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Yamaha Asianbeat has become a season in every year. It is not only a competition but a time where musicians and aspiring bands celebrate music together, cherish triumph and gaining first hand experience through out Malaysia. This year, the competition, or I should say the festival has been kicked off in KL and moved on through Johor, Penang, East Malaysia, and Kedah, before all the very bests come to the final battle on 3rd December 2006 in KL to land their hands on the grand trophy.
Its been a great honour for me to be invited to Johor on 12th November for the regional finals, and hereby express my appreciation and a big thank you to Yamaha Music KL and C & M Music in JB.
Through out these years, many bands groom through this festival and that off course including uglymen. Okay. Let’s start off the journey to Johor. Woke up 7.45am, I drove to Penang from Alor Setar around 8.30am, reaching there about 10am. Then one of my coolest friend Joo Meng had my car parked at his place and fetched me to the Penang airport to board my flight at 12pm to Senai, Johor.
This is the first time I visit Johor town, its a beautiful and nice place to visit, but I will come back to that later.
Touch Down.
Arriving at Senai airport 1.05pm (it was a drowsy flight as usual, i hate flying), called a cab and straight ahead to Landmark Mall (competition venue) as the show was scheduled to start at 2pm. The ride was about 40 minutes catching some snail traffic at one point.
Finally 1.50pm, as I stood infront of the mall, I thought it was the wrong place at first, the entrance was silent, nobody were there (i later found out that most shops in the mall closed on Sunday). The first thing i saw was this, once entered the main entrance
The main stage is located on one floor below main entrance, at 1.55pm, some bands were taking their turns on sound check. So i went down to meet Mr Thomas from C & M Music, he was kind enough to buy me lunch immediately. I sat down in the food court just beside the main stage and was introduced to the other judges for the big day. Rosli the veteran guitarist from Sweet Charity, and Jakelina, a music educator in higher institutions and also conductor for several music groups including a symphonic orchestra in JB. They were very friendly, humble and a great joy to work with, and as I chewed my noodles away, we started to talk on the judging details for the show.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please allow me to introduce:
Left to right: Mr Thomas from C & M, Jakelina, Rosli.
After lunch, i discussed in detail with Rosli and Jake, trying to shed some light on what happened in the preliminary round a day before. A total of 36 bands took part, and 12 were the chosen finalist for today. Most were metal or progressive bands. The preliminary show amazingly ran from 3pm-10pm !! They were saying i was lucky to be spared the 7-hour marathon. Well, 7 hours is a long long time but i believe i will enjoy watching them too as Johor has many talented musicians no doubt.
It was about show time, and the venue was filled up to about 350-400 people including those standing around and on the two stories above. I woudnt say it was hot up to the brink but certainly it was not lack of excitement too.
Just when i was about to walk to the main hall, some how, my right shoe got snapped open (the front base came out) I enquired some help from Thomas and there was not enought time to buy a new pair of shoes then. Thomas rushed to a shop and bought me a tube of UHU glue. 
Thanks Thomas, you are the best.
Its a shame i did not manage to get a copy of the list of competing bands so i try to recall whatever i have in mind.
Before the show starts, I was warned by our cool MC of the day Sani, also a very good guitarist, telling me to beware of guitar bombardment. kekeke….
Well, enough of craps and if you care to read my 1.5 cent worth of humble comments below, go on, and i hope all the contestants who read this can benefit from what i write below.
There goes the first band: (my remarks were on the scoresheet which were submitted to Yamaha, and i just write here what ever i can recall)
First band of the day ~ Mistaken Identity
They have good tempo consistency through out. It was quite pleasing to watch. Some simple riffing and nice balancing. Both guitar and bass tone were not optimum though. Vocal and drums were ok. Hmm… i think, the drummer is among the best of the day, though he played simple stuff but solid tempo supported my claim, and for your information, i was informed that the drummer played with one hand.
Second band ~ nice riffing on the guitar
I’m sorry I cant recall the band name as i dont have the band list. The guitarist (right side) with blue guitar, played some licks through out the verse, chorus which caught my attention, they were simple but so pleasing to listen to, i like these stuff, I like how he blended the notes against the melody. That reminds me of one-guitarist band without keyboard support such as Extreme and Mr Big. One set back was the band’s balancing went terribly wrong.
Third Band ~ chemical mismatched.
Again, my apology for failing to recall the band name! This band covered a number from My Chemical Romance, and they are the only band to have full costume in every member. Frankly, I was a little upset to see most bands wore casually, some too casually. Syabas to this band on taking the extra effort to figure out their attire. It’s not that hard to figure what to wear, isnt it? Again, the balancing was a pain to digest. Guitars over-powering tha band and I could hardly hear clearly any lyrics (not to mention melody) from the two charming vocalist. I did not mean the vocalist are bad, they are good in fact, sayang the whole band was in FRONT and drown the vocals. Before the show started, Rosli was telling me his definition of balancing in a competition “I try to hear the vocal first, if i cant hear what the vocal is singing, then i consider the balancing gone”. He is quite right with that, if your music in a band is louder than your vocal, then you might as well take out your vocalist and just play instrumental. Off course, if we can hear the vocal clearly, we still need to see how the other instumentalist sound their insturment individually. A strong point in this band was ~ the bassist was kicking asses. I will get to that later in my comments in individual awards.
P/S: I may also lost count in the order of band appearance, sorry for that
Next Band ~ Nightmare Cinema
This 3-piece band covered a Dream Theater song. I was told by the other judges the vocalist sang quite well in the preliminary but i must admit it was way below par from what i heard in the final. I suggest that she tries to make some movements, hand gestures etc… to make the band look “glued”, she was a little annonymous as the instrumentalists were much in the action. This is a competition and judges want to see something which make them say “wow!” Its not a Dream Theater show where James could stand static whole song through.
At one point bass and guitar was in duet. A piece of humble advice from a non-bassist, get active-pickups installed on your bass if you wish to speed your notes. The bass notes were very blurry from the house and tone-less (i dont know about stage), and drummer certainly needs more practice on consistency and precision. I was looking forward to see this band as some friends had earlier told me about them. I reserved credit to the guitarist, he has potential but i will be happier to see him play cleanner espceially when speeding on higher register, the song began well but ended up with too many muddy notes. At one point, i thought i saw John Petruci when he stepped on the monitor. Credits to the band for bringing Dream Theater’s masterpiece to live. I am sure Nightmare Cinema will come back stronger the next time.
That’s all for now…. please visit uglymen.net again a few days later from now for Part # 2
45 responses so far ↓
taisuan // Nov 15, 2006 at 9:59 am
good write-up. mistaken identity appeared on many live TV shows including the rentak juara and rock unite.
yamaha asian beat WILL always be THE band competition benchmark since it is held throughout the nation which allow a wider variety of bands to showcase their music instead of focusing just klang valley. keep it up yamaha!
Rossie // Nov 15, 2006 at 11:44 am
Thanks Mike for the comments! We’ll work on it and try to perfect everything.
Jonathan (NC)
gnap // Nov 15, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Curious… Why did the drummer of Mistaken Identity play with only 1 hand?
Good tempo consistency… yeah… i realised recently i hv taken this for granted all along, cos, as i was telling TaiSuan the other day, i noticed it’s a huge difficulty for some vocalists or musicians…
Cool event. If they do this in Png, i sure go see wan. some more c u in action as judge wor!!
I must say u VERY qualified to be judge. If ever my co. got organise band competition, i invite u to be judge, u must come hah….
There are lots of musicians in my co., and it’s my dream to organise a band competition maybe for next year’s annual dinner or something… Hope it comes true… 
michael // Nov 15, 2006 at 12:57 pm
kekeke…
your wish came true gnap, the Penang Asianbeat finals will be on this coming Sunday 19th November 2006, infront of Bukit Jambul kompleks, starting at 7pm, i will be perofrming if you care to watch some silly guitar playing…
kekeke….
Suan is sure to be there, hooi i dont know, cos he might be going home to attend friend’s wedding. see u there wo…
Silver Isle // Nov 15, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Kekeke. Gnap said, she SURE go one, can’t run dy. Kekeke.
Anyway, marvellous write-up! Waiting for the coming parts. =D
fleaman // Nov 15, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Mikey.. how can u go solo? should promote Uglymen ma! u’re going to be the judge again this 19th?
Yeah, i’m curious as well on the one arm drummer. Reminds me of Def Leppard! Saw them live.. n he really kick ass man!
But the best ever concert i went to is AD/DC.
Angus Young…. is GOD!
michael // Nov 15, 2006 at 2:01 pm
oh… sorry, forogt to answer your question, i heard the drummer only has one hand ala Def Leopard.
i couldnt see clearly as the vocalist was blocking my view but Rosli told me that.
it is very amazing the drum beats were the most steady through out the evening.
michael // Nov 15, 2006 at 2:07 pm
no la, ah hooi want go back ma sunday evening after autocity show, so we cannot play lo… kekeke…
i play some acoustic stuff only la, not hot electric guitar solo.
gnap // Nov 15, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Wah! 1-armed drummer! Amazing!
Mike, I’ll come see (since SilverIsle oledi say like dis, how can i run?! :P). You playing acoustic guitar wor. I LOVE acoustics!! What time is yours, 7-8pm demo slots b4 the competition starts? Or after the competition and before winner announcement slot, ie midnite liao? Just wanna make sure i don’t miss your session.
Rossie // Nov 15, 2006 at 2:43 pm
I swear I posted my comment here this morning… But nevermind…
Thanks Mike for the comments! We’ll work our way to perfect everything in our band.
Jonathan (NC)
Rossie // Nov 15, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Thanks for the comments Mike! We’ll work our way to perfect everything in the band.
Regards,
Jonathan (Nightmare)
Silver Isle // Nov 15, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Testing 1 2 3…
Guitarist of Midnight Cinema, Jonathan asked me why he can’t leave comment.
Testing 1 2 3…
taisuan // Nov 15, 2006 at 5:06 pm
let me clear things up. when a new user is created in uglymen.net, the first comment from this user will be held for moderation until either me, michael or ah hooi approve it. once approved, every other comments by this user will be posted automatically. so jonathan, welcome to uglymen.net
Rossie // Nov 15, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Ha! Silly me…
Ok! Glad to be welcomed!
PUMA_X71 // Nov 15, 2006 at 6:24 pm
really respect the one handed drummer… he can play so much better than me… sigh… sad… must brush up my strokes
fleaman // Nov 15, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Uglymen, u performing in Autocity?
When ah? n what time? i want to go see….
Silver Isle // Nov 15, 2006 at 8:47 pm
19th of November, this Sunday. Uglymen is scheduled to perform from 4pm to 5pm.
michael // Nov 15, 2006 at 11:10 pm
the Sunday performance is a joke, is a real joke man…
Autocity: gimme five Bukit Jambul.
michael // Nov 15, 2006 at 11:15 pm
gnap, gnap, gnap
my slot will be around 7pm i guess, i play some cheap acoustic songs only, and then will jem with Jerry Felix (famous drummer) and Michael (not me, famous pianist) a few songs which i still duno what i gonna play… pai ngo siong toi kekeke…
Silver Isle // Nov 15, 2006 at 11:34 pm
Huh? What joke? What gimme five? =/
michael // Nov 15, 2006 at 11:38 pm
i wil tel later… stupid encounter, but cant blame them though.
michael // Nov 16, 2006 at 12:56 am
hey Jonathan, no problem man, you guys lit up the show really, and its a joy to watch!
keep it up.
gnap // Nov 16, 2006 at 10:00 am
Okey dok, Mike. Will be there by 7pm to catch ur performance!!! My frens will be there too.
Wah, will be playing a few songs but still duno what yet… So cikik meh? but i guess they only do this to the real PROs.
michael // Nov 16, 2006 at 12:18 pm
haha,,,, truely cikik, bcos i am a little worried also jemming with these heavy weights!
Silver Isle // Nov 16, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Not fair… I want to go also! =(
gnap // Nov 16, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Mike, I’m so looking fwd. This is gonna be one heck of a heavy weight show, man! U definitely qualify in BOTH sense of the word. HAHA!
Silver, don’t be sad. I try to record Mike’s perf. n post it to utube for u.
Meanwhile, try to concentrate on ur exam. 
michael // Nov 16, 2006 at 4:15 pm
record? cool gnap, haha… thanks
that wil give me some encouragement to try making less mistakes in my playing.
Rossie // Nov 17, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Thanks for the kind words Mike. We’ll catch your show in Singapore. Please keep us posted.
Silver Isle // Nov 17, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Serious? You guys going? Cool man! It’s on the 21st of February, 2007 (4th day of CNY).
Rossie // Nov 17, 2006 at 5:22 pm
Yup… If all goes well. My next semester starts on the 26th Feb, so I think there’s time to catch them on the 21st.
michael // Nov 17, 2006 at 9:51 pm
arh,,, Uglymen are not the former uglymen, we are weaker now compared to the 4-member era, but we will improve as oways, so dont be disappointed if u go accross SG and see a mediocore performance.
Rossie // Nov 17, 2006 at 10:02 pm
No problem Mike, My bandmates and I go to Singapore very often to hunt for gears, going across the causeway to us is just like another outing. I’ve never seen you guys before though, should be a great show! I only got in touch with the local music scene when I went to KL to study, my friends kept on shoving some local bands to me, Uglymen was one of them of course. Credit to Silver Isle on posting you guys on the CARI forum.
An additional guitar/keyboard helps the band alot in terms of dynamic, we’re sourcing a keyboardist to complete our lineup too, just that there aren’t many Jordan Rudess fans out there =.=
Because of the lack of a keyboardist we had to forego alot of great great DT songs to cover, sigh…
michael // Nov 18, 2006 at 12:27 am
ya, your band needs a keyboardist no doubt, if you gonna go the DT way. There arent many JR fans out there, but even if you find one, it is damn hard to play his stuff too… haha… but have you ever thought of define your own band sound? your own taste?
If i am lucky enuf and will see you play again in asianbeat festival, i will like to see a DT song with NC style la… kekeke…
Did your vocalist watch DT DVD? She stood like JL.
just a crazy suggestion from a crazy me, if u wanna step on the monitor like JP, JP used a custom thingy, you can use one too, get a metal portable three steps ladder and put it there… Its funny and NEVER BEING DONE BEFORE by anyone…
i guarantee you will be the man in a show.
I oways look for unique, crazy, and sometimes stupid stuff in judging a competition. bcos they made all the judges laugh and have a GOOD time.
and that’s what we call the X factor…. hahaha
tell u wat Jonathan, i dont know if your band dare to do this, but if Uglymen were playing this, i will suddenly squat down infront of my guitarist and let him stap on my back…
i tell you man, the crowd will go WILD WILD WILD!! blif me…
anyway, just my 1.5 cents.
Rossie // Nov 18, 2006 at 12:48 am
We tought of the human-foot-rest before! But that was with our previous male vocalist. Our current vocalist is a girl, close to impossible for her to do that! HA!
She never really saw DT’s DVD before, only when I let my band have a glimpse of their new DVD SCORE. She only got to know about DT because of us.
About our style… Yeah, we seriously need to draft something out. I only listen to DT… Well, I listen to JP’s solo album, James’s solo album, and Liquid Tension Experiment… Then again, still DT =.=
Whenever we play a non-DT cover song, we would make it sound like DT, with crazy fast picking solos, double bass drum, and weird timings. We’re trying some other stuff now, to define our own sound, we have some headway now, and trying to develop it further, hope that you would be the judge again next year, so you can help us judge how far we’ve gone.
I saw a Indonesian band bring a plastic chair on stage before. They were covering DT. That plastic chair is those red ones that you can see everywhere, I was like “what the hell?”, not a pretty sight.
Those glorified-foot-rests (as said by JP) are made by his rig tech, Mark Snyder. Very cool diamond plates ala Mesa Boogie! I would love to have a pair too! Hehe… It’s really impossible for me to play his harder stuff just standing there, must have something to stand on. I was so happy on the day of the competition when I saw they used moniters!
I will definately give your 1.5 cents alot of thought! Thanks again!!!
michael // Nov 18, 2006 at 1:26 am
haha,,, using chairs are like eh…. half funny half not funny… not good.
wat happenned to the previous pink panther vocal? if u dont mind telling here…. just curious… and any other previous members?
Rossie // Nov 18, 2006 at 8:37 am
This is the Indonesian band covering Dream theater that used a plastic chair as a foot rest! Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H7Tho76w5M
How did you know we were Pink Panther before this?
I’ll give you a run down on all the members:
ex-VOCALIST #1
We started off with a male vocalist, Big Bird (23), he has some great technique, but the pitch of the songs we play is too high for him, way too high. As if the original D standard tuning wasn’t high enough, we played Endless Sacrifice in standard E tuning just before Valentine’s Day this year, his voice actually gave away when he hit the high notes right about at the end of the song. Feel so sorry for him. Too repot to keep on change our tunings, so we just play every DT song in stanadard tuning.
ex-VOCALIST #2
Then there’s our first female vocalist, Sandy (18), well her voice is great, very powerful voice, I love her voice from the moment I heard her sing. I asked her to join us. After a few shows, when I reviewed our video, she sang very flat in our live performances. And something is very not right in her gelling with us. Well, asking her to leave wasn’t that hard. After sometime, things got really really complicated. Long story short, some sort of a cat fight broke out between her and my then girlfriend. Needless to say, she won’t sing for us again, heck, she won’t even talk to me again.
VOCALIST #3
Our current vocalist (Leo, 18), we wanted a female vocalist so that she can hit the high notes. I gotta know her through the CARI forums. She was looking for a band to front, and I thought we gave a her a shot. That’s about 3~4 months ago. We were taking part in a small band competition. We played DT’s About to Crash and GnR’s Sweet Child. We got first place. We had some problems though, she came from a background of singing pop songs. Singing DT’s some sort of an equivalent of a culture shock. But we can see her improving while she’s taking vocal lessons from Patrick vocalist from the disbanded Retro Groove.
ex-GUITAR
We had a second guitar once, this band was kinda put together by him. Silver knows him (Zhen Yu, 20). He and our drummer got together afther ZY got wind of an excellent drummer in our school. ZY contacted me through my guitar teacher, we had the same teacher. Then we started to jam a few Metallica numbers, and used The Call of Ktulu to enter a school competition. We got consolation prize, we were the only band, other contestants consist of string/brass/woodwind instrumentalists. The judges were conducters/coaches from the string/wind/chinese orchestra. We were really suprised that the judges actually liked our performance. And yes, we did not have a bassist at this point, who needs a bassist when you’re covering Metallica? Ha… Anyway, just about this time we were introduced to DT, me and the drummer started to really dig Train of Thought, we started listening and practising songs on it, notably Endless Sacrifice. From then onwards, we never looked back. However, ZY does not like too technical stuff, he said that playing DT bores the hell out of him, he’s very much into J-rock (right Silver?). He went to form his own band(s), he will be performing later in the Asian Beat Masai heats.
KEYBOARD
We actually practised with a keyboardist (Jason, 22) for this Asian Beat. He was introduced to us by our bassist. According to him, he was in a band when he studied in NILAI that covered DT. But the only DT song he played was A Change of Season. That was enough to impress us. We immediately started practising. But I guess the time was too short for him to learn all the parts, get them up to speed, and in the mean time gel with us. So we had to omit the keyboards for this competition. But we hope Jason can continue playing with us though. By the way, he is a JR-hater. Ha! Jason hates him way before joining us, but after jamming Endless with us, he hates JR even MORE. Ha!
BASSIST
Miller (20) only joined us about a year ago, having zero knowledge in bass. He was the drummer’s friend, having heard that we need a bassit, he just bought a bass and amp and started practising. Thinking back, it’s kinda wild to ask a beginner bassist to play a DT song. When people asks him what was the first song he played on bass, he just answers “As I Am from Dream Theater”. The reaction is normally “?!?!”. Ha! Anyway, he has been playing bass for about a and a half years, and we all see that he is improving very fast. We hope with your comments, he will improve even further. We believe in “good gear makes a good musician” provided that there’s enough techinical abilities to match the instrument. The best bassist you chose couldn’t be more spot on, after reading your own best-bassist comments. On that note, Musicman basses are THE bass. Altough it’s only a SUB (parts from China, assembled in the US), the electronics and workmanship are still top notched, plus the SUB series had just been discontinued. Musicman basses are synonymous with great punchy tone, that’s why the bassist is able to have every note so clear, of course technique plays a big part also lah. Anyway, great instruments from EBMM!
DRUMMER
A Mike Portnoy/DT freak, Yi Cheng (20) and ZY started this band. He had been playing drums for eight years. Really gotta speak for my drummer friend, he has great great great crazy techniques, and always strives to improve, double/triple/quadruple stroke (I know there isn’t such thing as quadruple stroke, but I asked him to practise it anyway), push pull technique, single hand rolling etc. But his major problem is he is very inconsistant in keeping his tempo. Plus he plays by memorizing time signatures, not the melody (WTF?). We gaduh-ed many times about this. The drumming in Endless is very hard because of all the different time signature, and we gaduh-ed many times (too) on the accent notes of my duet with the bassist. But honestly, his tempo-keeping is really bad, that’s why many people asked him to practise more. Ha… He’s currently studying in Lasalle (Singapore), majoring in pop/jazz music, please check out his solo when you have the time, thanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp59fDPas_k
GUITAR
Me (20), a JP/DT fanatic. I was approched by ZY at the begining, and was introduced to DT by Yi Cheng, and I didn’t look back. I really enjoy playing guitar more than anything else. Saw a lot of young bands got disbanded because of the lost of passion and interest. They think it’s cool and some sort easy to form a band, but later slowly found out it is in fact very hard to keep a band together, as members normally have different directions, thinkings, and priorities. We are very fortunate that we have the same interest in music and we are very good friends altogether. We think playing as a band should be fun and that shouldn’t be taken away. We love our music (okok… DT’s music), and hope to improve futher.
beh // Nov 19, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Rossie,
After read through the messages you and mike here (it’s long dude)…I can feel that you are a GREAT DT fans and love music so very much.. I have not meet you or watch your band playing but one thing from here I would like to share my 2cents of thought with you.
If you can play DT song or play like exactly like DT 100% like DT, in asianbeat I do think you could stand up and win the champ. For any musician or audience like me, I would consider of the band’s ORIGINALITY, sound, signature, identity of the sound for the band.
Also, you never can find a person can play the keyboard like JR and never will be, becoz’ JR is crazy keyboardist, he can play very difficult, complex notes with his single keyboard. I would say even you lucky can find a person can play close to JR for you band also please dun play like DT.
I watch the clips of your drummer, wow that’s really impressive with his stroke!!
Why not defind your own sound for your band now? Since you got cool members in your band, each really are putting effort in making the sound (not noise okie).. and Stop thinking to imitate DT.
Very simple, Jimi Hendrix influence alot of ppl. Jimi influence Joe Satariani, Kirk Hammett, John Petrucci, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malsteem, slash and etc etc etc
Do they (those guitarist above) sound like Jimi Hendrix????
Those guitarist above got the respect from world wide becoz’ they have their own identity, ORGINALITY, signature, sound….
It’s not easy to create you own sound….
that’s the problem in here’s band sound, many of the band cannot “run out” of the shodow of their influenced band or guitarist or musician.
I am writting you this to you with my very sincere heart telling you do not too much fall into the trap that trap yourself with other’s sound.
I am a DT fans as well…John Petrucci I like his tone not his speed…
If you want to stand up in AsianBeat 1st must create your own identity either in image of your band or in the sound of the band. Very important!!! PPL had done it and you guys pick up and play it…it’s meaningless…unless play with DT tune with Nightmare Cinema style..then that’s different….
When you raise the foot resting things up, I was laughing and laughing.. I was like WTF man..that’s JP why the hell ppl want to follow him with this kind of things??? still laughing….why??? what for???
It’s like many guitarist follow slash’s playing style…low position, cannot see slash’s eyes…couple years back even worst I saw a guy dress like slash and use his guitar got similiar shape with gibson les paul, not a gibson, play like slash..I was like..what the hell are you doing man??? you are not slash….you are you!!!
Good luck with your band playing..I feel that if you guys keep it up sure will defind your sound oneday!!! and kick ass in the stage!!!
Forget about MikePuki(DT’s drummer), JohnPCC(DT’s guitairist), JohnMung(the bassist), and JR(the keyboardist of DT)…forget about them..start with the sound very own that owned by Nightmare Cinema!!!
rockoN!
beh
beh // Nov 20, 2006 at 2:01 am
in asianbeat I do think you could stand up and win the champ
Sorry correction to be made….
I do NOT think you could stand up and win the champ….miss out the NOT..sorry…
I juz got back from AsianBeat final compitition at Penang’s. 8 bands….
Ocean Of fire correct? spell correct?
I have seen this band perform couples times…Their guitarist I called him Kelvin YangMalsteem….Actually his name is Kelvin Yang, why I call him Kelvin YangMalsteem??? becoz’ he can sweep like Malsteem; and always showing his sweep picking skill in live playing…and spoil the whole band…he was at spot light too much and each of the members won’t stand a chance to show up their talent…
But tonite I have seen the best Ocean Of Fire’s performance at all!!! Kelvin is not Kelvin YangMalsteem tonite, he didn’t stay under the spotlight…and the band play with very kick ass performance….
With their very own Ocean of Fire sound!!! I am very excited and inside my thought was like..THAT WHAT I WANT TO SEE!!! they are my band of the night!!!
If you want to win AsianBeat you have to defind you own style, own sound, own tone, own identity!!!
You can play like YngwieMalsteem, or John Petrucci, or Steve Vai, or Joe Satriani, or Paul Gilbert, its pointless!!! Those pro judge will kill your point for the orignality….also as a band I won’t recommand you got other’s shadow in your playing….
Quote from Kirk Hammett metallica’s guitarist
“A great musician will have strong musical vacabuary in their mind; Musical vacabuaries are the phases, notation, riffings they play, create before; and A good musician will not steal others’ or repeating those “musical vacabuaries” that being created from their own or others’ and that’s the most challenge part in being a great musician.”
Also, sound balancing is very important in live playing for a band. I saw some band play heavy metal tune, noise like hell…Out of balance..guitar want to be loud, drum want to be loud, as well as bass…no need I say more..those freaks are not rocking my word instead they are killing my ears!!!… OUT of BALANCE means OUT OF CONTROL!!! Pro judge will cut the point as well…cut cut cut…
anyway, winning or losing is not the main focus I hope for all of the bands out there. Try to take it as learning experience…You learn, you will become more strong and you know how to kick next time..no juz kick the audiences but also kick the judge..Impress them by your own sound!!!
rockoN!
beh
P/S: congrat to Ocean of Fire!!! Best guitarist, Best Bassist, Best Drummer and The Champ of Penang Region AsianBeat 2006!!! Keep it UP!!!
Rossie // Nov 20, 2006 at 9:50 am
Thanks for the comments beh. Believe me, we are really trying some stuff out concerning our own sound. Hope to be ready for next year’s AB. We played DT just for the sake of technique and to bond together as a band, and most importantly, to learn the song writing skills that DT incorporate into their songs. We didn’t even think of getting into the top 12, as we are fully aware that covers are most likely to be ignored by the judges.
As for the moniter thingy. I’m NOT copying JP. I’ve always did that, even before watching DT. I need to keep the guitar very stable and high (I’ve already carry my guitar very high) when playing the hard parts, that’s why I did what I did. Later only to find out the JP does that too, cool. I’m not ready to give up on the footrest. I do not want to compromise on playability for the sake of showmanship, so I’ve tried a few positions, and the moniter-footrest suits the best.
Yes, I do have a friend in KL that plays JR’s stuff. He’s an amazing keyboardist. His band covers Liquid Tension Experiment from time to time. I thought too that there wasn’t anyone able to touch JR, but my God, was I wrong.
michael // Nov 21, 2006 at 11:43 am
hi Jonathan, ill catch up with you later as i am busy writing a report for Penang Asianbeat.
thanks for taking the time to introduce me your members and band history.
keep rockin.
michael // Nov 21, 2006 at 10:54 pm
hi rossie, me still having finger pain and numb in my tired eyes after speding 3 hours writing the penang report.
just an inside news for you. There is a portion of “Creativity” in the marking scheme for Asianbeat, but how a band will be judged will depend on the judge him/herself.
Very often, judges have different views upon a band. And the most dreaded job was being a chief judge, as you have to hit the nail in some bands at many points in discussion. Its a great honour for me being made the chief judge by Yamaha. What wat if you have two different decisions from your other judges, who will you side? Hmm…. It certainly happenned back in Johor.
Ok, back to the Originality issue. It does not mean playing Original / self composed song will guarantee extra marks, and if singing covers does not mean committing suicide. The first thing i told when i met the other judges was not to judge on self-composed or cover songs too biasly. However, if a band plays a self composed song like crap or simple song like C Am F G. And another band covered DT like DT, whi8ch band do you choose? It is obvious the self-compose band will get the boot. For your information, the champs, 1st, 2nd placing were not picked according to their total marks, what if the C Am F G band gets 50 and the DT band gets 45 because it lost many marks in the “Originality” section. I will still certainly pick the DT band to represent Johor. Did you know the 3rd band Creative Soul played a cover? How about others who played Original and lost?
My point is, you wanna play DT, play it, but change something, drastically, which is not easy. And put in many gimmicks and x-factors. These knowledge you will learn many years down the road. There is no book to teach you, you just have to watch more live shows, and ask yourself, what makes you feel good and whats make you vomit.
Remember, a competition is to SATISFY the judge, not yourself, to describe in a more down to earth way: participating in a big band contest like Asianbeat is like, you must make a judge think you are GOD, not you think you are GOD on stage. This is how we (Uglymen) won the championship. Our winning song has no guitar solo, no bass solo, no drum solo, the vocal sang averagely and so fat and ugly (yeah it’s me). But we DID a lot of thinking, thinking, and thinking, rather than shreding solos and torturing the drumheads or slapping the bASS.
to win, u must know what the contest want, more importantly, you must know wat the judges want…
i believe you are wiser now and make me say WOW, the next time i see your band.
Cheers!
Rossie // Nov 22, 2006 at 8:34 am
Hi Mike, thanks for the insightful comments. Again, we’re very grateful for the comments. It will help us alot.
We actually put in alot of weird parts in Endless Sacrifice. I liked it, but my bandmates thought it was too weird, so we scrapped it. The idea was the last chorus, vocals will sing the chorus of “Opps I Did It Again”, it actually fits! I have a remixed version, I’ll send it to Silver if you want to listen to it.
Great to hear that you don’t give cover bands the cold shoulder! But of course, creativity places a big big part. We’ll try our best to do whatever we can.
I guess we could play simpler stuff without the shredding and stuff. We’ll give that a try!
I can’t thank you enough for the invalueable comments that you gave us!
Thank you!!!
beh // Nov 27, 2006 at 7:57 am
Only IF, if I am the judge…
I will judge the band’s
Originality
Unique
Team Work
Sound
Either playing cover or own song, it does not matter. But how a band create the SOUND that its the part that interests me the most and how those bandmate play and compliment each other and make the song more kick, great color and texture and more soulful and FEEL that’s the important part.
Let me without any knowledge in music theory things cannot be apply to this…I believe all the judges are pro and know a lot about music theories things….SO how the song being constructured like the chords progression, how the bandmate improvise their skill in playing out the song also intersting….
I won’t judge the makeUP, clothes or uniform things….
Becoz’ Music is about expressing our feeling into the song, either you play your own one or cover others. and no need to play with high tech skill like lighting speed….
A song must have a good melody and some beautiful harmony and rhythm(chords progression) come with the song together, blend those beauties or kick harmony and rhythm into the song will do and great song. Plus a little bit of guitar or bass or drum solo to spicy up the whole song..that will kick already…
Like I was told before if Nightmare Cinema gonna play DT song, play DT song with NC style or sound..
again, here is malaysia and got various type of judges, so may or may not apply my theory on judging the band.. This is only apply in me how I look up a band.
rockON!
beh
Yamaha Asianbeat Kedah / Perlis Finals 2006 Report | Official UGLYMEN site // Nov 29, 2006 at 9:09 pm
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