pre-uglymen band, VINTAGE performed at dewan dato’ syed omar, now stands proudly city plaza shopping mall in the heart of alor setar, kedah. it’s the Leo club organized charity unplugged concert with VINTAGE as the main attraction. at that time, we performed more than 80% of beyond songs and the rest was songs by zainal abidin, rick price, guns ‘n’ roses, UB40Â and the band whom played “the sweat song – ah la la la la long song”.
this is going to be a long post, i wish not cause i need to buy lunch on a sunday afternoon now. 
i was in my teens when i wondered around the BIG town of alor setar and stumbled upon muzik sistem music school. at that time, the music school was in jalan kanchut, alor setar – now is a place for businesses, upcoming hotel and temporary bus station. the music school is no longer there anymore, has moved to shahab perdana. i came to know the shop owners, the affadable mr and mrs ng. both were very nice and hard working people. i used to go there often just to ogle at the electric guitars. no, there was not a single girl for me to ogle as i’m more interested in guitars than anything else.
i still remember vividly (by the way, VIVID is my favourite film maker, www.vivid.com)Â that during 1993, i was studying at a college in penang and i often go back to muzik sistem just to satisfy my music hunger. FORTUNATELY enough, my parents bought me my FIRST electric guitar: a black fender standard stratocaster (made in mexico) electric guitar for RM950. Believe it or not, i’m still using and playing this guitar of mine. love it so much. they also bought me a BOSS distortion and a fender solid-state amplifier for my guitar. later i changed the BOSS distortion to a BOSS hyper distortion pedal (no longer produced). and that was in august 1993. i started taking guitar lessons from cikgu azhar who happened to by my dad’s primary school ex-students. i took guitar lessons for 3 months and the rest was self learnt and self discovery. i learnt most of my stuff from friends, analysing pub bands (filipino bands) and learning from the faithful guitar player magazines.
due to my deep interest in music and band, i have shared a lot of bright and not-so-bright ideas to the shop owners, mr & mrs ng. one day, they asked me whether i want to play in a band. it was like a dream come true. i mean where the heck can u play bands during that early days in 1993? both of us planned the first major concert for musik sistem which was the Charity Unplugged Concert. i first roped in my closest friends at that time: alex (the fleaman) and ah leong (the guitarist michael met in the post below).
but, i need a singer and drummer. then musik sistem recommended michael lee and loi kai jiunn. i called up michael and said something like this “hi michael, i am taisuan. i’m a student from muzik sistem. do you want to sing beyond songs or not?”. the rest is history. then later, mrs ng asked kai jiunn whom i remembered came with his little brother. he played a few songs and i guessed it was ok since i dint know much about drumming anyway.
5 of us discussed and spoke about what NAME we should name this band. well, we came up with VINTAGE in late 1993. we started our first practise in december 1993. the drum teacher, cikgu badrul came to teach us a few times and we came up with a list of songs and most of them were beyond songs. during that year, wong ka kui, the vocalist from beyond died in a freak accident while shooting a show and mike was thinking of reincarnating himself as wong ka kui, bwahahaha…
(left to right: michael wong ka kui, big head suan, alex fleaman, ah leong, kai jiunn)
we practised hard, basically every week and sometimes a few times every week. i practised beyond songs from the cassette tapes and video tape of their last unplugged concert in KL. i practised by playing along with the songs on radio/TV. here’s our line-up
- ah leong – rhythm guitar
- alex (the fleaman) – bass guitar
- kai jiunn – drums
- michael – vocal, guitar and piano
- me – rhythm and lead guitar
we played in pre-charity concert shows such as appearing in City Point shopping complexes and doing promos. we had photo shots and posters. we sold tickets to the public and held the first big scale charity unplugged concert on 2-april-1994. the ticket sales proceed went to the donno-what Alor Setar Dialysis Center. as for us, we were treated to free meals, hahaha. we performed a near perfect show as amateurs. i think the crowd was like 1,500. from then onwards, it’s history.
14 responses so far ↓
Silver Isle // Apr 2, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Suan, it’s really a nice one! Clap clap clap~
Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-rsFa2LKv0&eurl=
beh // Apr 2, 2006 at 1:59 pm
hahahaha..
really tak boleh tahan the poses!!!
hahahahahaha!!
specially alex fleaman’s!!! behtong behtong!!!
hahahahaha LOL!!!!
wow!! time pass very fast huh!!!already 12 years past!!!!
keep it on uglymen!! rockoN!
beh
Bobby // Apr 2, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Wow…. Vintage photo is like N’snyc. Kekekeke…..!
KENgaroo // Apr 2, 2006 at 8:24 pm
i know the band whom played “the sweat song†it is called inner circle
so love tat song~ a la la la long lol~!!
fleaman // Apr 2, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Gees… man… ! do you have to post up the photo?
Good writeups!
Did you mention the pre-concert gig was in Citypoint where all of us choke when we saw the “ELLA Crew” passes by! hahahahaha..!
I would love to hear stories on Dewan Sri Pinang and also in Sri Intan .. coz I don’t have any recollection of the event now..!
Another Pg event is that,I know we perform in a competition and a so huge “N’SYNC” band from Bukit Mertajam rock the stage hahahaha, till all the chicks scream.. but i have to get panadol coz the music was so sissy.. till i got migrane
Ah Beh….. big change now for Fleaman! this fleaman cannot slap a single line of bass now..! too painful to hold onto a bass string..! hahahahaha…but i do hope to jam with uglymen when I’m free…
I do still have some bass tricks up my sleeve…! hahahaha..
Hear this uglymen.. i just want to strum n sing my voice out!Ah Hooi.. u can keep the bass job!
have a nice weekend.. n nice updates.. on the nostalgic Vintage!
taisuan // Apr 2, 2006 at 10:17 pm
everyone here, thanks for posting.
it was indeed a nice trip back to memory lane. we had so much fun back then in alor setar. alor setar is such a small town even though we tried to upgrade it to CITY status a few years back, bwahahah… the thing about playing music is that it bonds people without any restriction and i got to meet up with so many people just being in the music industry as part time rockers. the list is unlimited…
rambo // Apr 3, 2006 at 10:31 am
wong ka kui’s red jacket….wohhhh
Jastin // Apr 3, 2006 at 11:10 am
Hey yo..
Nice history guys..! Keep on rocking…!
Btw, y don Uglymen issue a single and give it to radio stations..? Just a suggestion cause nowadays radio stations are starting to open up for local recording and independent bands. (e.g. Hitz.fm, Xfresh fm).
Do consider it… Cheerios.
rambo // Apr 3, 2006 at 5:24 pm
theirs are chinese songs
unless they sing english songs
coz i dont think chinese radio accept local recording
Jastin // Apr 3, 2006 at 7:28 pm
I know their songs are chinese la. I have their CD also.(signed summore). U think i simply bantai meh…?
X fresh at first got play some chinese songs at first but end up not playing as there’s no really new local chinese artists.
Y don give it a try? Who knows…? If didn’t try we won’t knpw da result rite..? If they don accept then nvm lo.
taisuan // Apr 3, 2006 at 7:39 pm
jastin, rambo,
thanks for the help.
question: how do we get our CD over to the radio station? we dont mind sending them our CD as long as they want to play our songs on air.
beh // Apr 3, 2006 at 10:47 pm
suan,
I saw a commercial ad at TV…asking band to play cover…
you know how the commercial ad caught my attention??
becoz’ they use SAD BUT TRUE as background music!!
You should consider going for it!!!
Fleaman,
ya ya ya..now’z fleaman more handsome, more cantik, more man…and dunno how to slap the bass but slap the butt!! hahahaha..
you should give it up…alot of friends gave music up which is pissing me off!!! you are one of them!! no need to stay at top but at least play it once in a while!!
I saw the old video that mikey show to me, I didn’t see you coz’ you are the true ORGINAL member!!!
rockON! fleaman!! go go go…slap the bass!!
regards,
beh
Jastin // Apr 4, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Xfresh link- http://www.xfresh.com/fm/posto.asp
Address: XFRESH FM PROGRAMME MANAGER
Airtime Management and Programming
All Asia Broadcast Centre (ASTRO),
Technology Park
Lebuhraya Puchong –Sg Besi, Bukit Jalil
57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Hitz.fm
All Asia Broadcast Centre
Technology Park Malaysia
Lebuhraya Puchong – Sg Besi
Bukit Jalil
57000 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Tel: 03 9543 8888
Fax: 03 9543 3888
Good luck trying…!
Uglymen Interview @ Sin Chew # Part 2 | UGLYMEN - Hard Rock Band // Dec 28, 2006 at 2:01 am
[...] On how the three of them got to know each other, michael explained the day where the initial 5-member band VINTAGE met. “We were playing music in the same music school, and the boss planned to hold a full-length concert to collect donations for Kidney Dialysis Centre. The event was co-organised by LION club of Alor Setar. On the 2nd of April, 1994, VINTAGE Charity Unplugged Concert was held, we performed our very first public performance in front of over 1,500 crowd at the now defunct Dewan Dato Syed Omar. We played 16 songs consist of mostly BEYOND’s numbers, as BEYOND’s lead man Wong Ka Kui died in a filming tragedy less than a year ago. [...]
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