It was certainly more entertaining in Penang compared to the Johor version of this years' finals.

This time, I have all the band details, (thanks to Miss Lim and Shawn, who allowed me to capture some band documents on my camera) so, no messing up with names and positions like what i screwed up in Johor.

I will keep this shorter than the Johor report as I noticed i talked too much in the previous 27 pages report, you dont believe it? Try copy all the 3 reports from Johor including the photos and paste them in your Microsoft Word, you will get 27 pages, thats the total number of pages i submitted to Yamaha.

in terms of excitement, Johor still offered more, but in terms of entertainment and comedy, Penang certainly stood out.

OK, let me start my engine… 2 of the 3 Uglyboyz followed me to Penang

In my CLK at 4.15pm, was going to be late

Reached Bukit Jambul just in time at 6pm, attended briefing and went straight to choose my Yamaha acoustic guitar for the openning act.

Introducing the 3 judges for the big showdown, (L-R) me, Jerry Felix, Michael Kay.

Jerry Felix is one of the best drummer in Malaysia and also holds several records on the drums. We knew each other some time ago and he has his own drum solo album, and played and recorded for countless artistes. Did i mention he support Manchester United? ha, I brought a MU key chain gift for him too.

Michael Kay, is very well known for his contributions in the keyboard instruments, music publishing, and also music education. He is from Malaysia's biggest music press publisher Rhythm Music Publishing.

Crowds feeling up the venue fast

Even sitting on the floor, can you spot some guys wearing Uglymen T-shirts?

I was first up and the Yamaha i picked certainly sounded very nice to me on stage, and the neck profile just glued to my fingers, must get this model!

And here comes the heavyweights!

It was so nice jemming with them!

Our MC for the day Chia, well-versed in English, Malay, Mandarin and can joke some more, where else you can find this type of MC, and he is good looking too.

Before and during the show, i also met Leow, Bobby, James, Ah Soon, Suan and family, and off course the Uglyboyz and my friend Bong Sze Rin tagged along. During the first few bands, Gnap suddenly pop up and say hi to me. Nice to finally meet you Gnap!

First Band ~ Ocean of Fire

They played a self-composed number called “Control Alternate Delete”, the guitarist Kelvyn (ah you know him already, he is every where in Uglymen.net now) He told me they have some new songs coming up, one is about having safe sex called “Safe Mode”, another about positioning called “Shift + Enter”, and a global song about help in Africa called “F1″.
Ocean sounded times better than what i heard in Alor Setar few weeks back. The song was fine with intentional stoppages for individual solos (which i not quite like) because that will break the feel of the band. The drum solos was way too long (thanks to some big head), bass solo already shortened, but i still felt too long. Rhythm guitarist was almost annoymous (i later found out most bands using the amp he was using also no sound one, so cant blame fully on him la). Kelvyn was no longer a mirror of Yngwie, where he used to fry the notes from beginning to the end. I suggest they put in more gimmicks in the song. The gimmick when the drummer came out to hit everything he could reach actually did not work well. The ending where the three front players saling-goreng on one another's guitar was also needless. Still, after just watching the first band, i had a feel they were already in the top 3. They were clearly clean and listenable but not too impressive. Some simple routines in the songs could be modified and they could sound easily twice better than tonight. Another thing i want to stress is Oceans dressed well, not too glaring and nice to watch, you can see the effort was there. Good job Oceans.

2nd band ~ Reaching Horizon

In a band competition, sometimes you are unlucky to be placed at the first to perform, some judges may reserve marks to see how the later bands perform, and normally if you are the first, you probably will have that feeling of the atmosphere not “warmed-up” yet, or not settled down yet, very floating, and you may perform below par. But for tonight, this theory went the other way, because Reaching Horizon was surely unfortunate to be placed after Ocean. The class between this two were miles apart. Balancing bad, almost zero showmanship, and the vocal's picthing was bad, and t shirts and jeans.
After just watching the 2nd band, I thought they were heading for the last 3 (sorry for that, i am just trying to be frank so that you guys dont repeat the same mistakes. Hope to see these guys do better other times) They played a cover.

3rd band ~ Masterpiece

This band was cool at first sight. Vocalist, guitarist, bassist wore vests, looks cooler like a band, and they were squarting down before the song starts (hmm…. its becoming a norm for bands in Asianbeat always squart down before the song start..keke) Masterpiece played their own song called “Penaklukan”. The eerie intro certainly sounded like alien invading earth ala War of the World. (I thought Tom Cruise wore a vest too in the beginning of the movie). Then, all hell broke loose. It was a heavy-metal song, but Jerry and I were certainly going heavy-mental, we turned our heads looking at each other and open mouth big big… The musicians were below average but a big chunk of blame must go to the vocals. He was daring, i like that a lot, but he was singing on-off pitch, was that a song or a scream, he tried to woo the crowd by saying welcome blah blah… 1,2,3,4! Which ended up nothing. Normally if you wanna do something to get respond from the crowd, you should do according to your song, like have a break from the melody, only the drum groove moving on, then u shout 1,2,3,4 then the band jem in…. but this one after 1,2,3,4… then nothing happen. Still, I am happy to see a band playing their own songs, and very daring. This band has potential, only if they do it the correct way. They had fans holding a Maxis banner (wrting Masterpiece, You are the Champion! or something)  That was cool though. The guitarist's solo was like muted, either the balancing was bad or he already being kidnapped by the aliens (other members over-powering him). The judges were shaking banging their heads at the end.

4th Band ~ Paradise

Just before Paradise went on stage, Jerry was asking me, hey, tonight's band no chick one ah? and there you go, here comes the eye-satisfying band. For your information, some of my friends went there asked me after the show, hey mike, you got take a photo for the keyboardist ah, let me see la, i want see (no need to click the above photo, its not a thumbnail dude, cannot enlarge, kwa kwa kwa…) but you can browse michael-one few days later when i have time to upload some of the over 100 photos taken during this trip. Suan told me Paradise sang an FIR's number, i am not sure, because lately i did not have chance to listen many songs (song name is Between You and The Sky) The song started slow and quiet, and I could hardly hear what the vocal was singing, because the monkeys crowd behind me shouting turun la! we want rock!, apa le! and making monkey chants, they shouted louder than the vocalist's microphone. The song slowly build up and it was an average showing from each member. Vocal slightly better than the others. Bassist off tempo, drummer poor strokes and timing, guitarist trying to impress (good) but can you explain why you play a mid-tempo melodious guitar solo with all down strokes? You spoil the flowing feel of the melody, spoil your notes, spoil your articulations. Keyboardist brought a full-length Yamaha digital Keyboard… to play a few notes and chords ?? I think the keyboard supplied on stage was more powerful than the one she brought along, unless there were certain voices in your keyboard which you need to use in your songs, else i dont see the necessity. In addition, the large kayboard blocked most part of you (dismay to many of my friends…. kekeke…) This band is young, dressed well, suited the song but a lot of home work need to be done. Kesimpulannya: A little better than band number two and three.

5th Band ~ Soo Zone Red

Well, here's the first of the Soo Zone trilogy on stage. They played a song called Janji. I promised to write all the details I remembered, but unfortunately, this was another average band that I could not recall any special or x factors which can make me write something. They played 3-piece and not really bad but nothing special really. Once again, from what i have stressed so many times in my previous reivews for Johor, judges want to see somthing that make them say “WOW”, not watching a band practising or jem on stage. Better luck next time Soo Zone Red

6th Band ~ Soo Zone Green

For some reason, i missed the photo for this band, really sorry. Finally, a good band to watch after some misadventures, some what funny for the passed 45 minutes. Soo Zone Green had the best vocals for tonight no doubt, the vocal was better (not perfect) but still better than all vocalist before. He was backed up by two backing voclist, nice harmony. All other members also played well and with nice arrangment (it was a cover song though). It was quite pleasing to watch Soo Zone Green, but nothing really stood out from the song. Since there were only just two bands to go, i also thought there was also high possibility Soo Zone Green was closing in on a place in the top 3.

7th Band ~ Soo Zone Blue

The last of the Soo Zone brothers to appear on stage. I must say this is the first time i saw a drummer hammering the drums with no sound. He hit or banged the hi-hat using the neck of his drum sticks (not head) and crashed it on the snare, toms, and cymbals like the only chance he could play drum on stage was tonight, after tonight, no more, but no matter how hard he hammered (wrong strokes) so light sound came out.. In fact, i was wondering how he did that, so much energy with so little output. The guitarist was too loud, the other was too soft, bassist and vocals also below par. Jerry was saying the drummer looked like he just took lessons for few weeks. Well, that summed up the band. Better luck next time.

8th Band ~ Susnine

How could i forget this band, the vocal shook like eh… …. (no idea what to write), he was very brave in doing some feminine movements, so soft and loose and at one point, he flipped open his pouch cover (located in front of his eh… look photo above). The guitarist was not bad, and his tone was nice. Bassist and drums gelled well and keyboardist I wouldnt say he was really impressive, but he certainly played more notes, and more complexity than the other previous bands, the best bet for Best Keyboardist award.

all bands perfromed and off we go….

Calculations and discussions… I should not disclose the details here but the top two and the bottom two were like miles planets apart. This really summed up the contrast of quality and standards between the bands for tonight. It was much closer in Johor.

Well, as i told you, i am not gonna write too long this time. Here are the results, with no surprise. The best team won and each best musicians won their individual awards, the winners were almost obvious.

Best Guitarist: Kelvyn Yeang (Oceans of Fire)
Best Bassist: Jonathan Chen (Oceans of Fire)
Best Drummer: Jonathan Scully (Oceans of Fire)
Best Vocalist: Arman Md Isa (Soo Zone Green)
Best Keyboardist: Mohd Nurshuhairie (Susnine)

Best of the lot (L-R) Poly Shoe (sponsor) Ms Ooi, Kelvyn, Jonathan Scully, Mohd, Arman, Jonathan Chen, Mr Lim

Champions: Oceans of Fire
2nd place: Soo Zone Green
3rd place: Susnine

Oceans of Happiness

All winners  Hooray……………

Its a happy ending, a great show from Music World Penang, (L-R: me, Mr Lim, Miss Lim)

Misc photos 花絮:

my good pal ~ Shawn Wong from Yamaha

Jerry Felix, the first Malaysian drummer to use the double pedal, 42 years as a drummer and still going strong stronger

Happy for now, tougher challenges ahead in the national finals.

Paradise. Work harder and come back stronger. (are you guys zooming in on the keyboardist)

Its dinner / supper time. I had some good nice chats with Shawn, Mr Lim, Miss Lim, Oceans, Bong, Uglyboyz, Beh, Leow, Tai Suan & Mrs, Yang Yang the cute noti girl and staff of Music World. 

Where to get free room, bath, food, watch DVD (many movies to choose from) in Penang?
Suan: my place la..

I wonder what will you think if i did not put a caption here. Left is me, right is yoyo koay. Because of him, you guys get to see so many charming photos above, he lended his digi cam to me, at midnight 1.30am, he brought his laptop down from his apartment and trasnferred the photos to my MMC card. Thank you very much yoyo.

Taking the BOyz to breakfast Monday morning

joining us was ah Beh

The Boyz insisted me to take a shot of them wearing the coolest T-Shirts

We had some expensive coffee at Coffee Bean in Gurney Plaza with Miss Lim for an hour. I have to used the word expensive because this was the first time I spent over RM65 for coffees for 5 (including beh, not in photo) but worth the feeling there la, very relaxing, not a single chance in Band Raya alor setak

Beh went to pay parking tickets to the Penang Council workers, so they have more money to install CCTV at “strategic” places during meeting with reporters.

Night time 11.30pm Monday, after Ugly weekly jem…. i wanted to stay longer but had to drive another 2 hours.

good bye and off went home….

Thank you Yamaha Asianbeat Penang. And Thanks to Mr Lim for his hospitality and the Hot Link MusicWorld T Shirts.

See you in Yamaha Asianbeat Kedah Finals 28th November Tuesday, 6pm, City Plaza (Setak Walk)

congrats to OCEAN OF FIRE for winning the competition. they will be representing PENANG state to the NATIONAL finals on 3rd DECEMBER 2006. clap! clap! clap! they were doing great last nite… literally burning the stage.
on top of winning the coveted competition, they have won individual instrumental awards as well:

- drums – johnathan scully

- bass – johnathan chen

- electric guitar – kelvyn yeang

i can't recall the other bands who won 2nd and 3rd, congrats to them too.

uglymen would like to take this opportunity to wish ocean of fire all the best, work hard and good luck. i am trying to make myself available to watch the national finals in KL. i am their official roadie who carries their guitar bags, cables and equipments, alright!!! kekeke…

* update * a message from our friend, uncle beh beh:

I juz got back from AsianBeat final compitition at Penang's. 8 bands….

Crowd watching guest bands while waiting for results.

So, after all the 12 bands finished their performances, we (judges) went upstairs to C & M Music office for points calculations and discussions. There were guest bands playing Avril Lavinge or Evanasense numbers (not sure) and some other songs which i overheard a little from 6 stories above. Once in the office, we sat down to discuss the show while Rosli was warming up on his guitar.

I will disclose some of our views that contributed to the eventual winners. Start off with the top 3. After some lengthly discussions, We picked Creative Soul, The Blaze, Simple 7, Mistaken Identity and another band which I could not remember as our final 6. I was a little sad because Houdinix's total marks failed to get them into the top 6.

Not long later, the list was down to the final 3 and there we had some trouble deciding the champ as the top two were quite close. Well, at the end, all of us agreed to choose “Simple 7″ as the representative for Johor to the national finals on 3rd December. V'Sion came in at second. There was again another dilemma for choosing 2nd runners-up ~ The Blaze and Creative Soul, only separated by a few marks. There were two votes for Creative Soul and one for The Blaze (ha, I am not gonna tell you who voted for who)

Champions…. hoooray Simple 7

So, Tada! Simple 7 the new champions of Yamaha Asianbeat Regional Finals for Johor; V'sion as 1st Runners-up and Creative Soul landed at third place.

Congrats to V'Sion Band
Creative Soul

Moving on to individual awards. The tasks were easier. We had two strong candidates for Best Vocalist, from V'Sion and Creative Soul, I couldnt remember who won it but I went for Creative Soul.

And the Best Bassist is…. (Right is MC Sani, also a cool guitarist)

Best Bassist, to me, I almost ignored every technical aspect presented by all bassists, but chose the one who has the best tone and time (Read review Part # 1, and # 2 to understand why i prioritized this). Co-incidently, Rosli and myself voted for the guy from the band which covered song of My Chemical Romance.

Best Guitarist was the easiest, since all 3 of us had the same pick. We chose the guitarist from The Blaze.

Finally, Best Drummer Award. Personally, I love to watch the drummer of Mistaken Identity because the tempo was solid. But the award went to another out standing drummer from the band who performed like Limp Bizkit.

All da Best.

This one for the album

Clap Clap Clap, to all the winners. Once again, I wish to thank Yamaha Music, C & M Music especially Mr Thomas, Shawn Wong from Yamaha KL, and every contestant. Applause also goes to the audience who made this show a success.

Misc Photos 花絮:

Guest band ~ Rosli on guitar, so so sweet tone, he is a legend man!

Our MC on guitar!

Guest band ~ Bassist with cool Rock Unite T Shirt.

This is where I stayed ~ The Zon Hotel

Simple and nice.

Made a cup of coffee at 1am and…

… Started to jot down some show details like winnners blah blah..before i forget them. Now you know how forgetful i am.

Mr Thomas fetched me at 8.30pm for dinner, we went to Dangga Bay's Asiana Restaurant.

Nice food, nice place, far left is Miss Yong, and Maggie.

After dinner, we took a walk down Danga Bay.

Another shot along the bay

Night scene in the hotel.

View from my room window 6.58am

7.15am

Breakfast at hotel ~ Noodles, hash potatoes, yellow beans, cucumber.

And desert… Papaya, tomatoes, cucumber, oranges, salad sauce.

After breakfast, i took a walk along the sea side before i board a cab to Senai airport. The sea side was “very clean”, you can find papers, plastic bags, spoons, some left-oevers, toys, half empty rice boxes, tissue, food wrappers every where. It looks like the place has not been cleaned for months…

Here comes the plane at 10.25am, good bye Johor and thanks for everything.

 

Below is a  full report on competition day, if you wish to download full size photos (over 1 Mb per-photo) please log on to
www.michael-one.com Gallery area.

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