"She got me wrapped around her little finger, uh uh"

There are a few things you need to know about Fujiya & Miyagi. Firstly, contrary to what the band name suggests, they are not Japanese. Secondly, they are not a two-piece band. As of Friday night, they have expanded from three to four members to include a drummer. As I learnt from them after the show, our little Singapore had the honour of being the drummer's first ever show.

The crowd, consisting mainly 20- to 30-something sophisticated arty types, didn't have to wait long for the band to take to the stage, with spartan wolf whistles greeting their emergence. Opener Ankle Injuries immediately got the crowd bobbing their heads and tapping their feet, and the complimentary drink certainly aided in releasing their inhibitions.

The band, who got their name from the character Mr Miyagi in the 1984 film The Karate Kid and the Fujiya brand of record players, performed tunes mostly from their sophomore album Transparent Things such as Sucking Punch, Photocopier and In One Ear And Out The Other, and a handful of brand new ones like Uh and Pussy Footin'.

Togged in a Run DMC t-shirt, David Best's (Miyagi) casual singing/rapping of witty lyrics, with the occasional beatboxing and guitar solo thrown in, was a hit with the audience. With synth wizard Steve Lewis (Fujiya) churning out pumping beats and bleeps, supported by the groovy basslines of Matt Hainsby (Ampersand), they created a unique concoction both dance heads and rockers would approve of. New drummer on the block Lee didn't come onstage till the sixth number, bringing to the band a sound edgier, rawer than the usual drum loops would provide.



Fujiya

Miyagi

Miyagi and Ampersand

Lee the drummer in shades

The gig ended with a 2-song encore, the group's undoubted hit Collarbone and Knickabockor. Offstage after the show, the band were down to earth, obliging with photographs and autographs, chatting with fans and thanking them profusely for attending. They looked like any ordinary men on the street. Who would be able to tell they were the architects of such brilliant music?


The two balding members and one headful of hair. haha! But I was starstruck nonetheless

"The beat will steal you."

It was a congregation of sorts. I could safely say that a vast majority of Singapore's indie music-loving people, from Home Club scenesters to leading musicians like Ginette Chittick, were there. If they're weren't at The Great Spy Experiment's acoustic show, they must've been at An Evening with Broken Social Scene. Well, I was there for the latter.

The band didn't make the crowd wait, taking to the stage 10 minutes after schedule. Vocalist and co-founder Kevin Drew showed a first glimpse of his sense of humour by naming our escaped foe Mas Selamat Kastari among the members of BSS who were missing. Jokes aside, BSS brought the anticipating crowd to its feet with opening number 7/4 (Shoreline). It helped that the ushers did not stop the crowd from venturing closer to the stage.

The collective got around the problem of missing staff by inviting guest musicians to jam with them, further illustrating the concept of a broken line-up. But broken their music certainly wasn't, enthralling the audience with through fan favourites like Fire Eye'd Boy, Cause = Time and Lover's Spit, even surprising with the seldom performed I'm Your Fag. They even invited guest musicians from other Mosaic acts to chip in completely unrehearsed solos. Ah, beautiful spontaneity at its best!

The charismatic Drew sure had the audience under his spell. Forgetting his lyrics once, he pleaded for forgiveness after overcoming his gaffe. "I'm so over it, are you?" To which the crowd gave a resounding yes. He worked the crowd further by egging them to scream "I'm alive!" and scampering into the audience to applaud raucously with them for thirty seconds before breaking into Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day).

Kevin Drew

Meanwhile, guitarist Andrew Whiteman had a sideshow of his own going on. He was clearly in a trance through the night. Demonstrating some sort of guitar taichi he cradled his guitar and lifted his pick to the air, as if harnessing the energy of the axe gods, all while seducing the crowd with his intense gaze.

The band sure enjoyed themselves as much as the crowd did. They had expected to play in a club but ended up in a 1600-seat concert hall. Drew even raved what liberal place Singapore is because customs were compromising in allowing him to bring in his own brand of Canadian ciggies, and complimenting our "No _____" signs as ART.

Before we knew it, two hours were up. The band closed the show with the epic It's All Gonna Break. And for only the second time in their career, BSS did a stage bow, capping an unforgettable night for both band and fans.

wah liew it's been almost a year since my last post. but i JUST HAVE TO BLOG ABOUT MY BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE EXPERIENCE ! ! !

on monday i had the shock of the month, the year perhaps. i bumped into my sec1 classmate in camp. he was dressed in civilian clothes. so that meant he was newly posted in and had yet to receive his uniform. so i went up to him and hey but he wasn't too excited like i was.

Me: hey, what u doing here?
friend: i just enlisted this month.
Me: oh so u PES E just finished the 1-week bmt la?
friend: no im excused from bmt. pes E1L9. im a 302
Me: what's a 302?
friend: that's the term given to homosexuals and transsexuals. dunno how they found out. maybe cos last time i kena caught at changi village sucking someone's cock. or cos or my psychiatrist's reports.

i thought he was talking cock at first. but it soon dawned on me he was dead serious. he told me he was going to have a sex change op in bangkok after NS and was currently on female hormones. i just listened with eyes wide open, mouth slightly gaping. it was like wow he was damn open abt it. even when we haven't met for years. but he was telling me everything. he went on about how he was a prostitute for a while and dropped out of jc cos of the problem. and how his pastor told him to just choose the lesser of 2 evils. and he went back to our secondary sch with his cca mates last year, dressed as a woman, long hair, mini skirt and all. they were accepting of him though. he let on he's had the problem since sec2, and went to a psychiatrist. tried to have girlfriends. but just couldn't have feelings for girls.

it made me feel sad. i told him that he was really brave. everytime i see a trannie in changi village, i'll be like eeee. but now when one of them is your friend,you start to reflect. its beyond their control. their bodies are just wired that way. its no fault of theirs. when they break out of their male shell, naturally and unfairly we humans stigmatize them. well i intend to be the opposite of tt. talk to him in camp. and still be his friend.

and i've another friend with whom i had a hearty chat on the phone with for one hour last week. she has an auto-immune illness. meaning ur immune system attacks ur healthy cells (like AIDS, for example). in her case the cellls being destroyed are her hair. its a rare illness so there's no known cure to it. so she has to wear a wig around. and wait for the illness to go away by itself one fine day. she was sad for an entire year. but she has since learnt to love herself, and adopted an optimistic outlook and is sanguine abt the future.

i really feel inspired by them. in spite of having problems that are beyond their control, they still find the strength to get on with life. and there's always the danger of being stared at or worse, discriminated when their problem is revealed. i just feel lucky to be normal. and determined to achieve in life. first up...win with safsa.

just came back from national team training. damn bloody shagged! well it can be called Nteam/safsa training. that's because our safsa trainer adrian, who's a national rower, has requested to allow safsa to train with the nteam. that way safsa can improve our technique/fitness and take our rowing up to a level of nirvana, as nteam guns for regional competitions, while safsa goes for only local. the nteam will have a larger pool or rowers too. so its a symbiotic thing u could say.

we'll be in good stead to reach our target of a medal in the june race, hopefully. well the process has already begun. adrian has made it compulsory for those in stay out units (like myself) to go for weekday trainings. today was only my 2nd training. and whoa it IS tough haha. no pain no gain man. so nowadays weekday nights 7-9pm its training. only free on tuesdays. that's the rest day. and probably fri cos its only a long run at macritchie. no more life man. but i have faith the sacrifice will pay off :)

had 2 competitions in 9 days. there was the MR 500m on the 17th and sdba master series on 25th. we put up a pretty bad showing in MR 500 getting like last in the heats, losing to the Peoples Association, a recreational team :( our timing was 2:30, nus was like 2:22. kena thrashed. but i felt we improved way a lot on the 25th. slashed 15s to 2:15. but we still lost to temasek poly's mixed boat. cock up. the master series is like a ranking competition. we're officially 11th in sg. but in my eyes we're fifth. cos our timing was better than tt of the 6th-10th. but its ok. we'll show our mettle in june. the problem now is our land fitness is there, but our water fitness isn't. we need to gain mileage, which can't be achieved only on the sat and sun trainings we currently have. and we aren't rowing as one. when the attachment starts (excused from going to camp, just go down to kallang and train train train), and with the nteam's expertise, hopefully everything will fall into place. we'll be unstoppable. mark my words!! come support me in june. you wont be disappointed. haha

AND...what's an entry without some pics.hehe

lower seletar reservoir. beautiful place!

weizheng: "kenny, you're gonna be our drummer!!"

hanging out

wee koh stretching that calf

camera-shy kingley and kenny

me, xuan sheng,sherwyn, ervin

our space. thats wee koh's butt occupying the left

our actual positions

visualisation and meditation. ommm

that's adrian our trainer in blue windbreaker

do i look seh? no? must be the army shorts...

focus!!

safsa...

thats us lane 5. thats me left 2nd rower!!




watch out for NUS' explosion in lane 1..

in a daze and drowning our sorrows by bingeing junk food

at bedok reservoir

ervin and xs they're marist brothers and they hate it haha

that's justin in shades

at lest managing some smiles

that's my VANS paddle haha. but its peeling off :(

met juan ling at changi general hospital today for lunch..dun worry she's just there working in an admin postition. and i always manage to wear the same kinda top as her. in december we went zouk. she wore black and white stripes; so did i.

check out the monstrous legs on the right of the pic LOL

and today she wore a black v neck; so did i. haha

finally the damned parades are over! and all of us got THREE days off! quite worth it. and im using one today. heh. the COA parade was a farce in my opinion. the venue is tiny and the visitors were mostly army(meaning no big shots and no members of the public). so the world doesn't really know. and the parade ended with us lining the road from the parade square to the exit, cheering and clapping as the outgoing chief leaves on the Armour Bionix tank waving back at us hoho. and the incoming chief enters the camp on a Guards light strike vehicle. what a way to end the parade in army trademark WAYANG fashion.

the CDF one was on a grander scale. many foreigners. many civilians. there were japanese women, one of which wore a dress with a hat, those kind englishwomen wear to horseraces..you get the idea haha. and there were many NSF spectators. overall i enjoyed the experience and bonded with the guys there. YAY and i thank my spf 50 sunbloack again lol

pang the cockster we love

a sian looking dezheng with bad tanline

gross chinese Seventeen LOL

another gross jap/cheena-inspired locker

ngu with his JJ snacks

pictures for lecherous deprived regulars

crappy fooood. i'll only eat the eggs

uuhhh

thats a radio

WAYANG!!!

oh how time flies.

my brother will be back from the US and A on 29th april 1.25am, because he chooses to do his spring term the next academic year. so wow he is about to conclude one academic year there. he left in august but it doesn't feel like 8months..maybe cos we've been in constant contact with the help of modern technology

the last time i posted was 21st october?! sorry man my com was down for the longest time ever. hard disk corrupted. so now with a new hard disk im on a downloading spreee. hehe.

some updates on my life. been rotting and doing nothing in my vocation as a tank technician. life in camp is slack unproductive and mundane. plus we receive a paltry allowance which doesn't motivate us to work on the tanks... but i've found a new found life in NS. justin invited me to join safsa dragon boat in november. and i've really been enjoying it. regret not joining earlier. well the timing was good 'cos tt period i was starting to do some running and other training for the fun of it. so i was up for it. it's good to channel my energies into something i enjoy and am passionate abt in my NS life. becoming fitter than a fiddle and getting a great healthy bod are a bonus too :p

speaking of being healthy. my former superior for 2months in sungei gedong camp during my on-job-training had a heart problem and both his legs turned gangrenous. as a result both had to be amputated. it was really shocking. but come to think of it, it should be no surprise as he had a pot belly, drinked and smoked heavily. he even tasked me to buy ciggies once. oh well tt's how fragile life can be. so i believe in keepin' fit and staying away from smoking n alcohol.

and i'm newly single. :/ sarah and I just feel we can't be together. but we are still on talking terms. and that's sth not many former couples can do. so tt's good.

been staying in for the past week. because i've been "kena arrow" to march in the chief of army (20th) and chief of defence (23rd) change of command parades. i really do not see the point in wasting manpower, money, food and water for such parades. and rehearsal upon rehearsal of footdrill under the hot sun. i'm the only guy not to be sunburnt so i've my SPF50 water resistant Nivea sunblock to thank. almost everyone has really ugly tan lines LOL. but i still suffered an ulcer on my lower lip. yes, lower lip. how weird. fortunately i've the company of pang, ngu, dezheng and hu. it lessens the dread. and we can bitch abt unpleasant characters together. haha. but a good memory i have is of an Apache chopper landing in the pasir laba camp parade square, to be used as a static display. the sight was one to behold, but only if you manage to. that's because the resulting wind was a freaking torrent, throwing up sand and dust. so everyone was shielding his face and trying to take in the sight at the same time. so it was quite ironic. good memory. and its finally turning out to be a lobang i expected it to be. we were released before 12noon today. and was home at 3. HA. and looking forward to the many off days given when the whole thing is over.

booking out in my new super skinnies and loads of baggage

this is pang

three cocksters..

thats DZ in black and hu in brown

home ahead