Mixtape 82 - Execution (Aus)

Here is the 82nd installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring an interview with Execution from Melbourne, Australia.

Mixtape 81 - Territory (Aus)

Here is the 81st installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring an interview with Michael Larkins and Luke Eller of Territory from Perth, Australia.

Mixtape 59 - Youth Avoiders

Here is the 59th installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring an interview with Parisian punk rockers Youth Avoiders.

Mixtape 58 - Mymanmike

Here is the 58th installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring an interview with Seoul-based power violence band Mymanmike.

Mixtape 52 - City of Caterpillar

Here is the 52nd installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring an interview with Brandon Evans, Ryan Parrish and Kevin Longendyke of seminal screamo band City of Caterpillar.

Mixtape 39 - Parasytes

Here is the 39th installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring an interview with Montréal punks Parasytes.

Mixtape 36 - Sadist (Boston)

Here is the 36th installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring an interview with Boston punks Sadist.

Mixtape 35 - Masses

Here is the 35th installment of the Dreams of Consciousness podcast, featuring an interview with Tessa Tribe of Melbourne band Masses. Enjoy.

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.

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.

Not A Fest III - Vaz, the Vaginors, Apparatus and more 12.16.2012

...a uniquely eclectic installment of Ci Chaan's monthly Not A Fest shows, held for the first time at the Black Box venue in KL's upscale Publika mall. I'd been to the Black Box once before, when Tools of the Trade were getting ready for their first European tour. Though a few people mentioned to me they preferred the intimacy of Rumah Api, seeing a show at the Black Box was a refreshing change. I'm sure all the drummers that evening appreciated the fancy Premiere drumset that was leased for their benefit.

The show started late - because of course it did - a fact that multiple people seemed to delight in pointing out to me, possibly just to see my reaction. It's clear that my constant harping on Malaysian tardiness has been noticed; it's also clear that none of it makes any difference. At this point all I can do is shrug it off. For once I was able to turn it to my advantage: wandering around the swanky mall, I found an upscale supermarket that makes fresh bagels every day. Real, honest to goodness, freshly-baked bagels: my Malaysian white whale. I snapped up the few they had left and made a mental note to return every chance I get. Now I just need to find a place that sells Tofutti cream cheese and breakfast will officially be a thing again.

The Abang Guard took the stage to signal the beginning of the event with their version of sax-led experimental rock. The band may not consider themselves either punk or metal, but there was something about them that brought Zeni Geva to mind, only with a tenor sax taking the place of the guitar. It had to be said, despite being their most notable feature, the sax was mostly buried for most of their set, peeking (and peaking) only slightly from the under the bass and drums. Their set seemed to be mostly improvised, but I couldn't tell how much - usually the sign of good improvisors. Not the John Zorn phreak-out I was expecting, but also not bad.

Shoegazers Stellarium (from Singapore) begin their set, as bands of their ilk do, with an all encompassing BWWWWWOOOONGGGGGGG. Armed with suitcases full of FX pedals (not an exaggeration), they're definitely fans of reverb and delay on instruments and vocals alike. Though they're much heavier than the average shoegaze band, Stellariam are still what the Wizard of Awesome calls "sitting down music." Crouched in my little corner, the cavernous Black Box space turned claustrophobic as notes melted into each other and echoed into infinity. The endless reverberation and ghostly vocals climaxed into a Who-style spazz out; at the end of the day, rock bands will be rock bands, "post" or otherwise.

Just when it seemed it was going to be a whole gig dedicated to beard stroking and head scratching, Appäratus showed up to give the night a shot in the arm and a kick in the pants. The band are local crust heroes, but I mostly know them as Pat from Atomicdeath's "other" band. As with most of the hardcore acts in the region, they're heavily influenced by the Scandinavian d-beat style. Their laidback stage presence is almost in direct contradiction to their destructive music - until their singer accidentally broke the mic stand. Whoops. Someone's not getting their deposit back.

With their jorts, leopard print jackets, and silly eyeglasses, Australian guests the Vaginors are proof that Williamsburg is a syndrome more than a geographical location. "Punk" in only the shallowest sense of the term, their set consists of a lot of jumping around and crowd-baiting sandwiched between complaints about the sound (which, strangely, didn't seem to affect any of the other bands). Two "songs" and getting water spit on me were enough to be somewhere else til they were done.

VAZ hail from Brooklyn, a place I called home for 8 years, and yet I'd never heard of them until this gig was announced. If anyone in KL is wondering how that could be, A) NYC is a fucking huge city, and B) I was never an Am Rep fan and kept most of those bands at arm's length. Thankfully, VAZ (whose drummer and singer/guitarist were in the seminal noisecore band Hammerhead) are heavier than their AmRep pedigree suggests, and their songs are furious and driving in a way that's reminiscent of the mighty Unsane. Breaking three strings and collapsing the drum set during their time on stage was proof enough of their passion and conviction. Not bad for three guys who look like they could be on either side of a PTA meeting.

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Not A Fest Vol. II, with Snaggletooth, Last Chaos, Osmantikos, Nuclear Summer and more 11.25.2012

The first Not A Fest back in September had the unlikely distinction of being a local show that actually started on time. Not only did I get to hesh out like there was no tomorrow to bands from Indonesia and Japan, I didn't have to rush to catch the last train and arrived back home before midnight. It was one of life's little victories. Would it happen again this time?

....not a chance. Malaysian Time trumps all. I heard the delay this time around was because one of the opening bands didn't wake up on time. I wish I was making this shit up. If anyone else at Rumah Api was perturbed by this, it wasn't apparent. Most looked content to hang out and kill time with cheap alcohol from the nearby liquor shop. Several distros set up in the duration, and soon the little foyer space had turned into a bustling DIY pasar malam.

The event also served as the release party for the 5th issue of the Shock and Awe zine, the centrepiece of which is an article about the history of KL's punk scene, written by Carburetor Dung's Joe Kidd. I was probably more excited about this than any of the bands. I'd seen little previews of it on Facebook, and it seemed essential to my understanding of this place and its history. Packaged along with the zine was a 4-way split 7" featuring local fixtures Pusher, Sarjan Hassan, Garrison and xCrimescenex. All in all, a recommended purchase for anyone who wants to know more about the Malaysian DIY scene.

When the gig finally did start, it was up to local guys Skitsofrenia to kick it off, which they did by playing D-Beat hardcore in that glorious Swedish style. It's notable that while recent releases from ground zero Göteborg seem intent on subverting the crust punk paradigm (Disfear, Martyrdöd, and Eskatologia), bands in South East Asia still take an almost dogmatic approach to the style. Skitsofrenia's passion and vitriol are commendable; but a little risk taking never hurt anyone.

Singaporeans Vaarallinen are similarly reverent of Scandinavian hardcore, but add an interesting/amusing gimmick that separates them from the rest of the scene: all their lyrics and song titles are in Finnish (as is their name, which translates to "unsafe/dangerous"). Other than that, their crust punk is business as usual, for die hard fans of fast songs and umlauts (though maybe not Umlaut).

The last time I saw xCrimescenex, their set was waylaid by mic problems. This time, with no technical difficulties to hamper them, they were able to build a momentum through slow, sludgy doom before erupting into bursts of manic power violence. With a line-up comprised of Rumah Api regulars (Man and Manusia from Sarjan Hassan among them), it was given that the audience would treat them like local heroes. I did my best to stay off to the side and avoid the carnage as the bodies started flying through the air.

Garrison, as DIY punks playing reggae, were an oddity in the line-up (and possibly the entire scene). I appreciated the change of pace, but even the Bad Brains couldn't sell me on reggae-influenced punk; punk-influenced reggae, it turns out, holds my attention even less. After a few songs I took my leave to try get some writing done outside the venue. I was scribbling down some notes when a young (and very drunk) fan sat next to me to see what I was doing. He made his way up from the southern state of Johor just for Not A Fest. I tried prodding him for his thoughts on the gig, to record what he had to say for posterity's sake; what he did say, unfortunately, was garbled and lost into the ether (which may have been what he was drinking, for all I know).

If nothing else, Garrison's chilled reggae served as the perfect segue between the crusty earlier acts and Nuclear Summer's off-beat post-hardcore. You can see why they were selected as an opening act for Refused's recent Australian tour, as these guys embody everything that's progressive and cerebral about heavy rock right now. Transitioning from upbeat sections, to slow ethereal parts reminiscent of Rosetta (also a recent touring partner), to guitar noodling straight out of Steven Brodsky's playbook, there was a sense of both history and inventiveness to their music that, frankly, is missing from a lot of the local scene. Hope I wasn't the only one paying attention. A perfect set, except maybe they should have headlined.

Looking like three guys who wandered into a punk show on the way back from a fishing trip, Osman Tikos were the most pleasant surprise of the evening. Crust bands aren't in short supply in Malaysia (and certainly not around Rumah Api), but these guys take the style to a new low - I mean that in the best possible way. This aging hesher doesn't know much about punk, but he does know a lot about heavy; and Osman Tikos are fucking heavy. Fast and bass-driven to the brink of incoherence, Osman Tikos sound like Doom and early Bolt Thrower in a duel to see who can wreck your sub-woofers the fastest. Even with my earplugs in, I thought my brain was going to melt.

Touring Aussies Last Chaos, as their name suggests, play blistering anarcho-core (heavily influenced by Finnish/Japanese hardcore, the internet has just informed me), with the occasional rock and roll moment. [In a bizarre coincidence, I saw some of the members last year in Brooklyn when their other band Teargas played there. These dudes get around.] Rumah Api loved it, and crowd and band were in sweaty, crusty heaven ....until a well-meaning attempt by the audience to carry around the vocalist ended with him crashing unceremoniously to the floor. Ouch. [My malaysian friends - if you're going to pick up visiting bands, please DON'T drop them on their heads.] Noticeably irritated, and with his mic chord snapped, he attempted to clear the stage, to little avail. [The tree of anarchy must be refreshed from time to time with broken mics and bruised scalps, as Thomas Jefferson never said.] Kind of a down note for the band to end on, but credit to them for giving the crowd one last song to rage to, even if they couldn't exactly sing along.

I was tempted to call it a night after that, but on the recommendation of Pat from Atomicdeath (a man who clearly knows good metal), I made it a point to stick around for Singapore's Snäggletooth. There's tremendous buzz around them due to a cassette EP that was cleverly promoted, limited to 50 copies and then sold out immediately. I'm happy to say that for once the hype is justified. With Vaarallinen's drummer on deck, their crust-fueled mix of Motörhead (natch) and Venom held few surprises, except for how much I enjoyed it. Their take on black 'n' roll is one of the more straight forward ones I've heard, but also one of the more bludgeoning. They may have ended up headlining this month's Not A Fest more out of happenstance than intent, but they closed out the proceedings in style.

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Enslave, Godless Symptom, Wicked Suffer 9.16.2012

I thought I got the hang of this "Malaysia Time" thing I really did. Not-A-Fest, featuring three foreign bands (headliners Enslave from Japan; Wicked Suffer and Godless Symptoms from Indonesia) was advertised as starting at 3 pm, so I figured that meant if I showed up the usual 3 hours late, I'd arrive just as soundchecks were finishing. Nope. Not only did the show start more or less on time, but Tools of the Trade actually opened despite being listed in the middle of the bill. Clutch the pearls, what a sneaky thing to do.

It's a little odd that a band that headlined Singapore Deathfest would open a local gig a few weeks later, but when I asked Tools' singer Tiong about it, he shrugged it off. There's not a lot of rock star attitude in the local scene, and Tools of the Trade seem to take these kinds of things in stride. I, on the other hand, was disappointed; I was looking forward to not just Tools, but Dance! On Your Grave and Reason to Resist, who I've never seen. Hopefully I can catch them some other time.

Still, I can't complain about a gig where Atomicdeath is on stage as soon as I arrive. Seeing a band once a month can lead to boredom pretty quickly (unless it's Napalm - I'd see Napalm every week if I could), but AD have wisely been varying their set over the last couple shows, shuffling in songs from their debut cassette as well as a cover of Malaysian underground thrash legends Silent Death. It's amazing how much better they've gotten since I first saw them five months ago at the same venue. Almost as amazing as Rumah Api having a stage monitor for this gig.

There was a great deal of excitement for Wicked Suffer, and they rewarded it with a fearless and aggressive performance. Big doom riffs served as a launchpad for their blistering powerviolence, and the place went apeshit, because short and fast is the rule at Rumah Api. I'm curious about the difference between the Malaysian and Indonesian grind/power violence scenes in terms of sound; Wicked Suffer have a bass player, which a lot of the Malaysian grind/fastcore bands lack, so there's that.

I guess groove heavy 90's thrash is definitely not in style right now; or maybe it's just not popular with the crust/grind kids who frequent Rumah Api, as Godless Symptoms didn't get quite the response that their countrymen Wicked Suffer got. They might be peddling a style past its sell-by date (or, if you're an optimist, a few years before it makes a comeback), but their enthusiasm for their own material went a long way in winning me over. Besides, I don't know how to dislike a band who asks the entire audience to get on stage with them for a celebratory photo.

Running scales in harmony during their soundcheck was a good indication of the level of skill that Enslave possess - that their punky aesthetic comes from a place of actual musical talent makes it that much better. With their melodic (often metallic) overtones and the vocals being shared by their female lead singer and male guitarists, I couldn't help but draw comparisons to Eskatologia, who share the same traits. It has to be said, though, that Enslave are much more frightening. Their tiny singer spent most of the set standing on the monitor, screaming through bipolar shifts between J-pop coquettishness and creepy J-horror bug-eyed glares.

Once the band started playing, they were completely obscured by their fans, who threw themselves with wild abandon through the air, over the stage, unto the floor. The crowd's exuberance actually caused a temporary stoppage in the set, as band and soundman needed the respite to fix technical problems (no doubt caused by fans falling on pedals and disconnecting chords). The heat and humidity of the room was oppressive, and I was impressed that band and crowd alike could maintain that level of commitment through a full set and an encore. I have friends who  bust my balls for the number of shirts I buy at gigs, but this time it was necessary: the shirt I showed up wearing was drenched like I'd been in a water balloon fight, and a new one was badly needed if I wanted to stave off pneumonia on the train ride home. Any show that feels like an hour-long grappling match and still ends in time for me to catch the train has to go in the "win" column. Let's hear it for Rumah Api's newfound punctuality.

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