as the majority of women would approve -- my pick-up lines. In a sense, I've been quite blessed to have friends who have a pretty good sense of musical composition. Collaborating with them has provided the avenue for me to leverage on their talent, while learning a thing or two in the process. For I, possess the songwriting prowess of a deaf llama. The whole exercise, in itself, is filled with discoveries. For we are talking about melodies here; which not many things out there are capable of being more subjective than. So the challenge can come from a variety of angles as you proceed. Fitting the right melodies to a particular chord progression (and vice versa), sustaining the groove of a certain riff, knowing where to permit space, tempo, hooks, pauses, bridges... down to the ad-libs (e.g. "Maheeya hee... maheeya haa..."). In sum, I have learned, am learning and plan to learn, quite a handful. But what is knowledge then, without a sharing of it. On that note, I'm planning to share with you the progress of the songs that I'll be working on with the band. It may be in the form of pictures, audio/video clips, tablatures or even a few simple lines of notes. Some, may be my own while the other, may be materials I found over the endless hours I spend on the the force that is the Internet. Just a way of assuaging this strong urge I get after every session. One that makes me just want to throw whatever I'd just documented out there for the people's senses. Not necessarily for approval. More like, a mean of garnering their feedback, positive or negative; to 'fuel' my 'train' of thought. Eh? And I'm going to call the project -- wait for it -- Innervisions'. Well, it is up there in the title already. So anyway, 'Innvervisions' is the title of Stevie Wonder's Grammy Award winning 1973 album featuring masterpieces like Higher Ground and Living for the City. I thought it sounded cool and I can't quit loving Stevie so if the project is a success, by any measure, I'd like to dedicate it to him. To kick things off, I'll start with something that we all have. No, I'm not talking about guilty pleasures. I'm talking about the voice. Yes, the voice... nature's musical instrument. Of which mine... needs major work. Here is a video from a while back by Eric Arceneaux, a recording artiste and vocal coach, on warm-up techniques. You'll be surprised as to how simple they are. It's a 4-part video so if you wander around his YouTube page you'll find the other videos. Eric you're a top guy. Much love. Peace out, brother! |
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