Mamatfest 1.07.2017

Of all the places in KL that could host a gathering of heshers, Black Box - in the upscale, yuppie-catering Publika mall- is perhaps the unlikeliest. Its cavernous sound makes it a less than ideal place for metal (unless it's that heavily reverbed early back metal sound you're after); but with few other options, their hospitality is appreciated. Also, the juxtaposition of expat children on skates tearing around clusters of Heshers is an amusing way to spend the time between sets, as was the sight of affluent yuppies getting roped in to take group pics of guys in death metal shirts.

Hate Eternal, Vital Remains, Black Fast, Inanimate Existence @ Saint Vitus

Pure death metal shows have become a rarity for me - what with living in a clueless theocracy and all. And so even with Deathfest looming, I couldn't turn down a whole night full of the heaviest of heavy metals.

The Obsessed, Karma To Burn, and The Atomic Bitchwax @ Saint Vitus Bar

Apparently if you're a bald guy of a certain build and you stand in front of a club with your hands in your pockets, people will just assume you're the doorman. If there was some advantage to kids warily pulling out their IDs for me and punks-turned-yuppies condescendingly telling me they're "on the list", I'd have some fun with this newfound knowledge; alas, all I gained was sympathy for the people who have to to this for real. (Fun fact: a lot of door men in NYC are actually off-duty cops. Antagonize them at your own peril.)

Dylan Carlson, Stephen Brodsky, and Kevin Hufnagel @ Saint Vitus

A trio of guitarists playing solo sets was an unlikely choice for my first show back in NY, but the guitarists in question - Earth's Dylan Carlson, Cave In's Stephen Brodsky, and Gorguts' Kevin Hufnagel - are as metal as all get out. Plus, a night where a group of musicians stripped their musical identities down to the bare essentials was appealing to me since I believe that art should be separated from artifice, and that too many metalheads confuse the presentation with the actual music. And hell, now that all my friends are responsible adults with wives and kids, what else could I do on a Sunday night except hang out with all the other aging heshers unmoored by family obligations?

Mamatfest 01.02.2016

Pat from Atomicdeath invited me to this all-day show organized by Mamat Records, held at the Black Box in swanky Publika Mall (where I haven't seen a show since Doom came to KL in 2014). With metal shows being few and far between in Malaysia right now, this looked to be the only chance to see some death metal this month (without getting on a plane or a bus first).

Not A Fest XV

With Rumah Api on hiatus til its legal problems are sorted, the gigs that were scheduled there have to find alternate venues. Many of them have been reassigned to Penvia Studios, far from anywhere worth seeing and my own grim residence. The area, where a church recently drew protests from Muslim residents for displaying its crucifix outside, can euphemistically be described as "kampung". Or as my Malay buddy Azri bluntly put it, "These are rednecks." I drew some unfriendly stares as I made my way to the venue (and I wasn't even wearing this shirt); I wondered where the fuck I was when it started drizzling and a woman in a hijab eyed me coldly from the back of a moped. I finally found my way to the spot and back to civilization, and I've never been so happy to see kids in patch jackets.

Sarjan Hassan release show with ESRARR, Speedwitches, and Tinnitux @Rumah Api

Shortly after returning from New York, I got a message asking if I was back in Malaysia and would be going to Sarjan Hassan's release show at Rumah Api. [In reality, few people actually noticed I was gone until pictures from MDF started popping up on Facebook.] Rumah Api is a mixed bag in the middle of the year; with Ramadan coming up, there are few shows to look forward to, leaving a scene that's content to wait out the fasting month. But even when there are regular shows I don't often feel like I'm missing out. I mean, how many more times do I need to see the same 5 or 6 bands playing the same 5 or 6 songs? I'm better off staying home and working on my own music.

Full of Hell & The Body @ABC No Rio; Cryptopsy & Disgorge @ Nihil Gallery 5.16.2015

The last time I was in ABC No Rio was 13 years ago; there was a hole in the floor near the back of the performance space roughly the size of the average foot. Stare at it for a few seconds and it would spell out "L-A-W-S-U-I-T". Luckily, it's been fixed in the intervening years. Also new: Separate cans for trash and recyclables, showing that anarchy and organized waste management are not mutually exclusive...except in Malaysia, where I've been told that having recycling bins in Rumah Api will not work. Clearly it works for ABC No Rio; are New York punks that different?

Antigama, Drugs of Faith, The Communion & Buckshot Facelift @ Nihil Gallery, Brooklyn 5.13.2015

The Nihil Gallery is a new(ish) venue south of downtown Brooklyn; formerly an art gallery, it's got a bar, some picnic tables to sit around and an adorable little pug who scampered around before the show started, but that's about it. [It's also got a front door without a handle, which I stared at for a full minute before being instructed to get in by pulling on the mail slot]. Which makes it perfect for a metal show. Who needs all the tchotchkes in Saint Vitus or the Acheron's kvlter than thou clientele? The sound at Nihil was great, the space was big, and the bands more than made up for the commute from Woodside.

Scooping the bottom of the barrel: Optimalinjia Fest

"Scraping the bottom of the barrel" is a questionable metaphor. "Scooping" is more apt; you don't have to reach too deep or look too long to find mediocre grind, metal or hardcore bands. They throw their lack of talent and ambition at you cheerfully, shamelessly. Most bands who form, record, and play shows probably shouldn't have bothered.

Chaos in Rumah Api 2

With a dozen Russians, almost as many Australians, and twice as many Indonesians in attendance, Chaos in Rumah Api is officially an international fest.

 

Swans @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, 05.19.2014

As is so often the case these days, bands I never thought I'd get a chance to see are experiencing a second career with new audiences. Swans are one such band, and since my trip to NY coincided with hometown shows in support of their new album To Be Kind, my presence was all but certain before I even set foot in the country.

I'd seen Swans once before when the band reunited for shows at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, an appropriate venue for a band that inspires such religious fervour. What was memorable about the experience was that the guitars were so loud that they made my skin vibrate as I stood at the front of the stage; and a woman yelling incoherently throughout the set proved that "drunken douchebag" need not be gender specific.

Napalm Death @ Red Bull Music Academy Festival: Hardcore Activity in Progress

A kind of spiritual successor to the House of Vans shows that ran a few years back, Red Bull sponsored a number music events in New York over the summer. The highlight for me was obviously the one with Napalm Death. It seems strange for bands like Napalm and Bastard Noise to glad hand with, ahem, "multinational corporations"; and frankly, what companies like Red Bull and Scion see in sponsoring extreme metal events is baffling. But with extreme music being split into smaller and smaller pieces by increasingly niche scenes, and very little money going around any of them, metal can use all the help it can get. I say we take their sickly sweet energy drink money and run while we still can.

Ulcerate, Inter Arma @ Saint Vitus, 05.10.2014

It's a rare and heartless city that makes you choose between death metal shows on a Saturday night. At the same time Ulcerate were playing Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, hometown heroes Suffocation were doing a show at Blackthorn 51 in Queens. Not that it was a hard choice for me: Though I love classic Suffocation, their last album was a dog and Ulcerate's Vermis was one of the most important records of 2013. Why wallow in lazy nostalgia for death's past when given a chance to see a glimpse of the genre as it's yet to be?

Sadistic Intent and Deathhammer, 05.09.14

Any day that starts with jiu jitsu and ends with death metal is a good day in my book. But fill that day with old friends, new friends (hi, Josh from Limbs Bin!), and vegan pizza, and you have a contender for the best day I've had in the last three years.

The Body, Whitehorse, Gnaw, and Theologian @ Saint Vitus, 05.08.2014

I turned 35 on this 8th of May, 2014. Most of my afternoon was spent standing in front of The Colbert Report studios hoping for stand by tickets. I ended up not getting in, but those three hours I spent waiting were in the greatest city in the world, talking to interesting people. And there was a metal gig for me to go to right after. It could have been worse. I could have spent my birthday in Malaysia.

Floor, Darsombra, Hot Victory @ Saint Vitus, 5.5.14

Floor wasn't particularly high on the list of bands I wanted to see while in New York - I'd heard a total of one song prior to seeing them, and aren't particularly a fan of Steve Brooks' other band Torche. But the show afforded me an opportunity to see Darsombra, who I'd only ever seen once back in 2008. (It also afforded me the first trip back to my old neighbourhood of Greenpoint, and an excuse to visit my old BJJ gym and grab something at my usual Chinese take out, as well as pine for the days when my training, banking, and metal gigs were all within a 15 minute walk). Plus, I'm going to be spending a lot of time at Saint Vitus this month - I might as well break the ice.

Doom comes to Kuala Lumpur 2.25.2014

Few underground musical scenes are thriving in Malaysia right now like crust punk; you can't throw a stone at a local gig without hitting someone in a "Dis", d-beat, or Tragedy-core band. So when crust legends Doom announced a Kuala Lumpur stop on their Asia/Pacific tour, the response was huge. Nearly 400 people showed up, some flying in from as far as the island of Borneo, and many hopping on a bus to Singapore the next morning to see the band play there as well.

The gig was held at the under-utilized Black Box space in the swanky upscale Publika mall. It was an odd venue to host anarcho crusties; most of these kinds of gigs take place at Rumah Api, a punk squat/performance space that's run by members of the band Sarjan Hassan and serves as the beating, bleeding heart of Malaysia's DIY scene. But seeing the sheer number of people who descended upon Black Box that night, it was clear the show's organizers made the right call. Security guards watched the congregated punks with bemusement, while the mall's usual posh clientele avoided the area all together.

Extreme Noise Terror and Desecration in Johor Bahru

"Man, what a shithole."

As the bus crossed from Singapore into Johor Bahru, I looked out the window and couldn't stop my mind from forming that thought. Maybe it was just the juxtaposition of coming straight from Singapore - possibly the cleanest, most orderly country in South East Asia. Malaysia's one of the few countries in the region that didn't suffer through decades of war, but you wouldn't know it from the crumbling buildings and decay that greeted you as you make your way from the immigration building to downtown JB.

Extreme Noise Terror @Home Club, Singapore

The buzz behind Extreme Noise Terror's first jaunt to South East Asia had been building for almost a year; the band was expected to play Singapore as well as Johor Bahru, the southernmost city in Malaysia that lies across the bridge from SG. Normally I would have been happy to skip the Singapore show (and the immigration hassle that came with it) to see the band in JB, but there was a significant difference between the Singapore and JB gigs for me - my buddies Bloodstone were playing the former. I hadn't seen Bloodstone in almost a year, when they kicked off an epic show that also featured Japanese thrash lunatics Hell and Hell and local legends Demisor and Wormrot. One mediocre metalcore act aside, that gig stands as one of my fondest memories of my stay in South East Asia. Also, I haven't seen any gigs in JB, and Malaysia being Malaysia, there was always the possibility that it could've been complete malarkey.