Projek Buku

#PROJEKBUKU

COLLECTED WRITINGS FROM

MALAYSIANS IN MUSIC.

What is it?

By nature it’s a book

When was it initiated?

November 3, 2011

What is it about?

It’s a book that compiles writings/experiences/opinions/rants by individual who are directly or indirectly involved with Malaysian music.

And the point is?

Essentially the main idea behind #ProjekBuku was to document the development and progress of the Malaysian music scene, from its movers and shakers’ point of views and first-hand experiences. Along the way, I realised that the knowledge/experiences/opinions/stories shared by the contributors can also be a guidelines of sorts to many. So take your pick.

Speaking of contributors, what were the criteria for one to be part of this project?

To give the book some weight, contributors needs to be actively, directly or indirectly contributing to Malaysian music for the last 3 years.

Isn’t that a bit too elitist?

Well, I’m not going to stop you from thinking so. Just keep in mind that the main purpose of this book is to document the development and progress of the Malaysian music scene, hence experiences are essential.

So what topics do it covers?

Anything and everything that falls under Malaysian music, from forming a band, writing songs, arranging songs, producing songs, recording, marketing, videos, organising shows, getting radio airplay, giving out interviews, merchandising, running a fanzine/e-zine, social media etc.

To preserve its authenticity, all the texts are kept as how it was submitted by the contributors with only formatting and little or no editing was done.

Now, is this a mainstream of underground kind of book?

Does it matter? It’s a book that that casually documents Malaysian music from

(Almost) Everything That You Need To Know About

#ProjekBuku

various perspectives. If you noticed, I didn’t use the word “Malaysian music industry?” simply because I’m not really interested in “industry” effort. I’m communal.

Where and when can I buy/steal/photocopy this book?

The book was supposed to be released back in Dec 2011/Jan 2012 but due to a lot of internal and external issues, mainly procrastination, it saw the light of the day on Dec 31, 2013.

For now the book is available to downloaded for free exclusively at www.the-wknd.com starting from Dec 31, 2013 onwards. Many thanks to Fikri and his team at The Wknd for wanting to host the release of the book.

Why no physical copies?

I fear money. There will be monetary transaction if the book is to be printed and then sold, and the moment there’s a monetary transaction; best of buddies can become enemies. Having said that, you might see a physical copy of

ProjekBuku, if someone is crazy enough to invest in printing it and then give it

away for free.

Wait this sound fishy. Tell me, who is behind this? Which multinationals? Which corporate organisation?

I don’t know where did the fishy part came from, but to set the records clear, there are four people who are directly involved with this initiative.

Ili Farhana helped me to proofread the Bahasa Malaysia submissions, while my ex-colleague at TONE Magazine, Abby DeVries helped out with the English ones. Irman Hilmi was kind enough to lay out the pages. Me, I procrastinate. All four of us, does not represent any organisations nor are we an organisation. We’re just a part of the Malaysian music community with Utopian dreams.

Text are as originally prepared by the contributors. Only formatting and little or no editing was done to preserve authenticity.

First published in PDF format in December 2013. All rights reserved © of the respective writers. Layout by Irman Hilmi of The Offday Design

pg 7 pg 11 pg 25 pg 38 pg 46 pg 40 pg 57 pg 61 pg 66 pg 74 pg 86 pg 99 pg 100 pg 106 pg 115 pg 117 pg 121 pg 127 pg 137 pg 148 pg 151 pg 159 pg 163 pg 168 pg 171 pg 175 pg 192 pg 200 pg 204 pg 208 pg 215 pg 219 pg 231 pg 240 pg 252 Aidil Rusli AG Coco

Ahmad Izham Omar Alak Idle Amir Shazlan Anas Amdan Azmyl Yunor Chris Pereira Danial Radzmi David Buri DJ Fuzz DJ Uno Edwin Raj Efry Arwis Emmet Roslan Epain Ahmad Fahmi Ismail Fairuz Rahman Faris Rafie Ismail Filsuf

Ham Abdullah Haniff Hamzah HQA

Ili Farhana

Imran Fadzil Ishak Irman Hilmi Izal Azlee Jake Abdullah Jason Schadt JD Wong Jennifer Thompson Jeremy Little Jipie Joe Lee Kartini Ariffin pg 256 pg 259 pg 266 pg 270 pg 273 pg 283 pg 286 pg 298 pg 306 pg 311 pg 315 pg 318 pg 325 pg 328 pg 335 pg 340 pg 345 pg 349 pg 354 pg 362 pg 365 pg 371 pg 377 pg 384 pg 388 pg 390 pg 395 pg 401 pg 404 pg 409 pg 413 pg 416 pg 421 pg 430 Kevin Yeoh Khalil Makata Liyana Fizi Loy Ekzan Mak Wai Hoo Malique Ibrahim Monoloque Mohd Jayzuan M Zulkifli Najihah Sani Nini Yusof Nizang OJ Law Piesay Radhi-O RDZ Reza Salleh Rina Omar Rithan Vijay Ronnie Khoo Shimy Latif Sultan Muzaffar Syafeeq Rahim Syatirah Safran Terrina Hussein Uzair Sawal Victor Tan Warren Chan Wing Meng Wordsmanifest Yaniz Merican Yuna Youk Jaafar Zack Yusof

#projekbuku list of contributors

Foreword

Alhamdulillah.

After so many false starts and unnecessary delays, #ProjekBuku is finally out, slightly over two years since it was first mooted.

There was a point where I was very sure that #ProjekBuku will join The

Necromonicon, The Emerald Tablet or Book of Thoth—books and manuscripts

that many would like to believe have existed.

It could have been, but thanks to an old friend, Irman Hilmi of The Off-Day Design, who was kind enough to offer his expertise in laying out the pages,

#ProjekBuku can now join the likes of The Satanic Bible, The Skinhead Bible, Proof of Conspiracy, Occult Theocrasy, cult books that only those with an acquired

taste can appreciate.

What you are holding, well, since its an e-book of sort, reading would be more appropriate I guess, is a collection of writings, musings and recollections by 69 individuals who are and were actively involved with the Malaysian music scene from as early as the mid-80s.

it is hoped that what being shared here will give everyone a little something of something. This book will never ever be possible without them wanting to take some time off to write. My sincerest thank you and apologies to them for the two-year delay.

Bear in mind that the writings featured here are two-years old. Some of the perspective may have changed, some information may no longer be relevant, some issues may have been resolved and so forth. However, there is one thing that I can assure you remained the same—the facts.

All the facts in this book represent bit and pieces of history, which, if was not put down on paper, will soon be forgotten.

People with opinions, and I know they are a lot of them, will question the absence of influential people who have played bigger role and contributed a whole lot more to the scene in this book. Well, since the get-go, #ProjekBuku have opened its door, to anyone and everyone who felt that they have contributed something to the scene, to be a part of it. So was invited by me personally, but they politely declined for various valid reasons. Who knows, they might have a change of mind and will be part of #ProjekBuku#2?

Wrapping up this foreword of sorts, I’d like to bring to your attention that

#ProjekBuku is without a doubt the first book that documented the story,

the progress, the struggle and the beauty of this thing many of us know as Malaysian music.

Again, thank you for your time and patience. Welcome to the world of Malaysian music.

Adly Syairi Ramly

Aidil Rusli fronts power pop band Couple.

#projekbuku

The Art of Not Taking

Yourself Too Seriously

There are many different reasons why people choose to make music and form a band. With me and Couple, it’s simply to do something fun during weekends. We were in college, in a sleepy and faraway little town called Banting (it was at least 2 hours away from Kuala Lumpur), and the only thing you could do in town back then was either watch laserdiscs (yes, it was that long ago—1995) or make some glorious noise with your mates in a watch shop-cum-jamming studio that was aptly called “Kedai Jam”.

Some people ‘grow up’ and start to get serious about their music, which is fine by me. But since my most favourite musical genre in the world is power pop, growing up and getting all serious with my music is simply not going to be an option. Why? Because power pop is always going to be unavoidably and perpetually adolescent. It needs to be fun and dumb and immature and innocently cheeky for it to have the magic that it needs. It’s in the genes, as they say. I love it because it’s fun to listen and sing along to, and it is of course, a whole lot of fun to play. And since we started the band to have fun in the first place, why not just keep on having fun… forever? Now even though we’re all about fun, making it very easy for lots of ‘serious’ music people to dismiss what we do, I think it’s also very easy to overlook the fact that maintaining that fun is never easy. And since this book is all

about sharing some ‘secrets of the trade’ with all you readers out there, I guess if there’s one tiny advice that I am sort of qualified to give, then it’ll have to be that whatever your reasons may be for making music, always chill, dude. It’s only rock n roll. The sooner you realise that you’re just a simple human being trying to kick out the jams with some friends, with very little chance to change the world, the better off you will be.

I doubt any of the rock n roll greats out there started out convinced that they were some sort of musical gods who would change the world and blow everyone’s minds with their music. The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Nirvana, put in whatever name you like, chances are that all they wanted when they started out was to make some music, tear shit up live, travel, sell a few records and hopefully make some new lady friends in the process. Creating ‘new’ sounds, inspiring millions and becoming ‘important’ rock stars or generational spokespersons? It’s all a mere bonus, if you ask me.

People always say that it’s the journey that’s important, not the destination, and it couldn’t be truer than when you’re in a rock n roll band. The best journeys are the ones where you’re not rushing and you have all the time in the world, and you get to make stops at whatever places you want, eat or drink wherever you feel like it, take as many toilet breaks as you feel like, and maybe even have a little shuteye at a rest stop if need be. When you get all serious, planning the hell out things and rushing to get to your destination, you’ll only get one thing more than if you take it easy and leisurely reach your destination – tiredness. Same thing applies when you’re in a band.

But most importantly, never make excuses for not wanting to do something. I know some people might think that even our studio albums are kind of lo-fi in sound quality, but sometimes in life you just have to go ahead and do things. Otherwise you might just end up waiting and waiting for everything to be perfect that you may end up never getting around to doing it after all. Not enough money to use a fancy studio or hire a ‘proper’ mixing engineer? No problem—just go to whichever studio you can afford and do things as cheaply as possible, maybe even mix the thing yourself with the aid of the recording engineer, as fast as possible too so you can save money. Or better still, just record the whole damn thing at home using whatever computers or laptops you can get your hands on. Sure, the results are likely to be not very ‘professional’, but these are things that you worry about only if you’re

one ‘serious’ geezer.

A recorded song is still a recorded song, no matter how bad the sound quality is. The difference is that people can now listen to and appreciate that badly recorded song, which is already more than I can say for an unrecorded song, waiting to be recorded ‘perfectly’ (if it gets recorded at all). If people like the song, they’ll still like it and remember it, despite how badly recorded it was. Just look at Robert Pollard and Guided By Voices for making a legendary career out of ‘bad’ recordings.

It’s almost like not wanting to take your first few baby steps because you don’t want to fall down and hurt yourself, and you secretly feel that it’s better to run. So what if you made a bad song, or a bad EP, or a bad album? Just try to make a better one next time. Couple made four official demo/ EPs, one unreleased demo tape, and one aborted attempt at a debut album which came out as a limited edition EP, most averaging around nine to ten songs per release, before we finally came out with our debut studio album. Then came a further two studio albums, with a fourth studio album hopefully coming soon in 2012.

That’s a whole lot of recording for a silly little band that not many people know or probably even care about. If we took ourselves as seriously as most bands do, I think we would’ve quit by demo/EP number two or three, because you can only go on for so long without being ‘successful’. But since success has never really been on our minds, it’s precisely because we’re not taking ourselves so seriously that we’ve managed to survive this far down the road. Passion and love too, of course. 16 years and counting, and it’s all still as much fun, if not more fun than the day we first started. So thank you for reading, and see you in the mosh pit!

AG Coco is an arranger, composer, songwriter and the owner of Kamar Seni Studios who plays the guitar for rock band Hujan.

#projekbuku

Perihal Muzik: Satu

AG-Pretasi

CHAPTER 1; SEDIKIT INTRODUKSI AG COCO

Namaku Mohd Hezry Bin Mohd Hafidz, dari kecil punyai nama timangan AG diberi oleh nenek aku sehingga sekarang, diserikan COCO di belakang kerana itu adalah nama kugiran yang menjadi alasan yang membawa perjalanan aku berada di’sini’ sekarang. Aku dilahirkan di Hospital Besar Alor Setar pada tanggal 7 Julai, diberi pendidikan awal di Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan Iskandar, seterusnya ke Maktab Mahmud Alor Star, dan dilanjutkan ke Akademi Seni Kebangsaan yang kini dikenali sebagai ASWARA. Hampir 2 dekad aku membesar di Alor Setar, Kedah, dan aku berhijrah ke Kuala Lumpur sebaik sahaja aku tamatkan pengajian peringkat SPM aku.

Setibanya aku di Kuala Lumpur, dengan niat untuk lebih serius belajar muzik, aku tinggal di rumah abang saudara ipar aku, seorang musical

director/arranger yang sangat disegani, abang Belle namanya, yang juga

merupakan adik kepada S.Atan & bapa saudara Dato Ramli MS. Dari situ lah bermulanya minat aku untuk lebih cenderung dalam selok belok belakang tabir pembikinan muzik sehinggalah aku mendapat peluang melanjutkan pelajaran aku ke peringkat Diploma di Akademi Seni Kebangsaan. Antara tenaga pengajar yang banyak mempengaruhi aku adalah Rosdan

Abbas, Isyam Suwardi, Khair Latiff, Chobib, Ruslan Imam, Zahid Ahmad, Allahyarham Zubir Ali dan Cikgu Hamdan. Aku mengambil major Teknologi Muzik kerana aku percaya aku lebih berkemampuan di situ, bukan pada persembahan dan sebagainya. Aku tidak langsung mengambil kelas

arranging, sebab aku mencabar diri aku untuk explore, expand, and express music arrangement aku dengan sendiri.

Dari situlah pelbagai pengalaman aku timba baik di dalam kampus dan di luar kampus, di antaranya menjadi crew band, menjadi assistant live/

recording engineer, sessionist, programming minus one untuk karaoke dan

banyak lagi. Sehinggalah aku jumpa pelbagai ragam penyanyi, pemuzik dan juga penulis lirik/lagu dan penggubah lagu yang membentuk environment

routine seorang pemuzik, jadi aku telah membiasakan diri aku sibuk, hectic setiap hari since zaman aku belajar. Bermulanya selangkah ke depan

karier aku sebagai seorang music arranger dulu selepas aku berkenalan/ bekerja bersama Aidit Alfian & Alfa Booty. Aku lebih banyak membuka mata dan belajar daripada kedua gengster muzik ini apa sebenarnya itu menulis lagu dan menggubah lagu sehinggalah aku disoal sebenarnya apa jalan paling major untuk aku buat pilihan, adakah menjadi composer atau

arranger? Aku pilih menjadi arranger sebab aku percaya dengan apa yang

aku lebih mampu buat. Bukan bermaksud aku tak mampu untuk menjadi

composer. Aku masih menulis lagu seperti biasa cuma aku lebih minat untuk

menggubah lagu, dan seterusnya sehinggalah aku menjadi produser muzik. Ramai mungkin lihat aku seorang guitarist, tapi sebenarnya aku lebih suka dikenali sebagai seorang produser muzik dan sebagai music arranger. Aku tak hebat menjadi guitarist yang bermain gitar seperti sebuah muzik box tapi aku ada IDEAS, dan mungkin ada pelbagai perkara muzik dan agenda untuk kita kongsi bersama.

CHAPTER 2; PENGGUBAH MUZIK

Apakah kerja sebagai seorang penggubah muzik?

Tugas utama music arranger adalah untuk menggubah sesebuah lagu/ muzik asal dengan memenuhi kehendak dan keperluan persembahan, rakaman, performer, sebuah ensemble muzik, konduktor muzik, producer, &

music director. Tugas kami adalah untuk memastikan seluruh aspek muzik

yang ditulis berada dalam harmoni yang baik, instrumentation berada pada tempo yang baik, dan melengkap formasi sesebuah lagu/muzik itu.

Muzik dan lagu yang menjadi kerja kami untuk digubah selalunya adalah sebuah lagu baru/original atau juga lagu yang telah sedia ada. Penggubah muzik biasanya akan dapat demo lagu dalam pelbagai bentuk baik dari

melodi sahaja sehinggalah ada juga yang telah ditulis/rakam form lagu tersebut. Contohnya apabila kami memperolehi muzik verse & chorus sahaja, maka kerja seorang arranger adalah untuk mewarnakan lagi formasi verse

chorus tadi menjadi Intro; verse; pre chorus; chorus; middle8(bridge), solo, 2nd verse, & chorus ke outro.

Apakah ciri-ciri sebagai penggubah muzik yang bagus?

Perlu kreatif, tahu mengadaptasi muzik yang ingin digubah dan mempunyai originaliti.

Ciri-ciri sebagai music arranger yang bagus adalah generally tahu untuk bermain pelbagai instruments, secara asasnya guitar, piano, drum,

percussion, dan bass. Tak lupa juga antara perkara yang paling penting

adalah tahu membaca nota muzik, menulis nota muzik, berkeupayaan untuk transpose & transcribe muzik, dan mempunyai latar belakang kuat di dalam pengetahuan harmony, composition sehinggalah ke orchestration. Akhir sekali, tahu atau pandai membuat signature/trademark sendiri di dalam setiap lagu digubah.

Sebagai music arranger yang baik pasti dapat bekerjasama dengan baik bersama pihak lain dengan cara berkolaboratif, sebab music arranger akan sentiasa bersama artis, produser, dan pengarah muzik untuk menetapkan garis panduan tertentu di mana dan bagaimana komposisi lagu perlu dijaga. Dan sebagai penggubah muzik juga perlu bijak dalam menyesuaikan diri mendengar, mencuba, & mengekspresi kerja-kerja di dalam garis panduan asal (direction) muzik yang diinginkan producer, pengarah muzik dan penyanyi itu. Ini akan menjadikan karya itu lebih berkesan! Kadang-kadang dengan mendengar radio, mendengar pelbagai muzik terkini di radio juga adalah sebahagian faktor yang membantu untuk seorang penggubah muzik itu tahu apakah bentuk/nilai komersil di radio terkini instead of menggubah lagu semata-mata untuk ‘syok sendiri’. Ini adalah terpulang kepada situasi yang dihadapi dengan hidup sebagai seorang penggubah lagu.

Secara peribadi, saya tahu penggubah muzik selalunya menjalankan studio mereka sendiri dan memperolehi pendapatan dengan baik. Selain dari kemungkinan menjadi kerjaya yang menguntungkan, ia juga bonus lebih-lebih lagi jika tahu bekerja dengan orang dan membawa muzik untuk hidup. Selalunya, peluang menggubah lagu adalah panggilan dari mulut ke mulut, jadi pastikan ikhlas bekerja dengan semua orang penuh hormat dan bersama profesionalisme dari projek demo sehinggalah untuk

skor filem.

Apakah equipments yang perlu ada pada setiap penggubah lagu?

Boleh dikatakan kesemua music arranger hari ini mempunyai workstation mereka sendiri yang dilengkapi pelbagai instrumen muzik, synthesizers,

microphones, mixers, monitor speakers, computers, plug-ins, softwares dan

sebagainya. Biasanya peralatan yang digunakan adalah bergantung kepada

client dan music arranger itu sendiri. Secara asas—komputer, interface audio

dan midi, controller midi dan monitor bunyi sudah cukup untuk berkarya, malah masih ada arranger yang hanya menggubah lagu dengan hanya menulis menggunakan pen atau pensel di atas kertas skor muzik, jadi terpulang.

CHAPTER 3 ; PENGARAH MUZIK/PRODUSER ; AG & CO

Secara ringkas, pengarah muzik persembahan bertanggungjawab memastikan semua musicians di bawah kendaliannya menyampaikan permainan instruments masing-masing mengikut apa ditulis di skor muzik yang telah mengikut gubahan asal lagu tersebut. Kadang-kadang juga saya bertanggungjawab untuk menggubah kembali muzik asal sesebuah lagu itu mengikut kehendak penerbit dan penyanyi itu. Situasi sebegini boleh terjadi secara langsung dan juga tidak langsung. Itulah di antara cabaran menjadi pengarah muzik dan pengiring muzik.

Sebagai produser/pengarah muzik untuk rakaman lagu di studio pula, tidak banyak bezanya seperti role seorang pengarah muzik persembahan secara langsung. Juga ditugaskan untuk memastikan setiap permainan dari pemuzik yang ditugaskan merakam instrument masing-masing mengikut apa yang ditulis atau secara spontan dengan apa yang dikehendaki oleh pengarah muzik itu. Seperti juga penggubah lagu, perlu memastikan key/ nada penyanyi itu selesa untuk menyanyi dan menentukan tempo/rentak sesebuah lagu itu bersesuaian.

produser muzik. Dan setiap pemuzik yang telah dipilih tentunya masing-masing mempunyai signature dan kekuatan tersendiri. Dan paling utama dan penting adalah kewujudan chemistry sesama ahli band kerana ia akan mempengaruhi permainan, semangat, dan suasana yang selesa untuk membuat persembahan dan juga rakaman. Begitulah sedikit sebanyak secara ringkas tugas seorang pengarah/produser muzik persembahan secara langsung dan rakaman di studio. Terdapat juga pengarah muzik untuk filem, theatre, broadcast, dan orchestra, tetapi biarlah saya cuma berkongsi beberapa pengalaman saya ada sebagai penggubah/pengarah/& produser muzik di dalam beberapa projek.

CHAPTER 4; INDIEPRETASI P.RAMLEE

MUKADIMAH INDIEPRETASI P.RAMLEE

Pada sekitar November 2010 aku terlibat dengan sebuah projek

#tributepramlee , kalau hampa noticed hashtag tu kat Twitter suatu masa

dulu. Ia adalah sebuah projek yang agak spontan asalnya hanya untuk menyokong kempen P.Ramlee anjuran Astro. Tapi disebabkan magic yang menular dan merangsang ramai pihak maka terkumpul banyak participants yang nak join projek ni, dari 5 bands ke 10 bands hinggalah ke 19! Ada pelbagai genre, pelbagai style bands, menarik kan? Aku happy, enjoy gila experience ni. Luar biasa tau? Ya serious luar biasa. OK jom kita renung sejenak 2010, ala takyah 2010, let’s say since social network punya culture mula develop ni, semua orang dapat reference senang kan? Contoh:

“OK la aku nak buat band la.” “OK aku nak style macam Circa Survive! Jom buat?”

See? 4shared, Youtube, Torrents, ha apa lagi? Pastu jamming dengan band

sampai muntah, nasib baik tak baik kemudian hari. Aku tak cakap semua

bands tapi segelintir/kebanyakkan ada yang macam ni. Why not kalau cuba

fikir nak invent something, revolution ka apa ka kan? Secara ringkasnya aku cuba nak terangkan hari ini semua orang mudah nak buat muzik sebenarnya dengan hidangan rujukan yang tiada batasan, melainkan seorang music

arranger tu tidak banyak dengar lagu, kot? Macam aku kot, aku tak ada mp3 player, aku tak dengar lagu melainkan kerja-kerja aku sahaja DAN aku

dengar radio bila aku drive. Aku naik kereta pun bila aku keluar studio. Bila aku keluar studio? Itu yang jarang sekali aku buat unless aku ada show and kerja di luar.

Guess what? Apa yg terlintas dalam otak aku? Ya! “ORIGINAL.” Bukanla aku

cakap zaman sekarang ni semua tak original, it’s not totally semua. Harap semua faham maksud aku ya.

Original. Aku rasa semua bands yang involved dalam project ni share experience yang sama! tentu sekali! iaitu perasaan KAGUM. Sebab apa?

Sebab apabila kita nak interpretasi sesebuah muzik asal kita akan dig lagu/ muzik itu dari banyak sudut. Seperti chords progression, form arrangement asal, nyanyian asal, instrumentasi asal, orchestration asal hingga ke harmoni semua, malah sampai ke latar belakang penulis karya asal juga boleh mempengaruhi kajian kita untuk menafaskan kembali lagu itu. Rasanya aku makin mengarut berbahas kat sini but I got my points there, hope semua faham the points, InsyaAllah.

So dalam projek ni, aku rearranged/produced 5 buah lagu. Lagu-lagu tersebut

adalah ‘Jeritan Batinku,’ ‘Gelora Jiwa,’ ‘Malam Bulan Dipagar Bintang,’ ‘Tunggu

Sekejab’ dan ‘Itulah Sayang.’ Ya, aku tak tau macam mana aku nak explain

secara lebih dalam dari sudut general progress aku untuk transcribe semua

chords, progression, dan arrangement muzik asal. GILA, boleh dikatakan

setiap waktu aku hit the notes yang dicari dalam muzik asal semuanya adalah “WOW!” Kenapa perginya macam ni? Kenapa jadinya mcm tu? Dan sentap juga aku bila terfikir macam mana mereka boleh fikir nak buat macam ni dan macam tu? (aku mengeluh kagum).

Cuba bayangkan zaman dulu, zaman yang tak ada Youtube, pendek cerita takda Internet lah. Dan apatah lagi DVD, kan? Fuh, dari mana rujukan secara major untuk penggubah lagu pada zaman tu selain mendengar muzik dari piring hitam dan radio? Semuanya adalah original, asli, tulus ikhlas lahir dari sudut pandangan kehendak mereka sendiri. Itulah yang aku cuba praktikkan di dalam hasil karya gubahan muzik aku sekarang. Dengan mengurangkan mendengar lagu orang lain, dan memperbanyakkan mendengar hasil kerja sendiri sambil bereksperimentasi dari masa ke semasa. Mungkin cara aku salah? Tapi itu adalah style aku bekarya. Mendengar karya muzik asal P.Ramlee sedikit sebanyak menyuntik aku rasa most of ideas dulu macam banyak elemen Jazz dan traditional? Chords

progression yang kurang ajar, jahat dan menyusahkan hidup aku (ketawa).

Muzik arrangements lagi lah. Agak kurang pasti aku siapakah music arranger asal sebenar pada masa itu? Ada beberapa sumber menyatakan bahawa

music arranger pada masa itu merupakan Filipino punya musician, but still,

harmoni dan orchestration asal dari composer still magical buat aku. Jadi tak perlu lagi untuk memanjangkan cerita mengenai P.Ramlee kerana

semua orang boleh mengenali Allahyarham lebih lanjut dengan mengkaji latar belakang beliau sendiri. Apa yang ingin aku kongsi disini adalah pengalaman pada setiap lagu yang aku produce untuk projek #tributepramlee ini.

5 BUAH LAGU MAGIKAL #TRIBUTEPRAMLEE 2010

1. HUJAN - TUNGGU SEKEJAB.

Jadi aku telah pilih lagu ni 1st sekali sesudah mendapat peluang nak

re-arrange lagu-lagu P.Ramlee, sebab dulu masa aku kat kampus, ada satu

minggu khas ni, iaitu minggu P.Ramlee dan semua students masa itu kena

perform lagu-lagu P.Ramlee, dan lagu ‘Tunggu Sekejab’ merupakan sebuah

lagu yang jadi rebutan semua orang untuk perform, dan aku tak berpeluang untuk buat. Jadi aku teringat dan terbawa-bawa untuk merealisasikan kehendak aku untuk menggubah kembali lagu ini sehingga mendapat peluang ini. Kenapa lagu ‘Tunggu Sekejab?’ Terang-terangan aku rasa lagu ini adalah sebuah lagu yang paling sesuai sekali untuk vocal Noh dan Hujan. Secara ironinya dalam lirik lagu ini mempunyai rangkap lirik berkaitan kejadian Hujan. Untuk gubahan muzik di dalam lagu ni, aku lebih menerapkan modern jazz, pop yang penuh dengan nuansa easy-listening untuk pendengar, sedikit choir, akustik guitar, piano, hollow-guitar, bass dan

drum berpandukan guide-lines tipikal ballad songs Hujan yang sedia ada tapi

sedikit lebih jazz-nya.

Artist : Hujan

Song : Tunggu Sekejab ( OST Sarjan Hassan 1955 )

Recording Engineer : Ully, AG & Ceri. ( Kamar Seni Studio ) Drums : Azham Ahmad

Acoustic Guitars : Ammar Habir Guitars : AG

Piano : AG & Ammar Habir Bass : AG

Backup Vocals : Faris Awanband Vocals : Noh Hujan

2. AWANBAND - MALAM BULAN DI PAGAR BINTANG.

Pada mulanya aku memilih lagu ni untuk Yuna, dan aku telah buat pilihan untuk Awanband re-do lagu ‘Nak Dara Rindu.’ Tapi setelah mendapat kata putus Yuna memilih lagu lain jadi aku pindakan lagu ‘Malam Bulan’ ini untuk Awanband, ironik lagi kan? Aku suka lagu ni, sangat sesuai untuk vokal Faris, dan melodi, progression lagu ni nampak menarik untuk

digubah. Idea duet Awanband dengan Che Mat tu datangnya dari Ully. Dia ada mention, “Kalau lah bapak aku nyanyi lagu ni mesti best kan?” Jadi aku pun apa lagi, idea yang bagus jangan disia-siakan. Lagipun muzik asal lagu ini memang ia sebuah lagu duet, lagipun maksud lagu ini menceritakan tentang kasih ibu bapa dan anaknya. Dan seterusnya ke progress music

arrangement session, untuk direction lagu ini aku cuba untuk melarikan

diri dari norma biasa Awanband yang aku dengar. Jadi aku buatkan ia lebih kompleks pada chords progressionnya dari versi asal. Ada beberapa sebab dan tujuan, antaranya adalah untuk Awanband sendiri merasakan pengalaman bermain dan merakamkan arrangement muzik yang lebih sukar. Kebaikannya adalah untuk mereka belajar sesuatu serta merasakan sebuah fasa permainan baru. Alhamdulillah kerjasama kami merupakan sebuah kombinasi yang mantap. ‘Malam Bulan’ menjadi sebuah gubahan muzik segar.

Artist : Awanband

Song : Malam Bulan Dipagar Bintang ( Pendekar Bujang Lapok 1959 ) Recording Engineer : Ully ( Kamar Seni Studio )

Drums : Azim Jenk Ali Acoustic Guitars : AG

Guitars : AG & Ully Awanband Piano : AG

Bass : Hasnur Awanband

Vocals : Faris Awanband & Che Mat

3. YUNA - GELORA JIWA.

Al-kisahnya pada mulanya Yuna cakap dia nak re-do lagu yang bertajuk ‘Gelora Jiwa,’ aku confident terus assumed lagu itu adalah lagu GELORA di dalam OST Pendekar Bujang Lapok. Bayangkan aku terus dah start study,

figure out muzik arrangement aku nak ke mana semua dah, tinggal nak

tulis. Tiba-tiba Yuna post link lagu ‘Gelora Jiwa’ yang sebenarnya. Okay, aku dah salah lagu, dugaan sungguh. Masa tak banyak ada untuk projek

tribute ini. Sebenarnya ‘Gelora Jiwa’ ini adalah lagu filem ‘Anjuran Nasib.’

Filem tersebut merupakan filem awal P.Ramlee pada tahun 1950’an. Ia merupakan sebuah lagu Arwah Tan Sri P.Ramlee yang paling rare rasanya, dan juga sebuah lagu yang paling lama untuk #tributepramlee. Jadi direction yang aku buat untuk arrangement muzik Yuna kali ini tak susah tapi tricky

yet simple. Lagu yang hebat as it is sahaja dah hebat, dinyanyikan pula

oleh Yuna. Yuna adalah magik seterusnya sebab suara asli beliau adalah pemenang untuk melengkap keindahan ‘Gelora Jiwa’ ini. Terima kasih, syukur pada Tuhan di atas bakat dan keistimewaan pada Yuna.

Artist : Yuna

Song : Gelora Jiwa ( OST Anjuran Nasib 1952 ) Recording Engineer : AG & Ceri. ( Kamar Seni Studio ) Drums : Azim Jenk Ali

Acoustic Guitars : Ammar Habir Guitars : AG

Piano : AG & Ammar Habir Bass : Efry Arwis

Vocals : Yuna

4. AZLAN TYPEWRITER - JERITAN BATINKU

Asalnya Azlan & Typewriter telah menarik diri untuk projek ini separuh jalan disebabkan Lan tidak berani untuk memberi sepenuh komitmen dengan band sebab terlalu sibuk dengan jemputan persembahan dan sebagainya. Maklumlah projek ini telah ditetapkan timeline yang agak terhad masanya untuk disiapkan. Tapi aku merasa rugi jikalau Lan tidak turut serta kerana beliau adalah antara vokalis yang juga mempunya potensi besar, berattitude tersendiri dan original. Jadi jodoh pertemuan kami adalah di belakang pentas JomHeboh di Kuching. Ketika itu, Alhamdulillah, selepas dia explain kat aku tentang kenapa dia tak dapat turut serta, aku dengan penuh semangat meng’offer’ diri aku untuk produce/arrange muzik untuk dia dalam projek ini. Langsung dia bersetuju dan menyatakan ‘Jeritan

Batinku’ adalah pilihan. Dan terus dalam otak aku pun berkata “YEESS!!

AKU DAH TAU NAK BUAT APA!!!”.

Sepanjang hari aku di Kuching aku membayangkan direction muzik untuk Lan, dan aku decide untuk melarikan diri dari kebiasaan persembahan vokal Lan yang biasa kita dengar. Aku langsung tak cakap macam mana muzik arrangement yang akan aku buat sebaliknya aku convincekan dia yang aku akan buat sound macam Typewriter TAPI sebenarnya tidak! Aku menipu. Kami dah bincang bersama asalnya Lan lebih memilih ke arah muzik brit-rock, Radiohead & Keane-ish tapi aku pekakkan telinga aku. Dan apabila aku memulakan gubahan semula ‘Jeritan Batinku,’ aku terlintas memikirkan why not aku buat sebuah music arrangement lebih berat? Barulah ada warna dan variasi dalam kompilasi Indiepretasi ini. That’s why aku go for Metal! Sound guitar yang berat, chords progression yang seram, dan

riffing asas metalisma, unison lines yang teknikal dan choir. Akhirnya selepas

siap form lagu itu, aku panggil Lan datang ke studio untuk merakamkan

guide vocals.

meremang aku! Selepas rakaman itu, Lan menegur aku kenapa buat music terlalu metal? Dia dah mula nak tukar itu tukar ini. Aku tersenyum dan hanya berkata “OK” sahaja. Akan tetapi aku tetap pendirian aku dengan apa aku dah buat sebab aku percaya kesudahannya dia mesti best! And

finally we did it! FACT; pada mula aku bermain band ketika sekolah dulu,

aku memang bermula dengan bermain muzik metal, sehingga saat projek ini, inilah peluang yang aku ada untuk produce sebuah lagu metal untuk didengarkan di kancah perdana. Takkan dilepaskan! Alhamdulillah lagu ini telah tercalon untuk Gubahan Muzik Terbaik AIM18 lepas.

Artist : Azlan Typewriter featuring AG Coco Song : Jeritan Batinku ( OST Ibu Mertuaku 1962 ) Recording Engineer : AG & Ceri. ( Kamar Seni Studio ) Drums : Azim Jenk Ali

Guitars : AG

Piano : AG & Ammar Habir Bass : AG

Choir : Faris Awanband Vocals : Azlan Typewriter

THE RAMLEES - ITULAH SAYANG.

Aku boleh katakan ini adalah projek kolaborasi yang agak spontan di saat genting (sungguhpun lagu-lagu lain juga dikerjakan dalam waktu yang sangat terhad).

Ke-spontan-an plan ini adalah selepas Bunkface & The Times tarik diri dalam projek ini, untuk mencukupkan quota, Adly Syairi lah merupakan dalang sebenarnya yang bagi idea gila ini kat aku. Dia bercadang untuk aku produce sebuah lagu yang dinyanyikan secara kolaborasi. Namun hakikatnya banyak lagu lain lagi, akan tetapi pada masa yang sangat terhad itu, aku mencabar diri aku untuk menerimanya. Pada asalnya, pilihan kolaboratif The Ramlees adalah Yuna, Liyana Fizi, Aizat dan Noh, dan lagu pilihan pertama asalnya adalah ‘IBU.’ Tetapi Adly telah mencadang beberapa buah lagu lain. Selepas beberapa kali aku berulang mendengar, tiba-tiba aku merasakan lagu ‘Itulah Sayang’ ini seolah penuh epik, langsung menyedari lagu tersebut mempunyai 4 parts vocals aku nak bahagikan senang kemudian hari. Jadi aku decided untuk memilih ‘Itulah

Sayang’.

Aku menghadapi beberapa masalah pada peringkat merakamkan vokal Noh, dan beberapa perkara tidak jelas agreement projek ini dengan

Aizat Amdan. Jadi secara tanpa ragu-ragu, aku terfikir, why not semua perempuan yang nyanyi, sebab arrangement muzik bersama melodi lagu ini seolah-olah comel. Jadi kebetulan Amirah Asraf (vokalis Tilu) singgah ke studio terus dipaksa untuk menyanyikan lagu itu, walaupun kami tiada perjanjian hitam putih bersama Tilu pada awalnya, just gamble! Jadi atau tidak, itu adalah kemudian. Nak dijadikan jodoh dipertemukan lagi, projek

#tributepramlee mendapat tarikan Najwa Mahiaddin untuk turut bersama. Alhamdulillah! Maka lengkaplah line-up The Ramlees! Amirah, Yuna, Liyana

Fizi & Najwa. Music arrangement lagu ’Itulah Sayang’ digubah bervariasi di mana aku cuba menampilkan signature setiap penyanyi di dalam verse mereka masing-masing. Mungkin itu membuatkan gabungan elemen baru dan lama menjadi lebih efektif dan menarik perhatian. Juga aku selitkan

brass section menggantikan orchestration muzik asal yang menggunakan strings. Dan tidak lupa eksperimen aku menyuntik garis muzik motif

Dondang Sayang pada akhir lagu,ia memang disengajakan supaya kita selalu ingat bahawa muzik tradisional takkan ditelan zaman.

Artist :T he Ramlees

Song : Itulah Sayang ( OST Anakku Sazali 1956 ) Recording Engineer : AG & Ceri. ( Kamar Seni Studio ) Drums : Azim Jenk Ali

Acoustic Guitars : Ammar Habir Guitars : AG & Ammar Habir Piano : Azim Jenk Ali Bass : Azim Jenk Ali

Brass Section : Fareed Aziz Tilu

Vocals : Amirah Tilu , Yuna , Najwa & Liyana Fizi

CHAPTER 5; MY MUSIC 1 INDIEPRETASI 2011

Tahun 2011, projek gubahan kembali sekali lagi, dan kali ini tanggungjawab aku lebih besar kerana aku ditugaskan untuk produce hampir kesemua lagu-lagu yang terlibat untuk projek ini. MyMusic 1 Indiepretasi ini adalah sebuah extension of Astro MyMusic campaign di mana rakyat Malaysia diberi peluang untuk turut serta bersama terlibat dalam proses pemilihan lagu, dan menyiarkan video di channel khas MyMusic 318 di Astro. Pemilihan lagu bagi projek ini adalah berdasarkan undian di laman web khas MyMusic. Semua orang boleh memilih lagu patriotik asal sedia ada dan artis kegemaran mereka untuk memberi nafas baru kepada lagu-lagu diundi.

& juga menyambut Hari Malaysia. Lagu tema projek ini adalah ‘Saya

Anak Malaysia’ (Anak Merdeka) hasil komposisi asal Dr.Sam dan lirik

oleh kumpulan Suaramu. Lagu ini dipilih kerana ia melambangkan kemerdekaan yang bertunjang teguh serta yang rapat bersatu kembali. Ia merupakan intipati perkataan “Merdeka” itu sendiri. ‘Saya Anak Malaysia’ juga merupakan sebuah lagu yang merentasi semua kaum, agama, dan lokasi dan juga sebuah uplifting song yang relevan setiap waktu, bukan hanya pada bulan Merdeka.

Tatkala sibuk dengan studio, produce pelbagai lagu & sebagainya..ini adalah di antara projek MAJOR yang aku paling sibuk, kerana ia adalah projek muzik khas di mana aku perlu produce/rearrange balik lagu patriotik Malaysia yang lama dan diberi nafas baru (tidak jauh beza dengan projek

P.Ramlee Indiepretasi tahun lepas).

Rasanya kali ini aku tak perlu untuk mengulas lanjut setiap lagu projek ini seperti chapter P.Ramlee. Anda semua boleh mendapatkan album

MyMusic ini atau mendengar hasil karya interpretasinya di radio, internet

sebagainya.

CHAPTER 6: AKHIR KATA

Menggubah dan mendalami lagu-lagu asal, baik lagu baru dan lagu lama akan membawa kita melalui arus zaman muzik itu sendiri, ada kontra pada setiap gubahan asal dan gubahan baru sesebuah lagu itu. Jadi, kesemua tulisan aku ini mungkin agak spontan. Rasanya banyak perkara yang aku tak dapat recall.Alhamdulillah apapun semuanya berlalu dengan lancar dan selamat, dan apa yang utamanya untuk aku berkongsi disini adalah pengalaman aku dalam masa terhad untuk produce beberapa buah lagu dan juga kekaguman aku terhadap karya-karya lama penulis/penggubah lagu-lagu lama terdahulu.

Sebagai penggubah lagu, kami boleh dikatakan sebagai service provider; begitu juga beberapa role yang lain sebagai produser, musical director sebagainya. Matlamat utama adalah menghasilkan muzik yang sebaik-baiknya mengikut pelbagai kehendak, di antaranya adalah jadi kehendak komersil, di atas tujuan mendidik, untuk menarik perhatian, juga mengganggu fikiran, untuk syok sendiri, ada juga untuk mencabar kewibawaan berkarya, untuk bersaing kemampuan skills gubahan secara sihat dan sebagainya. Jadi tak perlu jadi seorang penggubah yang punyai pegangan tertentu dengan sesetengah pendapat dan pendirian. Muzik tidak perlu ada apa jua batasan dan sempadan, biarkan ia mengalir pada

Together with Paul Moss, Kenny Tay and Jeff Siah, Izham Omar made Positive Tone the most exciting record label to have ever existed in Malaysian music his-tory. Today, he’s a CEO and a COO in Media Prima Berhad.

#projekbuku

Positive Tone—How It All

Began

Many stories have been told about how Positive Tone made its mark in the Malaysian music scene. How Positive Tone wasn’t just a record label but a symbol of independence, innovation and a music that was at once original, new and exciting. How Positive Tone produced music that not only introduced new musical styles to the overly mass-market-rock Malaysian public but also captured the imagination of a generation just waiting to erupt in musical and social freedom from the onslaught of manufactured music that pandered for mass market consumption.

All these sound extremely romantic. Maybe to many it was and always will be. But to me, the start of Positive Tone’s journey in the underbelly of the Malaysian music industry and turning inside out for all to see was more than that. Our journey was filled with a lot of amazing talent, amazing people, amazing coincidences and mostly, very much mostly, amazing passion.

Yes Positive Tone did become this beacon of independent success, a fairytale story of a record label that did good and changed the rules of the game. But the real story never started out so straightforward.

Coming back from studying abroad, I was a majorly confused though optimistic young man. It was approaching the summer of 1994 and I just received my

MBA. I also had a Music degree from Berklee College Of Music majoring in Music Production & Engineering, whatever the hell that means (actually it means I learn formally how to produce and engineer albums but I like saying “whatever the hell that means”).

I was also fresh from working for a record label in Boston called Taang! Records which was an extremely well-known label in the punk culture. I did not know that going into the job. I just knew that I wanted to get some US work experience and I wanted to work in a record label and there was an opening in Taang! Which was placed in Harvard Square, not that far from where I was staying. It was only when I started work there that I found out the label was a global shrine to punk, ska and other sorts of indie derivatives.

Working at Taang! Records wasn’t glamorous at all. Yes, this was the original home of The Lemonheads and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones but no, I never met any of the artists. I was given menial tasks, appropriate for any budding young record executive. In fact, my first assignment was manning the shop floor including putting up lights, checking the stock, attending to customers and the like. I didn’t complain. The shop floor experience was invaluable, giving me insights on how customers think and how they decided on their purchases. I made my way up to handling international shipping, which basically meant putting CDs and posters in a box and sending them off to some country somewhere. My last task was to ‘analyse international revenues’ as the Head of Finance called it, which actually meant counting how much money the company was making overseas from the invoices they sent out.

To make things more surreal, when I started working in Taang! Records I just came off an intensive 4-year study of jazz music. So I wasn’t that well-versed in punk. In fact, I was schooled in music principles that was totally opposite to the punk-favoured no-rules principles. But I found the music in Taang! fresh and the punk ethic of NOT adhering to formal music principles and theories refreshing (I think most of my Berklee lecturers would have rather killed themselves then be subjected to the dissonant notes of The Lemonheads and Teenage Fanclub). To top it all off, I was an MBA student at the same time. I decided not to tell the guys at work that I was a business student with jazz knowledge, as I don’t think they would understand what I was doing there. Usually snot-faced kids with pimples and other types of white-trash persona would be the ones working in punk labels. Not a jazz-educated MBA-wannabe brownish Malaysian. That combination would have been suspicious to my then-employers. They all thought I was just some foreign student wanting to be an intern. That was fine by me.

It was with all these experiences in jazz, punk, business studies, studios, performing in Vietnamese weddings, that I came back to Malaysia, full of hope and energy, but not quite sure what I was going to do. I knew I wanted to be involved in producing music. I knew I wanted to be in the music business. But I didn’t know how.

And so it was then in that summer of 1994 that I met up with my mentor, Helen Yap.

Helen was responsible for me studying music. This may not seem an important fact. But the truth was that I was offered a JPA scholarship to study law, economics, or international relations. But Helen, dear Helen, in my very first jazz piano class with her in 1987 (I took jazz piano as a ‘thing to do’ after SPM) persuaded me that Berklee was the way. And in my youthful foolishness, I decided to take her advice and applied. That’s how I got to Berklee.

I remember the look of the JPA scholarship dude when I asked if there was a scholarship for music. He had a condescending snigger and such an oh-my-god-you-can’t-be-seriously-thinking-of-studying-music look on his face that it helped me carve a permanent disdain for the establishment until today. It took my parents by surprise too as they didn’t expect me to turn down the JPA scholarships. I still remember the worried look they had: Would music give my son a proper career? How do we pay for all this? As the legend went, after my mother recovered from nearly fainting when I told her I turned down the scholarships, she said these immortal words, “Izham, if you want to be a

tukang sapu sampah pun, be the best tukang sapu sampah in the world.” Those

inspirational words drove me all the way from my Music degree and into my MBA. My parents worked extremely hard to give me the best education in the world as the powers-that-be then obviously never wanted to recognize music as a viable career option and weren’t any help. There is no way I can repay how hard my parents worked to give me the best. (Thanks Mak and Ayah).

In that fateful 1994 meeting with Helen I told her I saw a job opening in the classifieds a PR executive at BMG Music. I was thinking that maybe I should try that as a way into the music business. She quickly changed my mind when she said that it probably meant I had to go around sticking up Whitney Houston posters and coo to radio DJs how much I loved “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” and how her new record will top that “amazing classic”.

You know, Kenny, the guy who used to be in Kenny, Remy & Martin. He’s got Positive Tone. He’s got that record label”.

I actually thought she said, “He’s got a positive tone.” I was wondering how strange it was that Helen would say that someone has a positive tone. Maybe she meant that he was a very optimistic person?

I went over to see Kenny at Kenny Music, a jingle house at the shoplots at PJ’s section 16 roundabout (Now no longer a roundabout but a traffic light 4-way stop).

He told me about this record label he had called Positive Tone and how it was a company that him and Jeff Siah, a friend from the construction industry, started to release a record by Leonard Tan in 1993 called “Bintang Bukannya

Satu”. (The name Positive Tone wasn’t new, it was a dormant shelf company

that they bought. I’m glad they didn’t chose “Six Happiness” or “Usaha Jaya Trading” or any of these typical shelf-company names. We would have a very different story, I’d think). Kenny told me that Positive Tone’s only employee at that time was some white guy called Paul who was then working in the studios upstairs on an album by an unknown group. He took me upstairs.

Kenny opened the door to one of the smallest studios I’ve ever seen (I’ve seen bigger toilets) and there was Paul. Paul Moss.

Paul was crouched over the computer, looking stern and annoyed. (I don’t think he has any other look. Someone once said that Paul has perfected the “anguished” look when he saw him as a judge on Malaysian Idol. I thought it was a perfect description).

Paul took one look at me after Kenny’s introductions and said “Hi. I’m working on this group. Still a lot of work to do. I think this is the best song they have.” Then he reluctantly played me what he was working on.

I still remember the moment when the music came out of the speakers. It was fresh, different than anything I’ve ever heard in Malaysia and extremely catchy and original. It was just three or four chords but it had a soul to it. It was brave. It was clever. It was just….alive.

I was listening to OAG’s ‘60’s TV’.

Paul still had this annoyed look on his face. I thought he was upset at something, maybe me coming in and barging on his musical workmanship. I knew all artists and creative types hate it when they have to show their work unfinished. So I excused myself and went back downstairs excitedly. I took one look at Kenny and said “I’m in”. I didn’t even ask how much was the salary or what benefits there were. I didn’t care. I just wanted to do something that felt like a new beginning of something, whatever it was. I had a feeling this was going to be…fun.

The next Monday I reported to duty. Kenny put aside a big creaky and old wooden table and chair in his filing room at the back of Kenny Music and armed it with a 286-processor IBM-compatible computer and a dot-matrix printer. I sat at the table, not caring that I was in some old filing room in some old part of PJ looking at some really old piece of machinery. I was just excited at the possibilities of the road ahead.

I asked Kenny what I should do. He just said something along the lines of, “You decide”. Then he went off.

I stopped in my tracks. I decide? I decide? Wait a minute, I decide? It was like a blank sheet of paper. And I get to write on it. I didn’t stop to question his sanity. From then on it was all systems go.

After much contemplating, and listening to OAG’s music, and hanging out at the underground gigs and talking to the kids there, I realized that Positive Tone could really have its own niche in the music business. The best thing was this niche was something Paul and I really loved. And so I worked out a business plan around a mission – to continually produce something new and exciting. That was our niche. That was our mission. Heck, that was our calling.

Armed with that mission, we not only produced OAG’s landmark debut album, but also a single by Poetic Ammo. At the same time, I heard a demo in my car by a group called Innuendo. It was so stunning that I immediately forgot where I was going and made a few calls and headed straight to say hello to the group. And so the basic foundation of Positive Tone laid upon the mission of doing something new and exciting for the urban audiences: and now we had three different musical styles from three amazing acts to show for it. With OAG,

Poetic Ammo and Innuendo, we launched Indie, Hip-Hop and R&B to the unsuspecting Malaysian public. None of these three styles ever made it across the mainstream in Malaysia before and it was nuts that we were planning to release all three within a space of a year of each other (For the purists, yes we also released a pop album by Liza Aziz around that time but I considered that a necessary piece of production needed to lay the groundwork to pull off an Innuendo and also a necessary piece of education in that we are totally SO not set-up to handle a mass-market artist, no matter how progressive we made the music).

It was the four of us, Paul, me, Kenny and Jeff, wide-eyed wanderers trying to create something new in the music industry. Kenny was a music veteran, having been a top Malaysian artist and then a top Malaysian jingle writer. Jeff Siah was from the Siah Brothers corporation, a huge construction company. He had amazing passion in music and constantly threw ideas at us. The two of them, the original founders of Positive Tone, always gave me the freedom and support needed to make the dream a success. I bought into the company within a few months of working there, immediately showing my interest in the long-term. In hindsight, that was a good move. It meant I couldn’t just treat my Positive Tone job as just another job. It meant that this was going to be my life. It meant I had no back door to escape, no back-up plan. There was only one plan and I had to make it work.

I knew if I started down this route, I would not only be going against the more established work options and corresponding salaries of more traditional careers, I would also be going against the more established way of charting success for a music label. And I knew I needed a few years to make it work, if it would work at all. If it all went to hell in a handbasket, I would be set back a few years.

It wasn’t a hard decision to make. OAG, Poetic Ammo and Innuendo gave me hope and belief that we were on to something. Whatever that something was. And whatever it was, it felt exciting and sort of revolutionary-like.

In many ways, Paul and I was a great complement to each other. We had different musical production styles. He worked on OAG and Poetic Ammo and I really worked hard with Innuendo. But that didn’t mean we didn’t get involved in each other’s productions. What I liked most about working with Paul is that I learnt so much from the way he approached music, which was the totally opposite way of my schooled approach. Paul taught me so much more than school ever did, I once said in some awards show. And those words ring true all

the time. He taught me to respect the melody and not get too tied up with the ‘right chords’ as most Berklee grads would inevitably do. I repaid the favour by playing keyboards for his productions and getting involved in arrangements and co-writing a little with him but that was nothing compared to what I learnt from him.

We both knew we had to work really hard to make sure the music sounded fresh and different and unlike anything anyone has heard before. That would be our unique selling proposition, as business-types would like to say.

So Paul never questioned why I spent a year in Reymee’s basement working with Innuendo, carving a direction and sound with them. Normal music industry folk would have thought that was a waste of time. But I thought it was necessary if we wanted to hit Malaysia with a sound that was miles above what anybody else was doing. I, in turn, never questioned why he spent months perfecting the sound of Chi’s drums (Yes, before Chi made it big as a TV celebrity with the new moniker Qi, he was just Chi, short for Qushairi) and making sure OAG sounded perfect.

You see, we were not in it just as a business. We were in it because we wanted to bring something new from all of these great young talents that we were hearing in the scene. We just had to find a way to make it work and to balance it all, combining financial returns with spending what was considered excessive times on perfecting the product. But I knew this was the right way. We all knew. When you combine business discipline and marketing creativity with a passionate respect to music sincerity and production quality, you could have a real chance of not just making a real hit, but making a real difference.

And for us, that meant everything.

The early years were tough. No one really understood what we were trying to do. No one…….except the fans. The fans gave us strength and belief to try something new all the time. We knew the industry wouldn’t support us in the beginning but we knew we were on the right track as the fans were very supportive.

We couldn’t use the music industry infrastructure then to get our music out. Radios wouldn’t support us. The press didn’t know what to write about us. The TV stations only showcased huge mainstream acts. Even the music shops didn’t know where to put us on their Malay, Chinese and International racks. It was frustrating that the industry just didn’t see, or maybe the industry didn’t

WANT to see, that there was something moving in the underground that was out of their safe little process and infrastructure. But we weren’t disheartened for long. We didn’t give up, though at times we nearly did, especially when time and time again, we came upon roadblocks when we tried to get support from the music industry and its infrastructure. In the end, we thought, screw the infrastructure, let’s go direct to these screaming fans we saw in gigs. From sticking flyers on toilet walls to being chased by mall security guards for giving out flyers to shoppers to organizing gigs we did all we could to get the music out directly to the fans. I still remember the pained look on my dad’s office staff when I kinda borrowed his photocopy machine to make flyers without paying.

Even with all the hardship we kept on going. I remember the times when I didn’t know when the next salary was going to come from. I remember looking at the hopeful faces of the artists for their future and how we all just kept it all going even though we had no idea when the next batch of funds will come. For a while I even didn’t pay myself anything, as every cent was needed for us to keep on going. And boy did we keep on going.

We didn’t have much money to promote OAG. We just made a great video, directed by the genius Brad Hogarth, we took a single black and white bus advertisement and we just spent days and nights voting for OAG in the Metro

Chart Show on the now-defunct Metrovision (It’s some kind of karma that

Metrovision’s license was sold to Media Prima who turned it into 8TV which I then launched with some Positive Tone staff).

We did all we could, fueled by passion and little else, with no expectations on sales and no idea what the future would be for our tiny little label.

And suddenly, OAG’s debut album began moving. The orders suddenly started coming in. It was just me and Paul and with Paul always in the studio, I had to figure out how to do invoices, purchase orders, work with the printers, get the products out to our independent distributor and then do it all over again when the next order arrived. I took on Yogi B from Poetic Ammo to help me. I also took in another guy called Azmi Abdul Rahman to help. It was a motley crue of sorts.

When OAG hit platinum, it was as if we had hit on something.

there had been no precedent. And once it hit platinum, we knew we had hit on some nerve. It was as if we were riding on the crest of some tipping-point of the Malaysian independent music scene. The music fans wanted something new, something exciting, something different, and only due to our love for doing something new and exciting that we gave them exactly what they wanted. When the orders kept coming from our indie distributor, I remember leaning back in my chair in that dusty old filing room and thinking, “Man, I’m glad we listened to the fans.” If we had listened to the major distributors, we would have turned OAG into a mass market Malay album and Radhi would have been forced to sing a Saari Amri classic.

Fresh from the breakaway success of OAG, we quickly released Poetic Ammo’s album which also met with success. And then Innuendo’s stunning debut album launched us into the mainstream. Innuendo won a record 6 AIM awards which was a major feat considering that English albums were not allowed to compete on many AIM categories. I could tell you the major behind-the-scenes fight to get English albums recognized by the industry but let’s save that story for another time.

With the early success, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. I had to always keep things in check, always managing people’s expectations. There was once when Radhi got into one of his moods and decided to use a marker pen and wrote angry messages on the walls. And there was once I had to withdraw all my money from my savings to pay royalties for all the artists when the company funds were not in yet. And there was once I nearly quit when I was shouted at by the manager at Piccadilly who thought that Poetic Ammo was performing instead of OAG. I remember looking at Paul and going, “I don’t know, man. This is tough.” Paul just said, “So you’re thinking of quitting, huh?” But I didn’t in the end.

The next few years were the golden years of Positive Tone. With the influx of revenues, we managed to hire more staff. These staff quickly became the core of the Positive Tone DNA. With the help of these new colleagues, we developed our own work processes and even broke new ground in creative marketing and working with sponsors. (Well, we had no choice but to be creative as we usually had extremely small budgets). Our culture was beginning to be more solid and more established. Our music videos became the standard for all music video productions in Malaysia. A lot of artists from other labels would complain to their labels how Positive Tone, a tiny label, could make amazing music videos. The answer was actually quite simple. We didn’t spend on anything else.

Whilst other companies spent on advertising on TV, radio, print, buses, etc, we just spent on music videos. And even then sometimes it was produced cheaply by a sympathetic production house who loved our music. And with our focus on urban and progressive music, we became the favourites of sponsors which then helped with our roadshow and advertising costs. It all worked out great and all due to our singular mission. We set ourselves apart from the beginning and it was beginning to pay off.

We had great fun at our office in Kelana Jaya. Yes, sometimes it would rain so hard that our roof gave way and everyone had to quickly move the computers from the rain but it was our home. We did all we can to make it a fun place to work. We did all we can to make it home.

Positive Tone wasn’t just home to our artists and our staff, it became a sort of flag-bearer for up-and-coming artists. We received a lot of demos, wished we could do more with all of them, but wisely chose to work with only the most promising ones. Sometimes I got it wrong. After one hearing from a Singaporean guy, I threw his demo into the dustbin. Paul fished it out and said, “You gotta listen to the SOUL of this guy’s singing.” It was Ferhad.

When EMI became our parent, we got more professional in our operations. We moved into new offices, finally had e-mail, and our computers worked faster. But our love for urban and progressive music never wavered. That remained strong and true.

Apart from the three artists that launched us, Positive Tone explored various musical styles with releases from IntoXicated, Ferhad, Juliet The Orange, Nice Stupid Playground, Ruffedge, VE, John’s Mistress, Rabbit, Reefa, Pop Shuvit and numerous more artists. We made several landmark compilation albums:

Boys & Girls 1+1=3 which defined the indie scene then and Tricks & Tales and The Phat Family which defined the hip-hop scene then. These compilations

included artists like Naughtius Maximus, The Teh Tarik Crew, Phlowtron, Emberz Of Soul and many more.

And of course, Too Phat defined the millennium for Positive Tone. The production quality, commitment to gigs, intensive perfectionism and creative marketing set the tone for Positive Tone’s sound and work processes. The collaboration with Warren G showed that a little label can indeed work wonders. That being said, Malique’s intensity really did push us and kept us on our toes. Others might say that he was too much of a perfectionist, I say that he was someone I learnt a lot from.

Even though we were all on our own in the early years, after a while the industry gave us recognition and support. Positive Tone won the Best English Album category in AIM for 8 straight years. We also had major support from the important guys behind-the-scenes in the industry – from Darren Choy, who believed in our mission and called us ‘the indie label with a MAJOR attitude’, to Arif Efendi from McCann-Erickson, who taught us how to ‘make things bigger’, to Lilac from Hotlink who took a chance on an indie label, to Claire Kenny who gave OAG a shot to sing the theme song to the Coca-Cola World Youth Cup, to Jake Abdullah, who created the Malaysian English Top 10 which catapulted us into the mainstream, to Jennifer Thompson, who gave us priceless time on stage during AIM, to the writers at TONE magazine, who gave us props to no end. There were so many more individuals who helped and I am indebted to every single one of them.

I have to say that I was also lucky to have met so many great artists. They were not just great but they were all different. They were all original. And they all had amazing passion. Radhi was just someone with songwriting skills you can’t ignore. When Reymee, Sam, Pot and Taj got together, they had a sound that no other group can get until now. Yogi B had this manic attention to detail. Malique and Joe shook the nation like no other. You could just sing along to Nice Stupid Playground and smile. When Ferhad suddenly came out with the chorus to ‘Higher Deeper’ in the studio, I nearly peed in my pants. There were many others we met along the way, everyone talented in their very own way. I was also blessed to have met so many great and talented people who became our staff and colleagues, from Paul to Yogi to Azmi, to Efida, Putri, Laton, Jacynta, Wandy, Kim, Hawa, Nicky, Shah, Yan, Helmy, Luke, Pietro, Simon, Jeremy, Azwar, Maha, Aisha Rozaina, Ikmal and more names I can’t remember, man it was 1Malaysia even before the term was coined. Even my brother Ikram came and help whenever he could, such was his love for the company that we all created. It was like we had our own home, our own culture, our own way of doing things. We were small but we fought hard. We didn’t have big budgets but we figured out how to make the best of it. These guys were the life of Positive Tone. They gave it a soul, a character, a home.

The secret of Positive Tone wasn’t that we were urban and progressive. The true secret was that we not only made urban and progressive music BUT aim to ensure its appeal to mainstream audiences without losing its urban and progressive values. That was why PT was what it was. It never just made music for the core urban audiences. It tried to showcase it for everyone to enjoy. PT did its best to ‘urbanize’ the mass market. And what a journey it had in its

efforts.

Until today, as I sit and mull over the many financial statements I have to pore through and the many long-winded meetings I have to attend to in my current job in the world of broadcasting, I think back to those days in Positive Tone and a warm fuzzy feeling would always come over me.

I miss those times. I miss the artists. I miss my colleagues. And I miss the music. It wasn’t just a record label. It was a magical collection of passionate people that made up the Positive Tone sound and spirit. We were crazy, we had a can-do attitude and we thought that nothing could come in our way. We were out to take on the world and I loved every single minute of it.

Alak is one of the backbones of Shock&Awe! Media, a non-profit media center that documents and produces materials for the current Malaysian DIY hardcore punk scene. Musically he fronts local punk band Pusher and sings for Carburetor Dung.

#projekbuku

Dead And Alive

“Judge not others unless you’re prepared to be judged!” – John Lydon

We are now sitting on our arses in this era of unlimited information. Thanks to those tech geniuses who made the Internet so dependable and indispensable like the underwear gripping your crotch as you read this. Yet, after years of fingering the keyboard and actively Googling the net, it still doesn’t lead me to the exact answer on the whole encapsulation of the ‘punk’ existence. There are gazillions of definitions and yet none of it could give capture the meaning of its existence. I’ve come to suspect that exploring deeper this so-called truth is as complicated as questioning the existence of mankind itself.

Have I tried Wikipedia? Hell yeah.

The impression that I‘ve gotten remains vague when it comes to the black and white of what ‘punk’ really is. The conflict revolving this formless idea however portrays the beauty of what it really is. Punk allows individuals to define what it is to them themselves. And in an almost natural progression these individuals who are attached to it develop chemistry among themselves to bond together without any need to announce it or by obtaining any form of recognition by some (so-called) punk forefathers (and -mothers).