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

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!!!

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!

thanks for taking the time to introduce me your members and band history.

keep rockin.

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.

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!!!

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

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.

wat happenned to the previous pink panther vocal? if u dont mind telling here…. just curious… and any other previous members?