Father

Father your failures are so grave,
they have seeped to son.
No amount of wishing,
for grace to be regained or won.
10,000 pounds of hope,
on the shoulders of one.

Someone to Love

Photos way overdue from the Camera Obscura gig.

One of the best things that happened that evening was that my constant presence near the tables with the incessant snapping eventually got me eye contact with most of the band members.

I swore Carey Lander was looking at the camera.

Tracyanne Campbell

Carey Lander finally smiled at me!

Kenny McKeeve smiled at me thrice that evening.

Dr Who’s fan Gavin Dunbar

Nigel Bailie mock-frowned at me because I was really taking too many shots of them.

 

More photos http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57974&id=546126190

Razzle Dazzle Rose

Ripped them wholesale off mr. photographer’s album. Something nice to remember Camera Obscura’s gig by:D

thanks chieh! Will be posting photos from the autograph session soon!

Why so quiet

CAMERA OBSCURA

Gig kicked off with Come Back Margaret, Tracyanne Campbell’s ethereal vocals and the rest of the band’s wonderful playing had us cheering and chill.

Come back Margaret he wants to adore you
Come back Margaret I’d like to explore you
Can’t you see the tears in my eyes
With love for him I disguise

I like the free days with no expectations
I like it my way with no limitation
Still you see there are tears in my eyes
With love for him I despise

I totally love the last 2 lines of the two verses. They captured the two very ironical yet so perfectly complementary & intertwined emotions. Clever. Camera Obscura’s defintely got to me when it comes to the sheer brilliance of their lyrics.

From circle 3 we could only see specks of figures swaying on the stage. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected. But binoculars would have really come in handy. Stilll, camera obscura playing live, omg. Campbell & Carey Lander in what I called chic granny fashion, decked in white stockings, mod cut and tailored dresses. Kenny McKeeve & Gavin Dunbar wore suits & looked more in place as my lecturers than musicians. I made a ball I threw it at Gavin because he’s tall.

The Glasgow band performed many numbers from Let’s Get Out This Country. Following Come Back Margaret, there were Sister Social Agony, Country Mile, If Look Could Kill, False Contender, Llyod, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken, Suspended From Class, Keep It Clean, Super Trooper, Tears For Affairs, Let’s Get Out of This Country, Teenager & new tracks. It ended in spectacular style with Razzle Dazzle Rose; the final part truly magical. I was super darned excited when Suspended From Class & False Contender came on.

Suspended From Class

You’re such a beautiful writer
that’s not all you are
I’m sorry about making a pass
it was subtle but I think that you guess
the meaning intended

I can be a friend to you
I won’t pretend
I’m not interested in breaking your heart
it’s not love no it’s nothing like that
I’ll leave that to .. like him
oh, he’s such a delicate thing
now it’s such a fragile thing that we have

I should be suspended from class
I don’t know my elbow from my arse
I should be suspended from class

The concert ended so abrupt. For a moment I thought mr. technician was going to tune their strings but no, they were really gone. We made a madcap dash downstairs to queue for the autograph session. Quite disappointed when the tee shirts merchandise sold out. Times like this make me wished I’m plus size. No one would be hankering after size XL with me. Bought pretty badges & stickers I can’t bear to paste. It’s those things I would nursed carefully in the safe haverns of my drawers and occasionally take it out to stroke & admire.

When it finally got to us, throat ran dry & whatever I wanted to tell them slipped quietly as hisses through my teeth. Campbell stood up and placed her arm on my back as we took a photo. All I could mustered was a “helloooo” when I met every single one of them. I asked McKeeve if they would come back to singapore.

“We would love to.”

Camera Obscura we can’t get enough of you!

The Ghost that carried us away

Icelandic music with its eclectic & diverse style would probably ring a bell with names such as Bjork, Sigur Ros & Mum (at least to me)

Seabear’s one such indie-folk band to join the ranks of indie artistes from lesser known countries in my itunes. And glad to say it’s here to stay. I Sing I Swim blew me off my feet completely. And then there were Libraries, Hospital Bed, Arms, Sailor Blues, Hands Remember & Seashell. There’s this very distinctive pining, melancholic quality to their songs I can’t place but love it all the same. Overplaying can be an overkill, since after all they do tend to sound the same. However Good Morning Scarecrow was a clear miss for me, sounding like a deviated oriental Monkey majik than their usual style.

And this may sound odd but seabear brings to mind animals. It felt like if elephants & lions could sing they would sound like seabear. Songs of animals. SPCA you know what jingle to use for tv ads.

Hello seabear could you come & perform here in singapore.

?Friends

Way past overdue but yes, DO YOU TRUST YOUR FRIENDS? is surprisingly lovely!

Because it was nevertheless a remix of set yourself on fire, I was hesitant to sample the tracks. But bully for me. cuz their friends at Arts & Craft Co did a great job with a refreshing spin to the songs. The style that i so adore was now left with a trace and replaced by an alternate perspective, a revamp to something already so good they surprsingly pulled it off well.

My favourites<3

1. Your Ex-Lover is Dead (Final Fantasy)
2. Ageless Beauty (The Most Serene Republic)
3. Set Yourself On Fire (Montag)
4. Reunion (Jason Collett)

Some that I kinda prefer the original ones. Like Soft Revolution (The Stills) The hurried whisper conveyed this sense of urgency that so completes the song. I totally love the song.

Everyone loves stars. They just don’t know it yet.

Ten thousand drunken kids in a field can’t be wrong
The song must be beautiful or they wouldn’t sing along
And if sometimes the kids all seem a little sad,
it’s ’cause they’re saying goodbye to the youth they think they had

Somebody catch me I’m falling

Stars. 7th Jan. Singapore.

EEEEKKKKK I can’t believe this is happening!

Just thinking about the songs they’ll perform’s got me all dizzy and giggly.

Predictably the line-up would largely be from Sad Robot EP and In Our Bedroom After The War.

MUST GET BEST SEATS. MUST TAKE PHOTO. MUST GET AUTOGRAPH. MUST BUY STARS MERCHANDISE.

So after a night of daydreaming, i came up with a list of hyperventilating-inducing numbers.

1. Your Ex-Lover Is Dead
2. Celebration Guns
3. Calendar Girls
4. One More Night
5. Tonight
6. What I’m Trying to Say
7. Soft Revolution
8. Romantic Comedy
9. Heart
10. Don’t Be Afraid to Sing
11. The Woods
12. Life Effect
13. What The Snowman Learn About Love
14. This Charming Man
15. My Radio (FM Mix)
16. Better Be Heaven
17. The Very Thing
18. On Peak Hill
19. The Aspidistra Flies
20. Midnight Coward
21. Take Me to The Riot
22. In Our Bedroom After The War
23. The Night Starts Here
24. 14 Forever
25. Undertow

One of my biggest dream is to watch my favourite bands perform live. BSS & Camera Obscura this year, Stars the next. My number one top favourite band is landing! This is getting to be very surreal.

songstolove

For the Boys, The Cardigans

Kimi Station, Orange Range

Sax Rohmer 1, The Mountain Goats

Mr Understanding, Pete & the Pirates

Paper Aeroplane, KT Turstall

Lifetime Forever, RSP

Undertow, Stars

Please Say Yes, Yes, Yes, Porno Graffitee

Beware Our Nubile Miscreants, Of Montreal

I Hate the Place But I Go There To See You, Moi Caprice

KISSshite, Shibasaki Kou

Wayward & Parliament, Amy Milan

Mango Tree, Angus & Julia Stone

meaningless lists like this,i like.

Wah lau. Last night felt something amiss and i thought of the Ash gig that was happening at Fort Canning Park. Must have been real fun. Ash’s my regular dose of mainstream rock. Okay, donch think they’re well-known here. Discovered Ash through this fan video someone make of this jdrama One Million Stars Falling from the Sky. Takuya Kimura fans would have recognise it in an instant. With the song “Lost In You.”

If you listened to the song it sounds at first of some teenager boys jamming at the garage, a stab at emo/lovelorn. But then i saw the comments and for some reason tug at the heartstrings. People wrote about how they grew up listening to Ash, that they cried when they listened to this song, that they were so shaken when they splitsplat. (but they’re back together again.) And that got me liking their stuff thereafter. If they performed evil eye, polaris, starcrossed, lost in you, uncle pat. I know i made a bad decision

Co-rumination is detrimental if you dwell about Op-tech.

Much too afraid.

Churning out one of my many favourites from Stars. Don’t be afraid to sing surfaced from the deep recesses of old music collection in my ipod to jolt me awake with what beautiful and pure vulnerability and naivety only Torque Campbell and Amy Millan can do.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO SING

Your quiet eyes, your mouth that never tells lies
You’ve got one hour, its time you told your story
Eighteen alone, in love with the answer phone

And too afraid, you’re too afraid to fall for anything
And too afraid, much too afraid to sing

I won’t pretend, that I can see the end, but
Its far away, its in the distance
We’ll find a place, there isn’t room for two of us
The minutes drag, then there’s a world between us

And I’m too afraid, much too afraid to fall for anything
And I’m too afraid, much too afraid to sing, to sing

We all come to an end
And we all end together
We all end together

We all come to an end
And we all end together
We all end together

We all end together
We all end together
We all end together
We all end together

Star’s lyrics melt my heart, as always.

On another note, me loving their new EP Sad Robot:P:P While In our bedroom after the war’s an attempt of departure in style and somewhat heavily draped in themes and serious issues, i kinda missed the usual heart-wrenching melancholic and eloquent sounds more seen in their previous works. So imagine my delight when I first listened to 14 forever. I sing like a child, to keep me from dying.

Monday on a good note

Monday passed fine. Completed my crown prep with pin amalgam retained and in spite of Dr. Pang’s “it’s very good…margins are nice..tapering is good..well done with the occlusal reduction..” I still get a 3. But oh well, it’s nice to hear nice things:D

Some favourited music churning out from my good ol’ ipod. Whee!

1. I’m so sorry, The Thrills
2. Tie one on, Aberfeldy
3. Hate it here, Wilco
4. Wish I could forget, The Weepies
5. Lola, The Kinks
6. Chains, Sons & Daughters
7. Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love, Coldplay
8. Le Fabuleux Destin D’ Amelie Poulain OST

“I’m so sorry” is by far the bestest song i like from The Thrills, dethroning “faded beauty queens” by a mile. Heck the apologetic bit, it’s just good good and good. “Tie one on” has this cute kiddish twang and for some odd reason all I can relate to is shoelaces. Lame, I know. “Lola” is bwarhaha. The great sound makes you want to curl your tongue and drawl lazily and shake your head. It’s very my type of music. Eccentric and totally unexpected.

Sons & Daughters produces very nice and polished indie sound, one notch above The Ting Tings. The intro of Chains is similar to another retro song but as we go further into it I found it extremely catchy. It’s the kind of song you want to dance to. Or tap your feet at least. Coldplay’s latest offering, Vida La Vida the album is refreshing with very promising intros to most of their songs and a cool album art to boot. Lovers in Japan’s my fave. I personally find this album to be very much drifted from mainstream sound. Vida La Vida is overplayed on radio.

Amelie’s OST. What can I say? French music is quirky, romantic and simply in their league of their own.  Anyway, the ost features many pretty instrumentals. (the movie left me baffled though) Of which, one of the song is SUPER similar to the opening theme of O-oku the final chapter. Les Jours Tristes is nicer but i can’t help but expect the next note to flex towards the one on O-oku. One classic, Guilty is like the french answer to Zhou Xuan’s famed song, the one in In The Mood for Love. I loved both very much. Songs like that weather through time without much of a blemish.

Music saves:)